Inside The Polished Apple

Thank you to these words on novelty from Scott Hutchison, Registered Massage Therapist and Energy Rich Life Coach with Elan Family Wellness Centre, in Bowness, Calgary.  Often we arrive in January all full of hope for the new year.  The previous year gets described as tough or challenging or even a “dumpster fire”.  We look back and get hints of the good stuff… but mostly the rough stuff surfaces and that is where our attention and language to others is communicated.  And then we use hope as a strategy for our coming year.  Hope is lovely… and giving hope to others is fantastic… but it can be a lousy strategy without action and persistence towards something.  Not running away from those things that caused you the pain last year… but towards those hopes and dreams with efficient actions, razor sharp purpose and the ability to use energy to crystallize the thoughts in your head that will lead you down the path closer to your result… every day.  B...

Thanks to Scott Hutchison for this update on what's happening with Massage Therapy at the office! And it’s November! Which means an upswing in folks finishing up massage insurance packages for the year. Most packages have around $500 to use up for massage and Lisa and I always seem to see people scramble in December to use it all up. Why not start in November? We have an amazing program. It’s called the Massage Triple Pack. Some practice members have been using it all year, but I want to make sure you know about it too! 3 massages for $220 plus gst. That works out to saving you $50!!! Just do the program twice and you have maximized your benefits, received the amazing care your body craves and set yourself up for success during the busiest time of the year. Simple...call us and we can get you booked in and started ASAP. ~Scott

My practice members have heard this story: In early July I took on hiking the 75 km West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island to commemorate my 45 th birthday, camped for 6 days, had some falls and tumbles in the middle, and completed it after hiking out for 2 days & 24 km on an injured knee. I thought I had a strain/ sprain injury and endured crutches for 2 weeks, then walking sticks, got adjusted with chiropractic, had massages, went to my medical doctor, then the acute knee injury clinic and a sports medicine doctor and finally had a questionable x-ray and a confirming CT scan indicating that I fractured my knee (plus a meniscus injury). As I write this at the end of August, it seems timely (it always does) that we're here to talk about Structure in September, and my structure has been dumped upside down. Partly my structure in my body, and also my structure in life. It is impressive the health care services that are available to diagnose this in a timely manner. It...

Thank you to Scott Hutchison, Registered Massage Therapist and Professional Coach, with Elan Family Wellness Centre in Bowness, NW Calgary, on this article on may mindfulness. This I find to be a loaded weapon. When I sink down into a process like mindfulness... or as I know it... now-ness, I am hijacked, to some extent, by the stories I carry around.  And inevitably, I move from mindfulness/now-ness to a painful memory from the past that may pop up on me during my experience. It kinda sucks. To counter this... I have learned to simply give myself permission to come again and again into my mindfulness. Often I would beat myself up about it.  Now, I recognize that when my mind does this... it is doing so as some weird or misguided protection strategy. But giving myself the permission to have a second or two of wandering and gently move my mind back to “now”... I regain control over my mind from a higher level of optimization. Then I practice and practice. Usually ...

Thanks to Scott Hutchison, Registered Massage Therapist and Professional Coach, working with us at Elan Family Wellness  Centre, in Bowness, NW Calgary, for these thoughts on our April ahead.  It is a brand new month and we have slid into my favourite month. Yes, April is my favourite because it is when Calgary wakes up from its long winter slumber. The daylight grows and so do the plants. My kids wander outside to help wake up our sleepy yard. I wander out and take stock of the work that needs to happen. If we look to this new season Mother Earth had gifted us, we can use it quite easily as a metaphor for our own life. Spring is a transformational season. A season when the resting and reflection gives way to motion, action and novelty. Like the first buds on the hedge. The small green shoots poking through the earth to become the first blooms of the year. Our lives go through these cycles. Expansion, contraction and a neutral static state. Recently, I started offe...

Such a fun evening for our practice members and community members! We started the evening with a meditation with Margaret, our Acupuncturist at Elan. Lisa, Registered Massage Therapist, led us in stretches for Heart Openers-to help open up from our forward bending posture.  Next was Jodey Sharman, Registered Pyschologist, who spoke on the topic: People Pleasing... Is it OK to not be nice? Last up was myself, Dr Josephene Juell, speaking on 3 Myths about Women's Health that will SHOCK you!  We had beautiful gift bags with items donated by a number of local businesses. Thank you to Sage Traditions , Routine Cream , Rumina Naturals, Citrinity , Young Living/ Sandra Catania , Horse and Heart Connection , Naturally Unique and Dr Rob's chocolates! And of course, yummy food and drink and a photo booth.  Mizael from Real Organic Creations with samples of his raw cashew cheese.  Thank you for a wonderful ev...

Thanks to Scott Hutchison, our Registered Massage Therapist at Elan Family Wellness Centre, for his thoughts on raising our energy state.  The march theme is nourish. So if we are to nourish our bodies and soul, we need to be in the correct state. Tony Robbins says things work best in a Prime or Beautiful State. Our own Donny Epstein says we need to be at least high energy neutral or #energyrich to get optimal advantage of the food, sun, water and love around us. Meaning higher states are more about giving than receiving. Poor states can be thought of as lack states or lowest available energy states. The energy vampire states. When we are in an energy poor state, our whole being is focused on just maintaining that energy level and it becomes very hard to shift towards a new higher state. It can take time and for certain you need nourishing things super loaded into your body. But alas, even the thought of more can be daunting, if someone has an awareness of needing to...

It's Kids Month at Elan... Here's thoughts from Scott, one of our Registered Massage Therapists at Elan Family Wellness Centre. By the way, August 15th is his birthday!  Scott's thoughts : Why are kids so full of energy??? August is bitter sweet for me. As a kid it meant my birthday... August 15 th  by the way... (wink wink)... and it meant that school was just around the corner. Kind of a “Yay/Boo!” polarity for me. Now, having a little one about to enter the third grade, I don't see that tension in her at this point in her development. What I do see is a crazy energy rich kid with passions and tension from boredom and soggy clothing from squirt guns and dirt on her pants for playing outside. All the things I remember as a kid. But done with energy, an energy that makes me envious. Is it that kids just have more energy? Or is it they are able to tap into some unseen resource and I have simply lost that skill that they have naturally? To live with that inner chi...