I was laying on a massage table while getting energy healing done. The energy healer sweetly whispered in my ear, “Just because your mother has hypothyroidism doesn’t mean you have to.” She said it so confidently that I believed her despite everything else I had been taught about genetics.

I feel that experience was an aid in my healing. Since then I have discovered nearly 200 stories of people who healed beyond what their doctors expected. Some were even given a few months or a few hours to live, yet I met them years later when they were fully healthy.

With finding so many miraculous healing stories when they weren’t common knowledge, I felt it important to put all the stories in one book to help people see their potential to overcome disease and live a happy life. I wanted to know the keys of what they each did to heal so I started interviewing all kinds of health and healing experts for my book Healing Happens: Stories of Healing Against All Odds....

The problem today is 75% to 90% of all doctor's office visits are for stress-related ailments and complaints. Cleanses are a great way to reduce the stress on your mind, body, and spirit. The great yoga guru Paramhansa Yogananda said cleansing is “a method for rejuvenating the body cells and awakening the latent powers of the mind and inner forces of the soul.”

As I am getting ready to lead a cleanse this weekend, many people want to choose to participate if the diet interests them. I would like to encourage people that there is much more to cleansing than diet.

Intention is Key

I think many of us have heard of the power of intention and how that sets the stage to clearly direct the performance of our lives. I often have an interesting phenomena with cleanses. Typically the body does not fully detox until day 4 or 5 on a cleanse. Once I started setting intentions, I could feel the symptoms of detoxing before the cleanse even began! Sometimes we forget how...

What if within one day you could feel a greater sense of joy, release all pains in your body, feel the energy of a child, have a calm clear mind to accomplish any task, and open a direct connection with the Divine? And then after nine days you would notice a significant weight loss and bad habits being broken so you can maintain the weight loss and continue to lose weight if needed? The solution is the Nine-Day Diet, a cleanse created by the great yoga guru Paramhansa Yogananda.

For those of you who have never done a cleanse before, do not worry because you can eat as much as you want. The point is to eat high nutrient foods that are easy to digest and promote digestion.

Imagine the roads in New York City. Because the city never sleeps, there are always cars and the roads move slowly. With the influx of people moving at once to Portland, rush hour has bottle necked and is very slow. Yet people sleep in Portland allowing the roads to empty and the first cars in the morning to...

For the past few years I have had a fun game of looking at my face in the mirror to check my inner health after I wake up in the morning or after an event I really love doing. Once I discovered that the coloring of my skin, amount of acne, size of my bags, or how much it glows drastically changes depending on my activities, I developed a science experiment to check the inner condition of my body by looking at the outer condition. Here are four of the most effective tips for taking care of inner beauty that brought about the most beautiful complexion.

1. How You Sleep

People often say one should have an average of 8 hours a night. I find it is not only important to get the right amount of sleep, but how you sleep and when you sleep.

According to Ayurveda, the ancient Indian medical science, after 9-10pm we start moving into the fire and then air time of night when we feel more energetic, thus making it harder to fall asleep. From about 9 or 10pm to 1 or 2am our liver goes...

You have probably been bombarded with all sorts of advice and ideas on all the latest diet fads. Instead what you may be craving is a simple shift in mindset and an approach that will allow you to make better choices without sapping your willpower and beating yourself up. If you understand some basic principles that are easy to remember, you will feel more empowered to take control of your health and to create more vitality in your life.

As a child I started reading nutrition books. I became particular enough about food that my mother was concerned I was anorexic even though I had a big appetite. I actually only went through one phase where I was counting calories and the amount of nutrients I was getting. Most of the time I wanted to enjoy life and not be too particular.

When I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, Hashimoto’s, hypoglycemia, and food allergies I had even more to learn about food and unique diets for those conditions. After I did all of my...

"How can I dissolve the contradiction of being vegan with pills for diabetes?"
A letter from a student and my response...

Hi Avital,
I wonder if you have an idea for me of how to solve a present conflict. My doctor told me this week that I have diabetes and must take pills now or it's danger (high sugar in blood can cause major problems). I do yoga and love pranayama meditation. I'm also vegan and like to be close to nature as much as possible, even in city life. So having to take pills into my body is very upsetting...
Thank you... love and peace to you...

Dear Friend,
I am sorry to hear the news about your diagnosis. I also want to commend you on taking action right away and trying to make a conscious choice. 
 
I was very upset too when I was put on thyroid medication. I did not know of other options and trusted my doctors so I took the medication. I was told one of the side effects of the thyroid medication was osteoporosis. I had a silent prayer that somehow I...