October 2015

I wish I could be sitting in the same room when you watch this movie. Belle has such texture, such fabric, such color. There have been several worthy movies about slavery; so many are based on true stories mainly because there are so many noteworthy true stories to tell. Many of these stories are told from different vantage points. The 17th century England practically dictated that.

Belle is a film with a unique perspective. Very unique.

Born to an African slave mother and an aristocrat father, Dido was reared as nobility… almost. While young, getting a fine private education alongside her fair haired cousin, Dido’s plight was not as apparent. She and Cousin Elizabeth were playmates; more like sisters.

Belle is inspired by the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), the illegitimate mixed race daughter of Admiral Sir John Lindsay (Matthew Goode). Raised by her aristocratic great-uncle, Lord Mansfield (Tom Wilkenson) and his wife (Emily Watson), Dido’s lineage affords her certain privileges, yet her status prevents her from the traditions of noble social standing. While her cousin, Elizabeth Murray (Sarah Gadon) pursues suitors for marriage, Dido is left on the sidelines wondering if she will ever find love. Let me stop right here and assure you, this is not actually a love story. It just so happens that marrying either for love or any other reason is one of Dido’s challenges of her mixed racial birth.

Elizabeth is quite literally the belle of the ball until the families of her suitors realize she is the “poor” cousin. Now, wealth is relevant but as fate would have it, the real Belle of the Ball was actually the beautiful, exotic Dido. Wealthy but with a race stigma. Intelligent and strong-willed, she has an ambiguity of position—too high to dine with servants, too low to dine with guests. What would it be like to have power, inheritance and property and not be able to marry for love; to be both aristocratic and scorned?

There is a huge backstory here. After meeting an idealistic young vicar’s son, John Davinier, bent on changing society, he and Dido help shape Lord Mansfield’s role as Lord Chief Justice to end slavery in England through a quite controversial court case.

As I mentioned earlier, there is a unique perspective being played out here. Amma Asante, Director of this amazing work who is also black, said this about the painting that inspired Belle. “Around the time of the 18th century, we really were—people of color were—an accessory in a painting. We were there rather like a pet to express the status of the main person in the painting, who was always white. And for anybody who’s lucky enough to see the painting, what you see is something very, very different. You see a biracial girl, a woman of color, who’s painted slightly higher in the painting, depicted slighter higher than her white counterpart. She’s staring directly out at the painter, you know, with a very direct, confident eye…So this painting flipped tradition and everything that the 18th century told us about portraiture. These two girls were aristocrats. What I saw from the painting was this opportunity, if I got it right, to tell a story that would combine art history and politics.”

Like the film, Amazing Grace, Belle is a fascinating history lesson. With all the turmoil in our world today it brings another historical piece of this puzzle to the forefront. I highly recommend this beautiful movie.

I look forward to your comments as usual at chastings@rockcliff.com.

At United Capital, we often say, “More of something often means less of something else.” We repeat this phrase to ourselves and to our clients because we believe that it captures an important investment truth that can help us reach our investment goals.In fact, it resonates so strongly with us that we’ve aligned our investment platform around prioritizing sometimes-conflicting goals.We’ve outlined how investors must choose between strategies that emphasize outperformance, protection, tax minimization, or low cost tracking to a benchmark. So what does this really mean? We contend that it highlights the investment choices we need to make when identifying the investment goal for a specific, individual account.

Consider, for example, the resources that must be expended in order to achieve outperformance relative to a benchmark index, and how that must necessarily move away from “low cost”solutions. Moreover,if that strategy successfully outperforms a benchmark, it will no longer closely track that benchmark, much less be tax efficient. In a similar vein, a strategy whose primary focus is on risk avoidance can’t, at the same time, take aggressive positions that could pay off handsomely, because it could instead suffer notable losses if the investment thesis doesn’t pan out. No investment professional has a crystal ball, so it is impossible to invest in a strategy that can exploit potential profits yet takes no risks at all. Opportunities, by definition, come with some sort of risk or another. Otherwise, they are not opportunities.

By prioritizing which matters most to you for each of your particular accounts – low cost tracking, outperformance, tax minimization, or protection – we aim to provide solutions that best fit with your highest need for a specific account. Of course, these are spectrums, not a yes/no decision. One can have degrees to which an investment focuses on say outperformance. In fact, the spectrum can be quite broad. Even within the same investment series, you can choose, hypothetically, between a 100% equity version and a balanced version that contains varying elements of fixed income.

Of course, every investor is a complex individual and often has many nuanced investment objectives and accompanying emotions about investing. The answer of how to address these competing agendas is to reconcile your asset constituencies with your various, competing investment goals. Many clients have different accounts representing distinct pools of funds, each with a separate time horizon and investment objective. One may invest a retirement account entirely different from the college savings account for a child now entering high school. And then the same client may have one pool of funds with which they can take absolutely no risk and another pool of funds with which they can afford to take significant risks, depending on the ultimate goals that those funds serve. Each account may have a different objective – and thus a different solution, on a different axis on our platform, all aggregating up to a very multi-faceted approach to investing.

That means that our paradigm of viewing our investment platform holds true when one disaggregates your entire finances into a more easily understood (not to mention more actionable) framework of how to invest each of your individual accounts. And it is at this juncture where our platform fits into the equation.

By identifying where a particular portfolio fits along these axes, you can easily conceptualize the idea that more of something often means less of something else. A greater emphasis on protection by necessity means that one can’t focus on outperformance or follow a lowest-cost index strategy, and so on. By putting investments into this framework – and selecting investment vehicles that match your specific and mutually exclusive goals for an account – we can best help you achieve your goals. And by understanding this trade-off upfront, your journey to your investment destination will likely take a more satisfying and appealing route.

Disclosures
Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal, and investors should carefully consider their own investment objectives and never rely on any single chart, graph or marketing piece to make decisions. The information contained in this piece is intended for information only, is not a recommendation to buy or sell any securities, and should not be considered investment advice. Please contact your financial adviser with questions about your specific needs and circumstances.

An investor cannot invest directly in an index. Moreover, indices do not reflect commissions or fees that may be charged to an investment product based on the index, which may materially affect the returns presented.

© 2015 United Capital Financial Advisers, LLC. All Rights Reserved www.unitedcp.com

Last month I introduced the subject of how a bad attitude can affect our health through the creation of vagas nerve malfunction. To compound the problem, that same bad attitude can move over to one’s eating habits. Many of us understand the inflammatory effects that sugar, transfats, grain fed meats and junk foods can have in our immune system, but few are aware of a relatively new arrival: The exitotoxin.

Excitotoxins are nasty little additions to processed foods that can result in damage to one’s brain when it becomes excited and over produces glutamate. Excessive glutamate breaks down the ability of our neurons to interconnect; which can cause diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other neurological disorders.

The two most common Exitotoxin products are MSG and aspartame (as in Equal and NutraSweet). How can we avoid consumption of these poisons? It is very simple: Don’t buy them. “But I always read the labels.” That doesn’t always work. The FDA not only allows foods that are banned in many countries to be sold in the USA, but also allows the processed food companies to hide ingredients. Unless the MSG is 99% pure, it can be called other names such as “hydrolyzed vegetable protein,” “spices,” “natural flavorings,” and many more.

At all of the speaking engagements I have given, people come up to me and ask me what I do. When I tell them I eat only fresh foods, never processed, that I no longer like the taste of chips, processed crackers or processed dips, I usually get back an answer “awe, you are taking away all the fun.” Well, here we go, score another one up for bad attitude causing bad health. Why do you think we are now about to enter the “Flu Season?”

It is not by coincidence that we are also about to begin the season of self destructive eating and drinking binges. Now include diet soft drinks. Bad attitude dominates when one would rather not make the effort to buy fresh and healthy and cook it yourself. I have the good fortune of loving to cook. Anyone can change their attitude and learn to enjoy cooking. This might just turn out to not only add joy to your life, but bring your family closer and make it healthier, especially if you have them take part in the meal prep.

Now that we understand that simply going to the doctor and following their recommendations, in most cases, won’t give us the best health and a long, happy life, it is time to direct our attention to the total picture—one that requires each of us to be responsible, not just to ourselves, but to those around us, for the many gifts we have been given.

Attitude is the answer! To experience true happiness we must bring everything we have to the table.

Since Align Healing Center first opened our doors in 1999 we have seen a progressive increase in chronic pain and Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), now called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) in our community. RSD/CRPS is a chronic, painful, and progressive neurological condition that affects the skin, muscles, joints, and bones. The syndrome usually develops in an injured limb, such as a broken leg, or following surgery. However, many cases of RSD involve only a minor injury, such as a sprain. And in rare cases, no precipitating event can be identified.

RSD/CRPS is characterized by various degrees of burning pain, swelling, and sensitivity to heat, cold or touch. Pain may begin in one area or limb and then spread to other limbs. In some cases, symptoms of RSD/CRPS diminish for a period of time and then reappear with a new injury.

Causes and Risk Factors for RSD/CRPS
An exact understanding of RSD/CRPS is not complete. It appears to involve a complex interaction among the sensory, motor and sympathetic nervous system as well as involvement of the immune system. Currently Western Medicine is not sure what causes RSD/CRPS. It is believed that in most cases the sympathetic nervous system plays an important role in sustaining the pain. Another theory is that CRPS is caused by a triggering of the immune response, which leads to the characteristic inflammatory symptoms of redness, warmth, and swelling in the affected area.

Treatment Options for RSD Patients
Medical treatments for the management of RSD/CRPS include analgesics, anti-depressants, physical therapy, occupational therapy, nerve blocks, and multiple other drug therapies.

The Natural Approach for Chronic Pain and RSD/CRPS
Holistic, non-invasive treatments for RSD/CRPS offernew possibilities patients may consider for pain and symptom management. As with traditional treatments, holistic treatments may need to be combined for optimal results. Natural Medicine (vitamins, herbs, natural compounds, etc.) has proven to be effective and long-term in helping calm the sympathetic nervous system and reduce systemic inflammation.

At Align Healing Center we are currently seeing beneficial results in the treatment of chronic pain and RSD/CRPS. The combination of Laser Therapy combined with Natural Medicine is yielding hopeful results.

Laser therapy is the application of low levels of laser light to areas of the body that have been injured or damaged. Contrasted with high-powered lasers used in health care that cut tissue, such as surgical or hair-removal lasers, therapy lasers produce beneficial chemical and biological interactions that can help relieve pain and repair injured/damaged tissue. Just as photosynthesis creates energy for plants, the absorption of the laser light by your cells causes increased production of cellular energy. In areas of injury or damage, this means there is more energy available to improve the rate and quality of healing.

Studies on tissue cultures have revealed a wide range of beneficial physiological effects, including increased levels of endorphins, reduced levels of inflammatory compounds and an increased rate and quality of tissue healing. We often have patients notice improvement after the very first treatment session; whereas with chronic pain or RSD/CRPSit is realistic that it may take a few treatments. The effect of laser therapy is cumulative, meaning that each successive treatment builds on previous ones.

The results that we are experiencing with our patients are nothing short of remarkable. Class IV Laser Therapy has exceeded our expectations of the healing potential that it ignites in the body and it is our mission to share it with anyone who is seeking freedom from their pain.

Dr. Niele Maimone, DC is the owner and founder of Align Healing Center in Danville, CA. She has been active in our natural health & wellness community since 1999. For more information or to set up a consult call 925.362.8283 or visit www.alignhealingcenter.com.

While doctors all over the country are selling strong abrasive exfoliant products to skim off wrinkles, what women don’t realize is their skin is becoming extremely thin and deficient in nutrients, thus the skin cannot maintain its elasticity, so wrinkles form faster. Not only is the skin getting thinner it gets dehydrated by using those strong exfoliants because it can no longer retain moisture as long. Once the skin becomes dehydrated it can no longer carry out its protective barrier role. If this continues, we’ll have more sun damage and skin cancer than ever before.

Ever wonder why physicians are telling everyone to use sunscreens? It’s because the protective barrier in our skin is gone. I see many in this generation having transparent, thin, ruddy, saggy and damaged complexions. Their skin is so thin you can barely touch the surface without breaking capillaries. Rosacea is at an all time high because women are overusing exfoliant products, trying to smooth wrinkles. It’s a sign that their skin can’t take it anymore.

Obage, Retinols, Glycolic Acid Peels, skin smoothing laser treatments are all to blame, to name a few. The prescribing physicians do not have time to oversee the care of each person, so month after month the patient keeps purchasing the same product without any direction, thus continuing on the same exfoliating path, ruining the surface of their skin. This problem is a global epidemic. Strong exfoliant treatments are at a new all time destructive high and it’s damaging effects are creating havoc to women all over the country.

While some of these exfoliant products can be very beneficial, you should not over use them. Period. You need a “Nutrients in your skin care program,” to build lasting suppleness and youthfulness to the skin. To properly apply strong exfoliating treatments you should only use them, “for one month,” (preferably in the winter months), and follow with highly nutritive products for the next three months, to heal the damaging effects of the exfoliants.

I recommend using pure, pharmaceutical-grade ingredients at optimal concentrations with proven scientific results so they can aid in building up the surface of the skin to achieve a strong foundation; nutrients that have building properties like DMAE, Lipoic Acid, Ester-C, Co-Enzymes, Peptides and Vitamin E. Pharmaceutical products can be found at licensed Aestheticians salons only.

Women with sensitive skin should never use strong exfoliants. Sensitive skin is already thin and exhibits inflammatory responses to various triggers such as allergens, preservatives or fragrances. Furthermore products that contain aroma-therapy often cause severe acne and dermatitis. Sensitive skin types require pure pharmaceutical-grade nutrients that have no fragrance to keep the skin healthy, free from break-outs, less irritated and hydrated properly. Women with acne have very sensitive skin, so they need to use a skin care program that is high in nutrients and is labeled for sensitive skin and is fragrant free.

It’s no wonder women are complaining of pre-mature aging. Strong exfoliants don’t promise one youthful skin! The key to beautiful skin is “Nutritive Pharmaceutical Treatments,” to keep the skin smooth, firm and youthful.

For additional information on the correct skin care program for your skin type, The Rouge Offers skin care consultations Tuesday through Saturday. The Rouge Licensed Aestheticians and professionals will get you on the right path and assist you with the right skin care program for the health of your skin’s future. Note: Doctors sell deep exfoliating treatments not nutritive treatments and or programs. Not all Aestheticians use Pharmaceutical grade skin care, so ask for pharmaceutical grade when purchasing products. These superior pharmaceutical ingredients build the skin’s structure from the inside out, allowing the skin to repair and restore the infrastructure.