Many of us think because we had loving parents that we didn’t have trauma. This is simply untrue. Until we do something to heal that trauma, the belief systems that were created as a result (I’m not good enough, I’m a burden, etc) will continue to be the lens from which you view the world. Hypnotherapy allows you to return to the moments when these maladaptive belief systems were created so that you can change them with your now-adult mind.
Reach out if you’d like to schedule some virtual hypnotherapy. This is one of the most powerful tools for getting underneath our maladaptive belief systems and allowing suppressed emotions to release. Please don’t let money be a barrier for this. I have sliding scale options and will work out any kind of payment plan you need if you feel ready to do your personal work.
Can you imagine what the world would be like if we all did our work?
When I first started on my healing path, it took me a long time to learn how to be in my body. I didn’t even realize I had been OUT of my body until I really dove into hypnotherapy, and eventually my clinical hypnotherapist training as a result of my crippling anxiety, depression, and digestive issues. Trauma often forces us out of our bodies and can make it uncomfortable to return. At first, it may have been a protective mechanism in response to trauma. But later, that mind-body disconnection can often turn into anxiety, depression, autoimmunity, and other chronic conditions.
Breathwork was one of the tools that REALLY helped me be in my body fully, which is where emotions live, which is why I (and so many) avoided being there for so long. But if we don’t release these pressure-cooked emotions, they end up being destructive, not just to you, but to those around you who are victims of those emotions coming out sideways.
What is breathwork?
Breathwork is a pattern of breathing that elicits non ordinary states of consciousness (also called holotropic breath work). Naturally occurring DMT (dimethyltriptamine) is created in our lungs and we release it when we breathe this pattern. The purpose of Breathwork is healing, integrating, and purifying. We learn who we are, and who we are not. We have a corrective experience of our breath, imprinting from a place of awareness, enlisting inner and outer resources. We do it to free ourselves from the conditioning, patterning and imprinting that we were given before we had any choice.
Group sessions are about 2 hours. We’ll join on Zoom and begin with instruction on how to do the breathing pattern. I’ll then start a playlist of songs meant to help move your breath. You’ll breath for about 75 minutes (everyone’s microphones will be muted so you will only hear the music, but if you have questions I’ll be monitoring and can communicate through the chat feature on Zoom) in a comfortable space you’ve created in your home (laying on a mat or flat surface is ideal). During this time many people experience different things – please read this FAQ about Breathwork. Once the 75 minutes have passed and the music stops, we’ll join back together for an optional group sharing. Many people have transformational experiences and it’s beautiful to process as a group.
If you would like to join me and other truth-seekers in one of these online Breathwork sessions, schedule below. From the comfort of your home, you can drop into a deeper state of awareness, release what no longer serves you, and connect with a group of like-minded people who are doing their personal work. And? It’s only $30.
“You are not supposed to be happy all the time. Life hurts and it’s hard. Not because you’re doing it wrong, but because it hurts for everybody. Don’t avoid the pain. You need it. It’s meant for you. Be still with it, let it come, let it go, let it leave you with the fuel you’ll burn to get your work done on this earth.” -Glennon Doyle
It’s so easy to avoid pain. Turn on the TV, scroll through social media, drink, smoke, eat, over-exercise… we all have our techniques for burying the discomfort, but unfortunately this only works for so long. The symptoms get louder. For me, I went from doctor to doctor trying to balance my anxiety, depression, and IBS, but all they offered were prescriptions, which only covered up the symptoms. They never asked me about my stress…
At the time I was in a toxic marriage with someone 18 years older than me, was trying my best to be a good step-mom to 2 young boys (one on the autism spectrum), and trying to go to college and work at the same time. The symptoms kept getting louder, until I didn’t even want to wake up anymore. I loved them all so much, so why did it hurt so badly?
Everyone I loved on the outside could diagnose the root cause of my issues as being the relationship (and stress that came with it), but I was too wrapped up in my codependency and idea of “loving someone so deeply” that I thought the pain was just a trade-off. That, sprinkled with some emotional manipulation, left me feeling trapped.
