nervous system – Traditionally Empowered Healing LLC

Blog, Castor oil, Commitment to self, healing, Nervous systen, Nourishment, Parasympathetic, Reset, Self Heal, Self Love, Workshops

Can We Let All Storms Pass Alongside Us and Not Through Us?

October 3, 2025October 3, 2025 Anat Shlagman Traditional Naturopath

These days, it looks as if our world is filled with storms: Political storms, medical storms, human rights storms, and any other agenda the mind can invent and turn into a storm…

Mysteriously enough, these storms seem to have the tendency to become a whirlpool that uproots and swirls us until we are slowly striped from our own personalities. It feels that in our panic of the storm, we act as if the only way to survive it is to let the storm peel away everything we have, and many times, after it passes, we might regret and re-think our actions.

Could there be a different way to survive a storm? A way in which we trust that our own personalities are worth standing rooted while letting the storm pass alongside us instead of swirling everything within while it passes through us?

Of course there is a way! But this way is not granted! An effort needs to be made to keep us strong facing a storm. I will explain how this can be done, but beforehand, let’s understand why we want to do so.

Remembering the legacy of Hersh Polin Goldberg, RIP, an American-Israeli 23 yrs old, who was kidnapped on October 7th, 2023, and was murdered along with 5 other young Israeli hostages while held captive for 11 months in the tunnels of Gaza. In his page-turner must-read book, “Hostage”, Eli Sharabi tells his own story and reflects how Hersh inspired every hostage he met with his famous sentence: “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how.’” Eli Sharabi, who was kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Be’eri, held onto his own ‘why’ – returning to his British-Israeli wife and 2 teenage daughters – for 491 days, then was released from captivity only to discover that they were murdered on Oct 7th, 2023. May they all Rest in Peace.

Back to our storms, looking for our own, much less intense ‘whys’ to let storms pass alongside us without allowing them to pass through us. I will note here my thoughts, examining what is building our character and personality. Feel free to add as many of your thoughts as you need.

WHY?

Our character is made of critical thinking skills, which help us decern what benefits us and what does not. We operate these skills by asking questions. Keeping in mind that every question is relevant, when we are swept off into a stormy swirl, we might feel that our questions are dismissed without a satisfactory answer. Then, we might feel lost or even irrelevant.
Our uniqueness is part of our personality. Every decision we make, about our health, our money, our life, should be made in accordance with our unique needs, regardless to the popular (maybe even engineered) opinions about it. When we are swept off into a stormy swirl, while our unique necessities are mostly lessened, we might experience an unhealthy internal conflict between our physical, emotional and mental states, which can lead us to depression and/or physical illness.
Our own values are the foundational building blocks of our character and personalities. When we are swept off into a stormy swirl, we might feel that our values are compromised, maybe even to the level we feel as our whole self is being diminished. And this as well could lead to a physical or mental illness.

All of these sounds very gloomy, and many times we choose to disregard and continue our lives as if none of them exist. If you choose to do so and you are happy and healthy, then all is great. However, if you are not truly happy and not truly healthy, I would like to invite you to read further unfolding my opinion on how to make a brave decision to stop being swept into a stormy swirl.

How?

First and foremost, we need to tend our nervous system, and it is our window to the world. We act and react to everything that is happening around us through the state of our nervous system. The more our nervous system is on a survival mode, the more automatic and repetitive will be our response. When we succeed to relax our nervous system and take it out of its survival state, we can make time to create new plans of actions, which are more beneficial and upon repeating they can become automatic as well.

As I explain in my article, The Art of Healing Yourself, we have to create the environment for our body to meet its survival needs, in order to relax our nervous system: “What are these survival needs? Think about babies – what do they need? To sleep, to eat, to be touched, to be soothed, to be clean, to move and to learn how to coexist with others in the world. We may have grown out of our baby stage, but our needs have not changed. However, now, we are engaged with so many responsibilities which have become a priority over our basic needs.
Here begins our part as self-healers, by tending to our basic needs and helping our body meet them. How can we do that? Simply by going back to basics – returning to all the actions that we usually skip through our busy life. These actions are also known as the pillars of Traditional Naturopathy: Nourishment, Bodywork, Rest/sleep, Energy work, Herbal medicine, Hydrotherapy, Education, and Movement.”

