Your Natural Healthy Family
October 7, 2008
This issue:

• What's new at NaturalHealthyFamily.com
• Quote of the week
• Choosing family as friends
• This week's healthy recipe: Beth's Turkey Chili
• Coming soon!

As most of you know, I'm pregnant with my second child and due at the end of this month.

About a month ago, I woke up in the middle of the night because I needed to go to the bathroom (a frequent nightly occurrence). So, I sat up to get out of bed. But I forgot I was pregnant and tried to sit up using only my ab muscles.

Long story short, I pulled an abdominal muscle and have been in pain ever since. Because I am pregnant, my muscle has just not been allowed to heal.

When I told my midwife about it, she recommended that I use "Injure Aid Oil" from a local herbal supplier called Terra Firma Botanicals. (If you want to get some for yourself, follow the link and go to the "Massage" section of the site.)

The oil contains:
Organically grown and wildcrafted Olive oil, Arnica, Calendula, St. John's Wort, and Lavender.

Arnica and St. John's Wort are added for problems associated with muscles, nerves, and joints. Calendula for it's antiseptic and soothing effect on the skin. And Lavander for pain relief and aromatherapy.

So, I got a one ounce bottle of the Injure Aid Oil and started using it on my poor injured tummy. The effects were immediate! My tummy warmed and the pain almost went away completely.

My midwife also recommended taking homeopathic Arnica to help with the pain relief. Between the two of these, although I still have a pulled muscle, my pain has diminished almost entirely and I am able to move freely.

Check out the Terra Firma website for more of these wonderful products.

"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family....in another city.”

George Burns

Over the last couple of weeks, we have had several family visitors. Two of my sisters came from Colorado and Nevada to spend more than a week with us, and one of Josh’s brothers flew out from Utah to spend the weekend with us.

Having this opportunity to spend so much time with our family has really reminded us of how rich we are when our family is present in our lives, and how poor we feel when we aren’t intimately connected to them.

Family Friendship

You have probably heard the saying that “you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family”. But what if you could choose your family?

I mean, think about it for a second. Yes, we all love our families. We really do. But let’s be honest. Don’t they drive us crazy sometimes? Sure, we love to go and visit them, but when it’s time to leave, aren’t we a little bit relieved and happy to be leaving?

And we have a different relationship to our friends than we do with our families. After all, we didn’t choose our families, but we did choose our friends. So we have a certain amount of freedom around our friends that we may not experience with our families.

In fact, I might go so far as to say that a lot of us feel like we are stuck with our families because we didn’t get to choose them. So guess what? That’s exactly what we are going to give you the opportunity to do today. The opportunity to choose your own family!

So how do you choose your own family? Here are 5 steps that you can take to choose your family.

1. Get Complete

What do we mean by “getting complete”?

We have found that many people are incomplete with members of their family. This sense of “incompletion” can stem from just about anything. Something your Dad said to you when you were 6 years old that you have never quite been able to let go of. Something that your brother or sister did to you when you were a teenager than you haven’t been able to forgive.

Or it could be something that you did or said that you wish you could take back but can’t.

It could even be something that you would like to say now, but just don’t have the courage to say. It could be as simple as wanting to express how much you love your family, but not knowing how to.

Whatever there is for you to get complete, consider that you won’t be able to have the family friendship that you want until you get these things completed. To support you in this, we have provided a fantastic tool for doing that. Just follow this link, and follow the instructions that you find when you get there. (Don't worry, it's easy.)

2. Create Something New

Once you have gotten “complete” with a member of your family, (it works to do it one family member at a time,) then you are free to create something new with them.

What do you create?

Create anything you want! Create friendship. Create pen-pals. Create play-dates. Create fun and adventure. Just make sure that you create something. Create something that inspires both of you and gives you a way to be in action. Otherwise, what’s the point, right?

3. Choose Your Family

Look, the fact is that your family is who your family is, and they are not who they are not.

You can’t change that. What you can change is your own relationship to that family. When you “choose” your family, what you are really choosing is to accept them for everything they are, and everything that they are not.

Stop trying to fix them. Stop worrying about them. Stop thinking that you know what’s best for them. Stop resenting them. Just choose them, exactly the way they are and exactly the way they are not. You will be amazed at how much love you have for them when you can just let them be themselves.

4. Share

Share your hopes and dreams. Share your fears and concerns. Share your home and your food. It doesn’t matter what you share, just share.

And give your family a safe space to do the same. Ask them about their hopes and dreams, and then take the time to really listen. Let someone else pick up the check once in a while when you go out to eat. (If they couldn’t afford it, they wouldn’t offer.) Let someone tell you how great you are. Allow your family to contribute to you! That’s all they want to do you know. They just want you to be happy and fulfilled. Isn’t that what you want for them? Deep down inside, don’t you just want them to be happy and fulfilled? Of course you do. That’s what we all want.

5. Expand Your Family

There are too many people out there who think that they have no one to love them or care for them. Make a commitment to expand your “family” to include everyone you know, and even everyone you ever meet.

If you saw your sister dressed in rags and begging for change on a street corner, wouldn’t you go and take her in your arms and share with her everything that you have? I’m not saying that you need to do that, but can’t you give them something? Even if it’s just a smile or a silent prayer? Just think about it.

This is a great recipe to use when implementing some of the principles that we talked about in this newsletter. Make a great big pot of this chili and invite your family and friends over to hang out and re-discover one another!

• 1 ½ diced or slice onion

• 4 ½ t minced garlic

• 31 oz canned beans of your choice, drained and rinsed

• 4 ½ c spicy tomato juice

• 2 large tomatoes, or more if you love tomatoes

• 8 oz canned chopped green chilies, undrained

• 1 ¼ t chili powder

• 1 t oregano

• 1 t marjoram

• 1 t black pepper

• 1 t cayenne pepper

• 1 c shredded cheese

• 1 jalapeno pepper cut longwise into quarters, and deseeded if you don’t want it super spicy

• Dash of cinnamon

• 6 T ketchup

• 2 t Taco Seasoning

• Ground turkey, I use 1 lb, but you can use more if you like a meaty chili or none if you prefer vegetarian chili

In a skillet over medium heat, cook onion, garlic, and turkey. Transfer to a large pot or slow cooker. Stir in remaining ingredients except cheese. Cook through. Add cheese and cook until it has melted.

Serve with crusty bread, tortilla chips, or crackers.

The Bio-Kinetic Testing Home Study Program is still under construction, but we are hoping to have it finished by Oct 21st.

Our new e-book 7 Steps to a Natural Healthy Family should be done by Oct 15th. (You will receive a copy as soon as one is available.)

We are also working with Tisha Mecham (author of Bio-Kinetic Testing for Health) to set up a tele-seminar sometime this month so that you can have the opportunity to hear directly from Tisha what it takes to have a natural healthy family. We're very excited about that and we will let you know as soon as that is scheduled.

As always, feel free to contact us if you have any questions, comments, or requests.

To YOUR health,

Beth Blasingame and family




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