Greeting Health Newsletter

Winter 2024

My mother used to say this when I was behaving especially badly. Remembering it now, I find it very applicable to the demands society places on our brain and sense organs. Many of us are simply overloaded by the flood of sensory impressions that we’re bombarded with at work and during our “free” time. Experiencing the physical, mental, and emotional short-circuits that result, we buy the societal narrative and believe that we are somehow ill and/or dysfunctional.

But perhaps we should occasionally step back and examine these assumptions. The recent age of Internet and social media domination has pulled most of us into a vortex that spins faster every year. It’s very natural that not everyone can adapt seamlessly to these unnatural demands. The stresses they create can lead to a great variety of symptoms, including headaches, anxiety, exhaustion, chronic fatigue, indigestion, backache, and depression, to name just a few.

While few of us have the luxury (or the wish) to completely unplug, there are a number of simple things we can do to strengthen and replenish our sense organs and our nervous system, so we can rebuild our natural buffers and regain and maintain our health.

Practicing even one Self-Breema exercise a day makes a world of difference. The effect has to be experienced to be believed, as the physiological, psychological, and emotional support it provides is so substantial.

Give yourself mini-breaks. Decide that you are not going to look at your phone or computer for 30 minutes during the day, and after, say, 10 pm.

Receive a Breema bodywork session once a week. This remains, hands down, the most natural and therapeutic method of touch I’ve ever encountered. A common experience for me after receiving Breema is to sit up and wonder, “Now what was it I was so upset about before?”

It’s good to remember that you are a person, not a machine, and invest a little time and energy into safeguarding your human qualities!

—Jon Schreiber, DC, Director of the Breema Center and Breema Clinic

As the season turns from the warmth and busyness of late summer, to the coolness of fall and winter, the grandmothers’ recipes come out of the box, and the tables are set with the rich savory dishes and comforting desserts for our winter holidays with family and friends.

I find myself adding some simple and gentle cleansing foods to my daily table. The humble radish is a potent detoxifier. A traditional protocol of two radishes between meals for 21 days offers a gentle gallbladder cleanse. The addition of radishes and sauerkraut is a complement to the rich foods that we find on our tables during the holiday time. Although radishes are cooling, the warming thermal nature of cabbage balances this tasty recipe.

This is one serving. It’s an easy salad to adapt by taste to more servings.

• 3 radishes, very thinly sliced, or julienned

• 1 tbsp of your homemade or favorite sauerkraut, with a bit of the brine

• 1 tsp of toasted sesame seeds, whole or ground (black are best)

• 3/4 tbsp of organic pumpkin seed or olive oil

• Top with broccoli or radish sprouts (Make your own!)

—Roxanne Caswell, Breema Practitioner and Instructor

You may be doing everything you can to support your health—eating/sleeping/exercising as best you know how. Yet sometimes, you just don’t feel well.

Society often discounts the role that illness plays in our development. When a child has a fever, it is generally an indication that the body is functioning as it should. If we let the fever work, it plays an important role—it burns off what needs to be gotten rid of, and strengthens the body, preparing it for the future. Not feeling well can show you areas in your life that need to be addressed (being sick can invite us to simplify things a lot), and can stimulate you to discover what can most support your life.

When you are sick, it’s easy to also feel overwhelmed. This adds an extra layer of discomfort, and often hopelessness, to your symptoms. There are usually simple, practical, effective things you can do to support your health—in fact, many difficulties also present the ingredients for their resolution, if we know how to look correctly.

Not feeling well is a temporary, but often necessary, experience on the path to health. Many conditions of life have ups and downs. That’s not pathology. It’s a normal process. The more you understand about yourself and how the body functions, the more possibility to address these conditions wisely when they arise, and the less you remain stuck in fear and hopelessness.

I offer Breema bodywork and Self-Breema exercises in my medical practice because of their profound effect in cutting through the extra that comes from tension and worry. Breema offers a direct experience of body, mind, and feelings working harmoniously—this is the gateway to real health. Breema bodywork and the Nine Principles of Harmony are tools that you can apply in your life to nurture your relationship with real health, which is interrelated with the meaning and purpose of your life on the planet.

When I receive a Breema session, I leave feeling more vital, connected, and supported—and I hope you will, too!

—Alexandra Johnson, MD, Breema Instructor

• Stand comfortably, with the feet shoulder-width apart.

• Place your palms on the kidneys.

• Inhale and twist back and to the left, gently stretching your body and leaning into the left kidney; allow your feet to pivot.

As that stretch comes to completion, stretch upward, creating a stretch along the spine.

• As you exhale, come back to center (your starting position), then inhale and repeat, this time stretching to the right. The movements are without pause.

• Continue alternately stretching, three times to each side altogether, then face straight ahead.

• Keeping the hands on the kidneys, hop gently and playfully from foot to foot for three breaths. The shoulders, arms, and whole body are loose and relaxed.

• Gradually bring the hopping to a stop, then brush from the kidneys down the back of the thighs and legs, to the toes and off, three times.

• Brush from the abdomen down the front of the thighs and legs to the toes and off, three times.

• At the end of the third and final brush, brush back up the front of the legs, up the midline of the body (where hands come back-to-back) to overhead, opening the arms out and down to your sides.

• Stand comfortably.

In recent years, attention deficit has been trending in popular psychology and medicine. Vaguely diagnostic references such as adult attention deficit, neurodivergent, and “on the spectrum” have gained significant traction in psychotherapeutic circles. Those searching for meaning and belonging reach for explanations that qualify their neurodiversity. At the same time, societal norms pathologize humans for our diminishing capacity to focus and produce in a commodified world that demands and consumes all of our time and attention.

What if we were to consider attention as a real capacity to attend to what is needed in each moment rather than the ability to maintain external focus on an outer image or demand? Instead of exhausting our mental/emotional acuity and depleting our vital energy chasing impossible images of ourselves in fear of and in competition with an imaginary “other,” we discover what it actually means to take care of ourselves in the context of a greater whole, by moving in harmony with the natural principles that govern life on this planet, and in this body.

Considered in this way, we have the possibility of observing, first, how we actually use our attention—often unwillingly and without decision—and second, how we wish to use our attention. What is it we would like to use our life energy to attend to? In each life event, or given condition, what is actually needed? And what is it that guides our knowing?

Approaching this last question is much simpler than it seems. If you ask yourself this question and notice that your mind begins grasping outward and around to find an idea or concept to “know” with, you are off to a really great start. If you can observe the activity of the mind, this means you are headed in a fruitful direction.

Attention is really the beginning of our ability to participate in life. It is the beginning of presence, and why we need to cultivate this body-mind connection. Paying attention actually isn’t difficult when I’m connected with the body, where connection and belonging are inherent. Real attention includes mind, feelings, and body and is our ability to “be with” or attend to what’s needed. It’s our inner compass. This is why we are here, to participate, and in that participation, to discover who we really are.

Breema sessions, classes and workshops offer a clear and simple possibility for reclaiming some of our attention and for understanding how to use our attention to become present. By bringing in the body, and unifying the energies of body and mind, we begin to experience ourselves more cohesively, and when body, mind, and feelings function together, we can receive a taste of Conscious energy. This means that our Being is present, and we are connected to our True nature. Whatever we do in this moment nurtures understanding, harmony, and balance in ourselves, with others, and with all life, because we are no longer holding ourselves separately.

—Angela Porter, LMFT, Breema Instructor