Marguerite Alston

Ten years ago , Marguerite Alston was faced with a major health challenge that would change her life forever. A malignant melanoma diagnosis sent her stress levels off the scale. Her future was suddenly uncertain.

“I vowed at that point in time that I would do all that I can to look after my body, mind and spirit,” she says, now fully recovered. “I wanted to learn all that I could about nutrition and gain a deeper understanding of what I can do to make sure I live a long, vibrant and healthy life and I never wanted to deal with cancer ever again.”

Before we bring you the second installment of our interview with the BodyMind Institute founder, Lars Gustafsson (see below), CLM brings you this inspirational Q&A with Marguerite (pictured left), BodyMind student and now practitioner.

Students of the Institute not only learn the fundamentals of nutrition through body, mind and spirit, but also discover how to apply the information to their own lives to make gentle yet major shifts that last a lifetime.

If you missed part one of our interview with Lars, please click here.

CLM: What courses did you study at the BodyMind Institute?

MA: I started with the 90 Day Renewal course and have since taken the Level I, Level II and am currently enrolled in the Raw Certification.

CLM: Can you give an insight into what brought you to the Institute?

MA: In 2000, I went through some significant life changes that resulted in lots of stress throughout the year.   In October of that year, I was diagnosed with malignant melanoma.  Fortunately all was taken care of through surgery and all has been good since, but I vowed at that point in time that I would do all that I can to look after my body, mind and spirit. I wanted to learn all that I could about nutrition and gain a deeper understanding of what I can do to make sure I live a long, vibrant and healthy life and, I never wanted to deal with cancer ever again.

I started to do a lot of reading and research on the Internet, but would find myself overwhelmed with all the info. I knew from the things I’d had read and heard that disease cannot survive in an alkaline environment. What does that really mean?  How do I create a more alkaline environment in my body?  How did all this stress affect my health?  Could I have avoided the cancer? How do my thoughts affect my body?  Why do I have cravings at night? I had a million questions and was having a hard time finding simple answers!  I really wanted to make sense of all of this (and more!) and to take charge of my health.  In the nutshell, that is what brought me to BodyMind Nutrition, and I am very thankful I found them.

CLM: What emotional, mental, spiritual and physical changes have you gone through?

MA: Physically, I had immediate results from some of the simple shifts I learned from the 90 Day Renewal program. My energy increased, I wasn’t having the ‘crashes’ throughout the day and the best part was that I was sleeping so much better. What is so fantastic is that now when I have a ‘low energy day’ or I feel a little ‘off’ emotionally or physically, I can now take a step back and explore why that might be. I can look at things like what I ate, how much water I drank (or didn’t drink), what thoughts were occupying my mind, etc. and figure out what I need to do to get back on track. This has really empowered me to take charge of my health. On a spiritual and mental level, I feel a much deeper connection to the ‘real me’ so to speak and I trust my intuition to guide me a lot more than I ever did. Lastly, learning so much about the power of intention and the affect your thoughts have on your body and life has brought my self-awareness to a whole new level.

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Lars Gustafsson

You just have to browse the web or your nearest book store to see the world is obsessed with dieting. Yet if statistics are accurate, we’re not just tipping the scales, we’re on our way to breaking them. It has taken many of us years of restrictions and meal replacements to figure it out: diets don’t work.

From calorie counting to cutting out carbs, a Pandora’s Box awaits those who still dare to follow the latest diet craze. Yet achieving and maintaining your ideal figure is actually more simple than what we’ve been lead to believe—and it comes with a bonus: vibrant health.

There is one major requirement that’s needed on this path to ultimate wellness and the body we’ve all dreamed of: taking full responsibility. Taking charge and becoming our own nutritionist and not relying on big business to deliver a magic bullet that is nothing more than body-disruptive chemicals dressed in drag.

Perhaps it’s an assumption to say most of us were taught the same stuff in school, none of which covered off real nutrition and how to actually apply it. Yet, the lesson of nutrition is one of the most important life lessons we can ever learn. We also weren’t taught that nourishing ourselves is actually fun and can lead us to a full, love-fueled life. A nourished, healthy body results in clear thinking, more energy and, for many, a channel to the divine. No pill could ever compete with that.

