Yin Wellness

Discover Your Natural Vitality

Health Blogs

Un-Claim Your Shame

by 1 Comment

Shame is one of the most debilitating emotions a human can endure in this life, and for many it can last a lifetime.

What is Shame, actually?

Let’s break it down. Physically shame feels like a sinking inward, a recoiling of the heart, a rounding of the shoulders, a posture of protection. Emotionally it is an oppression of your inner flame. Shame is when you are made to feel like you did something wrong, weather that is the case or not. Shame gets lodged in your body in an instant and can forever get triggered each time you are reminded of that scenario or feeling. So, one small moment in time has the ability to form your path for life, if you let it.

As I pull together 20 of the world’s leading experts on Love, Sex, and Relationships for my 3rd annual Tele Summit “Alchemy of Sex, “ the topic of Shame is coming up quite a bit. What is Shame? Where does it come from? How can you heal it? All of these questions are answered in this year’s Free Virtual Summit, so keep an eye out for that in Sept.

You may remember a time when you were a child and an older sibling or parent shamed you for an action that you took in perfect innocence. Like the time your mom yelled at you for drawing on the walls with your crayons, or that time your older brother made fun of you and teased you for the way you played pretend with your stuffed animals. Shame can shut you down. These are mild examples, and in some cases shame can come from sexual, physical or verbal abuse, but the truth is unless your experience of shame has been acknowledged, addressed and healed it can affect you just as deeply no matter how severe or “normal” it was.

Shame is a rabbit hole that keeps going and going, until you learn to stop it, clear it and un-claim it.

To un-claim your shame is to no longer have it on your radar, meaning that it doesn’t even occur to you to feel shame. Growing up in Southern California in a small town near L.A. there where beautiful girls in my high school class who were getting boob jobs and nose jobs at 16; image was everything! I knew I had to be thin and pretty and smart or I would never be loved or accepted. Not by the boys at school, not by my friends, and certainly not by my parents.

This message of “not being enough” might sound familiar to you. It’s a message that is imprinted onto you throughout your life and it carries on into your early adult hood, keeping you from living out your fullest potential in this world. It dims the light within you that is your vitality, creativity, confidence, and authentic drive.

This deep sense of shame can inhibit you well into your 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and beyond, it will affect you relationships, your finances, and your health if you do not choose a different path. A path of being worthy!

Now let’s talk about shame in regards to sex. If you were fortunate, your first sexual encounters were with a significant other in a safe and supportive space.
If you were anything like me, on the other had, it was the exact opposite. It was far from safe and far from supportive, it may have even been nonconsensual. Causing you to shut down your pleasure centers and associate sexuality with being bad or wrong.

That’s no way to live!

Sex is one of the most beautiful gifts we have been given in this lifetime. When you are unable to open this gift and see all the beauty inside you are missing one of the most magical parts of the human experience.

So how do you heal from shame, much less un-claim it?

You have to start by identifying that there is shame. It can be helpful to know where it comes from, pinpoint the incident or time in your life.

Exercise: Un-claim Your Shame

I recommend finding a special place in nature or in your home where you can be still and quiet enough to tune into the place in your body that you feel shame, notice the sensation of it. Is it tight, constricting, numb, dull, achy, or sharp? Does it limit your breath capacity; does it affect your heartbeat? What happens to your nervous system when you feel this shame?

Once you have identified where it is in your body, and what it feels like place your hands there and begin to breathe into that place, expanding your inhale consciously into that place to create more space there. If you would like to you can exhale with a sound, maybe an “AAAA,” sound to begin with, which might morph into deeper throatier sounds or even animalist growling sounds. Repeat that breath, using the inhale to create space and using the exhale to release and clear out the current sensations of shame from your body. Do this as long as necessary until you feel the sensation in you body change.

Depending on how long the shame has been there and how deeply you feel it, you will want to keep doing this practice. I have had clients clear substantial amounts of shame in 1-3 of these sessions, for others it can take 1-3 months. You will know when you are complete; trust your deep inner knowing.

