Last week we discussed the effects stress has on your body and mind. Things you may not even realize, check it out here. There is one more significant part of your life that is affected by stress too. Your menstrual cycle. We’ve all heard of the fight-or-flight response, right? The driving force behind that response is the hormone cortisol. Higher levels of cortisol in the bloodstream reduce reproductive hormones, especially progesterone and estrogen. That affects your whole entire month! Let’s review your cycle before we get too far into this. Please know that hormone fluctuations in the body are an intricate and complex process. What I will do here is provide information from a very high-level view. 

So let’s have a little refresher on your cycle. If you are not on any kind of hormonal birth control, you have four distinct hormonal phases throughout the month. These phases make up what we know to be our menstrual cycle. Of course, everyone is aware of...

Much of what I work on with my clients is based on stress relief. Whether that's stress from a current situation, stress from past events, or stress caused by our current lifestyle,  it all boils down to a lack of peace in the body, mind, and soul.  

We hear so much these days about self-care,  work-life balance, and wellness it's easy to forget that each of these is more than just buzz words.  

A stress response from the body can be a good thing. This is your fight or flight response. This is the mechanism in the body that helps you to fight a virus, shiver when you're cold, and run from the saber tooth tiger to save your life. We certainly want those things to keep happening. The difference between these scenarios and the kind of stress most of us endure is that each of those scenarios is short-lived. Here and gone in a matter of weeks. Your work stress likely isn't that way.

That is where we run into problems and why there is so...

Growing up there were a couple of sitcoms we watched as a family (back when TV was a little more family-friendly) that often referred to anger management techniques. The two I remember the most were the rubber band on the wrist, to be snapped during moments of anger, and the “close your eyes and count to 10 before responding" rule. I feel like these things were mentioned quite often on TV...but maybe they were just techniques that stood out to me so I remembered them well. Either way, this conversation is more about that choice to respond differently than the first instinct. The decision to snap the rubber band, or count to ten before responding is a conscious choice that affects the outcome of the situation... In a big way. 

In every interaction you partake in, you have the ability to choose how you will respond to the situation at hand. There are SO many human emotions, your options are truly endless. The question becomes, what does this response create in my life? See...

I have always been a proponent of using a multitude of modalities to find true wellness. As you are a multifaceted human being, you need many different techniques to stay well. Just like your nutrition is not balanced without consuming a wide variety of foods, you cannot be well in your body, mind, and soul, without a wide variety of modalities. Essential oils are one of the modalities I turn to often. I love having them in my diffusers (I currently have four diffusers in my home), use them in skin care remedies (like sunburn relief), or for inflammation from an injury.

EO's are also the only "pretty smells" allowed in my home. I do not use anything in my home with the word "fragrance" listed on the ingredient label. Did you know "fragrance" is a blanket term for many different chemicals in products? "Fragrance" is not regulated by the FDA so it becomes a default place to hide chemicals you wouldn't otherwise want in a product you use daily (like BPA, a known contributor to...

There are a million studies out there talking about screen time. How much is too much? When should you turn your devices off? What about that blue light business? Is it different for adults and children? I’m not going to dive into any of that. Instead of hashing out how long, when, where, and who, let’s look into what you view. When I was young, my friends and I had a CD that we called the “Depression CD.” We’d listen to it when we were having an off day, after a break-up, or just whenever we were a little low. It was 13 country songs, from the country era of slow broken-hearted ballads. Nothing upbeat. Nothing empowering. Nothing that would help turn your mood around. Instead, it was about being engulfed by that sadness, by that slow, depressive movement. We used these songs when we were feeling low because they matched our vibration (learn more about your vibration here). The energy was the same. It felt comfortable to listen...

If you're anything like me, you've set many different goals for yourself throughout your life. Some people set them every January, sometimes it is at your annual review at work, and sometimes, it is before starting the next academic year, shoot.... you may even set a goal for your day every morning. These things are all wonderful. It is important to have something to strive for and something to help keep you motivated. SMART goals are a great way to help you accomplish those things in life you want to be a part of your legacy. What happens when you reach that goal though? Do you set another one? Do you check it off your list, never to think of it again? Do you take the time to enjoy your success or immediately move on to something different, something more?

It depends on the goal you’re setting. Let’s use weight loss as an example. Many people set a weight loss goal at some time in their lives. Goal: Lose 20 pounds. So, you work at it. You decrease your caloric...

So often I hear someone tell me, “I don’t have time for that.” Immediately, I know that time is not the problem. Poor time management and maybe a lack of priorities are the problem.

See, we all get the same 24 hours in a day. Most people have a 40-50-hour work week. Most people have homes to clean, groceries to buy, and laundry to do. Among a million other things they’d like to do every day. The issue lies in having to make the decision between doing thing A or thing B. I used to have the same struggle, that is until I got intentional about how I spend my time. Because we ONLY get 24 hours in the day. I can make more money. I can buy more food. I can watch that show later, but I cannot get this moment back. It sounds so cliché, but the truth is time is priceless. No one can make more, no one can stop it, and no one can refund it. When the day came that I finally realized just how precious it is, it became very easy to rearrange my priorities....

The other day, my sweet bonus daughter repeated something that she certainly heard from someone else (apparently “everyone” says it’s true-moms you know how that goes), this was not a thought she had on her own. We know that kids are little sponges and they take in everything from everywhere around them. When they are really young, it's usually that one time you utter a four-letter word that they cling to and you spend the next few weeks praying they don’t repeat it in public. The thing is, that doesn’t end, they continue to latch onto and repeat everything they hear. We are all so influenced by the people around us and the conversations we are surrounded by, no matter your age, but sometimes it hits a little closer to home than others. 

In this particular instance, this 8-year-old child told me she was chubby and fat because she couldn’t see her toes when she looked down. Thankfully, she didn’t seem upset about it, just simply...

Are you one of those people that replays a conversation over in your mind for days thinking, “oh I should have said THAT instead!” or “what was I thinking when I uttered those words?” To some degree, we all do this. Self-reflection is a part of how we learn to be the best version of ourselves we can be. Maybe it is in that moment of awareness that you realize you could have turned a situation into a teaching moment instead of yelling at your child. Maybe in that reflection, you realize you weren’t very kind and need to apologize. Maybe, you realize that you didn’t hold your boundaries and there’s still work to do in that part of your life. All of these things are okay, as long as you allow yourself to grow through them. 

This type of inner dialogue becomes a hindrance when you dwell on the what-ifs and could have beens, instead of ways to improve the next similar encounter. Dwelling on the negative aspect often leads to feelings...

You’ve likely heard the term, “the weight of the world is on your shoulders” or some variation of that anyway. After a session, my clients will often tell me, “I feel so much lighter” because we always work to relieve some of that weight. That heaviness we carry around thinking everything and everyone is our responsibility does not serve us, mentally, spiritually, or even physically. Now, you may start thinking this sounds a little woo-woo but hear me out. 

Think about someone who gets a tension headache. They experience sustained, intense stress (emotion), and that leads to a headache or even migraine (physical symptom). Or the person who vomits (physical symptom) when they get nervous (emotion). See every emotion we experience carries its own energy and is held in a specific part of our body. When we hold onto that emotion for too long it can cause build-up or stagnation and that leads to physical ailments. 

Energy should...