I love learning myself! I simply can’t get enough of it on any topic at all . . . AND . . . I am, and have always been a teacher. (I began with my first class of 4-year-olds in a church setting when I was only an eleven-year-old myself! Shortly after that, I was asked to be the music leader in the weekly children’s meeting.) I love writing these newsletters and trying to share with you things that I have found useful in my own life and my years doing Foot Zones. And Butterfly Expressions, LLC is about sharing and educating!
This month’s topic and sale items for the general Butterfly Express, LLC Newsletter are “Immunity and Immune Building”. As Foot Zone therapists, I am making the assumption that each of you understands how critical an understanding of anatomy is to the work you do! I am also assuming that you have made your own study of anatomy and how the Immune System works, so as to enable you to better recognize and understand those things that the feet can reveal about the physical and emotional health of those people you work with.
I have been informed that the majority of you (Foot Zone Therapists) also receive the general Butterfly Express Newsletter. I have gone into quite a lot of detail about the Immune System in that newsletter, and I have also discussed some of the properties of this month’s ‘on sale’ Immune Building products at Butterfly Express, LLC there. I will not be taking the time or space to re-discuss those items here. If you do not get that newsletter sent to you and you are interested, the monthly general Newsletter may be accessed online at ButterflyExpressions.org.
Additional items, more specific and chosen by myself, based on my favorites for possible use during a Foot Zone treatment, will be the topics of this article. I will, however, be including a slightly shorter summation of the General Newsletter here along with a list of those ‘on sale’ items at the end of this article/newsletter. (The promised summary of the Butterfly Expressions General Newsletter can be found at the very end of this article, if you are interested in accessing it that way.)
The Zone, although very ‘energetic’ in nature, brings about real changes in the physical body. Of course, you have all seen both the physical and energetic balancing and healing that the Foot Zone treatment is capable of bringing about! As you can see from the title of this article/newsletter, I will be focusing on energetic responses during a Foot Zone session and how those responses may affect the body’s physical immune system.
As fall rolls in and the air turns crisp, it also brings along an unwelcome guest—“sickness season.” Cooler weather means respiratory viruses and other illnesses tend to pop up more often. Kids in school are exposed to all kinds of germs (and generously share them at home). Plus, when it’s chilly outside, we spend more time indoors and closer to others, making it easier for germs to spread. To make matters worse, cooler temps and drier air create the perfect environment for viruses to stick around longer, both in the air and on surfaces.
The best way to stay healthy is to give your immune system a boost before sickness season kicks into high gear. That way, you can avoid, or at least lessen, the bugs that come your way. But life happens, and sometimes those best-laid plans don’t pan out. That’s where the products in this blog come in. They can help you stay well, bounce back faster, and make those symptoms a whole lot easier to handle.
An allergy is an inappropriate response by the body to a substance that is not harmful to most people. The immune system, which is supposed to protect us from toxins and pathogens, wrongly identifies a substance as harmful to us and goes into action. The response can be anywhere from mildly annoying to symptoms severe enough to create anaphylactic shock. These types of allergies may begin with only mild symptoms but grow worse with each reaction; they are NOT something that a person typically grows out of.
When I saw this month’s topic I got very excited. Allergies can be devastating and have a nasty effect on trying to live life and enjoy it! I had so many allergies—an unbelievable number and to a wide variety of substances—during my childhood and early adulthood. If it blew on the wind, if it was meant to be consumed in a raw or natural state such as watermelon or nearly every kind of vegetable or fruit, or if it was a drug of any sort—even such things as antibiotics, dental deadening, and mouthwashes—I was going to react to it in some uncomfortable or dangerous way. Oh, the list could go on and on! I spent my life either in misery from one allergy or another or I was sleepy from the allergy pills I was taking. Trips to the dentist’s office became scary for me and for the dentist! Eventually, I even started to react to allergy pills of every variety.
As with all true allergies, the reactions to many of my ‘triggers’ got worse with time—much worse, involving my heart in scary ways!
