Thursday, July 29, 2010

Take Control of Your Life July

Greetings!

Congratulations for making the commitment to yourself for taking the steps to change your health and change your life. By replying with a post that you are "all in", you will be acknowledging your commitment to yourself, to me and the rest of the group. This commitment solidifies that you are going to do everything within your power to follow this workshop and support others in our group so we can all accomplish or weight and/or health goals.

Wellness for the World,
Glen Depke

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Shiatsu is Not a Breed of Dog

by Dawn Depke

Shiatsu is an amazing form of Bodywork that was conceived by combining Chinese Acupuncture and Japanese Anma massage thousands of years ago. “Shi” means finger and “atsu” means pressure in Japanese. Shiatsu is Japan’s first form of physical therapy that consists of pressure applied to the physical and energetic body or “meridian system” by the practitioner’s fingers, thumbs, elbows and knees to stimulate or sedate the flow of energy or “chi”.

Now, you might be wondering why you’d want your “chi” stimulated or sedated and the answer to that question is simple; to increase the quality of your life! Energy is the foundation on which your life is created. It is proven scientifically that everything is made from energy, including humans. If we are energy and our energy is low or stagnant, can you imagine what we’d feel like? We might feel sluggish, worn out, non-motivated, and maybe even depressed or ill. Now imagine if your energy is abundant and flowing, can you imagine how that would feel? Perhaps you’d feel happy, energetic, creative, motivated, and healthy.

It’s a safe assumption to say that most of us strive to have abundant energy so that we can live an amazing life, right? It sounds simple enough, but there are many things that get in the way. I’ve learned that “life happens” and sometimes there are major events that shake my world for example the house fire that happened to my friends house, the place I was living at that time, to some small everyday irritations that occur. What is the difference between the people who move through these situations gracefully and others not so gracefully?

There are many factors but simply put, it is our energy. I’m sure you’ve heard the terms “positive energy”, “negative energy” and “good energy”, “bad energy”. I’m here to tell you that energy is energy. It’s not positive, or negative nor good nor bad. It just is. However, in relationship to our body, energy needs to be flowing. Think about this, remember a time when you were in a bad mood or just a little cranky and you heard a song that you loved play on the radio or your best friend called and immediately your mood improved. Can you remember a time when that happened? What happened? Your energy shifted, increased or shifted in some way.

We can shift that stagnant or rapid moving energy very quickly through many modalities but today I am going to describe on one that I know very well, Shiatsu Bodywork. Shiatsu is a non-invasive modality that is received while lying on a massage table, through clothing. The pressure is dictated by the recipient so it can be light pressure or medium pressure. It should always be comfortable to the receiver. The body is gently stretched and moved while pressure is applied to the meridians and acupuncture points (no needles are used). When this pressure is applied to the physical body it also has an effect on the energetic body, the emotional body and the organ function. Each meridian specifically relates to an organ (i.e.: stomach, spleen, bladder, kidney, liver, etc) a season, a time of day and so on. Let’s say I was feeling your Gall Bladder meridian which is located the same place your IT band (lateral leg) is located and it felt tight to me. As I applied pressure to this area, it would physically release tension, energetically it is stimulating or sedating the energy flowing through the meridian based on the type of pressure I was applying and increase the energy to the actual organ. It also is related to an emotion, specifically mental emotional stress, decision making and anger. The goal is to become more body aware.

A complete session takes anywhere from 60-90 minutes and feels relaxing during and stimulating afterward. The way you feel after will let me know if you are overdoing it. If you are tired after the session it means you need rest and water but if you are energized, that is a good indicator that your life is somewhat in harmony.

Shiatsu received on a regular basis increases the benefits, increasing ones vitality and creating more harmony in life. Through my 11 years facilitating shiatsu bodywork, I have helped hundreds of people decrease physical pain, increase mental relaxation (chill the “monkey mind”), decrease tension headaches and migraine headaches, release suppressed emotions and so much more. I invite you to treat yourself to a session of Shiatsu Bodywork with me and experience getting in touch with your energetic body!

