I peruse the recommendations Netflix gives me for new films; I’ve ranked enough movies from my years of being homebound and bedbound that Netflix generally has my tastes pegged. It’s rare that Netflix will recommend a film I can’t enjoy. One of the recent highly recommended films for me was Hector and the Search for Happiness, a movie I’m grateful I took the time to watch.

Hector is a British psychiatrist, a doctor who treats patients with mental challenges. He divides himself between private practice, meeting the needs of the rich whose problems he finds to be quite superficial, and a mental health hospital where his patients are faced with more dire issues. Hector lives with his girlfriend Clara who works at a job creating names for new drugs. Like many of us living the modern life, Hector reaches a breaking point where he begins to question whether it is actually possible to be truly happy. He sets out on a global quest in search of the answer, purportedly to better help his patients find happiness yet knowing on another level that it’s his own happiness he is pursuing. Despite being a psychiatrist, Hector has yet to learn that he needs to help himself first and that happiness comes from within. These become some of the lessons he learns along the way.

The movie is a bit slow in the beginning, but once Hector begins his travels, the pace picks up. This is a movie whose point is solely character development. There is no strong plot. For some, this is a deathblow for a movie, as indicated by the very mixed reviews Hector and the Search for Happiness received, but for me, it’s often the sign of a movie that will captivate my mind. I was intrigued by Hector’s discoveries along his journeys, and I enjoyed most of his pursuit of happiness.

As he travels the world, Hector meets many people and asks them what they think happiness is. He learns both from their words and the experiences he shares with them. Some of these statements are easily summarized such as “Avoiding unhappiness is not the road to happiness.” Others aren’t as easy to encompass in words. The deep soul level beauty of many of the people that Hector meets comes through loud and clear in his journey, and Hector is astute enough to learn from all they teach him.

I would rate this a five star film except for the ending. Without spoiling it completely, I can only say that I felt the film took the cop-out Hollywood "happily ever after" solution rather than pursuing what reality would have dictated. People who go on a transformation journey in life, whether literal or symbolic, and experience radical changes in their worldview can’t usually return to the lives they were living before. Most often these people change jobs, romantic partners, living locations, and more as they realize what they had been pursuing in life is not what makes them truly happy. While I feel Hector did find some of the answers in his search for happiness, I felt the film’s creators failed to implement those changes in a realistic way. Despite the ending, the rest of the film is well-worth watching especially if one is on a quest for happiness in one’s own life.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

Last Friday was another powerful day of healing in my world, both personally and globally. The spiritual work I have been doing on myself reached another major turning point as my healers and I released one of the deeper traumas from my childhood. As it released, I saw that the emotions from that incident tied back to traumas in another life hundreds of years ago; the past life experience involved the same soul who also hurt me in this life and many others as well.

After the trauma released from my body, I was told symbolically that this was the last thing that was blocking me from finding unconditional and spiritual love in this lifetime. In the past few years, we’ve pulled out many other energetic blocks related to other people who’ve harmed me and related to beliefs I have previously held. At one point we even had to clear away the soul of a female ancestor who lived in the 19th century in Tennessee. She had been sexually abused by four or five different men in her life, and so she held the false belief that all men are dangerous. She was trying to protect me by keeping men away from me, something I definitely didn’t appreciate even if she was doing it with the best of intentions! My mentor and I helped her crossed over, leaving me happily without my unwanted guardian.

I’ve been working for a long time to reach this point; I was starting to wonder if I would ever reach it. So the news brought me great joy. I left that healing appointment feeling pretty happy and headed to my next appointment. Before it started, I had a few minutes to check to see if my kids had emailed or texted me. They had not, but I noticed an email from a friend who said, “Just saw the SCOTUS decision! :)” I knew that could only be good news, and Googling confirmed that the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of same-sex marriages. Tears began misting in my eyes, but I had to move on to my appointment. Afterward, though, when I got a chance to read some of the articles about the announcement, more tears came streaming down my face.

I don’t have any friends or family members who were waiting to get legally married in Texas. Many couples I know have already gone to Canada or other states to legalize their unions. However, for me, this was a victory that I had been waiting for for a long time. It says a great deal that our society is finally open-minded enough to accept that same-sex marriage will not bring about the end of the world. There’s still a great deal of progress to be made in terms of ending discrimination against those who aren’t cisgendered or heterosexual. However, this is a big and public step forward.

