How is everyone doing? January flew by. I cannot believe it’s already February, and that we’ve passed my favorite date of the year 2/01 . I really feel it has been an interesting year so far, with as many downs as ups. At least for me. I know everyone was so eager for 2020 to end, but I kept having the distinct feeling that the turn of a new year might not end up being the end-all-be-all miracle maker people were hoping for.

I say this not to be negative but to remind you that we can choose to live in the light at any time, in any space. Especially when things are hard. My personal life has been pretty wild ever since 2021 started, mostly due to health stuff and a ton of anxiety coming up around that. As many of you know I have been detoxing from Lyme & mold for years, and this year I have gotten some potent reminders that that is *still* very much a part of my reality, and something to detox from and not turn a blind eye to.

People see me online every day living my life to my most joyous ability and ask me how I healed from chronic illness. I know I look healthy and I oftentimes even feel really healthy! Hear me out… my mind lives in a place where illness doesn’t exist. I know how to tap into levels of consciousness where I disconnect from the body, and connect to my eternal spirit and heart. For that reason I can go weeks, even months sometimes feeling like I have this whole chronic illness thing handled.

But because I have huge intentions to heal fully, to optimize my energy, to become a mother, and eradicate Lyme/dis-ease from my body in all ways… there are times I have to live in the world too. I can still live in my white light bubble of a healthy reality (and trust me, I do! My meditations take me there every day!) but my physical body has true ailments that I can’t ignore.

As Ram Dass, my teacher in this realm & now realms beyond, says, “Before the stroke, I was on a very spiritual plane. I ignored my body, took it for granted. When I look at my life, I see that I wanted to be free of the physical plane, the psychological plane, and when I got free of those, I didn’t want to go anywhere near them. But the stroke reminded me that I had a body and a brain, that I had to honor them.”

I feel a bit that way about Lyme. It has come to me far earlier in life than his stroke had come to him, but if I had to guess I would think that the stroke came to him to be his teacher. To remind him that living here, taking care of the body and brain just as much as we take care of the spirit, is part of the human experience. Wow it brings me to tears to even write this. As much as I feel like I have been trying to do that, and I treat my body as my temple above all else, there is so much more healing to be had. So much more health and alignment and energy for my body to experience.

I am going to be real with you guys, this can be very frustrating. I have had quite a few breakdowns about it this year alone. Like hysterical sob on the floor breakdowns asking the universe why I even have to be on this planet experiencing this level of pain STILL. It can be impossibly tough to feel like my body is failing me. To feel like my body isn’t getting on board with the full healing I know and believe is mine to be had. But then I have to go inward, go deeper, and realize: Oh shit. The full lesson has not been learned yet.

My god you guys the full lesson really hasn’t been learned yet. I was told early on in my life that I “think through writing,” and now that I am writing this post I am realizing this yet again to be true. When I write, I get in touch with what I really feel. When I write, divine spirit flows through me. And when I write, the essence of truth comes through. So to give you a really honest & really real-time update, I still have lessons to learn.

The lessons I am still learning and soaking in are… to further slow down, to say “no” a lot more, to hold stronger boundaries, tap deeper into my psychic abilities, work on focus & commitment to myself and what is important to me, stop comparing myself to who I used to be, and worry less about what others think of me or if I’ve accidentally upset someone (this is big for Libra my god). I know my soul is calling me to tap into my inner artist and visionary. Put a LOT less pressure on myself. The pressures I do put on myself are beyond. Just wow.

I have a feeling many of you can relate. It’s like all I want is to heal so all I do is keep putting pressure on myself in other areas to “be normal” when the truth is I am not normal at all. In fact my friend Krista said to me a few weeks ago, “Why are we even trying to pretend like you’re normal and that you should be doing things in a normal way?” I have been leaning into that more this year and the GROWING PAINS OF GROWTH !!!! You guys. Oh my god they’re intense. I have had to stop and ask myself 19238198129 times, “Am I really doing this?” and then I have tried to weasel my way back into my nice little box of putting everyone & everything before myself and ignoring what I really need.

Okay, so that is the health update on a mental and emotional level. On a psychical and energetic level, I have been seeing my Chinese medicine doctor religiously twice a week this year (thanks to my angel Kenzie for bringing her into my life) and the news I have gotten has been intense. Think rampant Lyme, mold, parasites, heavy metals, radiation, liver issues, thyroid, and a few other things. The radiation is from 5G so I do want to encourage everyone to be really careful and invest in some EMF blockers — these have been life changing. More on that soon.

So now I am on about 20 high quality supplements, herbs, & detoxification homeopathics to pull this shit OUT. My doctor thinks it will take 4-5 months at the quickest but I am committed to getting this shit out in less time. I have been detoxing for years. I know there is still a constant buildup but I feel really good about the work I have done and my commitment to healing.

Other noteworthy things I have tried for Lyme & mold lately & in the past:

+ SOT (Supportive Oligonucleotide Technique) which is a treatment for Lyme and cancer that utilizes short DNA or RNA segments to block the expression of critical segments of genes needed for Lyme or viruses to survive and replicate.

+ Neurofeedback which is a treatment for the nervous system that can help calm brainwaves associated with agitation, obsessive thoughts and fear associated with this stress response.

+ Stem cells which come from a newborn embryo have been used successfully to treat Lyme disease symptoms. Studies show reduced fatigue, reduced insomnia, better concentration, less pain, and less symptoms overall.

+ IV ozone, hyperbaric chamber, hypnotherapy, mindfulness meditations, herbs and supplements, IV nutrients, Myers’ cocktails, IV Rocephin, water fasting, juice fasting, colonics, acupuncture, plant medicine, the Medical Medium protocol  & SO MANY OTHER THINGS are what I have tried over time and all of those things worked for me at different times in my healing journey.

What I currently do daily to manage my symptoms:

+ The herbs & supplements from my TCM doctor that I mentioned above. I don’t share my specific supplements because I think it’s important to be treated holistically as an individual since all symptoms are so different!

+ Celery juice and/or lots of green juice daily to stay hydrated, get proper nutrients, detoxify, flood my body with the good stuff, and flush out the toxins.

+ I sit in my infrared sauna for 45 minutes to an hour each day to REALLY sweat it all out, and I take a charcoal binder to pull the toxins out while I sweat. I recommend starting slow with the sauna and working your way up, because your body will re-assimilate the toxins if you are not ready for the full detox — which takes time. The brand of sauna I have is from Heal With Heat, and the code BLONDE will get you a discount + free shipping. I highly recommend them as they are the best of the best with the lowest EMF. The charcoal binder I can take can be found on my Amazon page!

+ I do a daily coffee enema for detoxification and to pull the toxins out of my gut and colon. This is amazing for those of us who struggle with detoxification due to the MTFHR gene which many who suffer from chronic illness do. This is also amazing for parasite removal, liver support, skin, regulation of digestion, and of course for constipation. A question I get often is do we become reliant of coffee enemas if we do them too often? Of course we are all different but I don’t believe we do if we are using the correct green coffee (very anti-inflammatory & low caffeine) that is not addictive to the body. Just don’t use a harsh dark roast — that would not feel good!

+ I do daily mindfulness meditations where I envision myself as the healthy, energized, free spirited, LYME FREE version of myself walking about the world and doing what I love. I love Joe Dispenza meditations for this, as well as my recent Cosmic Meditation that I released on the podcast is a great way to connect deeper with the body, your spirit guides, your angels, and your higher self.

+ I have a strong spiritual practice outside of my meditation where I connect with my angels, spirit guides, nature, and my soul through writing & taking daily walks outside. GROUNDING is a proven healing technique where you electrically reconnect to the earth. The negative ions charge your body and reconnect you to the beautiful healing power of nature.

+ Journaling & doing the Artist’s Way, which reconnects me to my inner artist & inner child.

+ I take many supplements for the gut and for bloating, which have greatly relieved my body from constant discomfort from food, etc. I LOVE Arrae‘s bloating supplement (code BLONDE for free shipping), MaryRuth Organic‘s liquid probiotic (code BLONDE for a discount), as well as all things Cured Nutrition CBD (code BLONDE) for relaxation, digestion & healing.

+ My PLANT BASED DIET !! All the way. This healing, anti-inflammatory way of life has been truly healing for me, and has been the absolute biggest game changer of all. I developed The Celestial Diet  to really be able to share this healing, SOS-free, anti-inflammatory way of life in a bigger way. Lots more on that to come. Be sure you are subscribed to my newsletter to receive those updates!

+ Weekly colonics, which are a total game changer. To continue releasing toxins, especially in a deeper way than the enemas are able to do. I think of enemas as maintenance, and colonics as the deep healing.

+ Mindful movement: walking, yoga, Pilates.

+ Tons of relaxation & SLEEP. I sleep for 9+ hours a night or else I am wrecked. My healing body has needed a lot of rest, and I think getting enough sacred sleep is one of the most healing things we can do for ourselves. To be real with you I cannot sleep these days without melatonin or CBD, so I usually take both at night!

+ Plant medicine, all the way, baby.  I do a lot of micro-dosing, and my deeper Ayahuasca & psylocibin journeys have brought me an extreme amount of deep peace.

+ Healing music! I listen to mantra music, binaural beats, Ram Dass, and Abraham Hicks on repeat. All the time. I cannot listen to intense music or watch intense TV shows/movies (for the most part — I do love a good dark TV show) because I really believe the energy and frequency of everything we spend our time doing sticks with us.

+ I surround myself with positive people who get me. My tribe is everything. I have the dearest friends in the world, and I have released my toxic friendships/relationships from my life. This is huge.

+ I use only CLEAN / non toxic products in my home. I love the brand Branch Basics for this, and you can use BLONDE for a discount.

