Carnival of Healing is a weekly round-up of personal Web sites and blogs on the topics of holistic health, wellness, spirituality, and self empowerment. While you are nurturing others, don't forget to nourish your body and heal your soul. Let's dive in and look at the first post of this week's carnival.

Aaron Potts at Today is That Day shares a powerful Hawaiian healing practice Ho'oponopono in How to Help Yourself and Everyone Else at the Same Time. He wrote, "In a nutshell, Ho’oponopono and similar beliefs state that our surroundings are powered by our own inner beliefs and perceptions of the way that we think things are, or should be." Aaron highly recommends Dr. Joe Vitale's work about this practice and his upcoming book Zero Limits. Coincidentally, I also recently posted an article by Dr. Vitale about how Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len uses Ho 'oponopono to heal his patients.

Joanne Hay at The Nourisher presents The Mind, Grace and Anandagiriji, recounting her experience of meeting Anandagiriji, a director of the Oneness University of India. Among the many gems in this post: "Bhagavan speaks of the impossibility of the human mind freeing us of our limitations. The mind is obsessed with being right or significant. While the human brain remains stuck with its switch on survival of the self, we remain slaves to the mind. It is impossible to free ourselves and be who we truly are. He says Grace is the only way this can happen. By surrendering to Grace, we become en-lightened. It is not possible any other way. Effort and striving is a product of the mind and the mind can not free us of the mind."

Patricia at A Better You Blog teaches us how to SWOT Your Life to Success. Patricia wrote, "SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The SWOT analysis started at Stanford University by Albert Humphrey, and is a strategic planning tool for corporations to evaluate and create a plan of action for success. It is effective in determining what stands in the way of achieving your goals." Patricia used SWOT to examine her own life in this article. Read it and see how you can apply this tool in your own life.

Jonathan at The Loan Clutter introduces the inspiring story of Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell in Best of People/Health/Fitness. Asafa Powell broke the world 100-meter record at the 2005 Super Grand Prix in Athens, Greece, and became the fastest man in the world. The name “Asafa” means “rising to the occasion”. How appropriate for a champion like him!

Dr. Aleksandr Kavokin presents Your Diet as Medicine. Interview with Dr. La Puma at RDoctor.com. John La Puma, M.D., F.A.C.P. is the Medical Director, Santa Barbara Institute for Medical Nutrition and Healthy Weight, co-author of the NY Times bestseller "RealAge Diet" and the Amazon #1 cookbook "Cooking the RealAge Way.", and he also hosts "What's Cooking with ChefMD?" on Lifetime TV. He talks about choosing the right foods to control obesity, diabetes, aging, and promote overall health. Dr. La Puma said,"I prescribe medications and think they will always be important, especially for acute conditions. But for chronic symptoms and conditions I think what, how, when and how much you eat, and where it is from and how it is prepared has a greater impact than is now recognized."

Craig Harper at Renovate Your Life with Craig presents The Incredible Relationship between our Mind and our Body. Craig shares his own experience of "white coat hypertension", as well as what he learned from Dr. Deepak Chopra and Dr. Andrew Weil. I'd like to highlight this point in particular: "Deepak also told us about a chemical that our body produces when we're having lots of fun. It's called interleukin 2. He then told us that interleukin 2 was being produced synthetically to treat some cancers. Can you believe that.. when we're happy our body produces a chemical used to fight cancer! Get happy I say". Well, I second that emotion.

SierraNightTide at The Healing Days advises us an all-important but often-neglected issue of setting up Advance Directives (Living Will and Designation of Health Care Surrogate), and making your wishes known. It is especially critical if you have children. Don't think "this will never happen to me". Read her post Anther Night At The Hospital and take actions to set up your own Advance Directives, if you have not done so.

Maria Yu at art-life-spirit.com presents Self-Expression and Human Existence. She shares a revelation from her former vocal teacher: "Self-expression is the drive that is hard-wired, contained within the DNA.” He continued, “Every other drive we may have is subordinate to the desire/passion for total, complete, full expression of oneself. That is, there is only one drive ruling humanity: the drive/passion for total, complete, full self-expression." She concluded that, "I think that’s what “life purpose” is all about. When we manifest our inner expression we feel fulfilled and we bloom. It is like our life is full of meaning and we don’t feel lost or empty anymore."

Chris Johnson at Wise Bread alerts us of a potential Cheap Cure for Cancer announced by the researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. According to the lead researcher Evangelos Michelakis, the drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe. They have not started clinical trials yet, but you can find the links in this post to keep an eye on future development of this treatment option.

Vahid Chaychi at Cancer and Health Topics quotes several studies to assert that Braces Improve Self Esteem and Self-Confidence - Not True! Contrary to popular beliefs that straightening children's teeth could improve their self-esteem and self-confidence, some studies found no significant impact. It's something to think about before splurging for orthodontist treatments.

Leonard Alexander at All About aBILITIES raises some interesting and valid points in Does God Still Do Miracles?

Aparna at Beauty & Personality Grooming presents Home Remedies for Acidity. She wrote, "Burning sensation in the chest, lack of appetite, sour oral secretion/belching, vomiting, headache, frequent indigestion etc. are some of the symptoms (of acidity)". Aparna shares 14 home remedies for acidity and things to avoid to prevent future episodes.

Neelima at Healthy B.P.M. presents Anti-aging Foods. She lists some of her favorite anti-aging foods, including olive oil, honey, ginger, pineapple, and chicken.

On a personal note, my Chinese medicine doctor/acupuncturist James Kan, M.D. got me drinking fresh ginger tea every day (put 7 thin slices of fresh ginger root in 1-cup boiling water for 1 minute, don't cook longer than that, you can add brown sugar or honey to taste). Fresh ginger root promotes lung health and expels cold from your body. According to him, if you cook the ginger root for more than 1 minute, the ginger root loses the healing quality for your lungs (even though it would still expel cold). I haven't had an asthma attack or serious sinus infection for almost two months now, and I believe acupuncture and ginger did the trick for me. :)

The last post is from me, Heart of Caregiving, introducing a website set up by American Heart Association for caregivers, posted here at Intensive Care for the Nurturer's Soul.

This concludes this issue of Carnival of Healing. Thank you, everyone, for participating! Looking back, the Carnival of Healing #71 was at Wisdom of Healing. Looking forward, next week, the carnival will be up at Optimist Lab.

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