In the last couple of weeks I have gotten so many questions from women I know about their vagina health. Questions about what to take, what to eat, how to fight infections, how to support their uterus, what to do about cysts, ulcerated uterus and the ultimate – reproductive cancer protection.
I can give all nutritional advice you want when it comes to healing with whole foods but if the soulful, energetic work is not done to heal your wounds, they may never truly heal.
I have been on my own vaginal/womb healing journey and I am now sharing this with you.
I have written this part of my story more times and more places than I can count, but always tucked it away after for a day when perhaps I would be brave enough to share it.
Today is that day.
I have a responsibility here and my work began 18 years ago although I have barely made headway until now. Sharing some of the deepest, hardest parts of our story is terrifying, but it is also so freeing.
I had my first real boyfriend when I was 15, who I believed I truly loved.
Our relationship was tumultuous to the extreme especially for any 15 year old to endure.
I share this story not as a victim, but as a warrior woman rising from the ashes of my past.
I kept something private for so long and in doing so I suppressed some of the most divine, beautiful parts of my soul.
I have held back my story, and my self due to feelings of shame, embarrassment, fear and also not wanting others pity.
I wanted to own my story but I didn’t own it at all, I buried it until it consumed me, not the events themselves but the disconnect I created in my mode of survival
I had no idea that what I thought I had released, was still holding me back in the biggest way.
Here is my story, how I chose to heal and how you can too.
I thought rape was something that only happened to other people. I thought that rape was something that happens to girl in dark alleys or parks late at night.
I had no idea that my boyfriend who forced me have sex with him repeatedly throughout our 2 year relationship was raping me.
Raping me of my right to say no, my security, my will power, my dignity and my divine feminine power.
I thought that because I said yes and gave up my virginity to him that meant that I always had to say yes, he obviously thought so too.
He was a tortured soul with many demons and I chose to love him in spite of that or perhaps because of it. That is what empaths do, try to save people before even saving themselves.
Physically I sustained whiplash from him shoving me as hard as possible from behind, bruises on my body from his anger outbursts & primal fear of losing my life from repeatedly hearing “I am going to kill you” while confining me in a car and speeding towards the lake we lived beside.
I was not “allowed” to wear tank tops, or shorts because I was his “property”.
I was not allowed to have other male friends or they too would feel his wrath and so in trying to protect myself and everyone I cared about I covered up my body, my spirit and I isolated myself.
Soulfully I suppressed my self confidence, my self worth, my beauty, my truth, my power and my connection to the deepest most beautiful part of me, my womb, my creation centre, my divine femininity.
I am sharing this now because everything in my life afterwards has stemmed from these events and my unconscious reluctance to release what happened, forgive myself, and heal.
I have faced the physical distress of infections including a touch of pre-cancerous cells on my cervix and the soul distress of being suppressed and suffocated by shame and fear.
I continued a perpetual cycle of abuse. Abuse of myself and abuse of others.
Abuse through alcohol, poor diet choices and very poor relationship choices
And so my purpose in revealing this story to you now is not only to feel the freedom in releasing it, but to also help you recognize and release yours.
Whatever has happened to you, has happened for you. It has happened to bring you to exactly where you are today. This truth is sometimes hard to believe in the thick of it all but I trust in the divine and I believe in the purpose of my creation.
It is time to release this part of your story and step into your divine feminine power.
It is time to heal your wounds and heal your womb.
What I know to be true when feminine power is suppressed, when we do not heal the psychological, spiritual and physical abuse then the cycle will continue.
Your vagina is your creation center. If it is imbalanced, unloved, abused, you as a whole will be out of balance.
The question now is not are you ready to heal, it is are you ready to stop being weighed down by the things that no longer serve your highest good?
I have seen the need and so I have responded.
This Monday April 25th I will be opening registration for my first group online vagina/womb healing course.
There is this stigma that as women we don’t talk about our vagina’s, we keep them private not only from the world, but from ourselves.
As women we have the biggest most bold, beautiful power, to create life inside of our bodies.
Our vagina’s and womb’s need the most love when it comes to self- care and self-awareness.
When there is a trauma, stress, infections, disease there becomes a disconnect from the one place you need to connect with the most in your body.
I have created this course for you if you:
Suffer from recurrent vaginal/pelvic infections/disease.
Have experienced some sort of trauma to your pelvic area whether it is physical, or emotional abuse or an accident.
You are having trouble connecting with your creation center, your feminine power.
You feel shame or embarrassment in regards to your vagina.
This course will teach you all about eating foods for your vagina’s health
Pelvic diseases/infections and what you can do to prevent and heal them naturally
Understanding the spiritual connection between your mind, body and your womb.
Root and Sacral Chakra balancing meditations.
