Greetings! My name is Shoshana Frumkin, and I have been committed to health, healing and transformation most of my life. What drives me is a deep desire for us to heal our wounds together, recover our connection to the power of love, healing our hearts and health while enjoying meaningful connection and taking care of our planet.
When I was 12 years old, I began studying for my Bat Mitzvah, with a wonderful tutor named Stephanie. I adored her. I learned that Stephanie was a vegetarian during one of our sessions. As soon and she said the words, I made the instant decision to also go veggie. I didn’t have to think about it twice; I must have always had this instinct in me, and needed someone to get it out! I had no issues adjusting to meatless life, and it was always a bigger deal for other people. Even as a child, I felt satisfied in knowing I wasn’t hurting or eating animals. I certainly didn’t know the great impact I would have on the earth and my health.
Four years later, my sophomore year of high school, I became very sick. I had a consistent fever for about 6 weeks and various other symptoms. No one could figure what was wrong with me. Numerous doctors and tests ruled some possibilities out, but did not give us a conclusion. It seemed to be an ongoing mystery. My Mother, Uncle and Grandfather all have Inflammatory Bowel Disease. My Mom thought it should least be ruled out.
They say a mother is always right, and she was. I had what was determined to be some sort of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. It was unclear if it was Ulcertive Colitis or Chrohn’s Disease, but there was finally an answer. Doctors immediately started me on a bunch of different medications, including steroids. The combination of the various medications had all different side effects. Although some of them were very helpful and I did feel better, I rejected the idea of needing to swallow over 10 pills a day. However, I didn’t see any other options, so I continued my daily ritual of swallowing a combination of medications. My favorite was a little pink oval pill called Levbid. It was a miracle worker.
This week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Eric-James Horton, Certified Health Counselor, Chef, and co-owner of "Conscious Nosh Chef Services." Conscious Nosh is a bay area business that helps customers create personal health and diet plans, and delivers hand crafted healthy and delicious foods to their doorsteps to help them stay on track. (They also make overwhelmingly delicious raw vegan macaroons!) I caught up with Eric to find out about what has led him down this path, and what inspires him about his work.
To find our more about Eric, or to sign up for his "Farm To Table" Cooking Class on Sept 6th, visit: BayAreaHealthCoach.com.
What are you passionate about? I'm passionate about the work that I do; one-on-one health and wellness counseling, one-on-one cooking coaching, teaching group cooking classes and personal chef services. I love connecting with a huge network/community of movers and shakers in the health and healing world, learning about permaculture, becoming a homesteader and a family man.
What motivates you in the work you are doing?
Setting up a good home space for the future generations! I want my kids to live in a world that they feel safe and healthy in. My clients motivate me. Their strength and courage to create a life they feel powerful in motivates me to do all that I can do that too.
I stopped eating meat 18 years ago, mainly for ethical reasons. I stopped eating dairy and peanuts 8 years ago, for health reasons. The results were miraculous to me. In exchange, I feel better than ever!
I was diagnosed with allergies and asthma around age 9. I took medication for asthma three times a day and had an inhaler to use when I wheezed and needed help breathing. I used it often, sometimes multiple times a day. At times I used it beyond the maximum recommended daily dose.
The only food allergy I was diagnosed with was a mild allergy to peanuts. As a kid, I ate peanut butter almost every day. My whole family did! We ate peanut butter on bananas, celery, bread, pancakes, waffles, and French toast. You name it, we covered it with peanut butter. Even though it was hard, I stopped eating peanuts. My asthma was still bad, though. Since it didn't actually seem to make a difference, I started eating them again.
As an adolescent, I couldn't even run around the block without wheezing. To prevent severe asthma attacks I simply avoided all strenuous physical activity. I was excused from anything in Physical Education class that involved running. When my brother and sister got a group of kids together to play soccer I wanted to join in, so they let me be the goalie. That way I could still play with them but not have to run. At times, though, even playing goalie was too hard, so I had to sit out. I felt left out, weak, lonely, and crippled.
Numbers have a way of making me space out, they've always astounded me; but breast cancer statistics just floor me. In reading them, I feel suddenly on high-alert. “About 1 in 8 women in the United States (12%) will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime,” according to the CDC, and “for women in the U.S., breast cancer death rates are higher than those for any other cancer, besides lung cancer.” This is where I need to pause and take a breath. There’s a story in these statistics, waiting to be told, and I want it to find me... It’s not the story of cancer survivors, powerful as those stories may be, and it’s not the story where we all Race for the Cure, raising money to conquer this insidious disease with science. It’s not even an exposé about the endocrine-disrupting chemicals in our bottled water, the electromagnetic energies that we are bathed in as city-dwellers, or the soy products you should-no wait, shouldn’t, OK, maybe should, be eating. This is a love story, through and through. This is the story about how collectively, we women have forgotten to love and adore the most life-giving and comforting parts of our bodies. Not with a sweet indifference, or an appreciative nod, but through the dis-ease story that women across the western world are telling themselves about how their breasts are NOT ENOUGH. Of course, this story comes in as many forms as there are women: too much, uneven, marked by time, too attention grabbing, invisible... Our breasts endure these repetitive thought patterns on a daily basis and I can't help but assume what affect they are having on our health. While we may never go under the knife in the quest for some cultural breast ideal, even highly conscious and evolved women can get sucked into the trap of dishonoring our bodies. I know that I still can. I have seen how water crystals change when exposed to loving and unloving thoughts (and if you haven’t, please check out Messages from Water by Masaru Emoto) and as a health educator, I understand holistic interconnection. Yet, I’m still not immune from sending less-than-adoring messages to my own body. Battling the constant wave of disempowering affirmations embedded in our culture seems to be an unending practice as long as I’m still working, living, and playing within it. The Abounding River teaches us that sometimes the strong medicine we need is CONSCIOUS AFFIRMATION that re-aligns us with the positive flow of life. To battle an epidemic of negative affirmation, we need powerful CONSCIOUS medicine. Can you imagine that we have the power to change these statistics just by changing the way we are collectively "talking to" our bodies? Love may not heal all, but it certainly illumines the places that need healing. My commitment is to taking a stand for all of the women and girls in my life, even the ones who have done their share of Women’s Movement curriculum. We get to be the change. Through our conscious re-claiming of the life-force in our bodies, we can pave the way for women everywhere to find healing relationships to womanhood, sexuality, and empowerment. It starts with us. I invite the women reading this post to take on a healing affirmation practice with me, based on the Hawaiian Ho’oponopono, for the next 30 days. I'm calling it the "Breast Friends Practice". Once a day, sit, take a few long, deep breaths with your eyes closed and repeat these words, for 5 minutes, or until you feel complete: “Please forgive me. I love you. You are healthy, whole, complete, filled with love and light. You are beautiful just as you are. ” Thank you for taking on loving yourself. Thank you for changing the world.
I so highly recommend the wondrous book by David Wolfe: The Sunfood Diet Success System. This book is an awesome resource for the science behind, the power behind and the results from living foods. David has a great way of bridging together the hard science and the easy-to-digest explanation of raw foods.
In The Sunfood Diet Success System, David Wolfe puts together a masterpiece of introductory lessons in raw foods and their impact, on the importance of healthy enzymes and the impact of eating mutated foods (allergies, chronic pain and even terminal illnesses). Not only does he have the know-how in the impactful way that raw foods impact the body, but David also lays out plans for how to transition successfully or experiment with raw foods, how to plan cleanses for yourself, weekly menus and full recipes. Below I bring you a few of his recipes for rapid results. These work sort of like teasers to introduce impactful eating for some of our everyday health challenges. Try some of these out the next time you might otherwise reach for an over the counter drug.
There is no question about it in my mind: the world has entered into a time we have heard about for many generations, but that we have never seen before. Some call it the Great Turning, others call it 2012. There are many names for this time and it is a turbulent, unpredictable time. But I believe we are actually very lucky to be witness to this. We are not victims; we are not even innocent bystanders. We can actually choose to be active participants and as an alliance of communities we can effect great change beyond even what we have yet to imagine.
Quinoa has gained quite the popularity in the past 10 years. What once was considered food for Andean warriors, then diminished by Spanish colonizers, became a health food store staple in the western world in the late 70’s. Why so cool? Because it tastes great, is a good source of Magnesium, Manganese, Copper, fiber and it is a complete protein.
An inspiring new film is Premiering on April 4th at the Balboa Theatre, Rialto Cinemas Elmwood and the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Francisco and the Bay Area on April 4th. 5th & 6th!
FAT, SICK & NEARLY DEAD is the story of two men who struggle to lose weight, overcome the same rare disease and change their lives for good. The uplifting story follows Joe Cross on a cross country road trip where he vows to do a juice fast for 60 days (consuming only fruits and vegetables in liquid form). On his life changing journey, he meets and inspires Phil Staples - a 420 lb desperate truck driver from Iowa - to do the same. The documentary is a story about hope, wellness, friendship and our ability to change.
Check out the trailer, see showtimes and more at www.fatsickandnearlydead.com and see what is possible when a man takes on his life and treats his body truly as the miracle it is.
The other day I was at the Harrison Cafe (yum!) and someone was sharing with me about a regular customer there that was just diagnosed with Breast Cancer. She said that she had talked to the woman about the awakening that I had around ordering "I am Healthy" when I had cancer and how hearing that over and over really got me to believe it. I told her that she should give the woman my phone number and that I would love to talk to her anytime.
Then as I sat there eating my lunch, I was reflecting on how it was for me when I was healing from cancer and how I didn't have a whole lot of energy to seek anyone out or make requests. I remembered how during that time, what really got me through in a lot of ways was when the staff of Cafe Gratitude reached out to me! They offered me green juice, they offered me clearings, they offered me guidance, they offered me laughter... I was spontaneously inspired to buy the woman a gift card so that she could get some I am Healthy on me. So I asked my server to ring me up for it and I started to tell her what she should tell the woman. Again, I reflected on how I could stretch myself even further. So I sat down and wrote the woman a note, inviting her to buy I am Healthys with the gift card and to really breathe in the affirmation every time she ordered it, all the while she drank it and always. I shared with her that I trusted that her body is healing and that it is letting go of something that she know longer needs. I reminded her that she is healing! She is healthy right now!
I feel so happy right now and thankful that I can see all the ways that I am provided for (even when the gift card goes on my credit card because my bank account is too low) and so grateful that I can see all the ways that I can provide for other people.