Cathy A. Corn's Blog

So maybe you need to lighten up. There are many articles, books, and studies that prove that your body will heal itself faster and better if you are relaxed and happy. And laughter is still the best medicine.

My hero is Dr. Norman Cousins, who published his landmark book, Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient, in 1979. He was a professor at UCLA, where he studied the biochemistry of human emotions and their relationship to healing. When Cousins was hospitalized with a debilitating and supposedly irreversible collagen illness, he decided to take his health into his own hands. With the go-ahead from his doctor, he signed himself out of the hospital, went to a hotel, and watched funny movies until he healed himself, also taking vitamin C. Instead of drama, he chose healing so he could continue his work. I like this guy.

Pioneers in the mind-body-spirit field have done studies that prove that your mind can heal your body. Dr. Joe Dispenza attaches electrodes and watches brain waves of his workshop attendees. With elevated emotion added to intent, miracles happen. He’s documented them. Some people with cancer and other autoimmune diseases have healed themselves. He uses the quantum field, a void that quantum physicists like to talk about, to create many things, including health. He learned that without the elevated emotion (joy, love, peace, gratitude, for example), nothing happens. I think this guy’s onto something.

And years ago, I attended a Humor Conference in Saratoga Springs, New York, led by Joel Goodman, founder of the Humor Project. I googled him and evidently he’s still out there making them laugh. The HUMOR Project, Inc. is the first organization in the world to focus full-time on the positive power of humor. They help people get more “smileage” out of their lives and jobs by applying the practical, positive power of humor and creativity. On his website, Goodman says, “Laughter enhances respiration and circulation, oxygenates the blood, suppresses the stress-related hormones in the brain, and activates the immune system. Indeed, laughter is the jest medicine!”

So you might want to program some laughter into your healing regime, take yourself more lightly, and find joy in the ever-present moment. Your life will improve. Guaranteed.

Diet. Nutrition. Food. So very important, yet largely overlooked as medicine in this country. If we just improved our diets, many health problems would melt away or lessen and we would be much less prone to dis-ease. No kidding.

I’m not talking about going on a diet or judging yourself because you’re not the ideal weight (whatever that is). This is about improving the diet of an entire nation, eating only the highest quality foods that will nourish our bodies and decrease stress, inflammation, and sickness from poor food choices.

A nutritionist once told me about eating only what you can buy along the walls of the grocery store. In the middle are all the processed foods. “Don’t go there,” she said. Our bodies were designed to eat real food, like vegetables, fruits, meat, etc. Our poor guts don’t know what to do with highly processed food, which they don’t recognize as food. They’re a challenge to our digestive systems and empty calories. Click here for a Harvard Health article on the subject.

The goodies are in the fruits and vegetables–vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and so forth. Organic works best, and you can taste the difference: more alive, juicy, and delicious. Paying a bit more for good health seems a reasonable trade-off, considering the cost of health care and feeling poorly.

But taste isn’t all that’s important in buying organic. Pesticides and chemicals on produce and in food find their way into the body, creating disease on a cellular level. Yes, heavy metals in the body can be a factor in inflammation, chronic disease, and autoimmune disease. And that’s not even considering the unhealthy potential of fats, GMO products, gluten, and dairy. (Click here for a good article about organic food.)

So that is my dream. To make our nation healthy, we clean up our diets. If we all ate organic and healthy foods, the cost would come tumbling down, my guess. We have the resources in this country to offer food that’s rich in nutrition.

You say you don’t have time for this? Now that’s another blog post. That one’s called Let’s All Slow Down and Figure Out What the Rush is All About. Consider trying an organic meal once a week. Make a healthy meal and slow down to taste it. Above all, pay attention to what you eat, for the quality of your life depends on it.

CATHY CORN loves to eat, but learned new ideas because of long-term digestive issues. She writes novels that aren’t organic. You can connect with her on FB at Cathy A. Corn, writer, at her websites www.CathyACorn.com  and www.CACHealing.com, and email her at pghpenms@hotmail.com.

There’s a new type of therapy. It’s called Nature Therapy and is prescribed to help those with anxiety and depression, as well as those with physical problems. It involves spending time out in nature.

I had to laugh when I heard about this. In my generation (no wisecracks, please), that’s what kids did. We went outside and played. We hated to be cooped up inside. All summer long we rode bikes, swam in the lake, and the boys made dams in the woods. (We must have a beaver ancestor.) This kept my mother sane.

I come from farmer stock and farmers spent a lot of time outside working the soil, tending the livestock. I could go on and on, but you catch the drift and have your own stories.

The earth is our big mother and everything we have comes from her, just as the sky is our father, that yang energy pouring down over us from above. The earth’s here to nurture and help us, and she loves us every bit as much as her other creations: trees, animals, insects, plants, rocks, minerals, rivers, waterfalls, etc.

We’ve lost that idea in modern life, hurtling through our days with rocket-like speed. We’re so distracted by the million and one thoughts and activities of the day.

I’m sitting here on the porch connecting with nature, really looking and listening instead of thinking about what I have to do. The attention span’s not the best, but I see clouds drifting across the sky, hear birds twittering and flapping to a new perch, a neighbor dog barking. There’s a different tempo out here apart from the world of man, a much slower pace. My workaholic self has trouble just being here and listening to what Big Mama has to say. Because she will send you messages and signs if you ask for them.

Messages come in different ways: a cloud shaped like a dolphin, a feather on the ground, a beautiful hawk or raven that appears to you. Unless you’re paying attention, you’ll miss the signs, It’s like magic and oh so precious to me. Ask a question, read the sign when it comes.

You can soak up the healing energy the earth and sky are sending you: sunlight on your skin and face, the sound of the wind rustling the leaves, light dancing on the lake. Just as trees breathe in our exhaled carbon dioxide and send us oxygen, they also can clear our energy fields. You can sit under a tree you admire and either sense or imagine you feel its healing and love raining down around you. It’s real. (Don’t forget to send thanks.)

Even if you don’t have a big health challenge now, think about taking a few minutes each day to touch base with Mother Nature. You’ll be amazed at what you’ll learn. Big Mama’s waiting to hear from you and has so much love for you, more than you ever dreamed possible.

For an excellent article on Nature Therapy published in Psychology Today, written by psychiatrist Emily Deans, MD, click here.

Cathy Corn’s mission involves teaching herself and others about the mystery and majesty of the natural world. You can check out her novels on her website at www.CathyACorn.com. She speaks and teaches about the faeries and elementals after a busy healing career as an RN, Reiki Master, craniosacral therapist, and licensed massage therapist.

The photo: Is the glass half empty, half full, or does it contain an elixir that can halt and even heal your disease? Which story do you like?

Let’s boil this down to its essence. Your story of your illness is oh so important. (Your thoughts and subconscious beliefs rank right up there, too.) What is the story of your illness? Is that really what you want for yourself???

Whatever you focus on is what you get more of. That’s universal law, proved by science. So if your story is “I’m so sick, I can barely move. I don’t think I’ll ever get better,” guess what you get more of? Congratulations, you’ve just doomed yourself to a meager existence.

But what if your story is “I’m feeling better every day. Others are helping me with my recovery and I’ll soon be able to help others with my healing story?” Bingo! You’re on the right track, even if you’re not on the train just yet.

I love Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona and his work. From a Native American perspective, he understands the power of story. As an MD and neuroscientist, he catalogues changes in the brain as our stories change. His latest book is Remapping Your Mind: The Neuroscience of Self-Transformation through Story. The guy’s brilliant, teaching us powerful healing techniques. You can connect with Lewis at www.mehl-madrona.com or on Facebook.

Hay House authors Bruce Lipton and Dr. Joe Dispenza would agree with that. They talk about epigenetics. This means that you are not destined to inherit the diseases of your ancestors. We now know and can scientifically prove that your genes respond to energies such as elevated emotions, like love, joy, peace, trust, etc., and intention. In one study, diabetics laughed for an hour watching funny stuff and produced 23 new genes for healing themselves.

Years ago, Norman Cousins healed himself in similar fashion from acute autoimmune disease, as told in his 1979 book, Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient. That’s great news, isn’t it?

So what’s your story? The real one, the one you want to make happen. Write it down, sing it to the stars, and believe in your own healing. Your life may depend on it.

CATHY A. CORN loves to learn and share about healing. She writes novels about connecting with nature and the energies that dwell there. For adult magical romantic adventure, go to her website, www.CathyACorn.com, to check out her Lilith & the Faeries Series.

And know that nature is the great healer of us all.

Give yourself a take-charge title. You can be a CEO–of your healing, your health, and wellness. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that if you don’t do it, nobody will. Or if someone else takes over for you, you’ll go off course. And even worse, your chances of healing from a grim diagnosis are pretty slim unless you park yourself in the driver’s seat.

I did healing work with a young woman in her thirties, we’ll call her Janie, with a daughter of about eight and a handsome, caring husband. They lived in a beautiful, large, picture-perfect house in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. I hauled my massage table up there and worked her over because I loved the woman. She had sarcoma, potentially fatal, and it kept reappearing in various parts of her body, which doctors would cut out.

Janie told me her favorite movie was “Jaws.” That should have been a clue.

I tried to get her to take over her healing, to claim her own power, to use all us healers as consultants. She needed to chart her own course, make her own decisions, based on information and her own gut feelings. She needed to consider her healing journey a full-time job. Anyone with a so-called terminal dis-ease needs to seek healing each and every day, with gratitude and joy. But Janie chose to deny and ignore her illness instead.

Going to her funeral was not easy, and I can feel emotion roiling up in me as I remember. Such a lovely, kind, sweet girl. It should have never happened. She should still be with us.

Only you know what’s best for you in your healing journey. Us “professionals” can advise, but you can and must chart your own course.

If you can’t bring yourself to do it for yourself, think of someone or something you adore. Pretend you are that person and fake it till you make it. Just as you would never want to let that person down, do the same for yourself.

Because healing can be great fun. You’re pointed toward a life with more ease, great purpose, and joy. Change can be great fun, you’ll find. Change is inevitable, so why not shift toward a life of greater enjoyment?

CATHY CORN (RN, LMT, RM) recently retired from massage practice at the Rivers Club in downtown Pittsburgh and now has more time for brushing the cats’ teeth and blogging about healing. She writes fiction about nature and faeries (see her Lilith & the Faeries Series at www.CathyACorn.com ) and currently writes MG children’s books, secretly hoping for a big contract so she can appear on national TV (either Kathy Lee and Hoda’s show or Dr. Oz) so her mother will be impressed.

In this blog, I’m sharing information about your road to healing. Mainstream medicine has been serving you for years, but what I’ll touch on will be mostly holistic therapies, thoughts, and ideas. Non-mainstream stuff.

But let’s get one thing straight. I’m NOT in any way, shape, or form putting down traditional medicine and its practitioners. Without them, we’d be lost, like a ship without an anchor. We need what we’ve already got. We just need to tweak it a bit, to give it some shiny new tools.

I worked as a registered nurse, mostly in hospitals. Nurses are truly compassionate, caring people. Several years ago, I went to my nurse’s alumni dinner at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, Ohio. The room crackled with crystal clear, positive, saint-like energy. Nurses are a force for good on the earth.

So are the doctors, who endure stress getting into medical school, strenuous training, and work so very hard ( some of them getting slapped with lawsuits as thanks). These are highly trained, caring men and women.

No, if I were bleeding from an accident, I wouldn’t go to the massage therapist or nutritionist. I’d pray that the staff from the ambulance and Emergency Room were waiting to work their magic.

So before I begin extolling about how your thoughts create your life or the vital importance of nutrition, I want to express deep gratitude for all the health care workers of the world.

We are blessed to be served by you healers. Sending you much love, light, peace, joy, and thanks.

And don’t forget. You CAN heal yourself. Yes, you can.

I’ve studied healing for about 45 years now. (But I’m only 39 years old. Forget the math.) It fascinates me. With the advent of online healing speakers, telesummits, and publishing houses who teach healing ( my favorites are Sounds True and Hay House), the information has exploded. You can learn amazing new techniques every day. Honest.

My work as a registered nurse in hospitals and then as a massage and energy therapist in corporate America makes me a hybrid. I’ve done both traditional, mainstream medicine and what’s called “alternative.” So let’s have some fun with this. Let’s explore together about how we can get healthy. I have a lot of ideas for you.

Yes, you can heal yourself. No matter how grim the diagnosis, your body is not trying to abandon you or make you suffer. Your body is sending you a message, trying to shift you to wholeness. To help you discover a life with more ease, joy, light, and love. So you can become a lover of life.

But we don’t take time to listen to our bodies. Or we don’t understand that’s what’s needed to heal the dis-ease. And taking a pill may be quick and easy, but not always the best answer.

Two of my favorite healers are Donna Eden (Eden Energy Medicine) and Chunyi Lin (Spring Forest Qigong). Both use energy to heal and both say that you can heal yourself. They have hundreds of stories to illustrate this fact (as many healers do).

