Tag Archives: Mandy Colahan

Taking a salt bath

My mind is blank and my emotions jittery this morning.  I have chosen to sit with them and let them be as I cruise through Facebook notifications and Yahoo news looking for peaceful entries and noteworthy news. 

I have been running “ like crazy” the last couple of days, like a week, and actually have a break today. Other than getting another teens’ driving permit… which makes me pause just to think about it… I have the day free. 

I see myself on a path and yet see another parallel path beside it.  I need to figure out where I need to be.  I am not good at living in two worlds. 

I chalk my antsy-ness up to my empathy and feeling other people’s nerves affecting me.  I often send people energy, or prayer, or non-local energy, sometimes for an extended period to help sustain them through a difficult phase in their life.

Transitions, change, being courageous all take an elevated amount of energy.  Just like intense physical training.  I am satisfied to be able to take a rest day once in a while, even though I am accomplishment driven.  I need grounding once in a while.

There’s lots on my to-do list, but I’m having trouble moving and getting my mind centered today.  So I am letting it be.  I may take a walk in a while, or take a salt bath.

Salt baths are great for clearing your energy, and especially great when you have to work in a toxic environment or around people who drain your energy, especially sick people. 

I use a whole 1 lb. 10 oz. canister of Sea Salt (Hain’s/non iodized) and a small 1 lb. box of baking soda.  Sometimes I’ll add some drops of essential oils like lavender, sweet orange, neroli, frankincense, or whatever I have on hand.  I’ll sit there until I’m bored and my body is warmed through with the heat, about 20 minutes or so before I get out.

Having always had allergies, though they are mostly gone now from what I do to keep my body healthy, I am still reserved when it comes to smells. I have chosen what smells good to me as opposed to what the aromatherapy is supposed to be good for. I just ask myself how much of the different smells smell good on a given day, and how many drops sound good, and use them.

After a lot of energy work sessions, I find the salt bath to be beneficial for getting me back on my feet, and keeping other peoples stuff from bothering me. 

If you are going through a trying time, even standing in a hot shower can soothe your mind and body, refreshing and relaxing you for whatever is next.  Try it. It might help. Let the bad stuff roll over and off your back, and away from you like warm water.  : – )

To your Health!  – Mandy

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Healers…

(This was written during my silent year from blogging)…

I have seen some amazing things over my short career in the energy medicine field.  

I have seen many alternative health people call themselves “Healers”, but I have never been comfortable with this or using it myself.  It sounds like I have a magic wand and can hold magical powers over someone with psychic abilities. 

It does give me joy when I can help people feel better, but I have no magic pill for curing all.  I have just tuned in and cultured my intuitive abilities.  I believe that we all have them, but not everyone chooses to focus on them or develop them.  I believe we have lots of intuitive abilities as children and un-learn them as we learn to conform to our society.

There is a very bright full moon out there in the still night sky.  It gives me spiritual pause and I think about where I have been on my healing spiritual path and of what many shiny pearls of wisdom I have picked up on my journey.  There have been many paradigm shifts along the way.

One is that healing might not always be a miraculous regaining of health, but may actually be the wisdom and courage tell the truth and to settle issues peacefully before death. 

Another one I recently discovered at a continuing education class on Cranial-Sacral methods.  The instructor mentioned that his renowned instructor had requested they work together as catalysts to shift each other’s issues. 

It got me thinking.  So many people think of healers like a medical doctor, that healers have some special abilities and powers that they can make you well or “save” you, not that that hasn’t happened.

But the idea shift is that maybe it is the “healers” who have more issues with health, relationships, money, etc., than most and need this interaction with clients to clean up their “junk pile” of life issues.  (That could be why Reiki circles have flourished.)

I have found that to have my clients make progress requires me to do a lot of my therapy work.  To “walk my talk.”  When I put off sessions for myself, I stop seeing my clients’ results for relief from pain, tension or the ability to see through their emotional issues, decline.  I have had a habit of forgetting to do my work until both my clients and I need help! 

Here’s my goal:  Stay ahead of the game! 

– Time to do my own self-care, preventatively!

“Surviving Weightlessness”

 

This is how I feel right now. 

This concept I picked from up the book “The Surrendered Wife” by Laura Doyle. 

It very aptly describes the emotional vertigo and, therefore, anxiety that many of us face in transitional phases of our lives when we give up control and leap into the unknown. 

Choosing to move from a situation that wasn’t working and now moving on because, instead of staying and trying to unsuccessfully “make it work” (which I have an extensive history of), I am moving on without knowing exactly where I am going. 

This time, I am listening to my intuition… as scary and crazy as it seems, I opted for change having no vision of what to do, but knowing I’m on my right path.  It is freeing and feels “ weightless”.  I don’t know what my bearings are.  I just know “that” wasn’t “it”.

Growing up, I came from a home where the dichotomy between extreme scientific evaluation and intuitive hunches were valued and followed.  This leaves me with a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde approach to figuring things out when faced with new personal territory, which I think many people can relate to. 

(It’s the whole “Should I? /Shouldn’t I?” that shows up in life ever so often.)

I find this true in people’s bodies. 

The healthy person responds to stress (change) with adaptability, being able to do things in a different way than has been normal.  The body always follows the emotions, but mentally, the mind choses to be rigid (or “ being right”) in its approach. 

We massage therapists call this “not being in one’s body”.  I feel this is one of the most important values of massage/touch therapy.  The body is holding vital information, but it is being devalued by the mind as “unsafe”. 

So war wages between the mind and body over the way to handle things.  Both the mind and body suffer because there is not communication and unison in their actions and functions. 

Bringing peace, harmony and balance to the whole is how one gets back to some sense of wholeness.  Touch therapy helps you align back up with what makes you, you and to face changes and adapt.   

I will be trying to get in a massage or some kind of personal therapy this week.  How about you?

 : – )

(By the way, check out the book.  Here’s her link:  http://lauradoyle.org/   It has some excellent tips for negotiating all kinds of relationships, whatever they may be.)