The Right (and Wrong) Way to Use Essential Oils

Remember the last time you were in nature, and the aroma of the sweet grass, the smell of the forest trees, or the scent of the richness of the earth instantly relaxed the tension in your shoulders and brought your stress level to zero? Or how about when you smell a fresh bouquet of roses, and […]

Why It Is Scary as Hell to Be Seen for Who We Are

The masks we wear are numerous. Sometimes we don’t ever take them off. And, if we wear them long enough, we forget that what we show to others isn’t even who we really are. When we first learned to use them, it was to serve a very important purpose – in order to survive, we learned […]

December 13, 2016 Healing, Healthy Living | No Comments

Healing Invocation For The Oppressed And Marginalized

Have you ever felt like you didn’t belong? That expressing you voice was a dangerous thing to do? Were you ever excluded from a benefit other people enjoyed because you appeared different from the majority (read: those in power?) Or, were you ever afraid for your life just for simply existing, loving, believing, or being […]

December 6, 2016 Healing, Healthy Living | 4 Comments

What Oppression Does to TMJ + 5 Things You Can Do To Heal It: Because Smashing The Patriarchy Is Hard Work

Bringing awareness into the world, when you feel the odds are against you, is tough. It’s like shining the light of your soul into the darkness, only to notice that you are in shark-infested waters. How can you be the change, when you feel the majority of your peers are fine with complacency, bigotry, xenophobia, […]

The 5 Best Essential Oils To Clear And Strengthen Your Energy

We all have our moments when we feel strong, ready to weather any storm, where we exhale rainbows and moonbeams, we feel great about the decisions we make, we are in our zone of genius, we feel strong and solid in who we are, we get the sleep we need, and we feel so right with the […]

How To Keep Your Vibration High In A Low Vibration World

From alarmist one-sided news reports that don’t quite tell the whole story, to injustices happening in our own backyard, headlines giving evidence of the disintegration of human dignity, and Facebook feeds that fan the flames of our anxiety, how does one continue to stand strong during challenging times? How do we feel empowered when what […]

A Poem For Self-Protection: Invoking Your Personal Safety When You Are Stressed

“There is no greater illusion than fear, no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself, no greater misfortune than having an enemy. Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe.”  ~ Lao Tzu (c.604 – 531 B.C.) When was the last time you felt unsafe? Was it when you were bullied in high school […]

Himalayan salt from my kitchen. Copyright © 2016 by Alcantara Acupuncture & Healing Arts. All rights reserved.

How Dry Salt Therapy Improved My Lung Qi (And Why I’m Going Back For More!)

“I’m inhaling WHAT???” was my initial response after being told that pharmaceutical grade salt would be blown into the salt room by a halogenerator. When Marta from Breathe Salt Rooms first reached out to me about their Dry Salt Therapy, and I hopped on their website, as soon as I saw the wall-to-wall Himalayan salt slabs on the wall, […]

Why Owning Other People’s Problems Robs Them Of Their Sovereignty

When we see our loved ones in pain, our natural instinct is to want to help them. We may even want to take away their pain, by making their problem our own, and/or trying to solve it for them. I’m not talking about parenting a young child, when they are still trying to learn about the world. […]

"52 Weeks: A Long Glance: Notes From This Weekend" (cropped) by Carmen Lucas is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Source.

10 Ways To Stabilize Yourself When You Feel Unsafe

How do you move forward after being hit with traumatic news that triggers your survival instincts because it is WAY too close to home? For many of us, the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual shock can take a toll on our sweet system. How do you know when trauma is showing up in your being? Some […]