Healing a Poison Oak Rash

I didn’t know what poison oak looked like before I lived on the central coast, nor was I aware of the misery it could inflict. My realtor pointed out the three distinct leaves and said simply, “Don’t touch it.” A year later after a series of small rashes on my wrists and ankles (presumably from the cats) I recognized that the widespread “bushes” on my hillside, which were turning a beautiful red color, were actually poison oak.

For the next several years I tried to have the ominous leaves and roots removed by any willing person, including my young industrious neighbor who quickly became covered in the invasive rash from head to toe. Finally, I hired an official “poison oak removal” company who told me the reason they are so costly is because sometimes their workers have to go to the emergency room.

The brave young men who came to do the clearing left me with an open hillside, free from poison oak. Or was it? I ambitiously set out, rake in hand, to level the dirt and clear away small sticks, branches, and debris left behind. It was a hot day. Sweating, I wiped my face several times as I happily pondered the possibilities for new planting.

Within a few hours I felt the invasion. An itchy rash spread rapidly over my left arm, turning to unsightly and even itchier red blisters that looked like a bad burn. Before long my right arm, both legs, lower back, belly, and my face joined in. Over the next two weeks, new spots seemed to randomly emerge though I went nowhere near the scene of the crime. I was trapped in a shell of hot misery with flu-like symptoms. The muscles in my neck, shoulders, and right hip began to spasm.

In the midst of this grand-scale invasion, I heard many stories of what others have done with their own nasty rashes. (I think everyone has a story.) I heard numerous remedies – everything from going to the hospital and getting injections (which one person said made them sicker) to “just scratch it ‘til it doesn’t itch anymore” which made me think of scarring. Now I have my own story and my own remedies, which I get to pass along to you. After several weeks of new rashes showing up, I had lots of time to experiment with different anti-itch techniques. Here is what I came up with, and I think it’s pretty good. My plan requires no doctor visits, no toxic chemicals to apply or ingest, and it eases the misery of it all with natural products.

1. Once you know you’ve been exposed, or even if you have an inkling you might have been exposed, immediately put all of your clothes (and shoes) in the washer, not in your hamper or on the floor. Walk directly to the shower.
2. Take a shower using Dr. Bronner’s liquid peppermint soap - which lately you can buy at Trader Joe’s. Continue using this soap while the rash is present. Peppermint is anti-inflammatory and relieves itchy skin.
3. Wear loose clothing that doesn’t rub against the rash area. Anything touching the rash will cause it to itch.
4. When tempted to touch the rash, instead apply essential oils immediately. The most effective essential oils for me were lemongrass, peppermint, and lavender with either Purification or RC (both are blends made by Young Living). Purification contains an effective blend of citronella, lemongrass, lavender, rosemary, eucalyptus, and myrtle essential oils. RC contains a blend of eucalyptus, myrtle, marjoram, pine, lavender, cypress, spruce, and peppermint essential oils. These stopped the itching and inflammation. Someone had said that for poison oak the Young Living lavender is superior to others, and I tend to agree.
5. If possible, take a nightly hot bath to which you add 1-2 cups Epsom salts, 1 cup apple cider vinegar, and 1 cup baking soda. This will stop the itch, make it at least seem like you are healing, and help you sleep soundly.
6. Avoid sugar and alcohol. For a couple of days I was feeling really good, the itching was under control, and I thought I was out of the woods. Then I had a piece of cake at a birthday party and immediately every portion of the rash from head to toe flared up. It took two days to get it to calm down again. I also had this experience after a glass of wine, although it wasn’t as intense as with the cake. My best days were when I was treating myself as if I had a cold or flu - eating really well, no sugar, only supportive healing foods.
7. Drink a lot of water with optional juice from a fresh lemon. This helps cleanse the body.
8. Finally, if you find yourself with an all-over rash coinciding with muscle spasms like I did, go ahead and use the mantra I used to keep my sanity, “This too shall pass.”

Indeed, it did finally pass. Muscles relaxed again, skin returned to normal. I am left with an entirely new respect for those little leaves of three, and for nature herself, who apparently won’t be trifled with.

Getting Grounded

Have you heard someone say they feel “ungrounded?” Or, that they believe someone else is not very grounded? You probably have, but what does this really mean? In this context it isn’t like an airplane unable to take off, or a teenager being punished. Being grounded in this day and age has to do with being stable, balanced, calm, and focused. Let’s talk a little bit about this concept, because it is relevant to our wellbeing, especially in times of uncertainty or change.

I’ll start by giving you the contrast: an ungrounded person. This person will be fuzzy-headed, forgetful, anxious, wired, excitable, and distracted. Their energy drifts like a balloon disconnected from a child's hand, a bit lost and forlorn. I see it as being energetically disconnected.

