I cannot believe that the Celestial Diet & Lifestyle Program has been out in the world for the last WEEK! After working on it, creating it, and manifesting it for so long it feels truly surreal that it is now in so many of your hands.

And there are two more days to join us before the cart closes & the live version will no longer be available!! We have the cart open until June 6th (Saturday!!), and then we will begin as a group on June 7th. From there I will be guiding you through the 7 days with daily emails, two live calls (the BEST PART), accountability & connection in our private celestial FB group, and of course with the mediations, meal plan, grocery list, daily journaling prompts, 7 pillars… I could go on!

So I wanted to pop in today to tell you the top benefits of eating & living the celestial way, and also answer a bunch of your FAQ’s in one place!

Let’s get into it!

Top Benefits of the Celestial Diet & Lifestyle //

+ this lifestyle is extremely anti-inflammatory & supportive to healing from chronic illness, longevity, heart health, healthy & sustainable weight loss, and beyond. If you want to learn more about this way of life in detail, feel free to read this post all about living SOS-free! Celestial is the new SOS-free. So that post will break it down, and the program will take it way further!

+ This way of life is preventative. It sets us up to be healthy as we age. I know that everyone reading this does not want to have a nasty decline in old age like many of us have seen with our grandparents and people who reach a certain age. We want to set ourselves up for the best possible outcome of NO heart disease, NO stroke, NO cancer, NO Alzheimer’s, NO dementia, NO osteoporosis, and no unnecessary pain.

+ It is cruelty-free, so it is the kindest diet for the animals, environment, and the earth as well as for our bodies!

+ The simplicity of the diet helps us return to the natural simplicity of food and the healing properties of eating delicious foods from the earth. In that way it resets our palate so we no longer crave sugar, salt, and oily / fried foods. This part is huge, because it brings the joy back to natural foods again!

+ Because this is a natural, whole food plant based way of eating, it purifies our bodies and acts as a natural detoxifier. When we are clear, pure channels, we can be more easily in tune with our higher selves, our ancestors / angels & our channeling abilities! This part is huge. My medium Nikki often reminds me that so many people who are opening up psychically are still eating very dense, earthly, 3D foods and in many ways it holds back the awakening process from happening in full. The Celestial Diet was designed to open you up in every way possible.

+ In my own personal experience, I have lost about 20 pounds going SOS-free. For me this was great because due to the hormonal changes I experienced with Lyme, I gained a ton of weight. I didn’t feel like myself in my body at ALL. Going vegan helped me shed inflammation, and hen this lifestyle is what brought me back to my ideal body weight. It feels SO good not to have that extra weight, which is also extra inflammation in the body. It makes me feel more confident, more alive, more in tune, and makes me want to be more active!

+ The food combining element helps drastically with eliminating bloating & improving digestion!!

+ The SOS-free diet is known to be the most heart healthy diet on the planet. For more info, check out the work of Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr. Joel Fuhrman, Dr. John McDougall & Dr. Alan Goldhamer to name a few!

+ & SO. MUCH. MORE! The rest you can dive into in the program!!

And now I want to answer some of your FAQ’s, so you have a bunch in one place!

Q: LOVING the program so far! Any celestial go-to’s when out at restaurants?

A: Omg yay! Makes my entire day to hear. Yes there are so many delicious celestial meals you can find out & about. I love asking for steamed veggies (sometimes I will bring my own tahini or coconut aminos) with a salad full of greens, legumes, nuts, and herbs. Also a baked potato or sweet potato is always celestial and is usually available anywhere. And if I am at a vegan restaurant, then the options widen considerably and I will have fun with it and mix and match a bunch of items!! Right now my go-to at vegan restaurants is a delicious lettuce wrapped black bean burger and a sided salad.

Q: Is it possible to do the celestial diet while also eating Low FODMAP?

A: Yes, completely! The program was designed with all food intolerances and healing protocols in mind. And the best part is, it’s very customizable!

Q: This may sound strange but when you roast veggies do you put them in the oven dry (because of no oil)?

A: This doesn’t sound strange at all! Yes I put them in dry with spices and nutritional yeast usually. Major tips for this in my 22 day detox by the way which in many ways is a precursor to the Celestial life!!

Q: How is this similar to your 22 day detox or WBUTYOS?

A: It is very different from both of these programs but contains a few elements from both of them. Similar to WBUTYOS, it is an awakening guide that will help you tap into your truest, most divine nature. It contains new elements and new things I have learned about channeling, awakening, ascension and frequency since I created WBUTYOS in early 2019! And similar to the 22 Day Detox, it is a nutrition guide full of SOS-free recipes.

None of the recipes overlap except for my TBB nacho cheese because, well, let’s face it — it’s my favorite recipe on the planet! Otherwise everything is new, including all of the photos & brand new information! If either of those programs resonated with you, you will love this one.

The meditations are all brand new & completely magical! So if you did the 22 Day Detox, you are in for a big treat because this course is very much audio, journaling based, and written.

Q: I am busy and don’t have a lot of free time! Is this program for me?

A. The program is a lot more simple than you may think — it’s probably easier than eating what you are normally used to! Especially with the meal plan all laid out for you! B. Take it at your own pace, you can get started now and dive in whenever the time is right for you. At any rate, I encourage you to fully commit, because when we keep a promise to ourselves, that is when our lives can truly shift.  There are no shortcuts to the path of true healing, and I promise this is a fun way to get there! “The most effective way to do it, is to do it.” – Amelia Earhart.

Q: Will there be a self-guided version down the line? I will be on vacation but I don’t want to miss out!

A: Yes, there will be a self-guided version down the line but I highly recommend getting it now so that you can save the live calls & daily emails and then just look at them when you are ready to begin! There is so much extra goodness included in this live round. Also, you could join in with us when you can during the 7 days (even if it’s just for one call or one little hello in the FB group!) and then you will be even more prepared to start when it’s time for you to begin!

Q: Is it easy to meal prep?

A: Yes! The simplicity of the program is the best part! The ease and simplicity of the food itself makes it very easy to meal prep and plan ahead. Plus we have a special grocery list for you!

For more fabulous Q&A’s, head to this page where we’ve broken it all down for you!! You can also look on my IG Story Highlight’s “Celestial Diet” & “Celestial Q’s” & “Program” to learn even more & get more questions answered!!

Lastly, here are some responses from people who have started the program!! I love, love hearing how it is going for you!! Keep the feedback coming. I love you guys so much.

And head HERE to join us, we start Sunday! YAY !! TOTAL magic. Leave any additional questions you have below!! XO 

Sounds weird for a being who connects daily with the light, right? Not at all. Experiencing darkness is part of the human condition. There is a constant duality between the darkness and the light, and my belief is that without experiencing darkness we cannot fully appreciate the blessings from the light. But it still sucks to wake up and feel shitty, or to have full days that just feel so OFF.

Today for me was one of those days. Let’s get into it.

I woke up and immediately felt that feeling of… Oh. Darn. I really liked being asleep and living in my magical dreamland. Huddy was on my chest, purring his heart out, and I was holding him like a real life teddy bear. He always sleeps on my heart when I need an extra tune up. And not one but TWO of my friends texted me in the morning letting me know that Huddy & I were there healing them and playing with them in the astral plane (in their dreams!!).

So as you can imagine, waking back up into this reality just felt harsh after being in that beautiful healing space with my soul and Hud’s soul. What I do upon waking up when my mind goes to that place is repeat the mantra: “I am whole. I am beautiful. I am abundant. I am at peace.” I repeat it over and over until it really soaks in for me and I start to feel more hopeful about the day and more at peace with living with chronic pain.

And usually, once I get up and start my day, have my celery juice and coffee, do a meditation and some journaling or reading (The Daily Stoic is my morning go-to at the moment), then I really start to feel better. I ease into my body, into this existence, and tap back into how lucky I am to live a life that I love. I surround myself with people I love and make sure that every day I get into nature, write, move my body, communicate with my TBB fam (you guys), and connect with my loved ones. Those are some of my personal keys to happiness.

But some days… that routine just doesn’t cut it. Some days the reality of Lyme takes over, and sometimes I soak in the despair of the collective (I am a Reflector after all… it is not easy to have so many open chakras and centers. ALL of mine are open! Every single one!) and just feel exhausted by the mere thought of life. I really attribute this very much to being a very, very, very old soul. And to being so sensitive and soaking in other people’s emotions. Which I know many of us do.

Something that is said about Reflectors is that our health reflects the state of the world. So as you can imagine right now with the state of the world being in upheaval in many ways, my body’s baseline is upheaval. My nervous system feels flighty and fluttery and on edge so much of the time, and I have to work in my constant daily practice of tuning in, giving myself rest, and getting back to my heart center to even feel remotely at peace most days.

So here’s how I dealt with the darkness today…

Today was one of those rough ones. It was such a blessing because I had nowhere to be, and I try to work those days into my schedule as much as I can. But I still work, work, work no matter where I am or what I am doing. I don’t really know how to “rest” with much ease, so that is something I am currently working on. I woke up and instead of working just worked my ass off from bed which is… a whole other story. My work addiction!

I noticed myself slipping into a darker and darker mental space as the day went on, almost in a chemical sort of way, so I intervened by hopping in my sauna and listening to a high vibe podcast. Sweating out toxins is huge for us sensitive beings of light (which I am willing to bet includes so many of you reading) and tried to repeat to myself: Just stay calm. There is nowhere to be. No pressure to feel. It’s all working out exactly as its meant to.

I started to feel better and more inspired in the sauna, but by the time I got out I felt so DRAINED of all life force energy I just felt frustrated and sad. It’s a weird dance to be on the healing upswing from such a severe illness… because some days are very energizing and beautiful, and some days are so EXTREMELY depleting just simply being alive and doing nothing. This is not a complaint because I really feel and know that Lyme has been a gift to me. But it doesn’t take away the fact that being painfully exhausted just by being human is hard!

So I did something I never do. I laid down some towels (because I was still dripping from the sauna), chugged my electrolyte water, and laid down on my couch. Fully midday. Anyone who has lived with me will tell you I have never really sat on the couch in any home I’ve ever lived in. It’s this weird thing to me where especially during the day I have this huge mental block of refusing to “be lazy.” For whatever reason that’s what my brain associates the couch with — unless of course I am working on the couch. Now we can see why Lyme was my greatest teacher, yes?

Then I felt this deep calling, this INNATE PULL from deep inside of me to pull up a Past Life Regression Hypnosis on YouTube. I have done a past life regression with a therapist before (you can listen to my episode with that therapist on the pod here), but never on my own at home just for kicks. I have actually been feeling called to do this for a while but I was always turned off by how long the meditations are and how much time I would need to dedicate.