Alright! I know that is a lot but I truly cannot even convey to you in one post all of the things that I do to heal!! Again, I recommend heading to my Amazon shop page to find more of my favorite healing products — physical & spiritual! If I had to choose ONE thing that is helping me heal the most right now, it would be finding my TCM doctor and the deep work we are doing together. She is truly shamanic. The second thing would be releasing toxicity in my life, and the third would be meditation / journaling.

My husband and my parents are also my rocks. That has been huge in my healing. I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a supportive group of people around you, whether that group be big or small. Having Lyme has cracked my heart wide open and taught me to ask for help when I need it, and let help in. I really feel Jonathan and my mom and dad have been my angels in this process… and for that I am forever grateful.

Any questions below? I would love to hear them. Do you struggle with Lyme or chronic illness? Would love to hear about YOU & what has been working for you below. Share all with me !!  Massive, endless love to you & I hope this post has helped you in some way.

Overall when I think back on the last decade the word that comes to mind is strength. Without immense strength and so much confidence & belief in where I knew I was going, I would have crashed and burned so hard (and oh, I still did — but my strength kept me afloat). If you read my blog you know plenty about my health crises (yes, multiple), my brand, my passion for wellness, the many directions my business has taken. But when you may not know is that on the other side of all of that, my inner world has been a bit tumultuous and I finally, finally, finally going into 2019 feel as if I am coming out on the other side.

Giving you a little backstory even though it was BEFORE this decade… because it leads into this decade & explains a lot.

To keep it brief, I fell head over heels in love with a boy who quickly became my boyfriend when I was 14. The deepest kind of love that words could ever describe. I finally felt like I had an outlet for all of the loving energy flowing through my heart and body at all times, and it flowed right back to me through him. It was everything. It was BLISS. My friends loved him, my family loved him, we were happy. Young, of course, but happy.

We stayed up all night on the phone when we weren’t together, and when we were we laid on the tennis courts gazing at stars and the bright, glowing moon. We wrote each other poems and successfully got many of our best friends to date each other, so we could all spend as much time together as possible. We all had a lot of fun, made a lot of memories, we didn’t have a care in the world. But by the time we were 16 new challenges were sprouting up… he began dealing with not only a drug addiction but a life gripping mental illness.

I did everything I could to help. We all did. I thought that by encouraging him to get into therapy I was helping, but somehow the wild concoction of pills he was put on only served to make things much worse. A series of very scary and life altering events happened… from lines of cocaine in grandmothers’ bathrooms to drug induced fights that lead to many breakups (and then get-back-togethers)… to nights that felt wonderful and positive only for me to learn later they were fueled by him being on ecstasy, cocaine, pain pills, and more. Often they were drugs I had never even heard of.

When we were 16 was the first time he tried to take his own life. For one VERY LONG hour of my life, I thought he was dead. I really believed with my entire being that he was gone. It was pouring rain outside and just a few days before Christmas when I found his goodbye letter in my MySpace inbox that he’d send the night before. I went ballistic. Unless you’ve witnessed someone go completely hysterical, blacked out to their very core with grief, it’s hard to describe. But if you have, you know.

Although he did live I never did quite get over that hour of my life. It ended my childhood, and ended my blissful notion of what life looked like. Everything I believed about the world and how wonderful and good it was was shattered. I was thrilled that he was alive, but that thrill lead to a decade long obsession with keeping him alive and feeling responsible for his every move. Even after my move to LA and eventually to New York, this deep obsession and fear persisted. Every time I drank (which was constantly) ended in hysterical sobs and freak outs about him. He tried to end his life during that period many, many more times.

Now that bleeds right into this decade… because by 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 this was all still going very strong.

As the decade wore on I dated new people, had new experiences, got my degree in English & Journalism, headed to grad school, took on new business endeavors. But at the forefront of my mind he was always there. It wasn’t healthy for either of us but it was an unbreakable bond. I often questioned where did I end and where did he begin… I felt like my life’s purpose was to be there for him until I absolutely shattered. In many ways I felt like we were one.

I bring this all up because it’s actually impossible not to — it explains everything. Everything about me. It colored my life and many, many years of it. It lead me to everything I now know. To yoga (which legitimately saved my life at 16 when I could barely breathe I was experiencing so many panic attacks per hour), to the depth I seek within all friendships and relationships I develop, to the compassion that spills from my bones for all living beings, to the emphasis I put on my health & wellness and to my love for treating my body well from the inside out. To starting this blog as the creative outlet that fuels me, and to my eventual head over heels love (and obsession and reawakening) with spirituality — for that is the driving force in my life that guides me and brought me back into alignment when I was splitting apart at the seams.

It lead me to eating plant based because as a teenager I developed so many debilitating stomach problems that finding this anti-inflammatory way of life truly saved me… even before I dove into it full throttle many years later! And it gave my life so much purpose, so much meaning… the rug was ripped out from under me at a very delicate age. I know we all have our shit we go through, and I don’t claim for mine to be any worse than anyone else’s. It’s my journey and it has shaped me into who I am. At times it was hell and at times it still is, but I wouldn’t trade it — because it gave me my life. This life.

I have so much to say about all of this and I want to keep it succinct, so below I want to share the top 10 things I have learned in the last decade. I hope that by me opening up and sharing more of my personal life with you in a way that shows you a slice of my heart, you can both see how I became the person I am today and I hope it makes you feel less alone. So let’s dive into the list below (you know I love a good list).

Best thing about the decade was marrying this sweet angel human puppy soul who makes me better every day  

Top 10 Things I Have Learned This Decade //

1. Don’t wait until your health comes crashing down to put yourself first & take care of yourself from the inside out. I put myself on the back burner for MANY YEARS until my health came to a crashing halt a couple of years ago. I had to get to a point where I was so chronically fatigued I physically couldn’t get out of bed, and my skin was so on fire from rashes & Hives I could not exercise or really even move. I lost my ability to speak with any sort of ease, and lost all desire to be around anyone. Anything that required any human interaction was too exhausting for me to even think about, let alone do. It has taken me two years of exploring my health issues and the root cause of them to even begin to get back into balance… and even though it has been HARD, it has been the greatest gift I’ve ever been handed by the universe.

2. The universe knows what’s up, and it is always guiding me no matter how out of control things may feel. I have had some MAJOR things happen throughout this decade that have been very much out of my control. I won’t get into it all here, but about six years ago so much heartbreaking stuff was happening all around me with my family, my health, my relationships, and what felt like my entire life… that I truly saw zero light at the end of the tunnel. Now I realize that the entire time I was being guided. To surrender. To trust. To get through it. To develop resiliency. To come out on the other side as an entirely new, entirely stronger being.

I have always been extremely in touch with my intuition, even before I knew that that’s what I was experiencing. I am so glad I listened to the intuitive call to leave grad school, move back from NYC to LA 5 and a half years ago, and also stay in LA even when I was very unhappy and things felt impossibly hard. I am SO GLAD I listened to the intuitive call to start my blog! I had no idea back then when I started that it would lead me to blogging full time and living out the career of my dreams. It took hard work, but beyond that it took surrendering to the universe and being truly, wholeheartedly guided.

3. True love does not have to be complicated or messy or dramatic in order to have depth and be real — true love transcends all of that and enhances life in the best possible way. I shared a brief bit of my story with my first love above for many reasons, but one was to illustrate just how deeply I felt that love had to be complicated and messy in order to be real. Even after my first love that lasted on and off for literally a decade, I sought out relationships that were VERY complicated. I was drawn toward people who didn’t want to be with me or were completely unavailable for whatever reason. I thrived off of the drama and chaos within each relationship because it was all that I knew.

A good friend who knows both me & Jonathan told me several years ago, “When you’re ready to be with a good guy, you’ll be with Jonathan.” Then a few years later, I spoke to an animal communicator who through Huddy (MY CAT!!) said that very soon I would be dating one of my closest friends & to stop looking for love in all of the wrong places.

Well… I can’t tell you how true all of this is. Love doesn’t have to be complicated. Love shouldn’t be complicated. When it’s real, YOU KNOW. When you’re with someone who wants to be with you and who treats you the way you deserve, YOU KNOW. Everything changed for me when I opened myself up to being with someone who was truly kind to me. Things didn’t get boring just because they weren’t chaotic… life actually got way more interesting. I became so much more confident, so much happier.

And now, as of this November, I am MARRIED to this amazing man who I love so dearly. He has stuck by my side through so much. In fact, perhaps I am the complicated one given that I have been extremely sick for most of our relationship. He takes care of me so well. He is such a blessing in my life and I will never, ever stop being ridiculously grateful for him & all that he has shown me.

4. Pursuing creative passions is extremely important & I will never settle to do something for work that doesn’t excite me in my soul, but work is NOT EVERYTHING. People are. Ever since starting my blog in 2013 until about 2018… I really believed my work was my life. It is true that it’s a huge part of my purpose, but what I learned was that we are not here on this earth to be workaholics. We are here to create lasting connections, to experience love, to feel joy moving through us at all times with all beings. My views on life really shifted after getting sick. I have never been more appreciative of the people in my life, and I tell them so pretty much fanatically. I have never had so much compassion for all beings — animals, my Huddy man who literally saved me in so many ways and has added so much to my life, even to the magical powers of plants that have become so important in my healing journey.

In short, once I stopped being such a total workaholic, my world opened up in new ways. From adventures with people I love to inward plant medicine journeys, incredible healing treatments and serendipitous synchronicities right and left… life is so, so much sweeter now that I am more open and aware of what is beyond the work/brand aspect of my life. And on that note, my work is more fun and I am able to put SO MUCH MORE INTO IT now that my life has expanded in new and far deeper ways.

