A poem by Rumi for Valentine's Day: 

Whoever acts with respect will get respect.
Whoever brings sweetness
will be served almond cake. 

This Valentine's Day I think we can say that we deserve both, don't we? Respect AND almond cake!! And, yes, you can have both. (And you can lose weight, too.)

In this episode I don't recite any poems, though I should probably start to do so! However, I talk about all the many reasons why I love Valentine's Day, and how you can learn to love Valentine's Day, too (if you don't already). 

I also explain why glitter is so good for you, and how you can put it to use in your own life. 

And, of course, I always tie it back in with how you can craft a life that sparkles, and how to stay on track for natural weight loss while you celebrate life and  live in rhythm with the seasons! 

#smallsteps #bigmagic #alifethatsparkles

*I promise I will never share your email address with anyone.

It's time to declutter some of the emotions and energy that we've all been carrying around for the past two years.

Let's be honest: We are living in a crazy time. 

I know you might have just made the new year's resolution to lose weight or exercise every day or stop eating sugar or whatever... and likely that's already been knocked down and maybe you are feeling kind of hopeless about it already. 

We need to be a bit gentle on ourselves. You aren't going to succeed by trying to do it all at once. If you are sensitive or empathetic at all, trying to do so is going to leave you more depleted than ever. 

​The secret to success lies in...well, listen to the podcast ;) 

*I promise I will never share your email address with anyone.

I absolutely love drinking tea. It is such a wonderful ritual that makes me happy and keeps me grounded.

One of my favorite kinds of tea is chai, or as it's known in India, masala chai. Chai actually just means tea, and if you order chai, you'll get plain black tea. But order masala chai and you get the delicious and warming spiced brew that I'm in love with!

It's a radical act to skip the take out paper cups and make your own drinks these days. Doing so is one step towards reclaiming what you put in your body, therefore reclaiming your body, and also reclaiming your HEALTH!

Follow along as I make it here! So easy and delicious! 

Get more recipes for free and find the recipe in a beautiful paperback as well! Just click the image below!

With winter comes a time to turn inward and hibernate. So how does that go with reaching healthy goals, which we usually associate with doing MORE? Listen to find out!

*I promise I will never share your email address with anyone.

Don't bother listening to this episode unless you are ready to let go of the old way of doing things. The old ways of losing weight don't work, in fact they cause more harm than good!

​Diets and deprivation will never work. You need to look for a new way to lose weight based on intuitive eating, trusting yourself, and simple healthy eating. If you ARE ready to let go of the old ideas you may not realize you have been attached to, then please listen right now for what to replace them with! 

*I promise I will never share your email address with anyone.

I love to talk about your inner goddess (or gods). And when I talk about the inner gods/goddesses, I am actually talking about... wait for it... hormones!!! I bet you didn't see that one coming, did you?

Yes, to me, the gods/goddesses can help us see, in a real way, how we are out of balance, and how we can use the same skills of that out of balance goddess to prevent the problems, just as she causes the problems when she is out of balance. 

In this episode, I tell the story of Persephone, and how she can help us find peace and balance that can ultimately lead to weight loss in our lives by accepting our reality and living up to our best self within it!

​Enjoy! This is a fun one :) 

*I promise I will never share your email address with anyone.

I explore the life changes and societal pressures that result in putting ourselves last and making ourselves feel like crap, and I share how our wisdom can help us shift that, how we can rediscover the wisdom of our youth to merge the best of both worlds and create a healthy lifestyle that will bring us closer to our health goals, weight loss, and the work life balance that we need. I share a BIG IDEA that has been percolating in my mind for many years, and how you can apply that to make your life better!

*I promise I will never share your email address with anyone.

You are a leader. You are ambitious, and you are busy. The truth is, it's rewarding. It feels good to be successful!

However, when we begin to forget the other parts of who we are, your career can become unhealthy. What happens when you keep falling off the wagon when it comes to your health? When you make changes for a while, but just can't seem to sustain them?

It is hard to admit that the thing we prize most about our life - our successful career and the accolades that come with it - may be the exact thing that is disrupting our achievement and success in our health.

I know, as a fellow member of the Very Ambitious Person Society, that it can be really hard to think that I can't control or succeed at something that I am putting my mind toward. Really hard!

I want to let you know first and foremost - if you are not succeeding in health - it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH WILLPOWER!

There are a whole bunch of reasons why it has nothing to do with willpower... the primary reason is because willpower is finite and we use it up during the day so it will never work. Other reasons include circadian rhythms that make us lose our inhibitions when the sun goes down, which is why we always end up overeating at night (among other things we do without inhibition), and also because of hormones.

Hormones get their own paragraph. I'd give them their own article, but my business coach tells me they are too boring! Our hormones are in charge. It doesn't matter what we think or tell ourselves, in the end we do what our hormones tell us to do -- not what our brains are saying. Things that cause our hormones to hijack our actions: stress, emotional triggers (like a fight or a rough day), stress, age, stress, monthly changes, stress, sugar, stress, poor diet, stress, caffeine, and... did I mention stress?

