Category Archives: Spirit

Tips to help your spiritual health

From Illness to Bikram Yoga to 90-Day ViSalus Challenge

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By Michelle Pate, MA, MBA

I am sharing this story so others can benefit from my knowledge and experience with healing my body, mind and spirit.

I spend a lot of time hearing and reading other people’s stories and am greatly saddened by so much suffering when there ARE solutions. The solutions are not an easy fix, but if you are committed to your personal growth, you WILL see results on all levels of your existence in time. Sometimes it won’t seem like you are getting anywhere, but someday you will wake up and realize that so much, if not all, of that suffering is in the past. You can then move forward with your best self, ready for a bright new future.

From April 2011 to April 2012, I did over 120 sessions of Bikram Yoga. That averages three classes per week. I healed my body in a very deep way through this practice and went through tremendous positive change. Bikram Yoga is an excellent way for anyone to balance their body’s systems, helping the mind to relax and spirit to soar.

I documented my experience from each class and shared on my Bikram Yoga page on this website. My muscles hurt a lot during this year because I was deeply committed to doing my practice and causing permanent and long lasting change. But now I feel wonderful, especially when walking because my gait is now straight and I am balanced.

My hope was to inspire others who are experiencing any kind of difficult life challenge, that Bikram Yoga will benefit you if you stick with it. I want to thank Nicole Duke of Bikram Yoga Aptos in Aptos, CA for her commitment to this practice and her beautiful studio. Nicole, you have helped me heal my life in a very deep and meaningful way. It was such a positive environment for me to experience healing. The people I practiced with were caring and committed. I am grateful for this time in my life.

I started Bikram Yoga to heal completely from a carjacking and attempted kidnapping two years prior. The attack damaged my body, especially my neck which I could not move fully for well over a year, and set my adrenaline in high gear at the slightest provokation. I experienced full out panic attacks where I thought I was going to die. I was easily startled and then would become sleepy after my adrenaline did it’s thing. It was a horrible way to live. I had to go on different sorts of medications just to function. That was a hard blow for a holistic, alternative care person such as myself. During this time, I also dealt with an impossible, but high chemistry relationship, a lackluster job at a medical office, all while going through an MBA program. By the time I graduated, I was ready to collapse. Just to survive what I was going through, I had to consciously sit up in the left side of my brain. I had ignored my body for two years. But I knew what I needed to do and got to work.

For the nine or so months after I graduated, I practiced Zumba dance and worked on a Yinyasa Flow Yoga Teacher’s Training program, along with learning online marketing and getting back into career-mode. But I still felt a lot of pain, and I got easily frustrated and tearful. I couldn’t go to parties without feeling overwhelmed. I felt so fragile. And I just couldn’t do Zumba or yoga too much without hurting. It was very frustrating. So in April 2011, I decided to commit myself to 1o days of Bikram Yoga. It was the toughest 90 minutes of my life, but I was in love with how it made me feel. I continued to practice every day for the next month.

Bikram Yoga restored me to myself, very quickly. In the beginning, I couldn’t breathe well in class and my muscles hurt a lot, but I was determined to master it. During the year I practiced, I learned to know my body’s capabilities very well. Focusing on poses made my mind strong again. Feeling my heart beat wildly in a hot room was comforting, and my anxiety went away. Then I learned how to control my heart beat with my breathing in class. Such amazing mastery! I dated someone nice and didn’t care much that he didn’t call me for a couple weeks. I started my own marketing agency. It was so great to feel so mellow.

My best benefit was getting off painkillers and anti-anxiety medications I had taken since the carjacking – I’m sure the detox from the hot yoga room was excellent for purging it out of my system. Because of blocking out pain for two years, I had hurt the insides of my digestive system rather severely with a poor diet. I tried to clean up my diet and eat well again, but EVERYTHING hurt most of the time. One night after eating out, I swelled up like a balloon and took this picture of my belly.

I cried in my Chiropractor’s office the next day because my insides hurt more than I could bear. My digestive system felt like it had hives in it. I hurt from my throat all the way to the other end. There is a special part of the digestive system called the “ilieo-cecal valve” that keeps the polluted large intestine from backing up into the clean small intestine. Mine would SPASM when I ate something wrong for me, causing digestive, back problems, and extreme fatigue. Sometimes my belly would swell so much I looked 6 months pregnant. I was scared. I took the following picture one night because I couldn’t believe what was happening.

