Depression, anxiety, mood swings - Prescriptions?

Family First | VoiceAmerica™

How many times have you or someone in your family gone to the doctor and been unsatisfied with the results? The typical tests ordered may be inconclusive, so that you may look good on paper. Perhaps you are told, “It’s all in your head,” but still you may feel tired or anxious, or you can’t focus, have joint pain, can’t sleep, or just don’t feel well. You may wish your doctor would listen to you and get to the root cause of your problem. But your doctor may fail to see you as a whole person, more like a collection of body parts needing a different chemical for each symptom.

 My guest this week on Family First is Dr. Sharon Norling, M.D., a recognized leader in the practice, teaching, and advocacy of integrative, preventive, and holistic health practice, applying natural, safe, whole person strategies whenever possible. She specializes in advanced testing to find the root cause of a person’s health challenges. Listen in to hear how you can manage your family’s health more effectively. 

To hear the program, simply click on the link above, or go to:http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/1916/family-first Friday July 27 at 1 PM PT, 2 PM MT, 3 PM CT, 4 PM ET, or any time afterwards on podcast or apps.

Dr. Norling is the only physician in the United States known to be nationally broad-certified in 

OB/GYN and Integrative Medicine and Medical Acupuncture. She is certified in Functional Medicine and FirstLine Therapy, the study of nutrition, supplements, and specialty testing. Dr. Norling is also a Certified Biofeedback Specialist. She served on the faculty of the University of Minnesota Medical School where her passion for using effective evidence based natural approaches inspired her students.

Dr. Norling later founded the Mind Body Spirit Center, a comprehensive integrative medicine center, 

in Westlake Village, California. Dr. Norling is a highly sought after national speaker and consultant. Her audiences range from doctors to spas and cruise ships. She has been interviewed on radio and TV, including CNN. Recognized for her expertise, she has testified before the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy. Her upcoming book is titled, “Your Doctor Is Wrong.”

To hear Dr. Norling’s valuable insights, simply click on the link above, or go to:http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/1916/family-first Friday July 27 at 1 PM PT, 2 PM MT, 3 PM CT, 4 PM ET, or any time afterwards on podcast or apps.

Randy Rolfe Take Home Tips: My physician father always said that nature knows best. As kids we received rare medications. Ear aches, colds, childhood contagions, and so on were handled simply with extra vitamin C, bed rest, hugs, and time to watch funny TV shows. Our immune systems grew strong and remain so, and we learned to have confidence in our natural healing processes.  When you give the body what it needs, including good water, good air, good sleep, good light, natural energies, good nutrition, and good attitude - it does a really good job taking care of itself most of the time.

Positive Touch - How to reduce bullying, violence, abuse, discontent

Family First | VoiceAmerica™

Today’s news is filled with atrocious cases of child abuse, domestic violence, and sexual abuse. Some parents are so worried that any touch might be misinterpreted that they avoid it. And many schools are becoming so sensitive, because of incidents of corporal punishment or sexual contact, that they are not allowing any touch at all. My guest this week on Family First is Eva Scherer. Eva has been the leader of a movement in New Zealand to teach children to massage each other.

Eva believes we are becoming a touch-deprived society, which may contribute to many of the problems kids have today. Her programs have helped kids gain self-esteem, be less aggressive, be better learners, and understand positive versus negative touch. She will share the reasons for her programs, the results they have had, and how facilitating positive touch between parent and child and between child and child can have many benefits for children of all ages and prepare them for a healthier adult life.

To hear the program, simply click on the link above or go to:http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/1916/family-first Friday July 20 at 1 PM PT, 2 PM MT, 3 PM CT, 4 PM ET, or any time afterwards on podcast or apps.

Eva Scherer is a professional body worker and the owner of several sports and therapeutic massage clinics in Auckland, New Zealand. As a result of her knowledge of massage and of how massage has helped children in Europe, she studied at the University of Miami’s Touch Research Institute to develop her own program to introduce positive touch for children. She is the founder of the Kids Love Massage Programme, the Children Massaging Children Programme, and the Child Connection Trust. Established in 2000, the Trust aims to introduce massage into the mainstream education system as a low-cost prevention for child abuse and family violence.

