Carnival of Healing #166: A Thanksgiving weekend feast

Step right up, Laydeez annnd gentulllmen! The Carnival of Healing is back in town, and each time it comes our way it's bigger than ever. We have a veritable feast of offerings this week, with contributions from around the globe and across the spectrum of holistic health. We're serving it all up buffet style, so you can take a healthy helping of whatever strikes your fancy and skip the stuff you don't want.

If you're a first-time visitor, welcome, and here's some background on the natural healing art of Reiki, the subject of your host publication.

Last week's Carnival was hosted by Lorraine Cohen at Powerfull Living, and next week our host will be Daylle Deanna Schwartz at Lessons from a Recovering Doormat. The Carnival is organized by Phylameana Iila Desy, About.com's guide to Holistic Healing.

Still recovering from the feast you had on Thursday -- maybe you did a bit of stress eating while visiting with loved ones? You might want to fill your plate today with some tasty, low-calorie appetizers, such as Andrew's Life is Hard but Eating is Easy at Weight Loss Window. And if you're planning to lose weight or start an exercise program, Andrew reminds us to start today, because Tomorrow Never Comes.

Laura Milligan has mixed up some smoothies for us, a hundred of them, to satisfy all tastes from vegan to low-carb to high protein to fruit to sugar-free to anti-aging, with recipes to fit any diet. And if you need yogurt for one of those recipes, you'll find plenty of advice at Yogurt Maker Central, a blog focused with laser precision on the subject of yogurt makers.

Speaking of diets, Joshua Seth tells us Why Diets Don't Work.

Exercise is also an important component of a weight-loss program, as Cool Mom Julie demonstrated by losing 60 pounds working out with her Wii Fit. (We reviewed the Wii Fit here a few months ago, from a Reiki perspective.)

It doesn't have to be all work, though: naps can also be part of a fitness program, writes Gobs Health.

If you found some of your loved ones a bit annoying at your family's Thanksgiving feast, Chris at Purpose Power Coaching suggests it might be a good time to look in the mirror and see what that says about you.

Maybe you have a little secret you'd rather not share with the clan: "Are You Hiding Your Bad Back?" asks the Back Pain Blog.

Yoga might help with both the weight loss and the back pain, as Kara-Leah Grant at Prana Flow NZ answers the question, "Will yoga give me a great body?" And if seeing the world around you with both eyes open isn't quite enough, Kara-Leah also answers this question: "How do I open my third eye?"

There's another set of recipes at Massage Therapy Careers -- this time for natural homemade health and beauty products, so careful not to confuse them with those smoothies and keep them away from our buffet table, no matter how yummy they may look.

Holiday gatherings are supposed to be joyous times, which makes it all the more disappointing when old conflicts surface along with fond memories at the harvest feast. When those awkward moments arise, it's important to remember The Joy of Being Yourself, Naren writes on Spiritual Pub. 

And it could be that some of those old ties are just a bit too binding to be healthy. At Therapeutic Reiki, Astrid Lee tells us about a technique I recognize not from Reiki but from shamanism that involves cutting some of the cords that keep us connected to past problems.

Speaking of Reiki, Kaddu in India discusses her Reiki training experience in addressing a tough question: Why people don't heal. Kaddu's training seems to have been quite different from any of the lineages I've studied: we never had any "psychic surgery," for example. (We'd love to know more about how Reiki is taught and practiced in India.)

Are you one of those who expect something bad to happen even when things are going well? My friend Daylle Deanna Schwartz of Lessons from a Recovering Doormat has a few words for you on the Law of Attraction in Action: Luck.

Finding yourself a bit short on time after spending so much time at the Carnival? Life Optimizer tells us How to save time in the long term.

Hope you enjoyed the feast!