Tuesday, November 18, 2014

When Feelings Stop

We can become the recipients of things happening to us that stops us from feeling our emotions. It is like being frozen in time. We think we are moving on but we honestly aren't. Some time, some where, in some form, the memory, the unresolved emotions will return and usually when they do matters feel worse. Sometimes we can get out of a situation, sometimes we cannot. Nevertheless, our emotional, physical, and psychological reactions have frozen so we can continue on as normally as possible.
Writing is a healthy way to get to the bottom of what we are experiencing. It helps us unlock the emotions that have frozen, the thoughts we don't allow ourselves to have because they might incite more pain, and the stress that is sending millions of Americans into doctor's offices for medication that only compounds the problem by suppressing the truth.
I recommend daily journal writing in order to allow yourself to express the numbed emotions and reactions. Write down the thoughts you have about the situation. This process can be overwhelming to do it alone. I highly recommend that you consult with a therapist to help you through this process. This is the state of PTSD and it needs healing and on some level we all have it. PTSD comes from many levels of abuse, either done to us or what we have done to others.
If you want more information on this, and my 6-week writing course on Write to Heal, please contact: jan_marquart@yahoo.com
Keep the pen moving,
Jan, LCSW, Author of 11 books, and CEO and Founder of About the Author Network

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Writing Grief

Grief can be a paralyzing emotion as it takes us directly into the heaviness of a present moment. It is like a huge monster that eats up our energy pushing us down further and further into sharp pain. Anyone who has experienced such grief will tell you that it seems there is no way out. One tool to slowly help move the moments from the darkness of the present to a lighter experience is to write about the feeling of grief and what is causing it. Acknowledge it, express it, write it out in every detail on every level. I say every level because grief will hold anger, sadness, helplessness, and more depending on the reason for the grief. Although therapists speak to the seven stages of grief it would be more effective if you came up with your own stage as you write in the moment.

Writing out experiences does not make unwanted experiences disappear. Writing can, however, lighten up the power grievous experiences have on us so the pain can lessen or be suspended until healing begins.

Keep the pen moving,
author of Write to Heal  www.CreateSpace.com/4333170

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Are Your Decisions Making You Sick?

Pesticides -- everyone has used them for decades. What is it about pesticides that you don't know? They are full of harmful toxins. They cause disease in humans. They are sprayed on your food and don't come off well. They get in the soil and follow water into your food. If chemicals kill anything, you can count on them harming you. Even so-called non-toxic products are not totally healthy. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of sites that promote non-toxic ways to deter bugs without chemicals. Please google chemical free solutions to . . . then fill in what you are looking for.

When you get sick what do you do? You stop your life until you find a way to get well, right? Do you think about the products you have used in the last two - twenty years that might have contributed to your illness. Do you think maybe the preservatives in your food have caused you problems or spraying insecticides and pesticides in your home along with perfumed products has caused you problems? Probably not! I am here to tell you that you should do this. If you have young children and pets crawling on the floor, please check the ingredients you use. All companies must offer MSDS sheets that list the ingredients and their harmful effects. Can companies skim on necessary information? Yes, they can.

Until the Toxic Substance Abuse Act of 1976 gets amended, you will have to be more diligent. Here are some of my tips and they work and have worked for the last three decades:

Sprinkle baby power where ants are coming in and/or on their pathway. You will not see another ant.
Spray red wine vinegar in places where bugs come in -- they hate it.
Plant spearmint where mice are getting in -- they hate spearmint oil on their fur.
Put a line of Borax around your home. Most bugs won't walk over it.

I lived in the desert for 6 years and I rarely had a bug, even in the summer when they were prolific.

Keep you and your loved ones healthy. Do not believe the commercials on TV. Products might kill bugs but they might be slowly killing you too.

Saturday, July 19, 2014

The Power of Thoughts

I've read that one positive thought can antidote 1,000 negative thoughts. Love is more powerful than hate. Generosity is more desired than greed. Think about these sentences. Our thoughts matter. Our philosophy matters. Our actions matter. I've heard dozens of stories from people who changed situations with prayer. Prayers are a union of thought and feeling and the belief that there is hope for the result to come about. It is giving up struggle, believing in a higher power and prayer is powerful. But everything changes from within first.
The world is losing its sanity but we can help even though we are one person sitting in America listening to the horror around the world on our TV. Trouble exists here, at home, too. It has to start somewhere and that somewhere is in the minds of the people who are behaving like madmen.
Start the change you want because we all enjoy peace. Several times a day think peace, feel it in your heart and send it out as soft pink or vivid green or whatever color resonates with that feeling for you. Imagine sending it out in ripples across a pond to cover the entire world. There are too many people suffering.
Think peace, feel peace, send it out across the world. Imagine everyone doing this. Wouldn't we then create the world we want? There is plenty of room for our differences but that doesn't preclude peace. It is when we force others to live our differences that we destroy peace. Let's rebuild it together --