So I found one on YouTube that called to me and it was a little over an hour long. Again, that is a long meditation to do spontaneously in the middle of the day! But I was so up for it. I already felt my body melting into the couch with less than zero life force energy to speak of, and my energetic soul was buzzing to have this experience.

Side note: I am going to create a meditation like this for Waking Back Up To Your Own Soul, and had major visions of it while doing the regression!

Past Life Regression!!!

Within minutes the voice leading the meditation guided me to imagine roots growing from the bottom of my feet into the core of the earth, going deeper and deeper and deeper. I felt my feet literally VIBRATE with the energy of growing these expansive roots, and the vibration got more and more intense as I was guided to send these roots deeper and deeper into earth’s core.

From there I could tell this was going to be a DEEP meditation. I was going to go places. I was excited. Now I knew why I woke up feeling the way that I did — my soul was calling for this experience. So I will pause the story right here to tell you, an amazing way to deal with darkness, anxiety and depression is to stop what you are doing and meditate. It will likely not be the thing you want to do in that moment. It may be the last thing you want to do. But it WILL help. It can only help.

From there I sent relaxation through my whole body, and my hands literally started levitating. As the meditation guided me to reach for a purple flame, a chunk of crystal, and a lamp that held the knowledge of all of my past lives, I found myself reaching for each of those things involuntary. My hands put the invisible crystal on my forehead! And the lamp on my chest! You cannot make this stuff up.

I surrounded myself in a white light of protection, an important thing to do when you are opening your soul and energy field in this way. As I was guided into my past lives, I didn’t have the same blocks I often have. I could see everything. I was on the edge of GALAXIES… looking out into a dark sky full of bright stars. I was in the stars. And this was only the very beginning.

It will come as a surprise to exactly no one that Huddy was there guiding me through the ENTIRE way. And I saw my animal spirit guide and immediately burst into tears because it felt so pure and true. Any guesses??? Leave them below. :))

Then I descended the stairs into actual human past lives. I will go deeper on this in an upcoming podcast solo episode and in the book I am working on (yay ;)))) but the biggest thing I saw in one of these past lives was me as a mother of four, married to the soul of someone I know in this lifetime (actually a soul cluster but we will get into that another day), and we had a lot of new money as a family. People were after us. This was the early 1900’s. I asked my soul what year it was and it gave me a hazy answer of 1920 or 1921. WILD.

In this lifetime I felt myself getting strangled in the middle of the night in my bed. I couldn’t see by who but I knew it was an intruder who had come to ransack our home and kill me to take all of our belongings. My husband was out of town and the intruder didn’t go after the kids. I don’t think this person meant to kill me but they strangled me to death. I felt an INTENSE burning in my throat, jaw, neck and upper chest during the meditation while this was happening. I felt the struggle. I was a fighter and I fought back big time. Ultimately it was too much for me and I did not survive, but my soul stayed hovered about my home and my family for a long time after my death, watching over them.

After I relived this painful and traumatizing memory… I felt SO MUCH PAIN whoosh out of my throat, neck and jaw (in this lifetime). A lot of you guys know I have had debilitating jaw pain for years, and I’m not saying it’s gone now, but the FEELING I had while going into that past life was absolutely beyond wild. I have also had a big block in my throat chakra for pretty much my entire lifetime. I saw the root of this so, so clearly in this lifetime memory. Not to mention the root of my debilitating ANXIETY — I mean, hello?! Strangled and murdered?! Also no wonder I am petrified to the high heavens whenever I imagine our doors might be unlocked while I am sleeping!

I feel like it happened somewhere in the middle of America… potentially in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, or Kentucky. I tried hard to focus in on where it was and ask my soul but there was a lot going on. Also, I was a painter in that lifetime. My husband worked in the oil industry. I saw the names of all four of our children and what they looked like. They are all very young.

I saw a lot of other lifetimes too, but that one was extremely notable… many of them were not nearly as painful as this one. There was a lot of deep, dark karma happening in that lifetime (with the death), but it was also full of immense love. MY DAD BYRON WAS THERE, because he always is. And again I was shown that my beautiful mama is more of a new soul so she wasn’t exactly there — and I went deep into my ancestral DNA and danced with my grandmothers and was shown quite a bit of clarity on my current healing journey from them.

A lot of the other lifetimes burst into my mind in a total cluster. Like I could see them all at once but couldn’t grasp into them deeply. But my soul did say to me, “WRITE YOUR DAMN BOOK.” Which is always says. Message received!!!

It was beautiful!!! Oh, and then I came back to the human life around 1926 into the body of someone in Hollywood who I have been obsessed with for a long time…. I am dying to know more about this life. That will be my next adventure. Any guesses on who? If you are right I will send you a gift because… if you get it OMG then that means you see my soul DEEPLY!!!

As always with regressions I felt immense peace and love and nostalgia wash over me during and after. I also felt much more at ease and calm when I finished the meditation, like my body had gotten the deep rest it truly needed. I still feel exhausted but that’s because that stuff is deep work! Some of the deepest work there is!

I also saw so clearly that we travel in SOUL FAMILIES… aka our real life families as well as our chosen families in this lifetime, who are with us through the lifetimes.

It was affirmed to me that I am an old, old, old AF soul. Still resonating more deeply and clearly with being an ancient grandmother oak tree than a human being. But my human lives have all been very special.

So all of this to say, if you feel those dark feelings and that overall dark energy from time to time (or a lot), you are not alone! Try meditating and if you are interested in a past life regression, I recommend first doing one with an accredited therapist because these journeys can be intense!!! I live an intense emotional life so I felt equipped, lol.

Anyway, I want to hear all of your thoughts! Leave them below! Questions? Would absolutely love to go way deeper into this too. Love you all! Thank you for reading!

This month is FLYING… like woah. I have been taking a lot of downtime and have really been structuring my days differently, all focused around healing and feeling my best every day.

You guys know this is hard for me, real hard, but I try. And so far, it really seems to be working. I have been very focused on doing LESS, and the outcome is that I am actually accomplishing more, feeling more fulfilled, and also feeling a hell of a lot less sick on a day to day basis.

What does doing less mean? It means actually only actively working for about 2-3 hours a day, give or take, and then allowing myself to focus on other things for the rest of the day — whether that be healing, reading, meditating, going on walks, exercising, taking baths, sitting in the sauna, listening to podcasts, brainstorming and writing, hanging out with people I love, etc.

This is NOT EASY for a former workaholic, let me tell you. But my body is thanking me for it, my mind is thanking me for it, and I have realized so many things about myself in the process.

Like… there is so much more to life than working. And when you are busy working, it’s easy to forget that sometimes. I always say that getting sick has been such a gift in my life because I have simply had no choice other than to completely refine the way I go about life, and then continuously refine it again and again whenever my body speaks to me and tells me to do so.

So!!! My days lately have been awesome! And I want to share with you what I have been doing that have all been making a big difference in how I feel day to day.

The main question I get every single day on social media, the blog, and beyond is what are the TOP THINGS that have helped me heal from Lyme Disease and find relief?! And while that list is always changing and I also have so much more healing to do, I definitely have my daily lifestyle practice to thank for feeling so much better than I did just a mere few years ago… and even a mere few months ago, because things are always changing.

So let’s get into it!! My top 10 healing things that I do every day!! Keep in mind you can and should absolutely refine these and make them your own because we are all different — but this is what works for me and I am so grateful for these little life hacks that keep me feeling my best.

TBB’s Top Ten:

1. Sit in my sauna. Okay let’s start here… sweating in an infrared sauna has changed my life. Yes, it has to be infrared because infrared heat penetrates the skin 5-7x deeper than regular heat. It helps to release toxins in your body which are then carried out through your sweat, it helps bring oxygen and nutrients to the surface of your skin, it is great for skin because it stimulates collagen and encourages dead cell tie off, it burns calories, relieves pain, and greatly reduces inflammation in the body. It has changed my WORLD.

I got a home sauna about 2 years ago, and I swear by my Clearlight (use the code BLONDE for a discount!). But I know a home sauna is not an option for everyone, so if that is your case then search for a sauna place or gym near you that may offer infrared saunas. In LA I love Sweatheory and Shape House! So yes every morning I wake up, make my celery juice (see below), turn on my sauna and sit in it for anywhere from 30 mins to an hour. It helps SO MUCH with my Lyme joint pain and fatigue… it literally eliminates so much of the pain, puffiness, and heaviness (literally and figuratively) I wake up with every morning. It is EVERYTHING !

2. Drink celery juice! Ahhh celery juice, the best in the world. If you are not a celery juice person or you just can’t stand it, then any green juice in the morning will do. I like celery specifically for its incredible benefits with skin, digestion, cell regeneration, liver detox, anti-inflammatory properties, and beyond. Say what you may about celery juice, but it has singlehandedly healed me from SEVERE eczema and cystic acne, and helps me immensely every day with digestion, skin, energy, symptoms of Lyme and EBV, and beyond.

If you want to learn more about it listen, to my two episodes with Anthony William of the Medical Medium on TBB Podcast! Also, I drink 16 oz every morning minimum, which is recommended for those of us who are healing.

Celery juice specifically has changed my woooorld. Take my word on this. And give it some time. It is not an overnight fix, but 5-6 months in and you will realize that so much has changed- skin, digestion, EBV, fatigue, etc. Trust me.

3. Get outside in nature. This one is a non-negotiable. On days that I don’t get outside and plant my feet into the earth, I am a different person entirely. Nature gives me that breath of fresh air that I so desperately need. Even if I only have the energy to get outside briefly, 10 minutes is better than nothing. I love to walk, hike, and ideally plant my feet directly into the sand or the soil or grass somewhere. A great way to do this right now is to have a picnic outside or go on a walk with a friend.

Whenever I start to feel stress and anxiety creep in, I get outside. In my healing journey I discovered forest bathing… which literally means spending time in a forest and soaking in the negative ions and high frequency vibrations from the trees, plants, soil, wind, and animals in nature. I believe many of us get sick because we are being called back to nature. Nature is everything.

This is also when I MOVE! Movement everyday for me is so key. Either outside or inside for a MWH workout or a yoga flow… so, so, so needed. And I am always walking! As my husband says, I go on at least 5 walks a day (on a good day)!

4. Lymphatic facial massage. I love giving myself a daily lymphatic facial massage, to get that drainage moving. Not just to reduce puffiness in appearance but mostly to relieve pressure in my sinuses (chronic histamine issues… my Lyme people get me) and the extreme tightness I experience daily in my jaw. I LOVE using my Wildling Beauty gua sha crystal for this along with a light facial oil like jojoba. Sometimes I even do this in my sauna but it is always part of my morning or evening routine, and on the days I don’t do it I really notice the difference.

