Breath is our time
Cristina is Spanish and Ray from the USA. As teachers and mentors for individuals we create healthy lifestyles and organizations. We work with the person as professional and the people making a business. First we deal with the side effects of current systems, like we do the medical recommendations that go with money but against all logic, science and the basics of a good lifestyle, and with great risks.
Authenticity is very important for our long term health as it is for business. You will hear it - autentico - because that's where health starts and creativity rises. That's when performance enhances.
Our home is in Spain and in Thailand, but we have also worked in Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Kina, Sweden, England and the US. In Thailand we have our own open venue and gardens next to a nature reserve, allowing animals to roam freely. It's as thermodynamically* efficient as possible. Fresh air and water is a good start for a healthy life.
As much as we focus on modern research and methods, we study and research ancient and original scripts and languages to bridge the past with now, and to understand our geopolitical situation, which was previously our corporate jobs. To understand all healing modalities and why ancient ones have been so terribly misinterpreted and/or twisted and censured we follow the money, and find the truth that the original healers and scribes wanted to convey. An important message is found in the Bible and in the Maranata.
Who are we?
As the curve often goes we each enjoyed a measure of conventional success before getting confronted with the medical system, turning our attention to the meaning of life. Having learned more than we imagined, and having been asked to share all we learned, we now live 100% outdoors (in Thailand, 80% in Spain) in pursuit of an innovative, healthy lifestyle in which the exploration of life in all its amazing forms is our most intriguing and satisfying activity. By becoming truly healthy, life becomes a miracle, in spite of the challenges it brings. With it we became entrepreneurs, teachers and writers. We love it, all of it, in all its forms. Even the stub-tail macaques, sometimes, on a distance.
Body Detox & Body Health
Cristina has devoted 25+ years of her life to understanding natural health in the geopolitical context, drawing on both research and clinical experience. The result is an incredible, highly accurate and intuitive sense of what each one of us needs to be healthy on all levels. Prior to founding O·live in Spain in 2011, she enjoyed a successful management career as a Macro Strategist and Nordic Brand Manager in the mobile telecom sector. She served on government boards in her field and was an expert advisor to the government and on the Stockholm School of Economics board for entrepreneurs, prior to devoting herself to health. Her skills would come in handy later in life.
- "You can show anything with so-called science. It's all about the method so be sure you pick the right one if you want the truth." ~ Cris in class
A turning point in her life came and with those tough times she would realize the flaws in existing medicine and research, as so many others before her. She jumped off the career wheel at the very top and started a new career in 2004, but still in stats. She studied and worked with the foremost experts within Orthomolecular Medicine and Acupuncture and at health and detox retreats for eight years before starting O·live and later LOTUSHEAD - strategic communication, with Ray.
Cristina has a Masters in Economics from the University of Stockholm with Economic History and languages. She has certificates and trainings in Nutrition (Sweden/USA), Orthomolecular Medicine (Spain/USA), Ayurveda (Sweden/India), Microbiome (Netherlands) and other holistic methods such as Bio-decodification (Spain), Medical Acupressure (Spain), and a Masters in Ashtanga Yoga (Stockholm/Spain/India).
In her free time Cristina studies with her never ending curiosity and ability to dig deeper. For the moment her interest goes to studying the source texts of ancient healing, etymology and ancient languages. Her other love is Quantum Physics and teaches the basic proven facts of "Prana" in meridians and the microbiome (she talks about it as God's messengers!) and working on the grand theme of her life - a book about motherhood and its low status in competitive cultures, and the consequences that it brings for health and the planet Earth. If her Biome gifted her with something it is her ability to see the big picture, both in bodies and in societies.
Expert Mind Detox & Mind Health
Ray joined Olive in 2012, after decades of experience in academia, government and the private sector. He's visited more than 40 countries and worked with leaders of many of the world's largest companies. He is often referred to as the "questioner," the "big-picture guy," the "go-to-guy," and the "smartest guy around" ("within a radius of fifty centimeters", was his comment back). His formal education grew around Cultural Anthropolgy, and the question of meaning.
Ray has an MA in Cultural Anthropology from Brandies University, with specialties in Anthropological Linguistics, Semiotics (non-essentialism), Semantics, Sociology, Psychology and Social Psychology. He has taught Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, Linguistics and English at universities in the USA, China, Lesotho, Saudi Arabia and to individuals and private organizations in other parts of the world. He has studied meditation in Nepal, Tibet and Thailand, and familiarized himself with all the religious and spiritual traditions of the times, as well as the people who practice and believe in them and their languages (an integral part of how we perceive our world).
He spent ten years working in the Saudi Government as a Communications Advisor to the Governor and Chairman of the Board of SAGIA, during which time he met many heads of states and private sector leaders, including the Chairman and CEOs of the word's largest and most profitable companies, in some 40 countries. In all his strategic roles he was "the listener and the idea man".
He met Cristina while working on a book for a minister. They created the O·live Method©, including 08 Mind Detox©, a dialogue which has helped hundreds of people from all over the world answer the most basic questions about themselves, by first learning to question the most basic assumptions. In only seven days we can guide a rigid, cemented idea into the sparkling flow of a flexible and creative life.
Ray's amazing creativity and skills with words blooms as LOTUSHEAD - strategic communication. He has written several books and is currently perfecting it at the O·live Nomad Work Space in Thailand and waiting for the new construction to unfold.
*The Second Law of Thermodynamics in Natural Science.
In brief, when energy is transformed, as in doing pretty much anything one does in life, some energy is always lost, i.e., wasted, and the natural tendency of any isolated system over time is to degenerate into a more disordered state.
That means, there are health costs to every action, but also that some actions are less costly. A vegan diet for example, is the most energy efficient for most people and therefore a healthy lifestyle one can imagine, and the best solution to degeneration into more disordered states.