5. Sometimes you’ve got to let go of the rigid plans you have for yourself and let the universe work its flowy magic through your veins. My entire life my main dream and goal in life was to become an author. I always envisioned it would be fiction, but after starting this blog my horizon opened to memoir, cookbooks, poetry, you name it. After writing my first book Breaking Vegan in 2014, I became obsessively fixated on writing my next book. It’s like I couldn’t even enjoy becoming an author at the age of 24 because I was so diehard about what the next book would be.

For YEARS I obsessed over it, I beat myself up that it wasn’t happening, and I started so many different book ideas without finishing them. I wrote book proposals that pretty much ended up nowhere despite having an amazing agent and a great platform — simply because those ideas weren’t what the universe had in store for me. It took me all the way until this year to realize that in order to open up space for the universe to work in flow with me, I had to let go of the rigid plans and goals I had in place for myself.

And guess what? So many things have come through! Courses, marriage, healing my body in a real way, deeper relationships, spiritual awakening, a greater sense of happiness in every sense of the word. I still know that in my lifetime I will write many books. I am inspired and excited just thinking about it — but I am not tied in any steadfast way to what those books will be or when they will happen. I have learned to live in the flow of the universe, and it has been such a massive gift in my life.

6. The important things in life are very, very simple. Family, friendship, love, health, the ability to move our bodies and sleep and nourish ourselves and breathe. When I lost my health, and I lost my ability to do anything/everything I once lived, this became abundantly clear to me. This was certainly in every way, my lesson of the decade.

7. We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings have a human experience. If #6 was my lesson of the decade, this is the lesson of my lifetime. Once I learned and embraced this undeniable truth, my life opened up in countless new ways. I remind myself of this every single day. It reminds me that when things seem hard and life isn’t going the way I want it to, it’s for a greater spiritual purpose. My enteral soul came here to learn, to grow, to experience, to expand. That is exactly what I am doing and that’s exactly what you’re doing too.

8. Never take life’s little pleasures for granted. Farmer’s market Sundays, coffee dates with my love, cuddles in bed with Hudson, a hot bubble bath with candles and a good book, a phone call with my mom, a stroll with my best friend. These little moments are what life is all about. When I stopped running from all that was important in life to chase something I thought was more important (work, material success, etc.)… I was finally able to see — the truest gifts in life were right in front of me all along.

9. Nature is the greatest healer of them all. Nature heals. Nature is the universe’s gift to us. Have you ever stared into a flower and wondered how it could possibly be created to be so beautiful and perfect? And then realized that whatever divine intelligence created that flower, created you? Next time you feel lost… wander into nature. Lean into a tree. You will remember. Everything we seek, everything we need, is right here on this beautiful planet. We are one with it all & we are a part of it all.

10. All of the answers we seek are inside of us… & if we can’t find them, we just have to get more still to reach them. Meditation, yoga, plant medicine, going inward. We have all of the answers we seek. They are not outside of ourselves. This simple truth has reminded me that when I am looking outside of myself to doctors, my family, other people’s opinions — I will never really get exactly what I need. My intuition always knows. It has lead me to everything in my life now & I don’t ever want to stop recognizing how incredible that really is. And the same is true for all of us!

IS IT SURPRISING THAT I JUST WROTE 3,000+ WORDS?!! I mean, it is a whole decade we are recapping here.

And I feel like there is so much I didn’t say… LOL!

I really hope that everything I’ve shared here, from my story that begins in 2004 all the way until now, gives you some insight or some guidance or some hope or some happiness, or at the very least makes you feel less alone!

We are all apart of something so, so much bigger than ourselves.

Perhaps that’s why my decade recap culminates with so much spirituality. That is at the core of everything. I have found myself again through spirituality — from eating plant based, to kundalini yoga, to meditating, to Ayurvedic medicine, to returning to nature, to so much more.

I don’t even know how to describe the depth of nostalgia I have been feeling with this decade coming to a close. Powerful shifts are happening. I literally see and feel past relationships and traumas and challenges moving and flowing up and out of my body during these last few days of the decade.

If you are feeling it too, it’s because you are very in tune. The truth is, we all are. Some of us just forget along the way. So much amazing stuff is coming in 2020 — I can’t wait to share my new content and projects with you guys and everything I am working on. But beyond that, I just can’t wait for life to keep unfolding. To keep healing. To keep living. To keep loving. To experience it all.

What about you? I would love to hear about your decade & the top things you’ve learned. This is a great time to set intentions & get clear on what you want to call into your life for the next year, decade, and beyond. Love you all so much. Thank you for being a part of my life. <3 Cheers to MANY MORE DECADES TOGETHER!

I have gotten some questions about this after standing up for myself recently on the blog (read yesterday’s blog post!) and wanted to clarify my point of view on spirituality and standing up for yourself.

In my opinion, there is a big difference between taking the high road and letting someone walk all over you.

Being a spiritual person means being in touch with your intuition, and your intuition never lies.

Being a spiritual person means acting from a place of ACTION rather than reaction.

And being a spiritual person means always being a pioneer for truth — the overall truth and your soul’s individual truth.

Standing up for yourself is practicing an important BOUNDARY, which is the pinnacle of spirituality and self-care in my opinion.

What I have found is that when I bite my tongue and refrain from sharing my truth, my soul gets restless. It feels like a bird stuck in a cage, or like a plant with no water. We came to this earth, to these human bodies, to express our SOULS. Our desires, our feelings, our emotions, our deepest and truest beliefs and longings.

This goes for large situations like the situation I was in with the media this past week, and smaller day to day situations with friends and family (or even strangers!).

Just a few months ago I was sitting on the beach with one of my dear friends and explaining to her that I was exhausted because another friend had been over the night before and I just couldn’t find it in me to tell that person I was ready for bed, emotionally and physically drained from the week, and wanted them to go home.

I told my friend all of the elaborate ways in which I tried to get this person to go home, including full on cleaning my kitchen, laying on the couch, and then going into the hallway with Hudson (my cat – hehe) for an extended period of time while my friend inside continued to have no idea what I was feeling.

Was I being immature and too timid to share my truth?

YES.

Why?

Because I didn’t want to hurt my friend’s feelings! I love him, and I didn’t want to have to tell him to go. I wanted him to pick up on my subtleties that I WANTED him to go. Lol, the complications of being human. (And being a Reflector at that a.k.a desperately needing to recharge alone.)

So as I recounted this story to my friend the next day, she said, “So you basically did everything except tell them to leave?”

And we burst out laughing. Because yes, I had avoided the obvious. I had avoided my own truth. I bit my tongue, choked it down, and acted MORE rude I am sure than it would have been to just tell my friend that I needed to go to bed and had had a really, really long week.

That was a huge learning lesson for me (even though I don’t think the friend I am referring to had any idea how I felt and I am glad — it wasn’t their issue at ALLLL, it was mine), and a huge turning point. After my soul sista on the beach reminded me that I was just being silly and refraining from sharing my truth, and reminded me that whenever we share our TRUTH we are shown the people who really matter to us anyway, I was re-empowered to not hide from my real feelings. And most especially, to not hide from sharing my real feelings.

Now I think there is a classy, graceful way to share your truth. I think that…

a) sharing your truth must always be rooted in your intuition (if your intuition tells you not to share, listen – it is not about sharing EVERYTHING, but rather sharing the things that really, truly matter)

b) make sure you are coming from a place of action rather than reaction, i.e. not responding to something that irks you RIGHT AWAY but rather giving yourself time to cool off, think about the situation, and act from a place of kindness

c) be mindful of other people’s feelings in the situation, i.e. don’t attack someone to simply get your feelings across, because your feelings about a situation are always going to be YOUR SIDE of the situation — keep in mind there is always another side too

d) ask yourself, “does sharing this truth make anyone’s life better?” if the answer is YES (even if the answer is just YOUR LIFE, but many times it will be more than that), then that is a good sign, and also ask yourself, “is this worth it?” i.e. if this might hurt another person’s feelings, is it certainly so important to you that you’re up for having a mindful dialogue about it?

e) how quickly can you MOVE ON and LET GO from what no longer serves you? Do not ever share your truth to cause drama or live in the dramatic / chaotic state of life that we sometimes crave due to previous life experiences — share your truth, and MOVE ON.

Usually it’s plain and simple. Tell the truth, before any situation escalates to your blood boiling because then you might just explode, OR you might just hold it in for a long time and then explode at something random (also not fun, at all, for anyone)!

A Course in Miracles (Chapter 31), the spiritual text that I study and created my course based off of, says this about the Self:  “This aspect [a concept of the Self] can grow angry, for the world is wicked and unable to provide the love and shelter innocence deserves. And so this face is often wet with tears at the injustices the world accords to those who would be generous and good. This aspect never makes the first attack. But every day a hundred little things make small assaults upon its innocence, provoking it to irritation, and at last to open insult and abuse.”

I don’t think that the world itself is wicked . at all (I think it is a beautiful place) but I know that people can surely be mean and many things about this human experience are not fair, or fun, or just. And it is true that every day a hundred little things make “small assaults upon [our Soul’s] innocence,” and because of that it is so important to be mindful of how we are taking care of ourselves and expressing our souls.

Chapter 31 of A Course in Miracles ends with this: “The world can teach no images of you unless you want to learn them. There will come a time when images have all gone by, and you will see you know not what you are. It is to this unsealed and open mind that truth returns, unhindered and unbound. Where concepts of the self have been laid by is truth revealed exactly as it is.”

My interpretation of that is that we are not the self-righteous “Self” that we create in our minds. We are so much deeper, so much more powerful, we are so eternal and so strong, we are pure consciousness embodied.

