What if the answers to better health have been hiding in plain sight all along? In this eye-opening episode of Drop The Shades, host Dr Joseph Elisha sits down with actuary, corporate executive, and health advocate Emma Tekstra to challenge the modern healthcare model and explore what true wellness really looks like. From helping Fortune 500 companies redesign benefits programs to healing her son after an...
Read More
My friend’s 20-year-old daughter was sent to jail last week for her connection to a drug-dealing operation involving meth. She comes from a stable Christian family and was raised in the church. But at age 6 she was put on ADHD medication (Concerta) to address her impulsivity and inability to focus on her school work. Her parents took her off it in less than a...
Read More
Just days after the world was almost brought to a standstill because of a single technology glitch, I had the opportunity to head into the Sequoia National Park to drop off my son and three buddies who were embarking on an eight-day backpacking trip called the High Sierras Trail (HST). This trek runs 70 miles across the entire park and culminates at Mt. Whitney, the...
Read More
Life is full of distractions. I don’t just mean technology and social media though they are the prime culprits keeping us from our purpose. But anything that detracts from giving our life meaning can ultimately be detrimental to our mental and physical wellbeing.In my Reflection article over Christmas I began to consider what I have gained by leaving the corporate world as well as the...
Read More
Have you ever heard the term a human doing (as opposed to a human being)? What about being a part of the rat race? I thought I’d take a moment to pause and reflect on this most unusual year for me when I left the corporate world after 30 years and became an independent consultant and author.In the corporate world we tend to reflect and...
Read More
I finally got around to watching the most incredible documentary this week, Spellers. It tells the stories of eight non-speaking young people with autism who learned to communicate through a letterboard. For their entire lives everyone including their families had assumed they were cognitively impaired as they showed no sign of understanding or expression of feelings. How wrong they were.Autism is an incredibly complex condition...
Read More
Life is tough. Unreasonable deadlines at work, an abusive boss or partner, financial worries, job insecurity, racism, stressful living situation, physical ill health, death of a loved one, relational difficulties… are all part of the human experience. What is it that enables some people to face these challenges with resilience and a positive outlook while others succumb to emotional ill health? Even those who are...
Read More
Just the fact I am recommending a pharmaceutical product is astounding. Despite growing up as the daughter of a pharmacist and my first job being counting pills in my Mum’s suburban pharmacy in England, I avoid pharmaceuticals wherever possible. I am an advocate of getting to the root cause of your problem and finding natural solutions to support your body in addressing it. Masking symptoms...
Read MoreI wouldn’t be writing to you today on EmmaTekstra.com if it weren’t for Dr Jerry Kartzinel. Dr Jerry is a pediatrician whose youngest son regressed into Autism after routine childhood vaccinations many years ago. After his wife suggested “you broke him so you fix him” he dedicated himself to preventing and healing autism and other neurological disorders in children. I was blessed to come across...
Read More
I love Waze! I’m rather geographically challenged so rely heavily on Waze to find my way to places even when they are quite close or find my way home from anywhere I ended up. A few years ago we were on a family vacation in Costa Rica travelling around the whole country in a rental car. The roads there are famously bad but we found...
Read More