Registration opens Monday, sign up here if you would like to be the first to be notified:
If any of this resonates with you and you would like to discuss further please feel free to contact me : info@janineaf.com
The next little while feels like a blur, is this real life?
Is this my life?
What did I do to deserve this?
Why me?
What about my family?
You turn to Google for information, how did this happen? What’s next?
Your doctor suggests, surgery, chemotherapy and / or radiation.
You’re terrified, nervous, anxious, confused.
And then you find your strength, I am going to fight this, I am going to beat this! And your support team rallies, let’s do this!
You start treatment, and you find you either don’t feel as bad as you thought you would, or you feel like absolute shit.
Treatment ends, or breaks and you get to take a rest.
Phew, you did it.
BUT, what’s next?
You’re tired, drained, and changed.
Cancer changes you.
It changes you mentally, physically and spiritually.
What do you do when treatment ends and you get to ring a bell and go home?
There are 3 very specific things that need to change after a cancer diagnosis and this is what they are:
1. Diet
2. Lifestyle
3. Mindset
If these things do not change there is a good chance you will find history repeating it self, nothing changes, if nothing changes, right?
The same environment that cancer was able to grow in the first time, is now even more susceptible to cancer growth from the immune compromising treatments, medication and stress.
Choosing an anti-inflammatory and alkalizing diet is key for a healthy recovery.
Changing things like skin and house care products, including the scents you use in your home and car, smoking and alcohol all play a gigantic role in protection and recovery.
Positive healthy thoughts create a positive and healthy body. Your cells can and will mutate in direct relation to the thoughts you think, you have power over what happens in your body simply by your mindset.
I want you to know this information because I want you to finish treatment – whichever it is you have chosen, and feel empowered and ready to step into an improved version of your self, not a sicker, weaker and more vulnerable self.
If you have finished cancer treatment recently, or not and are tired, lethargic, unenthusiastic, depressed, sick all the time and/or worried, then it’s time for something to change.
I would love to help you make that change.
If you need the support, guidance, love and knowledge to lead you out of your sickness and into your best health then I encourage you to send me an email to discuss the option of working together to create a custom tailored plan of action for you, from meal plan to mindset we will restore your health and happiness.
Please send me an email if this speaks to you: info@janineaf.com
We have been taught to trust our doctors. That their word is the word and ultimately they know what’s best and in some ways that is very true, our doctors are smart and well educated in their field and they may have studied the human body inside out more than a few times, but that still does not make them superior over YOUR body.
A doctor will issue a prescription based on symptoms and on the training and experience they have received, but that does not always mean that what they are prescribing is exactly what the unique constitutional make up of your exact body needs.
Chemotherapy is often issued to help shrink a tumor before surgery, or to help get rid of residual cancer cells after surgery, it can be used on it’s own or in conjunction with other treatment methods.
A lot of the time when chemotherapy is issued it is effective in destroying cancer cells and shrinking tumors in various forms of cancer in some people.
This does not make chemotherapy a cure and I will tell you why.
The 5 year survival rate for chemotherapy is on average 36%. This varies across different cancers as the survival rate is higher for some cancers and much lower in others with the use of chemotherapy, and those numbers do not indicate that during or after the 5 years the cancer does not come back.
I am not telling you this information to scare you or discourage you or to change your mind about your treatment plan in fact I am telling you for the opposite reason.
I want this information to liberate and activate you, I want you to see that the treatment for cancer lies more in your own hands than in the hands of a stranger writing scripts.
I have met so many people who are prescribed chemotherapy for their cancer, not given much information on lifestyle and diet changes and just accept this as their method of treatment and change nothing else
I have the most respect for conventional medicine and I see where it’s uses are necessary and I have also seen where chemotherapy has been able to give people more time that they otherwise may not have had, but that still does not change the truth and the facts about what it actually does to your body or the long term survival rate, not at this point at least.
Here is why you need more than just chemotherapy.
Cancer is a symptom, it is not the cause. If the symptom is treated but the root is left to grow, cancer can and will grow again if the environment in which it grew in the first time remains the same, or worse even.
If you choose chemotherapy as your method of treatment what is important to understand is that you cannot trust that the chemotherapy alone will put an end to your cancer and in fact you must know that the chemotherapy can and will tax your body of strength and immunity.
This is why it is so imperative that the environment in which the cancer grew changes completely and that the same environment is also very much supported during treatment and recovery.
Diet and Lifestyle
Changing the way you ate, drank and were merry prior to your diagnosis is key to returning to full health.
Doctors are very skilled in their field of medicine and science but most oncologists are not going to give you dietary and lifestyle recommendations that are going to be specific to healing your cells and helping your body to get rid of the cancer cells.
You must change your diet and although this sounds so extreme to a lot of people, the most important thing you can do is put in the foods, vitamins minerals and nutrients that nourish and protect your cells.
