Fed Up Kickstarter Aims to Bring Movie to Schools

Posted on by Tammy

Fed Up is a movie executive produced by Katie Couric and Laurie David (Oscar-Winning Producer of “An Inconvenient Truth” and was created to show the world that everything we thought we knew about food and exercise is wrong.

It’s focused on sugar, exposing the truths our food industry does not want us to know, and told through the eyes of four obese children. It also includes interviews with thought leaders including Dr. Mark Hyman, Bill Clinton, Michael Pollan and more.

The Fed Up Team is now running a kickstarter campaign to get the movie into the hands of every school teacher in the United States, in order to empower children with the knowledge about how food and what they eat has an effect on them so they can make better choices.

The campaign ends Sept. 29, and people can donate here.

Brene Brown Talks “Rising Strong” With Time Magazine

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In a recent interview with Time Magazine to promote her new book “Rising Strong,” Brene Brown explained the difference between guilt and shame, and opened up about her own experiences with failure.

“People look at the success of “Daring Greatly” or “The Gifts of Imperfection” and think, Oh man, this has worked out really well. But I self-published my first book. I could wallpaper this building with ‘As sexy as a book about shame sounds, we’re going to pass’ letters,” Brown said in the interview. “I borrowed money from my parents and sold copies out of my trunk. And then I got a book deal, and that book failed.”

In her new book “Rising Strong,” she set out to tackle the common thread between men and women who have experienced falls, but get back up. What she found was those who are “the most capable of being uncomfortable rise the fastest,” she told Time Magazine.

To read the full interview, visit Time Magazine.

Fran Drescher Talks Spirituality, Health & Meditation

Posted on by Tammy

Elevated Existence Magazine interviewed Emmy-nominated actress Fran Drescher for the September 2015 Issue cover story. During the interview, Drescher spoke candidly about her spiritual side, her passion for women’s health and wellness, and much more.

At the time of the interview, Drescher was going through Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey’s most recent 21-Day Mediation Program. She had recently started meditating regularly again, and said she was really enjoying it.

“I realize how we receive the day has to do with how grounded we feel, and how grounded we feel has to do with whether or not we meditate,” she says in the cover story. “Then throughout the day, you have to be able to quiet yourself down, remember to take deep breaths, see more than just through your eyes — see the whole picture — and keep connecting with your inner voice. That in itself is a meditation.”

Drescher also spoke passionately about Cancer Schmancer, an organization she founded, which is focused on early detection and prevention. From detoxing the home and eating organic, non-GMO food, to choosing natural skincare products and reducing the stress in our lives, these are topics she teaches.

In fact, Cancer Schmancer is holding its first-ever Women’s Health Summit at Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles on October 13, 2015. The full-day event is for women who are ready to take charge of their health, bodies and environment, and will feature experts on topics including detoxing the home, integrative medicine, nutrition, positive thinking and empowerment.

“Over 95 percent of most illness, including cancer, is environmentally stimulated,” Drescher tells Elevated Existence. “We could effectively reduce our risk of getting cancer and a lot of other things, including asthma, autoimmune problems, migraines, the list goes on and on, if we change what we are using in our environment.”

Reflecting on her life so far, and how she strives to turn negatives into positives, Drescher tells Elevated Existence she feels life is “a journey of self-refinement.”

“I’m in my story and everything that happens, good or bad, are all opportunities for me to learn and become a more refined version of myself. I do that by stepping outside of myself and asking, ‘How can I turn this negative into a positive? How can I use this as an opportunity to grow? What do I need to learn from this experience?’” she says.

For more from Drescher, see the September 2015 Issue of Elevated Existence Magazine.

A Course in Miracles: Forgiveness Opportunities

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By Gary Renard

About 12 years ago, shortly after the release of my first book, “The Disappearance of the Universe,” I started an online study group at Yahoo about the book and “A Course in Miracles.” It has gone on to become the largest Course study group in the world. That’s where I met and became good friends with Gene Bogart, who produces and cohosts my podcasts with me. We do them every month or so, and it’s been great fun, as well as educational. Both the study group and the podcasts stick to the Course, which can lead to lively conversations when there are people asking questions who don’t want to stick to the Course.

We’re often asked what the Course means, and we usually start by saying the best way to know what it means is to go by what it says. That may seem obvious, but the Course says a lot of things people don’t want to hear. For example, it says, “There is no world!” This is the central thought the Course attempts to teach. Most people don’t want to hear that.

Most people want the world and the things in it they are attracted to, hoping at the same time the bad things will not come to them, or at least not be too bad. Yet the Course also says (with the Voice of the Course, Jesus, speaking in the first person), “I once asked you to sell all you have and give to the poor and follow me. This is what I meant: If you have no investment in anything in this world, you can teach the poor where their treasure is. The poor are merely those who have invested wrongly, and they are poor indeed!”

The Course is talking here about our psychological investment. Its teachings are always done at the level of the mind, not at the level of the physical. Letting go of your psychological investment in the world and putting your belief where it belongs is a process. It doesn’t happen overnight, which is a good thing. If it happened too fast, it would engender fear. The mind has to be prepared for the higher life form that is your true home. This home is your oneness with God.

