Aspire Holistic Healing Arts

My Favorite Natural Morning Energy Boost

2011-04-23T08:22:00.000-04:00

My favorite morning energizer is to put 3 drops of rosemary essential oil and 1 drop of peppermint essential oil on the shower floor with the drain closed for a super wake up experience. The rosemary is a powerful mental energy boost and the peppermint is a great physical energy boost.
This wakes up my mind, body and spirit so I am ready to go about my busy day naturally.

How Often Do You Need to Get A Massage?

2011-02-25T11:05:00.033-05:00

Bob Hope got a massage every day of his professional life and he lived to be 100 years old! Now I’m sure the fact that he had a great sense of humor and laughed often was a major key in his longevity as well.

Most people who are generally healthy and value massage therapy as a part of their health maintenance do well getting a massage once a month. It’s really up to you how often you get a massage. Your body will let you know when you need another one and the trick is not to let it get to that point. If you find that waiting four weeks for your next massage isn’t working and you need one sooner depending on your lifestyle and activity level you may want to try every other week. I’m a massage therapist and that is how often I currently get a professional massage. Now if my client load continues to expand at the rate it is going now, then I will be getting a massage once a week.

If someone comes to see me for a specific injury or condition, I will generally suggest a twice a week schedule for four weeks, but together we will come up with an individualized treatment plan that works best for your needs. Other therapists will have different recommendations depending on the treatment plan they’ve created with you. If you don’t see any improvement in a month, I will suggest you come in once a month for preventative health and to relieve stress. Then I will refer you to a different type of health care practitioner that may be better able to serve your needs.

My turn to ask you, how often do you like to get a professional massage? Please feel free to comment below:

If Massage Is So Good For Me, Why Do I Feel So Sore Afterwards?

2011-02-16T22:56:00.000-05:00

Massage is good for you. We all know this to be true. Yet sometimes clients will experience soreness and achiness immediately after the massage or for a couple of days after the treatment. Keep in mind that massage is passive exercise and it moves lymph, blood, toxins, waste products, etc through your body. This is why your therapist tells you to drink plenty of water after your massage. It is also normal to have increased urine output because your body wants to get all the yucky stuff out. Now sometimes the soreness lasts longer than three days. If this happens your therapist was working too deep on your body and they will need to use lighter pressure next time. It is possible to work deep using lighter pressure. “No pain, no gain” does not need to apply to massage! How can your body relax enough to heal if you are tensed up in pain? Therapeutic massage can be uncomfortable and at times you may feel discomfort but you should not be in so much pain that you jump off the massage table.

Here are my aftercare tips to follow after your massage session:

Drink an extra quart of water within 24 hours of your massage to help your body detoxify.
Take a nice warm Epsom salt bath.* I like to add lavender essential oil to mine. This will help alleviate joint pain.
Rest. Go to bed early if you can to enjoy a sound peaceful night’s sleep. You will wake up so refreshed in the morning.

*If you are diabetic, pregnant, or have high blood pressure please check with your doctor before using this detox bath combination.

Remember, experiencing a little soreness a couple days after you’ve had a massage especially if it was a deep tissue treatment is normal. If the discomfort lasts past three days contact your therapist so they can give you tips to help you feel better and you can alert them to the fact that they may have worked too deeply and need to be gentler next time.

TOOLS FOR SETTING INTENTIONS

2011-01-07T12:55:00.000-05:00

As promised, today I’d like to share some tools for setting intentions…

GOALS
First, set your goal. This can be something you would like to have, work toward, realize or create. Something like a job, a house, a relationship, a change in yourself, increased prosperity, more positive outlook on life, better health, beauty, stronger physical body, solving a problem in your family or community, or anything really. Now, if this is your first time doing this, choose a goal that is fairly easy for you to believe in, that you feel you could realize in the near future because you are just testing these ideas out to see if they work for you.