5. I optimize my digestion. I do this in a lot of ways, but one of those ways is with Arrae herbal supplements for bloating. Hot tip… they also have supps for Calm which is amazing on those high anxiety days (which seem to be a lot lately). I LOOOVE my Arrae Bloat capsules! They are full of potent digestive herbs like ginger, dandelion root, lemon balm, peppermint, and slippery elm. The founder is in TBB Tribe, Siffat, and she is amazing! Since I have started taking these my bloat has gone way down and I am love, love, loving how I feel after every meal. Such a game changer. I also drink digestive teas all day long which we will get to!

6. I eat plant based… obvi. And food combine! You guys know I am all about that SOS-free, vegan life. Eating in this anti-inflammatory way has changed my life. It has also made me deeply passionate about the vegan cause for the animals and the environment. I know at this stage in my vegan journey I could never go back. I also food combine which helps immensely with how I feel and keeps my inflammatory Lyme symptoms at bay! More on this in my 22 Day Detox Program!

I could talk about this for days but the plant based life honestly makes me so happy- I am so passionate about it I could burst. Food combining really changed the game for me when it comes to eating light to heavy… so I feel more light and energized all day long, ending the day with my biggest, most nutrient-dense meal!

7. Drink digestive teas. I am a tea drinker all day long. My main go-to’s are peppermint, lemon balm, red raspberry leaf (especially during my cycle), Egyptian licorice, ginger, lemon, you name it! I am ALWAYS sipping on tea. At night I like to drink a tea called Smooth Move that really helps with digestion. If you have Lyme or another chronic illness you know that sometimes digestion just literally crawls to a halt. We are dealing with a body, immune system, and stomach that needs a lot of support. So that Smooth Move tea most nights helps me a TON!

8. Surround myself with high vibe loved ones. I mean this is just a given. When I am feeling really sick and unwell I can get into a reclusive mode where I fear that doing anything with anyone will deplete me to the point of no return. That is a really sad place to be, and after years of dipping in and out of that place I just try to not let myself go there anymore. Of course sometimes I still do, and alone time is amazing and something I so cherish, but having my close friends, family and Jonathan to lean in has been everything in my healing journey. The more time I spend with people I love, the better.

Now that being said, it has to be the right people!! People who are not on my frequency always tend to leave me feeling exhausted AF. So keeping those high vibe friendships close is where it’s at.

9. Coffee enemas daily! This is huuuuuuge. You have seen me talk a lot about digestion in this post. I do a coffee enema probably 5 days out of the week. Some weeks I do them every single day. This helps stimulate glutathione in the body, increases liver detox through the bowels, and so much more. Head here to read all about coffee enemas and how to do them!! Also, they are a big part of my 22 day detox!!

10. SLEEP. This is another given, but one I am very much still working on. I am trying to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier. If you guys saw on IG… Jonathan literally bribed me with a purse that I have been dying for so that I would wake up at 8am every day in the month of June. And it worked!! I also take Cured Nutrition CBD every evening before bed… their mint tincture! (Code BLONDE for a discount).

So there you have it my loves! My top 10 go-to’s! Save this for whenever you may be having a down day and needing a little extra boost, or for when you’re wondering what I have done to get to this next stage of healing. I hope you love it. Would love any and all thoughts below, or anything I missed. Love you guys to the moon!

AH! Where to begin?!

If you have been following along for the last few years then you know I have had quite a spiritual & psychic awakening that pretty much correlates to right when I started to get very sick with Lyme. Because as we know, there are NO coincidences. I deeply believe and know that people who fall very ill with a chronic illness are being called to wake up spiritually, psychically, and tap into our deeper intuitive nature.

I also believe since a lot of people don’t listen to that intuitive call, and much of western medicine teaches us not to heal in that way… that’s why many of us stay so sick. But that’s a story for another day.

A little background…!

When I think back to being a child it all makes sense — this psychic stuff. I always had a wild imagination, and instead of going to sleep at night and dreaming as normal, I would lay awake and create my dreams. I would decide what I wanted to dream about, dream it up in all of its eccentricity and glory, and then when I would finally fall asleep would continue creating & elaborating upon my chosen dreams while I slept. I went straight into a fantasy world that felt as real to me (or more real) than being awake.

I thought this was normal! I thought that’s what it meant to fall asleep and dream at night! This was always an incredibly fun experience for me, and it wasn’t until I got much older that I started to realize that simply letting my head hit the pillow and falling asleep would be much more restful of an experience. Still working on that… #insomniac for life, lol.

My first shape shifting vision experience //

Anyway fast forward to just a couple of years ago. I had a trip booked to Ojai for one of my best friends’ birthdays, and out of nowhere got a message on Instagram from an old friend of mine (who I met doing my first EVER branded post on the blog 7 years ago!) saying, “If you’re ever in Ojai, come see me… I have some messages for you from the angels.”

And I was like… WHAT

I had never heard of anything like this before, really. But it was undeniable that I was already going to be in Ojai and that something with the universe was up. And I have always been curious, open, and up for anything. At that time I was already getting into kundalini, reiki, and was obsessed with talking to psychics for TBB Podcast, so the timing is always divine as usual.

When I got to Ojai and sat down with her, I learned that she was a shaman who worked with energy and the alchemy of energy. She spoke to angels, beings from other realms (beings we may call aliens!), ancestors, and beyond. The moment I sat down with her something DEEP started happening between us. Our third eyes were pulsating and she was crying. She told me about the Pleiadians and all about how I was super connected to them.

Still, I was like WHAAAATTT! This was all just so new and at the time I was only partially aware of what was going on.

But again the connection between us was undeniable. Then, something opened up within her energy and I was able to see… wait for it… GALAXIES in her face. And other faces that were not hers. Faces that resembled old, Native American women and men. Then full blown alien faces, and then her face disappeared and all I could see were the stars. It was gorgeous. And semi terrifying because I had never seen anything like it.

What did I do? I screamed. And gasped. A LOT. And then cried a little, because it was beautiful, and it was such a harrowing moment for me to realize that everything I had previously thought about the world, consciousness, why we’re here, other realms, etc. was kind of just… wrong. I was raised in a very “down to earth” household where we barely spoke or thought about religion let alone spirituality. My mind was opened in a huge way that day.

I have since had this incredible woman who opened me up that day, Nicola, on my podcast which you can listen to here!! We go deep on all of the celestial stuff and more.

After that I remember coming back to LA, going out to a fancy dinner with Jonathan for our 6 month anniversary, and telling him that I saw Nicola’s face shape shift. I couldn’t possibly get the gravity of what happened across to him and HOW much it changed the way I thought. I vividly remember him being like, “OK, yes, I heard you, I get it…” because I just couldn’t shut up about it, although I still barely had the words to describe it.

Then it continued… & got deeper! //

Other incredible things like this had been happening for a while. If I thought of someone off the top of my mind, they would often show up in my path the next day or I would run into them somewhere. If I started thinking about something like kundalini yoga, I would meet 5 kundalini teachers the very next day. It was so wild and so cool, and I started becoming less and less surprised by these deeply guided and divine experiences.

Then, after several months passed, I saw another person’s face shape shift. This time it was another shamanic teacher/friend of mine, Shaman Durek who you can listen to on the podcast here. After that happened I figured okay, I must be able to see SHAMANS faces shape shift but no one else. However, that day Shaman Durek told me that seeing peoples faces shifting was a gift of mine and encouraged me to hone that skill…

From there I have seen it quite a bit in many different people that I love. It started with people I am very close to like Jonathan — when we soul gaze and peel away the layers I am able to see things deep within his face that are so beautiful and SOUL deep. Souls, ancestors, past lives, spirits. And then with other close friends of mine who let me into their energy field I have seen incredible things — that make time stand still, make my heart race, and remind me who I am in my core. Who we all are. Cosmic beings.

Now I speak to the Pleiadians every day, in my meditations, my writing, and even just in daily moments without my trying (imagine how confusing, although amazing, but still confusing this can be for me sometimes! lol) and they have told me so much about this gift. It’s really an ability to see people’s energy, and their souls, and it has come to me because my purpose in this lifetime is to be… you ready for it?

A bridge between worlds.

This is what has been told to me, and shown to me, time and time again. Both in visual representations and in words alone, the spirits always tell me — Jordan, you are meant to be a bridge between worlds.

AND IT ALL MAKES SENSE.

When you think about my human design (Reflector), my astrological birth chart with my Aquarius North Node, my life experiences and the blogging career I have fallen into, falling debilitatingly ill with Lyme and having to face my darkest demons and basically peel back every single layer of who I thought I was, and so much more — it all. makes. sense.

For the last few years it has been a fun gift and I have created some special things with it — like my course Waking Back Up To Your Own Soul (which relaunches this Sunday AHHH!), poetry, writing, channeling sessions, etc. but mostly it has just been for fun and a fun aspect of my being to explore. I know now I am in a place where I am ready to take it deeper. I am ready to do the work and truly unblock myself from seeing what the depth of these gifts have to share with me/us.

Over the weekend it became exceptionally clear to me that my guides and the universe and ultimately my higher self are very ready for me to go down this path in a real way. I don’t fully know what it entails but I do know I am ready for it and I am excited to see what comes — and I also know this path will be very healing for me on a physical, Lyme disease healing level.

The awesome thing that I saw over the weekend that really made it so clear to me it’s time to do this was my DEAR FRIEND Jenna Zoe shape shift into so many beautiful things — a giraffe, a monkey, an avatar (my first time seeing one), and then she remained this very beautiful, watery avatar creature while we chatted for so long. It was the longest time I have ever been “inside” of someone’s energy field / spiritual aura and it was one of the coolest things I have ever experienced. Even the feelings in my entire body shifted and my heart cracked open in a way I have never felt before.

IT WAS WILD. And it reminded me of everything I have been told leading up to this point… by mediums, spiritual teachers, and beyond — go down this path. Open up psychically. Do the work. And you will heal.

The beauty and synchronicity in all of this elates me.

And by all means I want to share this very important piece of it — I am not telling you all of this because I think I am special or different in any way (I mean we are all special and different but that is the point) — I am telling you this because we ALL have spiritual and intuitive gifts and I believe it is time for us to go deep into them. We are being called to go deeper, to wake up in bigger, greater ways.

Also, I had to go deep to get here. I have had many near death experiences with Lyme and experienced the “death”/exorcism of my ego/human self in a plant medicine journey. It was terrifying and woke me up in a BIG WAY.

