In continuing our exploration of “What is health really?”, I’d like to talk about a specific tissue in the body that is the foundation of health. In order to better understand this tissue, we need to go back to where life started for all of us: as an embryo:). There are 3 embryonic germ layers: the endoderm, the mesoderm and …

Last week we talked about how real HEALTH involves INTEGRATION and how we really need to expand how we think about health in order to achieve it. This week I’d like to mention a person who is considered to be one of today’s preeminent philosophers. Ken Wilber has sought to create a “theory of everything”; an integral model which attempts …

In the next series of weekly articles I’d like to explore the question “What is health really?” You might imagine at first glance that this topic is immense and draws from many disciplines and aspects of life. And you would not be mistaken. However through my professional and personal experiences as well as my continued studies, we can identify certain …

How do you know which way to go when you can’t see the road ahead clearly? How do you know which direction to pick when you’re not sure what your options are? There is a comfort in being in survival mode. When we’re in survival mode we don’t have to worry about what’s ahead of us because we’re totally focused …

It seems to me that human beings are by nature problem-solvers. So much so sometimes that we create problems just to have something to solve. We apply our problem-solving skills to every aspect of our daily lives, turning many things into tasks that we then proceed to methodically perform. We become so proficient at problem-solving that we become dependent on …

Are you really living your life, feeling it, having the experience of it or are you merely thinking about it? One of the ways we adapt to feeling overwhelmed is to disconnect from feeling our bodies. It doesn’t mean that the hormonal reactions and physical tension don’t happen. We just don’t bear witness to them. We can get stuck in …

Over the summer Magdalena and I started a vegetable garden on our front lawn. Being novice gardeners, we sought advice. We asked people working at the local organic garden centre and we also asked some friends and neighbours who have a lot of experience growing vegetables. They told us at the garden centre that we should buy this specific type …

In his book “The Gift of Fear”, Gavin de Becker recounts testimony of a woman who had suffered through a three hour assault in her home and survived only because she listened to her instincts. There seem to be two general mental domains. One is instinctual, and is often referred to as intuition. This mental domain could be characterized as …

One of the greatest gifts we can give one another and ourselves is to truly listen. We feel acknowledged and valued when we feel that we’ve been heard. Our physiology shifts from fear and defense to openness and growth. Very often, we will listen to respond: while the other person is talking, we are formulating what we want to say …

We had been needing a second vehicle so Magdalena and I recently bought a used car. And even though it’s not as modern as our other car, I enjoy driving it more. The other, newer car has more bells and whistles and that’s exactly why I enjoy driving the older car. It has less bells and whistles. Put another way, …