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Environmental Illness

He tacked aluminum foil to his walls to keep the smells out. She couldn't use her shampoo or perfume. He couldn't stand his new carpet and had it ripped up and replaced with tile. Their bodies become fatigued, were plagued with horrible headaches, lost their ability to digest, along with a variety of other life-changing symptoms. They found life unbearable avoiding people and buildings and soon became homeless trying to survive. He couldn't be around electricity. She couldn't stand being near wifi. What do you think about this behavior? Do you think it is crazy? Well I have news for you. It is more real than you can ever imagine. What these people have, the medical profession doesn't consider real, in fact, they don't know what it is and despite their knowledge they claim to know that these symptoms are imaginary. It is no wonder that 46% of environmentally ill people commit suicide?
Here is another astounding statistic: 65% of the population has environmental illness. Currently some of the symptoms are considered "allergies" and these people are given chemicals to ingest that only make them sicker.
Healing from this illness, not unlike other illnesses, require physical, emotional, and spiritual decisions. Remember the so-called Yuppie disease of the 70's that is now diagnosed as Chronic Fatigue or Fibromyalgia? Environmental Illness, too, is an immune condition. Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia were once considered imaginary.
So if chemicals make you sick including perfumes, cleaners, new building materials, plywood, and the like, you probably have a variation of Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. If wifi and electricity gives you a headache or other symptoms you might have Electrical Magnetic Frequency problems. These are considered environmental illnesses. There are more included but I won't go into the details in this short blog.
So, if you know anyone with crazy-making and unexplained physical symptoms, please be compassionate. Go to a holistic healer and get help. It is highly likely that an M.D. physician won't know anything about this.
I am the only licensed counselor I have met who works with environmental illness. And I should know about this: I have been able to heal enough to re-enter the world - but not without it turning my life upside down first. Write to me:

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Immune Dysfunction by Judith Lopez

I want to introduce you to my friend Judith Lopez, the author of Immune Dysfunction. For those of you who have never been impacted by immune system health issues, I'd like to say that with the way our country is going it might be only a matter of time. Every year thousands of untested and unregulated toxic chemicals get added to food, water, air, and products without you realizing it. Maybe you are already sick and don't suspect that it could be from toxins. Approximately 65% of the population is currently sick and reactive to toxic molds and chemicals. There are 249,000 types of mold which can make you sick and kill you. Between prevalent mold and toxic chemicals you need to read about Judith's story.

Immune Dysfunction was recommended to me by a world-renown toxicologist when I became acutely ill from three of the top disabling molds in 2001. At first I thought this was a book leading to information about an immune system. But I was not only pleasantly surprised, but inspired, supported, instructed, and renewed by this fabulous book that turned out to be Judith Lopez's personal story of how mold and chemicals impacted her immune system. At the time I didn't know mold toxicity could develop into multiple chemical sensitivity and other environmental illnesses. I had seen five M.D.'s that told me I was their sickest patient but they didn't know what to do for me. My life felt like I hit a brick wall. Then I read Immune Dysfunction cover to cover, staying up all night having lost my home to toxic mold, living in a small rented room, sleeping on hardwood, and not being able to be in the presence of any product, piece of furniture, clothing, or anything else, confused, disoriented, acutely ill, and watched as my life became stripped of everything. It was Judith's book Immune Dysfunction that gave me the first piece of help on the journey I was facing.

If you are sick, you need Immune Dysfunction. If you aren't sick, you need to read about Judith's courage, fortitude, and struggle to survive because the statistics of those with immune dysfunction are increasing, not decreasing. Get Immune Dysfunction and take mold, yeast, and the power of toxic chemicals seriously.

If you are interested in purchasing a copy of Judith Lopez's book, Immune Dysfunction, email me at jan_marquart@yahoo.com and I will pass your order information on to Judith Lopez for your copy of Immune Dysfunction and a personal inscription.
$14.95 + $3.50 for shipping + $18.45.