One part of the announcement seriously disturbed me, though. The Supreme Court decision was a 5-4 victory, a very narrow margin. Still, a victory is a victory. What bothered me most was that conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, the only African American on the court at this time, voted against same-sex marriage. Given his conservative voting record, this isn’t a surprise. Yet looking at his personal life, it is. Clarence Thomas married his second wife, Virginia Lamp, in 1987. They are considered an interracial couple as she is of Caucasian descent. Yet it was only twenty years earlier in 1967 that interracial marriage became legal in Thomas’ home state of Georgia thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision of Loving v. Virginia. Less than fifty years later, Thomas is now on the side of the privileged, those who can marry whomever they want, and he voted against letting all citizens have the right to marry their partners. To me, that was a bitter pill to swallow.

While I rejoiced on Friday with many others in the rest of the nation, the fight is far from over in Texas. Certain politicians seem to have a distorted belief that the SCOTUS decision of Obergefell v. Hodges is not the last word. Texas Governor Greg Abbott immediately issued a statement allowing state agencies to refuse to issue same sex marriage licenses on the basis of religious freedom, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has also encouraged county clerks not to issue same-sex licenses. The only county in the Austin area to begin immediately issuing licenses on Friday to same-sex couples was Travis, the liberal bastion of Texas. Other local counties are twiddling their thumbs, blaming a need to update software, and “investigating” what the Supreme Court ruling actually means for their offices. I don’t have great hopes that all county offices in Texas will be offering same-sex couples their now legal right to obtain a marriage license by the end of July. I suspect it is going to take more federal action to make it happen. In my mind, I keep seeing the military involvement  in 1957 that was necessary to enforce the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that desegregated schools.

Despite these new hurdles, I am grateful that both the nation and I have moved forward in a major way when it comes to liberating love. I hope that when the time is right, all of us will be able to find the partners we seek and will be able to decide if and when we choose to get married unhampered by the prejudiced "religious" beliefs of others.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

In the past year, I have noticed this bizarre bit of synchronicity in my life on many occasions: When something in my life, my body, or my spiritual journey is blocked, my master bathroom toilet also clogs.  As amusing as it is, it’s also very frustrating. This weekend’s version of this parallel experience was more aggravating than usual.

I’ve spent the entire weekend (starting on Friday afternoon) feeling really off, emotionally and physically. I couldn’t pinpoint what exactly was wrong, though I know which flower essence I need to help with what I’m working on processing. I’m waiting for it to arrive in the mail mid-week. Until then, all I can really do is work through the other information that my spirit guides give me which was unfortunately not much as we are in a holding pattern until the essence arrives.

My toilet clogged early on Sunday morning. Despite my best efforts, I was not able to unclog it. I tried periodically throughout the day but really got nowhere with it. Then, suddenly in the late afternoon, I heard a gurgling-popping-draining noise from my bathroom. Not more than ten seconds later, I felt a powerful internal movement within my body. I can’t describe exactly what it felt like, but it seemed like a drain opened and everything that had been making me feel like crud was suddenly gone within a few seconds. I walked into the bathroom and discovered that the same draining had occurred with the toilet. The clog was finally gone in both of us.

I was waiting for my sauna to warm up when this happened; that was the only thing that I had done. I hadn’t taken any medications or supplements that could have made me physically feel better, and it’s almost unheard of for something to give me instant relief like that anyway. The synchronistic timing felt fairly wild and too much to be coincidence. I offered up gratitude to whomever got both me and my toilet feeling better, and I headed into the sauna. There, the next unusual experience of the day happened.

When I am receiving messages from the other side, they come in two main forms. In the first, I see symbols and hear words on occasion; I’ll sometimes smell odors or feel sensations as well. It’s not a coherent transmission that I can relate to others without translation. The message is basically in code. When I receive healing messages for clients and for myself, this is the type of message I receive. The second type of message happens when I am used as a channel. This doesn’t happen too often, but when it happens, I am always left in awe. I am nothing more than a scribe at that point, taking dictation for the other side. I usually can barely keep up with the clear and coherent sentences I get from the other side. Unlike many channels, I’m not in a trance when this happens: today I was very aware of the thunderstorm outside and the increasing sweat on my body. I have never served as a channel when someone else is around, so I don’t know if I can interact easily with others when it’s happening or not.

In today’s session, a spirit guide came to me rather unexpectedly. She gave me a name that could be for a woman of any era among thousands of years and from a multitude of cultures (but she’s asked me not to share her name for whatever reasons she has). I don’t think she and I have had any other connections with each other before. When she communicated with me, she spoke quickly and fluently, transmitting dozens of mantras to me for the inspirational memes I put on my website, Facebook, and Pinterest. Looking back at some of them later in the day, I didn’t recognize some of the thoughts I had written, but that’s because I was so busy writing I couldn’t actually take time to process the words in the moment. I’ve been given mantras from the other side before, but never in bulk like this. I had spent several hours earlier in the day working on creating and scheduling the posts for July’s memes, so perhaps that activity had drawn the attention of someone on the other side, and she was just helping me get parts of August, September, and October done as well.

I am also not quite sure why the mantras followed upon the release of whatever was blocking my health, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I know some of the mantras are meant for me specifically, but some seem as though they are meant for other people whom they will reach through my posting them on my website and other places. Regardless, when the other side gives me a gift like that, I don’t think there’s any appropriate response except to say thank you and then to create the memes they’ve given to me so clearly!

I enjoy when I channel for the other side. It’s draining physically, but it’s also exhilarating. I appreciate the experience every time it happens, and I’m always left in awe. Some day I hope to have a better understanding of why I receive these channeling messages when I do, but for now, I am grateful for the experience.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

I have written before on numerous occasions about how emotions can be stored in our bodies. This is a universal experience for all humans, though many of us are not aware of this reality. Once we are conscious of the fact we have stored emotions in our bodies that may be manifesting as physical pain or disease, then the question becomes how to release those stored emotions in order to find health. However, just as the traumas each of us suffer and store are all unique, so too are the solutions to release those emotions different for each person and situation involved. 

So where does one start? There are many different approaches to releasing stored emotions; I am only presenting some of the more common ones in alphabetical order. The goal of using all of these strategies is to find ways to bring stored emotions and traumas to the surface so that they can then be cleared. However, before you begin trying to remove any of these stored emotions, I strongly recommend you find a good, open-minded psychotherapist to work with. Bring difficult emotions to the surface can be very painful, but the work is incredibly rewarding once you are liberated from that stored emotion or trauma.

Acupuncture: Acupuncture is a healing modality which works directly with energy in the body. Because Traditional Chinese Medicine's fundamental understanding of how the body works is vastly different than the Western model, it can be difficult for many to understand what acupuncture actually does. The best explanation that I can give is that acupuncture moves energy through the body to clear blockages. These blockages can be literal, such as a clogged duct causing mastitis, or emotional, such as fear preventing one's kidneys from working properly. 

Breathwork: One of the easiest and cheapest approaches is breathwork; this is something that can be used in conjunction with many of the other modalities listed but it can also be used on its own. The most powerful experience I had with relieving my stored traumas from my daughter's death involved only breathwork, intent and maybe a crystal or two (but I can't remember for certain). The release that happened was something I would never have thought possibly happen just from breathing and focusing on the area where I had stored the pain of her death. This is an approach that I am able to teach clients how to use, but again, as you start out, I would recommend only using it with supervision because of how powerful it can be.

Craniosacral Therapy: Craniosacral therapy is a system of very light touch that helps release energy blockages in the body. I have had some powerful releases with it. This is one of those modalities where the first impression might be that the practioner is not really doing anything, but once the energy gets moving, amazing change and relief can happen. It's been effective for physical, emotional, and spiritual pain for me. It's also very relaxing and enjoyable most of the time!

Crystals: When I was younger, I did not understand what all those hippies were doing with their crystals. A former therapist encouraged me to buy a few, and once I did, I was hooked. I love crystals of all sorts, and I've had countless powerful experiences with crystals helping change my energy and release stored trauma as a result. Crystals can take anywhere from hours to months to be effective depending on the size, the number used, the location, and the problem. However, they too can cause all kinds of powerful results. They work based on the principle that everything and everyone on earth has a vibration. The crystals help raise human vibrations to a more positive level, and in the process, stored negative emotions and entities will depart the body because it is no longer a hospitable host for them.