What you think, you become
Your thoughts create your reality. If your thoughts are constantly on the side of illness and negativity than the chances of you being ill are going to be higher. Low vibration thoughts and feelings create an environment in your body for disease to thrive, misery, after all, does love company.
A cancer diagnosis can completely change the way you think and feel but it is so important that your thoughts, during this time especially, stay very positive and uplifting.
Choosing affirmations and mantras to recite daily will help create a better reality for you.
Energy and Emotions
We all have things that have happened in our lives that sit with us, sometimes they’re down real deep and don’t come up often unless there is a trigger and others are things we think about and feel almost on a daily basis. Whichever it is for you, if it is not addressed and released, your body cannot fully heal. Suppressing emotions causes energy blockages in the body and if you can imagine a block in a drain pipe, eventually the gunk gets built up and back up and damage begins to happen.
Emotional and energy healing can be done in a number of ways, it is important to start where you feel comfortable but committed to healing what you have been carrying around for far too long.
Understanding that chemotherapy is only a small part of your cancer treatment puts you in a place of power over your diagnosis and recovery.
It is important that you understand what your exact body needs and give it the love, care, nutrients, time and rest that it needs for a full recovery.
Never forget the miracle that you are.
If you have or had cancer, if you’ve been through therapy or are just starting , or are not even sure where to start yet and you need guidance on what to do next in regards to diet and lifestyle choices, please contact me for a FREE discovery call to discuss working together to bring your body back to health.
For women: for nutrition information, disease prevention and healing tips, inspiration, soul love, cancer protection and recovery, please feel free to join our private tribe of soul foodies over at facebook.com/groups/powerfemme
The lymphatic system, what is it, and what does it have to do with cancer?
The lymphatic system is comprised of the lymph nodes, lymph vessels, lymphatic fluid, spleen, tonsils, and the thymus gland.
There are about 600 nodes scattered throughout the body which contain white blood cells and is essential for clearing toxins from the body.
The lymph is the fluid in which the cells are bathing, this fluids takes away the debris from the blood and sends it to the lymph nodes via the lymphatic vessels to be filtered out.
The lymphatic vessels can get clogged up when there is not enough movement through the cleansing systems.
We need a well functioning, clear moving lymphatic drainage system to keep our immune systems strong and able to protect against disease such as cancer. This is also especially important after cancer treatment as the immune system is usually much weaker.
Here’s the important part: the lymphatic system, unlike the circulatory system, does not have a pump, such as the heart to keep the fluid moving, it is the job of the body – specifically the muscles, to do that.
Why is a well functioning lymphatic system important?
Your lymphatic system works closely with your immune system to defend your body from illness. If your lymphatic system is sluggish then so shall your immune system be and that is when illness can occur.
Some signs your lymphatic system is not working optimally:
You get sick often, or your illness never seems to really leave (lingering cold anyone?)
You feel tired a lot
You suffer from allergies
You breakout in pimples a lot or have persistent acne
Your skin doesn’t heal well
Your skin looks thinner and it makes you look older
Capillaries show more (little red lines just under the skin)
You have swollen lymph nodes
Cellulite
Headaches
How you can activate your lymphatic system:
This is how I stimulate my lymphatic system daily and how you can too!
1. Dry Skin Brushing: Using a coarse bristle brush move in a circular motion upward and inward towards your heart, from your feet to your neck. This should only take a couple of minutes, being mindful along the way. The skin may turn slightly pink in the areas you have brushed.
2. Hydrotherapy: alternating between hold and cold in the shower. Alternating between 3 minutes of hot and 30 seconds of cold, ending the shower with cold water.
3. Rebounding: My Favourite! Using a mini trampoline anywhere from 5-30 minutes daily, this is an amazing exercise for so many reasons, but we’re talking about lymph right now so we will stick to that. This exercise stimulates the lymphatic system even in small movements. Your feet do not need to leave the rebounder at all. You can kick it up a notch by doing mini jumping jacks, getting all of your limbs involved in the action, this will only benefit you more. If you are very ill or less mobile you can kneel on the rebounder or stand and use a chair in front of you and bounce very very softly, allowing your body that up and downward movement.
4. Exercise: the lymph system is activated by muscle contractions and so it only makes sense that exercise would be included in activating lymph drainage. You can do short at home exercises, or you can be in the gym pumping iron, whatever works for you, do that. Going for a brisk walk would also be beneficial, maybe even stop along the way and bust out some squats, or lunge along the way!
5. Infrared Sauna – ok I don’t personally do this one every day- yet, but it is an amazing detoxifying system for the entire body, especially the lymph system.