Friday, June 13, 2014

The Regret in Grieving

Grief is a complicated emotion. It isn't just feelings of sadness and loss. It involves the mind's ability to process sadness and loss. Regret is one of the stages of the mind in the grief process. It can be regret for the choices of the deceased or regret for the choices of the suffering for all the things that should or could have been. And there is usually a good reason for what might have been that did not happen. What might have been could only have happened if things were different to begin with. We do not normally think "this person might die so I'd better . . ." because we are usually too busy dealing with life in the moment. Families who suffered the loss of loved ones in the 911 tragedy parted in the morning the way they did each morning. No one had a reason to think: I'd better do something different this morning.
This is a difficult part of the grieving process, that is, to wrap the mind around accepting what happened. But who wants to accept such enormous grief? In order to accept what happened means the grieving have to endure another loss: the loss of the chance they could have avoided their grief. Most times, that is clearly not so. When the suffering are caught in the thinking of the maybe ifs, the experience can feel irrational and crazy. Grief in general feels irrational and crazy. Emotions take over and the mind races to make sense of it all. Ironically, the regretting stage of struggling with acceptance of what actually happened is quite rational given the nature of the grieving process.

There will always be the what ifs when we loose someone. Remember: if matters could have been different  they would have been different. Acceptance is one of the stages of Kublor-Ross's five stages of grief. It will happen to anyone grieving. Continue through the process; it is the only way to heal the depth of grief.

Thursday, May 22, 2014

What Do You Think?







Until next time,

Monday, May 19, 2014

Don't Believe It!





Jan Marquart LCSW

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

The Many Relationships of a Relationship








What percentage of these levels does your relationship have?
Jan Marquart LCSW
counseling couples and families since 1979

Friday, April 18, 2014

How to Not Let Chronic Illness Control You!

Anyone suffering repeated and persistent symptoms of chronic illness knows how much control you can lose over your days. No one truly understands the consuming nature of a chronic illness unless you suffer it yourself. Imagine a bad case of the flu repeating every ten days for the rest of your life or migraine headaches haunting you three times a month. Just the thought of it can be overwhelming, right?

Here are some tips to help with the negative effects these symptoms can have on your moods, relationships, and desire to keep living well:
1. write for 20 minutes a day about how you feel,
2. eat at least one meal of nothing but vegetables to supply the vitamins you need,
3. take Vitamin C to replenish this vital vitamin as it gets eaten up from the stress of illness,
4. have an affirmation that speaks to the well part of your body such as, I am well, I am well, I am well,
5. watch your thoughts because 87% of our self-talk is negative and chronic illness tends to increase these,
6. talk to a therapist about your stress, and
7. sit in nature once a day even if it means you sit near a plant for an hour each morning.

Chronic illness can close in on your thoughts and create havoc with your moods. Our bodies are designed to heal but they need our help. Start with your thoughts then work into your diet, environment, exercise, and making your bedroom uncluttered and comfortable. Get at least eight hours a night of sleep because our bodies heal most when we are resting.

Jan Marquart LCSW, www.janmarquartlcsw.wordpress.com
author of Write to Heal and other books that can be found on www.JanMarquart.com

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Is Your Spouse Having an Affair?

Affairs are a destructive force in a marriage. When a spouse has an affair it usually has nothing to do with loving the person outside the marriage. Cheating is a symptom that something is wrong in the marriage or in the person's individual life and although an affair might seem a good way to resolve it, it isn't. Affairs don't fix anything!

Stopping the affair is critical to start the healing process both for the injured spouse as well as for the marriage. This process can take years to heal, with therapy. The wound of betrayal cuts deep, and the spouse who cheated must remember that just because he/she has stopped the affair, it does not mean that the pain is over for the injured spouse. In fact, the pain might get worst for a while. The injured spouse will not be able to simply trust again that, 1. the affair is actually over, 2. if his/her spouse will not cheat again, or 3. if the marriage can be repaired. It only takes one minute to break trust but years to heal it.

If you feel attracted to a person other than your spouse, get help. Call a therapist and talk about the underlying issues for wanting to step outside your commitment. An affair is like suicide: it is a long term painful solution to a short term solvable problem.

Jan Marquart LCSW

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Most People Haven't Heard of Them!

Most people haven't heard of them but you are most likely sick in some way because of them. This link speaks to California, http://www.stopsprayingcalifornia.com/What_are_they_Spraying.php, but chem sprayings are happening everywhere. I live in the middle of the country and they have been spraying almost every day since Thanksgiving. People are getting sick and flooding the offices of their naturopaths because the traditional medical profession doesn't know what to do with sick people from chem trails, assuming they even know about them.

What to do if you are having symptoms. 
Symptoms are many but include headaches, nausea, flu-like symptoms, dizziness, and just about any other toxic reaction you can think of. This is serious. Skin problems abound due to the filaments added to these chem trails. Think I'm kidding? Try this. Take a mouthful of red table wine or Corcord grape juice and swish it around your mouth for about 2 minutes. Then spit it into a clean sink. What do you see? You will be shocked, as I was.