Her Children Massaging Children (CMC) Programme has won the North Shore Mayoral Community 

Award and has benefited children at community centers and schools in New Zealand as well as overseas. Her program also has a strong branch in Poland which extends the Children Massaging Children Programme from Kindergarten into homes. Eva Scherer is a member of Massage Australia, Infant Mental Health Association NZ, and Attachment Parenting International. She is also a mother and grandmother.

To hear Eva Scherer’s insights, simply click on the link above or go to:http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/1916/family-first this Friday July 20 at 1 PM PT, 2 PM MT, 3 PM CT, 4 PM ET, or any time afterwards on podcast or apps.

Take Home Tips from Randy Rolfe: Human experience has shown that close physical contact between children and their parents from birth helps to build confidence and trust which can last a lifetime. It can actually help prevent confusion between aggressive touch and respectful touch as the child grows older. Give your children lots of hugs and encouraging shoulder pats or hand holds and they will be less likely to crave attention in less safe situations.  

The Natural Approach to Total Wellness

Family First | VoiceAmerica™

If you watch a lot of TV you would think that we were programmed to fall apart and that only unnatural chemicals with all kinds of unpleasant and dangerous side effects can keep our bodies and minds running properly. But healers throughout history have insisted that Nature knows best and that if we work with our natural innate power to live in harmony with Nature, we can significantly reduce our likelihood of contracting disease and we can in all likelihood live healthy, happy, and long lives.

My guest this week is Gina Loree Marks, who has been living and teaching this approach for over 15 years. She first discovered what has been labeled the Continuum Concept when raising her own children and has evolved this approach into a holistic practice which focuses on the healing art of shiatsu to help bring harmony and alignment into her clients’ busy lives. She will share how her philosophy and techniques can help with almost any stressful situation a family member may face.

To hear my interview with Gina Marks, listen in Friday at 1 PM PT/2 PM MT/3 PM CT/4 PM ET, or any time afterwards on demand or podcast. Simply go to http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/1916/family-first and click on this episode to the right of the program home page. 

Gina Loree Marks is a shiatsu practitioner and co-director of the Lionville Holistic Health Center in Lionville PA. She has been in practice since 2005 and she draws on her past experience as a bodyworker and teacher of Qigong, as well as her experience as a Quaker and an unschooling and homebirthing mom. This broad background helps her to assist her clients in releasing restrictions in their bodies and minds so they can live their lives more fully and in alignment. 

Among Gina’s diverse clients are mothers and other caretakers who feel overwhelmed and lack time for self-care, athletes who seek to prevent injury from high performance tensions, people facing surgery or recovering from surgery, therapists involved in energy healing work who seek to reground themselves, women seeking stress relief and hormonal balance to facilitate pregnancy, individuals suffering from ongoing foot, knee, hip, or back pain, and people trying to heal from residual effects of trauma, injury, or accidents. 

For Gina’s valuable insights, listen in Friday at 1 PM PT/2 PM MT/3 PM CT/4 PM ET, or any time afterwards on demand or podcast. Simply go to http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/1916/family-first and click on this episode to the right of the program home page.

Take Home Tips from Randy Rolfe: Though each of us is different in many ways, our basic physiology is the same. We are energy beings and when we align our energy with nature and our natural surroundings, our bodies and minds work together and have amazing healing powers and the ability to maintain health throughout life. Share this philosophy with your children and they will have stronger resistance to disorders of the mind and body.

Want lasting, healthy, fulfilling, and easier relationships?

Family First | VoiceAmerica™

In today’s society we’re surrounded by the search for love – in books, in songs, in the movies, on TV, and now on the web – but how many of us know how to find it or even what we are looking for? As children we’re taught to go out there and find love without any cues or instruction on how to make it happen. It’s no wonder that so many adults can make messes of their relationships and end up questioning if being loved or finding love is even possible or meant for them.  

My guest this week on Family First is Cyndi Dale, a renowned author on intuitive and spiritual matters who has developed a guide that serves to open the heart, show you how to nurture your relationships, and give you new optimism and confidence about loving and being loved. She will share how our past experiences can keep us fearful or stuck and how to better understand our feelings and ways to keep them from spoiling our relationships. Listen in to find out great ways to find love or to keep your love fresh and growing. 

Listen in Friday at 1 PM PT/2 PM MT/3 PM CT/4 PM ET, or any time afterwards on demand or podcast. Click on the link above or go to http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/1916/family-first and click on this episode to the right of the program home page. 

