(Episode 77) Depressed? Essential Oils to Help You Navigate Sadness & Depression (Part 1) and (Episode 78) Depressed? Healing Chronic Depression with Essential Oils (Part 2)

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What was your key takeaway from either or both of these episodes? Let us know in the comments below!

Episode 77 Preview

Click here to download a transcript of episode 77.

Globally this is a time of great sadness, anger, and confusion. This level of suffering that is taking place in the world currently is so strong, that as a part of humanity, we are all going to suffer to varying degrees.

When the outer world is in chaos, it’s essential that we cultivate our inner world more deeply. We can create change in the external world by simply changing our individual consciousness. 

In this episode, you’ll learn how to navigate difficult emotions through the use of essential oils.

By using your great privilege and awareness to do inner work, cultivation, learning and self-healing, you can make great contributions to the global healing.

To move through the emotions of grief and sadness, we have to regulate the Qi (energy) of both the Lungs and Liver, as well as the Spleen and Stomach, according to Chinese Medicine. In this episode, you’ll learn why this is important as well as how to do this through the use of essential oils.

You’ll learn all about three specific essential oils — Bergamot, Patchouli, and Cumin — that can help relax your central nervous system to reduce anxiety and depression, and improve sleep and digestion. 

And as you regulate your Qi from the inside to find your light, you can illuminate the darkness in the world.

Resources Mentioned in Episodes 77 & 78

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Episode 78 Preview

Click here to download a transcript of episode 78

When you're feeling down, know that there's always a solution to bring you back. There's a lot to learn from these emotional states, but it's also important to have tools to navigate these emotions to learn from these experiences and to create a ripple effect to heal the collective.

Regulating the Liver is essential to reduce depression, as well as fortifying the Spleen and Stomach.

In this episode, we’re going to focus on invigorating the blood. The blood in Chinese Medicine is said to store the emotions, the trauma, the memories.

Invigorating the blood can help liberate you from depression.

We’ll discuss three oils to help invigorate the blood and alleviate depression: Litsea (which can also relieve anxiety), Frankincense (which is known as a wound healer, physically and emotionally) and Sandalwood (which is also an important oil to relax your nervous system).

Just by smelling the essential oils, you’ll notice a shift in your mood.

At [7:15] Dr. Setareh Moafi will guide you through a gentle breathing exercise that’ll help you understand the important relationship between the Lungs and the Liver. This will also help you understand the power of essential oils that we discuss in both episodes 77 and 78 to relax the Liver and allow you to breathe more deeply.

It’s no wonder that breathing is such an essential part of meditation and relaxation. 

At [10:00] Salvador describes an easy acupuncture point that opens the diaphragm and can be used to apply these essential oils to relieve nausea, aid digestion, breathe more deeply and relax your chest for anxiety.

At [11:02] Salvador shares a formula of essential oils you can use to create a bath to help you sleep, reduce anxiety and calm your nervous system at the end of a stressful day.

You’ll also learn how to use the essential oils as a tool to address more chronic depression at [14:24].

At [16:57] you’ll learn the risks of taking a lot of supplements, as well as why it’s so important to limit the amount of information, food and stimulation you take in to prevent and reduce depression.

At [18:15] you’ll learn how coffee and dark chocolate may not be as beneficial as you might think when you’re dealing with anxiety and depression.

The essential oils can be powerful to liberate you from chronic sadness and depression. The work you do on an individual level will enhance the collective and make you more available for what the world is needing right now.

What was your key takeaway from either or both of these episodes? Let us know in the comments below!

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(Episode 70) Unleashing Your Power

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In episode 67 you learned how you can use the Water Path to ground yourself and in episode 69 we discussed how the Fire Path can help you to lighten up. In this episode, you’ll learn how you can use the Water Path to generate energy to tap into your power and potential.

The Fire Path creates short term energy bursts, while the Water Path gives you endurance and stamina. But in order to have more energy, you have to rest.

You’ll learn a special Water Path breathing exercise to help you generate power and realize that you’re much stronger than you think [06:10].

