By CONNIE TABBERT
Editor
COBDEN — Carla Green thought she had felt all the emotions she could feel. But, when she saw herself on the cover of Guided Synergy, a well-known magazine in western Canada, and then looked inside and saw her story printed on the pages, emotions she never knew she had, came like a flood.
“It was an honour to be chosen to be interviewed and on the front cover,” she said.
To earn this prestige, Ms. Green had to meet at least one of five criteria to be considered for the magazine.
“I met all five,” she said.
Once she saw the article, Ms. Green recalled, “It was surreal to see your life story on a few pages of a magazine. I was feeling emotions I didn’t think I had.”
Ms. Green said staff from the magazine contacted her and did a 15minute phone interview “to see if my story was worthy of cover material and it was.” This was followed by an hour-and-a-half interview and a trip to the University of Alberta for a photo shoot, which just happened to be with Ashley Green, her daughter-in-law. The magazine focuses on people who have made a huge difference in the lives of others.
“They did a wonderful story on my career,” she said. “Thirty-five years helping people as a physiotherapist, registered acupuncturist. I have a specialty in pediatrics, and we have a private clinic in Rocky Mountain House in Alberta.”
Many people in Whitewater Region know Ms. Green because she grew up in Cobden. She is the daughter of Johanna and the late Tony van Kessel. Twice a year, Ms. Green returns home to spend time with her mother. She is home in January, just to cheer her mother up during the dreary season and again in July, to celebrate her mother’s birthday. She noted her mom turns 95 this year.
When she left Cobden in 1977 to attend the University of Alberta in Edmonton to begin her studies in physiotherapy, her mother thought she would return.
“It wasn’t until we built our own building 16 years ago that she finally quit trying to make me come home,” Ms. Green said with a laugh, while sitting in her mother’s livingroom.
Ms. Green is married to Bill Green, the son of Ellard and Pearl Green from the Golden Lake area, and they have four adult children – Kyle, Adam, Eric and Katrina.
Why is Ms. Green on the cover of a medical magazine? The couple own a private clinic for natural health in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, where they have lived for 31 years.
HER CAREER
Looking at her career, Ms. Green said it began with her mother.
“My mother’s always been a helper,” she recalled.
When her mom retired from the grocery store, she began working at Lakeside Retirement Home.
“She’s always had a passion for helping people and I guess some of that rubbed off on me,” Ms. Green said. “It’s just always been in my nature to help people.”
In 1977 she was accepted at the University of Alberta in Edmonton where the couple moved to and lived for several years. Her desire was always to have a private clinic where she could do things her way.
“I didn’t want to be tied into the hospital routines,” she recalled, admitting. “I did go into the big hospitals to work for a few years.”
However, she ultimately knew she wanted to live and work in a small town, because that’s where her heart is.
Looking at a map, the couple decided Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, with a population of about 7,500, was the place to live.
“Driving into the town, it looks very much like the Cobden area,” she said. “It’s got rolling hills and trees and lots of lakes. Very much a familiar feeling and we all migrate to what feels like home.”
Ms. Green is following her family’s lifestyle, because it was naturally focused. However, she had a “powerful experience” when her first son developed ITP, an auto-immune disorder, that made her realize she made the right choice.
“We chose not to go the conventional, western medical route and try natural first, which in this case was acupressure, as I was just being trained as an acupuncturist, and within a week of starting the acupressure, we had completely reversed his ITP,” she recalled.
Ms. Green said this allowed them to avoid their son getting intravenous gamma globulin, which is a blood product. She said this worked in their favour, because nine years after the incident, she found out the blood that her son would most likely have received was tainted.
“It sent chills up my spine nine years later,” she said.
Ms. Green realized then that her instinct of natural whenever possible is the route to go.
She said there are always news reports that a certain medicine is the best drug to fight a disease, and years later it can be pulled off the shelf because it’s been found that the side-effects are worse than the reasons for taking the medication in the first place.
“With natural, you don’t have that lurking what if this is actually bad for me,” Ms. Green said. “The natural route has been around for centuries. We used to have people in the community you’d go to for advice for what naturally you could do in the old days. We may not totally understand how some of these things work, but they’ve been around for hundreds of years so we know what they don’t do (in regards to side effects).”
And, because of her own experiences, Ms. Green has made natural health her passion.
A PASSION TO HELP
“My passion in life has always been to help people have their best life ever health-wise,” she said. “If you can get your body to do what it’s supposed to do, that’s the ultimate in optimal looking after your health.”
Mr. Green is also in the medical field. He’s trained in hypnotherapy and is a First Line Therapy provider, which is a diet and lifestyle counselling service that helps people get their diet and lifestyle in check.
The couple also developed Second Chance Facial Rejuvenation, a totally unique program that has gone world-wide.
“It’s a way to make you look younger,” she said. “It works as well as Botox and fillers and it has no pain and you see results in one treatment.”
Ms. Green said the two of them travel the world co-teaching the treatment as well as providing the service at their clinic.
Their work is so well known, that not only local people go to the clinic to be treated. She knows people who will drive four to five hours one way to be treated there. As well, people come from other provinces also go to the clinic for treatment, she added.
“I have a gift of being able to find solutions when other people haven’t been able to find them in different places, for whatever ails them,” she said.
An insatiable learner, Ms. Green truly believes that the body is designed to heal and repair itself, so continues to take courses to educate herself.
“I used to call myself a course-a-holic,” she said with a laugh. “My husband Bill, would laugh and say, people get so excited about going on a tropical vacation and going to a beach and you get just as excited going to a course and you come back and you’re just bouncing off the walls. It’s easy to please you…just send you to learn something new about how to fix people.”
Ms. Green believes her story in the magazine was a unique experience and will help other people understand more about the couple’s private clinic.
To make the cover of the magazine, Ms. Green said there were some very strict guidelines, including four to five criteria, and the person had to meet at least one to be considered.
“I made all five,” she recalled. “After interviewing me, they actually suggested I should really consider writing a book, which is something that hadn’t really crossed my mind.”
Ms. Green said, “It was a bit surreal and very honourable experience to see my life story summarized on a couple pages of a magazine. It was very unique.
“I had emotions that I didn’t really think I’d have. I don’t feel like I’ve been in practice for 35 years.”
Ms. Green wants to help as many people as possible lead natural, healthy lifestyles, so has produced several DVDs. Three years ago, she produced Secrets of the Exceptionally Healthy, which is the story of her mom, Ms. Van Kessel. Her mother uses essential oils and core basic supplements that Ms. Green believes everyone should use.
“It’s truly one of the reasons she’s as good as she is,” she said. “She’s quite consistent and sticks with that. People all over the world can hear the story and learn from it.”
She has another DVD on how people can protect themselves from the drug resistant microbes that are around everyone. There are many super bugs that are being discovered every year that are harmful to people, she added.
She also has another DVD on energy. This is for people who are tired all the time and it will teach them how to help their body produce more energy.
The videos are all available through Julie Hennessy at E. A. Ted Barron Insurance on Main Street in Cobden.
YOUNG LIVING ESSENTIAL OIILS
Ms. Green is a strong supporter of Young Living Essential Oil and Aromatherapy. Essential oils is harnessing nature’s energy, she said. Young Living is the pioneer of essential oils. It is the only company in the world that owns its own farms, grows the plants and harvests them, Ms. Green explained.
“They’re absolutely committed to 100 per cent purity,” she said. “These days, 100 per cent doesn’t always mean 100 per cent with most companies. But, if they can’t get an essential oil that is medical quality, which there are specific parameters for medical quality, then they won’t put their name on it. We’ll just be out of stock.”
Ms. Green was introduced to the essential oils 16 years ago by a Canadian physician. When you went to her, she tried natural first, she recalled.
“She would use the oils, so when I spoke to her, that was the only brand that gave consistent clinical results, because you have to have that kind of confidence when you are prescribing to patients,” she said.
Essential oils can help support every system in a person’s body – immune, respiratory, hormonal and emotional.
“They are very excellent for emotional health, because when you breathe an essential oil, it goes straight up to the main part of your brain that controls your emotions,” she said. “We all know this. You smell a certain smell and you’re right back in your grandma’s kitchen with her cookies or whatever. Or you smell a certain smell and you’re happy or sad, because you associate.”
The sense of smell is the first sense developed in the womb and is the last sense to lose before you die.
“It’s one of our very powerful senses that we often don’t give as much credit to as we should,” she said. “It’s a great way to support your body.”
Two of the Green children are following in their mother’s footsteps with Young Living. Adam and Katrina are in the health and wellness field. Both work with Young Living. Adam is the highest ranking in the Young Living business and travels all over the world speaking and is a mentor.
The other two are engineers. Along with being an engineer, Kyle is part of a band, Heaviside, and has had two songs in the top 100 of the Canadian rock charts. One made it to #60, she added.
“They’ve all been incredibly successful,” she said. “We’ve got lots of talent going on.”
VALLEY OILERS
Ms. Green has also encouraged local people enjoy essential oils. Following informational meetings, a group formed Valley Oilers and currently, Julie Hennessy is the leader.
This group provides information on essential oils, she said.
“They have little meetings where people can learn more about essential oils and they put on little ‘make and takes’,” she said.
This provides people the opportunity to make things to use on their body, such as hand soap and lotions, and then take them home. It allows them the opportunity to know exactly what it is they are putting on their bodies, she added.
“Our world is way too toxic,” she said. “It is contributing to the amount of suffering that people are having because of the level of toxic loads in our bodies and our environment.
“Essential oils allows you to clean up your own personal environment,” Ms. Green said.
Ms. Hennessy is doing a home sharing at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 26 at her home, at 533 Mowat Road. She can also be reached at 613-401-0659.