Could a castor oil pack make a difference here? I have no doubt about it!!!!!

Is it worth all the trouble just to be able to allow the storm pass alongside you? I cannot make this decision for you. I can only advise to look back at your “why” list and decide from there. My journey, learning with great effort how to stand tall alongside storms, helped me understand, that even though my values and beliefs are different than anyone else’s, they are never less valid. And this is what I preach and teach ever since.

If you need my assistance to learn how to shine your wonderful personality and never allow any storm to diminish it, contact me. I am happy help!

And if you are around on November 9th, 2025, you are invited to a special hands-on event, led by Ariana Buksdorf and me, at the Hampton Inn Commerce Novi. All details in the following link: The Art of Caring for Self.

Always remember that a change is never easy, and it will happen only when you feel that you are ready for it. As we open the new Jewish year, may it be filled with blessed changes to lift us up to our best possible lives, and may we always find the strength to allow every storm to pass alongside us without swiping us up into its swirl!!!!!

Blog, Castor oil, Commitment to self, healing, Nervous systen, Parasympathetic, Self Heal, Self Love

Is Your Liver the Best Place to Apply a Castor Oil Pack?

July 23, 2025July 23, 2025 Anat Shlagman Traditional Naturopath

Many of you ask me where exactly the castor oil pack should be applied. The confusion comes from online suggestions to apply it on your liver (meaning on your right side, just below your ribcage).

Convincing as these suggestions may be, you are not always sure if you should listen to the net or choose a different area of your body for the castor application to maximize the benefits…

Before sharing my opinion, I would like to take a moment to review what all the fuss about castor oil is. Castor oil, a very thick oil derived from the castor (Ricinus communis) seed, has been praised for decades for its numerous benefits. Among them:

Easing various conditions as uterine fibroids, ovarian cysts, endometriosis, headaches, migraines, constipation, intestinal disorders, gallbladder/liver conditions…
Improving digestion and elimination of toxic substances
Increasing circulation of blood and lymph and Decreasing inflammation
Enhancing fertility along with liver and immune function
Lubricating ligaments and Decreasing pain
Promoting tissue healing

Even though it’s long and includes many benefits, this list might be leaving out the most beneficial act of the castor oil: Whole-Body Activation by relaxing your nervous system.

The term castor oil pack is a fancy label to application of the oil on the skin, covering with a cotton towel or a flannel cloth and topping with a hot water bottle or a heating pad.

And yes! You can apply your pack on your liver, on your chest, on any sore joint and basically anywhere on your body including your belly button, with one caveat – the understanding that this will provide local lubrication of the treated tissue and nothing beyond! This lubrication will stimulate the applied tissue and encourage it to become engaged in its own healing, which is truly wonderful, and I do it all the time.

BUT…

What if castor oil packs can do more than local engagement? What if they can benefit you more than the described above?

What if Castor oil packs can provide a Whole-Body Activation by relaxing your nervous system, allowing your whole body to heal itself?

What is a Whole-Body Activation by relaxing your nervous system? This is a mechanism where your whole body becomes involved in its own healing, starting from shifting your autonomic nervous system into its parasympathetic deep relaxed state, and following through with a systemic transformation in every cell of your body.

How can you get this benefit?

Simple!!!

This activation will take place when you apply the castor oil pack on your entire belly – in the area from the edge of your ribcage to the pubic hair.

When applying the castor oil pack on the belly, the oil lubricates and stimulates all the tissues, organs and systems in this region. Along with that, the heat draws the blood vessels up closer to the skin as they vasodilate, and oil is being absorbed into the blood circulation as well, thus distributed through the whole body.

Lubricating and stimulating organs as the small intestine, bladder, colon, liver, uterus, which are part of systems that are inhibited when your body is under stress (when your autonomic nervous system functions at its sympathetic / fight-or-flight state), signals the nervous system to shift to the deep relaxed state – parasympathetic state.

Surprisingly enough, internal processes are very similar to the external world. You can think of the autonomic nervous system as expressing itself in one of two possible responses: War or Peace.

War response relates to the sympathetic state of your autonomic nervous system or the fight-or-flight state. When in war, your body is concerned with only one thing – survival. Every action it takes is meant to keep you standing on your own two feet. Nothing else, regardless to how much your body needs to compromise to accommodate it!! Your body may not even know that something is wrong, simply because it doesn’t have the energetic budget to check what is happening.