We often think we have to exert a lot of energy to achieve our goals (Fire energy) but if we rest and use intention (Water energy) we become more powerful than we ever believed we could be.

There is unlimited potential within us, but we often don’t tap into it because we try to do it through striving instead of through cultivating ourselves. The actions we do or want to do are just as important as the intentions behind those actions.

Water Path breathing is stabilizing and is a great practice for any standing or movement activity.

It’s important to have intention around your posture because not paying attention to where your energy is going can lead to burnout.

Awareness is the first step to healing and the first step to maintain and build your energy. When you do the Water Path breathing exercise while you’re sitting or standing, you’ll not only cultivate your Qi, but you’ll also strengthen your Spleen, which is a major component of your gut health.

Improving your gut health or maintaining your gut health is essential to your mental clarity. Many of the neurotransmitters and hormones we once thought were produced in the brain are actually produced in the gut.

When you sit or stand for long periods it taxes the Spleen, as does overthinking, and all of this eventually impacts your body’s ability to produce neurotransmitters. This can cause you to feel more depressed or feel off in some way. You won’t be able to focus, and it effects your immune system. 70% of your immune cells are produced in your gut.

The other important thing to remember is hydration which is discussed in depth at the end of the episode.

Once you’ve listened, let us know your experience in the comments below!

Resources Mentioned This Episode:

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(Episode 69) Lighten Up: How to Cultivate your Fire Energy

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The burden of stress can create tension in the body and mind. By learning how to work with the Fire Path, you can learn how to use this breathing method to relax and loosen chronic tension patterns and ease the burden of mental and emotional strain so you can lighten up. This is especially important if you struggle with anxiety and depression, and generally it’s for all during the Fire season of Summer.

While it’s important to be grounded and to practice earthing, which we discussed in Episode 67, it’s also important to have buoyancy in life, and to be able to lift your mood when life feels heavy.

You’ll learn specific exercises you can do right at home, or anywhere, to release stagnant Fire energy and bring lightness to your body, heart and mind.

Dr. Setareh and Salvador share about the power of shaking, dancing, and finding other ways to express your Fire energy, as well as a visualization exercise to open up the Fire Path in your body.

Harmonizing the Fire and Water Paths is essential and in this episode you’ll also learn which of the paths to focus on at any given time to ground yourself and lighten up.

Once you’ve listened, let us know your experience in the comments below!

Resources Mentioned This Episode:

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(Episode 68) Demystifying Internal Martial Arts with Brandon Gilbert

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Click here to download a transcript of our conversation with Brandon.

This episode we welcome back previous guest speaker Brandon Gilbert (Episode 58). In the last episode, Brandon shared about medicinal mushrooms and tonic herbs, but today he’s going to share more about his personal cultivation practices, including the ancient practice of Nei Gong.

Meet Brandon Gilbert, Founder of Hyperion Herbs

Brandon Gilbert has been deeply interested in studying Eastern philosophy since the age of 14. A serial entrepreneur, he started his first business in 2006 after going deep in the alternative health field to resolve his own health issues.

Brandon felt motivated to share his views and experiences with a larger audience. He created the YouTube channel HyperionTv.com in 2009, built up a following, then founded Hyperion Herbs in 2010 to share purely potent tonic herbs and make them accessible and easily available like never before.

Brandon has taught many classes and workshops both online and in person on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from alternative health and healing modalities, herbalism, internal arts and Eastern philosophy.

In addition to running Hyperion Herbs and Hyperion TV, Brandon spends and invests many hours every day training internal arts like Qigong, Neigong, Tai Chi, Chuan and various sitting practices.

Introduction to the Internal Martial Arts

In this week’s episode you’ll learn all about the nuances between similar (often mistakenly interchangeable) terms of internal martial arts such as: Qi Gong, Nei Gong, and Tai Chi.

Many of these internal martial arts believe that our spiritual self, qi, is interconnected with the physical body, shen. If you benefit one the other can benefit, and if you degrade one, the other can degrade as well. In this episode you’ll learn how they are similar and how they greatly differ with one another.