One of the things shame does is take you away from trusting yourself, and you will see that the more you clear the sensation of shame the more you will begin to trust yourself, and your future will unfold in a new direction.

Through this unfolding, you will begin to stand up for yourself, your confidence will rise and you will begin to experience a deep sense of knowing that you are worthy of love, you are worthy of joy, and you have worth.

I encourage you to find support on this journey of un-claiming your shame, as it is helpful to have an objective perspective while working out the stories that created this shame to begin with. Shame gets so ingrained in your consciousness; it can be difficult to separate yourself from “it.”

I am here in full support of your break-through; please don’t hesitate to reach out!

I am wishing you a life full of joy, light, vitality and phenomenal self worth!

Willow Brown L.Ac.

Cranio-Sacral with Dolphins!

by Leave a Comment

What is Cranio-Sacral anyway? Most people know it feels good and it works wonders, but what is it really?

Here’s my one liner: It is a healing modality that uses the rhythm of your cerebral spinal fluid to realign your skeletal system so that your entire nervous system can reset.

My patients rise from the table and feel like they’re floating away. Many report having visual experiences, deep releases of physical pain, and sometimes tears of joy or tears of pain will flow forth in a movement toward complete healing.

Recently I had the honor of fulfilling a lifelong dream of traveling down to the Bahamas to do cranio-sacral work with very sick patients in the water surrounded by healing dolphins. It was a profound and powerful journey to say the least.

Here is the message that both the patients and myself heard from the dolphins:

We are a web of healing, of pain, of light and of dark. We feel one another without even knowing the other’s story. We integrate whether we want to or not and whether we’d like to admit it or not this makes us stronger.

The power we possess when we unite as one is limitless and can heal the entire planet. How we touch each other’s lives and how we blend into each other’s energy is profound and can carry us to the moon and back if we let it.

The feelings of doubt, inadequacy and unworthiness peak when we disconnect from this web.

When we try to separate ourselves and become independent from one another, this mistake can lead you astray for a lifetime – if you let it. But if you stop to listen, to tune in, you will hear the universe speaking to you saying lean in!

Lean in to the support, the messages, the hearts, the vibrations, and the sounds that are carrying you on this journey!

The reality is that you are not separate from the person next to you. Nor are you separate from the bird, the ant, or the dolphin next to you. Inside the unity of this world you have EVERYTHING you need to succeed! In love, in relationship, in pleasure in light, in acknowledgements and in riches; you have the choice to tune into this ever-present web of life, and use it to your advantage.

No matter who you are, you are here; therefore you are gifted, blessed and alive!

No matter what your traumas are or your pain or the injustices you have suffered, your root is your essence and your essence is a ray of light. So shine your light, shine it as bright as you can and don’t shrink in the light of another, don’t shy away from the magic you possess.

There will be times of turbulence, there will be times of stillness, and there will be moments in between in which you can just glide through life. Do your best to appreciate them all!

They are all part of the web, they need each other to continue to thrive. The ever-present expansions and contractions that life brings are crucial to the ongoing vitality that comes through you.

Even in death there is a final expansion followed by a final contraction and as you ride that last wave (in this life) you have the opportunity to leave a legacy behind!

What legacy do you want to leave behind? How do you want to be felt by others? Tune into that and start embodying that feeling now!

The only thing that ever gets in your way is you! So step aside my friend and let the energy of life take over!

I will never forget this powerful experience I had with these healing dolphins, nor will I forget the amazing results each patient got from being in the water and get worked on by multiple therapists, including dolphins!

It was delightfully joyful, deeply spiritual, and sensuous through and through!

Sending you Dolphin Kisses!

Willow Brown L.Ac.

Lightning of Love Strikes Again!

by Leave a Comment

As I watch the sun set on another magical day in the Bahamas, I feel the moon rising over my shoulder, and I revel in the power of the masculine and feminine powers that reside on this planet!

