Welcome to the Denver Holistic Health Blog
Scroll down to find posts listed by date or search by keyword or category.
Trauma-Informed Care: A Compassionate Approach to Healing
Trauma-informed care represents a paradigm shift in how we approach healthcare, emphasizing understanding, empathy, and collaboration in the healing process. A trauma-informed healthcare provider’s goal is to create a safe and supportive environment where individuals feel empowered to heal and thrive. This fits well with a holistic approach to health, in which multiple dimensions of health – physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual – are taken into consideration as practitioner and client work together.
Grieving? “Make Room for the Comfies”
When you’ve lost someone close to you and you are grieving, your needs change quickly. You are going to have to unpack and repack many times for a journey to a place that you never really knew existed or at the very least, a place you never wanted to visit. If you are going to have a great time on a journey, of any kind, the first thing you have to embrace is that it’s not like home. Grief certainly didn’t feel like home. I will admit that if I were to pack that bag for someone who is grieving, I would definitely make room for the comfies.
Making this journey possible
It is fairly frequent that I write about hiking, and always, it’s more than that. Because there are analogies with life and grief that shouldn’t be ignored. And because, maybe in part for that reason, hiking has been part of my journey especially these past four years. So with that in mind, I invite you to keep reading. This isn’t just about hiking. I hike multiple times a week, because I can and I must. It keeps me grounded, which is exactly how I like to be. It is in my nature to feel stable, realistic, and calm. And when I feel this way, I believe it’s when I am at my best for myself and to serve others. There are trail stewards everywhere. All around us. Those that make ALL of our journeys easier, more beautiful, and even possible. Some of these stewards we know. Friends. Family. Their work may be very visible. Their support quite obvious. Others we will never see or know. I too am a trail steward. Sometimes seen. Sometimes not. Taking action out of love and kindness. And at other times out of responsibility, commitment and dedication. We all serve. We all NEED to serve. We owe this to each other.
How to Show Up for Yourself in Your Relationship
A relationship is also a partnership; there needs to be a balance between you and your partner that allows you both to contribute to the relationship while still maintaining your own identities. Things like communication problems, self-esteem issues, or even unhealthy relationship dynamics like codependency can make it easy to lose yourself in your relationship. Let’s cover a few ideas you can implement right away to show up, stand up, and make a difference in your relationship dynamics.
Have You Heard of the Blue Zones?
The concept of Blue Zones, founded by Dan Buettner, started from demographic work by Gianni Pes and Michael Poulain from the Journal of Experimental Gerontology. Pes and Poulain discovered Sardinia to have the highest concentration of male centenarians. Buettner built off this research to find other longevity regions around the world, and those areas became known as Blue Zones. After examining health and lifestyle in each of these regions, the Blue Zones team discovered what has come to be called the Power 9: Natural Movement, Purpose, Dietary Portion Control, Plant Based Diet, Moderate Alcohol (Wine), Relaxation, Belonging, Loved Ones, and Social Circle.
Connection in Action: Small Businesses in Community
How do we best serve our community while also caring for our own businesses, families, and health? We CONNECT. We unite to solve problems as a collective. We form networks that fill in each other’s gaps. This is how we learn and grow as individual providers, how we adapt to a changing healthcare landscape, how we thrive as small businesses in an industry driven by large corporations, and how we remain healthy and grounded in our own bodies and lives.
How to Support Your Kid’s Mental Health as They Start School
The transition back to school can be a particularly challenging time for kids. They can be experiencing a wide range of emotions around this return and displaying these in many confusing ways. Overall kids can display a range of attitudes, behaviors, and emotions that might be confusing to you. Here are some ways you can best support them during this time.
Massage Therapy and the Safe and Sound Protocol
Dr. Stephen Porges created the Safe and Sound Protocol to encourage a state shift in our nervous system to a setting of safety. It’s not creating neuroplasticity; it moves the train to a different set of tracks that have been there all along. I initially discovered SSP when searching for interventions to help my son who has a diagnosis of autism, dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and ADHD. SSP creates a setting of safety in the individual’s nervous system increasing their capacity for social engagement.
Grounding and Calm During the Holiday Season
As we move into the final weeks of 2022 and a holiday season that is in full swing, it can be helpful to support our well-being with practices that allow us to pause, breathe, and connect. Whether you are driving in traffic, checking off the to-do lists, or moving through the busyness of everyday life, these practices will offer you tools to stay grounded and connected this season, and throughout the year ahead! Here are some of my favorite practices to support overall health and well-being.
Networks
In this group we refer our patients to other providers we think they'd benefit from. We educate ourselves on different techniques and how an integrative approach best supports healing. We empower patients by sharing resources and information. And by doing all of this, we believe we can improve the standard of care and quality of health in Denver.