Made For Living Well

I spent many years attempting to hack my behavior. Forcing change, trying to make something budge. It's the typical approach to life and health that appears like it should work. Logically doing something should create something different. And it does, but only if you change the pattern because your pattern produces the outcome you experience. If you have a problem, that problem was birthed out of a pattern. Change requires shifting the pattern, and that starts by understanding the pattern (learn your pattern here). When you know the pattern, you can influence it by creating better skills. Skills reinforce behaviors, even those you want to change. I am skilled at sleeping past my alarm. I'm skilled at waiting too long to prepare food until I'm ravenous and will eat anything. I'm skilled at overthinking, worrying, and anxiety. I'm skilled at things that reinforce the outcomes, creating the problems I want to change. Changing this requires influencing the pattern with better skills. Part two of this podcast mini-series teaches you how to transform the goal into skills you need to develop to create a better outcome. Change requires you to focus on developing the skills you need to create change. Ask yourself what skills you want to develop this year. I'm not talking about your average skill, like getting skilled at weightlifting. But the everyday mundane skills necessary to influence your patterns. Learn More: https://thelivingwell.com/319 Additional Resources to get you started building better patterns and setting healthier resolutions: Upgrade Your Wellness Routine With This Tip 5 Ways To Guarantee Health Success 15 Healthy Habits To Take Into The New Year Why I Gave Up Finding Myself (Real Story) The Power of A Habit

I'll be the first to admit I've set many resolutions. Yet I've never achieved a single one. At least not that I can recount. Yet, I keep going back to the same approach, hoping one of these years it will work. I never blamed the act of setting resolutions for why they didn't work, but I always blamed myself. In the last few years, I re-evaluated the traditional resolution approach. I even begged you not to set resolutions, claiming it's not the answer to what you are seeking. But then I started to question if that was another extreme approach that neglected the answer. What if resolutions do work, but the problem is how we work or don't work to achieve them. What if the answer was our actions? The problem is we're attempting resolutions with the wrong approach. Inside the three-part mini-series, I'm breaking down the three important steps to set the resolutions and actually achieve them. It begins by understanding you don't have a problem. You have a pattern. And that pattern feeds or enables the problem. When you know what pattern you are living in, you can break it to create a new one. That changes everything about your outcome. Learn more by listening to this episode and be sure to read the blog post to get all of the details: https://thelivingwell.com/318 Additional resources to get you started building better patterns and setting healthier resolutions: Upgrade Your Wellness Routine With This Tip 5 Ways To Guarantee Health Success 15 Healthy Habits To Take Into The New Year Why I Gave Up Finding Myself (Real Story) The Power of A Habit

Leaky gut seems to be a national crisis. While diet is certainly a factor, the larger issue is stress or the lack of safety inside your physiology. Maria-Victoria Albina of The Feminist Wellness Podcast came on this podcast to share the response of the nervous system on our GI tract and the fight for safety within our biology. We talk about the polyvagal theory, co-dependence, and how to regulate your nervous system to heal your biology. Healing your gut is more than a food issue. It's a lifestyle response. OTHER RESOURCES TO CHECK OUT: 7 Signs Your Nervous System is Dystregulated: https://thelivingwell.com/317 5 Ways To Use Your Nervous System To Get Healthy: https://thelivingwell.com/5-ways-to-use-your-nervous-system-to-get-healthy/ How To Feel More Energized And Stop Storing Body Fat: https://thelivingwell.com/how-to-feel-more-energized-and-stop-storing-body-fat/ How You Heal: Regulate Your Nervous System: https://thelivingwell.com/how-you-heal-regulate-your-nervous-system/ Put An End to Schedule Shaming and Create A Life You Love: https://thelivingwell.com/2024-nourished-planner

It's easy to get sucked into the black-and-white trap of health. It's either good or bad, healthy or unhealthy. Leaving many people attempting tasks and eating foods that perhaps are healthy for some but not others. The problem with this picture is it diminishes the secret of health. That secret is what your body is doing with what you provide. And that shifts the focus from perfecting the external ideas to understanding how your body reacts. Health requires internal awareness. Of course, health takes work. You're going to have to do things to create it. But don't get so lost in doing that you miss how your body is responding. Pay attention to what your body needs and do more of that. And remember, anything out of balance becomes unhealthy—even healthy things taken to a new level become unhealthy. In this podcast, I share three healthy things making you unhealthy. It's always about balance. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/316

