Embrace natural wellness

I am incredibly grateful for the amazing women I get to work with and support. Today I'm sharing Desiree's story of how she learned to take more time for self-care  AND overcame some major hurdles over the course of my fall detox.

Click on the image above to hear Desiree share what she learned and experienced during my Fall Detox.

Desiree's Biggest Challenges & Why She Chose To Do My Fall Detox

I wanted to do this because I had been feeling gross, eating junk all the time and I had just been giving in and giving in. I wanted to shift that pattern, but knew I needed some support and guidelines. I wanted to do just more than eat a strict diet and lose weight. I wanted to be able to include more self-care because that's something I struggle with. It's hard for me to slow down and take care of just me. So the timing on this was perfect for me.

I also was looking at this detox as a way for me to get past the struggles I was having with self-control in many areas of my life. I...

How do you cope? I know it's not something we all feel comfortable talking about, but I believe it's an important conversation worth having. To cope better in life, you can't ignore your challenges you have to face them. But sometimes you may need a little understanding and support.

Listen to episode #93 : How Minerals Help You Cope : Find A JOY TO BE ME on iTunes, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or Spotify 

When I graduated the Nutritional Therapy Association in 2012, my eyes were opened to the decline in mental health and how nutrition played a big role. I was so impacted by this, that 3 of my colleagues and I created an online course called; A Calm Mind. We tackled how we believe we were supposed to have sense of well being and be better able to cope in life than we are today. We covered all the nutrient deficiencies quite thoroughly.

A couple years later,  I began to work with hair tissue mineral analysis in my practice, and saw the many connections to our ability to...

In my last post, 'Why Detoxing in the Fall will actually make you energetic', I explained why detoxifying your body can actually help to boost your energy. The same is true for detox baths. They help to deeply clean out toxins to encourage deeper healing so your cells can function optimally. And when your cells function optimally, YOU will have more energy. It's a win-win!

So, I thought in this post I'd share with you the top reasons I do detox baths and what I use in them to support my body being able to heal deeply. Detox baths are also really great for relaxing, releasing tension and encouraging deeper sleep.

Detox baths are an excellent way to promote cleansing and can be done regularly -even daily. Any form of chronic illness or fatigue, allergies included, is a sign of a sluggish and overloaded liver. Sweating is your body's natural way of detoxifying. Soaking in hot water can assist in pulling harmful toxins from your skin.

You can assist elimination of toxins through the...

Fall is my favorite season. It's a season of transition, perfect for a gentle detox to reset your body and mind, increase your energy, as well as to prime your system for winter wellness. That's why I've been doing a short fall 'detox' every year for the past 9 years.

I personally look at autumn as more of a transition into a new year than I do January. January is just the transition of the calendar year. But in September, we can learn from nature. In my area, the harvest is winding down. It's time to prepare to clear out the fields. It's an opportunity to till the soil and plant the seeds for next year's harvest.

And the same is true for your body and overall health. Once you do this 'clearing' for yourself, you can recommit to what is working for you and set yourself up to get more of what nourishes you in your life.

This is why fall is a great time to set aside some time for a detox, so you can clear out the 'old' (or toxins). When you detox you free up your cells and organs to...

Over the years, I've learned a hard but valuable lesson, and that is; it's harder to regain health than it is to keep it.  Maybe I should re-frame that, it's harder to be healthy in the first place. I know perhaps you may feel like you never were very healthy to begin with. I know I never knew how truly good my body could feel, until now.

I now believe my health is my most valuable and precious asset, and I no longer take it for granted. I am on a mission to help you love yourself enough to prioritize your health that way too.

Now that my perspective has shifted, I find it interesting that many of you take better care of your cars (or your house) than you do your own bodies. The thing is cars are machines and are replaceable, whereas your body is not, it's the only one you get to have.

I know for me, it was hard to really prioritize my own well being radically because I never saw it modeled to me. I believe that is largely in part due to how our culture lives and views health.

...

It was the fall of 2014, just over 5 years after I had officially become a single mom. I had been trying to get my business off the ground and running, while dealing with the aftermath of a messy divorce and PTSD. I was beyond burned out.

In spite of all my best efforts to clean up my health, I was still struggling with exhaustion. I found myself crashing down after every single stressful event in my life. I was barely surviving. While I had come a long way in my health during those 5 years, it was hard to fully recover and stay steady; in my energy, mood, emotions.

I was so depleted that the stress would pile up and impact my physical health in extreme ways. Like the time, I bent over to pick up a sock in my bedroom and threw my back out and it took 4 other adults to step in for almost a week to help me manage my kids and household. Then there was the time, I had a mini panic attack while taking a bath that induced an asthma attack and I had to call an ambulance.

I was beyond...

I love getting to know myself and tuning into my inner wisdom. It's something I've craved my whole life that led me on a wild goose chase to trying so many things.  Such as, the next "it diet", to gain control of myself and life.

Having spent many years using diets and food plans to try and control myself, I'm here to tell you there is a better way to enjoy vibrant health.

If you are on a healing journey,  you will know that what you eat and the amount of food has a direct impact on your physical health. But did you know that those same choices also influence mood, mental alertness, memory, and emotional well being? Food can act as medicine, or it can be a poison to the body and mind.

But so can your approach to your diet. Your diet can liberate you or imprison you. You get decide which it will be. I choose freedom my loves. And in this post I want to share how I use boundaries to help me tap into my intuitive self when it comes to eating by using a mind-body food journal....

In light of my recent post, "How to love your body with safer skincare"; I wanted to share more about safer SUMMER skincare practices and products you can choose for your best health. I don't know about you but I enjoy being outdoors during the summer, and try to maximize that time as much as possible.

Since I'm in the sun more, I pay more attention to my direct exposure by covering up as much as possible and using protection, such as safe mineral based sunscreen.

Crazily, sunscreen is one of the most controversial topics in the health and wellness world. As well as how to stay safe in the sun. I'm here to shed some 'light' on the topic for ya (ha, see what I did there).

On one hand, sun exposure is healthy. We can benefit from the sun's rays, it's how we actually make vitamin D in our body. BUT avoiding overexposure is key. We do need sun exposure.

There are UVA and UVB rays. The UVB rays are the good guys. Those are the ones that stimulate the vitamin D production in our skin....

Like many modern women, I've experienced total burn out. Totally unmotivated, dissatisfied with life and struggling with anxiety. I even sought medical help but didn't get any answers. My doctor looked at me like I was nuts when I suggested adrenal fatigue. I also stopped caring about myself and didn't bother to take care of myself, neglecting my appearance. I went through periods of stress eating or not eating at all.

I eventually decided I no longer wanted to feel this way, I wanted to THRIVE and enjoy vibrant health.

To me, thriving means waking up daily happy to be living the life I live. It means I wake up able to do things I once was not when my health crashed and I finally realized that I had adrenal exhaustion, to now being able to wake up and make breakfast for my kids in the morning with the chance to bond with each of them.

Now, I can take leisurely walks during the day and actually have the energy to get in my 10,000 steps. I get to wake up and do the work I love with...

I spent many years of my life trying to create a healthy diet I enjoyed. Following all the diets out there didn't work for me. I just wanted a healthy diet that made sense for me, was easy to do and that I actually liked.

Like I mentioned in my post; 'How to ditch 'the perfect diet' mentality for good',  there are SO many diets out there ranging from vegan, vegetarian, raw food, paleo, keto, low carb and everything in between. And of course, proponents of each diet proclaim that they know the ticket to health, justifying their points with well researched documents and case studies. Problem is, no ONE diet ever works for everyone or anyone forever.

It wasn't until the summer of 2009, when I was out of my marriage and own my own that I finally said enough is enough. I had been on the fence for many years trying to find a healthy diet I could actually stick to. I had gone through a huge life transition after a volatile marriage ended and I finally felt safe, ready to do my own...