But when I finally got underneath the pain through hypnotherapy, I saw that my attachment issues stemmed from my daddy issues (dad moved away after parents split at 11), so until I healed the little girl who felt worthless because dad left, I couldn’t possibly see that my current partner was not in my highest good. I had to learn how to fill myself up, rather than seek external forces for my sense of worth. And once I did, the truth was so glaring that it didn’t take long for me to leave the marriage.
So lovie, what pain are you avoiding? I can tell you from experience that burying it only works for so long, and ends up creating more pain in the long run. If you’re ready to really work on it, a virtual hypnotherapy session is a great place to start. You’re not in this alone. 💛
This week I had several first time hypnotherapy clients. Most people have some talk therapy under their belts by the time they try a modality like hypnotherapy, and this was true for each of my new clients.
The biggest difference between talk therapy modalities and hypnotherapy is that talk therapy operates in the conscious mind, while hypnotherapy operates in the subconscious mind. Your conscious mind only makes up 10% of your mind, while the remaining 90% is subconscious (the iceberg below the water’s surface). This is one of the main reasons why most people aren’t able to experience the relief they desire from talk therapy. The root cause of the presenting issue (anxiety, depression, eating disorder, addiction, etc) is in the subconscious mind, so it’s no wonder why your patterns take a long time to change (if at all) when only doing a modality like talk therapy that only remains in the 10% conscious mind. This is not to suggest that talk therapy doesn’t have value, but when it’s the egoic mind that is talking, it’s difficult to get very far at the pace most of us desire.
I tried talk therapy for years as a teen and young adult, seeking a non-medication treatment to my chronic anxiety and depression. I would often feel some sense of calm in the therapist’s office, but then I would leave and my mind would slip right back into its patterns. This is because nothing truly changed in my mind…yet.
I finally dove into hypnotherapy when I was at my wit’s end and willing to try any tool that might work. I had heard good things about this modality from my parents for years but was too afraid (who had been on hypnotherapy retreats and experienced significant growth) but was so miserable that I finally gave it a try.
This single session was more informative than the years of talk therapy I had been through. I experienced how the hypnosis was simply a tool for relaxation, not something for the therapist to exert control (high-school graduation stage hypnosis was my only context). It allows the conscious mind (ego) to relax enough so that we can access the root cause in the subconscious. Think of it like software in a computer – everything you’ve experienced is stored in your subconscious mind, whether you remember it or not. This is why many people are afraid. They worry about retraumatizing themselves with memories that they don’t consciously remember. I know now that this doesn’t happen. Your mind has built up so many defenses that it won’t even let you go there if you aren’t ready (at least in this setting). The point of having a trained therapist there with you is to create a container of safety so that the walls can come down, at your pace, and we can shine light on the old, abandoned parts of your psyche that are driving the suffering you are likely experiencing today (the anxiety, chronic stress, self-consciousness, etc). The exciting thing is that just like software of a computer, we can reprogram or rewire the underlying belief systems that were created in those traumatic moments early on.
Here’s an example of how it works:
I have a client who has been a chiropractor for 24 years and came to me to work on her inner self-saboteur. She said that since Covid hit her adult children are home and she’s finding how she’s constantly putting everyone’s needs before her own, which means she misses workouts and doesn’t eat the way she wants to. Sound familiar?
The session begins with getting in touch with the intention and the current experience of the presenting issue. Ie. I wake up nauseated with anxiety, I have super low self-esteem and am constantly judging myself, or in this case, I don’t exercise enough and feel shame in my gut and tightness in my chest.
Once that’s clear we then begin the hypnosis portion of the session where I walk you through a visualization exercise that takes you into a deep state of relaxation. Once you’re there we then bring in resources. This is part of that container I was talking about. We build that with YOUR resources. We’ll anchor into your nervous system the experience of a safe/favorite place (through more guided visualization) – this will then be a tool you can use inside and outside of the session to relax (to bring you out of fight or flight mode into a parasympathetic state).
We will also connect with any spiritual connection you might have, or if this is new, work on nurturing that relationship with any spiritual connection you have but haven’t spent much time with (the Universe, love, nature, God, etc). This is what you connect to in prayer, meditation, or even walking in nature and is an incredibly powerful way to ground yourself daily – something I like to refer to as spiritual hygiene.