Peace response relates to the parasympathetic state of your autonomic nervous system or the rest-and-digest state. When in peace, the energetic budget opens, providing the means to detect and correct what needs your attention.

Bringing your nervous system to the parasympathetic state provides a Whole-Body Activation, which will create the environment for your body to start healing itself, no matter what conditions you are suffering from.

In my personal opinion, a Whole-Body Activation is the most important benefit of the castor oil packs. I have witnessed and experienced so many miraculous healings just from applying the castor packs on the entire belly.

Now sit back and imagine how wonderful it would be to combine it all – apply a castor pack on your belly for a Whole-Body Activation and add as many other castor packs as you wish on any area that needs your attention, for local engagement of the tissue to heal.

If you’d like, you can always follow my instructions or come in for a session to learn and experience how easy and amazing castor oil is….

Blog, Castor oil, healing, Nervous systen, Parasympathetic, Reset

Are You OK?

December 12, 2024December 12, 2024 Anat Shlagman Traditional Naturopath

Holiday season mostly brings the joy of celebrations, the closeness of families and the excitement of a new year to come. As wonderful as it may sound or be, the holiday season might also tag along some stress and anxieties, which often tend to be hidden or dismissed, fashionably due to the same reasons above.

We all understand how major the effect of stress on our daily life is and how beneficial it would be if we could eliminate it or at least lower its impact. Yet, we might be engaged in too many activities, maybe too busy to notice that we are actually overwhelmed.

So… if you stop for a moment to check how are you feeling – would you be able to say YES when asked if you are OK? Most chances that you are fine. But what if you feel that you always need to show that everything is great, even when it’s not? Does it still mean that you are OK??

What if your need to show that everything is OK takes an energy toll? What if this energy toll is so heavy that it significantly reduces the energy left available to spend on necessary needs? What if functioning with reduced energy causes your nervous system to be in a constant survival state? What if being in a constant survival state forces you to compromise your health? Would you still be able then to assure yourself that you are OK?

If this works for you, then all is OK indeed! But what if it doesn’t? What if compromising your health is not suiting you anymore? Would there be a way to make a change? Would it be possible to reset your nervous system and switch your perception allowing your health to be more important than people’s opinions?

Of course there is! A reset to your nervous system can be manifested by providing your body with a solid anchor. Once you established this anchor, your body knows that it doesn’t matter what happens throughout the day – there will be an anchor at the end of the day to bring your nervous system back to base.

This anchor can be created by a daily routine of application of castor oil packs on the abdomen. Castor oil, a very thick oil derived from the castor (Ricinus communis) seed, has been praised for many benefits: enhancing relaxation, decreasing inflammation/pain, increasing circulation, lubricating ligaments, easing uterine fibroid/ovarian cysts/endometriosis/migraines/intestinal disorders and more.

A castor pack can be done by simply applying the oil on the belly, covering it with a hand towel, topping it with a hot water bottle and laying down for half an hour to an hour. (You can find my instructions on my website: Castor Pack Instructions).

Lubricating and stimulating organs such as the small intestine, bladder, colon, liver, uterus, which are part of systems that are inhibited when body is under stress (when the autonomic nervous system functions at its sympathetic / fight-or-flight state), signals the nervous system to shift to its relaxed / parasympathetic state.

Once you entered the parasympathetic state of your autonomic nervous system everything changes!! Your body has been given an outlet to escape its survival mode and reach a state of peace. This reaction is created only when the castor pack is applied on your abdomen. Application on any other surface area of the body will provide local lubrication only, as no connection to the nervous system will be made.

This shift is so profound, allowing you to understand how your body should function daily, with occasional peaks of stress to overcome any issue you face. When you do this often, it will become second nature, and your body will crave this once you are out of balance.

Moreover, when this becomes a routine, your body learns to trust your intentions to seek a deep level of relaxation, and it will be less reactive to the events around you. Your reactions will always reflect the state of our nervous system – the more reactive you feel – the tighter (and stressed) your nervous system is. And once you have no need to react to the events around you, you will find that there is no need for you to always show that everything is great. You will be granted an opportunity to show how you really feel without the need to polish it, slowly progressing to answer an authentic YES or NO to every question you are asked. And then, your YES answer to the question if you are OK will always come from a genuine place reflecting your true state.