Cyndi Dale is an internationally respected author and spiritual scholar whose book The Subtle Body earned The Gold Nautilus Award. Her book The Complete Book of Chakra Healing is currently in its 14^th printing. She is also author of The Intuition Guidebook: How to Safely and Wisely Use Your Sixth Sense. She is president of Life Systems Services, through which she has conducted over 35,000 client sessions and trainings across Europe, Asia, and the Americas.  

Cyndi has studied cross-cultural healing and energy systems and has led instructional classes in many countries, including Peru, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Japan, and many others, as well as among the Lakota people and the Hawaiian kahunas. Her newest book, Togetherness: Creating and Deepening Sustainable Love, is coauthored with psychotherapist Andrew Wald and serves to explain and demystify relationships without taking the soul out of them. Cyndi currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her two sons and various pets.

To hear Cyndi’s insights, listen in Friday at 1 PM PT/2 PM MT/3 PM CT/4 PM ET, or any time afterwards on demand or podcast. Click on the link above or go to http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/1916/family-first and click on this episode to the right of the program home page.

Randy Rolfe's Take Home Tips: Relationships are all about attention. Pay attention to the other person, what they are saying, what they want, what they are hoping to receive from you. Often it is just your attention! Take time to be with them and engage them in their own dreams and hopes. Then be clear and thoughtful about what are your dreams and wants. Make requests but be secure enough to not mind if they say no for now.

The Resilent Family!

Family First | VoiceAmerica™

There’s an awful lot of doom and gloom out there for families to contemplate. With persistent national and personal debt, shrinking resources, climate change, malnutrition along side of obesity, and adjustments in the very concept of family, families are feeling the stress of constant change. Fortunately, there is hope in the form of contemporary grassroots movements, according to my guest this week on Family First, James H. Lee. In his new book Resilience and the Future of Everyday Life,

 Lee shows how these movements can restore self-reliance and community engagement. He will discuss how families can take control of their own destiny and help to create the future they want for their children and grandchildren. Lee will be sharing such concepts as discreet consumption, transition towns, repurposing, the elder boom, moving beyond the adolescent culture, do-it-yourself banking, barter and digital commerce, and edible landscaping. His ideas will definitely expand your current options.

 Click on the link above or go to http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/1916/family-first at 4 PM ET, 3 PM CT, 2 PM MT, 1 PM PT this Friday, or any time afterwards for on demand or podcast.

 James H. Lee is a Delaware-based financial advisor who engages in extensive research and analysis of emerging technologies and social trends. During his 20 year career, his system has identified numerous investment opportunities for his clients. Lee is the author Resilience and the Future of Everyday Life. James has been interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Financial Planning, and Medical Economics.

 Lee has also written for The Futurist, the Journal of Futures Studies, and Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Lee is a popular blogger for the World Future Society and has presented at their annual conference. He is also a member of the Association of Professional Futurists. Lee graduated from the College of William & Mary with a B.A. in Economics and received a Master’s degree in Studies of the Future from the University of Houston – Clear Lake. He is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP), Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), and a Chartered Market Technician (CMT).

To hear James Lee’s exciting insights, click on the link above or go to http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/1916/family-first at 4 PM ET, 3 PM CT, 2 PM MT, 1 PM PT this Friday, or any time afterwards for on demand or podcast.

Take Home Tips from Randy Rolfe: Our children must be equipped for a future we cannot easily predict. So our job as parents is to give them confidence, thinking and problem solving skills, and a sense of curiosity, compassion, and hope about their future and the world's future. We know things will change and we can give them the tools we have learned to use to respond to change and to create the world we want to live in..

Adventure Travel with Family?

Family First | VoiceAmerica™

What do you do when you want a complete change in your life? Many people today are talking about a midlife crisis, or even a quarter life crisis. Our current economic recession has many people thinking twice about where they are and where they would like to be. It can take courage to explore unconventional options. But one of the important ways to stay healthy is to not give up on your dreams. When you are busy with job and spouse and kids you may think that other adventures you dream about will never come. But opportunities can come in good time if you don’t give up on your dreams.

