WholeLife Expo and Sephira, Cirque of the Soul Show

What a fun, educational, and interesting day!!  Unexplained tummy tingles, guardian angels, and a beautiful cirque were the highlights!  I have shared quite a few pics of the cirque so you can see how amazing it was!

Yesterday Lizzie and I went to the WholeLife Expo in Schaumburg, IL, as official bloggers.  We were given tickets for entry to the expo, tickets to two of their workshops, and tickets to Sephira, Circque of the Soul show.  The Expo ran from May 31  through today, June 2nd.  We could not attend on Friday or Sunday due to previous commitments, but Lizzie and I attended Saturday.  When we arrived, there was some confusion getting our tickets, and one of our workshops was cancelled, because the speaker had a car accident on Friday.  :0(

A lot of the content of the expo was spiritual healing, meditation, angels, eco-fashions, metaphysical jewelry and stones, clairvoyants and psychics, chiropractic wellness care, and natural products like volcanic ash and essential oils.  There were 10 stages located throughout the expo with demonstrations, classes, and music.  There were yoga demonstrations, and speakers who spoke on everything from channeled healing meditation,  dreams, organic alternative products, inspirational music, whole body nutrition, planetary shifts, and a lot of speakers that discussed how to empower your life through mediumship, meditation, and metaphysical healing.

One of the workshops available on Saturday, that Lizzie and I thought would be really neat to attend was the Karen Paolino-Correia workshop called Meet Your Guardian Angels.  Karen is an angel messenger.

 This was a two hour workshop, where she discussed that everyone has two guardian angels watching over them, who want to guide us in our lives, and also who want to help us achieve our goals.  She did a deep meditation session and taught us how to connect with our guardian angels.  She also gave out one card before the workshop and one after the workshop.  They were supposed to convey a message.

My first card was friendship, and my second was break free “Try different ventures and experiences as a way to grow and learn.”  My own interpretation of the cards was that since I started this blog with Lizzie, that I have delved into a world of things I have never tried before.  I am learning so many things and experiencing things like this expo that I probably would not have even considered attending before.

I learned quite a bit about therapeutic-grade essential oils.  There are so many uses for them.  I will leave that for a whole separate post, because I could go on and on!

I did purchase a Magnetite magnetic bracelet from Magnets and More.  Magnetic bracelets are used to alleviate a range of conditions.  There are several benefits of wearing a magnetic bracelet, including enhanced endorphins, releasing pain and discomfort, faster diffusion of ions and gasses through cellular membranes, i.e. lungs, circulatory system, etc., increased lymphocyte production, increased circulation, up to 80 percent reduction in muscle soreness after major workouts, boost the immune system, maximize the brain’s ability to function. The brain has minute particles of Magnetite, which causes the neural synapses to fire. Augmenting this Magnetite Field allows for the optimum usage of the brain increasing focus, clarity, and improved memory.  I have heard several athletes have begun wearing them also, so I thought, why not?

Lizzie tried a Reiki.  If you are unfamiliar with Reiki, it is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. It is administered by “laying on hands” and is based on the idea that an unseen “life force energy” flows through us and is what causes us to be alive. If one’s “life force energy” is low, then we are more likely to get sick or feel stress, and if it is high, we are more capable of being happy and healthy.  Lizzie said she felt good and energized afterwards!

We both agreed to try a reality shift, by David Jepsen from Gadflyshifts.  He did each of us separately, and asked us both what we would like changed or made clear.  You may think we are crazy, but as I was sitting in the chair, I got this weird feeling in my stomach similar to pins and needles or a tingling feeling.  I looked at Lizzie with this “what the hell?” look and David said, “I am in your abdomen now making adjustments”.  He then said he was going into other parts of my body, and although I did not feel anything like the stomach thing, it was really trippy!  I did not tell Lizzie what I felt, and she went next.  When we were both done, she said experienced this tingling/pins and needles someplace else and THEN he told her that he was there too.  As you can see we were sitting in a folding chair, just like the one he was sitting on.  As Lizzie was sitting up there, I kept looking for some explanation as to why I would have felt the tingling inside my stomach.  I saw the rubber mat we were sitting on, but even with some kind of machine that would have caused vibrations, there is no way to explain only feeling it in certain parts of our body, and the feeling was internal, not external.  Yes, it was a very neat, but freaky, experience!

We walked the entire expo a couple of times, and watched a few of the other speakers on the stages, but since our other workshop got cancelled, we were left with some spare time, before the Circque.  It was dinner time, so we decided to take the free trolley from the convention center to the Woodfield Mall.  I had never been on a trolley before, so this was a fun new experience for me!  We walked around the mall for a little while, and got some dinner while we were there, then took the trolley back to the convention center.  It was great, because it was pouring and the trolley offered door to door service!

Then it was time for the Sephira, Cirque of the Soul.  It was an AMAZING show!  The acrobats were amazing and the things they did were even more amazing.  We were both riveted to our seats watching all their talent!  It was a beautiful end to a nice day!

Disclaimer: We were provided with passes to all of the things mentioned above, but were not compensated financially in any way.  All opinions are my own and were not influenced in any way.

Healthy Kids Options When Dining Out

We don’t dine out often, but when we do, I am always looking for healthy menu choices for my girls.  I was happy to hear about a program called Kids LiveWell.  I was actually supposed to attend a Kids LiveWell event this past Monday, but my daughter was having her Upper Endoscopy that day, and I was unable to attend.  I was really bummed out, because this sounds like such great program, and I was looking forward to learning more about it.

So many families avoid dining out, because the menu options are not healthy options.  Well, restaurants have heard our plea’s for healthier menu options for kids, and healthy menu options are increasingly becoming the focus of the National Restaurant Association (NRA).  In July 2011, the NRA created the Kids LiveWell program to help restaurants highlight healthy menu choices.  The NRA launched the award-winning Kids LiveWell program to make a healthful choice the easy choice when eating out with your family. It takes the guesswork out of identifying healthy meals for your children to eat.  The NRA developed this program in collaboration with Healthy Dining, who is a team of registered dietitians.  They work with restaurants to identify and validate the qualifying menu choices.

We typically tend to always go to the same restaurants because we know they have safe and healthy options for Bean.  One of her favorites is a local buffet restaurant, that offers a LOT of fruit & vegetable choices.  We know fruits & vegies are peanut free, and are a healthy choice, plus she loves them.  All restaurants who participate in the Kids LiveWell program have to agree to offer & promote a selection of healthy menu items.  I looked online, and was surprised to find several restaurants in our area that participate in the Kids LiveWell program and offer healthy menu choices.  You can find ones near you by clicking here.  There is also a Kids LiveWell app for Android and Iphones.  To learn more about the program, you can visit their Facebook page and follow them on Twitter.

This sounds like a great trend, and I hope more restaurants decide to participate.  The eating habits we learn as children tend to follow us through the rest of our lives.  Starting our children off right, and incorporating lots of fresh fruits & vegetables, will teach them how they should eat as adults and teens.  With so many children being overweight and obese, making the healthy option the “good” option to them, and pushing it in restaurants is a great idea!  Kids love going out to eat, and this allows them to still go out, and eat healthy!

Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a campaign for Mom Central Consulting on behalf of the National Restaurant Association. If I would have attended the live event, I would have received a gift bag and promotional items to thank me for taking the time to participate.  However, since I did not participate, I did not receive any promotional items or gift bag.  :0(