If you are here reading this blog, whether you are new or you have been here for a long time, I know it’s time to go deeper. We are all ready. And amazing things are happening. We are all part of something so much larger.

A photo from our wedding where I feel my eyes were bluer than blue because of how present, happy, connected I felt.

A few other things that have been happening lately… my eyes have been getting bluer and I have felt them intensify in a way. I have felt even more connected to the universe in so many ways — and I also believe a lot of this has to do with how I eat- SOS-free, vegan, whole foods from the earth, and food combining. Sometimes people can walk through the door of my home and I ALREADY SEE GALAXIES in their faces — before we even speak! Meaning I am meeting more and more people who I am supposed to be connected with on this path. It has been so beautiful, and so exciting.

Ok tell me your thoughts! I want to hear everything!!! I love sharing all of this with you and can’t wait for all of us to go deep, deep, deep together. If you haven’t yet done my Waking Back Up To Your Own Soul course mark your cal for this Sunday — so so thrilled to reopen it!

PS there is so much more to say. This barely scratches the surface. I cannot wait to keep sharing more and more!

I am writing to you from beautiful NYC today – looking out the window at the grey, gloomy day outside but so grateful to be back in this city with such electricity and energy. The city where I started blogging 7 years ago, which is so special and always brings me back to the roots of why I started blogging in the first place.

It’s also pretty wild how things come full circle. When I began my blog in 2013, I was writing about vegan food and recipes and how passionate I was about the vegan lifestyle. I leaned toward more of a raw food lifestyle with lots of smoothies and juices, and I was extreeeemely excited every day to wake up and live that way.

For a few years in between then and now, I went on quite the journey. I feel like I have really grown up alongside you guys since starting this blog. So if you’ve been following from the beginning, then you really know me. Like not just Internet know me, but know me know me. If you’ve been here since the beginning then you know, for a few years I stopped being vegan and simultaneously went through a health crisis that escalated and then exploded in 2017.

MY NYC VEGAN DAYS //

In my recovery from Lyme disease and mold toxicity for the last two years, I have been guided back toward a plant based diet. But this time, in an even more healing way. It’s so cool to me that my body lead me toward veganism when I was younger to try to combat stomach issues and live my healthiest life, and even though I wasn’t armed with the same knowledge I have now — intuitively I knew what I was doing was good for me.

For a few years I absolutely loved living that way. I started my blog, and after about a year of blogging every day the noise got loud… really loud. There were so many different opinions of life, diet, wellness, even of me. I had a friend here in NYC who had an eating disorder, and in hearing her speak about it I started thinking maybe I had one too. I expressed this to the people closest to me, started seeing a therapist, and started working on the deep roots of my issues that went way, way beyond food. (Side note, I have been in and out of therapy since I was about 4, so this was not new to me.)

Then I wrote a book about it, as one does. (Lol.) Now looking back on it… I really, truly have so much compassion for that young girl. It pains me deeply to think about what I was going through during that time, and I am not talking about the food. I’m talking about being slaughtered in the media and by the vegan community, the family drama, moving across the country back to LA, feeling sicker than hell, and overall feeling very alone.

HOW I FEEL NOW //

Now I know in my heart that what I was struggling with was not an eating disorder. This may be a controversial topic. True, I had a lot to learn about food and how to eat a balanced plant-based diet that nourished and satiated my body. But my love of health was not a bad thing — it was such a positive outlet for me, such a therapeutic and enjoyable thing. I loved cooking, using food as medicine, trying vegan restaurants, leading people through cleanse programs, visiting animal sanctuaries, making a name for myself in the NYC plant based community.

In fact, straying from that life was detrimental for me. It’s not about the food, but rather the principles behind the food. I felt that if I was recovering from an eating disorder, I needed to eat everything and anything in order to prove to others that I was healed. My life was so public, I was constantly getting so much judgment, and I felt like it made sense to swing the “opposite way” from the vegan life.

I also started seeing nutritionists who heavily encouraged me to eat paleo and then keto and to cut out the carbs and fruit to get back in balance. My hormones were out of whack, I had cystic acne and I was tired all the time. I mean, ALL of the time. And guess what? Those are all symptoms of Lyme disease. I was also deeply unhappy, at least 20 pounds heavier than my body is naturally, and every muscle and joint was in pain ALL of the time.

Once I started dating Jonathan he started noticing little things about me that I had never pinpointed on my own because I had so many blinders on. He noticed that I felt better when I ate plant based foods, that I had a major love for health and the vegan lifestyle, that I consistently overate foods that made me sick when I was stressed, and that my heart was yearning to be vegan again but I was so nervous about it because of the entire journey I had been through in such a public way.

GOING BACK TO PLANT BASED //

Jonathan has a major intuition when it comes to me. Through his eyes, I ended up learning a lot about myself — it goes far deeper than what I have mentioned above but it has influenced my life in the most beautiful of ways. Also, other dear friends in my life who are deeply intuitive would bring up at RANDOM, “You should be vegan again, it would be good for you,” (during healing sessions and just in random conversation) and ultimately I made the decision on my own and it kind of just… happened.

I started eating fully plant based again in the winter of 2017 and have never looked back. As I said, it literally just happened that way. I was in Bali with Jonathan and it became exceptionally clear to us both that certain foods made me incredibly sick and certain foods made me thrive. The foods that made me thrive were all plant foods. The foods that made me sick were animal products. I made a pact to myself on that trip I would stop with the self-sabotage and with eating so many foods that did not serve me or my optimal health.

Months passed, and I was growing very very ill with Lyme disease that had been as yet undiagnosed. Then once I was finally diagnosed with what had truly been plaguing me for all this time, not only was my plant based diet extremely supportive to my healing, but I ended up serendipitously learning about the SOS-free (salt oil sugar free) way of life, which takes the anti-inflammatory healing benefits of the plant based lifestyle to the next level.

Plants then not only became my diet but my little healers. Herbs, plant based foods, and specific combinations of foods (like spirulina and cilantro to detox heavy metals, wormwood to kill parasites, potatoes for L-Lysine to kill viruses) have been the absolute biggest assets on my healing journey. Not to mention, they make me happy. Happiness and belief is such a huge part of healing, and the deep belief I have in their healing properties is such a big part of how far I have come.

Eating a delicious meal at XYST, a new Matthew Kenney restaurant in NYC!

HOW IT ALL COMES TOGETHER //

All of this has only guided me to know in my heart that the plant based life found me when I was young for a reason, so I could learn all about it and in some ways learn how not to do it (i.e. not eating enough or having enough variety and thus getting deficient in certain nutrients), learn to create recipes that I love, and also create a brand based off of plant based cooking.

It’s all wild, really, when you think about the ways things are all so interconnected and meant to be. Some people on the outside looking in may think the opposite- that because I stopped being vegan for a few years and had a bad experience with the vegan community during that time, that how could that lifestyle be healing to me now?

But that’s the thing about the outside looking in… you never see the full picture. It’s impossible to know what someone is really going through, even when they share quite a few bits and pieces of their lives with you online.

Now that I am finally healing, because healing holistically (and healing in general) takes time, the passion I have for the plant based & SOS-free lifestyle is off the charts. I have also started food combining which has been a crucial piece for me, which has helped with the chronic bloat and indigestion I have experienced for pretty much my entire life.

Food combining is something I did years ago as well, studying the work of Natalia Rose & Gil Jacobs back when I was living in NYC- but again it’s something I shunned for a while when I was in the dark place of just trying to “be normal” or “eat normally.” It’s so sad for me to think of myself struggling through it all, walking away from lifestyles that had healed me, but it is all part of my journey.

And now, being back in NYC, where it all began — it’s very cool to see how things have come full circle. The plant based way of life has come back into my existence in the most beautiful, organic way. I couldn’t have planned any of this or guessed that it would happen, and while in a way I wish those darker times had gone differently for me, I know I learned from them and they will make me appreciate the lighter times a hundred times over.

I am so passionate about the plant-based life I could burst into a million pieces talking about it. Getting my family and my friends to even lean toward more of a plant-based lifestyle is one of the biggest accomplishments in my heart because I truly believe it’s the healthiest way to live and the best we can possibly be to our bodies.

Do I shy away from using the term “vegan” after the way the vegan community treated me during my days of trying to figure it all out? ABSOLUTELY. I tend to call myself “plant based” because there is less dogma around it. You will see me using the word vegan here and there because I do identify with being vegan but there is a lot of judgment from the vegan community that you will never see me spread or be a part of.

I still believe to each their own, and if you can incorporate more plants into your life in whichever way suits you then I will be happy.

I would absolutely love to share more plant based & SOS-free recipes with you in my healing program, Detox Your Life, which is a 22 day journey of eating plant based, SOS-free, food combining, detoxing (in healthy and safe ways- that include food!), and all around cleaning up your life. The program will be available until 2/14, and then the cart will close and we will begin the detox together on 2/16! SO excited!!

If you have any questions, leave them below. And I said, if you can incorporate more plants and leafy greens into your day then I am happy. I wouldn’t change my journey for anything even though it definitely got rough there for a while. I love being back in NYC and reminiscing on it all… so grateful. So grateful for all of you sticking with me through this entire journey, too!

I will be sharing my NYC vegan faves soon and going deeper on all of this- but I felt so inspired to share my journey from then to now for those who may not know. I cannot wait to go deeper on all of this one day very soon. In a book? I think yes.

HI GUYS! HAPPY 10/11! To all my fellow birthday twins… happy birthday. It always amazes me how many people I’ve met through this blog with the same bday or similar bdays. Happy Libra month to us! It’s a tradition for me to write a post on my birthday attempting to summarize my year, so here goes…

I have no idea how to start this post because this year has truly, in all ways, been NUTS. It is not even comparable to any other year, so this birthday post will be like any other. Although at times it has been truly traumatizing and I have undergone the dark night of my own soul, honestly, this year is one I never want to forget. For a million reasons.

It’s been the best, and worst, and best, and worst, and ultimately the most TRANSFORMATIVE year of my life. Who I was at 27 feels like a trillion lightyears away from who I am now closing out my 28th year.

At 28 I gained the courage to really, truly dive deep into my soul.

At 28 I learned how to finally REST when that’s what my body has been screaming out for for years.

At 28 I followed my intuition into not one, but two ayahuasca medicine ceremonies that radically transformed my life and my work on this planet.

This past year I also followed the call into many more plant medicine ceremonies, from mushroom journeys to DMT, and each one of them has left me transformed and awakened to my very core.

Not to mention at 28 I’ve been planning our wedding, stepping into this new role of fiancé and now soon-to-be WIFE, and otherwise focusing almost entirely on healing my physical body.

