Dr. Esther Sternberg, author of Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and WellBeing explains how she was drawn to the field of mind/body medicine by the interactions with a single patient, whose recovery motivated her to discover the connection between the brain and immune system. She describes how the body responds to stressful events. Fortunately, our bodies have many stress-reducing mechanisms, including the ‘relaxation response’ which is a way to ‘reset’ the stress response and bring balance back into our lives.

She shares some of the anecdotes from her book, Healing Spaces, including how views of nature enhance the healing process, especially for people who are hospitalized. Art and music therapy are also potent forces for healing. When someone looks at certain scenes, it can evoke pleasant memories that can help replace stressful feelings. There are sacred locations that also offer healing, even when there is no physical cure. At places like Lourdes, France, sometimes miraculous cures do occur. She also discusses other many health benefits that result from prayer, meditation, and creating a healing space between two people who care about each other. For more information, please visit www.esthersternberg.com

NOTE: Dr. Sternberg will be speaking at 4:00pm on Monday, April 30 at the University of Minnesota, with the Center for Spirituality and Healing ( www.csh.umn.edu) and May 1, at 7pm at The Marsh in Minnetonka, MN ( www.themarsh.com)

Listen: Esther Sternberg

Childhood obesity has become an epidemic. So we invited Melanie Nelson, Founder and CEO of Learning ZoneXpress, to discuss how we can make nutrition fun for kids so they don’t become obese. Using her background as a family and consumer science teacher, Melanie is committed to creating helpful products that encourage children to eat healthy foods. In this interview, Melanie discusses the My Plate concept that has replaced the Food Pyramid as a guideline for healthy eating. She then shares various tips for parents. For example, If a child consistently eats fruits and vegetables first during meals, they will not develop a weight problem. Melanie discusses low cost ways for getting the best foods into a child’s diet. Fortunately, school systems are being responsive to the concern about children’s eating habits. Learn how several positive changes have occurred regarding children and nutrition. However there is still more to be done as far as educating children in a creative way. Melanie’s company, Learning ZoneXpress, has developed a video that encourages children to consume enough water, to laugh, limit themselves to 2 hours of screen time or less, and engage in 1 hour of activity. For more information, please visit www.learningzonexpress.com.

Listen: Melanie Nelson

Our guest, Julie Silver is a doctor at Harvard, mom, cancer survivor and author of You Can Heal Yourself: A Guide to Physical and Emotional Recovery After Injury or Illness. Dr. Silver shares her own experience of “knowing something was wrong,” despite 2 physicians reassuring her that “everything was fine.” Eventually she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Based on her own and her patients’ experiences, she discusses the pros and cons of accepting a ‘new normal’ before a person’s post-treatment quality of life is actually experienced. Dr. Silver shares her observations regarding the effect of stress and the impact of positive and negative emotions.Then, she discusses some of her own self-care practices including movement and exercise. Exercise can speed up the healing process. It improves memory and concentration and is the most powerful medicine we can take, affecting every cell in our body in a positive way.

Regarding pain,mood and sleeplessness, these often are cluster symptoms that worsen when all are present together. Specific strategies can help reduce stress, sleeplessness and pain, after we first check to see what the cause of these symptoms might be. For example, one suggestion for sleeplessness is to first reflect up why it’s so hard to fall or stay asleep. Then develop a ‘sleep hygiene” strategy, including avoiding heavy meals, caffeine, and exercising before bedtime. Tune in for more great suggestions from Dr. Silver. For more information, please visit www.juliesilvermd.com

Listen: Julie Silver

Mary Hayes Grieco’s new book is Unconditional Forgiveness: A Simple and Proven Method to Forgive Everyone and Everything, which is based on her work as founder and director of Midwest Institute for Forgiveness Training. Mary begins our conversation with a description of a recent forgiveness training she did for women in Kuwait. Her model for forgiveness includes eight “stages to freedom” which are spiritually based but very appropriate for people of all faith backgrounds and traditions. To Mary, forgiveness is a process for releasing an expectation that is causing us to suffer. it’s a private act that one does for oneself to release stuck energy. The benefits of forgiveness are for the forgiver but also ripple into the person’s relationships with others. She shares stories that demonstrate the effect of a person’s ability to forgive another. The eight steps are 1) Being willing to move forward, 2) Express and release emotional pain 3) Release expectations from your mind, 4) Restore your personal boundaries, 5) Open up to get your needs met in a different way. 6) Receive healing energy from the Universe; 7) Send unconditional love to the other person or situation and release them; See the good in another person and discern what was learned from the experience. Mary discusses some of the steps and shares powerful stories about people who’ve forgiven others that have done them tremendous harm. Mary provides hope and inspiration for anyone who also may have experienced trauma in their own lives. For more information please visit www.maryhayesgrieco.com.