Unfortunately, in our modern-day society it’s the norm to always be stressed, to always be in conflict, and to be overstimulated. This creates blockages in your channels, creating physical and mental ailments. If you slow down and practice these internal arts, your body and mind will heal.

Be sure to listen in to hear the warning Brandon gives about jumping head first into these practices. If you jump into these seated practices before cultivating your body health issues can arise. You also may feel spacey or ungrounded as a result.

Often times, when you work on the body, feeling more internally comfortable and at ease in your physiology, your mental problems like anxiety or depression, naturally ease. It’s like your mind is taking a sigh of relief, releasing these heavy weights of mental problems.

Minds are stubborn and it can be really challenging to change them. Instead you can use your body to change your mind. It’s very empowering when you do these mindfulness practices through the internal martial arts.

Once you’ve listened, let us know your experience in the comments below!

Resources Mentioned This Episode:

Gain exclusive insights and support so you can begin your journey From Surviving to Thriving now.

Balance your yin and yang energies to shift mental, physical, and emotional patterns that would otherwise lead to accelerated aging, illness, and disease — click here to learn how with the Microcosmic and Macrocosmic Orbit meditations.

Experience a life of endless possibilities by downloading this free audio guide.

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(Episode 67) Grounding: The Secret to Longevity

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According to the Chinese luni-solar calendar, Summer began on May 6th in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s important to cool down both physically and energetically at this, as well as if you tend to feel anxious, restless or have inflammation in general. In this episode, you’ll learn how to achieve this by doing a variety of easy daily practices.

Many people think they should exercise vigorously all year round to be healthy, however it is best to live life seasonally. As Dr. Setareh says in this episode to be healthy year round is, “to live with the rhythm of nature.”

Summer is associated with the Fire Element, which can cause us to feel more stimulated, anxious, restless, distractible, and emotional.

To ease these seasonal effects — and if you tend to generally be anxious, restless or have inflammation — it’s important to cool your body down by grounding, rather than by overexerting with vigorous exercise.

There are many ways to ground yourself. A few examples are by practicing qi gong, meditation, yoga, mindfulness, and by being in the moment and not living in the past nor future.

By focusing on the cooling aspects of these practices, you can help anchor the Fire from this season within yourself.

You’ll learn two go-to exercises Dr. Setareh and Salvador recommend for grounding in this episode!

Once you’ve listened, let us know your experience in the comments below!

Resources Mentioned This Episode:

Experience a life of endless possibilities by downloading this free audio guide.

Balance your yin and yang energies to shift mental, physical, and emotional patterns that would otherwise lead to accelerated aging, illness, and disease — click here to learn how with the Microcosmic and Macrocosmic Orbit meditations.

Loved this episode?

Please subscribe and consider rating & reviewing our podcast on Apple Podcasts. Five star reviews help us reach & support more listeners like you. You can also follow us on Spotify to be the first to hear about new & bonus episodes!

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(Episode 29) Your Issues are in Your Tissues: How Trauma Can Lead to Chronic Pain with Denise Alberto

by Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac. & Salvador Cefalu, M.S., L.Ac.

Once you’ve listened, let us know in the comments below—how is your body speaking to you?

Our guest today is our dear friend, Denise Alberto—a physical therapist and pelvic pain specialist. Denise is a Bay Area native who earned her B.S. in Psychology from St. Mary’s College and holds a Master’s degree in Physical Therapy from University of St. Augustine.

Denise Alberto developed a keen interest in treating the spine, especially the pelvic/SI (sacroiliac) region. With continued education, she has developed a unique approach to treating chronic pain syndrome and pelvic region dysfunction.

Denise Alberto has a distinct passion to help couples with unconsummated marriage and sexual pain issues. In addition, she emphasizes the mind-body connection in her post-traumatic stress recovery and resorts to local practitioners—among them are acupuncturists, chiropractors, massage therapists—to help heal her patients.

Denise Alberto realized her passion for physical therapy early on, as she began working for a physical therapist after graduating from college. She went on to obtain her Master’s in Physical Therapy and started a thriving but demanding practice. It was during her early years of practice as a physical therapist that Denise Alberto realized her own health needed attention.