I’ve done two separate very intense water fasts this year, begun stem cell treatment for Lyme, undergone a variety of parasite cleanses, started routinely getting weekly colonics, have spent mostly every day in my infrared sauna, and exercised LESS THAN I HAVE IN A YEAR since I was a kid, or maybe ever.

I spent probably 80% of my 28th year in bed.

I healed my skin from chronic hives and eczema *knock on wood* & learned how to live, eat, & rest for ME. Being SOS-free & plant-based has saved my life. Learning how to say “NO” has saved my life even more. I am still a recovering people pleaser, but this year I have come a longgggg ass way.

I didn’t travel much, and when I did it was solely for healing — ayahuasca in Santa Cruz, a full body cleanse in Palm Springs, Canada for a Gerson Therapy training (where my body flipped out & I learned to NOT get back on a plane for a long while), and just one trip home to Sacramento for an event. Toward the end of the summer I did get to go to Maui & Tulum — both incredible trips, and I am so grateful.

If you’ve been following my blog for a long time you know that travel has been a huge part of my life for the last several years. When I was 24, 25, 26, and even 27 I spent at least an equal amount of time traveling as I did at home. If not more! At 27 I spent a month in Bali solo. And this year, at 28, is the first year since I was a child that I didn’t spend ANY TIME in NYC at all. I miss it…. my heart misses it! So this year was VERY different in that way.

This year I created my course (!!!!) Waking Back Up To Your Own Soul, which is available right now & will only be available through this Monday evening before we close this round. This course is my heart and soul. A culmination of everything I’ve learned spiritually, psychedelically, psychically, and in healing. Above and beyond words, I feel I birthed it into the world (with the Pleaidians!) & sometimes ask myself HOW on earth I did it while being this sick. But alas… channeling is a powerful thing.

At 28 I learned to really open up and channel psychically. I think part of that was learning to let go & know that I simply don’t give a f*ck what anyone else thinks. My tribe, our tribe, is SO STRONG & so supportive, and that has really helped me tune out any and all noise. So thank you for that! To radically accept myself just as I am, the depth of my spirituality included, has been so remarkably healing.

Now my ancestors, the Pleiadian light beings (!!), and overall mediumship has played a huge role in my life (thanks to some amazing mentors & amaaaazing plant medicine ceremonies) and I feel so much more me. And to feel like yourself, really truly yourself at your core, is SO healing.

And to talk about these things that have been so healing to me so openly is SO healing for me. To know that not everyone out there has to agree with me, that having people agree with me was never what I was seeking to begin with but somehow I have been able to LET. IT. GOOOO that I am not for everyone. Such a valuable lesson in this space and outside of this space.

This year I really learned how much of a healer nature is. Getting outside, forest bathing, soaking in the energy of the earth, and realizing how much BETTER I feel when I am in nature vs. in a city surrounded by EMFs. While also loving and appreciating the city I am in, but knowing my body needs a lot of time outside of it.

This year I’ve been given the gift of really seeing who my truest of true friends are, because when you spend the majority of your life in bed it takes an extra special & real & true kinda friend to continue to be there, time and again, when you can’t really even move. When your brain is on fire and speaking feels impossible.

That is a huge gift. Also because I am blessed with so many true friends — people I can call in the middle of the night, who would do anything for me and I would do anything for them, and those are the only kind of people I want in my life. I don’t have to waste energy anymore on the people who weren’t meant to be in my life for the long run to begin with.

My relationship with Jonathan deepened in huge ways this year — I cannot even freakin’ wait to marry that man. He has been by my side in THE darkest times. Far darker than anyone should see before they’re even married but also what a blessing to experience them now and know that we can withstand the. When I was healing from my mouth surgery and had that awful middle of the night experience (you can read more about that here) and laid on my shower floor sobbing my eyes out all weekend… he was my reason for getting back up. He was my reason for living. I will remember that for the rest of my entire life (and beyond),

And now, in 22 days, we are getting married!!!!

Not to mention — MY PARENTS & HUDDY have been some of my greatest healers this year. My parents have sat with me at every appointment, treatment, what have you that they could make it to. They’ve been living part time upstairs and it’s been the most incredible thing to have them so close. Huddy is my little snuggle man who keeps me sane during all those hours in bed and in pain.

So even through the pain… I AM LUCKY. I AM GRATEFUL. I really feel I have the best life and I am so in love with it, even though it is faaaar from “perfect” or what I ever thought it would be at this time.

Moving forward into this year… 29 here I come

This year, I have a feeling will be incredible. I do have a long road of healing and a lot of herxing (cc my Lyme warriors) ahead, but I feel I can take it on fresh now. I have learned to really TAKE A BREAK when a break is needed. From work, from life, from everything.

Oh yeah… putting my podcast on a hiatus this year was another huge thing. I never would have had the inner strength to do that last year or ever before this, because I didn’t know who I was without my TBB identity. Now I feel very comfy with who I am inside.

Everything I’ve learned, the medicine I’ve introduced to my life, the wisdom I’ve gleaned, and the healing that’s been taking place will bring me to that next level. I knoooww that this will be my year for healing. A year to travel again and adventure and truly live life with my new HUSBAND (!!!!), family, and best friends.

29 is going to be a good one.

I hope this made sense, because I feel super brain foggy & can hardly find the words to describe just HOW meaningful this year was. What a wild ride it has been. I have hit rock. fucking. bottoms. (yes, multiple) & also have been filled with the utmost love and pinch me moments about getting married and being celebrated this year at so many fun wedding events with the people I love.

The ultimate contrast, yes?!?!

I hope this gave you a bit of a glimpse into my 28th year. I am welcoming in 29 with OPEN ARMS and am so grateful for the inevitable gifts I know it will bring.

Are ya with me? Would love to hear your age, your bday, how you’re doing today (for real) below. Always here, so much love. <3 Off to celebrate with my love tonight doing something v special & low key and I am soooo happy about it. 

Maybe it’s the coconut latte I’m sipping on from the farmer’s market or maybe it’s the healing benefits I have been feeling from stem cells lately, but I am feeling so focused and good today and it feels like such a blessing.

I wanted to share some wedding planning updates with you guys (!!!!) plus a typical Sunday morning in the life right now. Sunday mornings in our world = farmer’s market, get all the goodies, walk the hood and hang with my parents, then home to make a fresh yummy meal.

Annnnd, this post was written in partnership with the fabulous Everlane– my favorite ethical clothing brand that recently opened a store in LA. I love their motto of RADICAL TRANSPARENCY- they share how much it costs to make their clothes with their customers & they keep prices affordable for how great their quality is. I am a huge, huge fan & so happy to share this brand with you guys.

Today was the best because I ACTUALLY got Jonathan to match with me- LOL. I am so obsessed with these Tread Sneakers from Everlane I had to get a pair for both of us. In the same color though, you know? Because every dude wants to match with his fiancé (almost wiiiiife) at the farmer’s market!

I mean… how cute are these? I’m wearing the Tread in optic white (so chic & cute), and he is wearing the same in the men’s version! I love that Everlane is so versatile for both men & women, and everything is so simple and comfy.

So let’s start with wedding planning updates!

Woo WOOOO! So we both have our bachelorette/bachelor parties in a week and a half. I am going to Tulum with 10 of my best friends, and he is going to Mexico City with his guys. We have been confirming all the last minute stuff for both of those weekends away & the wedding which is 6 weeks from YESTERDAY. AHHH!

Yesterday I went shopping with my fam & our 3 adorable flower girls- our niece Kealey (my brother’s daughter), our niece Chloe (Jonathan’s brothers daughter), and my cousin’s daughter Sloane! THEY WERE SO FREAKIN CUTE. I will share photos from that soon… but for now we want to keep their dresses a full surprise for the wedding.

Last night we got in bed early and went over the ceremony prompts from our amazing officiant Nicola (you can hear her on this episode of my podcast if you haven’t yet- she’s unreal). We both have to fill those out and finish writing our vows… and I ordered us the cutest vow books to handwrite them in.

It’s all starting to feel so real. When we picked our wedding date over a year ago, I felt like we had worlds of time. November is approaching so fast and honestly I just feel excited. Not nervous, but yes a little stressed. But mostly excited. AND EXCITED FOR OUR BALI HONEYMOON.

Cannot wait to take you guys along for the whole ride. But because the wedding is so soon, I have been taking FULL ADVANTAGE of wearing WHITE everywhere! So this head to toe white Everlane get up had me feeling all sorts of happy.

Easy Like Sunday Morning…

So this Sunday morning started like all Sunday mornings around here when we’re in town- we met my parents downstairs (because we all live in the same building, which is so fun) to head to the farmer’s market for some fresh produce & all the good stuff.

Also, today is my nanny’s 81st birthday (!!!!), the nanny who I always call my “second mom” because she was with us starting when I was an infant all the way through 12 years old. And it just so happens we got to go to the farmer’s market with her granddaughter Rachel, who is like a sister to me, who was in town from SF. So it was an amazing morning all around & just what I needed after a few days of not feeling my best.

Every Sunday we like to peruse the plants & I usually convince J to let me bring home another one (I say “let me” because he always ends up taking care of them… he is such a good plant dad. I’m kinda the worst, but I try) so today we got this little guy in the cutest pink pot. Here I am wearing the Everlane straight legged crop which I AM SO OBSESSED WITH- so comfy and fits my body in all the right places. And also this white button down which I am equally loving right now. J is wearing this hoodie, and these shorts which FIT HIM TO PERFECTION.

I need a show of hands, who else loves to match with their s/o? These are J’s shoes, and these are mine. If you have someone in your life you love to match with, you guys need.

OKAY SO if you ever go to the Brentwood farmer’s market, here is what you need to try:

+ the COCONUT WATER made in Malibu that is truly heavenly and tastes like a fresh coconut on the beach in Hawaii.

+ the SPIRULINA green juices made locally that are full of kale, ginger, spinach, lemon, and all the good stuff.

+ FRESH HERBS! they Brentwood farmer’s market brings in the best farmer’s from all over So Cal for herbs and produce. We always load up on cilantro because between the two of us we go through tons of it. We also like to use it in place of lettuce for salads!

+ all of the HUMMUS stands & dips! Jonathan has tons of favorites, and even though I can’t really do beans right now, they are some of my favorite tasting things in the world.

+ the KOREAN STAND for the best soy-free tempeh in the game, I’ve been buying it since college and it’s heaven on earth, so good for salads, stir fries, etc.

+ ZUCCHINI ! CUCUMBERS ! CARROTS ! KALE ! Whatever veggies you love that are in season, because these are so much fresher and more delicious than anything you’ll find at a grocery store.

