Your Emotions Matter
It's funny how life tends to focus on themes at times. It's come up for me a LOT lately-- working with clients, my continuing clinical education, new research studies, and even a class on emotions offered at my church!
It’s the truth that our connection with our emotions is vital to our overall physical health AND the health of our relationships.
For a long time in many different circles we've been told our feelings aren't trust-worthy. We've been told not to believe what we feel, that any displays of emotions are unstable and to be avoided.
This advice, whether it came from church, or parenting "experts", or even the political realm, is just plain wrong.
Emotions are signals, just like pain or reflux or sleepiness, to give us information about what is happening to us. Emotions are ALSO mechanism to PROCESS what is going on inside us and all around us.
This is the work of our generation: for women AND men-- to undo the bad reputation that has been given to our emotional selves, to better integrate our "feelings" with the rest of us, and to understand how to connect deeply with the emotions of others.
Are you looking for help connecting YOUR emotional life to the rest of you? To understand how emotions that feel too big or too small or too overwhelming may be signals your body is sending you, begging you to address? This is a big part of what holistic healthcare is about-- Integrating you as a whole person, to be wholly well.
Get in touch to talk more about what this kind of care can look like for you!
You are a whole person
So often we are told to look at ourselves and our lives as parts. There’s divisions everywhere. Work life, home life, church life, social life, recreation time, educational time, down time…. The list goes on and on….
But we’re really not designed to compartmentalize everything that goes on in our lives. Our home life impacts work, our social life bleeds into home life. Who decides what’s educational versus recreational?!
Our bodies work the same way. Mental health, physical health, spiritual well being—these can’t be compartmentalized either. Our gut makes many of our hormones. Our emotions and how we express them are greatly impacted by MANY body processes including hormonal regulation. Our outlook, even our tendency towards optimism or pessimism is impacted by the health of our bodies.
We are whole people. Complex and nuanced and amazing.
This is why modern western healthcare has problems.
There are specialist for every part of the person— Psychiatrists, cardiologists, dermatologists, gastroenterologists… Too often the specialists have a very myopic view of the issue.
We need to pull back the lens.
Skin issues often are rooted in gut health. Gut imbalances can be caused by MANY things from what and when you eat to stress. Stress can be exacerbated by diet, sleep, and the lack of a mediative routine.
Specialists in medicine have their place of course! And nutritional therapy (and other holistic modalities) doesn’t necessarily take the place of your physician. But we must return to a place where we don’t lose the forest for the trees.
Holistic health practitioners do NOT separate the person into little compartments. We look at the whole person, Body, Mind, and Soul.
Get in touch to talk more about what that kind of care can look like for you!
RESTART Your Health
Are you ready to make some changes but don’t know where to begin?? I am offering a a five week virtual group class/guided sugar detox starting Wednesday Jan 11 at 7pm (ET). Click the link below or contact me for more info!
Class full or need a different day and time?? Tell me on the form above! Classes are forming all the time.
It’s a powerful and effective way to jump-start your health this new year. Don’t wait.
Your Diet is THE Foundation of Real Health
It’s a brand new year and the perfect time to take to make a move towards a healthier YOU.
There are several systems in our body that need to work together properly that need to be in order for any of us to obtain optimal health. But for those systems to function we need to give our bodies the right building blocks.
WHAT you eat and HOW it’s sourced and prepared if the foundation of REAL HEALTH.
It’s not about trendy diets. It’s not about limiting calories. It’s not even about depriving yourself of what you want to eat. It’s about nourishing YOUR body with REAL food.
🎯The goal is a Nutritionally Dense, Properly Prepared, Bio-Individually Balanced, Whole Food Diet.
Nutritionally dense— that’s the opposite of empty calories. To feel your best your food needs to contain both macro nutrients (proteins, fats, carbohydrates), and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). Not all calories are created equal. The 300 calories in an avocado are MUCH more useful to the body than 300 calories of cookies.
Properly Prepared —HOW food is cooked and stored matters!! Deep frying, high heat, using too much water are all examples of cooking methods that can lose important nutrients. When we look back over human history we see traditional ways of cooking and preparing foods, like slow roasting, stewing sprouting, fermenting, that not only enhance the nutrition of the food but the digestability and the flavor!
Bio-Individually Balanced- because we all have different needs and circumstances! To be truly healthy we need a balance of proteins, fats, and carbs that is individual to each of our needs. There are lots of popular diets out there that focus on one or 2 of these macronutrients, but usually a person can only maintain these diets short term . Finding the right nutrition plan for you is largely about finding what ratio of these macros work for your body!
Whole Food Diet—foods that are not processed and do not have added ingredients. Whole foods like fruits, vegetables, cuts of pasture raised meats, raw dairy, and nuts and seeds have complex combinations of nutrients that work together synergistically. Our body recognizes them as food and can utilize them more effectively. Whole Foods are more nutrient dense than processed foods. The benefits of eating real foods is HUGE!
Stay tuned for part 2 of these Foundations where we talk about digestion and how important it is to tour over health and wellness!! 💕
Time Around the Table is Priceless
Real food isn’t just about nourishing the body. Real food takes a bit more time and care to prepare. It takes more intention and thought. Preparing real ingredients in traditional ways takes a shift in culture. When you spend some time cooking, for yourself or for your family, there is a layer of appreciation and connection that comes through the food. Family and friends gathering around a dinning room table or a kitchen island to eat a home cooked meal can be some of the most special time people share together. Eating food prepared for you, facing each other as you eat, talking and laughing, passing the potatoes or the butter, prayers of gratitude before or after…all these seemingly small things add up to fuller and richer memories associated with food. These times connect us in ways that seem to be immeasurable. It doesn’t have to be every day or even every week, but regular, intentional meals shared with the people we love is a gift to ourselves and to the world around us.
Do you want to add some slow home cooked meals into your life but don’t know where to start? Get in touch! We can explore simple ways YOU can start these precious traditions now.
The Most Powerful Cure
“Just as food causes chronic disease, it can be THE most powerful cure.” ~Hippocrates
The concept of food as the gateway to health or illness certainly isn’t new, it just seems to have been forgotten for a time. It’s a powerful yet simple concept: what you eat matters. And it matters a great deal. All the proteins and minerals that make up our bodies are built with the materials we provide it. What we eat and how it’s prepared is the foundation for our health. The concept of food as the gateway to health or illness certainly isn’t new, it just seems to have been forgotten for a time. What kind of foundation are we laying with the material we are using? One that is quick and convenient but gives little strength and leaves us vulnerable? Or are we creating a foundation that is strong and true and whole, helping us to weather what comes? We have a choice. It’s never too late to go back and strengthen that foundation.
The symptoms you’re dealing with right now just may be connected to the foods you’re eating and not eating. But that’s good news! Because that means YOU can do something about it. Even though food may have caused the problem it very well could be the ANSWER!
Get in touch and we can explore these answers together!
What is Nutrition Therapy…?
What we eat is intrinsically linked to our physical health AND emotional wellbeing. Low energy, anxiety, headaches, digestive distress, skin issues, hormone irregularities, blood sugar imbalances, and sleep disturbances are just a few examples of symptoms that can be directly related to the food we eat…and don’t eat. Providing your with the nutrition it NEEDS is the first step towards feeling and functioning at your BEST.
The foundational principle of Nutrition Therapy is the understanding that eating a properly prepared, nutrient dense, whole food diet can provide the fuel and essential building blocks your body needs to maintain health and function. My job is to identify areas that need attention and teach you how to make simple changes in your nutritional choices and routines to IMPROVE your quality of life. I will walk through this WITH you! And help you... Be WELL. Body, Mind, and Soul.