To contact me for this amazing experience for yourself, or if you are a professional and would like to add this technique to your current repertoire to enhance your clients experience, call 949.642.2094. As one of the leading instructors of Integrative Shiatsu in our country I provide a 24 hour continuing education workshop at an affordable cost for those looking to provide the best. The next continuing education workshop is starting in late September and limited to four students per workshop, so call to reserve your spot today. Both you and your clients will thank you!

If you have further questions or comments, feel free to post these below.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Enzymes and Peak Performance

by Glen Depke

Do you really want to know how to reach peak performance and live this way for most of your life? Of course you do, and honestly, who would not want this for themselves and their loved ones? Well, I cannot give you that one missing piece of information or the magic bullet, but I can help you understand a very important piece of the chemical and biological aspect of your being, that plays a significant role in achieving your performance, health and longevity goals. This key factor is your body’s metabolic enzyme activity.


Let’s first look at the different enzyme activity in our body. When discussing enzymes I will be talking about metabolic enzymes, pancreatic enzymes, food enzymes and supplemental digestive enzymes. As we look to achieve peak performance, optimal health and longevity, all of these enzymes play a significant role but the food, pancreatic and supplemental enzymes are necessary to slow down the “using up” process of the ever important metabolic enzyme activity. Unfortunately this “using up” process is a far too regular part of our lives; processed foods, cooked foods, over-exertion, and so on. For those that work, train and play hard or simply for those that are stuck in the normal patterns of our unhealthy lifestyles, it is of utmost importance to do something to save this metabolic enzyme activity. Your peak performance, optimal health and longevity depend on it.


Simply put, metabolic enzymes are created in the cells of our body to allow the chemical process of life to occur fast enough to maintain your life. Understand that if we did not enjoy this metabolic enzyme activity, life would cease in that moment. As mentioned above most of us “use up” our metabolic enzyme activity on a regular basis.


So why is this so important to be concerned about these enzymes if they are produced in the cells of the body? This is important because it is believed that we do not have an unlimited supply of these metabolic enzymes. It is recognized that as we age our metabolic enzyme activity is on a slow and steady decline until very late in life. Somewhere toward the end of life, our metabolic enzyme activity steeply and dramatically drops and life as we know it ends. This is very similar to the understanding that women are pre-determined at birth, the amount of times they are going to ovulate. Once that time is reached you cannot go back. The difference with your metabolic enzyme activity is that you have quite a bit of control over what you can do to save this activity. Let’s take a look at the other enzymes and the role they play.


The pancreatic enzymes are a conversion of metabolic enzymes in the pancreas into the necessary digestive enzymes that are released in the pancreatic juice to break down the food that we eat, in the small intestines. The body will produce the necessary enzymes needed based on the amount, or lack of, enzymes naturally in your food or supplemental enzymes. Remember that the pancreas will rob your metabolic enzyme activity to convert them into these digestive enzymes. This robbing Peter to pay Paul system is a part of this “using up” of the metabolic enzyme activity.


So how do we decrease our need for pancreatic enzymes? This is where food enzymes and supplemental enzymes come to the rescue. Food enzymes are the natural occurring enzymes in all natural, whole, raw foods. Every food has within it the enzymes needed to break this food down for optimal absorption and assimilation. When we cook the food above a temperature of 118 degrees, the enzyme activity is completely destroyed. Supplemental enzymes such as the Depke Wellness, Prime Digestive Support, simply puts back the enzyme activity that we destroyed by the cooking process. Getting your natural food enzymes or using the Prime Digestive Support is the way to get the most out of your nutrition and save your metabolic enzyme activity, so you can reach your peak performance, optimal health and longevity.


So where in the digestive tract do these food and/or supplemental enzymes play a role? After you have chewed your food and mixed this with the limited enzyme activity in the saliva, along with the natural food enzymes, your food will eventually move into the stomach. Once it reaches the stomach, your food will typically set high in the stomach for about 30 to 60 minutes where it will break down with the enzymes from your food, the limited enzyme activity from the saliva and with the supplemental digestive enzymes, such as the Prime Digestive Support. After this period, your food will move through the stomach into the acid bath for further breakdown of your protein and eventually move into the first third of your small intestines, where the pancreatic juice is released. This first 30 to 60 minutes is such a key to stopping the “using up” process of your metabolic enzyme activity and a must, if you wish to reach peak performance, optimal health and longevity.


With this in mind, you can understand the importance of eating all of you food raw or using digestive enzymes. Since most of you reading this are consuming cooked food regularly, the digestive enzymes such as the Prime Digestive Support is for you.


Based on my years of practice I recognize that the toughest foods to breakdown properly are flesh protein, fat, beans and some vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower and Brussel sprouts. Most people can eat some vegetables raw but I do not know of many that are eating their flesh proteins and animal fats raw on a regular basis. This is another of the many reasons to supplement your digestive enzyme activity, since raw vegetables and fruit do not contain the enzymes necessary for proper breakdown of animal based foods. To achieve your peak performance, optimal health and longevity, this will require a full spectrum of animal and plant based enzymes to properly break down your full spectrum of nutritional choices.


If you have any comments or questions about this article please leave them below.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Relationships From a Man's View

by Glen Depke

For those that are having challenges within their relationships or if you have already ended a relationship, I find a consistent thought pattern that most of my clients have shared in the past. If my partner would not have done this or that wrong or if they only saw it my way. Trust me; what we think is the issue generally is not. These are the superficial issues and not typically at the core.


My opinions come from a place of living through a twenty year relationship that ended, learning and growing in a new relationship and from years of hearing the stories from my clients.


I don’t think that anyone goes into marriage thinking about anything but being with that person the rest of their life. I know when I was first married, I thought it was for life and I would have thought I was the last person that would ever get divorced. With that said, I ended up with the higher percentage of more than 50% of marriages that end in divorce. Did you know that the divorce rate is even higher for second marriages? Does not sound like a roaring endorsement for marriage does it? Well I can share that marriage can and does work but this takes a very special skill.


In my opinion, this special skill is the ability to look at yourself. Sure, when I was in the throws of my breakup after twenty years, I had all the if she would have done this or that, or if she would only look at it my way. Well guess what, I was all wrong. It was not about my ex wife at all, it was all my issues. Sure we know the saying, it takes two to tango but let’s look at some facts. The only person we have control over is ourselves. Think about how different our significant other would be if we addressed our own issues, yet this is the last place we go. It is much easier and convenient to blame others and be a victim rather than take responsibility for what is going on.


Often we will end relationships with the thought that there is something better out there, somebody that gets you, somebody that makes this all much easier. With this in mind we leave, find the “perfect” person, yet in the end it still falls apart. How could this “perfect” person turn on you? How could this all end up just like your last relationship? The answer to that is simple. You took you with you!


When we leave one relationship thinking the grass is greener, we don’t have it in our mind that we are actually the weed.


My recommendation to anyone that asks for my opinion is to work on yourself first. Figure out your own challenges, domestication and issues before you leave someone you love and look for where the grass is greener. Far too often when you do this, you end up with the same person. Different face, different name but the same person. This is because you are the same and you will attract into your life the same energy for yourself. Yikes, imagine going through all of this again.


I am so grateful to be able to share that my wife (Dawn) and I have recognized that we individually played a significant role in our past breakups and are willing to do what it takes to learn and grow as individuals so we have the ability to learn and grow as a couple. This should be so easy to understand but most of us were not taught the simple step. Look at yourself first!


Remember that the health of your relationship is an extremely important aspect of your overall health and wellness.


Be sure to read Dawn’s post on Celebrating Men, Satisfying Women to learn the woman's perspective on my thoughts about relationships.