Who am I today as far as allergies are concerned? I have none and haven’t had for many years! I eat whatever I want. Do you have any idea how enjoyable a piece of watermelon or a raw carrot tastes these days? Or how fun it is to be outdoors. I don’t even worry about bee stings these days! If I feel the slightest itch in my throat or eyes or any other allergic-type reaction I simply go back to the things I know. Many of those things will be talked about in this article.
Side Note: Having had some scary reactions to antibiotics and other types of drugs in the past and having lived so many years without them, I can’t really say for sure whether they are still a problem or not. I suspect those allergies have also gone away. I took 2 antibiotic pills and 1 painkiller a while ago (the first of either in 40 years) after some extensive dental work. No reaction at all!
There is, absolutely and without doubt, no road to good health (or recovery from illness and chronic ailments) without good nutrition being a priority every day!
Studies done at the School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, indicate that if a person has a sub-clinical nutritional deficiency, he or she might appear ‘perfectly normal’ except for increased susceptibility to disease, longer recovery time from surgery, adverse reactions to vaccines, extreme fatigue that interferes with normal functioning, depression, insomnia, and irritability.
Richard Revlin, M.D., of the Sloan-Kettering Cancer institute says,
“In the United States today, we rarely see cases of classical vitamin deficiency, such as scurvy and pellagra—to name just a few cited in this article. However, we are now beginning to recognize a vast new series of marginal deficiencies related to disease. Marginal deficiency, it now appears, may be a surprisingly common phenomenon.”
One very important reason herbal remedies work for a particular problem is that the herb has provided one or more vital nutrients that are missing in the diet.
It is important to understand, and remember, that vitamins and minerals chemically constructed in a laboratory cannot fill the nutritional needs of the body. Man has been unable to produce a single molecular structure that is exactly identical to those produced in nature. Laboratories can assemble the correct components in the correct amounts but somewhere in the joining of the atoms will be a rotation to the left that should be rotating to the right. The resulting isomer (that is the scientific word for it) is not bio-identical, no matter what the advertising says. This is as true of hormones and amino acids as it is of vitamins. (Hint: If the supplement you are buying says “L-something or other”, the ‘L’ is a warning that this supplement has been artificially produced in a laboratory and will not be providing the nutrition you think you are getting!
There is a great deal of information about the nutritional components of herbs in the book, Butterfly Miracles with Herbal Remedies which can be purchased at Butterflyexpress.shop. Nutrition and health is a topic that has fascinated me for years. See the full list of topics.
September marks the beginning of flu season. The herbal world is full of so many wonderful things to help us build our immune system and combat the flu when it finds its way into our lives. This month we will focus on building your Immune System and the Herbs, Essential Oils, and Blessed Waters that are my favorite for the Flu Season. Some of the products discussed are particularly loved by children but can always be used for adults as well. See the full list of topics.
This is the time of year that I am aching to get out in my yard and get started. Spring cleanup and all the activities of spring can leave you with lots of aches and pains and that is why I decided to focus this month’s blog on aches, pains, and sprains. This is an area where herbs, essential oils, and homeopathics really shine. Some of the things we are going to talk about have been used in my family for over 40 years. These are staples in my home and I hope learning to use them will be a blessing in yours. Thanks for reading.
See the full list of topics.
January is often a time for reflection and the setting of goals. Often those goals are for healing and improved health. Having the energy to keep ourselves motivated is the key to success and the realization of these goals. Essential oils truly shine when we are dealing with emotions and motivation. This month we will be talking about some of my favorite essential oils for this as well as some essential things for maintaining health and energy. Be sure and check out my online class about the importance of minerals for our health.
See the full list of topics.
In October we will be talking about RESPIRATORY and FLU. As we head into the cold and flu season we thought it was important to review some go-to oils, herbs, and homeopathic that are worth having around this time of year. We have all been in the trenches of the flu ourselves and with our kids. I hope this blog makes any sickness that comes your way this season shorter and less intense. Please see the index at the bottom of the blog for a complete list of topics.