You prepare yourself to go home by undoing the ego and gradually letting the Holy Spirit become the dominant force in your mind, and in the end, the only force in your mind. True forgiveness, the first step of which was described in my last article, is what facilitates this undoing process.

There will be many opportunities to forgive. During the first year of our Yahoo study group, we coined a phrase for these opportunities. We started to call them JAFO. This is an acronym for “Just another forgiveness opportunity.” The phrase is born of the fact that there will always be forgiveness opportunities as long as you appear to be here. However, it’s possible to get to the point where these forgiveness opportunities cannot affect you. When that time finally arrives on your spiritual path, these JAFOs will cease to be challenging and forgiveness will be automatic.

The Second Step of Forgiveness
Once you’ve learned to stop yourself from reacting with the ego, which takes determination and discipline, you can go on to the second step in forgiveness. Eventually, all three steps will blend into one, and you will do them as a habit without having to think much at all about the steps. You’ll just know. This is much like the Zen concept of just knowing as unarticulated truth. But at first it’s essential to learn and practice the steps so you know what you’re doing, and so you know what it is you’re choosing between. That’s how the steps become a part of you, and you’ll know they’re a part of you when you miss forgiveness if you don’t do it. One of the reasons for that is you’ll know you are the one who is actually getting the benefits of doing it.

The second step in true forgiveness involves what the Course calls the “Holy Instant.” That’s the instant you switch from thinking with the ego to thinking with the Holy Spirit. The ego has been telling you what you’re seeing is real, that the body is real, that you have a real problem you need to take care of with real people in a real world. The Holy Spirit has a totally different story.

What you’re seeing is not true. It’s a projection that’s coming from your own unconscious mind, and it’s possible to experience that. People are not bodies, they are still perfect spirit at home in God; they have merely forgotten. The Course asks you, “What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you really understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who seem to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder, and destroy themselves, are wholly unreal?”

Eventually it would be impossible for you to ever react to the world the same way you used to, and in choosing the Holy Spirit you are taking the second of three steps that awakens spirit in yourself. As the Course teaches, “Mind is the activating agent of spirit.” By choosing spirit, you activate it in your own mind. The Course also says, “…miracles heal because they deny body-identification and affirm spirit-identification.”

The world we once believed in is a dream, and nothing more. Shakespeare was right. “We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” The Course asks you, “…who reacts to figures in a dream unless he sees them as if they were real? The instant that he sees them as they are, they have no more effects on him, because he understands he gave them their effects by causing them and making them seem real.”

This is lucid dreaming on a whole new level. Eventually you become aware that you’re dreaming. Every JAFO is equally forgivable. Maybe the things you thought were so heavy and important aren’t. You begin to relax. Real peace of mind is yours. Ironically, you function better in the dream because you can think more clearly, and you have the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit to lead you.

But the Course doesn’t stop there. It takes you all the way home. In the next article we’ll examine step three, which is spiritual sight. You’ll learn to see the way the Holy Spirit does, and thus get in touch with what you really are.

ABOUT GARY RENARD
Gary Renard is the bestselling author of “The Disappearance of the Universe” trilogy, including “Your Immortal Reality,” and his latest, “Love Has Forgotten No One: The Answer to Life ” — all based on “A Course in Miracles.” As a teacher and worldwide speaker, Renard has taught “A Course in Miracles” in 24 countries and 43 states, appeared in seven documentary movies, won the Infinity Foundation Spirit Award, and hosts a monthly podcast. For more information, visit www.garyrenard.com.

100 Percent Pure Maracuja Oil Sheer Air Cushion Foundation

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Natural beauty company, 100 Percent Pure, introduced a new foundation product providing sheer, light coverage that evens skin tone and leaves a dewy finish. Part of it’s fruit-dyed makeup line, the new Pure Maracuja Oil Sheer Air Cushion Foundation is available in eight colors. It’s serum-like formula offers lightly buildable coverage.

Ingredients are all natural and fruit-based, including organic aloe juice, peach, apricot, carrot, pomegranate, cocoa bean, tomato and more. Once purchased for $48, refills are available for $39, in all colors.

For more from 100 Percent Pure, visit www.100percentpure.com.

Good Body Products Healing Salves

Posted on by Tammy

All 100% organic, vegan and gluten-free Good Body Products are made with all natural ingredients and essential oils. Products include mists, body butters, body scrubs, solid scents, and our favorite, the salves.

Available in five different formulas, the Good Body salves are ointments to bring relief to a variety of ailments, including arthritis, diaper rash, menstrual cramps and more.

The company’s Arnica and Comfrey Joint and Pain Salve comes in two different sizes, and was made specifically for severe arthritis sufferers and extreme athletes. It uses arnica and comfrey, known to provide relief for joint pain, torn ligaments, sore muscles, sprains, strains and bruising, and is an anti-inflammatory formula.

There is also a Calendula and Lemon Balm Soothing Salve for extremely dry and sensitive skin, ideal for itching, shingles, psoriasis and eczema, according to the website, and a Wild Yam Root and Geranium Menstrual Relief Salve that works on severe cramping and muscle spasms, as well as premenstrual symptoms.

For more information, visit www.goodbodyproducts.com.