6. Avoid restrictive clothing: I can’t tell you how good it feels to not worry about wearing a bra because it supports my health! When you restrict the areas where lymph needs to flow you can cause blockages, this is especially true for women who wear bras, especially wire bras, for 12 or more hours a day. This is when disease like breast cancer can become more likely to occur. If you must wear a bra all day choose one that is not too tight, has no underwear and is cotton.
7. Inversions: legs up the wall pose is where I handle this one. You can do handstands if that is your thing, but I find this one way more therapeutic and relaxing, and can be held longer. Simply lay down with your legs up a wall, you can use a blanket or pillow under your bum/lower back for comfort and support as well. Lay with your eyes closed and breathe calmly into your belly. This pose has so many more positive effects than just activating the lymphatic system.
(Contraindications: should be avoided if you have serious eye problems, such as glaucoma. During heavier menstruation it may be best to avoid this pose.)
8. Deep breathing: This can be done anytime, anywhere and it is one of the best ways to relax your nervous system and allow the lymphatic system to flow smoothly. Deep belly breathing is the best way to do this. You can focus on counting your breaths, or lay down and place something light on top of your belly like a crystal or a yoga block and just watch it rise and fall with your breath. This is another practice that is beneficial for so much more than just your lymph system.
If you are concerned about the state of your lymphatic system, or need nutritional and soulful guidance around healing your body of cancer or other disease please send me an email to set up a FREE discovery call and we can chat about working together on your health.♥
Sending lots of love and light to your lymph system today ♥
Janine XO
info@janineaf.com
Plant Based Holistic Nutritionist, Cancer Specializing, Connecting Body & Soul for Whole Healing
Do you ever get constipated, or have a hard time trying to poop?
Do you ever wonder, “why is this happening? I have eaten lots of high fibre foods, drank lots of water, I am doing all the right things and yet I still cannot poop!”
Believe it or not, it can sometimes be a lot more psychological than it is physiological – consequently what is psychological does become physiological and that’s where the constipation comes in.
When I speak with a client, or even a friend who is having a hard time pooping, after I ask many questions about their diet i.e: if they are drinking plenty of water, and eating high fibre whole foods and avoiding dairy, I then will ask.. what are your thoughts around your pooping?
For example: on vacation a couple of years ago, about 4 days into the trip, my girl friend mentioned she had not gone poop yet and was slightly envious of those who were feeling the effects of some sort of stomach bug or.. the after affects of too much Jamaican beer.
After a short conversation I learned that she had an aversion in pooping anywhere but her own home. I know plenty of people who are not comfortable using public restrooms and will hold it until they get home (which is not always ideal, fyi) but this was different since she was nowhere near home and had a semi-private bathroom in her resort room. I explained to her that it was most likely her ideas around pooping away from home that were not allowing her the relief she needed. We talked about her switching her mindset to one that allowed her to feel safe and comfortable going to the bathroom in a foreign location. Later that night we celebrated her first bowel movement of the trip! Lol
Holding onto your bowel movements means you are holding onto toxicity that is reabsorbing back into your blood stream and causing strain on your liver and in turn all of your body systems, in the long term this can cause many ailments including various forms of cancer.
Holding onto things is more damaging to your health than you may think.
Have you ever had a really relieving bowel movement? One that left you feeling lighter and happier?
That is because you are releasing a load of toxins, dead cells, unnecessary particles and bacteria from your body.
Have you ever been really nervous or emotional about something and found yourself on the toilet within seconds?
I have experienced for my self over and over again, any time I am not listening to my gut instincts (intuition) or I am holding onto something that is not meant for me, I end up with a serious case of constipation, until I learn the lesson and let go, and then serious diarrhoea (Pardon the TMI but this shit is Important!).
When you cannot poop and it doesn’t seem to be because of a diet related issue (which can also include food allergies or sensitivities) then I pose the question: what is it that you are not allowing yourself to let go of? What is it that you are holding onto so tightly for fear of the relief you might feel once that uncomfortable comfort is out of your life? What fears, worries, doubts, beliefs, relationships, ideals are constipating your body and mind?
When you give yourself permission to say “whatever this is will not hold space in my body and soul any longer, I am now free to be me, to feel light and happy” you will see how all of that tension and toxicity will let go, in your body and your mind.
Meditation, deep belly breathing and certain yoga poses can all help you take the steps towards letting it go.
Using a poop stool to help elevate your knees above the level of your hips will also assist with elimination as well 😀
Let go of that which no longer serves you.♥
If this resonates with you at all and you have had your own experience in this regard I would love to hear from you!
Post in the comments below or send me an email 🙂
info@janineaf.com
Much Love & Lightness
xo
Janine
Plant Based Holistic Nutritionist, Cancer Specializing, Connecting Body & Soul for Whole Healing
[To book a FREE Assessment email: info@janineaf.com]
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