Our lifestyles contribute to this state of disconnectedness. Driving in cars, flying in airplanes and traveling in general, being on a computer, watching television, working and living in artificial environments with concrete, fluorescent lights, and electricity, being in crowds of people, and even feeling pressured, worried, or stressed. All of these take us away from our natural balance –they interfere with our natural connection to the earth - literally, the ground.

In a state of ungroundedness you can be more easily influenced by others, the life you live might not feel wholly your own, you might experience injuries and accidents, feel anxiety, panic, irritability, foggy thinking, and be a compulsive overeater. These are all instances where we are not centered or stable and they indicate why it is important to be aware of our groundedness – of being centered, focused, and calm. Just the act of coming back into a state of groundedness can shift our entire perception of life from one of negativity to one of hope and optimism.

So what can you do to become more grounded? The first step is to pay closer attention to your surroundings while noticing your own physical body. How does the chair feel that you are sitting in? What do your feet feel like? What physical signs or symptoms are you trying to ignore? For example, are you thirsty? Do you have any pain or tightness in your body? Are you thinking about the future while you are also reading this?

Simple awareness of your breathing will help bring you into a more grounded state. Spending a few moments a day in nature will help. Connect with the earth in some way - sit or stand on the ground. Notice the weather. What is happening in your natural environment? Feel the breeze, smell the earth’s scents, take note of how the sun feels. I also use visualization. One easy technique is to see or feel yourself as a huge, beautiful tree with deep roots going into the earth.

Understanding the value of being grounded is essential to being stable, balanced, focused, and calm. The awareness at any given moment of how grounded you are can be a tool for personal mastery, fulfillment, and self-empowerment. Although there is more to it, here are a few quick ideas to help you with your own state of groundedness.

Quick Tips on Getting Grounded

1. Breathe with awareness
2. Sit in nature
3. Watch the sun rise or set
4. Place your feet or hands on the earth
5. Eat food from the earth
6. Be aware of your surroundings
7. Notice physical symptoms or signs
8. Stop, Look, and Listen
9. Visualize yourself rooted into the earth

New Goals

Do you know that just about everyone has something they would like to create in their life? I think it's natural for us to want to bring something new into our experience. And if we aren't conscious of this, it seems the new will be brought in anyway in the form of a weird experience or happenstance, just to keep us moving forward.

Because we have some control over our goals, it's nice to think about what we want BEFORE the "universe" has a chance to randomly throw something in. This is actually really easy. It is a great way to gain clarity when we feel confused or depressed or troubled about something. Simply write down what you want.

Begin with a piece of paper or your computer and state at the top, "I now accept all this or better." Then, write down what you want. Don't write what you don't want. Just what you do want. Here are some examples to get you started.

A great new job that I love that has hours, people, and tasks I enjoy.
A wonderful relationship/partner with mutual love, respect, interests
A healthy body, vitality, energy, enthusiasm
Finish my memoirs and find a publisher
Train and run in the 5K
Steadily increase my savings account balance
Volunteer for a local organization I feel passionate about

Writing down your goals is very simple, so do not underestimate the power of it. I have put together these "manifestation" lists for almost 2 decades. Usually everything on these lists come into being.

If you've tried to contact me through my website lately...

I just discovered that if you have tried to contact me through my website since about mid-December up to January 26, I haven't received the messages. Or, if you signed up to receive my e-newsletter, I didn't receive your email address.

Apparently, my spam filter is so powerful now that it decided to delete what it thought was useless to me. I have constructed, with the help of a computer expert of course, a way around this and am now receiving your messages once again.

If you did contact me in the past 6 weeks or so, please give it a try again. Likewise for any of you that signed up to receive my newsletter. Thank you!

Coming Soon: 2009

Numerologically, this year has been a 1 year for the world. It's the dawn of a new beginning. Seeds are still being sewn, while some of the tiniest buds and blooms are beginning to show themselves.

2009 is an 11 year - a master vibration bringing tests and trials and tribulations to see how well we can walk the talk and, once again, evolve beyond our habitual reactions. We have already entered this "energy" and as the new year begins we will be more fully immersed. We'll have occasional moments of coming home to rest and renew before heading back out again to practice our mastery. It is less about the personal level and more about a global one.

We have coming into office in the United States our first New Age president. A forward thinking person heralding a movement of change. The change he speaks of is not "his" change. This change was coming like a freight train without a conductor.

December itself will bring more transformation. We still have Uranus and Saturn facing off in the sky. (stock markets and so on) By April they will go on their merry ways, bringing relief to all who are currently in panic.

In a few days we have Mars deciding to get into the fray, squaring off with both Saturn and Uranus. The Sun in Sagittarius gets involved, and even Jupiter jumps in. In the past days we had Uranus turning direct, Jupiter and Pluto moving into Capricorn, and well, I know many of you aren't sure what this means, but it means this: life is changing. It is perpetually changing, but at this moment in time, it is really moving!

This is the perfect time for you to harness the new energies that we have available to us. Put your thoughts on what you want to feel. How do you want to feel in life? Focus on that. Ask for it. We are riding a new wave of manifestation energy now and it's time we create more of what we want to see.