The last resource we connect to is your higher self – that wise adult that lives within all of us and makes healthy choices for us as we walk down our life path (one that we don’t tune into enough!). They’re the one who speaks through intuition, or that gut feeling. The one who we have access to always, but we first must learn to quiet the noise of our conscious mind (ie. Spiritual hygiene!) We’ll make sure you feel connected to that higher self before we do any deeper work.
Once you have your resources gathered, then we bring up the emotional experience you want to work on. In the example of my chiropractor client, we brought her back to the most recent time she had that strong sense of her self-saboteur. It was earlier that week when she chose to make hotdogs and burgers for her boys instead of a plant-based meal she was craving. We begin to tune into the body and the experience it has (because usually we’re so stuck in the head we miss vital information). She could feel loneliness inside, and a sense of shame in her lower half.
This is when I guide you in an age regression, back to one of the earliest moments in your life when you had a similar experience of emotion and physical experience. My client went back to being 7 to the first time her uncle molested her. Now, to be clear, this is not re-experiencing the trauma, it’s going back to gather information and diffuse any of the suppressed emotion that’s made it so it feels unsafe to be in your body. My client knew she was safe, but was able to connect with the inner 7 year old who created some core belief system during this memory, which is the information we’re looking for. She felt a numbness all over her body (which is dissociation, something most people learn as a result of abuse) and an inability to think clearly. This is a state of shock that we can clear in session, and needs to happen before the healing can happen. The way we did it in this session was by disconnecting her uncle’s toxic energy from her 7 year old, and then bringing in any parts of herself that she felt had been lost her. Some cultures call this soul retrieval. With the help of her spiritual connection (which in this case was Archangel Michael), and my reiki/subtle energy training, we were able to cut the energetic cord connecting her to her uncle. She began to feel more in her body when this happened as the shock began to clear. She then saw that her innocence and joy had been lost in this terrible situation. But because we’re working with energy here, we were able to bring those parts back. She visualized the soul pieces as a sunshiney yellow light coming back into her chest and gut, and I could visibly see a difference (even though Zoom!) as she brightened up. This is my favorite moment of every session. When I can witness this level of transformation in less than 75 minutes, I can’t help but feel like anything is possible.
Once she had her joy and innocence back in her body, we were able to tune into the belief she took away from this situation, and then resulting decision about how to behave. This is the gold that we hope to get from sessions, because this is the wiring that is the driving force behind the current suffering.
Her 7-yr old self had concluded that she wasn’t important and had to put others first. And because of this that she wouldn’t use her voice or take care of herself fully. I mean, WOW. How many women have this core belief system? I know I’ve had to change it in session!
With her tuned fully into her higher self, spiritual connection, and little girl, she then changed the belief to: I’m important, will love myself and put myself first. In the subconscious state you’re in during hypnotherapy, this new belief system becomes a new neural pathway (ie. Software!) and the more you reaffirm it out of session (during your spiritual hygiene) the stronger that belief systems become, and therefore, the smaller the struggle becomes.
This client was so grateful and said she had never experienced anything like what we did. I hear this from almost everyone. When they say it with brightness in their eyes that wasn’t there before, I know we’re doing big work.
There is collective trauma going on right now compounded onto your normal human trauma (that we all have to different degrees). It seems more important than ever to start working on the shadows that keep us in perpetual states of fight or flight, doesn’t it? Doesn’t this seem like an opportunity to do something amazing in our communities and world? The divisiveness we witness and feel socially is simply a symptom of the inner disconnection and division we have with ourselves. It seems that the only way to truly heal this problem, we need to heal the root cause – our own pain. And to do that you need support. We all need help. Why not use this time to be intentional with your personal experience, rather than continue to suffer and complain about the lack of control you feel socially?
If you’re interested in hypnotherapy you can read more here, or if you’re ready to jump into your personal-growth book a session here.
Whenever you’re about to embark on a new journey, or are facing a challenge (illness, loss of job, ending of marriage, etc) you encounter something called liminal space – this is the period of time when you’re standing on the edge of the unknown, often in a state of fear or anxiety. This is the opposite of your comfort zone, and yet it’s often where some of the yumminess of life takes place.
Think about it – before your first kiss, on your wedding day, being in labor with your baby – all of these times were usually scary as hell and yet the most memorable, formative, and rewarding. In all of these times you experienced a period of liminal space. You had a choice about how to react. You could tolerate it, suppress it, or lean into it. We all know what it feels like to choose all of these paths, so maybe we ought to pay attention to when we’re in a liminal space, so as to be mindful about it, rather than unconscious. This can help us avoid prolonged liminality, aka, more suffering!