When you look at it that way, it makes it even more clear that if we came here to be expressions of our souls, so YES it is important to speak our truth but also YES it is also important to remember that so much of what we experience here is fleeting, and temporary, and is for us to learn from.

That helps us learn how to ACT vs. REACT. With our partners, with our friends, with our families, with our selves.

In essence, I take from this passage of A Course in Miracles that we as humans have forgotten our true nature. We have forgotten our Oneness, our wholeness, our eternal peacefulness as sisters and brothers.

I include all of this because I want to remind us all (and remind myself) that when sharing our truth, it is abundantly important to be kind and come from a loving place. If we are all One (which I believe we are), then a part of why we share our truth is to bring everyone involved back to a state of ALIGNMENT and LOVE.

I think that mindfully standing up for yourself requires a delicate balance of sharing your truth in order to bring all parties back to alignment and love, while also not allowing yourself to be a fucking doormat.

I think it is spiritual AF to stand UP and tell your truth when you’ve been bullied or slighted. Because even if the person (or persons) who has/have bullied you isn’t exactly being brought back into alignment with your truth (not immediately at least because they clearly have a different point of view and their own lifelong wounds), you are standing up for all who have been silenced before you.

When a kid being bullied stands up for themself, they are standing up for all the kids they know who have been bullied. It is a ripple effect. When I stood up for myself this past week, I wasn’t doing it for me and me alone. Yes, my soul needed to express itself. It wasn’t a choice, it was a duty. But I was standing up for myself to stand up for all of the Lyme patients, AND chronically ill sufferers, who have been silenced.

It is simple as that.

One day when we remember we are all One, we won’t be in this same position of having to stand up for ourselves in the face of cruelty or bullying or injustice.

But for now, here on this earthly plane, standing up for injustice is a spiritual practice.

Also, turning the other cheek when it feels right in your intuition is a spiritual practice.

Staying silent and letting someone else share their truth that you don’t agree with, when it feels right, is a spiritual practice.

Can you see what I am saying here?

Every situation is different, and your intuition and STRENGTHENING your relationship with your intuition will help you determine how to act in any particular circumstance.

When you stand up for yourself whenever it feels intuitively right, you inspire others to do the same. You also give the message to the Universe: I am here, I am proud, I am in alignment with exactly who I am, and no one or no thing can bring me down. I am listening to my intuition, to the divine creator, and am here to carry out the messages that need to be shared!

You can even stand up for yourself in your own journal, without sharing it out loud or publicly. YOU get to decide what it looks like to draw boundaries and stand in YOUR truth.

Standing up for yourself is a boundary.

Boundaries = spiritual self-care.

It all goes hand in hand.

Am I sharing all of this assuming I come from a place of perfection? HELL NO! I am human, and I am learning every day.

Do I blow up at my fiancé a little too often? YES.

Do I blow up at my family a lot too often? YES.

Do I share my feelings on social media and my blog after my feelings have been hurt without always taking the TIME to act vs. react? Absolutely yes.

We are all humans in progress. Humans evolving.

But I will never apologize for doing what I know is right — and sometimes doing what we know is right is DEEPLY uncomfortable. I hate stepping on people’s toes or displeasing anyone. I mean, as you read earlier in this post, I couldn’t even tell my dear friend to leave my house when it was getting too late for me!

Leaning into the discomfort is where SOUL LEVEL growth happens.

Leaning into the discomfort is where we have the opportunity to shift the injustices in this world – by speaking up and sharing from the HEART.

So all in all… it all comes back to strengthening our intuition, being kind, and drawing boundaries.

P.S. if you’ve been really bullied, torn down, or really slighted by someone or a group of people, it’s okay to be mad, sad, enraged, devastated! It IS spiritual to be all of those things. You can be spiritual and get mad. You get be spiritual and deeply sad and devastated. It is so totally okay to be all of those things. And to express yourself accordingly. And then to stay in your high vibe lane and move the F on. Because after you share your truth, they deserve not one more ounce of your time.

Don’t let “spirituality” be another LABEL you live by. Receiving the few messages I did about “But you’re a spiritual person, why did you get upset over that article?” showed me that people still want to attach to the idea of spiritual people being ONE WAY. Just like not all vegans are one way, not all Jews are one way, not all Californians are one way, NOT ALL SPIRITUAL PEOPLE are one way.

Spiritual people can get mad, sad, drink alcohol, or be sober! They can share from the heart and be crusaders of truth or choose to live a life off the beaten path and largely in silence!

They get to decide who they are. Each and every one of us gets to decide who we are and how we express our souls wrapped in skin.

Also… being spiritual means feeling it ALL. I am so happy to be able to share my truth and then let go, let live, and move forward. Which is exactly what I am doing!

Love you guys. Heading into my cavitation surgery on TUESDAY ahhh I am so ready! Leave any questions about that or this post below. XO 

I want to let you know in advance this is not my usual optimistic spin on things and this is very real and raw and from the heart. I have had an incredibly rough few days, and when I’m being very honest with myself I know it’s been an incredibly rough few years.

I am lucky to have so many good things in my life. Jonathan, my family, a job I love where I am able to work from home and create from my heart, a handful of incredible friends, obviously the best cat ever (hi Huddy man), but this shit ain’t easy. I am so ridiculously sick and I wonder sometimes how I am maintaining my career let alone my life… (well I know, and that’s because you guys are awesome and have totally evolved alongside of me and that’s why I am able to keep blogging full-time.)

But still.

So let’s get into it, now that I’ve intro’d you into what you’re going to be reading. Enjoy my brain spill.

There is nothing easy about being sick with a chronic disease. I try to think back to what it was like before I felt this way, doing this intricate dance with Lyme disease and my life, and it has been so long I am not even sure that I can pinpoint when it was that I felt normal.

College is the first thing that comes to mind, but I know even 4-ish years ago I was feeling a lot better than I do now, even if the symptoms were already coming on. It’s wild to try to count the years/figure it out, even though the “when” doesn’t necessarily matter. My brain is just constantly trying to wrap its head around what it must feel like to not feel like this.

I am still getting used to everything that comes along with having something that is chronic. With regular illnesses we get sick, it sucks, and the only saving grace is knowing that it’s going to go away. I think most days I still have trouble believing that this is not going away. Yes, I will get better and feel way healthier than I do now… but for the most part, I will always be managing the symptoms and nursing a delicate system after this experience.

Right now I am at the stage where I am realizing that it’s been almost two years of feeling completely not myself. I have hit the point where it’s been long enough I realize many people in my life simply know me this way — only this way — and never knew me when I was healthy.

Chatting with my best friend the other day it struck us that even the night Jonathan and I first kissed and then started dating, I was already feeling all of the symptoms of Lyme Disease that have now become my norm. So the love of my life, who loves me whether I’m healthy as can be or totally bedridden, has yet to get to experience me at my fullest without this disease. That is a wild feeling.

I have gone through so many stages of how I feel about having chronic Lyme since i was diagnosed last June. I went from relieved about having answers, to over the moon and vindicated that I hadn’t been wrong about how I felt for all these years, to being slightly terrified and overwhelmed about this new life of treatments and protocols and medications, to being totally heartbroken and frustrated over things that I have missed / can’t do, to pretty optimistic about my progress, to totally frustrated all over again because healing is simply not linear.

Lately I feel all sorts of ways about it all depending on the moment. Most of the time I feel very grateful for this healing path and all that it’s taught me- in those moments I feel optimistic about my protocol and a wave of extreme patience and calm washes over me knowing that I am on a long, but steady path toward healing. 

Other times my symptoms hit me so hard, flaring terribly seemingly out of nowhere, they leave me bedridden and in pain and completely unable to live even somewhat similar to my normal life. These last few days have been that way. 

On Saturday night I was up ALL. NIGHT. with raging insomnia, which is one of my indicators that everything is really starting to flare. Of course lack of sleep doesn’t do me any favors either. So by Sunday morning I felt like I had been hit by a semi truck. Jonathan took one look at me when he woke up and told me I needed to stay home and rest, which at first I resisted because we had plans with our families and I was so looking forward to it. 

Thankfully I listened (sometimes I need a major push and some tough love in order to open my eyes to what I really need) because as the day went on I reached a point where lifting my arm to grab my water glass from my nightstand was too exhausting for my body.   

Too tired to read or watch TV, too stimulated and panicky to sleep. While I laid there I considered the position I was in and went through extreme waves of emotions. On the one hand I feel lucky and grateful for the treatments I’m able to receive and for the many good days that I have.

On the other hand I feel totally lost and I ask myself everything from “Why on earth am i planning a wedding right now?” imagining the happiest day of my life being clouded by these raging symptoms, to “If I felt this way every day I wouldn’t see the point in living.”

It’s a total roller coaster. When the “chronic” part of chronic illness seeps in… it can be hard to remember life before being this sick. 

Something I see a lot of in our High Vibe Chronic Lyme and Chronic Illness Tribe on Facebook is that so many people out there are not only struggling with their illness, but struggling to gain acceptance + understanding from just about anyone in their life about what they are going through. It breaks my heart. I have very much been in that position as well, but I am now at the point where if someone doesn’t get it / respect the unique way I have to do things right now… I don’t have the energy for it. I know whoever is meant to be in my life will get it, and they do.

I think what a lot of people don’t realize is that a lot of us with chronic illness also struggle immensely with guilt. I mean immensely. I often wake up in the middle of the night with my heart racing out of my chest, overcome with panic stricken guilt about something I forgot to do or someone I fear is disappointed in me for not being well enough to be in their life or most often about my plans for the next day or the coming week just knowing they’re going to be nearly impossible to make it to. 

It can feel impossible to feel like I am “doing enough” as a friend, a sister, an aunt, a daughter, a fiancé, a cat mom, a human… and something about the anxiety of the middle of the night can bring those thoughts and fears into a full blown tail spin. It makes me want to jump out of bed and do a million things at once, and keeps me up all night to the point where waking up the next day feels like the hardest thing in the world.

It is my nature to get inspired about my work and overbook myself in the moments I am feeling well — overbook myself with podcast guests, events, trips, plans, deadlines, all of the things i cannot even fathom doing or engaging in when I’m feeling at my sickest. So planning ahead is… so hard!!! I never know what I am going to be up for or not up for, and running a business that way is hard. 

I usually just push my way through it but some days I look at Jonathan and say, “I cannot do the podcast tomorrow. I need to cancel my guest.” And he will look at me like, “Seriously?” because we both know there’s a good chance that person will not understand and will be frustrated AF. I hate doing that, but I also hate showing up to record something I am so passionate about sharing with you guys when I just don’t have it in me — or doing anything at all when I can’t give it my all, including catching up with a friend over coffee. I can’t fake it when I feel like shit.

On a walk with my parents yesterday, during a good few hours.

It comes in waves. Most days are both good and bad in terms of energy levels and how I feel. Other days are purely bad, and they last for days or weeks on end. Usually by “bad” that means severe exhaustion, brain fog, body pain, nausea, and an overall lack of motivation to function or get out of bed and face the day. 

I know on social media it looks like things are all fine and dandy. Even in person it looks that way! Invisible illnesses are so difficult that way, so painful. Maybe you’ll notice a lack of zest in my eyes or a lack of strength in my voice, or you’ll think I am just not interested in what you are saying. Or perhaps you’ll think I am a flake because I often have to cancel at the last minute these days.

But that’s not it at all… it’s a struggle to be out of bed at all, always, any day of the week, and if I am… I am probably struggling. Barely able to retain info in a conversation. But looking 100% normal and healthy.

Once in a while I will have a streak of good days (which is amazing!!), but I am still learning how to handle them so they don’t end up being depleting. In fact a few days of last week I felt quite good, and I absolutely ran myself into the ground because I was so overjoyed about my energy and inspiration and zest for life/work/exercise that I just wanted to use it all while I had it. Because sometimes even when I don’t use it, it still goes away the very next day. 

I am still very much figuring out my healing formula. A combination of eastern and western medicine has been serving me well. I mostly take herbal remedies for Lyme and co-infections, get vitamin infusions, juice 3x a day, do coffee enemas 2x a day, get colonics weekly, acupuncture, massage / fascial release, eat an SOS free diet, do yoga and light jogs / walks when i can, try to get a lot of sleep and live as low stress as possible. But I also get antibiotic IVs twice a week and taking anti-malarial pills for babesia… and I am not sure I would exist without all of that too.

The unfortunate thing is that even healing can be an exhausting job. Driving to the doctors office and getting treatments for a few hours is just about all my body can handle in a day. But when I don’t do it, in favor of more rest and downtime or squeezing in more things for work, it backfires on me terribly. At least when I am doing it, I know I am putting in the effort to heal and that feels good even when it’s hard.

Soooo… that is my update. It’s not easy. It’s painful. I am guilt ridden, even though I am working hard to try to let go of that guilt because I know feeling guilty is pointless and I am putting that pressure on myself, no one else is. I am tired and crying on the inside ALL of the time, no matter where I am or what I am doing… being in bed always sounds much better.

I look forward to feeling better. I know I will heal. I have dedicated my life to healing. I am going to Vancouver this weekend to study the Gerson therapy and kick off my health coaching program (I also ask myself why the F am I doing this right now when I feel the way that I do???? Because I am Jordan and this is the kind of shit I do) and I am excited because I do believe this way of life will help me heal.

I am so dedicated. I will do whatever it takes to get better. And I am just lucky and blissfully grateful to have you all along for the ride. Thank you. I am also lucky to have the best family, fiancé, and friends in the world and I will never stop being appreciative for their support that I know not everyone has the luxury of experiencing.

Thank you so much for reading this brain spill about living with Lyme. I know this post wasn’t uplifting but it was real, and that’s what I’m here for. I’m just glad my brain fog finally lifted enough for me to write it.

Love & adore you all. Would love to hear your thoughts on all of this. <3 Also would love to hear your stories in the comments. Join our Chronic Illness FB tribe if this convo resonates with you. xx 

Today I want to talk about striking a balance with social media… i.e. how I’ve learned to have a job in social media without spending ALL of my time on screens or thinking about being on screens or getting too caught up in the perfection of it all.

I will be the first to say that I have a LONG way to go… I have been known to work tirelessly on vacation and get a little too wound up about capturing the most picturesque Instagram photo, but I have to admit as the years have gone on being so “on” for the screens has seemed FAR less exciting to me than it did in the beginning.

The more in touch I’ve gotten with myself and truly the happier I’ve become in my REAL life, outside of the screens, the easier it has been for me to detach from it all when I need to. And newsflash: we all need to.

Let’s back it up a little bit. A few years ago I was pretty lost. I had just moved back to LA from NYC, I was very publicly recovering from an eating disorder and switching from the vegan label to a non-labeled way of life, I left a big heart of my heart in New York, and when I got back to LA it seemed the only thing for me to do here was to dive into my blog, full speed ahead.

At the time I was writing my first book (which you can find here), running a clothing line (TBV Apparel, anyone?!), blogging every day of the week and launching a TBB recipe app. I was a one woman show with no help and I loved it that way — I had my eye on building my brand and I poured my entire heart and soul into it.

There was a lot going on in my family life, my dating life (was in an awful relationship with someone who refused to commit to being with me but still spent every day with me), and my health, aka the very beginnings of my Lyme disease, was flaring up likely crazy.

To distract myself and to feel like I had a special purpose, what I kept doing was working, working, working, nose to the grind, creating more content, coming out with more ebooks and programs (which you can still find on the SHOP tab of my website), posting on social media, scrolling Instagram, the works.

What I was always praised for and also what I found great joy in was working. When everything else seemed to be spiraling out of control, I would think, “At least I have built this awesome brand — a brand that I am proud of that I can continue to grow and focus on and work on every day and that actually makes me HAPPY to work on.”

And while all of that I still true, I had WAY TOO MUCH ANXIETY about getting the perfect photo at the perfect time, all of the time. I mean like on vacation I would absolutely scream my head off at my parents if they could not capture a good shot (which was most of the time at first, they’ve gotten a lot better with the iPhone photo life now), and I even brought products on vacation with my friends to shoot because I was never not working, never not committed to working with 394839 brands.

Let’s just say that all in all I did not have a balanced approach when it came to using technology, and especially using technology to work.

Fast forward to now. So much has changed. I have lived in LA again for over four years, and I have settled into it being home. I now live with the love of my life and Huddy, and Jonathan is so good at reminding me to live in the moment and not get so caught up in what is going on with my phone & social media.

I have learned to LET GO of so much. I let go of my clothing line and my app, and that has freed me up to begin my podcast, which has then freed me up from doing so many social media & blog partnerships that I was once always shooting and creating content for. The beauty of podcasting is that once a week, I can sit down with a super inspiring person and chat with them, then record my intros & outros, and call it a week. It does not require sitting in front of a screen and scrolling, in any way!

I have also gotten very SICK… so those issues I was experiencing four years ago were my body trying to tell me that something was radically off. Now that I know what it is, I have been able to take so much time for deep healing and rest. Trying to get my life, energy and vitality back while battling Lyme is a full-time job in itself.

During this time I have found that scrolling social media never fulfills me. It is easy to lose an hour here, an hour there scrolling Instagram or editing my photos and planning my feed. And of course I still do that, because my career still requires it and I can have fun with it too, but I am not so obsessed as if its my full LIFE anymore. I have also found that when I scroll social media too much, it takes me out of my own ideas and creativity. I would so much rather create from a place within and then see what everyone is up to later.

Lastly, I have LET GO of those perfect “instagrammable” photos. Now I think the most IG-worthy photos are totally in the moment, expressing myself, being ME. Not photos from some fancy photoshoot on the beach — videos in my apartment making breakfast, unedited, real life stuff.

And lucky for me, that requires way less editing and time.

So that is MY story with social media & I will share with you the tips I have found to be a little less “addicted” if you will, and live more in the moment!

My Tips! //

+ Never scroll first thing in the morning. I leave my phone in airplane mode while I sleep so that when my alarm goes off in the morning and I reach over to turn it off, I am not instantly bombarded with messages, emails, podcast updates, etc. I can wake up peacefully and take the first hour of the day to just CHILL. Sometimes I journal and meditate, other times I just lay in bed cuddling Huddy and being one with my thoughts — remembering my dreams, sorting out problems from the day before, getting in touch with the creativity that inspires me, thinking about ideas for a new project. The morning is not the time of day to scroll!

+ Create habits and routines off-the-screens that fill you up. I love my morning routine sans phones, including making iced coffee in the kitchen, listening to music, stretching and doing some yoga, and jumping on my rebounder to get my lymph moving. At night, J & I like to wind down without our phones and do some meditation together, connect in bed and chat about our days, play with Huddy, and either read or watch a movie together. I don’t count a movie as screen time because it is actually a great way to escape the social media / “what everyone else is doing” world and just be present and allow yourself to be entertained. Especially when you’re doing it with someone you love!

+ Let go of the perfection of that “perfect photo” or having the perfect feed. I have gone through a lot of phases with my Instagram aesthetic. At first it was all food, then it was very much food & lifestyle, then all lifestyle, then all yoga, then I got sick of ALL of that and felt like just sharing what I do in my life — whether that be meals or yoga or running or time with my babe at home or traveling or ANYTHING — and now it’s back to a little mix of all of it, with more of an emphasis on wellness. I used to get so worried that my feed wasn’t streamlined or consistent enough, but who cares?