VISUALIZE IT
Next, create a clear picture or idea with a mental picture or a feeling of the object or situation exactly as you want it. You can write as detailed of a description of it as you can if you like to write or you can actually make a physical picture of it as well if you like to draw. If you are really creative, you can go all out and make a collage using pictures from magazines or photographs, etc and paste it all onto a poster board or cardboard in any size that is convenient for you-just make sure to include a picture of you having the object or in the situation. For example, let’s say you want a new hybrid gas and electric car. You would paste a picture of the car you want on your board and also cut out a picture of yourself to make it look like you are “driving” it or next to it.

Show the situation or object in its ideal, complete form, as if it already exists. Don’t worry about how it’s going to come about. Be sure not to show anything negative or undesirable either. Using lots of color will increase the power and impact on your consciousness. Include some symbol of the infinite which has meaning and power for you. For example: an om sign, cross, Christ, Buddha, a sun radiating light, or anything that represents universal intelligence, God, or your higher self. You can also include affirmations. “Here I am driving my new red hybrid gas and electric car.”

Sometimes what we think we want is in conflict with what the God/Universe gives us so it is helpful to use a cosmic affirmation like, “This, or something better, now manifests for me in totally satisfying and harmonious ways, for the highest good of all concerned.”

FOCUS ON IT
When you are going about your day and your mind wanders, focus on your goal with a clear mental picture or idea. You can do this when you meditate quietly and also casually throughout your day. I find that if start to think negatively about my goal or anything is a great time to switch to thinking about my goal in a positive way.

GIVE IT POSITIVE ENERGY
If you start having negative thoughts or doubts about your goal, stop and replace the thought with a positive affirmation about your goal. Some people find remembering the feeling they got when visualizing their goal to be helpful. Sometimes I am unable to turn off all the thoughts and chatter in my head and I find that if I write out the affirmation a few times sometimes ten times or more if I’m really having trouble focusing and changing my thoughts this helps me to change my thinking about my goal into a more productive and positive one.

BE GRATEFUL
When you achieve a goal acknowledge to yourself that it has been completed. Thank the Universe/God for fulfilling your request.

Please feel free to comment on this post. Let me know if you try it and how it works for you or doesn't work for you.

MY GIFT TO YOU FOR THIS NEW YEAR: FORGET ABOUT SETTING RESOLUTIONS

2011-01-04T14:53:00.001-05:00

It’s that time; you know the time I’m talking about where everyone suddenly makes a bunch of resolutions for the new year. What is it about a new year that makes us want to change things? Why is it that most new year’s resolutions fail? As far as I can tell this phenomenon has been a long time tradition as evidenced by Mark Twain’s famous quote on the subject:

New Year's Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. ~Mark Twain

So is it wrong to want to make changes in your life? Of course not, though I think the problem lies in how we go about doing it.

Problem: We try to change too many things in too many areas of our lives. Most of us have full busy stressful lives and if we are honest with ourselves we will see that we don’t have enough time for all the changes we mean to make.

Solution: Go easy on ourselves. Seriously. We are far too hard on ourselves and we need to let go and be forgiving of ourselves and others. We can make changes, but instead of a whole laundry list of things we think we need to change, how about replacing that list with simply two things: one in the personal area of our life and one in our professional area of life. For example in my personal life, I will be the first to say that I am terrible when it comes to sending personal correspondence to my relatives who live far away from me. So that could be something that I would want to change. An example in my professional life, I feel like I need to go outside my comfort zone more. A way I can do this is by making a video for the About Me section of my business’ website so my potential clients can feel more comfortable about receiving a massage from me. I honestly believe that small changes can lead to even bigger successes.

Now I know all I wrote about so far is how to make resolutions when my blog title tells you to forget about setting them and it seems I am giving conflicting information. I promise there is a method to my madness if you just stay with me-and here it is:

The main problem with setting resolutions is that you are doing it all by yourself without any help usually. My solution to this is to set intentions for your year. When you set an intention, you have a certain aim or objective in mind, but you are not doing it alone. You are sharing your intention with God/Universe. Your intention begins with a thought which leads to feelings which then manifest into your life.

In my next blog post, I will share with you tools that will help you with setting intentions. In the meantime you can think about two things in your personal and professional areas of life that you would like to change. And you know what? There is nothing wrong simply accepting and loving yourself and just being you.

Blessings and Good Health,

Lara