Many of my clients show up seeking big, sweeping solutions to their digestion issues. They often see food as the problem and so they want to get big diagnostic tests that spit out answers that say “avoid this food and this food and your digestive issues will be solved!” While this is a great part of a plan for many folks, the truth is that there’s a lot we can do to improve our digestion without having to take a single test—it’s all about shifting our mindset while we eat.
Read MoreOne theme I’m noticing with clients lately is the progress that can be made when we focus energy on optimizing our primary relationships. Too often we approach our health with a siege mentality, laying out extensive battle plans to get our food, diet, supplements, and exercise on track. Like military generals, we endlessly strategize over which tactics will work here, what attack we might pursue over there. In the meantime, a critical area of health goes completely neglected, and often suffers: our relationships. Read more here
Read MoreIn autoimmune disease, we often learn the hard way that the decisions we make—about what we put in our body, when to go to bed, which activities to participate in, you name it—have a direct impact on how we feel.
We can go years not giving a rip about any of these things, only to realize as we become aware of our disease that they’ve been playing a major role in how we feel. It’s a huge shift in perspective and it can be so empowering to know that we can make choices to make ourselves feel better.
I’ve noticed a common theme emerging among my clients, though, as a sort of “dark side” to this perspective shift: they get caught up in analyzing every single choice they’ve made and how it makes them feel, worrying that it was “right” or “wrong.” Read more about how this can end up having a negative impact on quality of life, health, and even relationships.
Read MoreI love summer, but I also find it challenging. Juggling my kids’ schedules without the predictable structure of a school schedule alone is enough to stop me in my tracks! And for my autoimmune clients, I’ve noticed that all the spontaneous social activity can be depleting and even debilitating. For many folks with autoimmune issues, a failure to effectively manage and balance energy throughout the season can lead to physical consequences in the form of exacerbated symptoms. Read more here.
Read MoreAnger is a pretty loaded emotion. Culturally, we tend to try to suppress anger and oftentimes don’t allow ourselves to experience it. I have found that my autoimmune clients frequently experience SIGNIFICANT anger — at their disease, at their body for not functioning properly, at themselves for being the way that they are, and even at past events that continue to bother and haunt them — but they often also tell themselves that they shouldn’t outwardly express their frustrations. Instead, they ignore them or bottle them up, only adding to their body’s stress response, and, you guessed it, exacerbating their autoimmune systems (more on that in a minute.) Read more about anger and autoimmune disease here.
Read MoreI’m a huge fan of the work of Jen Sincero, author of the bestselling You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Live an Awesome Life. Her work encourages us to set aside our fears and fiercely own our lives through awareness, intention, and gratitude. Through her use of real life examples — and with plenty of good humor — she helps the reader to feel empowered amidst the challenges we all face, elevating our lives to a place that is more authentic and loving.
It shouldn’t surprise readers of this blog that this work resonates in the world of autoimmune disease. We know the value of positioning ourselves in empowerment rather than victimhood. We understand the importance of intentionally creating our lives each day and nurturing a mindset of healing. These messages are resonating with my health coaching clients across the board in large part because they haven’t been present in our traditional approach to healing autoimmune disease. Read more here.
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