Tuesday, August 4, 2009

'Intuitive' tapped to evict spirits

SAVE YOUR LIFE NOW! GRAB YOUR HOW TO QUIT SMOKING IN A WEEK FLAT BOOK NOW! SANTA ANA, Calif. -- The house is one that might prompt fantasies: three stories, a deck with an ocean view, a Laguna Beach address.

Yet, like a house from a scary movie, it gave Lori Duarte the creeps.

She woke up screaming from nightmares.

She also saw images out of the corner of her eye and heard strange noises.

"It was a pretty house, but it didn't feel that way," she said. "I would rather be in a shack."

In November 2007, after 18 months with her husband, Duarte joined him in deciding to end their marriage -- and sell the house.

The home stayed on the market for the next seven months, without any takers.

Whatever it harbored, Duarte said, kept buyers away.

She talked to her ex about a woman who could be hired to chase away the spirits.

"If you can get it to sell," he replied, "do whatever the hell you want."
A young discovery

Julie Belmont, an artist in Laguna Hills, Calif., works in oils, pastels and charcoal.

She makes Victorian chokers. She knits scarves.

And, she said, she sees dead people.

As a 4-year-old living in Madrid, Spain, she awoke one morning to find an aunt standing at the foot of her bed, smiling kindly.

Her aunt said she had come to say goodbye. Then she faded away.

"OK," Belmont remembers thinking, "I am awake."

She went to her parents with what she had seen, she said, and they didn't flinch.

"Get your coat," they told her.

The family went to a hospital where the aunt had been ill. The old woman passed away soon after they arrived.
A fateful meeting

Duarte, a flight attendant and mother of three, met Belmont at the Chakra Shack in Laguna Beach in the fall of 2007. The woman who usually reads Duarte's cards wasn't in, but Belmont was.

Some people might call Belmont a psychic; she prefers the term intuitive.

"People still stereotype," she said.

Since childhood, Belmont said, she could see, hear and feel things that others couldn't. The more she focused on her intuition, the more it developed. But, until recently, she shared it only with friends and family.

After growing up in Madrid, she moved to Toronto, where she fell into modeling, becoming Canada's first poster girl.

A 1980 magazine spread titled "Battle of the Poster Girls" shows her in a bathing suit alongside cheesecake swimsuit photos of Cheryl Tiegs, Suzanne Somers and Cheryl Ladd.

Soon, Belmont moved to Newport Beach, Calif., where she decided she wanted to be a police officer. She enrolled in the Golden West Police Academy and, in a few years, became a reserve officer for the Costa Mesa Police Department.

Less than two years later, she became pregnant and quit her job to raise what would be her only child, Krystle.

For the next decade or so, Belmont was mainly a mom, living in the exclusive Nellie Gale neighborhood, making and sometimes selling her art.

About five years ago, though, some of her friends who work as psychics told her: "You're just as good as us. Why don't you get a job?"

She was hired at the Chakra Shack, reading cards. She also does hypnotherapy and has written some books.

Then, about two years ago, watching yet another TV news report on foreclosures, Belmont fell into a reverie about all those people leaving their homes in sadness and anger.

What sort of negativity, she wondered, are they leaving behind?
An energy cleansing

Belmont arrived at Duarte's house armed with crystals, candles and rose water. Duarte took her from room to room. Then Belmont told Duarte to go outside and wait -- standard operating procedure because the person who lives in the home might become frightened.

"Spirits gain strength from fear," Belmont said.

Once alone, she walked through each room, counterclockwise, burning sage.

"It's a modern, everyday house, and that day was sunny," she said of the house that is, at most, a few decades old.

"Yet it felt dark, like something was there that shouldn't be."

Belmont emerged about 40 minutes later. Then, she and Duarte sprinkled rose water in the backyard and said a prayer, asking for "whatever it was that was there" to leave.

Belmont calls what she does "spiritual home staging."

Her flier reads: "Don't live in somebody else's past."

Her fee -- for everything from basic "energy cleansing and balancing" to "communication with the unseen, and evacuation or dismissal of unwanted energies or other phenomena" -- is $200 an hour.