Enter Lars Gustafsson: author, speaker, life and nutrition guide. Born in India to Canadian parents, he grew up living an authentic mix of tribal and western life. “This upbringing,” he says “created a balance between the scientific passion of the west and the ancient wisdom of the Far East.”

For 23 years, Lars has explored nutrition, fitness and healthy lifestyles. As founder of the BodyMind Institute—a global enlightened school of learning—he teaches that nutrition is so much more than just the food we eat. It’s the total way we nourish our mind and body.

“Over these years I found that I needed to personally experience something in order to accept it as fact.  In the end I have found that it is only through personal experience in the application of any information can you make your own informed decisions. Your own level of personal truth will grow according to your willingness to experience more.”

In 2003, Lars introduced The BodyMind Nutrition Certification online programs to meet an emerging demand for true to life systems, formulas and programs, creating the opportunity for people everywhere to discover and pass on a nutrition and lifestyle process that creates a personal discovery of balance in body, mind and spirit.

“I believe in the scientific method, that there are natural laws that govern our physical universe … yet in these 23 years I have often found the ‘unexplainable’ happening all around me,” Lars says. “These have created questions which led me to find hard scientific data that hasn’t found it’s way into the mass media or awareness of the masses.”

“Over these years I found that I needed to personally experience something in order to accept it as fact.  In the end I have found that it is only through personal experience in the application of any information can you make your own informed decisions. Your own level of personal truth will grow according to your willingness to experience more.”

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Cynthia Morgan

Hypnotherapist Cynthia Morgan will be sharing powerful healing techniques at an upcoming workshop: Healing Through Hypnosis, to be held at the Mondrian Hotel, Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles on Saturday, May 22.

Conscious Life Media (CLM) caught up with Cynthia to get the inside goss on what life-affirming tips people can expect to gain from the workshop experience and how the technique can change lives.

CLM: What can participants expect to learn at the workshop?

CM: The premise of the workshop is based on the idea that we really are our own worst enemy. No one holds us back, trips us up, or stops us from achieving a happier, healthier and more successful life than ourselves. And more specifically, it’s our thinking that limits us.

Most people attempt to use the power of will or positive thinking to overcome their limitations and improve their lives, and although those are worthy tools, they are limited because they are generated from the conscious mind. Whatever your problem is, it’s not in your conscious mind. If it were, you would have resolved it by now. The problem—relationship issues, finances, addiction, insomnia, illness—is tied to a deeper part of your mind, your subconscious.

The subconscious mind is like a hard drive. You can’t have a different picture on the computer screen of your life without changing the hard drive. And this particular hard drive is programmed by thoughts. Our subconscious thoughts are running us.

So, based on that premise, using hypnosis techniques, which bypass the conscious mind and get to the core of the matter, you can discover the deleterious self-thoughts programmed in your mind and undo them. Freud basically said that the only way to heal was to make the unconscious conscious. Once you expose the negative beliefs that are holding you back, you can them heal them. In fact, just looking at them often heals them.

Through the techniques that I will teach them, participants will begin to uncover their “bad programming,” learn how those thoughts have been holding them back until now, and they will learn how to heal them. I expect miracles to happen in this workshop. That’s my goal with each participant—real internal transformation. Of course, we’ll have lots of fun too.

It doesn’t matter whether you know what those thoughts are, or if you’ve been working on healing them for years, or if you don’t have a clue as to what those thoughts are. Wherever you are on your journey of self-discovery, my hope is to take you to that next level of healing.

CLM: What are some of the most common beliefs that hold people back from realizing their true potential?

CM: Having looked into the subsconscious mind of over a thousand people, I can assure you that we are all more alike than different (although that might not be reassuring to some!). A few of the more common beliefs are that we are not good enough, we are bad, we are unworthy, we are alone, we will never get what we want, and we are unlovable.

CLM: Are most of our beliefs cemented in childhood?