My therapy journey began because I wanted to stop feeling. Most therapy begins because you want to change how you feel. At least feeling the things you didn't want to feel. Just like I wanted emotional control in the form of only feeling what I wanted to feel and never feeling what I didn't. Arguably, we'd all love that superpower. To feel the good without ever experiencing the bad. But it doesn't exist, and for good reason. All feelings are valid. They have a purpose, even the painful ones. But most people have gotten good at avoiding or numbing feelings as a way to deal with them. But it never deals with them. It just masks them. Feelings are part of being human. You were created to feel, which means you should feel. The journey to healing is not by suppressing the feeling but by learning how to feel without being controlled by the feeling. CHANGE HOW YOU FEEL BY UNDERSTANDING WHAT YOU FEEL. When I went to therapy, I didn't know how much control I had over how I felt or at least the ability to change it. I spent so much time trying to run from feelings and create a life where I wouldn't have to feel the things I didn't want to that I missed the beauty of healing emotions and using those feelings to create a better life. I realized the superpower we're looking for is not diminishing our feelings but creating better ones. It's being able to feel everything while using what you feel to shift your actions because you know how to heal them. Emotional regulation is the superpower. That happens through healing your nervous system. I brought Mandy L. Harvey on the podcast to talk about emotional regulation, healing from trauma, and how to feel without getting hurt by what you feel but using it to thrive. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/315

Health has been hard. I want to emphasize the has as a past-tense explanation. Because while it might have been difficult, it doesn't have to be that way. You don't have to live complicating health. It's only difficult because we've let it become that. Perhaps not you personally, but the endless external ideas about what health means are overwhelming, even confusing, but only because we've neglected to understand health for what it is. And in the process, we've over-romanticized the outcome of health that we've neglected the process. When you romanticize the outcome while hating the process, you create a fantasy of health rather than the reality of it. I get it. The end goal is enticing. I don't think anyone can argue that we'd love to rock our skinny jeans and never have to worry about getting sick again. We'd love to arrive at that destination of health forever and always. But health doesn't look or work like that. Honestly, I think that's more of a gift than we let ourselves believe. Health is a flow. It's growth and movement that is changing as we change. Because of that, it requires you to embrace the process. The process of living health makes it personal and practical. In this podcast, we talk about romanticizing the process of living healthy and the top five ways to stop complicating health so you can start living it. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/314

Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) seems to be trending right now. While traditionally, I shy away from the fads of the moment. I had my eye on this one. Rather than another shot in the dark, continuous glucose monitoring offered tangible results in real-time. Unlike the scale, CGM opened up the internal workings of my biology to understand how it responded to what I did. In real time, I was able to see how my body was responding. More than what I do, health is truly how my body responds. Understanding this piece of data allowed me to create change, not on ideas, but facts. It helped me feel better than I have in a long time. I loved it so much that my husband also decided to take it for a test spin. Inside this podcast, we talk about our results (some that were shocking) and the changes we've made to help regulate our blood sugar. And we both share our opinions on whether continuous glucose monitoring is worth the investment. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/313

Food can be such a fight. In one breath, you genuinely enjoy food and want to enjoy the process of it. But in other, it's terrifying. Your mind races with questions on what to eat, how much, will this make me fat, or what if it's not good for me? There are so many messages and ideas it's hard to imagine thinking anything but dread when it comes to food and your body. But this is not the intended design of food. Food isn't to be feared. It's to be enjoyed and used to nourish yourself, just as your body isn't to be hated but loved and cherished for its role in helping you live your life. It may not be a common thought, but you can experience food freedom. You can have the best of both worlds, enjoying food and loving your body. In this podcast episode, I interview Jessi Jean, Mind Body Eating Coach, on what it looks like to experience food freedom and how we get there. If you intellectually know how you want to act with and around food but can't seem to get yourself to do it, this podcast is for you. Learn how to change your patterns to stop emotionally eating. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/312

Managing blood sugar is not a new conversation, but it is worth having, especially considering the health benefits you could experience by learning how to lower blood sugar levels. Common thought has been to eliminate sugar and restrict all carbs, but blood sugar management is more than just a food problem. It's a lifestyle. I interviewed Dr. Casey Means on the podcast to discuss blood sugar regulation and what she has learned since co-founding the company Levels. Levels provide an easy-to-use app connected to a continuous blood glucose monitor to give you results in real time. I took it for a test run and was shocked by the results. Inside the podcast, I ask Dr. Means about the diet and lifestyle recommendations she has found to be the most successful in regulating blood glucose levels. I was surprised to hear her number one tip had nothing to do with food. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/311

Getting healthy requires hasn't been easy. But are you overcomplicating what should be simple? Here are five truths to change your health. I've spent some time pondering how many things in life I overcomplicate. The conclusion came to nearly everything. In the past, I have complexified my health routine, how it should look to spend time with God, and overthought nearly every hard conversation I've ever had. I spend so much time in confusion that I suffocated any new idea or thought that might pull me out. It wasn't until I realized confusion was the fuel keeping me stuck that I stopped letting confusion be an answer. I stopped letting it be the final say. Health happens to be considered one of the most confusing topics of today. But I'm arguing it shouldn't be. Confusion is only holding you back from living out health. But doing that means breaking down what you thought about health, redefining it, and choosing to live it even when you don't fully understand it. Health is an action. Inside this podcast, I break down the five critical tools of healing and how to use them to change your health. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/310