+ Flowers…. OMG the flowers. I usually go for sunflowers, but they have gorgeous orchids and so many other plants and succulents that are amazing.

+ Vegan cheese, Ayurvedic breads, gluten-free bagels, all the gluten-free goodies for that matter, and these amazing vegan / g-free PB chocolate chip cookies.

And it’s always a fun time to go with people you love or catch up with friends. It’s truly the highlight of my week every time we make it there. To be out in the sunshine, shopping for local food, I mean call me a nerd but it’s literally my favorite thing in the world.

For the rest of the day we will be home relaxing and making yummy food, and tonight we’ll be heading to the valley to celebrate Rosh Hashana (a week early) with my fam.

I am so grateful to be feeling well enough to be out and about this weekend, truly. After so long of being in bed on Sundays and unable to go to my fave place in the world (farmer’s market) it feels truly… surreal to be moving around again and doing what I love.

AND I am so in love with these Everlane clothes, and especially their new Treads. You can shop this entire post at the bottom, and I hope you do- supporting ethical brands has made shopping & embracing fashion so much more fun for me.

Also, for my fellow chronic illness warriors, dressing up and feeling cute is truly one of the best medicines I have found. I am so grateful for Everlane & this opportunity to work with a brand I love so much- ethical, transparent, sustainable, and the best quality.

Lastly… SUNDAYS ARE FOR LOVERS, so squeeze the one(s) you love extra tight today and take some time off- you deserve it.

What else has everyone been up to this weekend? I would absolutely love to hear. What other wedding planning goodness to you want to hear?! How are you feeling? Let’s get a convo going down below. MUAH ! 

SHOP THE POST BELOW! xx

So a lot of you have probably seen that I was frolicking in Palm Springs all of last week and it was pure, utter HEAVEN! I was staying at a detox spa and retreat center called We Care Spa. I didn’t share the name of it until I left, because my soul was craving a vacation that was a real vacation if you know what I mean… i.e. not sharing my whereabouts, promoting, or working. I needed to chill & just BE and it did my body so well.

However, me being me, I couldn’t stop myself from sharing all of the wonderful, relaxing aspects of my trip. We Care is known for their incredible detox programs and all around holistic healing vibe, from daily colonics, to juice & soup cleansing (with fiber drinks and supplements and more), to detox treatments, to cooking classes and shamanic ceremonies. It is an OASIS for healing.

After doing water fasts in the past, this particular detox felt like a breeze. I was there to soothe the intense digestive system pain I have been experiencing over the last few months, and to reset and check out before my upcoming wedding. I needed a solo trip to focus on taking care of my body, mind, and spirit.

Drinking the fiber drinks, juices, healing teas, electrolyte waters, and nighttime soups were all so soothing on my stomach, and they all kept me incredibly full. I swear I wasn’t hungry once while I was there. I was not there with the intention to lose weight but rather to FEEL better from the inside out, de-puff the major bloating I have had going on, and basically just spend a week in the desert healing.

I have also had intense PARASITES for the last few years. Soon I am going to share a blog post all about parasites and the parasite cleanse I am doing to get those bad boys killed ASAP, but for now I will tell you that daily colonics & liquid cleansing are two really great ways (combined) to kill parasites and bugs that shouldn’t be in our gut.

Other things in my gut that died off and got moved out this past week were… candida, mucus, gallstones, and cholesterol built up in my liver. If I have excess cholesterol as a plant-based person, imagine the cholesterol in all of our livers. It’s pretty insane to think about.

The best part of the week for me was being able to check out and be accountable to no one. I could go to bed when I wanted, read when I wanted, watch Real Housewives late into the night when I wanted, lay by the pool, get cupping and massage, eat dinner (soup) whenever felt good to me, join the shamanic ceremonies or chill in my room alone, work when I felt like it (launching WAKING BACK UP TO YOUR OWN SOUL!!), take phone calls or turn my phone off for hours on end.

It. WAS. GLORIOUS.

For someone who is “on” pretty much all of the time, it is very, very necessary to shut OFF every once in a while.

I think shutting off for at least one full day a week is a must for any entrepreneur, or anyone really in our modern age of technology.

As far as treatments, my favorites while I was there were cupping and Thai massage. My body suffers from insane joint pain and inflammation due to Lyme (and due to blogging & sitting at a computer soooo much!), and both of these treatments worked a ton of built up pain and tension out of my body.

A shamanic fire ceremony we had one of the nights was deeply profound for me. I released several things into the fire, including my need for perfection, leading with fear rather than love, and the insomnia (anxiety induced) that has been plaguing me forever. I swear I slept like a baby the entire week and always made the decision to return to love. Never underestimate the power of a good shaman or healer. Their healer at We Care is… next level. I felt so connected to her.

Connecting to Mother Earth //

Speaking of connected, I also felt deeply connected to the earth while I was there. There is some major vortex energy swirling around in Palm Springs. I have felt this for a long time, but after this trip I noticed it more than ever. Every time I felt stressed or on the verge of being worried about something work related or personal (or that HORRENDEOUS article in the NY Times about Lyme not being a real disease, but we will save that for another day), the plants, the wind, the earth, and the stars reminded me to remain calm. They literally spoke to me, danced in the wind, and reminded me what was important.

SLOWING DOWN is important.

BEING IN COMMUNITY is important.

CONNECTING WITH THE ONES WE LOVE is important.

BREATHING, SURRENDERING, & LETTING SHIT GO is important.

I swear I developed an intimate relationship with the plants and the rocks outside of my villa the entire week that I was there. The wisdom of the earth is beyond us. Feeling connected not only grounds me physically, but emotionally it gives me an overarching stability I find to be incredibly important.

Plants have taught me so much. If you’re interested in that concept, I go deep into it throughout the duration of Waking Back Up To Your Own Soul. I also created a Payment Plan for the course, which you can find here. I want to make this course accessible to as many people as possible. The cart is open and will close on 7/22!

Anyway, after my 8 days at We Care… 8 days of colonics, cleansing, self-care, rest, good sleep, and communing with nature… I feel like a new human.

The intense bloating and stomach pain I have experienced for so long is currently non existent. I know I will have to do a lot to maintain this good feeling- i.e. taking the herbs I bought at the facility since they worked so well for me there, eating tons of fiber in my diet (it works for me, not for everyone), having at least one liquid meal per day (either smoothies or soup), CHEWING my food until it literally becomes mush, and being incredibly mindful of food combining and avoiding foods that trigger my IBS.

I will do a whole post on my exact plan for this very soon, but the main truth is that it is so different for all of us. But I do feel really good about the plan I am on right now and I do want to share moooore!

So!! Biggest takeaways!!

1. When you feel really yucky, it’s good to take a step back and re-evaluate WHY and how you can fix it. For me, I was eating too much stuff that doesn’t agree with me… from “healthy” granolas to grains to eggs (I can def eat eggs but not in major abundance) to lots of healthy treats and not enough fiber and binding foods. And I was definitely not properly food combining.
2. Colonics work extremely well for me personally, especially in conjunction with a liver cleanse and/or a parasite cleanse. I am not recommending to do colonics every day like I did, as that is an extreme case and was in a professional detox environment, but once in a while a good colonic is GOLD!
3. Letting go of stress is PERTINENT for healing.
4. Self-care above all else. That could be as simple as taking a bath in the evenings or turning your phone off for one day per week.
5. Nature has so much to teach us. Communing with the plants, the earth, the stars, the moon, the sky… all are so wise and have so many healing remedies for us.
6. SURRENDER IS EVERYTHING. We can always choose to surrender.
7. I will 100000% go back to We Care and already booked another stay for October… lol!

Okay! There you have it! Any questions? Would love to answer for you. P.S. my course is available from now until 7/22. Would love to have you on this journey with me. It’s being called an “at home retreat” by some of the humans who have started and I absolutely love that…! You can find a payment plan for the course here.

When I was at True North earlier this month doing my most recent water fast, I kept getting signs from the universe that I was there for a much bigger reason. True North is a health center that teaches the SOS-free way of life (salt oil sugar free, which you can read about here), and is also where I first learned about SOS-free and started implementing it into my life last May.

As I looked around True North it struck me very clearly that I was the youngest person there for some sort of larger purpose. I went to the cooking classes and the lectures and soaked up as much information as I could, and kept getting filled with this greater knowing that part of my purpose in life and especially part of my purpose in getting sick with Lyme is to help people heal by spreading the SOS-free message to a younger generation. It was a larger series of events that brought me to TN in the first place (I believe guided from above!).

While I was there I was filled with inspiration to create so many recipes when I returned home, and also to write a SOS-free cookbook and guide book for all of the many people out there who are looking to learn more and enhance their life with this anti-inflammatory, disease-friendly way of eating. But I also knew there was more, and I asked the universe to show it to me.

In the middle of my fast I sat on the floor in my room at and meditated for a long while to get clear on what I wanted the universe to bring to me. I was very open, and I said, “Show me the way I’m going to help people heal from chronic disease. Show me how to heal my body from chronic disease so I can help others. Unveil to me what it is I am supposed to be doing because I am filled with such massive inspiration to do it, but I am lost as to what *it* is, so point me in the right direction.”

From there, I let it be. I totally surrendered. I let go of what the response from the universe might look like, or when I would get it. But I wrote it down, continued to meditate on it, and felt very excited for what was to come. Fasts are also a great time to tune into yourself and just BE, outside of your daily routine and distractions from life, so I felt ultra clear on my path and my inspiration.

The Universe Answered //

Fast forward to returning home to Sacramento after the fast, and of course, the most miraculous thing happened. I had been making recipes like crazy and studying all things SOS-free to learn about what I could do to dive deeper and help people. There wasn’t a whole lot out there, but I kept looking. I watched the documentary HEAL (LIFE CHANGING) for the third time because I can’t get enough of it, and I got my parents drinking juices and smoothies every day. It felt so good to be back in the world and I was feeling super in the flow.

Insert the miraculous thing: one of my amazing blog readers Christine (@bluecrushwellness on IG) responded to one of the many SOS-free recipes I was posting and told me that she was in the middle of a health + detox coaching program based on the Gerson therapy, and that she would be happy to help with recipe testing any time if I did end up creating an SOS-free cookbook.

The whole message was amazing, but what most stuck out to me was the program. I said to her, “WAIT! Tell me more about this program!! Send me an email!!”

Christine sent me an email right away full of info and incredible inspiration. The program was EXACTLY what I had been looking for. When she mentioned the woman who started the program, Nicolette Richer, I realized the name sounded super familiar. So I checked my inbox and connected the dots — SO MANY people have pointed me toward Nicolette ever since my chronic Lyme diagnosis. She helps so many people heal. I had never contacted her before because I was receiving SOOO much info about what to do / how to heal / who to contact, etc. etc.

