Namaste to All! I wanted to introduce GaiamTV. which is a new website where you can watch a wide variety of yoga, wellness, fitness, inspirational and so much more! The best part is that you can watch these videos anytime, anywhere. You can use your phone, computer, tv, ipad.If you need a dose of mind, body, spirit you can simply log in and get what you need in the moment! They’ve put together an amazing collection of over 2000 high quality videos. Whether they are live, taped or acquired, they were hand selected based on the positive impact on you and your life!

This offering comes to us from Gaiam, a leading lifestyle media company. The site is a representation of the exceptional and expansive catalogue they have worked so hard to provide for us! They are a trusted resource for some of the best: health, fitness, wellness and spiritual development in the industry.

Catch one of the many yoga classes from short practices to long ones. Log in to practice with top yogis, such as: Rodney Yee, Seane Corne, Shiva Ray, Kathryn Budig, Tommy Rosen, Kia Miller and Suzanne Deason. Gaiam TV also features today’s most influential spiritual teachers, such as: Deepak Chopra, the Dalai Lama, Wayne Dyer and Jack Canfield.

In addition, they offer expert health information for many conditions from renowned Mayo Clinic™. Here you can find many wellness videos, http://www.gaiamtv.com/category/wellness-center.Don’t forget to check out a collection of uplifting and inspirational films as well as fitness and science videos.There is so much to choose from! There is definitely something for everyone!

Right now, they are offering a 10-day free subscription. Members pay just $9.95 a month for unlimited access. For more details and to check it out; click over to http://www.gaiamtv.com/?v=b

FREE GIVEAWAY!! 1st person to email me at: https://www.facebook.com/stephanie.churchill1  wins a FREE  3 MONTH MEMBERSHIP to GAiamTV !

Next, I will be taking some of the classes and sharing some reviews. Let me know if you find any classes you like!

Your Health is Your Wealth. I think more people value and understand the meaning of this statement each day. Unfortunately, as we age it becomes more “work” to keep up with the preventative health maintenance we need to do to keep our bodies strong. There are many types of treatments and tons of herbs, vitamins, supplements you can take to maintain and improve your health. How do we find out what is right for us as individuals?

I have been interested in health & wellness since I was a teenager. Like any other subject you are an expert or want to become proficient in; you read lots, ask questions, discuss and experiment as to what works for you. Of course, this is with caution, and if there is nothing seriously wrong with you.

I find the NewLife Expo an excellent place to concentrate on learning and improving your health and mind, body, spirit wellness. You can spend hours talking to professionals in the industry. People there will have one on one conversations with you or you can listen to lectures to hear various “experts in the their field” opinions, information and strategies which helps other people create a program for themselves. At the expo you can sample a lot of different products, get a massage, foot reflexology, infrared ray treatment, sweat in a sauna, get light treatment, have a reading by a psychic or tarot card reader, eat macrobiotic food, try herbs, juice and get an energy treatment. There are so many different kinds of people who stroll through all in venue. It is totally fun and cool to walk around and get energized!

This was the 4th time I had attended a NewLife Expo. The event is a great excuse to go to New York for the weekend. I enjoy myself each time I attend the expo. The expo is a high energy and interesting representations of the modern spiritual world we live in. Here you will find all walks of life who know something about alternative health and wellness. Most people who attend are open and easy to talk to and it is great to hear of their knowledge, attitude and approach they take to getting healthier, developing their spirituality and taking care of themselves.

So, I must be called a “NewLifer” by now. The next expo is in June, 6/11-6/13, which features yoga and raw food. Maybe you will check it out yourself.

Awaken your Brain is a new book on the scientific experience of awakening by Dr. Skolnick. Dr. Skolnick is an MD psychiatrist, PhD in Natural Health, with advanced training in Neuropsychology and almost 30 years as a Zen meditation practitioner.

What is awakening has been the discussion of so many conversations; the number is almost as limitless as the concept. Basically, awakening is opening your consciousness to connect to your true and higher self. This realization is one of the goals for spiritual practices, yoga or other ways to find happiness and peace in your life.