May 2025 carry the wind of change, allowing our nervous system to reset so we can express true authenticity of everything we feel!

Happy New Year!!!

Blog, Caring for others, Castor oil, healing, Nourishment, Self Heal, Self Love

Don’t Waste Your Money

June 2, 2024 Anat Shlagman Traditional Naturopath

“Don’t waste your money”, said the orthopedic surgeon, coming out of my son’s ACL & meniscus repair surgery, answering my question whether there are any contraindications for massaging his knee or leg. Humbled, I asked, “what if he does it himself?” and was dismissed with the statement that no one does it.

Realizing that he might not be aware of any benefits simply because he believes that nobody does it, I smiled and thanked him for everything he did and granted myself the permission to follow my beliefs.

In 2017, I completed 800 hours of massage classes in order to obtain my license to touch. In the advanced medical massage class, we had to present 2 projects, showing progress with the volunteers’ condition following the massage treatment.

A friend, who suffered of numerous medical issues, many of whom are contraindicated for massage, but in deep need of healing, volunteered to one of these projects. We mutually agreed to follow all the rules, as otherwise it would be a life-threatening situation.

With much fear and anxiety, as it was my first time working with someone experiencing a life-threatening condition, I allowed myself to touch, understanding that while there are some conditions that massage is contraindicated, Touch never is!!!!

Human touch is unreplaceable. Human touch cannot be substituted with any medication or procedure or imaging or a vitamin IV. Human touch is a crucial component in our healing. Human touch does not have to come from an external source – it can be applied to your own tissue by your own self.
Regardless to the popular modern codes that it is unacceptable to touch anyone and definitely our own selves.

Needless to say, the progress of my friend was beyond every expectation, as many issues improved without even addressing them!!

Fast forward to my son’s knee story, I applied my understanding of human touch to his knee every day from the moment we arrived home, until he headed back to his own house 2 months later.

At his first post operation follow up visit, two weeks from surgery, he was the only one among the many patients waiting in the large waiting room (young and old), who was able to quickly hop towards the PA calling his name. She was surprised to see how fast and pain free he moved (no narcotic meds involved along the process!) and asked him what he was doing.

Happy to share all our work at home, I offered to tell her if she’s willing to listen. She politely smiled and left the room.

My son’s progress has been phenomenal. Touch was an imperial component, along with nourishment, physical therapy, and allowing himself the time that was needed for healing, even when we discovered post operation that longer healing time is required due to the severe nature of his injury.

The orthopedic surgeon was very pleased with the recovery, but never once asked what is done at home for it. Indeed, many credits are due to his skills for conducting this complicated surgery meticulously. With that, many of us might not be aware that a lot should be done afterwards at home to progress the healing. The written post operation care instructions cover very important care to eliminate complications, but do not extend to a whole healing experience. There is so much more that can be done to help your body heal.

Yes, “don’t waste your money” is a great advice! Yet, it is our responsibility to decide what brings us value and what is just a waste. Even when an opinion comes from a respected source, we still have the right to take it as an opinion only.

Our thoughts, knowledge and understanding of our own body are as important as anyone’s thoughts and knowledge. If you struggle with allowing your thoughts to count, try a castor pack!! You will be astounded to discover how relaxing your nervous system and getting yourself out of the “war zone” into a peaceful mode can shift your perception of yourself and/or your situation.
I am always here to listen and to teach everyone who wishes to learn how to create the right environment for whole healing.

May we all have the courage to use as many resources as we need to allow our body to heal itself regardless to the thoughts and perceptions of others.

Blog, Caring for others, Nourishment, Self Heal, Self Love

Mica’s Magic Pot – My Mom’s Legendary Recipe of Our Family’s Chicken Soup

September 11, 2023August 24, 2025 Anat Shlagman Traditional Naturopath

My mom owns a Magic Pot. She did not buy it magical at all but turned it that way with her enormous loving intention to nourish everyone around her. If you have been privileged to eat one of my mom’s meals, you know that this soup is just the appetizer of a 1000-course meal. No one leaves my parent’s house hungry! FOR WEEKS AFTER….

And no, my mom’s pot is not the one that may have popped into your mind reading the title of this blog, even though it might be the ultimate answer for your joints….

Beyond the fact that this is probably the best chicken soup you ever ate in your life, my mom can make the soup in this pot last 7 days – regardless to how many people eat it or how many servings they take per day! Just like the Chanukah’s miracle of the little pot of oil that lasted 8 days… Only here we have a nicely sized pot of pure Gold!

I wish I had my mom’s patience to prepare it the way she does, but I don’t. That’s why I will add my altogether-in-the-pot-just-add-water-and-boil version of my mom’s soup.
If you have the pot and the patience – by all means – follow her steps! It will turn out great!! Especially since you will not have the real legend to compare………….

This famous chicken soup has been prepared in my mom’s family for many generations. Living in Romania, the soup survived through wars, famine, communism and many other unimaginable inhumane actions. As kids, in Romania and later in Israel, we ate it every day without having any idea how beneficial it is. Starting my own family, I kept the tradition, again clueless – automatically doing what intuitively felt that I need to do to care for my family.

It took me almost 40 years to appreciate the gift my mom gave me! And for over 10 years now, I have been preaching it in my practice (could there be a better companion to the Castor oil Packs than a chicken soup???). I went through many versions of the soup until I finally reached the one we all love. Truth is that it doesn’t matter how you make it, as long as it contains real ingredients and not artificial flavored powders. Herbs are awesome in any shape. Powdered artificial flavors are not!

There are so many reasons to eat this soup daily! Beginning with its fats which nourish your nervous system – calming down the fight-or-flight response. Continuing with its gelatin which calms digestive disorders, and its collagen which protects your joints (again, the ones that hold you, not the ones you hold), ligaments, skin, and its minerals and its nourishing properties for basically everything you could ever imagine!!

We also cannot ignore our Jewish connection, as Sally Fallon best describes in her book, Nourishing Traditions:

The 12th century physician Moses Maimonides prescribed chicken broth as a treatment for colds and asthma. Modern research has confirmed that broth helps prevent and mitigate infectious diseases. The wise food provider, who uses gelatin-rich broth on a daily or frequent basis, provides continuous protection from many health problems.
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

Whoa! If it was me – I would eat and feed everyone around me every day!!! Oh, wait. I already do it!!! All thanks to my mom’s teachings with her own actions.

You can choose to start your own tradition, or you can choose not to. The choice is yours. I can only give you the tools by diving straight to the secret of preparing this magic gold, as revealed by my mom, Marcela (Mica) Haimberg. Picture credits to my mom as well!!

Ingredients:
1 Chicken – cut (preferably organic, free range)
1 bulb of Garlic – peeled
15-20 Carrots – whole. If organic -no need to peel.
1 onion – whole, peeled
1 bell pepper – cut and deseeded
1 celery root (peeled and sliced) + stalks & leaves (if available)
1-2 parsley roots – peeled and cleaned
2-3 celery stalks
1-2 bunches of parsley
1-2 bunches of dill
Salt, pepper to taste
Water to top the pot

Setting everything in the pot in the following order:

Cutting the chicken and placing the pieces at the bottom of the pot

Now that everything is in the pot:
Add salt & pepper, top with water (my mom adds boiling water) and bring to a boil. Spoon any spume that accumulates at the top, lower the heat and simmer for 4 hours.
strain and enjoy!

My version is much less structured:
I use a bigger pot -16 qt, as I cannot replicate my mom’s 7-day magic in a smaller one.
In order to accommodate this change, I use 2 whole chickens (not cut!!). Many times, I will use one chicken and add feet or knuckle bones (grass-fed beef) or chicken backs & throats.
Also, many times I do not have the vegetables at home when I need to make the soup, so I start it with the meats only and add the veggies the next day, spooning any accumulated spume.
I put all the ingredients above in the pot, add some cayenne, salt and pepper (sometimes also nettle, chaga, turmeric root, burdock root) and simmer for 2-3 days – turning the heat off when I sleep or am out of the house and on again when I am back.
This version creates more of a bone broth, rather than a traditional chicken soup.

Last but never least – these are my lovely parents – a rare species of hard-working caring people, who can make everything possible without anyone noticing the long and exhausting labor behind the scenes – Mica and Solo Haimberg: