Conscious parenting

When does it begin?  When do we start developing our sub- and un-conscious mind?  Many would guess this begins at birth, however, Dr. Bruce H. Lipton Ph.D a leading cellular biologist, would disagree and has gone on to prove that our cells hold memory.  If our cells hold memory which is influenced by not only our thoughts and experiences but the thoughts and experiences of those around us, it would be safe to say that this begins at conception.  After all, we are a ball of cells!

Think back to conception.  Not yours, silly, your child's.  Although, if you think about your own conception, much of who you are was developed then.  Back to the conception of your child(ren).  Where you excited or where you scared, did you receive any bad news during your pregnancy, was there financial stress, any stress?  We all have some stress and having a baby brings about SO many anticipated changes, I would guess that many of us have stressed over bringing a new life into the world.  I know I did!!  I wish I knew then, what I know now.  I would have started meditating much earlier. 

From Dr. Lipton's book "The Biology of Belief"

To quote Dr. Thomas Verny, a pioneer in the field of prenatal and perinatal psychiatry: "Findings in the peer-reviewed literature over the course of decades establish, beyond any doubt, that parents have overwhelming influence on the mental and physical attributes of the children they raise." (Verny and Kelly 1981)  And that influence starts, says Verny, not after children are born, but BEFORE children are born. 

Another pioneer in pre- and perinatal psychology, David Chamberlain writes in his book The Mind of Your Newborn Baby: "The truth is, much of what we have traditionally believed about babies is false.  They are not simple beings but complex and ageless-small creatures with unexpectedly large thoughts." (Chamberlain 1998)  These complex, small creatures have a pre-birth life in the womb that profoundly influences their long-term health and behavior.  "The quality of life in the womb, our temporary home before we were born, programs our susceptibility to coronary artery disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity and a multitude of other conditions in later life," writes Dr. Peter W. Nathanielsz in Life in the Womb: The Origin of Health and Disease.  (Nathanielssz 1999)  

The responsiveness of individuals to the environmental conditions perceived by their mothers before birth allows them to optimize their genetic and phsiologic development as they adapt to the environmental forecast.  The same life-enhancing epigenetic plasticity of human development can go awry and lead to an array of chronic diseases in older age if an individual experences adverse nutritional and environmental circumstances during fetal and neonatal periods of development.  (Bateson, et al, 2004)

The same epigenetic influences also continue after the child is born.  In particular, fascinating new research is emphasizing the importance of good parenting in the development of the brain.  "For the growing brain of a young child, the social world supplies the most important experiences influencing the expression of genes, which determines how neurons connect to one another in creating the neuronal pathways which give rise to mental activity," writes Dr. Daniel J. Siegel in The Developing Mind (Siegel 199) In other words, infants need a nurturing environment to activate the genes that develop healthy brains.  Parents, the latest science reveals, continue to act as genetic engineers even after the birth of their children.

Well crap!  I wish I read this before conception.  So what now?

Dr. Lipton tells us of new scientific discoveries about the biochemical effects of the brain's functioning showing that all the cells of our body are affected by our thoughts.  He shows us how genes and DNA do not control our biology, instead, DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell, including energetic messages from our positive and negative thoughts.

I'm not one to dwell on the past, so it's great news to learn that we can still manage change.  I am a glass half-full kind of gal.  Moving on...

What steps can we take to change the course of old thought patterns?

The Healing Code - Dr. Lipton is a fan of The Healing Code and is quoted throughout Dr. Lloyd's book.   You will learn how to apply the Universal Healing Code which is capable of re-programing damaging thought patterns.  It only takes minutes each day and can have a profound impact on a multitude of ailments.

Meditation - There is nothing easier than changing a grumpy mood with a few minutes of meditation! Other than maybe winning the lottery. (wink)  Just fifteen minutes a day can change your life.  I find meditation to be the single most effective tool in our energy shifting toolbox at home.

Meditation taps into four different brainwaves: Beta, Alpha, Theta, and lastly Delta. These groups are each associated with specific states of your mind.

