I’m writing you this week from one of the most polluted places in the world.
You guessed it—Northern California.
Emissions from the Camp Fire fires accumulated downstream in the San Francisco bay area, reaching record levels exceeding the most polluted cities on the planet.
Experiencing this level of toxicity has been profoundly eye opening about the human cost of uncontrolled pollution and…
I like to use Thanksgiving as a time to beef up my daily practice of gratitude.
It’s been looking like this lately…
I’m grumpy and annoyed to be displaced from my kitchen and living spaces (two months now!) while new flooring, lighting, and paint go in. The rest of the house is cluttered, dusty, and I can’t find anything!
But I get to do this. I get a new floor, gorgeous lighting and new wall…
I’ve been off the grid again. This time immersed in the science and wisdom of Lyme and tick-borne diseases (TBD) at the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) annual international conference.
I learned so much to help me care for these chronic, complex, long-suffering clients, increasingly showing up at my door.
I wanted to share some big themes.
ILADS clinicians and…
We get the truth of body-mind-spirit integration, don’t we?
But in our rush to get to the bliss and awe we forget about the work we have to do first. Right?
I think it starts with the body.
Maybe it’s just me, but when I don’t eat well, or skimp on sleep, or slack off—or push myself mercilessly—it’s hard to access bliss and awe.
That comes with the discipline and vigilance of self-care.
When I…
Do you ever think about how it’s possible to dare to hope and believe in a better future AND stay honest about your feelings as they are right now (which may be a soup of misery!)?
It’s a paradox!
On the one hand, we want to hold onto faith that our possibilities are endless, and our potential infinite. We want to drive that faith with the kinetic energy of hope. To make things…
I saw this powerful quote the other day:
Self-love is a subversive act.
In trying to find who said it (I think it was Brene Brown), I came across this:
Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.
-Audre Lorde, A Burst of Light (1988)
Nailed it. Both of them.
This is our trouble with self-care. It’s what I work…
Yah, I know, I know, Word and Google don’t like “feet-brain” connection. They insist on “foot-brain” connection!
But they’re wrong.
It’s not foot. Not for most of us. It’s feet. We have two feet and our brain relates to two feet. I stand firm. Feet-brain connection it is!
The best way to strengthen and enliven your feet, and increase the sensory information they send your brain to support you,…
Ever checked out the pain reliever isle at the grocery story? Seen the many shelves of Ibuprofen bottles lined up in all shapes and sizes? Labels promising to relieve practically everything that ails you?
Ibuprofen, part of a family of pain-relieving drugs known as “non-steroidal anti-inflammatory” drugs (NSAIDS), is the staple go-to pain and inflammation remedy in most American households, and…
Did you know that our feet give rise to nearly half of all sensory information transmitted to our brains?
Wow.
And this feet-to-brain relationship leads to powerful things (that make us powerful), like:
That’s right. Our feet strengthen us in our center. When activated, the…
One of the dangers of suffering is what happens when we distance ourselves from how we feel—when we numb the pain.
And it makes sense that we do this, right? We want to feel better. We need to feel better. We do whatever we can. What we know.
But with persistent suffering—the kind that comes with chronic pain, illness, depression, or trauma—(before we discover—and address—the root…
What if we think about self-care like this?
It doesn’t make us better. Not better versions of our selves. Not better than anyone else.
We may feel better, we may function at a higher level, we may experience life in a whole new and vibrant way, but we—who we truly are—was there all along.
Those savvy food plans and vigorous exercise regimens don’t make us stronger or more beautiful.
The…
We all know food is medicine by now. We know food has the molecular power to change our genetic expression, physiology, and function in infinite and profound ways. We know food is us at the most foundational level.
It works both ways. Food hurts. Food heals.
It’s easy to turn to foods that taste good, make us feel better, give us a “high,” a hit of pleasure to help us numb the suffering…
Sometimes we’ve just got to rest. Sometimes we’ve just got to go off grid. Sometimes we’ve just got to do nothing.
That’s what I’ve been doing this past week and it’s felt so dang good!
I turned my book into my editor last week… I was so ready to hand it off, so needing to disengage to put my brain somewhere else after the four month marathon of editing, following a four year creative…
The Foundational Intensive Nutrition Energy Food Plan (FINE)—a Real Food Plan for Energy Nutrition
This is your foundational energy nutrition healing food plan.
In some ways this food plan is about going back to our roots. To eating real food, grown in favorable conditions, prepared simply and deliciously, shared with those we love, eaten slowly, and just enough to meet our needs.
But its also…
I had a wonderful conversation with a friend the other day… We were both explaining the ways we’d been slowing down the pace of our lives. Doing just one thing at a time. Doing less. Working less. Playing more. Loosening expectations. Letting go of obligations that no longer feel like a good fit.
We spoke of this as if it were radical. Not quite whispering, or confessing (but…
True, we all want to be cured. We all want our pain to go away, our wounds to heal, our function to be restored, and our energy to soar.
But I think there’s more. I hear this in what my clients blurt out when I ask them about their goals and aspirations. How they want to feel like their true selves, to live their best lives, and reach their full potential.
They’re talking about healing.
And…
One of my greatest challenges as a physician is to get out of the way of my clients’ healing.
Inspired by wanting to help them feel better, to relieve their suffering, and achieve their goals, it’s tempting to try to “fix” things. To lock in on their pains and problems and employ every root cause-level magic bullet in the toolkit. When what they most need is for me to get out of their…