My D.C. told me I had LEAKY GUT, that my intestines were INFLAMED from food allergies and to stop eating GLUTEN. I took some special nutritional supplements to boost my immune system, and he said it would heal itself up in about a year. In the beginning, I couldn’t eat anything but meats, cooked vegetables, and olive oil. Throughout time, I could more simple foods, but I still try to stay away from grains in general because they still hurt my system. I tried to eat some croutons with a caeser salad about a month ago, and it was the same old pain. I’m just not meant to eat wheat. I WAS happy to know that I could eat cheese and ice cream. I thought I was lactose-intolerant for years, but it was really the wheat I was eating with my dairy.

Just by eliminating the gluten, my abdomen got flat in a couple months. I didn’t lose weight while I did Bikram Yoga, but I did lose a few inches. Most importantly, I created lasting change in my body structure (bones, tendons and muscles) and all my organs. I will return to Bikram Yoga sometime soon, and right now my body is desiring proper nutrition and weight training.

I was still tired after all this time, and trying to decide what to do next with my life. I have been wanting to move to Southern California and work in film and TV, but didn’t know how to make that happen. My friend, Max, started doing the ViSalus 90-day Challenge. He lost almost 20 pounds in a month. He had energy and he was focused. He was having a lot of health benefits, so I decided to check it out.

What I liked best was that the shake mix ViSalus uses tastes very good and settles well in my stomach. Since there is so little I can eat, I am always was eager to find something more I can ingest. These shakes felt like a magic potion to my body. Finally, a full feeling without feeling ill in some way. I went to an event where at least ten people I went to high school were at – and they are all doing the challenge as well.

So I decided to get on the ViSalus bandwagon. Since I believe in the product, I decided to become a promoter. Like before with my Bikram Yoga challenge, I want to document my progress through the next 90 days. However, there are different qualities to this project. Bikram Yoga is for the most part a very solitary journey. You go within and get to know your body, mind and spirit in a deep way. I needed to do that in order to figure out who I was in present time. ViSalus is a group endeavor, its very social. And the body results are very different.


Because of my dance and yoga devotions, I am still in decent outward shape. I’m only ten pound over fitting into my skinny jeans. As far as appearances, I am happy with what I’ve got. HOWEVER, what matters with how good it looks when I am too tired to go out and be with people? Because of my digestive issues, I have missed out on a lot of nutrition my body has needed in order to function at peak performance. I am tired a lot of the time, and feel like I am walking around in a fog sometimes. I’m just too young to feel this way at all, and these products make such a big difference with my health.

I am going to use the ViSalus products to transform my life. I hate the sound of the blender so I refused to make smoothies (too cold anyway), so I drink the shake mix with fruit juice. I am taking all the supplements in the Transformation Kit (everyone should start with this one so you get the full benefits). I love the NEURO which gives me a better get-up-and-go than even 5 Hour Energy.

I will also be writing personal stories of a number of my friend’s transformations. So many of us have big goals we want to accomplish – so we are all working together to make it happen. My main reason to write is to inspire you to greatness. So many of us have big dreams, and we suffer needlessly because we don’t have optimal health.

Here is to health and happiness!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Michelle Pate is a wellness intuitive/coach who works with people’s mind, body and spirit. She graduated at the top of her class at John F. Kennedy University with a Masters in Holistic Counseling Psychology. She also has an MBA from University of Phoenix.

Michelle specializes in nutrition, holistic exercise and stress reduction to help you be healthy and happy in your life. To schedule an appointment – call Michelle’s office at 408 438 8153 or contact her through email at michellepate99 at yahoo dot com.

Michelle is also a promoter of the Body by Vi challenge and will give you unparalleled support and powerful encouragement for your weight loss, work out, and energetic needs.

Women’s Group Update

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The Empowered Feminine has been such a blessing to me. I have met many very interesting women over the last six months. Recently, the meeting seems to have morphed into a way to share resources to help us all empower ourselves out of the feeling of being “stuck” and how to “get unstuck”.

We recently met and came up with some awesome resources that I’d like to share with everyone.