Beta Wave: Your current brain wave stage, where your conscious mind is awake and alert.  
Alpha Wave: The beginning stages of meditation. Your brain is relaxed at this state, this is where all fears vanish and creativity flourishes.  
Theta Wave: At this stage you are in a dream like state of mind where inspiration can occur. It’s also known to give you a sensation of “floating.”  
Delta Wave: The Delta brain wave is the slowest activity of all waves. Achieved by the most experienced meditators. They experience a dreamless sleep.

A simple article in The Huffington Post says it well

Studies show that meditation is associated with improvement in a variety of psychological areas, including stress, anxiety, addiction, depression, eating disorders and cognitive function, among others. There's also research to suggest that meditation can reduce blood pressure, pain response, stress hormone levels and even cellular health. But what does it actually do to the body?
For one thing, it changes our brain. The cells and neurons in the brain are constantly making new connections and disrupting old ones based on response to stimuli, a quality that researchers call experience-based neuroplasticity. This affects the neural circuits of the brain, which in turn affects how we respond to situations. It also affects the actual structure of our brains -- thickening some areas and making others less dense. 

"Think of the end of a neuron as a hand, with thousands of 'fingers,'" said Dr. Sara Lazar, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital who studies mindfulness meditation. "The number of fingers relates to the number of interconnections between neurons and that number can change -- one reason it can change is due to stress."

If meditation is new to you, or it just doesn't come as second nature, there are many methods of practice you can try.  There are guided meditation CDs which really help you tune out the chatter, there are classes where you can learn in person or you can just continue to practice adding a little time to each meditation session you experience. The internet can be your best friend on these topics!

To teach young children about mindful breathing techniques and meditation, I love the MindUP! curriculum which even teaches them where in the brain we are effecting by practicing mindful breathing.

Frequency/vibrational healing - It comes in all shapes and sizes from homeopathic medicine to psychic readings.  There is likely to be at least one modality that will work for you.  Each one of these methods can require it's own library, so to save on time I will just provide you with a list of the more common methods worth looking into.  If you find that you resonate with any one of these, take that cue as a sign to educate yourself about it, or better yet, make an appointment with a practitioner!

Homeopathy
Reiki
Qigong
Chakra balancing
EFT
Body Talk
Quantum Touch
Polarity Therapy
Radionics
Biofeedback
Pranic Healing
Acupressure
Acupuncture

When all else fails, get moving - Yoga, Qigong, cardio, weights, a bike ride, swimming, whatever floats your boat, just get moving.  It will give you a serotonin boost while taking your mind off of everything else. 

Get inspired!!  There is no time like the present to start a new pattern and since children learn best from modelling, what better way to teach your kids how to manage their emotions than to do it WITH them?!  Change starts with YOU!

The birth of this blog is actually the end of another.  It's not sad, quite contrary actually.  "You are what you eat!" has become, "You are what you...BELIEVE!"  My, how my views have changed.

What better place to start, but at the end...huh?  Yes, welcome to my world!  I even read magazines backwards.  =)  

I am ready for a new chapter in our lives, are you ready to join us?  The last blog I posted in "You are what you eat!" is going to be my first blog here.

Introducing Jessica...aka-me =), mom to two fabulous boys and wife to my best friend of 14 years, the rest you will have to learn by joining me on this journey.

Dated September 24, 2013, my graceful ending to "You are what you eat!"

I have a small confession to make, I have been contemplating starting a new blog.  One that reflects my new being.  There is just no easy way to say this, so I will just spit it out.  I am no longer the mom you read about in these entries behind me.  I am still a fuss about food, that will never change.  I am evolving though.  It's as if I entered my chrysalis stage and am awaiting my wings.  I feel renewed in such a way that our future never looked brighter.

Autism?  A distant memory.

Even PANDAS is only visible in my rear view mirror now.  It isn't gone, but it isn't here either. 

The evolution I have been part of is almost mind-blowing.  I wouldn't believe any of it, even if I were reading it in a memoir only 6 months ago.  It would appear like a character in a fictional novel, someone else's life, certainly not mine.  How incredibly wild it was to wake up one day and realize this IS me!  This WAS me all along, how did I not know sooner??