CM: This is a fascinating topic that I will discuss in more detail at the workshop, but generally, most of our beliefs are very, very old. I do not believe that we come into this world a tabula rasa. We come in already programmed with fears, ideas, and thoughts from the womb and beyond. And we continue to get programmed with specific ideas once we are here, particularly up until the ages of 9-11 years old. Before that age, we are an open subconscious mind. That’s why you can tell a child about the tooth fairy and he or she will believe you. You can also tell him that he’s a loser and he will believe you. Or that she will always be fat, and she will believe you. Whoever we looked to as an authority figure had the potential to program our mind.

It’s worthy of a more lengthy discussion, but there is no concept of time in the subconscious mind, everything occurs at once. So, though you accepted these ideas at six years old, they’re still affecting you at 35. The body ages, but the mind doesn’t. It constantly projects out what is in it. That’s why changing the hard drive is necessary for a different result

We will be doing some childhood regression work in the workshop—looking at those events in which you accepted false ideas about yourself.

CLM: What advice would you offer to parents who are conscious of helping to shape positive beliefs in their kids?

CM: Well, the first thing I would say is that bad programming by authority figures is part of the deal here. We have all been programmed badly and we will program others badly. We are not healed human beings, and until then, there’s going to be an awful lot of bad ideas passed around and down. As a parent, be gentle with yourself when you fall into that, but also know that one positive thought outweighs a hundred negative thoughts. Speak to children of their potential not their limitation.

Whatever your child’s issue, you can come up with a couple of positive reprogramming statements for him or her to repeat to themselves (conscious mind repetition programs the subconscious). Also, get your child to visualize himself in the situation accomplishing their goal. If he’s afraid of swimming, you could have him say, “I love to swim. Swimming is fun.” And tell him to shut his eyes and see himself swimming in a pool with other children, jumping off the diving board, and having a good time. Make a game out of it.

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Extreme Makeover: Home Edition's & Desperate Spaces' Daniel Kucan

By Daniel Kucan of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition & HGTV’s Desperate Spaces

Changing your mind is hard, make no mistake. In particular it’s very nearly impossible when the entire world is telling you how correct you are, that you are on the path, doing the right thing, valid. But even so, the little voice is powerful, the tiny, whispering spirit that pokes at the folds of your grey matter and slowly insinuates itself into your consciousness, telling you that you are completely, utterly, ferociously astray.

It’s gotten easier as I get older, I guess. I don’t say that because it actually feels more effortless, I say that because I seem to change my mind a lot these days. It’s a little disconcerting, actually, the vast array of things on which I’ve swung: I like plaid now, for instance. I used to dig cats, now I’m squarely a dog guy, I like gardening (too boring for me before), I love my scars, and I don’t eat animals.

It’s really just a different way of looking at something that I didn’t completely understand formerly. Sometimes, I find that I need to flip something on its head in order for me to see it right, stare right at it until my retinas burn into clarity and yes becomes no, up becomes down.

The first time I met Maldanado, the guy who’s going to throw down with me tonight, we were maybe 19 years old. He was a little guy, thin, whipchain arms, long braid down his back to his waist. Everything was point style back then, which meant you never went to the ground and if you got in a clinch, the referee would stop it and separate you.  It wasn’t like the continuous brawls that you see now in the UFC. But at the same time, in point style, you could have five, six fights in a day. Nowadays you have a fight, and then recover for three weeks. I’ve already cleared the next several days to ice my bones and sew on anything that gets knocked off.

Maldanado is taping his hands. He’s sitting in a full split, wrapping each finger, gung-fu style. He’s a Chinese stylist from a Taekwondo history, so his kicks are faster than my internet connection.  One time, back at a club tournament fight at NYU, Maldanado threw a round house kick at me that was so blindingly quick that he tapped my nose with his big toe and set his foot back down on the ground before I even raised my hands. I spent the next seven days explaining my two black eyes to classmates and had to take handfulls of pills until my shoulder worked again.  No one ever said these lessons come easy, but they come all the same.

But tonight, I’m way more ambitious. So much so, in fact, that I’m hoping to be able to walk home without a limp.

