Sue’s Weblog

So hopefully, by now, you all know about my upcoming belly dance debut, and that if you come, you stand a chance to win a half or whole hr. massage, just by checking under your seat.
Check my other blog entitled: 
I also want to let my readers know about my other debut.  I’ll be giving a workshop, soon, in my home.  I’ll be giving it on June 12, and will be calling it:  Oils Within the Balanced Lifestyle.  This will be the first workshop that I’ve ever given.  The only other time that I have ever set myself up to speak in front of a large group is at my Bat Mitzvah. 
Well, now I’m Thirty- Something, and I have a lot more to say, but I promise to format it to well within a 2h informational/educational social event. 
I also promise to feed my guests and make it fun.  Watch my blogs for more details. 
I hope that cold and flu season didn’t hit my readers too hard.  I know it was a viscious season for the usual ailments, because we suffered, too.  My oils made it a bit easier on me and my son.  My hubby is not quite as big on the oils as I am, so I think he suffered rather more acutely.
Different strokes for different folks.
We’ve all finally made a pretty decent come-back, and now I have to get to work on keeping that promise that I made to myself to get to Libby Hanley’s Pilates/Yoga class, at Suzanne’s Dance School, on McDowell, in Petaluma.  I highly recommend her as a personal trainer.  I’ve had her come to my home, and she’s very good about making a careful assessment of one’s skill/endurance level and flexibility.  She knows how to advance her students from their own comfort level, to a higher level.
Please call if you want Libby’s number.
I hope that you are well or getting well, and trying to get right back into the swing of things, as I am.  It really helps to get out into these sunny days that are so rare, and go on an easy family outing of some sort.  One of our favorite hang-outs isn’t really out in the sun, but we do get to do a lot of easy walking, and we have everything there that we need.
We go to the mall.  There are bathrooms, a food court, a play area, toy store, and movie theater complex.  What more could one ask. 
We got to watch our son wear himself out in the play area, after lunch in the food court, as we continued to rest and recouperate and I even sat in a massage chair, for a 3 min. massage.  Not quite as good as a real massage, but it sure did the trick.
Even massage therapists have back problems, at times.  In fact, that’s why a lot of us go into the field.  We go into massage therapy, hoping to learn how to alleviate a lot of our own problems, and realize that a lot of other people have the exact same problems.
We also realize that a lot of those aches and pains won’t just go away on their own.  If we want to feel better, then we have to get pro-active.  Sometimes getting pro-active means learning some self- care techniques, like stretching, and self massage.  Sometimes it means seeing a professional.  Sometimes that professional is a Chiropractor, Pediatrist, Massage Therapist, Accupuncturist or Nutritionist.
These are just some of the better known professional that can help us to feel better.  There are also Naturopaths, and other professions that are not as well known, but as you go through life, you will become more and more aware of the professions that are not as well known, yet, because eventually they will have more of the lime light. 
More and more American doctors are becoming aware of and even starting to encourage the use of alternative health care practices and essential oils.  It is, in my opinion, unfortunate that the wisdom upon which we relied, for so long, before the birth of “Western Medicine” with it’s synthetic drugs was buried alive and even frowned upon by doctors who felt threatened by what they didn’t understand, or from which they couldn’t draw reasonable profits. 
If I were to grow my own herbs, and from them distill healing essential oils, then I’d be seeing much less of my doctor, which would mean he would get paid less, so it would not be in his own best interest to encourage me to do so.  It has also been difficult, in the past, (less so now) for doctors to figure out exactly how to test these essential oils for their healing properties, and effectiveness. 
Back in the day (before we buried herbalist lore alive, among other things) we were Egyptians or Africans or Native American, using what grew from the land, and figuring out what worked by trying it.  We figured out that respiratory ailments were alleviated by inhaling eucalyptus, and tummy troubles were soothed with peppermint and ginger, and that a tooth ache could be eased with clove which is a natural number, so it’s also good for a sore throat, by the way.
We made many other such plant oriented discoveries, and Today’s doctors actually drew on that knowledge in creating anti-biotics, and other medications which they then re-created and re-created, to suit their purposes, until there was nothing of nature left in those medicines.
Those synthetic medicines worked for a while, and now we are having to create stronger ones, to combat viruses and other bugs that have become quite resistant to our anti-biotics, etc. 
On the other hand…………..the oils and herbs still work, and have always worked, without having to be made stronger or adulterated in any way.  They are versatile, and can be blended to suit any preferance or ease any symptom.
This is a sample of the knowledge that I will be sharing at my workshop.  I will be gifting every one who comes one custom oil blend, and telling them how it can be used.  I will also be selling an “AromaTherapy Decoder”.
If you’ve read this, you can consider yourself invited.  There will be a $25. entrance fee, so pls. RSVP via email to let me know that you’re coming.  Then sit back and enjoy the sense of scents.
Your’s Truely.

Sue Hirsch, CMT of Petaluma.