I’ve done it myself ( with lots of help from others), so I know it can be done. So let’s enjoy changing and healing ourselves. I’ll be posting every week and sharing ideas with you. Please feel free to share your stories with me, too.

And if even just one person steps onto the pathway to healing and finds the journey a tremendous joy and relief, I will be glad.

With love, peace, joy, and gratitude,

CATHY CORN pursues healing with a hands-on practice and through her novels. This enables her to get out of cooking and most of the housework (please don’t mention this to her husband). She loves the nature spirits and walking between the worlds. You can find her at www.CathyACorn.com or Cathy A. Corn, Writer  on Facebook.

My novels at RIVERSTONE BOOKS. This is almost better than getting a kitten.

HEY! Blue moon coming on Wednesday. It’s a supermoon, a blue blood moon, or whatever else you want to call it. And a lunar eclipse thrown in just for the heck of it. I’m celebrating because my novel Blue Moon over Madagascar is on the shelf at Riverstone Books here in the North Hills (at McCandless Crossings) along with four of my other novels. (They look so cute there, even though they’re toward the bottom of the shelf. Oh well, we all have to start out somewhere.) Yes, how timely for my Blue Moon book to be out there in time for this auspicious blue moon.

It’s a beautiful book store with lots of interesting books. I bought a journal with a dragon on it. It doesn’t get any better than this. So visit my books there before you go out and howl at the moon. Or whatever else you do for fun or to commemorate this special occasion.

My husband Alan and I love the River City Brass Band and have thrilled to its stirring melodies and energetic, soul-reaching renditions of old favorites. Their recent Haunted Classics concert topped them all. As the crowd waited in the darkened auditorium, eyes glued on the well-lit stage with its musicians dressed in black, an apparition appeared from the wings.

Dracula.

Really, it was James Gourlay, the artistic director. He strode before us, slender and commanding in his black tux, fake red jewel pendant, face painted white with black circles around his eyes and “blood” dripping from the corner of his mouth. Resplendent in a bright red cape, he whipped it off and twirled it a few times and addressed the crowd.

In a Transylvanian-Scottish accent. James is Scottish, quite the showman, and entertained us with his wit and charm and faux accent. We laughed for hours during and after the concert. Not only did the band play spooky tunes from Psycho, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Chiller Theater, to name a few, but video clips were shown on a large screen to the left of the stage.

James’s portrayal of Dracula endeared the old haunted character to my heart. Yes, we were engaging with the dark side of life, with the elements of fear and horror. But it was so much fun.

I couldn’t help thinking how each one of us has a dark side–call it ego or shadow side. We don’t usually want to admit it and cling to the fantasy of being 100% good guys. We pretend to be perfect in every way, when the darkness is just part of who we are (ancestral patterns, past trauma, etc.) All our imperfection is just part of some cosmic spiritual perfection.

I’ve been working on this, shining light on my own shadow. My weaknesses are pretty funny at times. And as I claim my dark side, become aware of how I actually operate, it all gets easier and more fun. Instead of fearing my shadow, I laugh more about it. (Okay, I still have a long way to go with this. Go ahead and laugh at me.)

So do not fear your dark side, my children. Embrace it. Take it out to lunch. Buy it a nice gift. But above all, get to know it. It’s just there so we can all have some fun.

Welcome, my friends. Please join my celebration of 25 years of devoted service in massage and energy work. It’s been a grand ride, but change is in the air. I’m shifting from working in downtown Pittsburgh at the Rivers Club to private practice. I anticipate sessions in my Amethyst Healing Studio and would love to work with pets as well as people. I love to study healing and am constantly learning new techniques because it’s so fascinating.

Also, I’m shifting into the wilds of the Internet, selling my novels and teaching. Having studied Doreen Virtue’s Fairyologist course, I’m now connected with like-minded people worldwide (Love you, faery people! xoxo) For that reason, I’m now offering distance healing sessions. And to start out right, I’m giving away two or three free sessions. (You relax at a predetermined day and time and just sense the shifts in your body as the healing energy spirals in. It works. Trust me.)

Please comment below (on the Facebook comment thread) to be considered for a complimentary session. I will draw from names gathered in a week and announce the winners on July 6.

Best wishes for you with your personal shifts and transformations. Growing and changing can be quite exhilarating. And don’t forget, Mother Earth is counting on us to heal ourselves. She’s proud of us and wants us to explore her and delight in her wonders.

Of course, a faery told me that.