Awakening is the impetus for Totally Zen; so, it seems appropriate that Dr. Skolnick would reach out to others in the world who are actively working on sharing information about how to be healthy in our mind, body and spirit. Out of his efforts to join together to build and create wellness communities; I am honored to help him by presenting it here at Totally Zen. Awaken Your Brain is a powerful, useful and informative book.

In Awaken Your Brain, Dr. Skolnick uses a brain and wellness-based explanation and practices, to create a direct non-emotional, scientific approach to awakening your higher self. The advantage to his method it is non-emotional and rational. Meaning you can empirically see how what he is saying and teaching is valid, concrete and useful. Taking the emotions out of the process is like shaving years off the process in order to cut through the ways in which your ego has learned to interact and act with life.

I got the opportunity to speak with Dr. Skolnick I asked him how he got involved in Zen meditation. It seems he had a tragedy affect his life and Zen meditation was a path someone led him to that helped him through his rough times. As time went on he continued his journey to understand his own meditation practice which coincided with his formal studies of the brain and human behavior. His interest in psychology began early on in his life through exposure to caring for others with problems.

Through his education in graduate school he posed the question in a thesis, What Creates Awareness? The answer became the basis for the book Awaken Your Brain. He has been developing and honing his model to help you through the awakening process in a scientific based theory of Neural Inshifting. This is actually a 5 step brain skill model. The result was the creation of a full-spectrum model of how the mind and brain work -from the most primitive and abnormal states to the highest most Awakened states.

Furthering his vision he realized he needed a model to speak and teach his theory from and this book is the perfect platform. Soon he will, turn his attention into opening a wellness center, Santori West, where his model will be implemented in a teaching format that will help people transform their lives. At the center you will be able to learn how to apply this theory, keep it alive and working better in your own lives and continue to grow and change as a result of this training. As the launch of his book arrives he must be so pleased as to the results of all his hard work; I know I am really enjoying the book!

We will be watching and reporting on his progress as we are connected now and we feel his vision is golden. Learn more about the useful handbook and amazing masterpiece now and how you can use Awaken Your Brain: Coming Alive to Vibrant Well-being and a New Reality will teach you:

• The goal around which all other goals ought to be organized.
• The cure for self-induced mental illness, i.e., true mental health!
• How to find the highest level of wellbeing- a natural high!
• How to find the higher You, released to be spontaneous and authentically real!
• An immediate experience of profound meaning.
• The vehicle for success with values and purpose!
• The path to encompassing compassion, connection and belonging.
• How to marvel at your existence – amazed and fascinated each moment by that very fact (taken utterly for granted)!
• And more…

Awakening (aka enlightenment, heaven within, nirvana, cosmic consciousness) is not the stuff of myths or for religious zealots spending a lifetime in hard labor!!!! In Awaken Your Brain you will learn that it is the result of a well-trained higher brain and therefore a highly developed human being…which can be YOU!
You will learn how to Inshift- a 5-step skill that activates your higher brain (….and keeps your lower brain from being the cause of all – yes all – of your unhappiness, fear, frustration, suffering and disappointment, etc. – as well as most physical illnesses!!!!!)

You will learn dozens of wellness strategies (from within physical, mental, social, cultural, moral and traditionally spiritual realms) that are all aimed and aligned to activate your higher brain.

Warning: This is not “wellness and spirituality for dummies.” But it is the most important journey you can learn- a blueprint to the most fulfilling life you were born to have!

**Please consider adding Awaken Your Brain to your library The book will benefit you and those around you; for as you begin to clarify yourself and your life and health blossoms everyone will be able to see the difference. You can find it here: Awaken Your Brain: Coming Alive to Vibrant Well-Being and a New Reality by clicking here: Amazon.com.

I attended and exhibited at the NewLife Expo in New York City recently. My experience the entire weekend has left an impression of spirit, warmth and energy in my heart and soul. There were thousands of people visiting the expo and having the opportunity to tune up their mind, body or spirit. There was an array of some very lovely, gifted, hard working: body workers, healers, psychics, nutritionists, energy healers, masters, minister, priestess and many I did not get a chance to discover this time at the expo.

Newlife Magazine and Expos must be the natural evolution to Mark Becker’s Yoga practice and studio. He founded Serenity Natural Healing Center in 1975. This was New York’s first non- religious yoga studio. I don’t know him personally but he seems to have realized his vision of providing wellness, spirituality, health and alternative medicine and healing opportunities to both the patrons of such modules and the providers of these expertise, over and over again. I saw many people working together with others to ensure they felt understood, engaged and treated as, and to, the best all weekend long.

I met some very interesting people and healers. Su Jok Therapy fascinated me; Su Jok is a Korean acupuncture form. Joad Puttermilech was there personally and gave me a powerful treatment, http://www.smilesujok.com/?lat=en. Carla Tara, http://www.carlatara.com/, impressed me as an accomplished tantric healer was a fiery yet feminine yogi and tantric counselor. Also, fun and sincere didgeridoo players and healers, Tyler Sussman and AJ Block also gave me a treatment, http://didgeproject.com/. I met Sufi, a holy man from Indiana who recently came to Philadelphia to open a Sufi school. We have become friends and will collaborate together to bring information and light to those in our sphere. Check back later this week to find a blog post by Sufi, www.toubacafe.com.

I saw so many people who looked satisfied and enlightened by the experience it definitely made a positive impact on me. I felt the energy in the hotel as you approach and walking around the show you can see the energy being created first hand. It is amazing how you can feel the energy build and fill you up simply from physically being present in this shared space. NewLife Expo succeeded in transforming a regular hotel into a wellness pyramid.

There were definitely a multitude of wellness options for those that are familiar with healing or who want to discover the beauty of taking better care of your self in mind, body and spirit!

Look for the next show Yoga and Raw Expo in May 29th -31st, Hotel New Yorker. Totally Zen will be out and about taking in all the health food and yoga information and participating in all the breathing and feasting we can get to in three short days.                                      

http://www.newlifeexpo.com/

http://www.serenityyoga.net/aboutmark.php

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Once you accept and realize healing of the mind, body or spirit is an interconnected and related process you can begin to see how to truly heal yourself, help others heal or heal that which needs attention in relationships. Therefore, we must not rush the healing process.

How many times have you been injured and then begun to live your “normal” life again only to fall back into the injured state or hurt something else as a result of your weakened state? Or ignored signs in relationships that might have allowed you to work things out before they were unrepairable? How long can you feel “not so great ” internally or externally before you do something about it?

We could look at wounds as blessings. This is a different kind of mentality and one that might not make sense at the beginning of moving from injured or hurt to well. But, wellness is a journey and not a destination just like life. If we have patience for the mind, body, and spirit when they are not well then we can learn how we are changing and transforming with each new experience good, bad and indifferent.

Once we are feeling off balance, isolated, injured, depressed, repressed, lonely, angry, sad or fearful we have an opportunity to go within. If we start to look at the cause and effect then we can make sense of our experience and reaction. There may or may not be a reason for everything that happens to us but we can choose to look at these experiences for the valuable lessons they provide us on our way.

I recently hurt my back and am on the mend. My body is “talking” to me and I am choosing to listen to it. I am caring for my back because it is necessary and important that I give it the love, support and attention it demands. I do not want to spend the rest of my life in back pain. I made a choice to listen, learn and act in a way to facilitate my healing path. Some might ignore the signs, not accept the seriousness of the incident or convince themselves there is no problem or blame or hate or be miserable due to their misfortune.

When something happens to you in one area of your life it can be a signal for something else. I try to find the relationship between the different facets of the self and life to fit them together so they may work more efficiently, openly and honestly in my total existence.

I look to my back injury I might be able to trace this to other parts of my world that were calling to me but I was too busy to hear. Stopping what is your routine, changing the way you think, act or live takes lots of time, patience, determination, love, respect and honesty.

If you cannot be honest with where you are, how you got there and how you want things to be then you cannot change with any real effect. I look at changing as healing. I change the way I lift heavy objects because I hurt my back. I change the way I feel when I Iook at the sunshine. I change the way I look at life when someone dies. I change the way I look at people differently when some one helps or hurts me. I look in my eyes to see that I am alive inside even when life gets hard.