Ecological theologian Sallie McFague describes the liminal space as “a space where one is available for deep change from the conventional model of living to another one.”
While this liminal space is uncomfortable, ambiguous, and uncertain, it is also freeing. It is necessary for change and growth.
Anytime you feel anxious or afraid, it’s information. What often makes it worse is the meaning we attach to the fear, and therefore the belief we take on about it, which then creates more fear. So when you notice yourself feeling afraid, greet it, befriend it – ask it what it needs. If you drink a bunch of wine or turn on the TV, you’ve only suppressed it, making the discomfort last longer than necessary.
I know that there have been times when I didn’t want to hear what my fear needed – I was afraid of what it had to tell me. The most difficult experience of this was in my previous marriage when my intuition (the way your higher-self talks to you) was begging me to get out of the relationship but my subconscious (child-self) was too afraid of what was on the other side – too afraid of the liminal space. So I stayed way longer than I should have, and as a result suffered from severe depression, anxiety, and IBS, until it got so bad that I was willing to do anything to feel different. I mustered up the little courage and life I had left and ended the marriage, diving into the unknown.
I have grown since my divorce, more than I can articulate in words. It’s in the way I feel and walk in the world now – with more confidence, power, and trust in myself and this crazy thing we call life. My intuition was guiding me to a more fulfilling path, a healthier partner, and a more joyful human experience, I just had to surrender to my truth and take action.
Everything in your life doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you.
If you’re stuck, get help. There are coaches, therapists, doctors, naturopaths, support groups, meetups, books, Ted Talks, and so many other ways to get support. Listen to your gut and it will guide you to the tools that will help you become more of who you know you’re meant to be. Your higher-self is BEGGING you to open yourself to becoming the greatest expression of love that you can be while you’re on this earth so that you can leave it better than when you found it. If not for that, why else are we here?
When I was 5 years old I was molested by a babysitter. In these moments of powerlessness the only power a child has is over their mind, and so it’s common for them to dissociate from the experience in an attempt to reduce the trauma. Often times children don’t remember these isolated traumas because of this mental coping strategy, and this dissociative pattern often follows them into adulthood.
Until doing hypnotherapy, I didn’t fully remember this traumatic experience. I sometimes saw flashes of it in my memory, but assumed it was some terrible nightmare I was remembering, not reality.
You may ask yourself, “Why on earth would anyone want to go back to these traumas in hypnotherapy?” No one wants to reexperience trauma, and that isn’t what happens in hypnotherapy. In hypnotherapy, you’re able to go back to these traumas with support and resources so that instead of re-traumatizing you, it empowers you. The reality is that these traumas are stuck in your subconscious somewhere, creating patterns in adulthood that often aren’t in your highest good, and keeping them in the shadows only continues to give them power. For me, I developed chronic anxiety at around age 11 that followed me into adulthood and debilitated me from fully enjoying my life. I had constant nausea, struggled with insomnia, and always put others needs before my own. I embraced dissociative behaviors like binge eating, smoking pot, and oversleeping because I felt the unconscious need to cope with chronic anxiety. This went on for years – I even tried consistent traditional talk therapy and it never made any difference in the way I felt or behaved once I would leave the therapy office.
After 3 hypnotherapy sessions I made more progress than in 6 years of talk therapy.
This is because only 10% of our minds are conscious, and the remaining 90% is subconscious. This means that we are unaware of our ‘operating system’, one that was formed during childhood with an undeveloped brain. This is why in order to actually change a pattern like anxiety, depression, addiction, phobias, weight issues and even physiological imbalances like chronic pain or autoimmunity, you must explore the subconscious to shine light on where these patterns actually began.
During hypnotherapy, we use a mild level of hypnosis to relax the ego and conscious mind so that we can get straight to the root of your presenting issue – which is in the subconscious. You’re still fully aware of your surroundings and can’t be controlled by your therapist like you might see in stage hypnosis. We’re able to get to the root of your anxiety, for example, by regressing back to one of the first times you felt this way. Memories will voluntarily surface and from there we’re able to explore what you came to believe about yourself and the world during these situations. Trauma is relative to your experience but we all have it. For some, it might be that mom forgot to pick them up from kindergarten one day. For others, it might be more obvious trauma like sexual or physical abuse. Either way, when a child experiences this fear, they conclude certain things about themselves- beliefs that become the wiring that follows them into adulthood. The kid sitting on the steps watching all her friends get picked up that realized mom wasn’t coming might conclude that she isn’t important. When I was molested, my belief I took away was that I’m not safe. These beliefs get stored in your subconscious and become the filter in which you process information in the world. We also form behaviors related to these beliefs like, “I won’t stick up for myself,” or, “I’m going to hide.”
This is why talk therapy only scratches the surface of our unhealthy patterns. The reason why hypnotherapy works so quickly is because you’re able to go back to these memories, discover the old subconscious beliefs that still control the way you think, and then change them.
Once you reach a memory, you also have the opportunity to release the suppressed emotions that have been stuck in your body ever since which could be creating physical symptoms like nausea, pain, sweaty palms, weight gain, etc. This is done in a safe and contained space so that you do not become retraumatized. You are then able to reclaim parts of yourself that may have been left behind in these traumatic events. Things like your power, courage, autonomy, joy, or curiosity. As you release the pent-up emotions, reclaim the pieces that were lost, and form new beliefs about yourself and the world along with new behaviors, you’ll find that the present-day issue you wanted to work on doesn’t have as much power in your daily life. A situation that might have triggered your old belief of not being safe or important won’t have the same strength as it once did because in choosing a new, more productive belief, you’ve literally formed a new neural pathway for information to process through. Eventually this will become the new filter without even having to think about it.
The lesson here is that in order to get to the root of your unproductive patterns, you have to dive into the subconscious. Most of us have spent decades suppressing our emotions and so it takes courage and trust to willingly allow them to surface. But the beautiful thing is that once they surface, they can then release, no longer subconsciously controlling the way you perceive the world. You can gently and lovingly take the wheel from your child self and become the adult driver of your vehicle. You can take your power back and no longer be prisoner to your anxiety, depression, or addiction. It’s an extremely freeing feeling to know that you’re no longer controlled by those who traumatized you as a little one. My little girl who had her power taken away is no longer afraid and anxious. She’s joyful and courageous, her passion for life reignited. Once you learn how to love on your inner child, everything changes.
My step-father recently said I was like, “a gleeful elf lady.” Without context this could come off as a weird compliment, and even with context it’s still a little weird, but it still warmed my heart. My family used to refer to me as “Grinchy K”. This didn’t feel quite as good, but it’s mostly because I really felt like a grinch and didn’t like them calling me out for it. I’m not very good at hiding my bad moods and up until a few years ago they were more frequent than good moods.
Since about age 11 I’ve struggled with chronic anxiety, depression, and IBS. I didn’t know this until I was about 18 and was able to identify what anxiety and depression actually were, since up until then I never thought twice about the way I was feeling all the time. I assumed I was a typical hormonal teenager who liked to stay in bed as many hours as possible and would nearly vomit from nerves before getting asked to Homecoming – you know, normal teen stuff….right?
Once I got into college things really came to a head. My emotional and physical health tanked and I was desperate to find tools that would help me feel better. I went through extensive Functional Medicine lab testing for hormones, food sensitivities, GI health, and mineral/nutrient analysis and found that I had candida overgrowth, parasites, leaky gut, adrenal fatigue, heavy metals and super imbalanced minerals.
After several years of physical repair combined with hypnotherapy and meditation, I’m 95% better. I still get bouts of fatigue, anxiety, depression and bloating if I’m super stressed and not eating right, but at least I have the tools to bring me back to balance when I need. And that feels like a blessing.
The days of grinchy K are over – the gleeful elf lady has emerged and is sticking around!
So let me ask you? What needs to happen for your inner world to feel less grinchy so that you can make space for more glee?
If you want to learn more about individualized wellness programs that will empower you to transcend your imbalances, click here.
Fall has officially arrived and is distinctly marked by all of the “PSL” advertising, deliciously fragrant pumpkin candles lining store checkouts, and abundance of Uggs warming cold toesies.
I officially made “the switch” from a standard American diet to a 90% paleo diet in 2014 in an effort to get to the root of my anxiety, IBS and depression (I still eat rice and corn here and there on special occasions, but the bulk of what I eat is veggies and clean animal proteins…and chocolate). Eliminating these foods is one of the main reasons why I feel so much more balanced, all without prescription drugs. Western doctors told me my imbalances were genetic and that my food had no influence, but that medication would help with my chronic symptoms. Well, I proved them wrong, just like so many of you who are taking your health into your own hands. Within weeks of eliminating gluten, dairy, sugar and coffee (in conjunction with hypnotherapy), I felt better than I had in years.
However, I still grieved the foods I had grown accustomed to eating. I remember the first Fall when I realized I couldn’t order a pumpkin scone or pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks. This was a tragic moment in my life – what is Fall without PSL?! I even prepared by wearing my Uggs and Lululemon!
To re-convince myself about why I was eliminating this stuff, I decided to look up what was in the pumpkin syrup used in the infamous PSL. In an effort to make the transition easier, I had started recreating some of my favorite comfort foods (like chocolate chip cookies) and found seeing the ingredients was a helpful place to start. In my blissful ignorance, I was shocked when I read the nutritional labels for the scone and latte. At the time, they were using high fructose corn syrup and caramel coloring in their recipes – both of which are carcinogenic and cause developmental delays. They’ve since omitted caramel color but still use high-fructose corn syrup in most of their popular recipes. You can read more about the dangers of caramel coloring here, because even though Starbucks has taken it out of recipes, it’s still hidden in all kinds of products, from cough drops to condiments, as shown below.
The more you learn about the food industry, the more you realize you have to take your health into your own hands. Companies are getting away with putting toxic chemicals in foods that children eat, all for the sake of aesthetic. So please, read your labels and be a responsible consumer, for the sake of your health and the health of future generations.
This pumpkin bread recipe is obviously free of anything inflammatory or toxic, and instead is loaded with nutrient-dense ingredients that will not only fuel you, but will also satiate the craving you have for something fall-y! I always double the recipe and freeze some pre-sliced pieces to pop in the toaster at any time. I found an organic maple butter that is to die for and it goes perfectly on a piece of toasted pumpkin bread. And guess what? It has one ingredient: maple syrup. Guess how many ingredients Starbucks pumpkin scones have? 39. Yep. And those ingredients include soybean oil, high fructose corn syrup, wheat, dairy, and a truckload of preservatives, all of which contribute to chronic inflammation and disease. There’s a reason why people feel SO much better when they eliminate these foods. You are what you eat, so choose wisely 🙂
Place a rack in the center of your oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly coat a 8×4-inch loaf pan with nonstick spray, line with parchment paper so that the paper drapes over the sides like handles, then lightly coat with spray again.
In a large bowl, stir together the almond flour, protein powder, arrowroot, collagen, salt, baking soda, and pumpkin spice. In a separate bowl or stand mixer, whisk together the eggs, pumpkin, maple syrup, coconut sugar and vanilla.
Slowly combine the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients. Fold in any desired mix-ins.
Scrape into the prepared loaf pan and smooth the top. Bake for 42 to 48 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Place the pan on a wire rack and let cool 30 minutes. Gently lift out the bread with the parchment overhang and place on the rack to finish cooling completely. Slice and enjoy with ghee, grass-fed butter or my personal favorite, maple butter.
Notes: double and freeze pre-sliced pieces that you can toast whenever you want. Will keep well in freezer for 3 months.
When was the last time you paused to consciously appreciate your body? Think about how much this vessel has done for you. In its infinite wisdom and synchronicity, it has healed your wounds, digested your food, created life, given you the ability to think and move, and does everything in its power to adapt to your environment.
Our bodies deserve a trophy – or even better, your love and care.
And yet, in our ever-distracting and over-stimulating lives we rarely give our bodies this kind of attention until they start screaming at us. You throw out your back, develop infertility, autoimmunity, cancer, or maybe your digestion starts to struggle. It seems rare that we treat out bodies with care until they beg us for it in the form of ailment, uncomfortable symptom or disease. And then the Western solution is pharmaceuticals, surgery or other invasive treatment. It really requires looking outside of the allopathic model to get to the root of why our bodies are out of balance, and for most of us to do this we usually have to be pretty miserable.
We used to live off the land. We were in tune with the cycles of nature, and as a result, much more in tune with ourselves.
Today, it’s so easy to ignore and numb discomfort. Take a pill, smoke a joint, have a drink, turn on the TV, eat some sugar – take your pick, we all know the ways in which we ignore the messages our bodies give us. That headache, cold, rash, infection, bloating, gas, constipation, joint pain, puffy eyes, congestion, weight gain, anxiety and depression are all signs of something deeper that needs to be balanced. With the rapid advancement of technology we’ve forgotten how to listen to our bodies and properly nourish them. We eat convenience ‘foods’ lacking entirely of nutrition, overwork ourselves, and coast through life until we get that slap in the face to wake up.
I am SO grateful for the slaps I got. Yes, slaps- it took me a while to finally wake up. I numbed with Netflix, pot, sugar, social media, and alcohol for years before I fully honored what my body was trying to tell me in the form of chronic anxiety, fatigue and depression, IBS, acne, and insomnia – something was out of alignment. My mind convinced me that the marriage I was in was what I wanted, that the food I ate was okay because everyone else seems to tolerate it! But once I hit the brink of being suicidal, I decided that I would start listening to my heart – the only messenger we should listen to.
Our feelings are our truth. Your mind can tell you something else, but if your body doesn’t agree, it doesn’t matter how many series your binge or how much pot you smoke – your truth will only get louder.
In an effort to honor my body, I finally took responsibility and changed my diet from junk-filled ‘Franken-foods’ that are void of nutrition, to a 80% plant based, gluten-free and organic one. Within weeks my IBS calmed down, my digestion improved, and I started to feel more energy. What a shocker, right? What you eat DOES affect how you feel! I started detoxing my liver every quarter, using nutraceutical-grade supplements and after each detox felt more and more in tune with myself and my purpose on this planet. I became more self-aware and began paying attention to my emotions, realizing that the marriage I was in was creating anxiety and wasn’t in my highest good, so I left. And it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
This shit isn’t easy. It isn’t convenient. It isn’t always fun.
But is living with chronic fatigue, anxiety and depression easy, convenient or fun? Is bloating after every meal and feeling cramping and pain in my gut and joints easy, convenient or fun? Of course not. Giving up crappy food and substances was hard at first, but looking back, I would do it over and over again, because now I feel more alive and energetic than I ever have. I know how to feed my body properly and how to honor the feelings that it gives me to alert me if something I’m thinking or doing isn’t in alignment with my highest good.
What a gift my imbalances were. I thank them every day for forcing me to wake up. For teaching me how to love and respect my body with healthy food, thoughts and lifestyle. If I hadn’t felt really bad, I wouldn’t have learned the tools that will help me stay balanced and prevent disease for the rest of my life; that will help optimize the health of my future-children and hopefully not add to the ADD, diabetes, seizure and autism statistics that continue to skyrocket every year because of the toxic load parents pass down. Studies have found that over 250 neurotoxins and chemicals that cause cancer and brain-development issues are being passed down to children in utero. Heavy metals are being passed down through breast milk. The research is horrifying and yet we continue to feed our bodies these toxins through our food, household cleaning products, cosmetics and environment- because it’s ‘convenient’.
The only way to combat the toxic load of the 21stcentury is to detox and be responsible about the food and products you expose to your body.Chronic disease is no longer optional, it’s inevitable unless you make serious changes. This requires hard work and investment. It requires guidance and support to be done properly. There is so much conflicting information out there and unfortunately the medical community who should be guiding us to well-being is owned by the pharmaceutical industry who makes money when you are ill. They have no vested interest in you eating healthy or detoxing because then they lose a reliable customer. Think about it- the US is one of the only countries where it’s even LEGAL for pharmaceuticals to advertise. Why should YOU be the one to ask your doctor about this new drug (that has tons of negative side-effects but will magically make your ulcerative colitis symptoms go away and allow you to continue feeding your body garbage)? If your doctor cared about your health, wouldn’t they be the one to recommend this magical drug that covers up your symptoms?