Forgiveness is hard. It's messy, overwhelming, and scary. And it often feels better left alone. Yet, it is one of the most powerful healing modalities we have. Forgiveness is considered one of our most significant forms of freedom. Learning to embrace forgiveness as a way of life changes the entire outcome of your story. I know firsthand the power of forgiveness. I also know how difficult it is to forgive. At least until you learn what true forgiveness is, outside of what you've been told. There's more to the story of forgiveness. I don't want the overwhelming artificial beliefs to prevent it from being the powerful tool of healing that it is. Inside the podcast, I dive into the biological response to a lack of forgiveness and what forgiveness can do for your health. I also break down what forgiveness is, what it is not, and how to make forgiveness a way of life to experience more life. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/309

Healing requires you to consume more healing foods. Foods that make you feel light and alive. Learn the difference between negative energy foods and positive energy foods designed to help you heal. Food isn't just food. It can be, but it's also so much more than that. Yet, at the same time, it's nothing like what we have understood it to be. Common thought leaves you believing food can change how you look and even how you feel. In a roundabout way, it can. But your body ultimately determines the outcome you experience. Meaning the power of food is what your body makes of it. Your health is determined by what your body chooses to do with what you provide. You can't change your body. That is up to your body. But you can influence what your body does by learning how to support the body based on what it needs. Food can not change you, but it can support you. Healing requires the support provided by food through the nourishment it contains. Healing and healing food is not a metric of energy but the nutrients the food contains. Inside this podcast, I dive into the power of healing foods, what they are, and how to pattern your diet to support health and healing. I also share common "health foods" you should avoid. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/308

It feels ironic I am writing a post on emotional mastery. If I'm honest, I still have more moments than I'd like to admit where my emotions get the best of me. But, I do realize, like all things in health, perfection doesn't exist. Emotional mastery is not about never feeling but acknowledging how you feel and controlling your feelings so they don't control you. It's here your entire biology shifts from stress to health by learning how to manage your emotions. YOUR FEELINGS RUN YOUR BIOLOGY. Understanding your feelings run your biology makes a lot of sense if we look at diet history or even health history. Perhaps it even makes sense of what hasn't made sense. No matter how many 'right' things you do, if you're working from a negative emotional state, doing things doesn't have the same impact. Because the negative emotional state has more hold over your biology than simply trying to eat better, making it nearly impossible to change when you feel terrible about yourself. Of course, food matters, and it can change the way you feel. It's why we eat emotionally. A pint of ice cream can ease the pain. Food can change how you feel. If it didn't, you wouldn't come back to it. The problem isn't emotional eating. It's exchanging your power, giving it to food rather than holding the power to choose food based on how you want to feel. It's using food to dictate how you feel rather than understanding the power you hold to change how you feel. Emotions hold a massive amount of power. The key to a healthier life is working for the long-term good, not the temporary feeling. Working to achieve a place where you do it when you feel like it and even when you don't because you know, in the end, it is good. Emotion is the power driving the outcome of what you do. Inside this podcast, we dive into the emotional component of biology and how to create emotional mastery. I teach you the art of re-parenting yourself, sitting in hard feelings, and creating confidence even when you don't like where you are. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/307

One of the leading problems in the health space, really in life, is how we segment everything into specific parts or systems. We separate our work life from our home life and health from our spiritual life. Even within the body, you have endless systems you work to fix. This separation of the parts of your life is preventing you from healing. Healing requires you to understand no matter how unique each is, they are all connected. In the process, we overcomplicate health by segmenting it into parts rather than seeing the theme running through the whole. That theme is energy. When I was sick, I just wanted to feel better. I wanted to feel light, vibrant, and healthy. I wanted to feel energized. But instead of keeping it simple, by supporting my energy, I dove deep into the complexities. I had a hormonal problem and several diseases. All of which felt overwhelming and all-consuming, leaving me unable to see the whole picture and the rest of me. I didn't see that my emotional baggage was weighing me down, both figuratively and literally, changing how my body responded. And I certainly didn't understand how my thoughts created my need to keep body fat around. I failed to understand that while my mind, body, and soul may be different, they are all connected. And it's this connection that changes the outcome. Meaning it's not just about how you eat or what you do to change your body. But it's understanding how those changes are equally affecting your mind and soul but even more how your whole is interacting and relating to others, your environment, and the world around you. They may be separate, but they're connected. Healing isn't just personal, it's communal, and the connecting link is energy and healing your energy field. Inside the podcast, we talk about this intimate connection within the energy movement of your mind, body, and soul and how that radiates out of you to create your energy field. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/306

Love heals. Specifically self-love. But it requires a healthy ego that works to connect your mind, body, and soul. Learn how to heal your ego inside this post. I got into the health space wanting desperately to fix people, believing if I could fix them, I could fix myself. I didn't call it that at the time. Honestly, my heart hurt over how much time people invested into the health space that seemed to take more than it gave back. Growing up, I watched countless women I know give everything, even losing themselves to something that made them more miserable than when they started. They chased a place people told them would make them happy. Yet, few arrived. It was a vicious cycle of self-hate that I desperately wanted to break, for them, but also for me. It wasn't until years later that I realized the hard way no one in the history of the world has ever hated themselves healthy. Hate and healing do not go together. They're antagonists. Yet the only thing we know about getting healthy has been a form of self-escape related to self-hate. But this isn't the way. It can't be. In this podcast, I tell you why self-hate and disassociation prevent you from healing. I also share the survival mechanism of your ego that turns self-hate into self-inflammation, masking self-hate in artificial forms of self-love but in ways that leave people sick, lonely, overwhelmed, and even hopeless. Instead, the answer is love, and yes, even self-love. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/305