But now the time felt so right. So of course I immediately went onto Nicolette’s website & contacted her. I told her I was interested in the program, I wanted to meet her, I had a podcast that I wanted to have her on, the whole works!

It turns out she was coming to LA that very week from Canada and would be able to come over and be on the podcast! So on Monday of this week I met her, fell even more in love with her message and her knowledge, and simultaneously signed up for her health + detox coaching program, that starts at the end of this month!!!

The serendipities are WILD. The Universe answered.

NOW YOU KNOW WHY I HAVE BEEN JUICING SO MUCH !!

What is the Gerson therapy?! //

The Gerson therapy is a diet and lifestyle that was created by Max Gerson in the 1920s. It aims to rid the body of toxins and to strengthen the immune system to fight disease. It involves an SOS-free plant-based diet full of fruits and veggies from the earth, lots of cold-pressed juices, and whole gluten-free grains. It’s wild because I have been researching the Gerson therapy for years, but I never had a direct tie to it until I got sick myself.

In fact that first time I heard about it I researched it for about a week straight, I was obsessed with it (as I get with things), but ended up moving on from learning about it because at the time I was quite healthy — but I filed it away in my mind for if I ever got sick or anyone I loved got sick.

The Gerson therapy is most known as an alternative treatment for cancer, but it is also used to treat other diseases. Because of its aim to rid the body of toxins and strengthen the immune system, it can truly treat any disease. Nicolette has incredible stories of people who have healed from every disease under the sun — she has been living this lifestyle for 22 years! I cannot wait for you guys to hear those stories on the podcast, which will be out in 2 weeks.

The toxin ridding part of the lifestyle is done through coffee enemas. For people who are sick with chronic disease, this could mean up to 5 enemas a day. I have been doing 2 enemas a day so far and I have already noticed a boost since I began. I used to do one enema a day, as they are GREAT for people with Lyme who have an excess of toxins and trouble detoxing them.

Also for chronically ill patients the aim is to drink between 9-13 cold pressed juices a day (8oz each) to flood the body with nutrients and flush those toxins out. So now you know why I have been juicing an extra amount!!

Also, check out these carrot pulp muffins I made from the pulp from my carrot juice!!! YUM!

Its even crazy that I was watching the documentary HEAL the night before Christine reached out to me, because the Gerson therapy is hinted at in that doc a handful of times. I was telling my mom about Gerson while we watched and how the Gerson therapy is truly the original SOS-free.

I have had an inkling for a while that trying the Gerson therapy would be beneficial in my healing journey, but I also didn’t know the first thing about it. In Nicolette’s program I will be learning everything from the science to the biology to the history of treating disease… it’s going to be intensive in the best way. I will be writing term papers & doing case studies & even taking on clients during this time (stay tuned for that!!).

And the best part is, I will get the opportunity to help my own body heal in the process.

And if I am getting really deep into the spiritual aspect of it, which I totally can with you guys, Charlotte Gerson (Max Gerson’s daughter) passed away last month at the age of 97. I can feel her gently guiding me from the other side as I continue to learn/devour this information about the Gerson lifestyle. I believe she is giving me those gentle nudges when I need them most, and I am so grateful.

ALSO, since then, the Gerson therapy has shown up in my life every day, multiple times a day!!! When I showed up to record this weeks episode of the podcast with Dara Dubinet & Jenna Zoe, Dara quoted Charlotte Gerson within minutes of me walking in her door. “If you cure one disease, you cure all.”

I’m sorry, but I believe there are no coincidences in this life!

More details?! //

If you want to look into the program yourself, you can find it here at Richer Health. This particular program starts at the end of this month, and there is another starting in September. Tell them TBB sent you!

Also, they have offered a generous 20% off code off of their Eat Real to Heal 5-week program — ERTHBLONDE1 — for any of our TBB tribe who would like to join that particular program that they also offer.

Also, how wild that it starts at the end of this month?! When I was looking for something to start as soon as possible?! The synchronicities continue to blow my mind.

The is that disease can be cured by removing toxins from the body, boosting the immune system, and replacing excess salt in the body’s cells with potassium is such a beautiful thing to hear, especially when you’ve been suffering for so long. And it MAKES SENSE. I believe in doing alternative, nutrition-based therapies alongside of whatever it is that you’re doing with your doctor or naturopath to heal disease.

I believe we can all heal as long as we find the right path for us, and as long as we BELIEVE on a deep, cellular level that we will heal.

I mean, have you heard of this book?! If not, you should read it. We can ALL heal. It’s a matter of mindset, nutrition, dedication, community, support, belief, spirituality… it’s a matter of knowing there is something greater out there helping us heal. And it’s a matter of taking our health into our OWN hands.

I am so, so, so excited & humbled for this experience to come. I have been taking my health into my own hands ever since I got diagnosed with Lyme. I have refused to sit back and let Lyme take over my life, or ruin it. This journey has been a huge learning experience for me. I am still in bed 90% of the time — I am writing this post from bed. It has been hard, really f*cking hard. I am not going to sugar coat that.

But if I can take what I have learned and what I have suffered from, from Lyme to babesia to mold poisoning to MCAS to MTFHR to chronic hives/chronic eczema to chronic fatigue to brain fog and more, then I will be happy. I know we are only given what we can handle, and I am SO thrilled to finally have found a program to learn more about the SOS-free nutrition that I believe so deeply in so I can help YOUUU !!!! HEAL !!!

Would love your thoughts below! Let’s hear them! Have you heard of the Gerson therapy? Would you try it? xx

When I first started blogging these posts were what it was all about for me, and I want to get back to those this year. Just sharing when it’s EASY and spilling what’s on my mind.

So let’s set the scene. J & I are in Ojai, having a romantic rainy getaway at the Ojai Valley Inn. We are getting married here in exactly 9 months, ahhh!! And he just told me that baby koalas are the size of a jelly bean when they’re born (we are full of random info tonight hehe) and now I want to sob because I want one!!!!

If you had told me a few years ago that in 2019 I would be getting married, after years of rocky and awful relationships, I would never have believed you.

But more on that on another day. It still just blows my mind that we are getting married this year, and that I get to spend my life with my best friend. And being HERE in Ojai thinking about the wedding is a trip!

When we got into our room tonight Jonathan fell asleep (did anyone see the video on my Insta Stories of him videoing me on the sly while I climbed up on some planter boxes in the Farmhouse where we are getting married?!?! If not, you’re missing out on laughing at me, haha) and I took a bath, and in the bath I was thinking of a million different musings I felt like sharing with you guys.

So here we go!!

TBB Sunday Night Musings //

1. Yesterday on Instagram I shared about the new #JORDANRISING, after someone asked me the other day on Insta Stories about who the new Jordan Rising is. The person who asked me came up with the name, by the way, which again proves that you guys are the actual best. I loved that question so much because I feel like I have been rapidly changing over the last few years, and especially the last several months. And the new me is RISING !!

Being sick will really do that to you. If you missed the IG, check it out. I won’t repeat myself entirely since you can read it there, but it feels really, really good to get clear on the person I am evolving into. I feel such huge things on the horizon. I have had major visions of where my brand is headed and what I will create for you guys in the very near future.

When I was on Ayahuasca, I had extremely clear visions of myself on a stage speaking to thousands of you at a time (!!!!) about intuition, manifestation, opening up psychically (which is available to all of us), being an empath & thriving as an empath, overcoming chronic illness, and reaching new levels of consciousness where we are all love and where we all have the power to heal ourselves and our bodies.

Along with those visions I saw myself writing tons of books and poetry (my forever dream of life), having three kids with Jonathan, and shifting my branding to reflect these new changes. So you can expect some of that in the near future. The branding part at least! The rest I will take slow and steady.

2. I cannot believe that in 15 days I will be water fasting at True North again! The last time I water fasted I had a very transformative experience, released tons of inflammation in my body, learned a TON from the doctors there, & discovered the SOS-free way of life. I have to be honest and say I very much look forward to the day when I don’t have to do so much to manage my health and keep my symptoms at bay, but for now I am embracing that it’s all part of my journey.

I also consider myself a guinea pig for you guys. So while I would never flat out recommend a water fast to the average healthy TBB reader, when other chronically ill people read about my experience and come to me and say it speaks to them, and they know they should do it, it makes me happy to open their eyes to something that could really work.

Before I leave I will do a full post about water fasting & why I am going back, and I will document my experience the whole time I am there! Way more than last time, when I had so little energy I could only write about it afterward!

3. I. LOVE. READING. and cannot wait to reactivate the TBB BOOK CLUB posts!! This book by Michael Pollan is one of my current favorites that I highly recommend, especially for people interested in Plant Medicine. It’s just so intriguing to learn about. I also just picked up a book called The Dreamers this morning on the way to Ojai, so I would have a fun fiction book to read while we are here!

If you have book recs, comment them below & I will add them to the next book club roundup!

4. I have been thinking a lot about my style lately, and that I really only wear yoga clothes… lol. Being sick has only made that even more of a thing, because when I do leave the house I want to be so comfy that I often just wear the same sweatpants I wore to bed and throw on an Alo sweater.

As far as the clothes that I like, I have had a pretty particular “Jordan” look since middle school. It’s somewhere between bohemian / flowy dresses / Free People vibes and skinny jeans with checkered vans and band t-shirts. Is there a name for that?! I always think if I would have started my blog in middle / high school I would have named it “The Bohemian Blonde.”

Anyway, I am at the point where now most of my jeans are two sizes too big for me and I haven’t bought new clothes in ages (except for yoga clothes and my consistent Alo Yoga supply), mostly because of being sick and the idea of going shopping sounding awful for that reason.

So… where should I shop when I finish my water fast and finally decide to purge my old clothes / get some new ones for a fresh start? I am feeling big fresh start vibes coming on… slowly healing and seeing a light at the end of the tunnel as I start to get a little more energy and go out into the world again.

It is so weird to barely leave your bed for a year and a half straight. But more on that later too!

5. It feels very good to be podcasting again, but I definitely overdid it last week. After not doing a single interview for 2 months, I did five interviews over the course of five days. It was too much and by Friday my voice was halfway gone, and I was asking myself, “WHY DO I HAVE TO BE SO EXTREME?” But also I am trying to get ahead because of the upcoming water fast, and taking another 3.5 – 4 weeks off!

I totally believe that this water fast is coming at this exact time because the universe is telling me I need to keep resting. Just because I am being gifted with some energy and mental clarity and strength again doesn’t mean I need to dive full throttle back into work. Taking it slow still feels extremely important, and I am so glad the water fast is going to give me that time and space to heal.