There are foods you can take to help detox such as apples, carrots, cabbage, grapes, bananas, chlorella, cilantro, and wheatgrass. Also take hot baths with Epsom Salts and if you want to coat yourself down with Bentonite Clay before stepping into a hot bath, that will help. Also the homeopathic remedy BioPlasma is wonderful as is ChemTrails, also a homeopathic remedy by Physica. Sonne 7 or 9 is a great bentonite clay to take internally. But nothing will fully work as long as we are breathing in the toxic and dangerous chemicals listed in the link above. Please read it.

Sign petitions -- it might be the only way to get NASA from spraying, although until enough of us protest, nothing will change.

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Sticks and Stones

Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never harm me. If you have lived through childhood you know that that sentence is not true. You know that because someone, at some point in your life, has hurt you with their words. Why is this? Because words have energetic power. Words are our language. They came about to express the energy we hold inside our bodies to communicate our experiences, needs, feelings, beliefs, and sensations. Words are our way to communicate this rich source of everyday living. That is their very purpose. Without that purpose, words have no power. One word put together with another word and then a longer series of words, tell stories. If harmful words do not hurt us it is because we have mentally arranged our thinking to not engage in their harmful power, but every living being knows that that process is not easy -- that's how we hope to behave after we have already been hurt. It is at that point that we begin to employ coping skills, right?

Language is treated like anything else that is familiar, and that is that we forget their power. We often speak without the moment to moment mindfulness that the words we say are powerful and have an effect on the listener. Now imagine, if you will, that you are going inside your life content to find the right words to speak  to what ails you, what has remained dormant-as in a secret, lay in suppressed dreams, reveal feelings of love, and describe the uniqueness of what you have lived through. All of life owns a powerful energy that can heal you, and if shared, can teach others.

This is the power of story. Write it - speak it - share it - heal yourself - heal others. Post your story on www.AboutTheAuthorNetwork.com under the appropriate heading on the menu bar. Then, enjoy being published and having shared your personal powerful story!
Keep the pen moving,
CEO and Founder of About the Author Network

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Writing Is a Great Healing Tool!

Although I write on issues for physical health on this site, I would like to post another passion of mine which is the use of writing for healing. Listen to this U-Tube video I just produced to introduce you to how writing and healing has worked in my life. But not just mine, it also has worked in dozens of lives of clients and for women around the world I have taught on Story Circle Network, an online writing course for women.


Today we have toxins of all types in everything we ingest and everything we buy. Why not detox our emotions and minds so we can be able to think clearly? My goal is to support health and wellness. Writing is part of it. I want to pass this on to you. If you write and are healing from it, drop me a line. I'd love to hear from you.
Keep the pen moving,

Friday, January 3, 2014

Why is This Important to Heal?

Wondering what this question addresses? It addresses the activity of writing. If you haven't written since high school don't stress about it. Writing for medicinal purposes has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with grammar, spelling, or whether you are a good writer or not. The only thing necessary is to write with the most accurate emotional content you can muster up. This means you cannot lie. No, I mean, you cannot lie. Even if you try to fake your emotions or to spill out an impression of yourself different from the truth, the words will come out of your pen with such distress you will not be able to stand it. That's why writing is the best medicine, besides laughing of course, because it addresses the truth. We are not built to stifle toxic emotional situations and remain well. So, here is how to start.
1. Sit with pen and paper and take a few deep breaths. The breath is a fabulous nerve calmer so make sure you use it to help your body. Your breath and your body already have a symbiotic relationship so you won't have to do anything but let the breath in and out.
2. Think of the emotional issue upsetting you and write the feelings connected to the event. For instance,
        I am so angry and my stomach is burning hot.
         I am fearful about ....... because it makes me ......
   get the picture?

3.  Include all sensory details.
4. Write who said what and include your thoughts.
5. Write how you wished the situation had unfolded.
And most importantly -
6. Write out how you can make peace with the matter. This might involve forgiveness, a face-to-face confrontation, writing a letter of apology --
Do this exercise 20 minutes a day for only 3 days.
Let me know how this worked for you. If you need further help you can check out my Unveil the Wounded Self - Write to Heal workshop here: http://abouttheauthornetwork.com/resources/therapeutic-writing-courses/unveil-the-wounded-self-write-to-heal-with-jan-marquart
I am the author of Write to Heal which can be purchased at www.JanMarquart.com
Keep the pen moving,