How A Hemingway Began Living Healthfully

As I travel around the country, I am often asked how a Hemingway became interested in healthy living.

Healthy Living from the Inside Out is actually my second book.  I wrote a book four years ago called Finding My Balance. In it I describe my childhood, my mother's cancer and the fact that I was her primary caretaker for several years and that my sisters both had suffered from mental disorders. Also my father suffered from the legacy of his father, Ernest Hemingway. It became  too difficult for him to live up to his father's reputation and expectations and  led him to a lot of drinking over the years.

Anyway it was not that I thought my story was so fantastic and different from any one else or in particular very Hollywoodish. Wwhat I thought was, hey I have dealt with a lot of big issues and I have dealt with them through trying to be the healthiest person that I could be. I first went towards healthy living as a way to survive.

Then when my husband contracted terminal cancer in the midst of my writing my first book I realized that the principles that I had lived my life were principles that needed to be shared with others, it was beyond survival it was lifestyle. These were principles that my husband decided to undertake as part of his healing from disease. The GREAT news is that he did heal and he is cancer free 3 years now and he attests a great deal of his recovery the choices he made in FOOD, EXERCISE, HOME and SILENCE.

What I did when he became ill the second time is firstly, I ASKED if he wanted my help (the first time he got sick I made everything about me and the truth was his healing had to be his own choice) I needed to learn through that experience to give up control. I was not the person who was going to heal him or the world or anything else. I was merely with him, to guide him to HIS PERSONAL healthy road map and he did just that. He became a poster child for eating well, which was honestly a miracle because he was a white and brown food eater (I ate all the green and colored food) and although he hates when I say this he liked Twinkies, Doritos and beer and saw nothing wrong with it!!!

He changed because he saw that eating had such an important role in his STOPPING his cancer cells from mutating. Cancer cells, like all cells, eat sugar and when you get rid of CANCER cell's food you can at least eliminate new growth and he did it.  The man who ate like a good ol' American boy while me his wife ate seeds and rainbows as some of my friends joke about me became aware of his food. Then I began to look at my home and thought how can I create an environment where Z (my nickname for him) feels supported and peaceful...a healing place.

So I changed all the colors in our house and made rooms places of calm or energy or solitude and he felt it and frankly we all as a family did too. Then he exercised regularly hiking with our six dogs daily instead of stress basketball games once a month that usually resulted in injury. And finally the piece that Z considers the healing wand of Grace...SILENCE. He began to find, every single day, a time for silence. At first for 5 to 10 minutes now he meditates for 30 minutes twice daily and he loves it. Remember he is triple A personality who could never slow down. He is a changed man because of it. We have both changed, and my two daughters have changed. We have a perspective on life that is different than before Z's illness, we are more present as a family we make better choices for ourselves individually because of having had to face a dad, a husband that had cancer and because of it we are all better.

I realized if through these choices that we as a family and one sick man can make and change the course of his life and our own then I thought I have to share that with everyone. We all have the ability to get healthy & more peaceful and I KNOW IT. To feel the best you can feel by figuring out how to live in balance is doable tangible and sustainable. What a tremendous joy it is for me to share this with the public and the GREATEST news is that it works for each and every person because it is THEIR health by THEIR design.

It is not about being like Mariel Hemingway. It is about being YOU. You are the one that inherently knows the way to live that makes you feel good, healthy and present.

What I am here in the world to do is help you find that personal path of your well being, by asking you questions (which I do in the book in each section) that lead you to making possibly better choices in your life. It also leads you to asking yourself questions so that you become the artist of your lifestyle and you create the most exquisite you that you can be!

Okay so that sounds like a bit of a hair commercial or is it the Army? Oh well some statements just work.

Learn more about  Healthy Living from the Inside Out in Healthy Living on Gather >