To learn how to illuminate the core of woman's behavior -- how women think, feel, communicate, and relate to themselves and others. Listen, laugh, learn and be more successful with all women in your life!

To learn the same invaluable lessons as I to save my relationships copy and paste this link in your browser.

http://www.understandmen.com/products/uwdvd.html

If you have any questions or comments please post a reply and I will address this for you.

Celebrating Men, Satisfying Woman

by Dawn Depke

Yes, I said celebrating men! After two days with Alison Armstrong I truly believe that men are magnificent and simple. I know, it’s hard to believe, but when we chose to look at men from a different perspective everything can change.

Consider this, men respond to woman. Men are both born a prince and a frog. It’s when a woman treats him one way, the prince shows up and when a she treats him in another way the frog shows up. So do find a prince in your life or are you a frog farmer? I know that puts a tremendous amount of responsibility on us woman, but it also gives us a tremendous amount of control so hear me out! Alison is a powerful woman who accidently began studying men after finding out she was a frog farmer. She continued studying them for the past 19 years. Because of her dedication and passion about men, I learned invaluable information on how to celebrate men and become a satisfied woman in her 2 day seminar!

How many of you out there meet the mate of your dreams, in the beginning everything is going amazingly well, your new potential mate is very attentive, respectful and fun to be with. It’s like you can do no wrong and they are an answer to your prayers. Until the third month or so and all hell breaks loose, he isn’t calling you back, she is becoming too clingy, you start seeing the worst in each other. Then you decide he/she is just like the last person you dated! I’m here to tell you my dear that is what Alison calls “Frog Farming”. When I heard her describe frog farming I couldn’t help but admit I was a frog farmer! Yes, me. I have turned more men into frogs than princes.

Consider having a relationship with the opposite sex that is completely satisfying for both partners, where understanding, love, respect, intimacy, trust, and compassion reside. Can you even imagine? How would that change your life? I know for some of you that thought is unimaginable, and it’s not your fault you feel that way. The challenge is most of us have not been taught how to have that type of relationship. We learn from people in unhappy relationships or from couples that are just surviving in their relationship. If we learn from someone who truly understands how to create that amazing relationship and from someone who thrives in their relationship instead of survive our success rate dramatically increases. Alison Armstrong is that woman.

Men and woman are meant to fit together beautifully. It is sad to me that we have few role models that portray this. I know the more people who apply Alison’s research to their life, satisfying relationships will become the new paradigm. I’m all for having fulfilling lives loving the opposite sex, are you? Through applying her advice we can transform the most horrific relationships into ones filled with love and respect. At www.UnderstandingMen.com you will find recorded live lectures, books, free articles as well as live workshops information. I promise you will get more than you expected listening to her work. If you are a woman I urge you to take 3 hours out of your day, whether you are single, going through a divorce, currently in a happy marriage, or have a son, to attend the Making Sense of Men FREE 3 hour event coming up in California.

Share Your World and invite the women in your life to attend "Making Sense of Men," our FREE, 3-hour seminar for women only. Your friends will get a taste of your new world, will be better able to support your new perspective, and have the opportunity to join you in an extraordinary understanding of men.

Seating is limited and reservations are required. To make FREE reservations for yourself and your friends, click on this link or copy and paste it into your web browser: http://www.understandmen.com/makingsense/index.html

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Menopause Got You Down?

by Glen Depke

We have been talking about choice quite a bit lately, so how many of women out there would be totally aggravated if I told you that you chose menopausal symptoms? I know if I was a woman and was challenged with weight gain, hot flashes, mood swings, among many other possible symptoms; I would not be a happy camper if someone told me I was choosing this torture. Please take the time to hear me out though; I will help you understand what happened in your life that led to these challenges.

