Paloma Wellness

07/01/2025

To all my clients with packages and anyone planning to book a session: I am no longer offering sessions out of the Belle Haven office. I can come to your home, or you can book a session in August when I am set up in my space in my home in Cheriton. 😊 Thank you for being part of Paloma Wellness!

06/22/2025

Day 2 of my 21 Day Energy Reset! ☀️ Replacing an unhelpful habit with 1 healthy habit, every day for 21 days.

New habit: Drink at least 16 oz of water as soon as I wake up. 💦

Old habit: trying to get my water in by sipping throughout the day, but often feeling dehydrated. 😞

It’s not a matter of knowledge; it’s a matter of ex*****on. Most of us KNOW that drinking plenty of water, especially first thing in the morning, is one of the foundations of good health.

I’ve talked about this with friends and clients: why is it so hard to hydrate? For me it feels like one more chore, and with everything else I have to do, it’s easy to neglect until I have a headache or feel parched. Not a great strategy. 😢

I read a comment by a woman in an ADHD Women Entrepreneur Facebook group who shared that she chugged water right when she woke up; she felt more motivated and energized, and noticed her ADHD symptoms lessened. Worth a try! 🧐

Turns out drinking water first thing has many benefits. 🙌

Your body is dehydrated after fasting. Your cells have been regenerating and repairing all night and drinking water helps your kidneys flush out toxins.

According to the British Journal of Nutrition, hydration improves:

✔️Mood
✔️Memory and Mental Alertness
✔️Metabolism
✔️Visual Perception
✔️Digestion

So how did it go? Drinking water first thing felt good. 😊 We were in the sun a lot today, listening to great music at the Juneteenth festival in Exmore, but I did not get a headache. I stayed attuned to hydrating and drank more water than usual throughout the day.

I also did some exciting mental/creative work today, jotting down a plan for future retreats I’d like to host.🎉

Just as I need to remember to water my plants, I need to remember to water myself 🌱💧

Aaaand I stuck with day 2 of my morning walk / no phone routine, though I did briefly look at my phone before the walk! 😬

How I rate this habit change: 10/10. Easy and effective!

02/15/2025

Happy Valentine’s Day! 💕 Here’s to deeply and completely loving and accepting ourselves, despite our flaws and problems, and choosing to relax now!

01/16/2025

I need this reminder! 🙋‍♀️

This simple tweak can be the difference between more stress and more calm.

Choose calm. Most people are juggling far too much. A little breathing room goes a long way.

Drop a 💙 if that thought resonates with you…

#

01/16/2025

What do you see in this painting? It hangs in the Paloma Wellness treatment room, and often receives a strong response from my clients.

Some people see a lion. Some people notice the taller figure. Some people do not see the woman and girl walking together, at least not right away.

I clearly see me and my mother, walking together on the beach. I’m gazing up at her, and she is facing me. We are connected to each other and to nature, living in the moment. Love in motion. We are nurtured by each other and by the earth.

My mother, Clelia Cardano Sheppard, actually painted this painting, and the little girl is me. We used to walk for miles together along sandy shores that have long since eroded into the Chesapeake Bay. But the memory of feeling that connection remains.

The healing we do in this room at Paloma Wellness is often about finding a safe place within our memory or imagination. It’s about allowing our nervous system to create new pathways of calm. It’s about reconnecting with our inner child, and finding out what she needs.

So often what she needs is reconnecting with feminine energy, and allowing herself to be nurtured.

So many women do so much nurturing for others, but rarely receive it themselves. Some did not receive much nurturing from their mothers or other caregivers when they were children. The result can be a deep-seated feeling of emotional or physical neglect that can create anger, lack of self-care, lack of boundary setting, over-giving, and difficulty receiving in relationships.

I love helping women heal this wound, and heal their relationship with themselves, their mothers, their daughters, and others in their lives. Trauma can be passed down, but so can healing and beautiful memories. The chain of positive connection continues through the generations.

Reiki is the same frequency as the earth, at 7-8 hertz. It feels different for everyone, but some have described it as love warmly filling your body. I might describe it like this painting: walking on the beach on a summer afternoon, feeling loved, gathering up the beauty of the world.

12/26/2024

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! 🕯️May you find peace and contentment in your hearts today and every day. Remember to place your hand on your heart if you’re feeling like you need a hug. It feels similar to the nervous system!

10/03/2024

Many people believe they have an addictive personality. But on a deeper level, what they’re struggling with is: an inability to self soothe.

When we can’t soothe ourselves (which just means feel and calm down from an emotional experience)— we seek external things that will do this for us. This can be substances, shopping, gambling, chronic scrolling, s*x, or anything else that relieves and distracts us.

We learn how to self soothe beginning at birth. For babies and young children, developmentally, there is no such thing as self soothing. We need co-regulation— or an adult who sees us struggling and offers calm support a majority of the time. Through this experience we develop the ability to self soothe. We understand “ok, when I am upset I can breathe, feel intense emotions, and know they will eventually pass.” This gives us the ability to cope and navigate the future stressors of life.

If we don’t have attuned parent figures who noticed our stress and help us calm from it— we start to become overtaken by our emotional experience. Our attachment systems are designed for others to help us, and instead we learn: “I must do this alone. No one can help me. I’m too overwhelmed.” Children with this experience will start to cope in many ways: chronic day dreaming, using food to calm/numb, or “acting out” behaviors (an attempt to seek connection.)

Later, they will become adults with addictive personalities. They will seek external things to relief internal feelings. Even if those behaviors bring them misery, pain, or a loss of control.

The beautiful part of all of this is that we can learn how to self soothe at any age. We can slowly, widen our nervous system window of tolerance and respond to our emotions rather than react to them.

We are not on default settings, and can always heal

09/30/2024

Therapeutic minded massage aimed to teach people to reconnect with their bodies and live pain free.

09/22/2024

Happy first day of fall! The season of settling in and letting go, ahhh. 🍂

I always find this time of year inspiring and motivating. 💪 Maybe it’s the procrastinator in me - I have to get as much done as I can before the year’s end! I feel relief that summer’s heat and bugs have
left us, and grateful for the stability of a more predictable schedule once school has started 🍎

Some people notice feelings of sadness or anxiety as autumn moves in and the days become shorter. If you relate to this, you may have seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a type of depression that can be treated with light therapy, counseling, and Reiki. Many benefit by taking a vitamin D supplement (in our household we like a vitamin D spray). Your health and happiness are worth your attention. 🫂

To make taking care of myself more fun, I try to remember to eat the rainbow! 🌈 Include as many colors and as much variety as you can in your diet every day to boost immunity, as we inch closer to winter.

This photo was from a recent day my family and I remembered the rainbow diet, and felt inspired to savor the experience of being alive and nourishing ourselves. 😋

What does fall bring out in you? What are your intentions this season to take care of yourself? Have you tried eating the rainbow? 🌈😊🍂

09/13/2024

Good morning! ☀️ If you’re having trouble sleeping, this is your reminder to get outside as soon as you can after waking and enjoy the sunshine. This habit will help reset your circadian rhythm!