I Choose Sight...Naturally!

by Dawn Depke

I have been wearing glasses and contacts since I was 16 years old and decided 14 months ago after breaking my last very expensive hard contact that I was committing to healing my vision naturally! Yes, you read that right; I am healing my vision naturally.

If I honestly believed that the body has an innate ability to heal itself, then why not put mine to the test yet again?

It was May of 2009 and I had just began reading for the fist time a book called, Take off your Glasses and See which was a gift from a client of mine about 8 years prior. I remember the exact day my contact broke because I had just finishing assisting a 4-day Cranial Sacral Therapy (CST) Intensive in Chicago and was in Iowa visiting my family. I broke my contact the first day I arrived in Iowa! I had no back up pair of contacts and my glasses had broken a year prior and I had never replaced them. So I was left with no vise.

I don’t how you’d respond, but I felt panic for a long moment, said some 4-letter words, and then took a deep breathe and decided it was time to trust my body’s natural healing ability. Really, what choice did I have? Especially since I was on a strict budget financially.

I immediately opened my book, thank the Angels in Heaven I had it with me! I began practicing the eye exercises the author (an Optometrist) recommended. I also did some Shiatsu and cranial sacral therapy on the orbits of my eyes and face. I had learned a technique called “unwinding” while I was a student of CST. Unwinding is allowing your body to move naturally to release muscular tension, physical trauma and emotional baggage; so I decided to use it to “unwind my eyes”. I almost couldn’t believe how fast my eyes were moving under the closed eye lids. It was astonishing to me. I didn’t experience anything at this point and a headache was beginning.

Once I was home, I continued doing all of the techniques mentioned above as well as dealing with the suppressed emotions that were beginning to surface. On a physical level I experienced headaches for about 2 weeks and they went away. You might be wondering what emotional baggage was surfacing and why. Well according to the author of Take off your Glasses and See, prior to vision changes we experience an emotional trauma, something that is extremely emotionally painful and too hard for us to “see”. We unconsciously suppress the emotions and as a result our vision begins to change for the worse. Now keep in mind, this is all happening at an unconscious level. In order for me to heal this at a core level, I chose to experience the suppressed emotions so that I could move through this with an end goal of seeing 20/20 naturally. Dealing with these memories and emotions surfacing was not easy. In fact there were moments that were so hard for me that I thought about giving up. I remember asking myself, “Is it worth it?” “Am I strong enough to do this?” and “Will this even work?”

Well, 14 months later, I can tell you YES it was worth it! It took me about 4 months to process through the most intense emotions, fears and doubts. I continue doing the eye exercises a few times a week instead of multiple times per day. I can see clearly, (20/20 on my eye chart) I can see at night (this was my greatest challenge, so I still have to do my eye exercises prior to night driving). I can see at long distances and up close. I am truly grateful for this unexpected yet desired challenge to heal my vision naturally.

If you have any questions or comments on my healing journey with my eyesight, please post these for my response.

Anatomy of Choice

In my last post we began the conversation regarding choice in our lives. Today I would like to discuss the anatomy of choice. Believe it or not, some that are reading this have never made a choice in their lives. I know, that sounds absurd, but let me explain.


Let’s use the example of picking a flavor of ice cream. For the purpose of an example we will say that your favorite flavor is chocolate. Now if you were at my home for dinner and I asked all the guests if they wanted vanilla or chocolate ice cream, you would very quickly say chocolate because you love the way it tastes. So is this response a choice or a decision? It is a decision because you have picked chocolate based on your conditioning of the past without truly knowing and considering your options. Let me clarify.


To continue the example further, let’s say that everyone else at the table picked vanilla and they absolutely loved it. This may be because this is my homemade vanilla bean ice cream made with real vanilla beans that is actually incredibly decadent. I know decadent is usually reserved for chocolate, but my homemade vanilla bean ice cream breaks those rules. Now back to your chocolate. Maybe the chocolate ice cream I gave you was the cheapest store brand and it was sitting in my freeze so long that it had freezer burn. So you are eating this nasty chocolate ice cream while everyone else is sharing how incredibly decadent the fresh vanilla bean is.