It’s come down to a simple but difficult choice: you can either join the revolution of people taking their health and vitality into their own hands, or become a disease statistic because you don’t want to invest in something your insurance doesn’t pay for. This starts with education – start reading free resources online, watch free documentaries, ask more questions of your medical professionals. You don’t have to break the bank to empower and advocate yourself.
I’m 25 and have been eating organic and detoxing quarterly since I was 19, while waiting tables and driving for Uber. So don’t tell me you can’t afford it. It comes down to priorities. I don’t want my future kids and grandkids to struggle with gut and emotional imbalances because I didn’t want to do the work. Because it was “too expensive” and “too inconvenient”. If there’s a will, there’s a way, but first it starts with education. Knowledge is power, so start learnin’!
Netflix docs I highly recommend are Heal, What the Health, The Magic Pill, Forks Over Knives, and Cowspiracy – now you can Netflix and Learn!
Thousands of years ago ancient rishis in India came up with the same conclusion that Socrates came up with centuries later: that the universe, including humans, is made up of energy and not matter. It’s been called chi in ancient Taoism and prana in ancient Ayurveda, but either way, it translates to, “life force”.
But in the 17th century, Newtonian physics, which was widely accepted as conclusive science, said that the whole universe is like a big machine, made of matter and nothing else, therefore so are we. Western Medicine is still stuck in this concept, even though the rest of science has moved onto quantum physics, which says that as you go deeper into an atom, it is revealed that there is nothing there but energy waves.
An atom, the building block of the human body, is like an invisible forcefield which emits waves of electrical energy – it is made up of 99.99% energy and only .01% matter.
So if you want to have any impact on your experience of this life, you need to learn how to direct this energy, which can be done with your thoughts and the energy you allow in and around your body. In a time when chronic illness is rampant and anxiety is the norm, I think we could all benefit from learning this. Thousands of years ago in Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda, methods were discovered about how to direct this energy to prevent and reverse chronic imbalances – and they didn’t have smartphones or Netflix back then! So it’s all the more important we all are proactive about managing our personal energy not just to stay balanced and happy, but to reach our goals.
I’ve worked with clients in the past who get really pumped up and excited in the beginning of a program because they have a really clear goal and see a path to reaching it, but then once the real work begins, they lose steam.
When shit gets hard on a detox or another food protocol, and you’re sitting in front of Starbucks, craving your usual zap of stimulants, you’re going to need a “why” to turn your toosh around.
Your why should be like your mantra – it’s going to be something you need to come back to every day to remind yourself why you’re putting in this work, because trust me, your inner-teenager is going to come out swinging at some point, demanding cheese-fries and diet-coke, and you’ll want to make sure you’re equipped to gently move through it. And to do this, you’ll need a WHY.
Sit down and think about it. What is the sacrifice you’re currently making? Have you cut out a food like gluten or sugar? Are you trying keto for a while? Are you on a strict protocol to reverse an imbalance? Are you studying for a test or working on a job/college application? Are you on a strict workout regiment?
Once the sacrifice you’re making is clear, then ask yourself. WHY am I doing this? Maybe you’re doing Natural Infertility Solutions and are in preconception mode. Perhaps you’re on a weight-loss or autoimmunity protocol that requires clean eating and regular supplementation. Or maybe you’re working towards the career of your dreams.
I have to use my mantra almost daily. If I’m feeling rebellious and my inner-teenager tells me, “that second cookie is going to taste soooo good,” then I repeat my why: “I eat clean food and exercise regularly so that I can maintain a healthy weight and remain happy, energetic, and focused.”
Does this work every time? Uh, no, talk to me two days ago after my third cookie. Sometimes my stress eating resurfaces – no one is perfect. But this practice has gotten me through countless detoxes and cleanse protocols that I needed to do to attain the current level of balance that is my new norm (and the new cookies of choice are homemade, organic and paleo, not Otis Spunkmeyer like in the old days, so, ya know, progress).
Get clear on WHY you’re putting energy into a goal and come back to it when your defiant teenager wants to sabotage your progress.
I set reminders on my phone with my why to turn this into a habit, cause Lawd knows my teenager likes to complain. I keep telling her to go have fun with her friends, but man, she likes to bitch and moan. The more that you can see you why, the more your thoughts will be directed to it, and as a result, the more energy you’ll put towards your goal.
If you have questions about this process, don’t hesitate to reach out here or on Instagram or Facebook.