Not only are we blessed by the expansion and contraction of nature’s majestic ways, but we’re also blessed with some incredibly powerful leaders in the field that most addresses the ebb and flow of the sexes, Sacred Sexuality.

We find ourselves in some interesting times right now, as shadows are cast upon the once glowing masculine; the men of the world today are finding themselves standing on less than solid ground. The awakened men are wondering how to move forward with integrity and honor, in a world where so many injustices are being carried out with no repercussion.

Meanwhile as the feminine energies emerges from deep underground to catch her first rays of light, all she knows it that she wants MORE! Ohhhh, soooo much more!

So as the feminine collective continues to speak out and speak up we see women all around the world starting to explore not only their voices, but their bodies that are attached to those voices. In this exploration they are uncovering natural sexual power in a very divine and supported way.

While humanity as a whole does need to swing more toward the feminine paradigm (sharing, connecting, working together, acknowledging and supporting one another), we still need the role of the masculine to support and create structure for the essential energy that is coming through right now.

These are powerful times and I am devoted to doing all that I can to bring forth a cohesive blending of the masculine and feminine, so that a deep melding can take place and all of humanity can tune into the oneness that is always there, and has always been there.

This year I will be offering a FREE Telesummit to all my community members.

The Alchemy of Sex Summit: Essential Secrets to Satisfaction and Connection.

I will be interviewing 20 of the world’s leading experts in Sacred Sexuality, Right relationship, and Unshakable Connection. If you’re on the newsletter list, you’ll be the first to know about the summit and how to attend! I feel so blessed and so excited to bring this summit to fruition as 2018 has been an auspicious year for me and Yin Wellness.

This year, I have had the honor of:

+ Officiating the Sacred Marriage of my very dear friends

+ Transforming the lives and va-j-j’s of some incredible women during the Awakening Aphrodite Retreat on the east coast.

+ Guiding my most dedicated Yin Goddesses through our 9 month Sacred Sensuality Series and watching their lives unfurl from inside their soul’s depths.

+ Healing severely challenged patients with Cranio-Sacral in the warm waters of the Bahamas…

+ Inviting my beloved into my home so that our tantric union can deepen and grow! And the year ain’t over yet!

Stay tuned for more details about the upcoming summit on September 26th as I’m sure it will be a deeply powerful, profoundly moving, and highly educational event!

Sending you all my love and blessings!

Willow

Are you Overdosing on Vitamin D?

by Leave a Comment

How can the Sunshine Vitamin be bad for you? Aside from the obvious sunburns and skin cancer, the sun seems to be nourishing for your body and, let’s be honest, for your soul too!

These days health practitioners are recommending you take extra Vitamin D, but is it possible to take too much Vitamin D? That’s a controversial question, for sure!

Here’s my take on it…

For the longest time people have thought, “Vitamin D? I get all that I need from the sun, I don’t need to take a vitamin.” While it’s true that the Vitamin D you already have in your body is activated from direct sunlight soaking into your skin, it does not mean rays of Vitamin D are filtering down through the sky and into your skin.

Where you actually get Vitamin D is from foods like liver, oysters, mackerel (any fresh fatty fish), cod liver oil, eggs, caviar, some mushrooms (like oyster mushrooms, or any that are grown in light), and butter; among others foods that I won’t list here. The above list, are my favorite Vitamin D rich foods, aka the healthiest!

Why is Vitamin D imperative to your health? To start it metabolizes Calcium for bone health and immune function, it activates gene development, anti-inflammatory and is instrumental in cell turnover. From an emotional standpoint many believe it is crucial to fighting off the winter blues, as it supports the release of serotonin (the hormone that makes you sleep well and wake happy).

__________________________________________________________

Are You Ready to Have the Relationship of Your Dreams – and Attract Abundance Like a Badass? THE JADE EGG REMEDY IS NOW OPEN FOR ENROLMENT. 

__________________________________________________________

So why not take 1,000 IU of Vitamin D every day? Or even 5,000 IU, for that matter? More must be better right???