I would first like you to recognize that the highest percentage of my client base is women between the ages of 45 to 55 and many of these women are feeling tortured as I mentioned above. Once they find the truth to their challenges and make the necessary shifts in choice for their lives, they are often able to walk away from their symptoms and live the life of health and happiness they desire. Let’s add that if you are a husband reading this, you better be glued into the information provided. We are not only talking about your wife’s health and happiness but yours as well.

Let’s start by understanding that menopausal symptoms are not normal. If you look at indigenous cultures throughout recorded history and even in today’s times, the collection of symptoms most women in our culture suffer with are almost completely non-existent. Women in these cultures are actually honored and worshipped in a way to acknowledge their wisdom and life transformation. They are actually looked at as stronger women and admired for their infinite wisdom. When is the last time you heard of a woman in our culture bragging about going through menopause with ease and recognizing that those around her are honoring her for her wisdom and strength? Unheard of isn’t it?

The first choice is to create a shift of the stigma around menopause. Knowing that you can move through this time of your life in ease rather than torture is a very pleasing and a very real thought. Don’t believe all the horror stories you hear about menopause, recognizing that these are stories of unhealthy and imbalanced women going through menopause.

Here is the next challenge for women that I see so consistently in my practice. Most women are taught from a very young age to take care of their children, their husband, their home, their job, their community, their church, and the list goes on. What a minute though; isn’t somebody missing here? Yes of course, taking care of themselves! Women do so much in this culture on a consistent basis to the point that they do not take care of themselves and this is completely unfair. The amazing fact is that if women were taught to put themselves first, they would have all the energy in the world to take care of all the other aspects of their lives, while staying strong through menopause. Women have this incredible gift of as Allison Armstrong describes diffuse awareness. I describe this as the woman’s ability to look at the whole picture at once. To learn more about Allison Armstrong or her workshops you could also read my wife’s post next week, on her experience with Allison Armstrong in a recent workshop.

For any women with menopausal symptoms or if you are nearing this age, it is so important to choose time for yourself to focus on your fundamentals of health. It is very important that you chose this time and if you are a husband reading this, be sure to create time for your wife to have her own space and time to take care of herself and heal. More than likely she has been working her butt off for years taking care of you, so it is time to even the score. For those that need directions on what the fundamentals of health involve, feel free to visit the posts in the blog archive from January of this year. They start with the air your breath, thru exposure to the sun. If you feel that you need deeper assistance with this, we will be releasing a 7 part video series within this month to assist you in reaching balance within your fundamentals of health.

The other challenge to recognize is the adrenal tie into menopause. This is so important since as mentioned above, most women enter menopausal years with exhausted adrenals. One of the first challenges is noticeable weight gain. You know, that 15 to 30 pounds that no woman enjoys. Interesting also that it seems that the only way to lose any of this weight is to starve yourself and we know that this is not a healthy accomplishment. What you may not realize though, is that the weight gain is your body’s perfect balance for the challenges at hand.

You see, when the ovaries slow the production of estrogen, this needs to be balanced elsewhere within the body. Typically the adrenals will assist with this hormonal balance but remember, I mentioned that most women go through menopause with exhausted adrenals. Since the adrenals cannot pick up the hormonal slack, the next place for your body to balance hormonally is via the fat cells. So if you are going through menopause with exhausted adrenals, your body will do everything it can to gain and hold onto weight. This is such a challenging cycle for women in our culture yet so easy to balance with the correct information and implementation of new choices in life.

On Tuesday, July 13th, at 6:00PM Pacific time we will be providing a complimentary webinar to address the three main factors that lead into the adrenal exhaustion that is hindering you from enjoying menopause. Yes, I did say enjoying menopause!

Copy and paste the link below into your browser to sign up for the complimentary webinar for the introduction to our workshop, “Menopause Got You Down?” If you are lucky enough to be the husband that read this all the way through, do yourself and your wife a favor and sign both of you up for this complimentary introductory webinar.

Link for complimentary webinar: http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e2ykxhau978dc15c

If you have any questions or comments to this post, feel free to reply below.