I’m a vegan, haven’t eaten any meat since ‘89. It’s funny ‘cause I get all this guff for it, right? The grand master of our school was a Chinese National Living Treasure named Chan. He was, I don’t know, four, maybe five hundred years old and mean as a snake. The only words in English I ever heard him say were, “wrong ” and my favorite, “idiot ”. He used to teach class with a glass of whiskey in one hand and you could smell the cigarette smoke on him. Chan used to call me Lo Han Jai, which sorta means “vegetarian,” but also means “guy who eats like Buddha” but in that ineffable way that Chinese phrases always have several levels of meaning, is more like calling me “Spicy Tofu with Veggies.” That used to make me crazy, ‘cause he was basically calling me a wimp. The Chinese language can do that, call you four different things with one name.  No one ever caught the irony in all that; up was still up for them, I guess.

So keep your blase’ hipster bacon references and your outdoor meat-fest cookouts, ladies. You all just look like cowards to me, silk-skinned scaredy-cats too fragile and wavering to resist your own appetites.

Maldanado climbs into the ring and rolls his head. It’s three rounds tonight, three minutes each, and let’s be honest, nobody expects me to win. If I could take him to the ground, I’d be preaching the painful gospel all up in here, but tonight is all stand-up.  Now I have way more knockout power than Maldanado does, but in order for that to matter, I gotta hit him, and trust me when I tell you that I’m not optimistic on landing anything.

We step up into the ring and the ref gives us a quick once-over before shooting me a look through cowboy eyes that kinda says, “Wow, do I feel bad for what’s about to happen to you” and someone rings the bell. Now I’d like to tell you that I shoot in all full of fire and razor wire but sometimes you know you’re gonna take a beating and anyone who says otherwise is delusional. But I aint making it up when I tell you that oftentimes the delusional cats are the best fighters; they think they can take ANYBODY. Maldanado was like that, would step in the ring with guys three times his size and walk away without a mark on him, and right now, I’m envying his myopic badassery.

When I was about 11, having stumbled onto the momentous discovery that the dance studio was packed with unbelievably hot girls, I began an epic ballet career that lead to two things: the first was that I determined that chicks really liked guys who could dance, the second was that I was called a faggot pretty much every day of my life up to, and including, today. But it got me jacked and ultimately lead me to gung fu and then Jujitsu and finally MMA. But those ballet dancers I learned from in the beginning, no lie now, they were some of the biggest toughguys I’ve ever known. They could jump higher, kick faster and had better balance than any of the guys I’ve fought with since. I’m not saying they could take a punch, and, yeah, pretty much all of them were gay, but I never equated those things.  I always saw them the same as the fighters I knew.

Somewhere along the lines, we made the same mistake about vegetarians; we decided as a nation that they are soft, effeminate. That never made sense to me either. Not just because I am one and I never thought of myself as particularly soft, but more so because I’ve seen the alternative.

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Now the excitement of the recent M.A.M.A. Earth fundraiser in Hollywood is officially over, CLM’s Stuart Brazell went in search of two of the event’s top stars: its creator Kailani Bayot and The Q Side’s Quddus who put his star power behind the high profile gathering. In this two-part interview, the pair chat about M.A.M.A. Earth and the Q Side, Haiti and what we can all do to make a difference.

M.A.M.A Earth's Kailani Bayot and her boys

Kailani Bayot

How did M.A.M.A. Earth start?

Well M.A.M.A. Earth all started with a bead. I work with crystals and precious stones as a hobby making jewelry and I came across this bead called Malachite-Azurite its such a beautiful stone. It looked so much like the like the earth. Blue and green. I looked it up in my crystal dictionary and it is a stone that promotes healing and aids in transformation. Hence the M.A.M.A. E a r t h wish bracelet. You tie it on make a wish and when it falls off your wish is put into the universe. I thought kids selling these as their school fundraiser would be better than selling chocolate and the best thing is that they get to learn about a different charities and the proceeds are donated to a charity of their choice.

How did you get together with the Q side?

I met Quddus from the Q side at my little brothers first music video shoot. We chatted a bit and realized that were doing a lot of the same kind of work so we partnered up for our Haiti event raising money for Yayasan Bumi Sehat in Haiti. This organization of midwives and teachers started in Indonesia after the Tsunamis and now they are they are in Haiti They just open the doors to their clinic in this past Friday its so cool you should check out their website to see some pictures: bumisehatbali.org.