This is all happening because you did not choose; you made a decision from the past and that past tells you to only consider chocolate. Now if you would have inquired about all the options, weighed the pros and cons of all the options; you may have actually chosen vanilla instead of deciding on chocolate.


As you know our newsletters are all about health; so how does this choosing vs. decisions impact our health. We will first recognize that most of us have been taught in the past that the doctor’s word is law. Some will even say that their doctor’s word ranks right up there with God. This conditioning, which is from the past, will often lead into making quick decisions without looking at all the options. I am not saying that you should always think your doctor as wrong; very often they have very valuable information that may help you. What I am saying though is that to make a true choice, you have to look at all your options, weigh the pros and cons and then make your choice. Often your other options are in areas that your doctor was not trained in, or is simply not his level of expertise.


Years ago, my ex-brother-in-law made a comment to me that has stuck through my years of practice. I need to first tell you that he is a conventional Medical Doctor. We were debating a particular health challenge from the opposite sides of the fence when the statement presented itself. He said, “Glen, what we do is called medicine, what we are trained in is medicine and what people come to us for is medicine. If they want to be healthy, they come to see you.” After hearing this many years ago, it all made sense to me and I am still thankful for this defining moment in my career.


So the next time you have a health challenge, I would love to see that you choose your path rather than just make a decision based on the conditioning of your past. Even if you love chocolate, who wants the cheap store brand with freezer burn?


Remember, you get to choose!

Who Would Choose Illness?

If you are living with some type of disease state that you are either recognizing on your own or one that has already been diagnosed, you may not want to hear the answer to this.

More than likely, if you are ill, you have chosen this on some level at some point of your life.

Doesn't that just burn with responsibility on some level?

I am sure that if you are reading this and battling cancer, autoimmune challenges, diabetes or any other disease state; you are thinking, “I did not choose this”. As an example, for someone with cancer, you did not sit down one day and think to yourself, I hope to develop cancer. Of course not and I do not want to be ridiculous to even think that. When you follow your life path in reverse, you can very often see the areas of choice that eventually led to the cancer. Maybe there were challenges with your GI that led to poor immune function and the poor immune function allowed the cancer cells to multiply out of control. Maybe you have been holding onto some deep resentment that created this vibrational challenge in your body. Perhaps you have had multiple other symptoms or signs in your life that you simply choose to ignore. Maybe you did not focus on the simple but necessary fundamentals of health such as deep breathing, staying hydrated, proper nutrition, good sleep habit, moving regularly, or getting outside in the sun. Maybe you are a workaholic and health was not a priority. Maybe you were taught to put everyone else first and there is never anything left for you. Maybe you have been suppressing your emotions throughout your life because you did not know what to do with them. Maybe you have been gluten intolerant your whole life but never stopped eating gluten products.

I am actually amazed on the actual numbers of individuals that actually know what to do to be healthy, yet they still do not make the choice. It is actually staggering. At least those that are ignorant of what is causing the challenges have an excuse (not a good one though) but to know and not change is such a challenge in itself.

I am blessed to be able to have helped thousands of clients through my years, find their balance and make the choice to walk away from illness. I want you to know that I am not writing this today to condemn anyone. I am writing this so you know that health is a choice. Make it a good one!

This is the beginning of a series on choice, to empower you with the information and the ability to choose health, wellness and happiness in your life. You know our motto her at Depke Wellness, Wellness for Yourself and Wellness for the World.

Please respond with any questions or comments.

Yorba Linda Family Chiropractic, Weight Loss Revolution

Greetings to all,

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.

Who Wants to Lose Weight? Part Four

Adrenals and Your Waistline

I want to share some shocking news with everyone. The very protocol that most use to lose weight actually challenges the very glands that play a significant role in regulating body weight. Often this leads to an inability to lose weight, short of starving yourself and we all know how unhealthy that is.

Let’s first understand that the adrenals play a role in your body’s ability to regulate body weight. I can share that I have viewed literally thousands of adrenal test results in my career and I have only seen a few come back in a normal range. With this in mind, it is easy to see that if you have a health or weight problem, this generally coincides with an adrenal challenge. This is why I mentioned above, that it is so hard for many to lose weight without starving themselves and honestly, we know how unhealthy that would be. The interesting factor is that when you restrict your body of the very nutrition needed to be healthy, your adrenals are also stimulated. This will lead to a furthering of your adrenal imbalance.

We will also look at a very common cycle in our society. You may be sitting there 20 to 30 pounds overweight, so what is the first change most people make? If you thought, go on a diet, you are absolutely correct. More often than not though, the diet does not work and you may not lose weight or worse, you may actually gain weight. See the blog on Nutritional ID for more info on this.

So the next shift for most is to start exercising. But now you are dieting and exercising and you are still frustrated with continued weight challenges. So the next step is to hire a trainer because you feel you must be doing something wrong. One of the things your trainer has you do right away is kick up the cardio. He/she is telling you that in order to lose weight you need to burn more calories and the best way to do that is to increase your aerobic activity. Here is the kicker though; after all the dieting, exercise, money spent on the trainer, and months of hard work; you still have not lost any weight.

Ugg…I feel your pain!

This could very well be due to the fact that your adrenals may have been imbalanced in the first place and aerobic activity may actually be making them worse. Understand that when the adrenals are already exhausted, any activity that increases your heart rate on any level of significance can worsen the adrenals. This leads to added weight around your midsection and an inability to regulate weight properly.

If you have any questions or if you are interested in assessing your adrenals to understand the proper weight loss protocol feel free to respond to this blog or email me at Glen@DepkeWellness.com.

Who Wants to Lose Weight? Part Three

If you have been following the tips in part 1 & 2 than you have more than likely already started to lose weight so let’s add a component that will push this for you a bit faster.

In part 3, we will discuss exercise. Yes, I understand this is a bad word for many of us. So many of you reading this are already thinking; I don’t have time for exercise. Don’t be concerned though, I will make recommendations that everyone has the time for that will make a difference.

Before I get into the recommendations, I want to share that there are two situations I generally recognize with my new clients in regard to exercise. Either they do not exercise at all, or they exercise too much. That is the general consensus that I see all the time. Some people actually hinder proper health or weight loss by too much exercise or the wrong type based on their challenges and obviously we all know that zero exercise does not work either.

I am going to teach you the simple plan that I give to all the participants in my Express Track to Health and Wellness program that works so well for most. The good thing is that this takes less than 20 minutes per day for you.

First pick 3 days per week that you are going to do your anaerobic exercise and the other 4 days I am simply going to ask you to walk. Make sure there is one day in between your anaerobic workout days to allow proper rest for the body. As an example, let’s say you will pick Monday, Wednesday and Friday for your workout and the other days for walking. I would suggest you follow the directions below.

Movement: Use the listed movements 3 days per week.

• Squat with a ball behind your back against a wall while keeping your feet far enough forward so your knees to not extend beyond your toes. Preferably do this bare foot and spread your toes during this time. Do as many as possible in 60 seconds and squat as low as you are able. Repeat this with a 2 minute rest between sets.

• Complete as many pushups as possible in a 60 second time frame. If it is too difficult to do regular pushups do them from your knees. Repeat this with a 2 minute rest between sets.

• Complete as many crunches as possible in a 60 second time frame. Repeat this with a 2 minute rest between sets.

• On the days you are not following the above routine it will be important to walk at least one mile or as much as you can in 20 minutes. If you are in a cold weather area and you do not have a treadmill available, I would recommend stopping at a shopping mall prior to going home at night for this.

With the directions above the 2 minute rest in between your sets is of utmost importance so please follow these directions closely.

You may have noticed that I am not asking you to partake in any intense aerobic activity such as running or a spin class. Those are the general recommendations that simply do not work well for most.

Many in our culture are troubled with adrenal exhaustion and increasing the heart rate can actually worsen this condition. Besides for that, the aerobic activity often breaks down muscle tissue which is so important for maintain proper weight and to maintain our weight loss with aerobic activity, generally you have to continually increase this aerobic activity. It often becomes a very uncomfortable cycle for many.

If you have any questions or concerns in regard to these recommendations, please feel free to post your reply.

Who Wants to Lose Weight? Part Two

I trust that after reading part one last week you have already increased your water consumption, improved your digestion and are taking a quality multivitamin to assist in nutrient uptake. If you did not read part one, please read this for yourself soon.

In part two we are going to address some of the simple first nutritional steps to assist in losing weight.

It is always important to include all your macronutrients at every meal. Your macronutrients are your proteins, fats and carbohydrates. If you leave any of these out from your snack or meal this will likely lead to a poor conversion of energy in your body and ultimately lead to cravings and the need for more food. The unfortunate reality is that this often leads to some poor quality of snacks or stimulants to “quick fix” your energy.

In regard to protein, it has been shown that increasing dietary protein intake to an amount that equals 25% of total calorie intake facilitates weight loss and white adipose tissue reduction in persons afflicted with obesity. When consuming your protein, be sure to include a source that is as close to natural as possible and use processed proteins only in a pinch. Flesh protein itself is a great source but you want to be sure to use grass fed, free range, wild caught and organically fed as much as possible. If it is difficult to find this high quality in the area you live, please visit www.DepkeWellness.com and click on the Preferred Health Partner page. There you will find links to Blackwing Meats and Vital Choice Seafood, for the highest of quality you are looking for. I just received my shipment of Vital Choice Seafood yesterday at my home and I cannot wait to sink my teeth into the salmon that is out of this world.

You could also include eggs, nuts, seeds, nut butters and raw cheese. The best protein source nuts would be almonds, cashews and peanuts (peanuts are actually a legume). Seeds are best when sprouted due to the fact that this will increase the protein content and in regard to eggs, please use free range and organic. When using dairy as your protein use raw if available. You can actually purchase raw cheese at markets such as Whole Foods and if you live in California, raw dairy is available in many local markets. For more information on raw dairy go to www.RealMilk.com.

As far as fat is concerned, you do not want to exclude this macronutrient. I know that our culture has been fat phobic for about thirty years but my question is, “How’s that been working for us?” The reality is that since we have reduced fat consumption in our culture, we have actually gotten fatter. Please use health fats such as avocado, raw nuts, raw seeds, coconut oil, raw butter, olive oil and when cooking your eggs, cook sunny side up to hold maintain the integrity of the fat in the yolk. It is also best to consume your fat raw due to the damage created by heating fat. Definitely stay away from cooked vegetable oils since the heat will damage the molecules and create hydrogenated oils.

Now with carbohydrates; if you really want to lose weight, you will only eat low glycemic carbs. Understand that the trigger for weight gain is insulin and insulin is increased when we consume high glycemic carbs due to the fact that this raises blood sugar levels. Blood sugar stability is such a key to optimal weight and the consumption of low glycemic carbs along with proper protein and fat will assist in maintaining optimal blood sugar stability.

So for carb consumption, I would recommend including an above ground vegetable with every meal, since the above ground veggies are typically lower on the glycemic scale. Replace the bread on your sandwich with a large romaine lettuce leaf and create a wrap. Instead of pasta, steam some green beans or use spaghetti squash as the vehicle for your favorite pasta sauce with grated cheese.

I would recommend restricting any flour products and even fruit when you are trying to loose weight. Yes, I know, there are a lot of nutrients in fruit, but there is also quite a bit of sugar that challenges the blood glucose. If you do have an occasional flour product or fruit, be sure to eat it directly with added fat, as the fat will slow down the release of glucose.

These tips along with what you implemented last week should get you well on your way to the weight loss or general health that you are looking to achieve. Next week in part three we will address some common misconceptions in regard to exercise and weight loss.

If you have any questions or comments in regard to this article please leave them below.