1. Morning pages – The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron. All of us had done journaling at one time or another. Julia introduces her students to Morning Pages, which isn’t typical journaling, more like a purging. The student writes three pages every morning of whatever comes to mind. One is not supposed to censor what comes out on the page but write whatever wants to come out. She says that often what comes out is some very ugly unconscious thoughts, but the point is to get them out of your head! What happens is over time those ugly thoughts are out of the head, and new thoughts start taking over life in a very miraculous way.

I wrote Morning Pages for about three months – and was so interested in the depth of the uncomplementary things I was saying – mostly about myself! Julia recommends burning your pages and never looking at them again. Its not typical journaling, just downloading garbage that stops us from pursuing what we truly want in life.

I kind lost in some of Julia’s exercises – such as my favorite things when I was young, or what I wanted to be when I was a child. Who I was as a child and who I am now are so different. Back then I was a child of the 1970s who thought that an engineer drove a train, and an architect would be fun because I could build cool houses like the Brady Bunch lived in. I wanted to be a dentist because I could help people, but most of all I wanted to be a Mouseketeer. Being on TV seemed like the most fabulous job to have – ever! I still hold a little bit of that dream, but have no idea how to make that one happen… lol

2. Movement – such as yoga – some of us were yoga teacher or took yoga classes regularly. A lot of us LOVED Zumba dance. One fine woman taught belly dancing. And another woman said she felt good when she was simply in action about ANYTHING! She got a sense of accomplishment and direction from doing something she had never done before. How are we going to know we like a new thing unless we try it?

As you all know, I absolutely LOVE Bikram yoga and have been doing it diligently for the last eight months. The practice has healed my body in many amazing ways. I also practice Yin Yoga and Vinyasa Flow as well when I am not in the studio. I took Zumba over the course of three months and shaped up very quickly. I recommend Zumba to any woman who wants to fit back into her skinny jeans! Someday I hope to take a belly dancing class – and I have taken the suggestion to simply be in action. It sure helps, even if its just a small project. For me, to get online and update my blog, that is an action…

3. Dance Church - most hippy downtowns have Dance Church on Sunday mornings, but the movement is spreading because so many people LOVE to move! Google “Concious Dance” and see what is happening in your area or create your own Dance Church. Its a space where people can move, dance and be free without any judgments from others.

4. StrengthsFinder by Tom Rath. This book has a test that you can take which will tell you your top five strengths. I think everyone should know what they are good at – because its often invisible to us when we are really good at something – we think its just easy for everyone and don’t realize this strength is something that can contribute greatly to others plus make us an income. Other great tests to take are DiSC and Meyers-Briggs/Jungian typology.

I took a test on assessment.com a few years back which outlined what I would be very good at in a career. My top three were counseling, interior design and fashion design. Apparently I am good at shapes, colors and textures. But I chose counseling because I really wanted to help people build and shape their dreams. I guess that is building an inner world to then reflect an outer world?

Anyway – our meeting was awesome and I was very happy to meet new Empowered Women – and proud of these fabulous women for teaching us all so much about “Getting Unstuck”

I started a women’s group!

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I decided to start a women’s group because I believe that a group of mature, open-hearted, loving, caring, deep and spiritual women can do miracles in life if we got together on a regular basis to talk about life and what matters underneath the surface. This group meets in Santa Cruz, CA. More information will be provided if you contact me through this website.

 

The Purpose of The Group – Women Empowering Women

How often do we ask: Who Am I? Underneath my title as mother, wife, daughter, student, employee, entrepreneur, etc. Who Am I? Underneath the goals. responsibilities, and day-to-day activities of life: Who Am I? When I slow down, breathe and try to determine where I am going in life (which we never do, right?), WHO AM I?

We are often flying so fast through life that we have little time to slow down, breathe, empty the mind and listen to the heart and belly, and listen to self as a unique and creative spirit moving through life.

The space of The Empowered Feminine is meant to let us slow down and take time to simply be a woman among women. This space is designed to be a safe, welcoming, nurturing retreat from regular life for a couple of hours a week, to rest and interact about what matters to us most as women. This space is meant to be open, encouraging and empowering, to build each other up and support each other in our challenges and goals.

Women need safe connections with other women in life. We often get so busy that we don’t take time to meet people and develop true connections. Many women long for deeper and more empathic connections with others, but we don’t know where to find it. Here is where you find it. I long to give this encouragement to women and believe it is deeply needed in our community.

Why should I join?

You should join this group if you want a real, authentic, nurturing space to develop true connections with other women. All I ask is you bring your heart and a caring attitude – this kind of environment promotes healing energy in a world that is deeply hurting.

So many beautiful and wonderful women are isolated and in pain, and need to know that others care. We need to be there with others so we can witness each other’s pain, lend wise counsel, and build each other up and heal. This space is safe, giving, encouraging and nurturing. If this is the kind of person you are and you feel you just need to be listened to in an empowered fashion, if you know your gifts need an outlet if you could just speak them powerfully, this is the space for you.

Inquiry into Life

We can focus on any issues that we have about being a woman in this day and age. Topics include but are not limited to:

  • How have we changed from our mother’s and grandmother’s generations?
  • What challenges have we have in life and what challenges are we currently facing?
  • What inspires us and what do we have passion for in life?
  • What are the obstacles in our career direction and what about it satisfies us?
  • What would we love to do with life that we haven’t done already?
  • Do we have a business we would love to develop but don’t know how?
  • How have our relationships with men changed through the years?
  • How do we balance being an individual with having a relationship?
  • How have we overcome trauma, heartache, and impossible situations in life?
  • What is our relationship to our bodies, to food, to exercise, to work and to our futures?
  • How can we live our lives fully and be inspired and passionate?

By talking with other women about these subjects below the surface, we start to be in touch with vitality and the essence of life. When we have celebrations in life or overcome obstacles we need to share with safe women so we can have others witness the ups and downs in life.

Others also need to hear our stories so they can learn the wisdom that is gained by living. We need each other to keep us on track and true to our own inner wisdom and self-respect. These nuggets of insight and knowledge are held as sacred when shared between women who know and trust each other.

This is the vision of The Empowered Feminine.

We all encounter real life issues that are often so intimidating and confusing, we push them aside and simply power our way through life. We often suffer in silence and doubt ourselves. Life’s issues sit underneath the surface and nag at us in the form of anxiety, depression and a host of body maladies that we worry about; instead of being free, energetic, creative and fulfilling on our life’s purpose.

The Empowered Feminine is part support and counseling, part encouragement space, and part learning environment for women who enjoy personal growth and who want to be they can be and learn to effectively bring out the best in others. This is not a therapy group, but you will definitely feel uplifted and ready to take on the world!

Life is too short to not be truly living!

Women Encouraging Women

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Women EncouragingWhen did women become so competitive? It must have been when all the moms went to work in the 1980s, because I remember my grandmother having so many friends. Nowadays, we women compete over whose man makes more money, whose job is more powerful, whose kids are smarter, who is prettier, who is thinner, who has the latest brand name wardrobe… The list goes on and on.

The problem is that in becoming so competitive with other women, we have lost the ability to trust and be intimate friends with each other. The need to be competitive comes from a feeling that we really aren’t enough, that we don’t measure up. So we act perfect and brag about things we have so we can fill that rotten feeling inside, but in the process, we are alienating others who try to get close to us.

We need to step beyond this competitive spirit and open our hearts to each other again and just listen. So many of us have lost the ability to just be attractive and rest in our sweet feminine spirit. We try to be perfect, but we have forgotten that the road to intimate friendship is being authentic about what is REALLY going on in our lives. We bond over the difficulties, pains and absurdity of life, and encourage each other to KEEP GOING!

So many women in the world are lonely for female friendship. We wonder where all our girlfriends have gone. We are missing a lot in not having women in our lives who we can truly trust and who can hear our heart. So many of us traveled through the 80s and 90s where being independent and strong was fashionable and necessary to get ahead. We are holding old “values” that just don’t work anymore.

We have made our significant other our honorary girlfriend. We go to our husbands and boyfriends with the things that only our girlfriends can identify with. Then we get mad at our significant other for not giving us the girl time we crave. Cultivating our female friendships frees our man up to do what he does best, which is BE A MAN. When we get emotional needs met by girlfriends, it frees us up from needing that from our man – therefore, enriching the time we spend with him – listening to him, getting to know who he is without our needs getting in the way. The result is truly fascinating.

Today – I encourage each women to drop a line to a female you know and tell her something you admire about her. It will strengthen your bond and make both of your day. Chances are that no one has told her something positive about her character in a long time. Its time to take some lessons from grandmother in quality female friendship.

Life becomes truly enchanting and beautiful when you walk with warmth and dance in your heart. Giving care to others is a step in the right direction.