I've long lived looking for something that would 'fix' me. A resource that would make all of my problems disappear. Some call it the easy button. Others are looking for the pill or the quick fix. No matter what it was, we'd all agree it needed to create healing without the pain and potential for failure. I used to think it was the work people (including myself) tried to escape by seeking the easy solution. But after walking through my healing journey, I know it's not the work I'm afraid of. It's the potential of the work not working out. It's the fear that nothing will change. Most people are willing to do crazy things and hard things. In some cases, it seems like they would do almost anything if it would guarantee results. It's not the work people are trying to escape. It's the fear no amount of work will create healing. But healing is possible, not for the minority but everybody. The key is understanding how you heal so your work is done in the right direction. Far too many people invest their efforts into an external approach when all healing happens internally. All healing happens the same way: creating safety in your nervous system to produce balance that opens up energy flow, allowing you to thrive. Inside this podcast, I teach you how to create safety in your nervous system by understanding the polyvagal theory. I also give you practical tools based on the scale of affect regulation to help you know where you stand from regulated to dysregulated and how to regain balance. The key to health is not perfection. It's not arriving at a destination. It's knowing and surrendering to the understanding that life will pull you out of balance. You will become dysregulated. Health is knowing how to regulate yourself to create safety and open up your energy flow no matter what is happening around you. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/304

Healing wasn't a part of my plan. My goal in nutrition was to prevent anything that would require healing by preventing disease and injury. I believed I could control myself from needing to heal by living healthy forever, not knowing that health is a daily healing, not the prevention of it. When I crashed, I was forced into healing. The only other option was to live stuck in my illness. Before getting sick, I had spent so much time trying to prevent health problems by securing the arrival at a destination I thought would bring me permanent health that I completely misunderstood what it meant to live healthy. Health is not the absence of disease or injury (although limiting this is ideal). It's not the prevention of a place that requires healing. Health is learning how to heal. It's daily action that supports healing. And when you learn to heal and practice healing, your body will become far healthier. But getting there means changing your view of what healing means. It's changing your view of what health means. Moving away from the external chase and into the internal healing by building a new story of health that leans into daily healing. Inside the first podcast in this eight-part series called How You Heal, I help you understand the story your current life revolves around and how that is changing your biology. In the process, you will learn to shift that story, opening up to an internal approach to healing. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/303

Most people want to live healthy. The question isn't about desire. It's how do you achieve it? I got into the health space to save people from their health struggles (namely weight loss). I thought if I could help you lose weight, I could make you happy, and this passion fueled my work. But five years in, I realized many people are fighting through health, doing all of the 'right things' and not getting results. These same people have poured their lives into something that has never given back to them. A problem so large that it left me questioning the method of chasing health. I realized there had to be something different. I realized we are missing health because we're neglecting the only thing that creates change within your biology, your level of safety. No matter how many "right things" you do, if your body isn't safe, it won't change. The outcome you experience is directly related to your level of safety. It's the untold truth about health and the very thing you need to understand to change. Inside this podcast, we dive into how to create safety inside your body and produce the outcomes you desire. Stop being your own worst enemy and create the lasting change you've been looking for. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/302

Change is hard, but it doesn't have to be impossible. Learn the secrets to making change happen in this podcast episode. Discover the five ways to guarantee success, including self-discipline, consistency, and pleasure. Find out how to think abundantly and live confidently to achieve your goals to guarantee health success. Change is hard. Even good change can feel impossible. But on some level, don't we all want to change? The question is how? How do you do the things you know you should? Spoiler alert: Willpower or good intentions won't create change. They're needed but not essential. The essentials to change, and the only way you'll do it, is by making change safe and pleasurable. The two metrics we often disregard for a metric of change that looks like deprivation, starvation, and restriction. The path of change I thought was required to make it happen. I had spent the better part of six years beating my body into submission while believing subconsciously that my self-hate would force me to be healthy. In reality, hate and health do not go together because hate and change conflict. They work against each other, leaving you running for your old patterns, the ones you desperately want to change. But that doesn't make change impossible. It just makes the way we've been trying to change impossible. Inside this podcast, I share the secrets of change that guarantee success. Plus, I challenge you to engage with something hard. Because your body craves hard things. It was made for hard things. But only when you balance that with pleasure and desire. Learn the secrets inside. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/301

The connection between our body, mind, and soul is wildly understudied. Yet understanding the connection and communication between the three is vital in changing your life. Inside all of us is a specific language that directs your outcome. This doesn't mean your body is speaking a foreign language, but the language of health is what you speak about yourself and how you speak about the world around you. Think of your language as your perception. That perception creates your reality. Take the language of body fat. If you repeatedly tell yourself, "I'm so fat," that becomes your perception, creating your reality. It seems crazy, perhaps because we don't want to believe our words have that much control. But they do. What you speak is powerful, creating or reinforcing the story you live. Learning a better language can change your outcome shifting your reality to create health. Inside this podcast, Registered Dietician and mindset coach Cole Berschback of Total Potential shows us how to build a better language in health through learning how to feel, release past hurts and rewrite your story. We also talk about the importance of posture and family systems in health. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/300

Learn how shame affects your identity and how God's love can replace shame with a new story through the powerful example of the woman at the well in John 4. Discover the difference between guilt, sin, and shame and how to confront your deep places to allow God to change your story and shift the way you live. I grew up in a culture of scary faith. Not only did I constantly question my salvation, but I also lived by checking off the boxes of being a 'good' Christian girl. It felt like an impossible battle that kept me in a place of shame. I don't want to blame shame for my sin. Biblically, sin came before shame (Genesis 3:1-11). But shame has a way of pushing us further into sin. Because shame, unlike sin, acts on our identity, shifting our belief about who we are. Instead of sin being what we do, shame makes it who we are. And when it becomes who you are, it becomes part of your life. Like an appendage, you may not like it, but you can't escape it, at least not without changing your identity and your story. This podcast talks about God's view of shame using the story of the woman at the well in John 4. It's a story that shows God's deep devotion to changing your story, removing your shame, and being filled with his love. God wants to write a new story through you. To shift your identity and replace the shame with his love. I pray this podcast brings you a better understanding of God's deep and immense love for you and why He sent His only son to rescue you. A gift you cannot earn but only accept. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/299

You've been told wrong. Happiness isn't a place. It's a way of life. Learn how to find happiness in the backward approach to living with joy. There's a healing benefit to happiness. Research has shown happiness boosts your immune function, heart health, and productivity. It also changes the way people experience pain. The question is, is it happiness that changes your biology or happiness that leads you to engage in healthier activities? The answer is both. Happiness seems to be the elusive emotion most people strive for, but few experience it. Unfortunately, finding happiness is more complicated than it should be. One, because our definition of happiness is wrong. Two, because the backward law proves the more you try to be happy, the more unhappy you'll be. In this podcast, my husband Payton and I dive into happiness and why you should stop trying to find happiness and learn to create it. We also talk about the energetic frequency of emotion and how to use 'glimmers' to create safe patterns inside your brain. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/298

What if your body isn't the problem? I know that doesn't fit the health space's stereotypical norm, but the message invigorates me. A message that reminds you that your body is for you. Your body wants to be well, and it has the tools and resources to live well. More than trying to change your body, the secret to living well is learning how to support your body. That is exactly the path of homeopathy. Homeopathy is a 200-year-old system of medicine that uses diluted forms of natural substances (mostly plants and minerals) to stimulate a healing response in a person. It supports the body, allowing it to do the job it was designed - to heal. Rather than mask your symptoms or suppress them, the goal is to help your body heal itself by understanding what your symptoms are and what underlying imbalance you are dealing with. Today on the podcast, I invited expert Jennie Hogland to talk about homeopathy, what it is, and why it might benefit you. In the words of Jennie, "Our bodies are capable of so much more than we give them credit for. With the gentle nudge of Homeopathy, I have seen hundreds of people come alive and experience their own innate healing power." Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/297

Health has been washed down and overcomplicated. It wasn't until I quit health that I realized health for what it is. Learn my unpopular health opinions that changed my health inside. Five years ago, I quit health. I got into the health space to save the world from its health problems. The problems the health space seemed to be capitalizing on and the same ones that seemed to follow you around like your own shadow. These were the problems I was determined to fix. I seemed to be making progress, at least in other people's lives, until one day, I lost my health while doing everything right. In weeks, I had turned into the person I had gotten into the space to fix. The problems were so overwhelming I decided fighting for health wasn't worth it, so I quit. The problem was I still wanted to be healthy. On some level, I think everyone wants to be healthy even more than they want to be skinny. But getting healthy seemed impossible. A system of cycles that too often led you right back to the same place you started, broken, swollen in problems, and chasing a solution. But when I quit health, I also set down everything I had believed. In the process, this opened up space for me to see health in a new way. It shifted my perspective on health to experience it in a new way. Quitting health is what led to my health. Inside this podcast, I share seven unpopular health opinions I learned from quitting health and why they helped me finally get healthy. To fully soak this podcast in, I encourage you to come with an open mind. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/296

A few years ago, I heard a presentation on adrenaline dominance, and I never forgot it. It was one of those moments that shifted some understanding in me, helping me make sense of what didn't fully make sense. Adrenaline is a hormone most commonly associated with the body's fight-or-flight response. The adrenaline rush of the body helps you react in dangerous situations. But there is another purpose of adrenaline that is less commonly talked about, to ensure the brain has received enough fuel (sugar). Many people force a need for adrenaline onto the body through restrictive diets or excess stress, sometimes leading to adrenaline dominance. Adrenaline dominance is a condition that creates problems such as; anxiety, cold hands and feet, IBS, muscle tension, fibromyalgia, over-active bladder, teeth grinding, restless leg syndrome, ADHD, headaches, and incurable disorders like PMDD. Many of these symptoms can feel overwhelming and even permanent. But when you understand the role of adrenaline in producing these symptoms, you can create a concrete solution to experience healing. Inside today's podcast, I invited leading expert Dr. Michael Platt to talk about adrenaline dominance and the role of progesterone in treating it. Dr. Platt is the founder of Platt Wellness and the author of several books, including Adrenaline Dominance. Make sure you tune in to learn more. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/295

Should you like yourself? In this honest post, I share how to distinguish between self-like and self-obsessing and why learning to love yourself matters. There are some, perhaps even Biblical assumptions, that all humans love themselves and potentially a little too much. But I still questioned, does loving yourself mean liking yourself? Or does a dislike for yourself take self-love and turn it into a self-idol? There's no doubt the world is fascinated with self. We're all concerned with who we are, what we are, and what we're trying to become. We quickly get so wrapped up in ourselves that we put ourselves on a pedestal of judgment or praise. We make life all about ourselves, which might be why you don't like yourself. Not because self-like is selfish but because our self-worship shines a spotlight on ourselves, leaving plenty of room, time, and energy to judge ourselves. We can't help but see our flaws, which leaves us self-protecting and often self-worshiping. But it's not because we actually like ourselves (or even love ourselves) but the opposite, because we don't. I know it sounds crazy, but I think it's more true to say that we're a self-worshipping kind of people, not because we like ourselves but because we don't. And if we could embrace true self-like, it would allow us to invest more in others because we already have what we need. The problem is, this becomes confusing to the naked eye because we're good at masking self-hate in things like self-care and calling it self-love. Inside this podcast, I invited my husband Payton to come on and discuss how to like yourself and why you might be acting in self-hate more than you realized. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/294

What does it take to get healthy? I've asked myself this question numerous times, but it wasn't until my health crashed that I realized how my emotions were impacting my health and how my health was impacting my mind. I had to address the two-way street of my mind and body to experience the healing I longed for. The mindset and health spaces often overlook this intimate connection between your mind and body. But understanding each and how they work together proves the health of your body influences the health of your mind and visa versa. Likewise, what has happened to your body or mind will affect how the other responds. If you're human, you have dealt with some form of emotional or physical trauma. Trauma shapes your way of life, how your biology runs, and even what you think. But it doesn't have to stay this way. If you feel like nothing is okay in your life, let this remind you that it doesn't have to stay that way. In this podcast, I talk with Elise Healzer, a licensed therapist specializing in a holistic approach to assessing whole-person health. Today we talk about healing the mind-body connection through changing mindset loops, healing the mind-body connection, and getting comfortable with uncomfortable things. We even dive into the question, should you go to therapy? Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/293

You want to be well, but do you know how to get there? The western world of medicine has confused healing and made it about fixing. But healing has to be the goal. Learning to heal will teach you what medicine doesn't know. "Do I even want to be well?" I found myself asking that question after years of treatment that helped me get better, but treatment I had become addicted to. Not by choice, although I don't think anyone becomes addicted on purpose. But I honestly couldn't live without it. When I first got sick, I didn't bat an eye. I would do whatever and whenever to feel better. I needed help, and lots of it. But after a year of weekly (sometimes bi-weekly) treatments, I started to recognize a pattern. Go to treatment, get patched together, live a day or two before the crumbling began, and I would limp myself back into treatment. It felt like this had become my new way of life. Until one rainy spring day, as I was driving to another appointment, I started questioning if there was something I was missing. Was this what my life would amount to? I loved what it had done for me but hated what it had created in me. Deep down, I knew I was missing something. Something that was bound to help me get over my hurdle of dependence and break into health. It was the answer to my lingering question, did I even want to be well? In asking this question, I learned healing was a choice more than a treatment. Inside this podcast, Dr. Ed Cohen shares a similar story journeying through learning to heal. If you're struggling to heal, I encourage you to listen to this podcast that dives deeper into what it means to heal. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/292

Change is hard but not impossible. The problem isn't what you're doing. It's your perspective behind what you do. Learn why you can't change inside this post! Change is hard, almost impossible. Especially if you continuously focus on the fact that you struggle to change. I don't know how many times I have made a promise and committed to the fact that I was going to change but didn't. I was going to stop. I was going to try harder. I was going to wake up to my first alarm I was going to stop eating sugar. I was going to change _ (fill in the blank). We all make a lot of promises to ourselves, many of which we'll never keep. Instead, we tend to keep doing the things we want to change, feeling frustrated and even guilty that nothing ever changes. Leaving me to question maybe your thought that you need to change is preventing you from living it.Not because change isn't possible but because how we try to change makes it impossible. Inside this podcast, I dive into the science of change, the top five reasons you're making change impossible, and how to stop trying to change to create it. It's a prime example of the backward law that states the more you try to change, the less likely you are to experience it. Inside this podcast, you learn why you can't change. Spoiler: you're trying too hard! Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/291

I've thought of many things, most of which were never true. Or at least it never came to fruition. Although, I still let my mind wander into the black hole that can take a common headache and make it a death sentence with one quick conclusion that it must be brain cancer. Looking back, it seems silly to have thought such things. But there are other normalized thoughts that are just as silly, but because they're normal, they get overlooked. In time, they become our reality. What you think creates your action, no matter how much you will yourself to do something different. Researchers estimate we have upwards of 70,000 thoughts each day. Contrary to popular belief, these thoughts aren't floating around in the space between your skull. They have a biological impact, changing the action you live and the outcome you experience. Ironically, of those 70,000 thoughts, at least 95% are the same as they were yesterday. Our mind follows loops and repeated patterns because patterns are a form of safety. You must understand your thought loops and why you have them to healthify your thoughts. Inside this podcast, my husband Payton and I talk about our five years process of doing the work to improve our minds with healthy thoughts and what we found in the process. It may shock you as it goes against the self-help norm. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/290

I'm a headache person, or at least I used to be. When I got too tired, fell out of my normal routine, or got close to the menstruation point in my cycle, I could almost guarantee a nagging headache would surface. Sometimes they were more of a nuisance than a day-altering issue. But other times, it left me stuck in bed with a full-on migraine. If you're a headache person, I know the struggle. But it doesn't have to stay that way. Over the years of healing my body, adding energy, and changing my perspective on stress, I've cleared 98% of my headaches, leaving me to go months and months without symptoms. I believe you can get here too. Of course, everyone is different, but changes are possible for all of us. I invited an expert in headaches, Dr. Meg Mill, to come on the show and explain why we get them, how to relieve them, and even prevent headaches from popping up. Listen to this podcast to learn more about headaches. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/289

To diet or not to diet? That's the million-dollar question that has flipped in the last decade. The number of people looking to diet or jumping into one has fallen drastically. Not because they don't want health but because they've watched dieting fail time and time again. Yet, I'd have to argue most people still want to achieve health. The question is, how do you get it without jumping into another diet program? Reverse dieting could be the answer. But to understand reverse dieting, you must recognize the dangers of traditional dieting. In this podcast, I invited metabolic expert Ashley Filmore to talk about metabolic damage, using reverse dieting to heal your metabolism, and what it looks like to begin the process. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/288

If you're tired, you're not alone. Most of the population falls somewhere between exhausted and just going through the motions. Being tired seems to be the American way of life. But it's not supposed to be that way. Energy is something we all have. It's inside of us. The first law of thermodynamics proves this by stating; energy is neither created nor destroyed but only altered. You have what you need. Even if it feels like your energy is lacking, it's not. It's just being suppressed or channeled in a way that makes you feel like you have no energy. How your body channels energy changes what you feel, producing action accordingly. Think of it like a lightbulb. A lightbulb can exist, but without energy, the bulb never glows. The same holds true for your body, the energy is there, but you must turn the switch on to experience it. How you turn that switch is determined by the safety of your body. In times of stress, your body down-regulates your energy production, leading it to store, hoard and conserve energy rather than use it. In times of safety, health, and nourishment, your body has abundant energy to use to live. The question isn't, what happened to your energy, but why is your body altering the flow of energy to conserve it rather than use it? You don't have to be tired all the time. Your body was made to thrive. Learning how to live that way is the secret to health. Inside this podcast, I dive into what energy is and how to get more energy. Take a listen to learn this life-giving health information. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/287

"Just think more positively." I heard that advice over one thousand times in my healing journey. It's the mental health advice heard worldwide – just think better. But when I put it into practice, disciplined practice, I didn't feel any more optimistic. In fact, I felt like I was falling further into a dark place, not just because of my thoughts but because what was supposed to work wasn't. If it didn't work, what was left? I know so many people who want to change. They need to change. I was one of them. Living as an actual pain addict, I didn't know another way. Even though I hated the pain, it was also incredibly comforting to me. It was my normal, even if it wasn't healthy. I had to change, so I invested time into talk therapy. It was incredibly beneficial – something I recommend to most people. But I found the process exhausting. It worked but only for so long. As soon as we started to dive into the deeper places, my entire body shut down, and I stalled out. The healing didn't happen the way I had expected. At least not until I added the extra component to mental healing (and biological healing), the deep intimate connection of our body, mind, and soul. When I began to nourish my body by energizing and feeding it well, my mind went a little deeper, allowing me to heal the things I had been unable to deal with. Things that were running and ruining my life because I wasn't in a place I could deal with them. Today on the podcast, I talk with Niecia Nelson about the desperate need for physical health in mental healing. You can't heal your mind without supporting your body. Learn the tools to heal inside this podcast, broken up into two parts. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/286