Anyway, if you ever see me recording 5 episodes in a week again (or more than two in one day), please call me out. Nobody needs to be doing that, especially someone in the early stages of healing from chronic Lyme disease.

6. Hands down the best addition to my healing toolkit in the last few months (other than my Aya journey) has been GETTING A CLEARLIGHT SAUNA IN MY HOME! I know this is not an option for everyone, so you could also find a local spa / gym / sauna place that offers infrared sauna in your area. In LA there are so many, from Sweatheory to Shape House to Stretch Pro to Pause Float Studio.

If you are interested in getting a sauna in your home (ours is all over my Insta, also sharing a photo below), go to HealwithHeat.com & use the code BLONDE! You will get a big gift & $450 off total. And shipping will be free! Plus you will be supporting incredibly kind people. This is not an ad — simply a healing tool I feel is a must for people suffering from chronic illness. SWEATING releases so, so many toxins.

Also… as I mentioned, if you are unable to get one in your home which is very understandable (I had to badger Jonathan for about 6 months before we carved out some space to stick this bad boy), find a place where you can go use a sauna once or twice a week! I use mine daily now but before I had it in my home I just went as often as I could.

Okay that’s it for tonight. You know I could go on, but this feels perfect. Jonathan will be shocked that I legitimately kept this at five!!! (ADDENDUM, I ADDED A SIXTH.)

And I told you these topics were random… all of my bath tub musings. Let me know your thoughts below & your Sunday eve musings!

A lot to unpack, I know. My sleepy Lyme brain has been on overdrive thinking about it all.

I’m sharing my thoughts here because truthfully, I started this blog over half a decade ago to normalize being healthy in a world where “wellness” isn’t or at least wasn’t often considered cool or normal.

Hilariously enough, wellness has become a pretty cool topic over the last several years. I of course am thrilled about that, but the very niche subject I started my blog about still gets a lot of flack: veganism, but specifically veganism in relation to a sick/struggling/healing body.

You guys may not know this if you haven’t been here reading since the beginning, but I started my blog to share that the plant based way of life had helped heal me in many ways from lifelong chronic stomach, gut, and digestion issues. I found veganism in college and explored it deeply before I started my blog, then thought it would be cool to have an online space to talk about being plant based AND being social, fresh out of college, going to bars, doing all the “cool & normal stuff” while also prioritizing my health and wellness.

My journey hasn’t been so linear from there. I stopped being vegan for a while which many of you know about. I wrote a book about dealing with orthorexia and very much became a poster child (thanks to the media, not to me) for “walking away from veganism,” and for some semblance of eating intuitively.

But there is so much to the story that many people simply do not know. If you follow me closely then you probably do, but even so it is hard to articulate just quite how sick my body started to get during those years of switching from veganism to a non-vegan way of life.

And let’s just get one thing straight here: veganism didn’t make me sick, and eating meat and other non-vegan foods didn’t make me sick. I believe that extreme stress took a toll on my body plus a VERY quick departure from veganism into full-blown non-vegan foods way too fast. The whole situation wreaked absolute havoc on my body.

During this time I placed a lot of trust into doctors and nutritionists and others who very much led me toward a meat and fat centric way of eating (aka lots of keto vibes). I talked a lot about intuitive eating. Heck, I still believe in intuitive eating… but not the way some people talk about it.

What I have realized most recently is that EVERY circle of “food labels” comes along with a certain amount of snarkiness, holier than thou attitude, and quite frankly… issues. I used to get hate from the vegan community when I stopped being vegan, and I thought it was a vegan thing. Now I get hate (more subtle but it’s there) from the “intuitive eating” and “anti-diet” cultures and ways of life because I am deeply, severely, chronically ill and am turning to food as medicine to heal me. Also because life and intuition and the universe has lead me back to… none other than a fully plant-based diet.

I am sharing this all with you because yet again, five and a half years after the inception of my blog, I want to normalize this conversation and tell you that YES, IT IS OKAY TO BE THE GIRL WHO BRINGS HER OWN SALAD TO A FRIENDSGIVING. Not only is it okay, it’s fucking cool. It’s amazing when you know what your body needs, and you know what you need to do about it to avoid anxiety or making anyone or especially yourself uncomfortable in social situations.

You can place a huge amount of emphasis on your health and the food that may nourish or heal you, AND be a normal, living, breathing, regular human in society. Placing a huge emphasis on what you eat is not in itself dangerous, it is not something to be avoided.

I heard something recently that really struck a chord, although I quickly tried to let it go and not take it in as my own hurt to ruminate about. It said something along the lines of, “Fuck [a long list of things I won’t mention and also] veganism and the celery juice trend. Intuitive eating and real label dropping is the only healthy approach to diminishing food fears and living a life without anxiety.”

I was thinking, “Hmmm… plant based foods and celery juice, for a chronically ill person, can be fucking life changing. Not for every chronically ill person, but it should be at least given a fair shot. You can eat intuitively and drink celery juice. You can be intuitively led to drinking celery juice. You can be plant based and be deeply intuitive with it the entire way through.”

Secondly… if I ate whatever I wanted and went buck wild around food the way I did four years ago when I “dropped the vegan label,” I would be so sick I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed. Because my body is SICK. I know I don’t speak for everyone here, but I have mold growing on my organs. I have Lyme bugs legitimately chewing away at my BRAIN. I have inflammation that makes it damn near impossible to sleep at night because it it makes my skin so, so, severely and painfully itchy.

Currently I can’t tolerate sugar and I can’t tolerate foods that have salt or oil in them. I could probably tolerate some fish but I can’t risk any mercury, factory farmed or genetically modified contaminants, or even pollution from our very unclean oceans. That is my current situation. I believe wholeheartedly that everyone must listen to their gut and find their own “intuitive” approach, and also include lots and and lots of fresh fruits and veggies, unless allergies or food intolerances apply.

ANYWAY this whole saga brings me to a story that happened yesterday when I was with Jonathan at the farmer’s market…

We had spent the previous day making food for a Friendsgiving that we went to. I made cookies and a banana bread that I can’t currently eat on my Medical Medium Protocol and I was cool with it, even though it still kind of sucks to make food that you can’t eat but looks really delish to you.

The next day we were at the farmer’s market and I saw this really cute cookie stand that I used to always get vegan cookies from. It’s healthy, it’s all good stuff. But for my current protocol, specific to Lyme disease and inflammation, this new protocol that I am really trying to give a shot… it had ingredients that I shouldn’t eat. That I told Jonathan to make sure I stayed away from so that I could really give this thing a fair chance.

I bought the cookies, I ate them, thinking, “IT’S THANKSGIVING WEEK, I will do what I want!!” and guess what? I felt like shit. We got home, he looked at the box, and he called me out for buying cookies with ingredients that I can’t really eat right now (just like I asked him to).

The whole thing made me feel like crying. Part of me for a second got dramatic and woe is me and felt like, “Why can’t I enjoy a simple treat from the farmer’s market? Why am I so sick?”

But then I thought better of it, and remembered that if I wanted a treat it was really quite simple: I could make one. I have plenty of recipes that are very inclusive of my protocol and the diseases and issues I am dealing with. This protocol is not about restriction, it’s about doing the work (hard work at times) to make my food and infuse love (very important) and take the TIME to make things for myself that will nourish my body and also nourish my soul.

So… insert these cookies. These cookies are really special to me, because I came up with this recipe right after I realized the farmer’s market cookies were not going to cut it for me. Heading to Thanksgiving with my family later this week in Carmel, I want some treats for myself too! I know I won’t be able to eat the sugar-laden pies and cookies and whatevers that I would have been able to a few years ago… so this week I am meal prepping some good stuff to bring with me!

The point of this post is: no matter how you eat, don’t let anyone bully you about it. Lately, I have felt subliminally BULLIED by the anti-diet culture. When I did my water fast earlier this year, for my health and to try to heal from a sickness that is literally killing parts of me inside and out, I had an “anti-diet health coach” CREW, like 30 of them, bashing the absolute hell out of me. Posting photos of me, ridiculing me, calling me dangerous.

How sick is that?

Bullying/hating on ANYONE is not healthy.

That is the kind of stuff that messes with health for real: anger, bullying, lashing out, feeling such intense anxiety toward others that you want to call them names and write nasty posts about them.

I am used to all of that stuff, but I am here to tell you if you experience it too… we are stronger than that. We will rise above that hate (which is really just someone else’s insecurity). True health, true spiritual growth and evolvement and happiness… is our acceptance that not everyone is going to celebrate what we do, but as long as we celebrate it, from a true and authentic place, then we are good.

If you’re the girl who gets made fun of at work for her overnight oats with spirulina and goji berries, this is for you. If you’re the guy whose girlfriend’s family doesn’t understand him at all because he is going to eat a plant-based meal on Thanksgiving… this one is for you.

And if you’re anything like me, just out there trying to figure it all out, letting go of the labels and focusing on healing and realizing that food IS MEDICINE, and plants are medicine, and juices are medicine, and healing humans like the Medical Medium know what’s up… then this is really, really for you.

And to be radically honest with you? THIS ONE IS FOR ME. I needed to work through these emotions and process, and I do feel a lot better now.

I will have a Medical Medium update coming soon!! For now, enjoy the recipe for these cookies and I hope you make them on Thanksgiving if they sound good to you.

SOS-Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

(Medical Medium approved too as far as I know!!)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup almond flour (or any flour of your choice)

1/4 cup maple syrup (or I used date syrup if you can find it~)

1/4 cup crushed chocolate (I used Addictive Wellness, use code BLONDE for a discount!)

1/4 cup apple sauce

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

2 tbsp carob powder (just to make it more chocolatey!)

2 tbsp almond milk (unless it is liquidy enough already, use your discretion)

1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix all ingredients minus the crushed chocolate in a big bowl until a thick batter forms. Add almond milk if you feel it is too thick. Add more almond flour if it is too watery.

Stir in the chocolate chips until evenly dispersed.

Place cookies onto a baking sheet (will make 8-10 ish cookies) lined with parchment paper.

Bake for 35-45 minutes or until golden brown around the edges.

Pop them out, let them cool, and enjoy!!

Alright guys this post is very near and dear to my heart, so I hope you enjoy and I hope you got something out of it. I was just listening to Oprah & Gwyneth Paltrow on the Goop Podcast (IDOLS !!!!) and Oprah said that with every story you tell, keep your audience in mind and make sure there is an “A-HA” moment for them to resonate with. I hope this story had that for you!! Or at least the recipe. Love you guys so much and thank you for being here!