Well, you are probably thoroughly intrigued by now, lol.  I may lose readers here, but I hope to gain others, in fact, what I hope most is to retain all of my current readers and gain others, so we can all merge into this realm together.  What I am referring to is energy medicine.

This means something different to each person who participates or practices energy medicine.  To me, it simply means being totally in tune with my gut feelings.  Even writing this is hard for me, because I have spent years squashing the real me, without even realizing it.  I may sound "crazy".  I know I am not though, because I am living the ultimate....the results of accepting it.  More importantly, so are my kids!

Over the past year or two, as I have been helping parents trust their gut instincts to guide them in healing their children, one thing became very clear....I just know things.  I have been asked so many times, "How did you know to....?"  I repeatedly heard myself saying, "I don't know, I just know".  

What I have finally learned about myself during an insightful transformation is that I am in the early stages of uncovering my potential as a clairsentient.  Meaning, I have a gift of "knowing".  I am not a fan of labels, so I don't even like labeling myself with this somewhat intriguing label, haha.  It does, however, provide some form of description though, and it provided me with a description of something I realized I could relate to.  I have always been an extreme empath, to the point of embarrassment, because I can't always control it.  It isn't cool to cry in front of someone, because I have taken on their emotions....even when they haven't shared them with me!  This is one of the reasons I had shut it off previously.  But it didn't leave me completely, in fact, it was the underlying force of all of my decisions for my children.  Clairsentience is one of the most overlooked psychic abilities and requires one to clear their own energies in order to become a clear channel.

There are two ways that clairsentience works.

1. Clairsentience works by allowing an intuitive to receive signals from the spirit realm. A clairsentient will be able to sense the messages, where as a clairvoyant will see the messages, and a clairaudient will hear the messages. The clairsentient will feel what a spirit is trying to say, and interpret the message by using their intuition.
2. The second way that clairsentience works, is by allowing an intuitive to understand the feelings of the people around them, (empathy). Clairsentients often use their abilities to share and heal the pain of others. By sensing what someone feels, a healing clairsentient will know exactly what remedies someone needs

When an event out of my control spiraled me into a situation requiring a lot of self-analysis, I saw this side of me that I never acknowledged.  I took some time to just be.  Something I never did, I was always researching, creating, fixing something or someone, and planning the next step.  For once, I just took time to BE!!  I didn't research, I didn't fix things, I wasn't onto the next best treatment or practitioner.  I just waited for communication from the universe.  It was in this calm that I found myself.  Suddenly, I got ME.  I mean, I really got who I am, who I have been all along.  Everything began to make sense, including what was going on with my kids.  And how interesting to find out (after the fact) that my solar plexus chakra which was blocked and needed some attention, as I began going through this transformation, is the chakra that is most linked to clairsentience. 

I decided things were going to change.  And change, they have!  I am now using my intuition to guide our health decisions.  Not that this is very different from my past, although now I am doing it more consciously, with intent.  We use only homeopathy and soil based organisms.  Remedies are chosen based on intuition.  I also clear our energy regularly.  It's amazing what dealing with the chakras, meridians and aura can do for detox!!  I can't believe we survived biomed without this knowledge!  I see instant changes in us, when we acquire non-beneicial frequencies and likewise, when I remove them.  We have been able to move through high potency remedies with ease since participating in energy healing.  Our past was riddled with significant detox symptoms, something I thought just came with the territory.  How wrong I was!

What I find most important about metaphysical powers is that we all have them.  We are born intimately connected to the universe.  We can choose to shut them off or we can choose to actively embrace them.   None of what I have experienced is extraordinary, the only difference between myself and others is that I am now recognizing these events and learning to use them to my advantage.

In retrospect, this isn't really a new me, but merely the next progression of me.

So my whole point in this entry is that I would love to continue writing, but this is a new realm for me and I am not sure exactly how much I plan to share.  Like anything else though, it will come to me, when the time is right.  I hope you will find yourself wanting to follow along as I find my wings.

Welcome to the beginning of the rest of our lives and remember - You are what you...BELIEVE!  Quite literally.