Listen: Mary Hayes Grieco

Dr. Alex Lanning and Margaret Lulic discuss how our homes have a tremendous influence on our health and wellbeing. Dr. Lanning is a holistic chiropractor and Margaret is a consulting philosopher and author of Home Inspired by Love and Beauty. They share ideas about what we can do in our homes to make them healthier. Margaret suggests people ‘listen to the sounds of their home” and decide if they are healing and calming or have a negative effect upon us. Sounds affect the beauty of your home. Alex discusses the importance of using natural cleaning products and reducing clutter. “Taking the temperature of our home” is like noticing the ambient temperature of our bodies so our homes should be too warm or cold. We can take the temperature of our home by noticing how we feel when we enter our homes: is our heart racing or do we feel relaxed? Margaret stresses the need for creating a workplace environment that also fosters wellbeing, including incorporating plants.

Host Mary Treacy O’Keefe describes how the Well Within office was created to be a healing and welcoming space for all who visit it. The colors were determined by a Feng Shui expert, who, together with the staff, cleared then blessed the space before anyone moved in.

Alex and Margaret will be speaking at an event, From House to Home on March 24 in the Twin Cities, where they will discuss more about having a relationship with your home that enhances your health and wellbeing. For more information please visit our guests’ websites: www.kinetichealing.com and www.mlulic.com

Listen: Alex Lanning

New York Times bestselling author of more than 300 books, articles and audio programs, Dr. Eldon Taylor, discusses his just-released book, I Believe: When What You Believe Matters. He shares some of the results of over 25 years of research, plus personal and other anecdotes that demonstrate how our beliefs affects our health, and personal and professional success. For example, when both an individual and his or her physician share the belief that a cure is possible, it’s much more likely that it will occur for those living with serious illnesses. Our environments and the inner messages we tell ourselves also have a profound effect upon healing and wellbeing. Eldon has developed a patented InnerTalk program and includes a free CD with his new book.

He also discusses the dichotomy between the value of visualizing good health and the need to detach from specific outcomes in order to empower healing. From a spiritual standpoint, when we turn our requests over to a greater plan and Higher Power, miracles happen. He shares an effective prayer for detaching: “This or something better according to the highest good of all concerned.” He recommends thinking of ourselves as an experience or verb, rather than a noun. When doing this, we define ourselves by the relationships we have with others rather than material possessions. To Eldon, integrity is the foundation of his most important beliefs and values.

At the end of the interview, Mary shares a ‘meant to be’ story about three signs that recently brought comfort to a grieving mother. For more information about Eldon Taylor and how you can obtain numerous gifts (including a free gift from Mary) after purchasing his new book, please visit www.eldontaylor.com.

Listen: Eldon Taylor

All healing is self-healing, coming from within, according to Dr. Susan Allison in her new book, “The Empowered Healer: Gain the Confidence, Power and Ability to Heal Yourself.” She illustrates this by sharing her personal story of fostering healing for her husband who was diagnosed with larynx cancer, part of which was inoperable. By using a powerful use of a meditative trance involving visualization and calling in guides and helpers, all trace of his cancer disappeared ( although it did reappear years later). Dr. Allison explains how each person’s path toward healing differs, so a program of healing must resonate individually. An effective healing team consists of both a “spiritual” network of guides and an “earthly” one that includes a medical doctor plus whatever holistic therapists are most useful.

The belief that we can heal ourselves is crucial. Intuition is “God’s reset button” so it’s important to tune into the wisdom that comes from it. Our bodies, minds and spirit are our friends in the healing process. Dr. Allison’s book contains several exercises to help us tune into these sources of information. In discussing the difference between miracles and self-healing, she offers the insight that we are co-creators with God, as ‘part and particle of God’, when we do our own work yet also allow the Spirit coming through us to foster healing. The first step toward self-healing is to clear any negative beliefs about ourselves and deal with unresolved issues. Another technique is visualization so Dr. Allison shares a simple visualization technique that involves going to a personal sacred space in your mind. Meditation is another powerful tool for healing, by creating a peacefulness inside us, enabling us to handle health challenges with grace. Another important step is the “Buddhist Breath” meditation, which also helps with sleeping. To learn more about Dr. Susan Allison, please visit www.empoweredhealer.com.

Listen: Susan Allison

This week’s guest is Joan Steffend, popular TV and personality and author of And She Sparkled. Although her professional success and personal accomplishments have filled her with gratitude, Joan always felt as if there was much more to life than what she had already achieved. Her book is a little gem of wisdom about a young woman who learns to honor her own specialness and brilliance. Joan describes how the book relates to her own experience of not feeling valued enough and how this insecurity affects so many of us, despite the outward appearance of our success. She shares suggestions for how parents can help their children “find their sparkle.” She also provides information about how doing meaningful work helped her ‘find her sparkle’, especially regarding her current passion, a non-profit organization, Peace Begins with Me Project. For more information, please visit www.joansteffend.com.

Listen: Joan Steffend

Do you often feel overwhelmed by ‘information overload’ caused you to be constantly distracted and disorganized? This week’s guests will help you! They are the co-authors of a fascinating book, Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life: Train Your Brain to Get More Done in Less Time. Paul Hammerness, MD is a clinical researcher on ADHD and assistant of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Margaret Moore, aka Coach Meg, is the founder and CEO of Wellcoaches Corporation, a leader in building international standards for professional coaches in health and wellbeing. She also is affiliated with Harvard Medical School as a founding advisor of the Institute of Lifestyle Medicine.

Dr. Hammerness and Coach Meg have developed six “Rules of Order” to help us better manage our emotions and harmonize and focus the various “thinking” parts of our brains. When our mind is better organized, we become better-focused, more attentive, less distracted and able to adapt to new situations. We discuss their book’s organizing principles or “Rules of Order” that are the hallmarks of an attentive, focused brain, one that can shift, adapt and function at maximum effectiveness. The first step is Taming the Frenzy which gets the thinking areas of the brain more engaged to help manage negative emotions and manage distractions. Second step is Sustain Attention, which helps us become more mindful of how we are feeling and how to stay more focused on our tasks. Applying the Brakes, the third step, means exercising “inhibitory control” when we become able to restrain or regulate our attention. In discussing step four, Dr. Hammerness explains how to “Mold Information” and not jump to a different task and use our memory to stay focused and become better organized.

Coach Meg explains step five, “Shift Set”, the ability to be flexible in thoughts and behaviors. She provides tips for improving our memory, including the value of shifting perspectives rather than being rigid, which enables us to be more “cognatively agile.” Cognative flexibility enables us to shift attention fully to something else yet still be able to return and complete other tasks rather than multi-tasking. The final rule of order is “Connecting the Dots”, which can enhanced by working with a coach to help us elicit new insights and perspectives to obtain new clarity and focus, enabling us to “connect to the dots” and see the big picture and act on it.

For more information about our guests and their new book, please visit: www.organizeyourmind.com

Listen: Dr Hammerness

This week we discuss the incredible memoir written by our guest, Rob Cabitto, author of The Fractured Life of 3743: A Journey to Redemption. Rob is a Native American Indian from the Karuk Tribe, and 3743, his tribal roll number, identifies his Native blood and heritage. After nearly being set on fire by his biological father and because of the severe addictions of his parents, Rob was put up for adoption when he was five years old. He shares his story of living untethered to any spiritual, tribal, or social belief system and the consequences associated with living an amoral lifestyle. His young adult years left him homeless, penniless, jobless and battling numerous addictions, bereft of meaning or direction. Rob speaks authentically about how he overcame tremendous obstacles as a child only to make self-destructing choices into adulthood.

Rob also informs us about how some of the Native American traditions, including a vision quest, helped him heal. His journey toward wellbeing is insightful, inspiring and filled with a universal message of hope. For more information please visit www.robcabitto.com.

Listen: Rob Cabitto