My guest this week on Family First made a courageous change in her life when she sold her house and decided to trek from Rome to Istanbul with her grown son. Stephanie Dale is an Australian journalist and is the author My Pilgrim’s Heart: A Woman’s Journey Through Marriage and Other Foreign Lands, which is a travel memoir of their walk through the Balkans and the Middle East.

To listen in this Friday at 4 PM ET, 3 PM CT, 2 PM MT, 1 PM PT, or any time afterwards on demand or podcast, go to http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/1916/family-first.  Or click on the link above.

 In 2007, at the age of 48, award-winning Australian journalist Stephanie Dale woke up one day and sold everything she owned – including her house – so that she was free to travel and write. Stephanie joined her son Ben for a walkabout journey, all on foot for Ben, mostly on foot for Dale, walking through ancient and war-torn countries. My Pilgrim’s Heart is an intimate account of the myriad landscapes, people, and cultures they encountered.

 Meanwhile her physical journey reflects her inner one of finding her place as a middle-aged woman baffled by the demands of her new marriage. Stephanie Dale earned her BA degree in journalism from South Australian College of Advanced Education. She has been awarded the Australian Journalist Association Prodi award for best feature in 1990, the Sir Harry Budd Memorial Award in 1992, and a gold medal IPPY award for Hymn for the Wounded Man for best fiction in 2011. She currently resides in Mullumbimby, Australia.

To hear Stephanie’s fascinating story, tune in this Friday at 4 PM ET, 3 PM CT, 2 PM Mt, 1 PM PT, or any time afterwards, by going to:  http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/1916/family-first. Or click on the link above.

Take home Tips from Randy Rolfe: Once when traveling with our three year old son and one year old daughter, our son seemed to be getting more and more anxious. We couldn't figure it out until I thought perhaps he was losing patience with all the different places we were going. So I explained to him that we would be back at our house in 8 days and counted them out for him to make sure he understood the concept. He immediately became his happy relaxed self. Keep your kids in the loop about your plans. They will go along with just about anything as long as they know you know what you are doing and you help them frame the experience with experiences they are familiar with.

Keep your kids slim, healthy, and happy all summer!

Family First | VoiceAmerica™


As summer approaches are looking forward to freedom and the outdoors and a more easy-going lifestyle. Maybe there will be a family road trip and interesting adventures! Meanwhile parents are wondering how to keep control of activities, make sure the kids do more than laze about and text their friends or play video games, meanwhile getting exercise, sticking with a sound diet, and avoiding putting on extra weight.

My guest this week on Family First is Dr. Felicia Stoler, a registered dietician and former host of TLC’s honey, We’re Killing the Kids. She has put together some great tips on how to plan for a great summer for children and parents. She will share ideas about how to prepare, how to travel, what kinds of snacks to have on hand, how to manage the attractions of junk food, how to limit road trip restroom breaks, and how to see that no one starts to have an expanding waistline over the summer. Listen in on how to make your summer healthy and happy.

To hear Dr. Stoler’s valuable tips, listen in this Friday at 1 PM PT/2 PM MT/3 PM CT/4 PM ET or any time afterwards on demand or downloadable, at:
http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/1916/family-first, or click on the link above..

Felicia D. Stoler, MS, RD, is a registered dietitian, exercise physiologist, and expert consultant in nutrition and healthful living. She is the former host for the reality show, “Honey We're Killing the Kids” on TLC. She specializes in integrating behavior modification to influence positive health outcomes. Stoler is the published author of numerous articles on nutrition, exercise, health, and wellness.

Stoler is the immediate Past President and Past Media/ PR leader for the NJ Dietetic Association and was VP of the Greater NY Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine and the Nutrition Coordinator for ING NYC New York Road Runners Marathon. She currently serves on the NJ Council on Physical Fitness & Sports. Dr. Stoler is author of the new book, “Living Skinny in Fat Genes,” based on her own personal experience as well as many years helping others develop life long habits which put you in control of your weight and health.

Get great ideas for summer activities which keep kids healthy and occupied. Listen in this Friday at 1 PM PT/2 PM MT/3 PM CT/4 PM ET or any time afterwards on demand or downloadable, at: http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/1916/family-first or just click on the link above.

RANDY ROLFE Take Home Tips: For healthy eating, limit the quantity of junk food in the house and set a good example by how you eat. Sit down to eat, even for snacks, and avoid chemical-laden or sugary drinks as well.