Never mind that some people might consider her a kook -- or, even worse, a fake.

"There're always skeptics."
A positive outcome

Duarte isn't one of the skeptics. Still, she worries that people who read about her decision to hire Belmont might think she's "a fruitcake."

"Some people just don't believe in this sort of thing," Duarte said. "And that's fine. But unless you've experienced it . . ." Her voice trailed off.

The bottom line: "I would wake up at night screaming, open my eyes, and see people standing next to me. It felt like I was hallucinating. I hated being alone in that house. It just felt creepy.

"And everyone who would visit would say the same thing."

After Belmont left, Duarte said, her house felt lighter. The cold, dark feeling was gone. And within a month, she had a buyer.

Today, Duarte and her children live only a few blocks from their former home. Her daughter still plays with their former next-door neighbor's child, so they pass by the old house frequently.

"And it looks like a different house," Duarte said. "I don't know how to explain it. Physically, nothing's changed.

"There are things out there you just can't put your finger on. I don't know. Do you believe it?"

Source

This is a nicely written article for those who want to Stop and Quit Smoking with the use of Quit Smoking Hypnotherapy Courses, methods and aids with the help of hypnotherapists in London. Subscribe to Quit Smoking Hypnotherapy London Courses now to get more updates! SAVE YOUR LIFE NOW! GRAB YOUR HOW TO QUIT SMOKING IN A WEEK FLAT BOOK NOW!

Monday, August 3, 2009

Hypnotherapist Max Kirsten Brings Hypnotherapy To The iPhone

SAVE YOUR LIFE NOW! GRAB YOUR HOW TO QUIT SMOKING IN A WEEK FLAT BOOK NOW! ’The ABC of Better Sleep’ is compatible with Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch devices and assists people who suffer from insomnia to make necessary adjustments and enable the user to develop a relaxing, refreshing sleep pattern whatever their schedule. Individuals who work shifts or frequently travel across time zones can often encounter sleeping difficulties due to the disruptive nature of this lifestyle. This application offers powerful techniques to assist these individuals.

Having worked in collaboration with the London Sleep Centre, located in Harley Street W1, Max Kirsten has now developed his own program: ’The ABC of Better Sleep’, which combines powerful hypnotherapy techniques with a series of practises enabling the user to learn to quickly drift off into a deep, refreshing sleep. Remember, that even after only four hours, the brain has gained many of the important benefits of sleep. Don’t worry about getting eight hours sleep, the quality of sleep is more important.

The app costs £4.99 from the iTunes Store and includes an introduction video, over two and a half hours of spoken audio, ’The Secrets of Better Sleep’ eBook, Better Sleep fact cards, three extra sleep soundtracks with embedded alpha waves and access to further support and resources.

In Jan 2009 Max Kirsten became The Times Newspaper’s leading ’Self-help’ expert with a special 5-day series on stress, anxiety and sleep. He has also been listed in Tatler Magazine’s ’Top 150 best private doctors’ and has a wealth of success stories including helping Hollywood actor Ewan McGregor to quit smoking, and hopefully this latest app will assist the many people who struggle to sleep – all from the convenience of their portable device.

All Max Kirsten hypnotherapy NLP downloads are also available for other format portable MP3 devices from maxkirsten.com.

Source

This is a nicely written article for those who want to Stop and Quit Smoking with the use of Quit Smoking Hypnotherapy Courses, methods and aids with the help of hypnotherapists in London. Subscribe to Quit Smoking Hypnotherapy London Courses now to get more updates! SAVE YOUR LIFE NOW! GRAB YOUR HOW TO QUIT SMOKING IN A WEEK FLAT BOOK NOW!

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Chronic Tonic: Adventures in Chronic Pain (Stranded Wind)

SAVE YOUR LIFE NOW! GRAB YOUR HOW TO QUIT SMOKING IN A WEEK FLAT BOOK NOW! CHRONIC TONIC posts on Thursdays at 7 EST, it is a place to share stories, advice, and information and to connect with others with chronic health conditions and those who care for them. Our diarists will report on research, alternative treatments, clinical trials, and health insurance issues through personal stories. You are invited to share in comments (and note if you'd like to be a future diarist). In addition to our weekly diaries, please join us for ongoing conversations at the Kossacks Networking site.

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Chronic Tonic: Adventures in Chronic Pain 7/2/09

Today’s Diary By: Stranded Wind

* Chronic Tonic's diary :: ::
*

My life changed forever, Friday, May 13th of 1994, at 3:05 PM. We were turning left across Southwest Army Post Road in Des Moines, Iowa, when another Nissan Sentra, traveling at highway speed, struck our Sentra directly between the doors on the passenger side.

The other car had just got its brakes on and was traveling at perhaps 35 miles per hour when we were hit. I was sitting in the passenger seat and the windows on that side became a blizzard of broken glass. The impact moved the door post on my side in a good eight to ten inches. We spun around through the busy afternoon traffic without being hit again, then everything was still.

Once the dust settled I tried to draw a breath. And couldn’t. And tried again. And couldn’t ...

I sat for a long moment, stunned by the impact. I tried to draw a breath and found I couldn’t. I relaxed, tried again, and still couldn’t breathe. The fear washed over me; was I going to die right there? Finally the air came. I was in my mid twenties and still resilient. I crawled out through the broken window and waved off help. Forty five minutes later I was strapped to a board in an ambulance on my way for a CT scan, which found nothing.

Two weeks later I found the damage on my own. I buckled up, attached the rappelling rope, and stepped backwards off a 120’ bridge piling. I knew something was wrong right away – I couldn’t apply proper pressure pushing back with my right arm. Luckily someone else was already down so I had hands to belay me while I extracted myself from the situation. The next year I got a further evaluation and it was determined I’d lost a third of my strength and range of motion to the left – a whiplash injury.

Four years later I was struck from behind at 9:15 in the morning on a Houston on ramp near the Astros’ training field. The woman, Paula Smith, was on SR22 high risk insurance and had a history of drunk driving. She didn’t get the brakes on at all, striking me, pushing me into the back of a Houston police car, then ramming my rental car again. The hood of her Cadillac was folded double because the nose of her car went under the relatively high bumper on my rental Taurus. I probably could have walked away but being a bit wise to such things I accepted transport to Ben Taub General Hospital. They felt the need to get a urine sample from me "to check my kidneys for damage". I would have punched someone but I was in too much pain. Paula skated away without any charges despite likely having a couple of drinks of breakfast before hitting me.

The tendons in my right rotator cuff aren’t torn, but they’re not right. I can throw a ball about as far as my eight year old daughter. The disk in my neck at C5/C6 is slightly herniated – not enough for surgery, but enough that the muscles under my right shoulder are a constant knot. I was wearing a seat belt both times and I count myself very lucky, in spite of all the trouble these crashes have brought me.

I’ve tried a variety of things over the years to treat the pain associated with this injury with varying degrees of success.

The pain is nerve related rather than due to the muscles so your typical analgesics and anti-inflammatories can’t touch it. I did try both Celebrex and Vioxx, both of which I reacted to quite violently, and both of which got me hospital stays. I did a five year stint on a tiny dose of Elavil, an older tricyclic antidepressant and it made the situation bearable, but I felt like I was smoking dope on a nightly basis and I didn’t care for the constant fuzziness and weight gain.

I wore out my welcome with Elavil at age 35, developing the racing heart and other troubles associated with elderly users of the drug. I had to find something else to do.

I did have a good chiropractor at first, which helped with mobility, but I’m active and stretchy enough that I stopped needing it some years ago. I keep on it with a certain set of yoga stretches, things I do while just hanging around the office. I favor the right side and it’s funny to see how much more flexible that side is after ten years of effort.

Even with good habits and being in decent shape the pain was getting to me. I finally found a doctor that would do an epidural injection in the affected area. The first one was a treat – I got it, felt tremendous relief, and went back to work. I was a used telecom equipment dealer in those years and I bought quite the funny collection of stuff that day. Lesson learned – rent a movie or two before the epidural and go straight home after getting it. These were $300 out of pocket once or twice a year and they did the trick for a long time.

As I’ve diaried here before, I got Lyme some time in 2006 or 2007, it pretty much disabled me by the summer of 2007, and I only got back to work at the beginning of 2009. I’ve only had one epidural in that time, it’s been eighteen months, and I’m really paying for not having access.

One of the things prescribed to combat Lyme and it’s side effects was hydroxychloroquinine. This is an anti-malarial and it is used to raise vacuole pH to flush out the bacteria, which may cyst up under pressure of antibiotics. It’s also used as an anit-inflammatory. I took this for ninety days as part of my treatment and only recently quit – the paranoia and vision troubles were bad enough, but when I started getting an irregular heartbeat I’d had enough. Notice the trend with prescribed drugs and nasty side effects?

I am not at all opposed to ‘alternative’ treatments, although the word offends me, as what that means is ‘not AMA/pharma company profit boosting’. I have tried in no particular order ...

Glucosamine and chondroitin. It got debunked in some ways a few years back and I never felt that much affect from it.

I did the Anti-Inflammatory Diet for a while and I like the effects, but I was already pretty healthy. I can’t tell all that much difference with fish oil, even the high purity stuff with lots of DHA/EPA.

SAM-e is pure magic if you don’t have any family history of manic behavior. I took 200mg and that was enough for me for quite a while, then I stopped when I got disabled and poor, and now I’m taking 800mg to counter joint pain associated with Lyme, which is quite evil in combination with the old injuries. I think about half of all depression cases in Europe are treated with this stuff – it’s a potent anti-depressant and liver detoxifier in addition to the affect it has on joints. The anti-depressant effects come on in about forty eight hours and there isn’t any detoxification period if you decide to stop taking it.

If I need a quick acting overall muscle relaxant I really like Kava Kava. There are some stories out there about liver toxicity but I think it’s big pharma propaganda – they checked something like 100,000 users and found six had died. But they were drunks (!) who were abusing the stuff(!) I had a bit of euphoria the first few times I took it but now it’s a simple muscle relaxant and little more. Get the capsules rather than the liquid – you’ll feel like you’ve given a goat a tongue bath if you get a taste of the stuff.

I recently tried Ashwagandha on the advice of a friend. This is good for kidneys (mine have cysts) and like every other Ayurvedic drug it has a raft of other benefits. It isn’t exhaustively studied since it can’t be patented but it strikes me as being very worthwhile for all sorts of aches and pains.

I used Tiger Balm topically on my shoulder for a long time and it’s OK. I really like the 0.1% Capsaicin creams, but you have to have a latex glove to apply them and woe unto you if you get any on your lips or in your eyes, which I manage to do pretty much every time I have it on.

I should say some words about not only what helps but WHO helps.

Chiropractors can be good ... or they can be a little dingy, which comes from being too focused on their specialty to the exclusion of other needed things.

I went to a pain specialist and it was a tremendous relief to get a treatment that really worked well. There is a price to be paid, at least the way I did it, but it was well worth the time and money.

I had an Ayurvedic doctor for a while and I wish I could find another one here. I had a customer herbal prescription and it was really slick, but I don’t recall the names of the things in it and the whole point to having a practitioner is that they know you and tune the prescription for your needs.

My yoga instructor was also an acupuncturist. This I strongly recommend – might seem like mumbo jumbo, but it works like crazy. I’ve got a western trained guy here now that I’ve just started seeing and at $40/visit that’s a screamin’ good deal for what he does for me. I was paying $75 in the big city.

Best of all, three of the seven years since I got divorced were spent with a massage therapist. The pain in my shoulder is the sort that responds to touch ... any touch, just someone laying their hands on the affect area, but to have someone who actually knew what she was doing was truly marvelous.

I have a copy of hypnotherapist Richard Bandler’s Convincing Comfort. This short audio CD can’t address the roots of pain, but it can put an end to the anxiety – pain is physical and mental in nature.

Along the same lines I’ve got to put a plug in for mindfulness meditation as a means to reduce the suffering one faces with chronic pain. Listening to the teachings of primarily Andrea Fella from Audio Dharma has been like adding an instrument panel for my body. I’m aware much sooner when something is bothering me and things are a lot less troublesome as I know they’re not forever.

If you’re facing chronic pain and reading this I hope I’ve provided some tidbit of information that’ll make your life easier.

Source

This is a nicely written article for those who want to Stop and Quit Smoking with the use of Quit Smoking Hypnotherapy Courses, methods and aids with the help of hypnotherapists in London. Subscribe to Quit Smoking Hypnotherapy London Courses now to get more updates! SAVE YOUR LIFE NOW! GRAB YOUR HOW TO QUIT SMOKING IN A WEEK FLAT BOOK NOW!

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Tell jerk hubbie to quit mocking fear of flying

SAVE YOUR LIFE NOW! GRAB YOUR HOW TO QUIT SMOKING IN A WEEK FLAT BOOK NOW! Dear Robin

I have an issue with my husband, and he actually dared me to write you after I threatened him with it. I am absolutely terrified of flying, and he likes to make fun of me over it. It has gotten so bad that I have to take medication before I fly in order to stay calm. I am petrified the plane will either get hijacked or crash. It is paralyzing to me, but he just laughs. He even does stupid things while on the plane like shake the seat, and point out people who look "suspicious." He thinks it's funny, meanwhile I am in tears. We are going on vacation next month, with a very long flight involved. He is already making jokes and telling people about my fears. What can I do?

Freaked-out flier

Dear Freaked-out

Tell your husband to stop being a jerk. I hate flying and can completely relate to how you feel. It is a very real fear that can get to the point of debilitating. The fact that he is making fun of this doesn't give him very high marks in my book. He is supposed to be your support system, but instead insists on joking about it?

OK, maybe he is just trying to make you look at the light side of things, or take your mind off of it by getting you mad, but if that is the case, he is going about things all wrong. If it is so bad that you have to take medication to get through it, he has no business making fun of you at all. It is up to you to decide if he is doing this for the reasons above, or if he is simply an insensitive boor. Let him know how upset this makes you, and tell him this behaviour needs to change.

You should try to figure out when and why these fears began. Talk to someone, no, scratch that ... send your husband to talk to someone and maybe they can teach him something called empathy. You, in the meantime, could try hypnosis, or even meditation to help change your mindset and help you stay calm. Do what you need to do to get through the flight, then put up your feet and enjoy your vacation.

Dear Robin

I was given a gift for helping out a friend of the family who was ill. It may sound nasty, but the gift was of a religious nature, and not my particular faith. I feel insulted and don't know what to do about it. They are not close friends, but do know what faith I follow. Should I say something?

Gifts of Faith

Dear Gifts of Faith

Absolutely not. Unless you truly think these people are blatantly and rudely pushing their beliefs in your face, accept the gift graciously with a thank you. You were given a gift as their way of showing appreciation for what you did. Unfortunately, sometimes people who don't know someone well give gifts they think the recipient would, but often it is to their own tastes.

Be grateful that they were thinking of you during a time when their loved one was ill. If it is that distasteful to you, put it away somewhere.

People tend to get insulted over every little thing these days. Maybe everyone should just step back and see the positives behind the action, rather than automatically going on the defensive.

Robin Anderson

Robin Anderson is the winner of Sun Media's national advice competition.

Send questions to advice@sunmedia.ca and read her online at canoe.ca/advice.

Source

This is a nicely written article for those who want to Stop and Quit Smoking with the use of Quit Smoking Hypnotherapy Courses, methods and aids with the help of hypnotherapists in London. Subscribe to Quit Smoking Hypnotherapy London Courses now to get more updates! SAVE YOUR LIFE NOW! GRAB YOUR HOW TO QUIT SMOKING IN A WEEK FLAT BOOK NOW!