EFT: Emotional Freedom Technique is a process of tapping on a series of acupressure points while reciting an affirmation. The goal of EFT is to release anxiety, trauma, and negative programming while replacing it with more positive thoughts and aspirations. Many use EFT for weight loss and issues around PTSD. EFT has soared in popularity in recent years, and many other similar tapping programs have been designed. I do not use EFT personally because it is not the right approach for me, but I have had success with a self-created, intuition-based tapping process based off of the "Beginning and Ending Technique" described by David S. Walther. I use this tapping when difficult emotions are surfacing so that I can keep from entering an overly anxious and unproductive state of being.

EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is another body-mind modality that should be learned and initially practiced with a trained professional. I have never used this technique, but I know of many who have been able to use it to successfully help with severe PTSD.

Essential Oils: Our society tends to enjoy essential oils for fragrance reasons; many undereducated salespeople also falsely promise miracle cures from their use. This is not the way in which I use essential oils. All essential oils also have spiritual properties, and some are very effective in helping act as a lubricant to release stored traumas and entities. Like crystals, they can help change a person's vibrational level. I work with essential oils using intuitive guidance finding the best oil for each person and then confirming possible contraindications with Robert Tisserand's amazing tome,Essential Oil Safety.

Flower Essences: Flower essences are a purely energetic form of healing which is part of why they along with homeopathy are not very well understood by our society. In using a direct method, flower essences are created by placing the flower in a bowl of water and leaving it sun and/or moonlight to absorb the energy of the flower. Crystals can also be added. The flower is then removed, the water is combined with a preservative such as alcohol, and the essence is complete. While this sounds like something that would be powerless, the energy in these essences can be palpable just holding the bottles. I've used many, many, many flower essences over the years for me and with my clients that have made both minor and major shifts in lives. They help change energy in the body so that the emotions can release.

Hands on Energy Work: This is not a do-it-yourself practice for beginners. A skilled practitioner is able to do manual manipulation on others' bodies to help release stored energy. I've experienced this with work by BodyTalk practioners, chiropractors, naturopaths, and massage therapists. I'd recommend finding a very grounded, very wise, very experienced person to do this as if it's done wrong, it can cause harm. I do not yet offer this service but expect to within a few years.

Homeopathy: Like flower essences, homeopathy is an energy based means of releasing emotions. Homeopathics are created from energetic vibrations of often toxic substances. Because they are energy based, they are safe to use (unless you are sensitive to lactose, though there are some lactose free ones on the market) and can cause major shifts in one's emotions and physical symptoms. I recommend working with someone who can assist and dose you properly with these substances as if you don't have the right remedy, you will be wasting your time, money and effort.

Light and Color: There are various programs and machines that work with colors and light to help shift internal energy. A more mainstream version of this are Seasonal Affective Disorder lamps. I have never used any kind of machine to do this, but I do find that I tend to pick clothes that strengthen my chakra that needs the most assistance that day.

Massage: Most massage therapists will tell tales of people emotionally falling apart for absolutely no reason while being on the massage table. This comes from the massage relaxing the body and releasing the tension and emotions we are holding. For me, I have experienced this most often with past life issues: I've seen many of my past life experiences while under the hands of a skilled massage therapist. Most massage therapists are not trying to make this happen, but it does occur. Going in with an intention of making it happen and treating your massage like a meditation time will help for the possibility to arise.

Meditation: If you aren't an experienced meditator, this isn't an approach I'd recommend as your introduction to meditation. However, once a person has become skilled at meditation, it is entirely possibly to enter a meditative state and work internally with the energy in one's body to release emotions that are stored. It is usually combined with breathwork. When I do it, I often am using crystals, flower essences, essential oils, and sound in addition. It's a very difficult process to explain, but once one knows how to manipulate energy, then one can essentially use one's mind like a shovel to loosen and scoop out the negative stored energy that one doesn't want to retain any longer.

Sound: The use of sound therapy to help clear chakras and other emotional issues is widespread; there are many practitioners who only focus on this. There are Meetup groups for it. I have playlists on Spotify which address it. One of my favorite CDs for sound therapy is by Jonathan Goldman. I can feel my energy vibrating when I play it. Most of the time, this does not create a major release for me, but there are times when it has been very effective. This is an easy way for many people to start changing their energy in a subtle way.

Tai Chi: I have never practiced Tai Chi, but like yoga, the practice is one that creates a great deal of healthy movement of energy in the body. I recommend it as a way for people who don't want to try yoga to find a physical way to get their bodies, minds and spirits working together to release negativity.

Writing:  I often recommend journaling with old fashioned pen and paper as a way of starting to bring up issues that have been submerged in our subconscious and bodies. For some song composition, poetry, or other forms of creation are more appropriate. While writing often does not usually remove the block by itself, it can bring things to the surface so that other means can be more efficacious. 

Yoga: Last but not least, yoga is a time honored way of releasing emotions. There are several groups in the Austin area that do yoga for trauma release; there are also numerous therapist who combine yoga with talk therapy. While American culture tends to see yoga as exercise, it's also a deeply spiritual practice that can change lives through its impact. It's one of first ways I often recommend to people for learning to become more in tune with their bodies.

When a river is unintentionally dammed up, one can go about releasing the block in a few ways. One can remove a key piece of the block and then get the heck out of the way as the waters will be able to flood through. One can also add more water until the sheer pressure breaks the dam. Likewise, with our emotions, when something is blocked in our minds and bodies, we actually have to work to remove it. This is not the gut reaction for most humans who would prefer to turn away from the dam. The methods above can help remove a key piece of blockage; some are gentler than others. All can be effective in helping clear stored emotions and traumas from the body in order to create more health. 

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

Tears are sacred medicine. As an external expression of the heart, tears are a powerful source of healing. As we allow our tears to flow, they provide nourishing water for growth. -ejh

Yesterday the news began circulating on the internet that actor Scott Baio’s wife Renee has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. The headline from one article proudly proclaims that “she refuses to even shed one tear," a quote from Baio in the article which also talks about his wife's faith in God's plan. It saddens me that this viewpoint is still lauded in our society and that people are respected for being "so strong" when they do not cry even when being facing their own mortality. However, I believe that this cultural myth that stoicism is a sign of strength is actually very toxic. Crying does not show weakness. Rather, crying is a helpful way of releasing pain anddealing with emotion, both of which all humans need to do regularly during their lives. 

I grew up in a household where crying was frowned upon at best. Hiding one's emotions was the safest way to exist. As a result, I spent many years of my life not crying, stuffing emotions inside of me, repressing them, and denying them. I didn't think I was any worse off for it since our society lauds those who don't cry. However, what I didn't realize was that all the anger I was carrying around with me was a direct result of the repressed emotions I felt but didn't express. Instead of releasing them through a healthy means such as crying, theemotions were stored in my body. Quite a few of them ended up in my liver and gallbladder.

In more recent years, I have had to work through many of these stored emotions that I did not handle properly in the first place. In one case, I used the flower essence clematis because I was muscle testing for it. I didn't read anything about the essence; I just trusted the chiropractor who put me on it. The first thing that happned to me was that I cleaned my house for five hours. As someone with severe chronic fatigue syndrome, doing anything for five hours nonetheless cleaning was unheard of for me at that point. I decided there must have been caffeine in the remedy, so I Googled to find that Native Americans used clematis as a horse stimulant. Flower essences do not contain the actual herb: they are energetic formulas, so the fact that I responded like this was pretty impressive. After I collapsed in exhaustion from my burst of stimulated energy, I cried off and on for 24 hours. I have no idea why I was crying or what I was releasing, but it was clear that I needed to purge that stored emotion. 

On another occasion I used the homeopathic remedy Arsenicum album at the advice of a naturopath when I became blocked in my healing journey. When I went to a massage within 24 hours of starting the ars. alb., I ended up laying on the table and crying silently. Burning hot tears poured out of my eyes. Many massage therapists will tell you this is not uncommon: Massage can released stored emotional pain. I was not feeling sad during the process, but clearly some stored emotion or incident needed to be released from my body. After the crying stopped, I was hit with a burst of clarity. I suddenly understood what was blocking me from moving forward in my healing. The revelation after the tears helped me resume my path and led to some powerful healing.

More recently I had to remove a stored energetic body within my own corporeal body. When I asked how I picked up that particular entity, the higher powers refused to tell me exact details. They repeatedly told me that I didn't need to know the specific incident(s), but that it was related to uncried tears. I am sure that whatever trauma it was related to, whether from a past life or my present life, was something that they didn't want me to open at this time because it would not have served in my path of healing at this time.

