Community News
Benefits of In-Home Pet Sitting

If work or travel keep you away from your pets, you’ve likely considered various pet-care options, from boarding your pets at a boarding facility or animal hospital, to securing the services of a professional pet sitter. More and more pet owners are taking advantage of the benefits in-home pet care provides: • Diet and exercise routines are uninterrupted. • Pets are happier and experience less stress at home. • Travel trauma for both owner and pet is eliminated. • Pet’s exposure to illness is minimized. • Untrained or unwilling friends/family/neighbors need not be called. • Your home will be taken care of (plants watered, mail taken in, etc.) Lisa Tustin, Professional Pet Services, facebook.com/propetservices1

Community Event

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program (MBSR) and Yoga Sessions (Tuesday mornings). Renaissance Centre, 844 Autumnwood Dr., 204-803-2002, laviemindful.com
Anger-Free Sessions for Adults, Anxiety/Stress Management Sessions, and Pranic Healing. Renaissance Centre, 844 Autumnwood Dr., call Colette 204-256-6750, ext. 23

Yoga for Kids

Kids’ yoga embraces the joy of being a kid by providing a safe, fun, and active way to be happy, healthy, and blissful! Through arts and imaginative play, children will explore yoga poses, calming techniques, breathing practices, and guided relaxation to foster creativity and self-esteem. In practicing yoga, children learn to connect with their inner self as they engage in non-competitive physical activity. Yoga provides children with tools to focus their mind by increasing sensitivity and creativity. Yoga at an early age can integrate the benefits of the practice into a powerful art-making experience.

Fight Colds & Flus

Your immune system needs a strong thymus and spleen to produce antibodies and specialized white blood cells that help prevent disease.
Do you know how yours are functioning?
Nutritional testing or Biofeedback are great ways to find out if there is a
weakness or imbalance in these immune organs.
If a weakness or imbalance is identified, specific nutrient formulations designed to naturally support and strengthen the thymus, spleen and immune system can be taken.
This will help you to better fight against influenza, rhinovirus (common cold), pneumonia, and other bacterial infections – or avoid them altogether.

Community Profile: Kelburn Estates

Kelburn Estates Mental Health & Addictions Recovery Centre is a private residential wellness centre on 45 beautiful acres along the red river, here in Manitoba. We pride ourselves in providing confidential and multi-disciplinary expertise for our guests to reclaim, develop, and sustain a meaningful life. A life free from the destructive mental health disease and related substance abuse. Our mission is to create and maintain a lasting relationship with our guests, families, and community service providers. At Kelburn Estates, we will walk with you on your journey to recovery.

Meet Your Practitioner

Tracy Sparham is a Registered Social Worker who has over 30 years of experience working in mental health, providing individual and group therapy. She believes that we all have inner strengths that sometimes become hidden when we are feeling depressed or having difficulties. In her self-esteem and codependency groups, she has helped hundreds of people to become more aware of their inner strengths and value, and develop healthy coping and communication skills. Seeing her clients grow to accept and love themselves and feel happy in their relationships is the greatest reward for Tracy.

Using Honey for Health

Honey is one of nature’s precious gifts. It has many medicinal properties and can be used for treating coughs and colds, skin conditions, burns, wounds, and obesity. It is also an excellent tonic and carrier of Ayurvedic medicine. However, honey can aggravate pitta, as it has a heating quality. People who have a tendency to overheat should avoid honey. Always use raw organic honey, preferably from a local source. Honey should never be heated, cooked, or used to sweeten hot beverages. It becomes a slow poison, as heating alters the structure of honey, creating a glue-like substance that gets stuck in the tissues and clogs channels.

Uplift Your Life with Lemon

Lemon essential oil offers amazing wellness benefits for you and your family. Lemon oil purifies the air and surfaces, making it a perfect ingredient for a non-toxic cleaning solution to use throughout your home. You can also polish wood with lemon oil by adding a few drops of it to olive oil. When added to water, lemon provides a refreshing and healthy boost throughout the day, while aiding your body’s digestive system. Lemon is frequently added to food to enhance the flavour of desserts and main dishes. When diffused, lemon is very uplifting and energizing, and has been shown to help improve mood.

Fudgy Black Bean Brownies

• 1-1/2 cups black beans (drained and rinsed well)
• 2 tbsp. cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/3 cup pure maple syrup or honey
• pinch stevia or sweetener
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 2/3 cup chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine all ingredients, except chocolate chips, in a good food processor, and blend until completely smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips, and then pour into a greased 8×8 pan. Cook 15-18 minutes, and then let cool at least 10 minutes. Enjoy! Your kids won’t even know they’re healthy!

Develop Your Touch Vocabulary

Touch is a language of human connection! Compassionate touch is so biologically important to us that we cannot survive without it. Yet, how much education do we have for this language of touch? Studying Thai massage opens the door to expanding your touch vocabulary in a supportive learning environment. Training in Thai massage builds a platform of communication, gives you a way to help others with the skill of manual therapy, and profoundly influences the relationships you have with others.

Cats and Essential Oils

There has been much talk recently about cats and essential oils. Are oils safe, or unsafe? What should you believe? The truth is essential oils are indeed a toxic threat to cats. They are rapidly absorbed both orally and through the skin, and are then metabolized in the liver. Cats lack an essential enzyme in their liver, and as such, have difficulty metabolizing and eliminating many essential oils. Cats are also very sensitive to phenols and phenolic compounds, which can be found in some essential oils. The higher the concentration of the essential oil (i.e., 100%), the greater the risk to the cat.