"Just think more positively." I heard that advice over one thousand times in my healing journey. It's the mental health advice heard worldwide – just think better. But when I put it into practice, disciplined practice, I didn't feel any more optimistic. In fact, I felt like I was falling further into a dark place, not just because of my thoughts but because what was supposed to work wasn't. If it didn't work, what was left? I know so many people who want to change. They need to change. I was one of them. Living as an actual pain addict, I didn't know another way. Even though I hated the pain, it was also incredibly comforting to me. It was my normal, even if it wasn't healthy. I had to change, so I invested time into talk therapy. It was incredibly beneficial – something I recommend to most people. But I found the process exhausting. It worked but only for so long. As soon as we started to dive into the deeper places, my entire body shut down, and I stalled out. The healing didn't happen the way I had expected. At least not until I added the extra component to mental healing (and biological healing), the deep intimate connection of our body, mind, and soul. When I began to nourish my body by energizing and feeding it well, my mind went a little deeper, allowing me to heal the things I had been unable to deal with. Things that were running and ruining my life because I wasn't in a place I could deal with them. Today on the podcast, I talk with Niecia Nelson about the desperate need for physical health in mental healing. You can't heal your mind without supporting your body. Learn the tools to heal inside this podcast, broken up into two parts. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/285

Fasting is one of the oldest recorded health practices. Arguably it has been around since the beginning of creation, first noted as a religious practice more than a health practice. But even most religious traditions have incredible health benefits. Like prayer, singing, connecting, and seeing beyond yourself. I'd love to dive into all these at some point, but today we will talk about intermittent fasting. There seems to be controversy popping up with intermittent fasting, questioning if it's harming your metabolism forming two camps of people. One camp is those who follow a strict fasting protocol. The other believes you should eat when your body is hungry regardless of timing. Honestly, there is valid information on both sides. But this information feeds the confusion that already exists in this space. On this podcast, I dive into the science on both sides, working to find a common balance. Get the full details answering the question, is intermittent fasting bad for your metabolism, inside the podcast. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/284

Health hasn't been easy. Truthfully it's not for the majority of people. Yet, I can't help but think it shouldn't be this complicated. I've often been my own worst enemy. I seemed to be a master at creating a self-fulfilling prophecy surrounding my happiness and the health of my relationships. Yet, I couldn't imagine that was the case for something I had worked so hard for, given up so much for, and genuinely invested in my life. I couldn't imagine I was the one self-sabotaging my health. I know we don't like to look at it that way, that our problems could be because of our own making. Even if it is the case, there is no room to blame yourself or beat yourself up over. What's been done is done. But we can change how we move forward. Today on the podcast, I'm sharing a health update and why I feel like I've made so much progress and still feel stuck. Inside this episode, I'm joined by my husband as we talk openly and vulnerably about this crazy health journey we're on—a story of health freedom. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/283

Want to get healthier as an enneagram nine? Let your enneagram number be your guide. Inside, I share the enneagram nine health tips that include an ultimate guide on how to get healthy based on your enneagram strengths and weaknesses. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/enneagram9

Want to get healthier as an enneagram nine? Let your enneagram number be your guide. Inside, I share the enneagram nine health tips that include an ultimate guide on how to get healthy based on your enneagram strengths and weaknesses. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/enneagram9

Want to get healthier as an enneagram eight? Let your enneagram number be your guide. Inside, I share the enneagram eight health tips that include an ultimate guide on how to get healthy based on your enneagram strengths and weaknesses. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/enneagram8

Want to get healthier as an enneagram eight? Let your enneagram number be your guide. Inside, I share the enneagram eight health tips that include an ultimate guide on how to get healthy based on your enneagram strengths and weaknesses. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/enneagram8

Want to get healthier as an enneagram seven? Let your enneagram number be your guide. Inside, I share the enneagram seven health tips that include an ultimate guide on how to get healthy based on your enneagram strengths and weaknesses. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/enneagram7

Want to get healthier as an enneagram seven? Let your enneagram number be your guide. Inside, I share the enneagram seven health tips that include an ultimate guide on how to get healthy based on your enneagram strengths and weaknesses. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/enneagram7

Want to get healthier as an enneagram six? Let your enneagram number be your guide. Inside, I share the enneagram six health tips that include an ultimate guide on how to get healthy based on your enneagram strengths and weaknesses. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/enneagram6

Want to get healthier as an enneagram six? Let your enneagram number be your guide. Inside, I share the enneagram six health tips that include an ultimate guide on how to get healthy based on your enneagram strengths and weaknesses. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/enneagram6

Want to get healthier as an enneagram five? Let your enneagram number be your guide. Inside, I share the enneagram five health tips that include an ultimate guide on how to get healthy based on your enneagram strengths and weaknesses. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/enneagram5

Want to get healthier as an enneagram five? Let your enneagram number be your guide. Inside, I share the enneagram five health tips that include an ultimate guide on how to get healthy based on your enneagram strengths and weaknesses. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/enneagram5

Want to get healthier as an enneagram four? Let your enneagram number be your guide. Inside, I share the enneagram four health tips that include an ultimate guide on how to get healthy based on your enneagram strengths and weaknesses. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/enneagram4

Want to get healthier as an enneagram four? Let your enneagram number be your guide. Inside, I share the enneagram four health tips that include an ultimate guide on how to get healthy based on your enneagram strengths and weaknesses. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/enneagram4

Want to get healthier as an enneagram three? Let your enneagram number be your guide. Inside, I share the enneagram three health tips that include an ultimate guide on how to get healthy based on your enneagram strengths and weaknesses. Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/enneagram3