If you are ready to take charge of your health a different way, then I have the answer. It all starts with aligning our actions with our values. If you really truly desire to reach and maintain your body's ideal natural weight, then it is time to prioritize it. This is the part where you pull that thread and see where it leads you. The actions you need to take are not the same as the ones I need to take or any of my other clients need to take.

Finding the middle ground seems elusive in the beginning, because we aren't used to taking it. Lots of my clients tell me they really don't know what the middle ground would be. That applies with clients who are looking to give up the dieting mindset (of deprivation as the only way to lose weight) as well as create sustainable exercise patterns (not going hard for 6 weeks... then quitting). No matter what your middle ground is, if you are used to going "all in" it can be hard to figure out how to do something else... something that may feel like "not enough" but in reality is exactly the answer that will allow you to succeed! We have to carve new neural pathways to do this. The steps are simple, though not always easy.

I always approach things by focusing on practical steps you can take right now - using smart scheduling (and, OK, a teeny tiny bit of willpower - just in the beginning!) I couple this logistical side, or "pre-planning" as I call it, with the emotional/spiritual/hormonal/stress detangling.

So as we figure out what your emotional/spiritual/hormonal/stress triggers are and eliminate them from the source, you sustain yourself with the pre-planning, and eventually these meet in the middle... Yes! That is the middle ground that we are looking for!

And it is from this middle ground that you really can achieve your ambitions in both career and health, without sacrificing one for the other, but truly having it all!
​

I like to dabble in woo. Check out the latest of it while I tell you all about how I went from believing I had rheumatoid arthritis (wrong) to being too anemic to go get my blood drawn and confirm it (true) to finding out I had adrenal fatigue (also true)... and how all of that led me to hang up crystals in the corners of my house!!!! 

(It says download, but it actually opens in a new window where you can stream it.)

*I promise I will never share your email address with anyone, and I am very considerate of how often I email you, approximately 1-3 times per month. I will only use your email to let you know about new podcast episodes, when I release books and journals, and occasionally send you gifts :)  

Balancing being the primary caregiver and growing a business and writing books is, well... it's tough to say the least. 


Identify Your Needs

I've realized lately that I NEED time to be focused and productive. It is the reason I started a business in the first place! But even though I knew that was behind starting a business, I see that the opportunity to do my work in a focused, UNinterrupted environment is really a core need I have... and one having young kids who are only in school part of the day really impedes upon! 

I struggle with how best to use my childfree time... do I take care of myself? Do I run errands (that are way easier on my own of course)? Do I try to buckle down and get my work done?  

And of course, when I'm talking about just a few hours per day, those hours go FAST!!! Just making sure I exercise take up a third of that time!!! And, exercise, I've come to realize, is also a non-negotiable!!! 

Of course as someone who has a lot of ambition for both my family and my business..and my self!  It is really hard to take care of all three to the level that I desire.  

Oh, especially without cutting into my sleep!!!!!! 

Yes, it's complicated. 


Observe How Things Affect You

I definitely don't have all the answers. What I find is that I can only do some of those at once. 

There are time I cut into my sleep, and then realize that makes me feel shitty. 

There are times I quit exercising, and then realize that makes me feel shitty. 

There are times I do not focus on work, and then realize  that makes me feel shitty 

There are time I don't do self care, and then realize that makes me feel shitty! 


PRIORITIZE!

The best plan I have right now is to let go of the crap I really don't care about - no clean house, no fancy meals - just tried and true recipes, no big parties. (Don't get me wrong... I LOVE PARTIES!!! I just have to put hosting them on hold for a while... I do a pool party once a year in the summer, and that is easy since all everyone does is hang out by the pool, but otherwise, they have been temporarily arrested.) 

And then, honestly, I cycle through my other priorities... so I don't ignore one area entirely,  I just give it up a little until I need to bring it back. 

I walk instead of doing classes (until I crave the strength and yoga).
I work less (until I want to work more).
I eat cheese and crackers and carrots and dip (until I need something more grown up).
I stay up a bit too late (until I get crabby and go to bed earlier).

Well, you get the idea! 


And Reality Check...

I know this isn't necessarily the most inspiring approach, but it's the most realistic. Sometimes we just need a reality check. There is so much bullshit out there about how you can have it all...and I think you can. But you can't necessarily have it all at one time, and that's ok.  


Enjoy the Ebb and Flow

It's actually one reason why writing my books has been so awesome for me right now! I love the cycle of book writing. I do the writing - that usually comes in bursts of inspiration and the journals are usually written in a week or two! (My longer books sometimes come in several periods of inspiration spread out over time.)

Then, there is a period of handing a lot of work over to others... that feels great! The content is written, and it starts to transform into an actual book with the help of others! 

Then the tedious finalization... I look forward to someday outsourcing this, but for now I want to have the final say so I have to be part of the last steps :) 

Then... the launch! This gets exciting again and so I'm re-energized!!! 

Then... time to rest... before I take on another project :)