If you focus on what your WHY is, maybe it will help those fears go away. For me, I have never intended to have the perfect IG feed. I may have gotten caught up in that for a while, yes, but I am so happy to have let go of it. My “why” is that I am here to inspire people, and I feel that the right people will come my way whether or not my feed is perfect or whether I always get the perfect photo. I am so much more interested in LIVING, and I have a feeling the people who are meant to follow me are the same way.

+ Add things into your life that help you clear your head. For me that is definitely exercise (a blissful hour or hour and a half where you cannot have your phone around, like a yoga class or a HIIT workout), and I like to exercise at the end of the workday around 5 or 6pm to “close off” the day. I put my phone onto airplane mode and then I just check out. I don’t need to answer to anyone, I don’t force myself to be on. I am able to reconnect to myself during that time and draw a line between the workday, “on” me and the totally real life me who is ready to step away from all the screens and just live. If its not exercise, maybe it is a walk outside or a meditation or even just making dinner with your family. It can be as simple as ever and still get the job done.

+ Think about what makes you HAPPY, and do more of it. I don’t know about you, but scrolling Instagram is not something I would count as something that makes me happy. But does it still take up a considerable portion of my time? YES. And it doesn’t have to!! When I remind myself what I love about my daily life: my morning routine, spending time with people, making dinner, doing yoga, being outside, exercising, being present in the moment with those around me… it makes it easy to step off of social media and take a break. It’s all about reminding yourself what you love and knowing that it’s there for you, you DO have time for it.

+ When you’re on vacation, come up with designated “online time” and then be completely present for the rest of it. This is something Jonathan came up with, and we have been pretty good about sticking to it when we are on vacation. We spend about 30 minutes in the late morning and either 30 minutes or an hour at the end of the day doing what we need to do online, from social media to emails. Then the rest of the day we just get to be with each other, play, explore, have fun, and take pics with our phones on airplane mode.

+ Remember that EMAILS CAN ALWAYS WAIT! And that makes social media comments & responses too. This one key point has been life changing for me. Spending less time on email is what my heart and soul has been calling for for YEARS. I like to group it all together and do no email/social media/scrolling days when I need them. Email can be just as stressful, it also means being “ON.”

+ Instead of scrolling your feed, search for your friends / fam to stay up to date on their feeds! I don’t really scroll IG these days. I have about 10 or 20 go-to’s that I search, from my mom to my best friends to other bloggers I love and admire, and I search them to see what they are up to on social media, which DOES make me happy. I like to engage and get inspired and support the people I love. But I don’t want to scroll down the rabbit hole of seeing what 34839348 other people and their fiancé’s mom’s friend’s daughter are up to. Ya know?

I hope this helps! Like I said, I still have a long way to go but avoiding that social media induced anxiety is so important. It may be hilarious for me to say that as a blogger, but because bloggers can sometimes be PART of the problem with the comparison trap and whatnot, I think it is as important for us to share as ever. Social media was way different when I first started blogging — it used to be a form of entertainment, it’s now a way of life! But we can take our life and our time back, we have that control, and it feels damn good when we do. Thoughts?! xo 

What ever happened to the art of doing less?

Years before I got really sick I was attracted to the idea of doing less, but somehow I continued to do the opposite & really just piled my plate higher and higher. Building my brand, saying yes to every opportunity, going on every trip, doing every photo shoot, saying yes to every plan and birthday dinner and event and teacher training, doing it all.

But now that I am actually very sick, doing less is my only option. I have a hard time with it. It’s a love-hate. When I have days where I’m doing too much (because yes, those days still happen far too often) I miss my days in bed and yearn for the comfort of an open schedule, but sometimes when I’m resting and healing I get antsy and crave adventure and stimulation.

Like I said… it’s tricky!

Resting and healing from Lyme disease is one thing. It’s different for everyone, but for many people it can take YEARS. Because it is such a drawn out process, it’s considered more chronic than acute. With chronic illness you have good days and bad, so on those good days you can still go out and power through. On good days I love to hit up yoga classes, go on a hike, spend time with friends, and work on all things TBB.

And then on the down days, I rest. But resting and healing from things that do not have “up and down days” like Lyme, is where the real tests have come in for me.

What are those things, you ask? Great question.

A few months ago it was the water fast I did in Northern California, where I legitimately was unable to get out of bed for weeks on end except to walk in circles around my bed every few hours to make sure I wasn’t getting blood clots. I did the water fast for Lyme, head to toe eczema, and to shrink my fibroids ( it didn’t shrink them, sadly. )

And now, it’s recovering from fibroid surgery, otherwise known as an abdominal myomectomy — a surgery I just had this past FRIDAY. So yes… I have been down for the count in a whole new way.

I will do a full blog post ( or probably several, let’s be real ) breaking down the fibroid surgery, why I had it, my hospital stay, and my recovery — not to mention a full YouTube video because I’ve been filming the whole process — but for now I really just want to focus on this whole element of patience.

I know people reading may or may not be able to relate to fibroid surgery but we can ALL relate to this tricky thing with patience. It can be a real beast for many of us.

Many times I have had to ask myself: Why am I so scared of doing less? Why am I so afraid of pulling back, of saying no, of resting and healing, of being patient with my time, of accepting that now is not my time to say yes to everything and take every opportunity?

Logically I know the answer, that now is my time to rest. I have one body, and I need to take care of it. But I really think the fear comes from a very deep place of feeling like saying no & slowing down now will mean that every opportunity will vanish. And that’s just not true.

If I say no to something now and the opportunity doesn’t come back my way, then it simply wasn’t meant to be. I spent SO MANY YEARS saying yes to everything & getting myself really, really sick because of it. I believe that doing things that don’t match our vibrational energy completely do make us sick. Maybe that’s not what gave me Lyme disease or fibroids but it certainly wore my immune system down to the point where I was no longer able to fight these things off like someone else may have been.

So, patience. How to cultivate it in times like these?! It takes a LOT of drawing inward.

Last night I found myself in my bathroom on the phone with Jonathan ( who was still at work ) telling him I was going to take a shower and get in bed and asking if he could bring us açaí bowls for dinner. Immediately he said, “Is your mom there?” And I said, “No! I was just going to shower on my own.” But the moment the words were out of my mouth I realized… That is a terrible idea. I can barely even stand, why am I trying to take a shower and wash my hair by myself already?

That is just one instance of trying to move so much faster than I need to be. It’s like that saying getting “too big for your britches” — I am the epitome of getting too big for my britches during a healing process.

Very similar, when I stopped being vegan and began to recover from orthorexia I reintroduced non-vegan foods into my life SO FAST (#bigformybritches) and gave myself a stomach ulcer and serious hormonal imbalances. And maybe even a fibroid? That one is up in the air.

So right now I am in the process of trying to be patient. I am dying to go outside, but it is too soon to walk anywhere beyond walking around my apartment. I am dying to work on my memoir, but my brain is all fuzzy and it is hard to type because I can’t sit up yet! I am dying to go to the grocery store or even just walk to coffee… but I need to remember all of that will be there when I am ready. There is no RUSH.

Are you someone who struggles with this as well? I think it’s a perfectionist thing. I am a Reflector by Human Design, which means I am pretty lax and flowy, but that doesn’t mean I am not totally Type A.

I wanted to share because this is an important thing we can all ask ourselves. Where does the fear come from? Fear of not doing enough? I truly want to be an advocate for the SLOW life… I am trying, and I have so much to learn. To me, living slow feels beautiful. A lot of you have introduced me to “slow living” accounts on Insta that are incredibly inspiring to me. Keep them coming if you know of any!

Slow living means living for YOU, first and foremost. For your friends and family and fur babies yes, but in a way that ignites your soul. For me that means keeping my schedule really, really open and having lots of time to take it easy. Especially right now. That inner programming to push myself so hard has just gotta go.

I look forward to feeling a bit better and putting this all into practice, as life in bed is very much like living life on the sidelines. This year has given me a major taste of that. But for now at least I am very grateful for the ability to rest, and will continue to do just that as much as I can.

I will be over here resting and trying as hard as I can not to work / be on social media / be “on” at all. Taking all the good Netflix recs.

Maybe it’s my super air sign (Libra-Aquarius-Libra), reflector (Human Design), head in the clouds personality coupled with being really sick, but between the two maintaining even a somewhat normal working schedule (and life schedule) has been something I have had to let go of.

I feel really lucky and grateful that I have a career that allows me to switch things up at the last minute when I need to, work from bed, work for myself, and say NO to whatever is not serving me, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy or that there isn’t a whole lot of stress on the backend because of all of the changes I have had to make.

I spent the first four years of my business saying YES to everything. Doing as much as I could. Speaking at every event I was asked to, hosting my own events, working with countless brands, going on brand trips, podcasting and blogging nearly every day of the week, collaborating with everyone I could, teaching yoga and leading retreats and collecting certifications by the month, and working on other projects like my TBB clothing line (which I have since shut down), my book, YouTube, and more.

When I think back to how many balls I had in the air, my first thought is: “What the heck, Jordan?! You taught yoga at the crack of dawn, worked on your clothing line / blog / podcast / Youtube / book / events / brand collabs / etc. When did you REST / hang out with people???” My second thought is: “No wonder I’m so sick now.”

In many ways I was predisposed to chronic illness because I have a very delicate system and various genetic mutations that make it all too easy for me to get sick, and all too difficult for me to detox… but in other ways, I know that stress triggered the Lyme & mold in my system to run rampant and knock me down with a vengeance this year.

And you know my outlook on that: as much as it sucks, it’s a gift. A gift from the universe to slow down and take a good, hard look at the way I am living my life so I can make the necessary changes to live BETTER & in a way that will make me thrive rather than make me sick.

