March 2008 Second Sunday Series: Health and Wellness
By C. Elizabeth Peters
On Sunday, March 9, empowered women of all ages and walks of life gathered at the Mountaingate Country Club to celebrate Health and Wellness as part of the Second Sunday Brunch Series. The afternoon started off with the traditional opportunity to shop and network (just as it closed with the traditional long line of ladies eager to give away products and services in a drawing). In keeping with the theme, there were fewer tables selling jewelry and clothing this month and more offering nutritional products. I was once again lucky enough to be treated to a free fifteen minute massage by therapist Tina Meyer.
Desiree Doubrox, the founder of An Empowered Woman, introduced the event by reminding all of us that we were empowered just for showing up and being present. She then gave a beautiful analogy of a healthy body being like a flower; we have all the potential for perfect health stored within our genetic makeup, but we need the proper nourishment to bring it to fruition.
While we dined on poached salmon and three kinds of salad (a healthy meal in keeping with the theme), not one, not two, but seven speakers came up, each with a different perspective on how to stay healthy inside and out!
The first speaker was hypnotherapist Bunny Vreeland, a.k.a. Dr. Bunny. She decided to become a hypnotherapist after seeing how it helped her father heal faster after surgery, and also because it helped her completely overcome severe allergies and migraines. Hypnotherapy can be an effective way to help almost any condition, but Dr. Bunny’s specialty is fears and phobias. In one session, Dr. Bunny had been able to cure a man in his 50’s of his phobia of churches that stemmed from a childhood incident. He was able to walk his daughter down the aisle on her wedding day without any fear.
Jentana Dabbs, a gorgeous woman of Thai descent, talked about how when she was younger, her weight fluctuated. At age 21, she was hospitalized for an eating disorder and depression. From these experiences, she realized the connection between your food and your mood; you can work on your outside appearance all you want, but if you don’t work on the inside beliefs and insecurities, the rest doesn’t make much of a difference. Jentana, now a coach on life balance and wellness, is passionate about food and even spent the previous night baking cookies that were both nutritious and delicious. Her practice is based on the fact that food is part of our spiritual, mental, and emotional life cycle; emotions, like anger, can be as harmful as toxins that can be physically absorbed through food. Therefore, she focuses on helping her clients have a positive relationship with food and a fun, exciting, energetic lifestyle – no starvation allowed!
Wendy Chang, M.D. came from the Southern California Reproductive Center. She was there to remind us women that, as we take on all kinds of career and business endeavors, it’s important to remember that our fertility reserve diminishes with age. She wanted to make sure that women in their 30’s and 40’s were taking care of that aspect of themselves.
Monica Klein is a nutritionist and “professional nag” who started off by asking us if we had made any New Year’s resolutions…and kept them. From the audience reaction, it was clear that most of us had let our resolutions fall by the wayside. Monica said it was fine, and encouraged us to start today! She also talked about how not everybody reacts to different foods in the same way, which is why a personalized nutrition plan is so important. It’s also important to realize that eating less can produce stress hormones, so starving yourself to lose a few is actually very unhealthy.
Dr. Mary Azim is a chiropractor originally from Iran. She is one of seven people in California, and the only female, to be certified in the Pettibone Technique. Using this technique, she is able to look at the whole body and move the spine in a way that takes painful pressure off of the nerves. She said that prevention, however, was the real key to having a healthy back, and the days of the doctor doing it all are over – her clients take part in their healing process.
Bringing the ideas of physical and emotional healing together was Joyce Kenyon, a practitioner of the Radiance Technique, which can be traced back to ancient Egypt. She found the radiance technique after not feeling very “joyful” in her life and did not have success with other healing methods. The Radiance Technique does not add or subtract anything from the body, but rather calls upon the spiritual source of healing that is already within us. As part of the speech, an empowered woman named Bernadette came up and gave a testimonial of how the Radiance Technique healed her severe kidney pain.
Linda Nacif is an author and a speaker on “pro-aging” (as opposed to anti-aging). According to her, aging is a joyful process during with you can celebrate your many years of life as a woman. She then encouraged us to take care of our minds, bodies, and spirits so that we would be old and great. After giving seven steps on how to do that, she closed with a poem by Maya Angelou. She changed the words a bit, though, and soon she had the whole room chanting.
“I am woman, empowered! Empowered woman, that’s me!”
Please join us on Sunday, April 13, as we celebrate Women in Law: You Be the Judge!