For the past 10-15 years there has been a massive trend in taking Vitamin D as a supplement. I remember when my teachers were telling all their patients to take Vitamin D due to it’s anti-viral, anti- bacterial, and anti- fungal effects; not to mention the body uses this incredible fat soluble vitamin for so many vital functions as mentioned above.

But, what about the other fat-soluble vitamins like A, E and K? Do we need to be taking those in abundance as well? The truth is that vitamins A, D, and E co- exist, meaning that they need each other for support. They create a triangle of functional support for one another, so when you start dumping a ton of Vitamin D into your body, your body seeks the balance it needs, so it starts using up all the Vitamin A and E in your tissues. Your body is so smart it is always looking for the harmonious way, so Taoist! However what’s actually happening is you’re A and E vitamin reserves get depleted.

What you may not know about Vitamin D is….

Vitamin D is not only a vitamin, but a steroid hormone, and any time you start adding hormones from outside the body (yes, even bio-identical) you run the risk of down-regulating your cell’s ability to absorb that hormone (or vitamin in this case) at all. It’s like when you have telemarketers calling you; the first several times you can receive their call graciously and possibly even use their offerings, but when they start calling 8 times a day, you just stop answering the phone! You shut them out. Your cells do this same thing when they are getting bombarded with too much exogenous D. So now your body has too much unusable vitamin D floating around in your blood stream and not enough Vitamin D inside your cells, where it can function.

What kind of symptoms might this create? Not enough studies have been done on this so it’s too early to say, but since D is a steroid hormone, one could postulate that is could contribute emotional challenges like agitation, impatience, monkey-mind (especially at night, causing sleeplessness), crankiness, and even unjustified flooding of tears. Physically it could be throwing off all your other hormones, causing a general imbalance in your endocrine (hormone) system that will take some effort and time to correct.

It’s important to understand that Vitamin D in addition to the sun’s light is converted in the liver, kidneys and small intestine from an inactive state to an active state. If those organs are clogged, stagnant or overwhelmed they will not be available for this conversion.

The only way to know for sure if you need to be taking exogenous Vitamin D supplements is to get a blood test. The most common marker chosen for this is 25-hydroxy D (optimal range is 35-45 ng/ml), however this is only testing the inactive D. In order to test the active D you must ask your doctor to order 1-25 hydroxy D (it is best to look at both markers due to the fact that 1-25 hydroxy has a shorter half life), which should range between 60-70 ng/ml, if it is out of range you may be causing unnecessary hormonal problems for yourself, and possibly some emotional drama that is not helping your relationships. A good rule of thumb is always to look to nature. Where in nature do you get 1,000-5,000 IU’s of vitamin D? Maybe if you eat 64 eggs a day.

Maybe you have been taking lots of extra D, without ever having consulted a blood test. Don’t worry my friends, there is a solution, there’s always a solution!

And the solution is simple, a 28-day purification that cleans the liver, the colon, the lymph the kidneys and the skin will do the job. When you get all the excess hormones out of your body, including Vitamin D, you will feel sharper in mind, lighter in body and happier in spirit. The good news is that you will also be cleaning out a myriad of other harmful chemicals, toxins, exogenous hormones, endocrine disruptors and gunk!

My patients and clients feel amazing after this purification, their skin clears up, their brain fog lifts, they have more energy, they sleep better, their libidos come back online, and they can actually enjoy their lives and love more! They all report laughing more and sleeping better!

I always say all the medicine you need is already inside of you and the most powerful pieces to that puzzle are sleep and laughter! So when you support the function of sleep and laughter you will be unstoppable!

Please email me if you would like to try a 28-day purification. It is the easiest and most effective cleanse I have found to date! And believe me, I’ve tried them all!

Your body, spirit and soul will be soooo grateful to you for taking the time to set it up for success!

All My Love!

Willow Brown L.Ac.

__________________________________________________________

Are You Ready to Have the Relationship of Your Dreams – and Attract Abundance Like a Badass? THE JADE EGG REMEDY IS NOW OPEN FOR ENROLMENT. 

Is Your Period an Aphrodisiac?

by Leave a Comment

If you are a woman who is following your cycle and knows when your period is coming and when you ovulate, congratulations for being ahead of the curve!

This is a huge leg up in the world of being a woman! Now with period tracker apps this should be a no-brainer, but I can’t tell you how many women I encounter who still have no idea when they ovulate.

What’s more is they are confused by the emotional congestion they feel until their period comes and then say, “Ahhh, no wonder I was so cranky.”

My job in life is to help women understand the correlation between the saturation levels of their hormones and their emotions; they go hand in hand every time ladies!

Even with all the fancy tracking apps, it is still sometimes tricky to know when your period is coming because you may have an irregular cycle, meaning that sometimes you bleed every 24 days and sometimes it’s 32 days between periods. This is, of course, due to a hormone imbalance – likely caused by the many endocrine disruptors that are so rampant in our world today.

These guys are everywhere, ranging from plastics, toxins, artificial hormones, stress, and even bio-identical hormones, not to mention the severe lack of nutrition many people suffer from due to high carb diets.

I digress…. This blog is not about how to fix what is wrong with your cycle, but rather to focus on what is right!

So, you may have noticed that around the time of your ovulation you get extra turned on.

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge!

Your sex drive might go up “just a little,” so that it is hardly noticeable; or it might rage within you like a wild beast! Making everyone nearby look sexy and attractive.

This is happening because your estrogen levels are at their highest, and along for the ride with the peak in this amazing hormone is a significant peak in your testosterone. (I think you already know the emotional frequency testosterone brings.) The emotions that ensue from these high levels are ones of confidence, radiance, and brilliance. It leaves you feeling sociable and untouchable!

This is a fantastic time of the month, and one that should not be squandered on worrying about how your butt looks in those jeans. It looks hot! Go out and enjoying being hot! If you’ve got a sexual partner make sure they are standing by, ready to receive the tigress within you!

What you may not have noticed is right on the other side of your cycle – right before you are about to bleed – there is another upsurge of hormones, this time your progesterone it at its highest. Along with a sweet surge of estrogen, and nice gradual hill of testosterone (not quite as big of a mountain as your ovulation brings). With this little jaunt in testosterone your libido lift won’t look so much like a pouncing tiger, but more like a docile deer.

This doe eyed one likes to soak up the sun in the meadow and lazily enjoy the many delights surrounding her, like the sweet smell of flowers and the soft texture of the grasses. During this time of the month your senses are in full bloom, which is why you have the capacity to get cranky. If your senses are over-stimulated, then your docile deer will go into fight or flight mode and take off running, because she can’t take the pressure of her environment.

Thus, as your period is approaching, your libido is online, but in a much more subtle way. It is the day before you bleed and Day 1 that you can really milk this delicious time for all it’s worth. This is an ideal time to have a date with yourself! Take a hot shower, soak in the smell of the lavender soap (or whatever scent you enjoy), touch and massage your body with the silkiness of this soap, love every square inch of yourself! Especially your thighs, booty, and breasts; love them up sis-stars! Massage your scalp ever so slowly and delightfully as you wash your gorgeous hair. As you wash your face, move your hands over your third eye in the form of a blessing!

Rub these prayers of love, abundance, and beauty into your skin and infuse yourself with radiance!

As you towel off, keep going! Ignite your sensual-self and cultivate the sexual energy that swells up inside you. If you are tuned into the goddesses, choose your favorite one and embody her!

You can dress up in your sexy-time stuff that normally sits in the back of your underwear drawer, adorn yourself with your best jewels, dance to some sultry tunes (try Desert Dwellers), and just revel in the delight of your healthy, beautiful body!

Believe it or not, cultivating the pleasure centers in your brain and body in this way actually HEALS your hormonal imbalances, (should you suffer from them) and stimulates a glow inside of you that is magnetic – making you irresistible, not only to other people, but to all things…like joy, love, money, flow, ease and grace!

Mmmhmmmm, give me some Mo of that!

Do You Wake Up Around 3 am?

by Leave a Comment

If you are waking at this time every night or even most nights, you are not alone.

This occurrence is not normal, BUT it is common.

What does it mean?

Why would so many American’s be jolted awake at this particular time?

Let’s look to the wisdom of Ancient Oriental medicine, which uses a very systematic approach to your bodies vital organ’s in order to keep you feeling healthy, vital and juicy!

A circadian clock is at the heart of this systematic approach, it looks at what organ in your body is at it’s peak performance at what time of day. Each organ peaks for 2 hours. For example the stomach is at it’s peak between the hours of 7-9am which is ideally the time you eat your first meal of the day.

The pericardium, which is the envelope around the heart and is said to be the gatekeeper of the heart, peaks between the hours of 7-9pm. The pericardium lets certain energies in and keeps other energies out, it is known for it’s social capabilities in that way. For example when you meet Mr. Sleezy your pericardium kicks in and helps you to move away from Mr. Sleezy as quickly as possible. In days of old, between 7-9pm (after dinner hours) was often the time families would gather around the fire and read or share stories or sing together with their own musical accompaniment. In this case the pericardium kicks in to help you receive all the love and connection that surrounds you.

This kind of human connection is deeply nourishing for the soul!

So what organ peaks in the hours between 1-3am?

The LIVER!

The liver is your body’s filter; it cleans and detoxifies all the blood in your body. The liver also opens to the eyes, including your 3rd eye. It supports your visions your plans for the future and how you see the world around you. When the liver gets deep rest between the hours of 1-3am you will wake feeling refreshed and renewed, with a strong sense of confidence and capability! On the other hand if you keep waking up every night at this time disturbed by the busyness of your mind, it means the liver has been compromised by STRESS.

Ohhh Stress, that powerful energy in our lives that by definition breeds discontentment and induces suffering. What is stress anyway? Everyone understands it and can relate to it. It cannot be seen or touched, it has no clear image and it holds no boundaries, but it’s there! You can feel it.

The gripping feeling of stress shows up in the form of different feelings, depending on who you are. For you it could manifest as worry, or anxiety or even paranoia. It could also show up physically, for example in the form of hives, acne, or headaches (incidentally all these physical symptoms indicate stagnancy in the liver as well.)

In Chinese medicine we call this Liver Chi Stagnation, which means that the energy that circulates through your liver is not circulating well and since blood follows energy, your blood is also not circulating well. Thus, the gunk that you ingest via food, drink, and air is not getting filtered out of your bloodstream causing you to feel gunky!

SO in laymen’s terms stress equals feeling funk and gunk in your body, and nobody likes that feeling. Sometime stress cannot be avoided…..and sometimes it can…… You have to be the judge of that in your own life. When it can’t be avoided you can use the principles of mindfulness and instead of thinking of your-“self” as stressed you can think about the stress as something that is just happening, and you happen to be in the way of it. From this perspective it is a lot easier to let go of the tight feelings and uncomfortable emotions that stress brings. Rather than getting stuck in the grips of those uncomfortable feelings you can start to examine them as if they are not yours. One helpful approach to this practice is to think about what’s happening in your life as if it is happening in your neighbors’ life. From this viewpoint you can gain a bigger perspective on the situation at hand, thus allowing you to open to more ideas on how to navigate through it.

Will this help you sleep through the night?

If you become efficient in this practice you will start to see all things as “just happening,” rather than “happening to you,” and this lets your nervous system relax more, which will help you digest better, sleep better, breathe better, and enjoy life more!

When you hear about someone else stressful situation, you say, “oh, that’s too bad,” but inside you think, “they will figure it out, they will get through it.” Well…. the same is true for you…..you just have to open your vision to it.

Sweet dreams!