At the same time, you'll notice that the old victim energy that family, friends, and yes, even you sometimes, love to use is not working so well anymore! That vibration is less effective now. So, it's time to take responsibility for our own feelings. No one to blame, though we try.

It's an exciting time, even with all the strange happenings with the "economy" and such. We are witnessing and experiencing a huge shift in consciousness which I am glad to take part. It's a great time to be alive.

Opportunities to Awaken

"The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn't understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you're given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further."

That quote is by Pema Chodron taken from my recent copy of SageWoman (#70). It introduces my thoughts today on opening further to life; how the difficulties we perceive are nothing more than whispers saying, "How can you surrender into life with an undefended heart?"

The whispers are not shouts demanding you to surrender into life with an undefended heart. That isn't their style. They just bring a question put simply, which you can ignore for centuries until one day you (okay, we) evolve beyond our former reactions.

Negativity and misery go hand-in-hand with a nicely defended heart center. All negativity and misery, by the way, are self-correcting. We need not even work on ourselves at all in dedicated self-help style if we don't want to because life itself will twist our arms hard enough to make us change. "Whether in this lifetime or in twenty from now," my friend Carmela adds.

My arm is already too sore! I'm ready now! But meanwhile, we hard-headed humans toughen our shells. From there we either retreat into them, or use them as shields from which to emerge fighting. A seemingly endless pattern that repeats itself well into old age and onward where eventually one finds it too burdensome to carry around the shell any longer.

But the question is when? How long do we remain in our self-imposed heart-locked-up prisons? Have you tried to get out? Of course you have, but did you escape? Have you given yourself the opportunity to be free of hard, heavy shells? If so, can you answer yes to the following?

When criticized do you see the criticism as the other person's defensiveness?

When you criticize yourself, do you see it as your own defensiveness?

Do you recognize defensiveness as fear? This includes justifying your actions.

Do you know that fear is a powerful emotion that causes all kinds of hard, heavy shells to be built so that humans cannot live with or love one another?

Are you ready to be free from this form of fear?

We have an opportunity to finally complete a cycle of seemingly never-ending defensiveness. Once the realization comes that it's not about you, that your work is to simply live from your own truest nature, that words, actions, and behaviors from others are about them, not you, then you might, maybe, do it.

Soften into it - your undefended heart - and see what happens. I'll be doing it too. I'm not 100% yet, but I'll be practicing. After all, my arm is still being twisted.

So I'm just putting it out there - you might want to give it a try. The world is a-changin' and we might as well change along with it. To quote Thich Nhat Hanh, "Peace and happiness in your daily life means peace and happiness in the world." My contribution to world peace is softening up my own rough spots. How else do we begin?

All is Well but It's Time to Get Centered

Part of counseling and healing is reassuring people that all is well. Recently, naturally, people have been worried, in fear, saying in one form or another, "What in the world is happening!? I need to know!"

But there are times, such as these now, when the ultimate outcome is in the balance. I can "see" the positive result of what we are going through. I can "feel" the higher energies coming in and landing. I know the fantastic upleveling of consciousness. But how do I tell this to someone whose retirement savings or financial investments are at risk?

From a Buddhist perspective, I would advise to simply observe your feelings, knowing they will pass. Knowing that everything passes, eventually. Impermanence. This probably won't fly. We are talking people's money.

From an astrological perspective, I could say, "Well, Uranus, you know, opposing Saturn, and Jupiter squaring Neptune, and Mercury retrograde..." Reassuring to astrologers, for certain. But to mainstream, Main Street? Hardly.

Americans want answers. They want to know that things are going to improve. They want to not suffer. After all, that's what we've been promised. We expect it.

So I took a moment last week to meditate and be sure I was pointed in the best direction. I asked, "What is the best way for me to advise people who are in fear over the current events?" I did not get that I am to reassure people about their world remaining as it is. Instead, what came is this: there is a way to live through any moment of your life.

I know what this means, and so do you. This is a time to let go of the need to know, to release your insistence on knowing. It is a time for living the not- knowing, and for accepting what cannot be changed. The way to live through any moment of your life is to center yourself. Those of you who have worked with me know I emphasize this, and it works. But it requires your participation. Here are a few of the basics. Begin them now. There is no better time.

Root your energy into the earth. Breathe into and soften your heart center. Be aware of the speed of your breath. Slow it down and lengthen it. Relax your shoulders. Soften your tummy. Feel your feet. Go outside and be in nature. Pet an animal. Breathe into your heart center, again. Repeat after me, "All shall be well. All shall be well. And all manner of all thing shall be well." quote by Julian of Norwich - 14th century English mystic

Ride the bucking bronco, maybe, if you are already on it. But run out into traffic with the panicking masses? No.

There is no substitute for learning how to center and calm yourself at any given moment. Let's do it.