Back Pain is no jokei! Until last week, it was something I hadn’t ever experienced. It takes an instant for life to change and in that one particular instant I injured my back to the point of tears.

I had had a little nagging soreness, tenderness to the sciatica, hip or sacred ileum joint. I usually care for my small tears and tenderness in the moment, which allows me to manage my sports injuries before they turn into big ones.

Unfortunately, I had ignored this particular weakness for the last month or so because “I was too busy.” I won’t be forgetting any more. I know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I just got too distracted by my own life.

Through the experience of this injury I feel more certain of the benefit of having regular chiropractic visits, even if it is once a month or bi monthly. I had been a regular patient; but, of recently had believed that my yoga was sufficiently realigning my body. I am now in belief that I still need those “maintenance ” visits to keep a deeper structural alignment. Quite honestly, I think it is healthy to put the spine back in alignment so the energy flows properly and you are moving as fluidly as possible.

I believe my injury occurred because of a combination of things: I was in ignoring signs from my body, the lack of previous structural alignment, and from the lack of mindfulness when I went to pick up a very heavy bench I instantaneously injured my back.

For those of you that deal with it as a chronic problem I have a newfound sympathy and understanding of what they may be experiencing.

I found some startling statistics on back pain, Medopedia states:

31 million people in the United States have lower back pain.

As many as 50% of Americans report some back pain each year.

Over 50 billion dollars is spent trying to clear up back pain.

Many experts say the likelihood of any person to experience some back problem in their life is about 80%. That is 1 in 5 people.

These statistics serve as a good reminder of the value of your health and wellness. I am reminded of the ease at which I usually operate throughout my life and am understanding of the importance of my health and the constant demand I put on it.

Now, I have a project of putting my back together where it was once fine. I firmly believe most injuries of this type can be healed and are preventable in the future. In one week I have gone to 3 chiropractic visits, 1 acupuncture visit.

I use the following aids: daily self massages, gentle stretches, time on heating pad and ice pack. Blue Ice rubs, Chinese herbs, arnica rubs, rest and baths. I feel 60% better. I still have pain and will continue to mentally and physically ward it off and heal until I have made a full recovery.

I understand everyone may not be that lucky. I know it takes finances and time to attend to a bad back. I am grateful I can put the time and energy into my healing. I really don’t have much of a choice; but, I don’t think any of us with a chronic injury should stop until there is a cure for their pain. I believe the body can and will heal itself if given the proper TLC and health care.

Start with a positive mental state, follow with lots of attention, get informed, be persistent, and ask others for help, referrals and advice.

Here are some resources for Philadelphians:                                        

Chiropractors:

Dr. Wagman:  http://www.thehealthybeing.com/

Dr. Fisher:    http://www.insiderpages.com/b/15239745469

Acupuncture:

Dr. Gu 926 Arch St. 

http://www.medopedia.com/back-pain-statistics

More Truth Will Set You Free is a Transformational Healing workshop. I attended a session this week in Philadelphia that was facilitated by Toby Lerner. Toby is one of my yoga students, I have always been surprised by how connected and vocal she is about her connections to the light we cultivate in yoga practice and now I understand why.

One day after yoga, I saw this symbol Toby wears on a chain fall out of her shirt. I stopped her and asked her what it was she was wearing. The answers to that question lead me to the workshop.

Toby has been studying for two years under Derek O’Neill founder of SQ Wellness. He is her teacher and trainer. She is a certified practitioner and has now begun to step out and teach the workshop as a service to others. “Because service to man is service to G-d.” She told us that she feels she needs to reveal more about her spiritual side and nurture and develop its presence in her life.

The SQ Wellness system is “founded on the five human values of : Love, Truth, Peace, Right Conduct, and Non-Violence.” ” SQ Wellness can enable you to transform yourself spiritually, personally, and professionally and bring more self awareness into your life.”

“More Truth Will Set You Free workshops are a life changing event. The goal is to show you how to access your untapped potential, change things for the better, and discover how it all works in the mind, body and spirit. You will learn how old programs and beliefs keep you trapped and how to change these beliefs and programs with real healing techniques. You won’t be surprised at what you learn from these workshops, you will be transformed.”

Through this workshop Toby used stories, music, meditation and readings to invoke and reveal ourself to ourselves. The beautiful and powerful thing about healing is that it can happen and you can feel it happening in your mind, body and spirit. The road to spirit, the journey of healing and the path of transformation is a long one. It is continuous and changing if you want it to be lasting in effects and intensity.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Toby’s guidance and channeling of the healing spirit through her Masters system’s and traditions. It was truly a gift to share in the energy and force field that was present there for our time together. I felt my meditation growing deep and almost unwilling to come back from the place she helped me to reach in my meditation. This proved to me that her system was engaging and meaningful. I do believe and many others have said it is practice that is the key to tapping into this place within yourself that has the ability to unlock all that we hold on to that prevents love and light in our lives.

The end of the workshop finds you and the others learning how to draw the Prema Agni. It is a symbol that comes directly from the Masters. It contains several healing symbols whether implied or literally represented within its structure: the God’s head, the culmination of the five elements, the heart, Om, Ankh, The Lightening Bolt, The Caduceus, the cross, the Hindu Swastika, the Seal of Solomon, the Karmic Wheel of Life, the human figure and the five pointed star.           

“As you can imagine it is a perfect mandala to meditate on to open your heart center. Because when you open your heart to let love flow IN and OUT true healing. The symbol can be drawn on the back at the heart chakra and then the right hand is placed on the heart chakra and the left is placed on the left shoulder. Then repeat to yourself, ” Prema Agni, Prema Agni, Prema Agni.”"

Luckily, Toby will continue to teach these workshops and you can email her for more information and schedules at bucklern@earthlink.net.                                                    

ALL QUOTED MATERIAL was provided by  SQ Wellness system.

Being healthy is a choice and it takes time, energy and effort. This week I made sure to indulge and educate myself by attending local events that are good for the mind, body and spirit.

Hanging around like-minded people has an energetic effect on the soul. Whenever you leave a gathering of people who join for a common purpose don’t you feel intensified? It is amazing how you can add strength, direction and commitment to your goals by being around others that feel the same way. Seek out publications, events, groups that promote the things that you want to exist and thrive in your world.

Brio Vim, a new health and community wellness center in Center City Philadelphia , hosted its First Sunday Vegan Brunch today. A few friends and I went over to check it out. Prana, one of the founders, greeted and served us. She was warm, friendly and didn’t let you wait until you needed something to bring it right over.

The food was fresh and the portion was hearty. They hydrated us with juice, cider, tea, coffee, H2O. It was great! The meal started with a pumpkin, white chocolate muffin or maple, nut bread that were both yum yum! They served vegan eggs w/ sun-dried tomatoes, grilled tempeh and a pear, cranberry, walnut salad they were all delicious.

Looking a bit ahead, they are hosting a vegan Thanksgiving Feast on Saturday, November 22 from 5-8pm. Everyone is encouraged to bring a beverage, alcoholic or non-alcoholic. On New Years Day, Brio Vim is hosting a Hangover Yoga class from 2-3:30pm followed by Make Your Own Juice Cocktail Hour (hair of the dog optional) from 3:30-5pm.

Check out their website, briovim.com, for Pay What You Can Yoga schedule, Feel Great at Work Yoga and Wellness, sliding scale massage and bodywork and all other events. I think I will go back and try their yoga and massage services!

Then, my friend and I headed over to Voorhees, NJ to see what was happening at the Healthy Living Expo. They put together regional health fairs to help educate their communities. You could find practitioners and experts to educate you on healthy alternatives, yoga, wellness, natural products and sustainable living to name a few. I found out more about solar power, efficient light bulbs, aromatherapy, natural house cleaners, super foods. All in one location which helps makes it fun and hassle free!

Today, I did something good for my health and wellness. I was rewarded by meeting some good, knowledgeable, nice people who furthered my learning on the healing path.