Tag Archives: epigenetics

Stress 3.0: ‘Feeling Your Way Forward’ to Total Health

Posted on March 8, 2012 by mahalia

Join Erin Bentley, M.A., PhD (candidate) and Dr. Mahalia Freed, ND, to discover how accessing your emotional wisdom can deeply transform your relationship with stress – as well as your mind-body health!

Learn the nuts and bolts of the pervasive effects of stress on your physiology, and take away empowering strategies that will help you begin to ‘Feel Your Way Forward’ to a state of total health. Implement some simple suggestions to find greater energy, vitality, creativity, joy; and decrease your risk of diseases from Crohn’s to cancer, IBS to Alzheimer’s.

In this workshop, you will:

Discover how our emotional landscape is tied to stress;
Explore the physiological and biochemical implications of stress and stress management;
Learn how healthy processing of our emotions (through observation, acknowledgement, authenticity, and compassion) can improve physical and emotional health by altering our stress response;
Discuss and practice specific strategies for ‘feeling your way forward’, including: cultivating a deeper awareness of our emotional landscape; healthy boundaries; and authentic yes’s and no’s.

RSVP via meetup or facebook to reserve your spot!

Contact: If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Erin at erin (at) erinbentley (dot) com; or Mahalia at mahalia (at) dandelionnaturopathic (dot) ca

Facilitators’ Bios

Erin Bentley, M.A., is a mentor, healer, writer and public speaker. She holds a Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of British Columbia; and is a PhD candidate in the department of Sociology at York University in Toronto, Ontario. For five years, Erin has mentored the beautiful outsiders of the world to move from wounded to open-hearted by assisting them to leverage their deep yearning for life-change into epic self-transformation. By helping clients move through old pain and fear, Erin assists individuals to eliminate the energetic and mental barriers that cause them to feel stuck, broken, or shut down – shifting, forever, their stories of self and possibility. In this way, Erin helps clients to recover the clarity, freedom, and confidence to fulfill the promise of their relationships, their work, and their life purpose. For more information, see her website.

Mahalia Freed, ND is a Naturopathic Doctor, BodyTalk Practitioner, Writer, Speaker, Educator, and Kale Crusader. People who receive naturopathic care with Dr. Mahalia Freed feel better. Her clients get pregnant, get energized, find their healthy body weight, overcome anxiety and depression, and leave digestive health concerns behind. From allergies to PMS, IBS to fatigue, Dr Mahalia Freed listens – and you get results.

Mahalia is a advocate of ‘the New Holistic’. Using the depth and breadth of her training in naturopathic medicine, Mahalia can help you take your health to the next level, physically and emotionally. Her doctor’s toolbox includes herbal medicine, nutrition & supplementation, homeopathic medicine, counseling, as well as Traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture – all complimented by energy modalities such as BodyTalk and Reiki.

If you are looking for healing that includes personal growth as well as care for body, mind and spirit, this is it!

In addition to her private practice in downtown Toronto, Mahalia is also a guest lecturer at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine, Eight Branches Chinese Medicine Academy, and the Institute for Traditional Medicine. A renowned speaker and workshop facilitator, Mahalia enjoys providing public education in areas including natural medicine for hormone balancing (polycystic ovarian syndrome or PCOS, PMS, fertility); pregnancy; work / life balance; stress & digestion; you and the new holistic; and complementary care for cancer prevention and treatment.

For recipes, research news, health information and upcoming events, become a fan on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MahaliaFreedND or follow Mahalia on twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/MahaliaFreedND

Action in Stillness, Stillness in Motion: Inspiration for harnessing the gifts of winter

Posted on January 4, 2011 by mahalia

Dr. Mahalia Freed, ND

As we sit in the depths of winter, as the days oh-so-slowly get longer, I am thinking about change and growth. I am cultivating the patience needed to await the return of the warm sun, and seeking tools to inspire and enrich continued personal evolution. Winter is often framed as something to endure while we wait for the slush to go away and the warmth of the sun’s rays to return so that we can dispense with bulky, dark winter coats, hats, scarves, mitts, and boots. However, the season offers its own gifts. Along with lovely snowscapes, it presents abundant opportunities for stillness, introspection, and inner growth.

I often tell clients and audiences at talks that the most powerful healing tool we have is between our ears. Our minds. So, let us launch into 2011 with intentions to better harness this tool.

What are you searching for this winter? Have you resolved to get outside more in 2011? To eat more veggies? To carve out time for some kind of spiritual practice? To be more present in the small moments that make up your day? What has stopped you from getting to these goals before now? Most often, it is our minds, particularly our outdated stories – the unexamined mental maps of who we are and who we can be– that get in our way. Use the tips and info below to inspire you to examine and rewrite those stories, starting now.

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Setting Intentions for the New Year

Posted on January 3, 2011 by mahalia

Dr. Mahalia Freed, ND

(Written and first published for January 2010)

Last New Year’s, a good friend and I spent a very long, snowy drive sharing and concretizing our intentions for 2009. It was an organic yet intentional conversation. We went back and forth, helping each other get more specific, as well as inspiring one another with our separate dreams. I wrote everything down while she drove. Sharing intentions in this way is something I truly value. Even if you do not have the same goals, this practice creates a context of support as you move through the year, giving you someone to check in with – someone who might notice if you, say, resolved to ski 3 weekends a month and haven’t been out once by March. This kind of social support can, for example, provide us with someone to talk to if we are frustrated by continuing to struggle with a relationship pattern we intend to overcome.

For example, one of the intentions we came up with – and enjoyed following through with during the year – was to cook dinner together on Sundays. The beauty of this plan is that it addressed a number of different intentions/resolutions in one: connection with friends, cooking nourishing food, and eating at home more often.

Without any plan to do so, the two of us ended up curled up together one night over the holidays, reflecting on 2009, and looking back at the intentions we articulated that day in the car, in order to see how we did with our goals. Both of us exceeded our own expectations for the changes we could accomplish, and what joy this could bring.