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The instructions were to title this with a word or phrase that briefly gives an idea of who we are and the first thing I thought was "oh my god who am I?" After my little existential thought experiment, I feel like "still finding out" describes it the best. Although, I asked my partner to describe me and he said "eccentric" which would have probably made for a way better title, in hindsight.

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(Us from the Ren Faire a couple years ago)

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I've been with my partner, Cole, for 6 years now and we live together in Loveland. He works in the oilfield and is a certified gun instructor. We go shooting together in our free time. He's a Cancer so he's very watery, which has taken me (a Capricorn) some getting used to. However, he is gentle and healing and not a day goes by that he hasn't made me laugh so I'll keep him around (:

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I'm apart of the LGBTQ+ community, and by this I mean I just really have a lot of love to give to everyone regardless of societal constructs. This is a big part of my life and changes the way I see the world.

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I'm going to go ahead and be cheesy and say my mom is my best friend and I spend a lot of time with her. If I'm not with her, I'm with Mel (in the middle). We've been attached at the hip since we were 12. Nothing feeds the soul like having girlfriends.

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(My yoga teacher training class with Mel) 

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Traveling is a huge passion of mine and my best friend and I have been dreaming about going to Costa Rica together since we met. Last summer, I finally got an opportunity to make that a reality and we jumped on it so fast. I plan on continuing to travel the world however I can!

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Besides traveling, my biggest passion is anything in the occult, esoteric, and spirituality realm. My personal practice is a huge part of my life and I belong to multiple schools and take a lot of classes. One of which is Magnum Opus taught by a world renowned teacher name Damien Echols. Growing up in Catholic school, my passions definitely made me the weird kid, but now I'm building a life I love and get to go to school with other "weirdos."

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(Louise Hay, the movie "HEAL," and the cheesy book "The Secret" were some of my gateway drugs to the world of holistic medicine)

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Although I've always been interested in natural and integrated modalities, it really took off when I had severe health issues of my own and allopathic medicine failed me over and over. Before this, I put all my faith in the western medical system. When I was 15, I almost lost my leg because I was in a really bad accident and was left on the side of the road for hours. I ended up in a wheelchair with MRSA and most of my body covered in road burns. My doctors and nurses were so amazing and allowed me to keep my life and my leg after several surgeries. After this experience, I really wanted to join the medical community. Years later, I ended up suffering from cyclical vomiting for about 2 years while seeing a whole army of doctors. I was put on a ton of medication including antibiotics at least 3 times, and felt like I was only getting sicker. I was hospitalized multiple times due to the dehydration and malnutrition, and the medical community had no answers or relief for me. This is when I stopped seeing my doctors and taking all the pills and started researching and experimenting with lifestyle changes, holistic modalities, and looking at the effects of years of chronic stress and trauma. I also changed my degree from Nursing to Integrated Health. I'm still healing for sure, but since then, things have only gotten better.

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I grew on a 300 acre organic ranch and started driving tractors, semis, and equipment when I was 12. As I got older, I windrowed and raked about 20 other farms around my area for several years. We also had a hundred head of cattle. At different times, we had all kinds of animals on the farm or in our home including goats, llamas, chickens, peacocks, sheep, ducks, guineas, pheasants, cats, dogs, snakes, an owl, a skunk. My favorite by far was raising raccoons. I definitely have dreams of farming and homesteading in the future.

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The biggest thing that intrigues me about PNI is how you can trace any physical disease or ailment to an emotion, trauma, or stressful event. The body will literally tell you how and where your emotions are expressing themselves and what you need to do to heal. I learned that the main emotion that really causes disease is anger. Several patients have cancer because of their repressed anger. Their cancer shows up in the area of life that they are angry about. In Louise Hay's case, she was SA as a child and ended up with cervical cancer. Once cancer patients find a sense of forgiveness, the cancer loosens its grip. For me, my digestive issues occurred because I couldn't "stomach" what happened to me. I couldn't digest and assimilate life. I rejected life and so I threw it up. I also always held my anxiety and pain in my digestive tract. It's like a doctrine of signatures of sorts. Our body gives us a roadmap.

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Candace Pert was a neuroscientist and pharmacologist as well as a research professor of Physiology and Biophysics at Georgetown University. She published over 250 research articles, but she is most known for her bestselling book "Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind Body Medicine." Through her research, She discovered the opiate receptor in the brain as well as many drugs for treating mental health and AIDS. She also discovered the role of emotions in the body, known as peptides, and how they can simultaneously effect almost every other area of the body. For example, just as an embarrassing thought can trigger emotion-modulating peptides to cause blood vessels to dilate and turn a face beet red, it can also mobilize immune cells to destroy an emerging tumor. This changed science forever and really legitimized the Mind-Body Medicine sciences.