This month’s fierce woman, Lara Koljonen, was chosen in light of October’s dedication to Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Lara is a licensed acupuncturist and owner of the Herbin Acupuncture and Wellness Center in Hillcrest, San Diego. She is also the founder of Essentially Pink, a grassroots SELF LOVE movement that focuses on breast health and believes the cure for breast cancer is HEALING the body and supporting a lifestyle that supports PREVENTION. Most women don’t think about breast health until October but Lara works year round to educate hundreds of women on how to prevent cancer by practicing acupuncture, healthy dieting and being more in-tuned to one’s body to allow it to constantly heal. Maxim Hygiene was intrigued to learn more about her natural methods for healing; here’s what we found out from our interview with this month’s Fierce Woman!
When did you realize the public needed an organization like Essentially Pink?
It was in about 2004-2005 that it was clear to me that the world is so focused on a pink ribbon CURE for breast cancer and missing the main component to the CURE which is BREAST HEALTH.
Essentially Pink’s mission is structured around a model of self-love rather than fear. We read that your inspiration to establish Essentially Pink was partially fear based. Have your personal fears dissipated since the organization’s launch in 2006?
My initial interest going into college and health promotion was based out of the fear of getting sick. I wanted to know how and be able to promote on a large scale how to avoid disease and to feel great always. Since starting EP I no longer fear disease because my focus is solely on health and how to encourage health awareness. I created Essentially Pink for two main reasons; to diffuse my anger towards the lack of health promotion within all the thousands of Breast Cancer organizations while creating an effective model for breast health promotion to follow myself so I felt solid in my proactive approach for my personal breast health and to teach and inject this vital info into the main vein of society and media, so breast health prevails and cancer is rare.
Do you believe fear contributes to the development of breast cancer?
Fear is the base emotion that connects to disease of the body. Fearful thinking is associated with emotions that create sympathic stress for the body, which depletes adrenal and hormonal balance. When cortisol is released from “stress” or (stressful thinking) the bodies ability to balance insulin decreases and aging is accelerated. This is just one example of how fear creates dis-ease in the body.
S.E.X.Y.- how did you create this system and when should a woman start doing this routine? At what age do you recommend women start implementing S.E.X.Y.?
For me to care about health it needs to be integrated with sexiness. In my opinion, being healthy is sexy and to get America tuned into breast health it needs to be associated with the opposite emotion of fear i.e love,sex, fun or joy. I created the S.E.X.Y steps to breast health to cover all the bases of integrating holistic health into your lifestyle. It’s easy to remember and fun to teach. It’s never to early to start promoting breast health. We recommend starting the steps as early as possible and integrating the breast massage, tapping and exercises at the age of mensuration.
Did you create the Tulip Tap or is it a technique you were taught/learned?
I created the tulip tap and designed the Essentially Pink logo to represent it. The tulips stand for the pathway of energy around the breasts that we promote stimulating and tapping for breast health. As an acupuncturist, health is dictated by the flow of energy and blood through the body. When there are blocks there is a chance for disease. Acupressure has been around for thousands of years, however, if you’re not trained in traditional Chinese medicine you don’t know where these points are. The goal of the Tulip tap is to create an easy to learn, teach and remember, effective and fun way to promote energy and lymphatic movement in the breasts and chest. Also, it is important for women who have had their breasts removed to keep energy and lymphatic flow on the affected side and when breast massage is not an option, Tulip Tap is!
We at Maxim Hygiene believe a healthy woman is a happy woman; EssentiallyPink.com believes healthy food and a peaceful mind can help prevent cancer- Explain why the right foods are important?
The right foods are the basis of good health. You really are what you eat. All the best cancer therapies I am well educated on (The Gerson therapy, Dr. Hanna Instutite) are based on an organic, mostly vegetarian diet and juicing. Any food especially MEAT & DAIRY that is not organic is filled with harmful cancer causing chemicals. These chemicals (also found in water and body products) drive estrogen dominance and breast cancers. Foods that are processed and not plant based increase not only breast cancer, but diabetes, heart disease, obesity etc. The China study has excellent statistics to back this up as well.
How and when did you discover Chia seeds and the amazing health benefits you can get from consuming them? What are your favorite Chia seeds recipes?
Chia seeds are just one of the highly nutritious seeds that assist nourishment and detoxification. We actually don’t want to highlight chia seeds over other seeds like broccoli seeds, we just have been waiting for our website guy to finish our Herbin Acupuncture site before he helps us to relaunch the foods section of EssentiallyPink.com to introduce the seed/nut/fiber combinations that Dr. Hanna has created for breast health. We also will have many different recipes that Dr. Hanna recommends! Stay tuned!
Maxim Hygiene defines a Fierce Woman as “a glorious female creature whose idea of beauty is hinged upon the idea that she can change the world with each choice, each moment, and each breath of her life.” Who in your life would you describe as a fierce woman and why?
Marianne Williamson (famous) & Alexis Rose Davis (friend, not yet famous) are both extremely fierce women. They both excel in powerfully launching large groups of people into higher thought patterns that increase consciousness and eliminate fear based thinking. Alexis teaches ThetaHealing, the most powerful way to eliminate the unconscious negative beliefs that everyone has that create poor choices and disharmony mentally and physically so that you can operate at a higher vibration and prevent disease before it takes over.
Lara is our fierce woman because she helps educate and promote health and breast awareness with her natural and organic techniques. We want to give a warm Maxim Hygiene hug to her for all of her efforts and support!