Raising Spiritual Frequency

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When we raise our spiritual vibration, things start to become possible in life that weren’t possible before. We become more aware of the world around us and our intuitive abilities become more developed. We instinctively get into the flow of life’s Source and start making decisions clearly and manifesting life magically.

Anything we do that touches our heart will raise our vibration. For many people this starts by listening to music, walking in nature, or simply being with a beloved friend or pet.

In our world of busyness and stress, we often forget to slow down, breathe or simply sit and enjoy something. Life is busier, faster, more hectic. We don’t realize the havoc this does to our being on all levels. When we slow down and pay attention, we raise our spiritual frequency.

Similarly, we can raise our frequency by taking time to meditate. You don’t have to do anything but sit in a chair or lie in bed to meditate. Focus on your breathing and senses. Listen to things around you, look at the colors and shapes around you, feel the temperature on your skin – these are all excellent ways to become present and aware. Feel your body, do you have pain? Are you tired? Are you healthy? Start to listen to your body and you will hear messages about your health and well-being. Focus on your heart and belly. We often think our mind is in our head and that is the chatter we need to quiet. The heart and belly have their own versions of chatter because they need to be heard. When we sit and listen to the heart and belly the mind starts to become quiet and we hear the wisdom of our core. We can then start to notice the things in life that truly matter to us. We start to intuit our true life direction, and feel bliss in life.

We can also raise our spiritual frequency by taking better care of our bodies. If we exercise regularly in a modality we enjoy, eat healthy non-processed foods, and eliminate toxins such as cigarettes, drugs and alcohol from our lives, we resonate at a higher level. We also need to get enough sleep in order for the body to repair itself, and take time to do bliss inducing relaxing activities such as hot tubs and saunas for detoxifying effects. Taking time to purify the body clears the mind and raises our vibration.

Finally, as we become open, healthy and aware human beings, we tend to start noticing other people’s negative patterns and how their behaviors detrimentally impact our life. We naturally act like those people we hang out with the most, or at least, polarize to negative behavior with a reactionary negative behavior (example, if they are aggressive you may become defensive or passive). If they are pessimistic, we will tend to become more like them, vibrating at that frequency. If they are optimistic, encouraging, loving, caring, compassionate people, we will naturally become more like them. Remember that its harder to pull someone down than to pull someone up. If you have negative people in your life who won’t raise their vibration with you, you might have to let those people go. Many of us fear being alone, but we need not fear that for long, because there are many happy people vibrating at those higher frequencies. We just need to stay away from negative influences and vibrate higher so we can find others who vibrate at higher frequencies.

One will mostly find high vibration people who are doing similar things as you are doing when you are enjoying yourself in life. Start tuning into a higher frequency today.

The Glory of a New Day…

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Ancient scripture shares that sorrow may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. This is a wise reminder that we should always keep hopeful toward the future, even through the toughest times in life. We don’t need to take a dismal view of life, because we never know what will happen tomorrow. We may not understand why things happen the way they do, but we can always have faith there is some purpose in all of it.

Keep looking toward good things during the dark times, and stay open to the little miracles that life shows us if we just keep looking for them. Life has a way of giving us what we look for. Keep looking for good things. Life will agree with you.

The somatic way to inner peace

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In times of turmoil, we all wonder how to get a grip on tranquility, serenity, and a bit of peace and quiet.

We all know inner peace begins inside oneself, but often don’t know how to obtain it. Beginning with awareness of our body sensations, we can begin to experience peace which begins not in the mind, but in the heart and belly.

Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Focus on the breath. Let your mind chatter away with its incessant thoughts, but don’t pay attention to them. Keep focusing on the breath. The deeper you breathe, the more your nervous system starts to calm down. Keep breathing. Start to experience what is happening in your body. Pay attention to your heart and belly; these are important centers of inner wisdom. Keep breathing. Set aside time each day to breath deeply and check in with what your heart and belly are telling you. This is inner guidance that leads to inner peace.

The more we listen to the heart and belly the more we can experience inner peace. Embrace those body sensations until they disappear. They may return time and time again, but this is the door to inner peace, embracing what is happening inside. As we learn to embrace those tumultuous sensations, they settle down and we become peaceful inside.

We learn much about what matters to us most in life in this manner. Our spirit takes on a more primary role in our growth and development. The mind is tamed.