There are so many things I want to do that are outside of the realm of all that I have been doing for the last five years. I truly see myself as an author first and foremost, and a poet, and someone who puts their family & friends first — not someone who puts work first which to be honest has been a part of building TBB up until this point.

But in order to be an author, poet, and a human who puts PEOPLE first… I have to carve out time for those things. And prioritize them. And shift my schedule and make the hard CHANGES that come along with shifting my focus. I am reading a book right now about morning routines (will do a full post on it ASAP) and it is inspiring the shit out of me to change the way I do things so I can create & manifest from a place of calm and FLOW.

But anyway… to the point of this post. MY SCHEDULE. How am I doing it? Let me walk you through…

How I am Maintaining My Schedule While Super Sick //

Well, the hardest part is simply NOT KNOWING how I will feel each and every day. I have good days where I can do a surprising amount and I feel more like the energizer bunny I have been all my life (no joke, that was my nickname for my entire childhood & adolescence!), and I have bad days where I can’t get out of bed to even walk to the kitchen to make food.

And a part of me knows that cramming a ton of stuff into my good days makes me crash a lot harder afterward, so as gratifying and fun as it feels in the moment to take advantage of feeling well, I also have to consistently remind myself not to do TOO much or the aftermath is truly, truly not worth it.

It has been a balancing act trying to use my energy wisely, rest when I need to (and even when I feel like I don’t need to), take advantage of those good days to be productive and do what I love and keep my business running smoothly, AND be okay with clearing my schedule and cancelling everything I wanted to do when my body simply says NOPE, not today.

IT’S HARD!! I always want to do everything and it is hard for me to accept and believe that right now I really just can’t. Not to mention, my already small windows of time to be active and do things because of how much I need to rest is totally cut in half because of the amount of time I spend in treatments, in doctor’s appointments, measuring out my supplements and tinctures and meds, and doing holistic treatments to manage my pain and discomfort.

It is a lot. I think anyone with a chronic illness can relate. And then there is the whole aspect of every time I see people they say things like, “YOU LOOK SO HEALTHY! YOU’RE ON THE UPSWING! I was worried last time I saw you because you looked a little pale but WOW I can tell you feel SO MUCH BETTER NOW!”

And YES that is nice to hear and it’s coming from a well meaning place, but all it does is make me feel more misunderstood and frustrated and sad because… I don’t feel well. I have the appearance of a healthy, super health-conscious, active 27 year old and the insides of a failing elderly person. At least when I had rashes all over my body it was an indictor to those around me that something was going on.

Now that the rashes are gone for the most part (thank goodness), all they can do is take my word for it. Or see for themselves that after 3pm most days I am bound to my bed and can barely greet Jonathan when he gets home from work.

Although structuring my days is a gamble because I frequently have to change them around at the last minute and I am STILL of the mentality that I can do way more than I actually can… I have found a routine that somewhat works for me for NOW that I will share below.

The Sched…

So as I mentioned, by 3pm ish every day I am down for the count. If I spend the early part of the day resting then I can manipulate that a little bit to have more energy in the later part of the day. But so far the way I am enjoying constructing my days is this…

7:30 – 9:30am: Wake up, spend time in bed cuddling Hud, meditate and reflect on my intentions for the day and my most important projects, putter to the kitchen to make coffee or matcha or mushroom coffee, make a smoothie or chia pudding, jump on my rebounder to get my lymphatic system moving, journal and plan out my day, stretch.

9:30 – Noon: Around this time or a bit later I turn my phone on (I sleep with it on airplane mode), post on Instagram and respond to text messages OR start writing for the blog or the book I am working on before checking these things because they start to distract me. If I am in a creative mood, I will keep writing undisturbed. If I am a little more frazzled or foggy, I use this time to respond to emails and get caught up with that side of the business.

If I have a podcast guest on this particular day, I try to have them come over between 11 & noon. This is peak energy time for me, as the breakfast/caffeine/energy is kicking in and I have a few good hours to feel like myself and feed off of other people’s energy and good vibes. I have an assistant take photos and videos during the interview so I don’t have to worry about that, and by the time the interview ends I am pretty much down for the count. Podcasting is a ton of energy but I so enjoy it, so it is worth it.

If I don’t have a podcast guest that day, I may record an intro & outro for a podcast episode that I have already recorded with a guest. That takes a similar amount of energy so doing it around 11 or noon is usually best for me.

Noon – 3pm: Some days I may be wiped out from a super productive morning, or other days I feel the energy flowing through me still so I keep working, head to a meeting or appointment, walk around my neighborhood to get some exercise, or most likely just keep writing. This part of the day is when I usually do photoshoots or take photos for my social media and the blog, because I still have energy but it doesn’t require quite as much brainpower as my morning tasks. Usually many more emails have rolled in by now, so I will check them again and try to clear them out so I feel good about signing off early in the evening.

3pm – 6pm: This is generally my time to stop working and shift my focus to something else. If I have been hard at work and super productive, I will take a break to read a book, lay down, call a friend, exercise / do yoga, go on a walk, hang with my mom (she just moved in upstairs!), or more often than not go to more appointments. This could be anything from ozone, to infrared sauna, to cryotherapy, to acupuncture and cupping, to a facial, to bodywork, to an appointment with my Lyme doctor, to blood tests, etc. I have appointments pretty much every other day and the timing isn’t usually my choice but if it is, I try to choose 3pm ish.

6pm – 8pm: In this window I try to stretch, do yoga, or go on a walk if I haven’t yet. Jonathan gets home around 6 so we’ll make dinner together or I will have already made something and eaten it (lol) because I eat as early as humanly possible. Sometimes I will meet a friend for dinner or have someone over to make dinner because J frequently works late and I love using this time to see people and spend time with my loves, and more often than not this includes an Erewhon date! By 8ish I am VERY wiped out and usually get in bed, read, watch Netflix, and cuddle and talk about our days with J. This is my favorite part of the day but also a very uncomfortable time if I am in a lot of pain from doing too much. Sometimes I wind down with a bath or meditation session.

AND THEN there are days like today where it’s 11:30am and I have not gotten out of bed. Or days like yesterday where 4pm rolled around and I was DOWN for the count… in bed.

Or other days like tomorrow where I have committed to teaching a special event at AloTHRIVE for Alo Yoga so I will be conserving my energy for that and can hopefully pull it together to wake up earlier than usual and get in the headspace for it.

Or even other types of days like events at night, birthday dinners, and other things I don’t want to miss so I have to plan accordingly.

I will say, being in Hawaii was awesome because I had an abundance of energy from the excitement of the engagement, from having NO stress, and from the purity of the air and so much time outside in nature and doing yoga at the glorious studio we found.

Things that GIVE ME ENERGY (or spoons, as I call it) are… time with Jonathan and Hud, yoga, being outside, going on walks / hikes, being at the beach, being with my BFF’s who I don’t have to try to be anyone or anything else around, and writing. It’s hard because sometimes the simple act of getting myself outside or to the beach seems IMPOSSIBLE when I feel so low… but I know it helps.

Having a supportive partner and also having my mom down here to help me makes this time in my life possible. For example, today my mom is my “photographer” and I have pushed back our shooting time first by a few days and again today by several hours. I wouldn’t be able to do that with a regular photographer but it is truly impossible for me to work in a normal fashion right now. And thank GOODNESS for Jonathan understanding when I have no spoons left and can’t even sit at the dinner table with him.

Also things like HAVING BOUNDARIES and hard no’s with things helps a ton. I don’t take brand phone calls or work phone calls. Point blank. Might sound crazy, but I do things all over email (except for the rare occasion when that isn’t possible) because I know that phone calls take way too much energy from me and I literally have to plan my day around them. I generally don’t go on other people’s podcasts or shows right now for the same reason — but occasionally I will do it if I feel like the experience will give me energy because it will be so fun / positive.  I also limit my time with people who don’t know me inside and out, because it requires excess energy to be “on” in this situations. Those boundaries make a WORLD of difference.

It’s rough and something I know people don’t think about when they see a photo of me hiking the gorgeous Kauai trails or jumping up and down with glee & getting engaged. Those are parts of me too, and I AM SO GRATEFUL that I am able to have BOTH… the good days and the harder days. I didn’t have good days like I have lately until pretty recently so I am very very happy for them.

I just wanted to shed some light on it all for you guys because if you are in a similar position, you are not alone and you may find solace in structuring your day similar to the ways I have been. Or my biggest tip would be to find your own structure that works perfectly for YOU, and your own activities/things that add to your energy cup instead of draining it.

Would love to know your thoughts below and your tips for maintaining a schedule while recovering from and dealing with chronic illness. Love you guys so much! And today’s podcast episode with Lauren Paul & Molly Mae Thompson of the Kind Campaign is a MUST if you haven’t listened yet! XO

I have been slowly coming back to life after my amazing Panchakarma experience at Surya Spa over the last two weeks, and I look forward to sharing all of the details with you. This is my first recap post and it’s mostly about inner musings and internal shifts that took place in my mind and soul, but especially in my body. The body is SO wise, the deepest well of knowledge, and I was able to be in such close symbiosis with it throughout this experience. It has been magical.

The PK experience was so unbelievably dear to my heart and really woke me up in a whole new way… in the sense that I’ve known I’ve needed to slow down for a long time now, but now I actually get it. Slowing down and living life more mindfully is not just something that I “should” do. Something to be achieved on a good day, or when there is time and space to do it.

No, it’s something I need to do for every aspect, every nook and cranny, every inch, of my health and wellbeing. 

I came across my dear friend Ashley Neese’s post this afternoon (check it out, she’s wonderful) about putting her body first, and the title struck me. That is what I want to write about today. That’s the first insight that I want to share from my Panchakarma.

Putting My Body First

I know I am not the only people pleaser here. So many of us, especially my fellow HSP’s (Highly Sensitive People!), get great satisfaction from making others happy, being well-liked, going above and beyond for the people we love, etc. And the larger our circles are, the more people there are to squeeze into that equation.

Somewhere along the line, between having this blog for almost 5 years (!!!) and living in both New York & LA in my adult life, I have cultivated a really, amazingly, large circle. Including you, if you are reading this! My greater circle is expansive and incredible, thanks to the Internet, so there is never a shortage of love and support but also never a shortage of people pleasing to be done (only in my mind, of course — the reality could be far different if I let go of my own expectations and pressure I put on myself).

No matter what, I keep my core circle really tight — most of my best friends are people I have known since kindergarten and middle school. Between my family and friends, my Internet life, and people who I have met in this industry and along the way… I have found myself over the last few months (years, really, if I’m being totally honest) feeling like there will never, ever, be enough of me or enough time to please people & satisfy all agreements / commitments, or make everyone happy.

It started to eat away at me inside.

By December (right before I went to Bali) I was so overcommitted and crunched for time I had a very real complete nervous breakdown. I had to un-commit myself from pretty much everything I possibly could, and took the time in Bali to seriously unwind and reconnect to my core inner being. It was amazing and deeply healing, but I knew in my heart it was the very beginning of a long road of unwinding from the way I had been living my life.

Then I came back, and after the holidays I hit the ground running again. Or at least I tried. Then my body started showing me physical signs of shutting down. It started with eczema which then turned into full-body hives (from my head to my toes, including my face, and everywhere in between), a ton of inflammation on the inside that was seeping its way to the outside, massive gut health issues, and of course the uterine fibroid that I now couldn’t stop thinking about ever since learning that I had it.

A few weeks ago I was crying on the couch with both legs bleeding from the rash and my back so inflamed I couldn’t even sit down — and I was deciding whether or not to cancel a photo shoot for the next day. I mean… am I crazy?!? DUH on canceling the photo shoot. Jonathan sat me down (or stood me up, in this case) and said: “This is crazy. Will you please cancel everything until you are better?”

I knew he was right and everything from my body to my heart was crying out for me to just STOP. To put myself first. To disappoint a few people to in turn really, truly, deeply care for myself.

So I did that, as much as I could. And then I headed into what I thought would be four days at Surya Spa which then turned into seven days. On my first day they took one look at me and told me seven days would be necessary, and they were so right.

Panchakarma Musings

While I was there, I took a full-on technology break. I didn’t open my computer, my phone was completely off, and I didn’t communicate with anyone (other than bumping into some friends in Whole Foods… a girl’s gotta live! Hehe). I didn’t even see Jonathan or speak to my parents! Total silence & introspection.

I did a lot of reading, watched some amazing documentaries, and dug deep into my heart, soul and third eye for WHERE these answers to my biggest health questions are. Why do I consistently get so sick, so run down, so inflamed, so PITTA (as they say in Ayurveda!), so anxious… when I am just living this life I’ve created for myself?

I came to a few answers, and the biggest one is this: I am living to make everyone happy before myself. It’s not that I don’t do things for myself, because I so do. I am the self-care queen. Kundalini, meditation, dry brushing, massages, facials, bubble baths, vacations, nights in, self dates, you name it!

But the problem wasn’t with the self-care… I was carving out the time for that. The problem was that I wasn’t putting myself first in everyday situations. I was still going so far out of my way to make sure I could be everywhere, do everything, run this business with my full heart, get back to people in a very timely manner, respond to all texts and emails and calls, on and on. A way of life that, over time, began fighting with my nervous system in every single way.

The other huge answer I came to was that I wasn’t taking care of my body in the way it was crying out to be taken care of. I have told myself for years that because I am into health and wellness, I eat extremely well, exercise, do yoga, rest, etc. that I SHOULD feel fine and healthy and well so I tricked myself into thinking I was when inside I knew I really wasn’t.

The truth is, my body has been crying out for a different kind of diet and lifestyle for a couple of years now. This became incredibly clear early this month when I began eating a dedicated Ayurvedic diet of kitchari, cooked vegetables, warming foods, nourishing ghee, spices, and herbs. I cut out my smoothies, salads, eggs, chocolate (I can’t live without chocolate so I am eager to add that back in!) and a lot of other daily staples to truly heal and listen to my body from the inside out.

Plant-Based Lovin’

For a long time I ran away from the plant-based way of life because clearly… I labeled myself as a vegan for so long and it was not healthy for me ultimately to be so attached or to be so limited. But now I do believe — no, I don’t believe but rather I know — there is a way for me to be predominantly plant-based while also listening to my body and allowing changes and ebbs and flows with time to occur. A plant-based diet is the most anti-inflammatory, and with how INFLAMED I have been it’s time I really listen and nourish my particular body  from the inside out.

I also did a ton of reading during the PK about the best way to eat for all of my various health issues and every. single. book. came back with the advice to be mostly plant-based. The books I was reading were not dogmatic or political. They were truly about HEALTH and wellbeing and longevity and healing and holistic alternatives. The universe was clearly pointing me in a very pointed direction.

In my head I have known for a long time that my body has been begging me to make this choice. In Bali I stated to J & myself that I was going to silently go plant-based for a while to see how it treated me. I officially started at the very end of December, and my gut health has been better than it has been in nearly four years. I can definitely say that this time around is already very different from my last dip into the plant-based waters, as I am fueling myself with lots of legumes and Indian basmati rice and healthy fats in a way that I simply did not do in my previous days as a vegan.

There is a lot more to the plant-based story here but I will save it for future posts and the Panchakarma podcast.

I should also say, as much as I love and respect everyone’s opinion on this subject, I am not looking for advice in this arena. I have been there, done that, and the whole point of this way of life is to listen to my own body and do what I feel is best for me from the inside out. Nourishing plant-based foods are calling me at the moment.

Wellbeing is a Lifestyle

As far as lifestyle… I realized that despite my best efforts I have still been running myself ragged in my everyday life. Just because I work from home and I am mindful about taking days off and having a great morning and evening self-care routine doesn’t mean that my work-life wasn’t totally bordering on workaholic overdrive. I would still wake up with heart palpitations about project deadlines, podcast edits, speaking engagements, events, etc. ALL the time. That is not the way I want to live my life.

Right now, my body and soul is craving a much more subdued life. One where I blog for FUN (and for work because of course that is my livelihood) and in a way that is completely balanced rather than taking on far too much. I am feeling the pull toward drawing inward and healing, spending more time in nature, and taking myself on healing retreats and trips versus planning out the original year that’s been in my head to host retreats all over the world.

A few healing trips I have coming up are… I am looking into a water fasting retreat in Sedona that I know will be deeply healing for me. I did a three day water fast during my Panchakarma and the dead cell & toxin die off was remarkable. As far as eczema, hives, and fibroids… water fasting (under the care of a trained doctor) is hugely beneficial and cutting edge. There is nothing new about it — but it’s something Western medicine has not latched onto just yet. I think in the coming years it will be one of the top methods of healing for those who are dedicated enough to dive in!

I am also going back to Bali for the month of April to heal. I will be alone, and will be writing, reading, getting daily spa treatments, eating all of the yummy local plant-based food, doing so much yoga and kundalini, and relearning how to be incredibly kind to my body.

I also have a few other healing retreats planned for myself that I will share when the time is right.

As far as exercise, the low intensity, low impact is still calling me. I will continue to do Orangetheory once a week (twice a week when I feel called to) to keep up my cardio routine because that is healthy and my body loves it, but I will not be diving into all of the running or massive amounts of HIIT at this time. Lots of yoga, and slow flow yoga to boot. Nothing too crazy over here.

LOVING Myself From the Inside Out

The biggest, hugest, most massive takeaway (other than feeling more psychically in tune than ever before during my PK) is how much I love myself and my body after this process.

Like all women (all humans, let’s be real), I have had my struggles with loving my body. There are parts of me I’ve always wished were different. Suddenly, during this PK, every single inch of me felt and RADIATED so much beauty in my eyes. Even the parts of me I have always felt the least in love with, I was holding onto with both hands and saying, “I love you, you’re safe here. It is safe to be in this body. It is safe to be a part of this body. You are so loved, and you are so beautiful.”

I truly believe this is a mindset and a feeling my body has been waiting for my entire life. The eczema itself was my body’s way of begging and pleading me to show myself wholehearted love. In many ways, I don’t think I have felt safe in my own body ever since I started developing massive stomach problems at the age of… zero!!! When I was truly just a baby. So always, as crazy as that may sound. I am sure a lot of you can relate.

The self-love I felt for my body throughout my PK was above and beyond. That is something I plan to take with me into my daily life, along with the lifestyle and dietary components above. I am also going to continue the Ayurvedic way of life and put a ton of emphasis on my routines, down time, and doing things on MY terms and my own way.

It’s been a long time of living one way (the people pleasing way), but I am ready to reverse it and dedicate myself to true healing from the inside out.

The best part is, I know this is only the beginning. I feel really good on the inside, but my rashes are still pretty much a mess and I still have a lot of toxins to release. The doctor at Surya Spa (Martha Soffer, the most amazing woman in the world) has me on a specific protocol and I will be back at Surya in a couple of weeks to do a liver cleanse with her. The toxins are still coming!

OH and I have parasites — a lot of them — and that is a story for another day as well.

I am so looking forward to hearing your thoughts about my very first Panchakarma musings, and all about how my body is ready for this new form of radical self-love. I have so much more to share on the subject and would love to hear your own stories + journeys of self-love! below