Denise’s personal journey to address her health led her to a very resourceful course on pelvic health that encouraged her to further pursue the specialty, eventually becoming a pelvic physical therapist. 

Denise emphasizes that in addition to using physical touch during treatments, she encourages patients to face the emotional entanglements of their trauma. It is only through facing these entanglements that we begin to experience emotional and physiological healing.

Denise elaborates that as a therapist she holds room or space for strength so patients are able to process and release wounds that are causing their trauma, especially since patients may feel at their most vulnerable during these moments. 

Chronic pain patterns are often accompanied by uncomfortable feelings or past experiences and Denise believes that additional support is often needed to tackle these feelings as she works with healing the physical body.

In these instances, she turns to other healers like acupuncturists, massage therapists and often refers her patients to psychologists. This holistic approach that aims to empower patients almost always results in healing. 

Practices to help support your body

Diaphragmatic breath: helps relax and support lung function (oxygen exchange).

Pelvic diaphragm breathing: can help move your viscera and ease tension in your organs. 

Psoas stretching: can help improve and strengthen tight or tense psoas muscles.

Yin Yoga: the following Yin Yoga practices can be helpful in improving your flexibility and introducing you to deep breathing:

Breathe Deeply: Yoga for the Lung & Liver Meridians

Yin Yoga Integration to Release Your Arms, Shoulders & Neck

Yin Yoga Integration for Flexibility 

References:

Denise Alberto’s website: https://www.denisealberto.com/

An article by Dr. Mirkin (coined the RICE method) on Why Ice Delays Recovery

Once you’ve listened, let us know in the comments below—how is your body speaking to you?

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(Episode 7) How to Open Your Heart to Experience True Love

by Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac. & Salvador Cefalu, M.S., L.Ac.

Once you’ve listened, let us know in the comments below — how did the two tips we shared in this episode impact your life?

Not a fan of Valentine’s Day? You’re not alone. In the midst of a pandemic, it’s easy to feel more isolated and more alone than ever. And when we’re triggered, it’s especially important to cultivate tools to help us feel better about our lives.

In this episode we’ll discuss how opening your heart can help you experience the truest and most authentic love — self-love — and how experiencing this love can allow you to experience miracles and endless possibilities.




A Brief History of Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day was created to replace a pagan holiday called Lupercalia that was practiced February 13-15 in Rome. The focus was purification that would help ward off evil and removing curses that were causing infertility.

The Catholics eventually made a celebration of St. Valentine in its place. St. Valentine was a healer who is said to heal his jailer’s daughter of blindness.

This can be used as a metaphor for Chinese Medicine’s idea of vaporizing phlegm, which is a process that occurs when you open your Heart to then be able to experience miracles.

It can be more challenging to experience an open heart during holidays like Valentine’s Day when you may feel you’re being forced to open your heart.

So what’s necessary? Forgiveness.

It’s also important to focus on the love you feel for yourself — the depth and truth of the meaning of self-love; to know yourself, to feel self-esteem, self-confidence and self-worth. Because your relationships with others are rooted in your relationship with yourself and the love you feel for yourself.

If you don’t feel good about yourself or you’re judging yourself or feeling guilt about something you’ve done in the past then you inhibit the Lungs from expressing their virtue, which is forgiveness.

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The Fire & Metal Elements

According to the Five Element system of Chinese Medicine, the Heart is part of the Fire element and the Lungs are encompassed in the Metal element. These two elements have an important relationship. In an optimal state, the Fire energy of the Heart helps to control the Metal energy of the Lungs which tends to be critical and even judgmental.

But when there’s an imbalance of Metal energy, which can cause feelings of regret and judgment of oneself and others, this can insult the Fire energy, oppressing the Heart’s ability to open and therefore give and receive love.

The Metal energy is also associated with forgiveness, which reflects your ability to let go. The Lungs let go of the breath and the Large Intestine, or colon, which is the other Metal element organ, lets go of toxins through the excretion of waste.

Forgiveness is a virtue of the Metal element. When you’re able to forgive, you free the Lungs and allow the Heart to open.

Through the action of letting go, we can experience the depth of forgiveness to allow the vaporization of phlegm in the Heart so you can experience miracles.

Letting go also anchors us fully into the present moment. Fire energy is about being in the moment. This is reflected in love, in being in the zone, in being in a flow state — all experiences that only happen when you’re fully present.

When people have Heart Fire manifesting as anxiety, nervousness and overstimulation of the mind they often reach for active exercise. But this creates a lot of heat in the body, which creates an acidic state in the blood that then exacerbates anxiety.

We reach for this type of exercise to release stress but also since the Lungs are overwhelmed, subconsciously we may be wanting to do intensive exercise to open the diaphragm and free the Lungs and this often doesn’t help in this way.

Chinese exercises like Qi Gong and Tai Chi are slow because the idea is to quiet the system and quiet the mind to reduce the static energy in the body and allow for the smooth flow of Qi to circulate.


2 Tips to Cultivate a Feeling of Self-Love

Tip #1 Alkalize Your Diet

Cultivating self-love involves freeing the Lungs to open the Heart to experience self-love and therefore endless possibilities and miracles.

When there’s Heart Fire, you can’t settle the mind and be still in the moment very easily. Heart Fire is a state of heat in the blood that manifests as an acidic terrain in the body. This is a concern when people are utilizing a ketogenic diet because establishing ketosis creates an acidic state in the body.

Heat generated by your diet can spread to all the organ systems.

We often think we’re healthy and on trend with diet, but nutrition and diet is highly personalized so not all trends will be pertinent to your particular body.

Fat can generate dampness and protein generates heat and too much of either creates an acidic state which can be dangerous for people with weak Kidneys as the Kidneys try to clear this acidity.

Greens are especially important to clear this heat, especially the bitter greens like dandelion, chard and spinach.

In Chinese Medicine, we say it’s important to cook your foods so avoid kale and spinach salads which can damage your digestive system and impede the function of the Spleen and Stomach organ systems. It’s better to cook greens and eat them with any meal throughout the day.

Fresh water algae have a cooling effect and are also high in protein for those looking for additional protein sources. These can include chlorella, spirulina and phytoplankton. You can also have more seaweed in your diet.

Drinking chlorophyll or chlorella or any of the fresh water algae help to cool down the system so they can calm your nervous system but should be taken moderately especially during the cooler Winter months.

Chlorophyll is made from alfalfa sprouts and can help start your day with an alkalizing effect.

If you have a busy mind, this can indicate excessive Fire that can also be accompanied by a lot of thinking and processing. Meditation and relaxation practices are also important, but diet is most important.

Placing your tongue on the tip of your mouth during Meditation can also help you cool Heart Fire.

If you have a cherry tip tongue, this indicates Heart Fire.

To learn more about the topic of Heart Fire, go to acenterfornaturalhealing.com/blog and type in “heart fire” in the search bar for more support.

Tip #2: Breathe Deeply and Retain Your Exhalation

When a person is nervous or anxious, they breathe shallow and this causes a buildup of carbonic acid.

When you take a deep breath and hold your exhalation, this helps release the carbonic acid and it helps you settle more into the moment.

Salvador guides this breathing exercise. Breathing out of the mouth helps clear heat and clear the Fire from your Heart.

Remember that it takes time to calm a body that’s acidic. Give yourself time to do a daily practice and you’ll see how your day will change — you’ll be less anxious, the day will seem to go more slowly and your life won’t pass by so quickly. As you can imagine, this is a technique of longevity and to reduce the aging process. This is why tortoises are one of the longest living creatures on earth, because they’re so slow.

As you slow down, yo’ll be able to naturally experience self-love, which is the natural state of Fire energy when it’s in balance.

You may feel a sense of joy begin to bubble up, which is a reflection of this balance in the Fire energy.

We hope holidays like Valentine’s Day can feel like an opportunity rather than something that triggers you to feel bad about yourself because you can change your experience of any experience to change the experience itself.

Now, we want to hear from you — how have these tips impacted your life? Let us know in the comments below!

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