How important is it to have an event like the recent one to raise the organization’s profile?

I have realized that everyone wants to help and give. It feels good to know you can make a difference. I think why not facilitate these fun events where everyone benefits. Good fun, entertainment for a good cause while raising an awareness of the issues going on in our community and the world.

What are your goals for the next 12 months?

We have a mother’s day charity event coming up in Hawaii. That’s where I’m from. We are in the talks of bringing El Debarge there for a mother’s day concert. Proceeds will benefit a local charity for mothers. You know that M.A.M.A. Earth stands for Mothers about Making Amends right? I’m a mama of two boys (above). Oh yah we also have a follow up event at the VS-65 Skid Row to plant a spring vegetable garden. We planted a fall one in October.

What was M.A.M.A. Earth able to achieve in the past 12 months?

Well in June we hosted a event for a organization called “ Shine on Sierra Leone” to help build their school based in South Africa. Then in August we hosted a red carpet charity event in honor of Michael Jackson for the Volunteers of America VS-65 a organization for homeless veterans. In October we planted a fall vegetable garden with the help of a local high school poetry class at VS-65 skid row, that was a special day. Then we had our last event this past Saturday for Yayasan Bumi Sehat and the mamas in Haiti. We are mamas ourselves so we kinda have to pace ourselves.

How do you choose what causes to support?

It sort of just comes to us in different ways.

M.A.M.A. Earth obviously began because someone put an idea into action. What would you say to those who want to help change the world, but do little to nothing because they think one person couldn’t possibly make a difference?

I say every little bit counts.  You can start by smiling at a stranger once you do a little you will see how good it makes you feel and you’ll do more. It’s like working out. You can get addicted to it and its so good for you.

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The Cove director Louie Psihoyos

In a sleepy lagoon off the coast of Japan was once a shocking secret. A secret that a few desperate men made sure would be no longer kept hidden from the world: thousands of dolphins were, and still are, being captured and sold to the world’s theme parks. Those who don’t make the cut are horrifically tortured and slaughtered—their mercury-laden meat sold under the guise of being “acceptable” flesh for consumption to an unsuspecting Japanese public. It’s a real life horror story—one that is now well and truly public.

The men who risked their lives to tell the world about this atrocity include Louise Psihoyos, a director with a cause who has not only caught the world’s attention, but also the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences, with his film, The Cove, which is up for best documentary at the Awards this weekend (March 7).

The Cove begins in Taiji, Japan, where former dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry has come to set things right after a long search for redemption. In the 1960s, it was O’Barry who captured and trained the five dolphins who played the title character in the international television sensation “Flipper.” But his close relationship with those dolphins – the very dolphins who sparked a global fascination with trained sea mammals that continues to this day — led O’Barry to a radical  change of heart. One fateful day, a heartbroken Barry came to realise that these deeply sensitive, highly intelligent and self-aware creatures so beautifully adapted to life in the open ocean must never be subjected to human captivity again.

It wasn’t until years after this realisation that Ric met Louie and the idea for The Cove was born, and more importantly, put into action.

With Jim Clark, Louie also created The Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS), in 2005. The non-profit organization provides an exclusive lens for the public and media to observe the beauty as well as the destruction of the oceans, while motivating change.

CLM caught up with Louie to talk about what it took to plan, shoot and promote the eco-thriller film. Stay tuned for an interview with Ric O’Barry.

Firstly Louie, congratulations in such an incredible documentary. How long did it take to make from idea to final print?

The film took about three and a half years to make, but Laurie David, who produced An Inconvenient Truth told me a year ago that when you’re done making a documentary you’re only halfway there.  The film came out a year ago this week and I’m still out promoting the movie. But fortunately most of the traveling is going to film festivals around the world that are in amazing beautiful places meeting great people who are passionate about films so I’m learning a lot at the same time, and not just talking about our film. And at the film festivals the film has been received very well, mostly standing ovations.  Even at the Tokyo Film Festival the response was amazing – we had as much media coverage as Avatar.

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