Many years ago, I remember calling a friend who answered the phone obviously in tears. I asked if anything was wrong, and she said no, she was just having a good cry. Our society would be so much healthier if we could all understand the importance of emotional release through tears. A good cry every once in a while can do most people a lot of good. Tears can be a great sign of someone who works through their emotions, while someone who refuses to cry is often someone who is repressing and storing unhealthy emotions. Eventually, in one way or another, those emotions will manifest in their body often through disease and other intense distress.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

A friend recently apologized to me for having used soap at a house where she had previously been. She said that the soap reeked even though the label said unscented; it was strong enough that it was bothering her. She didn't understand why that was. Unfortunately, this is an issue I'm all too familiar with and have had to explain to others before.

In the commercial market of the United States, unscented products don't actually have to be unscented. What unscented means is that there is no obvious flowery fragrance to most people's noses. However, to those who are sensitive, there is fragrance, and if you look at the label, there is fragrance in the ingredients. What unscented can mean is that the company has created a product that has an odor to it, so it has added a masking fragrance to make the product smell more neutral. This masking fragrance is how they define unscented, though it's certainly not what most of us would consider unscented.

So how does one get a truly unscented soap (or detergent or other body product)? The label needs to read "fragrance free." This will almost always guarantee that there is no synthetic fragrance added to the product. There may be natural essential oils added to create scents, though, which can be a problem for those with strong chemical sensitivities. Be sure to read the label carefully to see what is in the product. It's amazing how many products, including medicines like hydrocortisone creams, contain synthetic fragrance despite the fact that 15+% of the population is sensitive to fragrances. 

If a company does not fully disclose a product's ingredients, including what is in the fragrances themselves, consider whether or not you really want to use products from a company that is not honest enough to tell you what you are putting in or on your body. We absorb a great deal through our skin, and many fragrances contain carcinogens and other toxins. However, labeling laws don't force companies to list the contents of "fragrance" which means we don't know what we are putting on our skin. 

For my family's part, we do not buy or use any product that contains synthetic fragrances. Because I react strongly to synthetic fragrances due to multiple chemical sensitivities, this was a choice we were forced to make for health reasons. However, as one person told me many years ago, we're all chemically sensitive in some way. It just depends on whether we get migraines or fibromyalgia flares now or cancer in 20 or 30 years from the toxins. 

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

On a recent afternoon, I curled up to watch The Best of Me, a Nicholas Sparks film from 2014. The movie was a good romance, though it wasn’t the best I’ve ever seen. At one point, however, a young woman asks an elderly gentleman about his late wife:

Amanda: How long were y’all married?
Tuck: We’re still married. We’re just on different schedules.

That line definitely tugged at my heartstrings. My paternal grandparents had been married for 57 years when my grandfather died; my grandmother lived for five years after that. During the majority of my life, my grandfather could not drive due to macular degeneration, a condition that can cause major vision impairment. Every year on their wedding anniversary, my grandfather would have my grandmother drive him to the grocery store so that he could buy her roses.

After my grandfather died, I knew how much my grandmother missed him even though I was living in another state. When their wedding anniversary occurred six months after his death, I decided to continue his tradition, and each year on their anniversary I sent her flowers with a note that I was remembering them both on their special day. Love did not end just because he had died. It just transformed. Every year on their birthdays, death days, and anniversary, I still remember them even though I can only send them energetic roses now.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

Chiggers love me. I don’t love them, though. When my now ex-husband and I were married, we would go on outdoor expeditions and trek the same paths. I would come home loaded with chigger bites, and he would have none. There’s just something about me that attracts them.

When I was in my teens and my twenties, I tried the trick of painting clear nail polish over the chigger bites. Supposedly the polish will suffocate the chiggers, causing them to die and relieving the itching. In reality, it didn’t relieve the itching. Instead, it caused skin irritation and more itching. It felt like an effort in futility yet for some reason I kept doing it anyway.

By the time I reached my thirties, I was aware of how toxic nail polish was, plus I’d finally come to my senses about how pointless this routine was. I began searching for healthier and more constructive alternatives on the internet. The best option I found was freshly squeezed lemon juice. I found that if I juiced an organic lemon and put it on my chigger bites, they would sting like holy heck for about thirty seconds. Then I would get eight hours of relief. I would have to repeat it twice more for a total of three times in 24 hours. And then the misery was over as compared to the days on end the chiggers used to bother me for.

I’d prefer that I wasn’t a chigger magnet, and I’d prefer that my body didn’t react so much to their infernal bites. However, I’m grateful that lemon juice provides me with nontoxic relief from their misery.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC