Judaism has been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. It is something that growing up taught me about morals and values that became a part of my identity. These days, I do not go to synagogue, I do not celebrate the Sabbath, but I do know when every Jewish holiday is happening and celebrate in my own unique way. For my own upbringing with Jewish Holidays, the stereotype that every holiday revolved around food was entirely accurate. My mother has a special recipe for every holiday and would constantly discover new recipes to add on to the array of food made at each Jewish Holiday. While I no longer consume gluten, as it just does not resonate with my digestive tract, I don't think I will ever stop craving a glutenous toasted Everything New York bagel with lox, tomato, and red onion.

Food unites us. It brings us together. It bonds us and creates memories. It supports us in cultivating new friendships, solidifies a family over eating together, and nourishes our body physically and emotionally. In a larger context of holidays and food, Halloween=candy, Thanksgiving=large meal where overeating is encouraged, Chanukah/Christmas=more eating, New Years Eve= many celebrate with going out to dinner or consuming large quantities of alcohol, Valentine's Day=chocolate, 4th of July=BBQs, Birthdays=indulgent meals and cake. How o how are we to listen to our body and it's hunger and fullness cues when there are reasons to celebrate all throughout the year? When we eat socially, our body can be overwhelmed with all the external stimuli of conversation, different foods, socialization mimicry, meaning we will eat as fast and with as many bites of those around us. This can make it incredibly hard to hear our body's wisdom in what foods and how much is going to feel most supportive in that moment. On top of that, we desire to feel a part of the group that may override what and how much we would normally eat just to "fit in."

Since discovering I have a very sensitive digestive tract, it has supported me in learning how to set strong boundaries with what I say yes and no to in holiday situations while also still feeling a part of the celebratory aspects of being together with loved ones. The first step can be to take a pause when in a holiday or celebration situation and just allow yourself space and time to connect with yourself. When you sit down at a table to eat with others, this pause will give you the opportunity to assess which foods are going to support you in feeling grounded and supported in the moment and after the meal is over so that you can actually enjoy being around others and not feel uncomfortable in your own body from perhaps eating foods you know do not resonate with you or overeating.

In celebratory situations, we can often be so focused on the food that we miss the emotional satiation occurring from being nourished by the conversation, the environment, and the people. New traditions can be created where every person in the room can support each other in focusing more on each other where food just gets to be an added bonus of bringing individuals together where the spotlight of satiety is on how we nourish each other by our attention, presence, and connection. When I see an Everything Bagel now, I can feel the sense of Jewish celebration in my body, honor the emotions and sensations present, and still listen to my body's messages that actually eating that particular food would not support my system in feeling celebratory. The next holiday or celebration that occurs in your life, experiment and before you enter the room, take three deep belly breaths and you can create intentions for yourself in what you are hoping to feel nourished by and receive by celebrating with others that includes being satiated by both the food and the company.

Almost everything has a cycle to it. The seasons, the tides of the water, our cells. If we look all around us we can see routine and ritual happening. We can trust that here in March spring is on its way, the frequency of snow will decrease, and temperatures will rise. This inner knowing of routine and cycle all around us can provide our body a sense of calm in trusting and knowing what is to come. When we create these routines for ourselves in our day, we can be supporting our body in fostering a relaxation response that there is one less thing that it has to be wary of and look out for and make decisions around. This is where a morning routine can be truly powerful to create.

Creating a relaxing and nourishing morning routine is something I am constantly exploring. These days, I often wake up and start working right away to capitalize on all the waking hours I have. I have discovered though that the times when I have follow a morning routine it powerfully sets me up the rest of the day to to feel grounded and mindful. Your morning routine can be filled with anything that supports you in feeling re-connected with you. This means that it will probably not include working, checking emails, or looking around on Facebook.

Some suggestions of what your morning routine can include: drinking water, meditating, stretching, reading a book, making some tea, taking a walk outside, taking a bath or a shower, eating breakfast, watching an inspirational video or listening to an uplifting podcast, spending time with your family, playing with a pet, listening to music. You can fill your morning with things that emotionally nourish you and support in creating that relaxation response where our body functions optimally, where deeper healing can occur, and where we can make our best decisions throughout our day.

For this next week, experiment! If you are a get up and go individual, try luxuriating in the morning and slowing everything down. If you are a hit the snooze button 5 times individual, experiment and try getting up right when your alarm goes off and get outside to take a walk and then notice how you feel the rest of your day. Feel free to stop by here and let me know how your morning experiments of creating new ritual and routine are going!

Having a new puppy has thrown a slight wrench into my plans to write every day for 108 days. So this has become an interesting new experiment of how to have awareness of my commitments, work towards them the best I can, while also addressing what truly needs my attention which is this two month old puppy who can't take care of himself. I am grateful for this moment right now to create space and time to write while my puppy sleeps on my lap. In becoming a puppy mommy and watching him just eat, poop, and sleep it has reminded me of going back to basics of what it means to take care of our body.

I find so often in the health coaching world that so many coaches, including myself, feel the need to know more and more to support our clients. Some of the most powerful reminders though can be just to eat real food. There are so many options out there of what to eat and how to eat. Vegetarian, vegan, paleo, keto, gluten free, dairy free, it can all get a little confusing. The one common theme though in all approaches to nourishment is eat less processed foods, cook more, consume foods that came from the earth, that you could pull from a tree, or pick out of the ground. 

If you start to feel confused about what to eat and notice yourself reaching for more and more pre-packaged and processed foods, a great question you can start asking yourself before choosing any kind of nourishment is how did this food get made? If you can imagine the farmers who had to grow that food, picking that food out of the ground, and then traveling it's way to your grocery story or farmer's market then go for it! If then you have to imagine that food being mushed, ground, added colorings and preservatives to and then being placed in a can or a box then you can perhaps move on to a food that you can imagine growing and picking that food yourself.

Taste buds have a life cycle of about two weeks and so every time we choose different foods to nourish our body with, foods that are less processed without too much salt or sugar for added flavor, we can begin to pick up on the subtle flavors in things like vegetables and fruits. With time, our desire for specific foods can change as we provide our body with more whole natural foods. Give your body time to adjust to choosing different nourishment and it can be even be a fun experiment to notice and observe how your bodily reactions begin to change.

I recently did a cord cutting ceremony with a dear friend to release internal beliefs and individuals who had been in my life in the past that were no longer serving me to hold on to any longer. When anyone ever enters our life, a tie can be created between the two individuals simply from the space and time each person is holding for the other. You can call this an energetic tie or spiritual tie or a commitment that lingers or a bond, whatever resonates with you. When a friendship or relationship ends, it can be important work to take time to mark that ending in some way so that the individual no longer takes up energetic space in your life. This is sometimes why we can still feel connected to individuals from our past as that tie between the two individuals was never broken.

In this ceremony, we brought to mind what I wanted to released and then my friend had me cut a piece of cord as many times as I wanted. We then went outside and burned the piece of cord. As I watched it burn and shrivel up, I actually felt a sense of relief. A therapist once asked me, if you were met and seen the ways you needed to be when you were younger how would you show up differently today? Our past experiences shape the way we show up in our lives and it can feel truly healing and powerful to begin to imagine if these past moments played out differently, how would we be showing up for ourselves and with others in a new light and what steps could we even take today to make that image a reality?

Cutting ties not only pertains to those we have needed to say goodbye to from our past, but also to release former identities we had taken on or past habits and patterns that are just no longer serving us in the present. We often adopt the habits of our parents and friends when we are a child or teenager to make sure we feel like we fit in and belong. As we grow older, to individuate sometimes we need to say goodbye to ways of being that actually don't truly resonate with the individual we are transforming into today. There can be a grieving process that occurs in saying goodbye to certain patterns as those habits were often created at a time when we needed them. If you are cutting the cords in anywhere in your life, give yourself time to grieve, to say goodbye, and to even explore what would you like to bring into that new space into your life that other individuals or past parts of you were taking up space?

We all have what is called our Upper Limits of Happiness. When we go beyond our Upper Limits of Happiness we will do something to knock ourselves back down again to our comfort levels of joy. This might be eating something we know does not resonate with our system, overeating, picking a fight with a loved one, overspending. Our impulses for "self sabotage" actually have a lot of wisdom to offer us. Think about the last time you engaged in a habit you know does not actually serve you long term. Now think about what you were feeling or what had occurred that day right before you engaged in that pattern. Perhaps you had a lovely morning or an overwhelming feeling of love for someone in your life or gratitude for the work you are doing in the world.

The love or joy or contentment we can feel at times can feel just as overwhelming to our body as grief or sadness or despair. The more pauses we take between reaction and action, the more we can acknowledge when the feeling of joy or happiness is feeling overwhelming to our system. In those moments we can take a pause to invite the overwhelm in, which can actively increase our capacity to contain joy in our body. The power of getting comfortable with discomfort can support us in almost every area of our life so that we can stay connected to ourselves and make the best decisions we can in any moment.

After my wedding was over in October, for 3 days after that I welcomed in the discomfort of feeling overwhelming joy and gratitude for our families, for how amazing the day went, for the love I felt for my husband. If I had bypassed acknowledging the immense feeling of joy I was experiencing, I might have been found myself face deep in all of our wedding pie we had leftover. Instead, I just kept naming that I felt overwhelmed with all the joy present and we created space for the discomfort to be there.

Those Upper Limits of Happiness can be created at a young age for what we experience with our friends, with our family, with our teachers. For so many, keeping their sense of joy low can feel like a protective mechanism so that the same disappointment, grief, and sadness they might have experienced in childhood won't effect them in the same way in adulthood. Having been one of those individuals, I can say from personal experience, keeping my experience of joy low only diminished my ability to actually feel alive, feel connected, and take risks no matter the outcome so that I can learn and grow.

So the next time you feel an immense amount of joy, happiness, and contentment in your life, if you notice that your next impulse is wanting to engage in a self sabotaging pattern, allow yourself to sit with the urge to diminish your sense of joy and do whatever you need to do in that moment to move that discomfort through you. Cry, dance, breath, meditate, sing, whatever would support you in allowing yourself to fully experience a sense of happiness in your life.

I am now on day 3 of an entirely new world of owning a dog. As I have been staring at his incredibly cute face, I was reflecting yesterday on the power of a pet teaching unconditional self love. I have felt both unconditional self love from my dog and for my dog. He does not care if I have showered, what clothes I am wearing, or what I look like on any day. No matter what, when I enter the room and squeal his name, he is just so incredibly excited to see my presence. How incredibly powerful would it be if as humans we released any internal judgment or worry of being accepted and that no matter how anyone shows up we just embraced them excitedly simply because they were alive and in our presence?

I also look at my sweet dog's face and have felt immediate unconditional self love. No matter what happens to him, I know I will always be there for him no matter what. What would happen if we transferred the way we feel about our pets to everyone around us and to ourselves? We can find inspiration in how to foster unconditional self love in the way we treat our friends, loved ones, and pets. Whenever you hear those harsher internal voices arise, we can recall our last interaction with a friend or loved one and that same compassion, empathy, and love we offered to our friend, we can invite back to ourselves.

You deserve the same unconditional self love and kindness that you offer to everyone around you. Our thoughts are luckily not facts, they are not a truth. In any moment, the power is always within you to re-shape any internal dialogue to one that feels more loving and gentle. You can create a list of all the individuals in your life that you offer unconditional love to and on those days that feel slightly harder to offer yourself that same love, it can be powerful to think about those individuals in your life you love and give yourself the same words you would offer to them of affection and acceptance.

Two nights ago my husband and I decided to do something incredibly impulsive and we adopted this darling dog in this post. We had been talking about adopting a dog for awhile but when we went to go meet this 2 month old puppy we had no idea we would be walking out with a new pet. Over the past two days, I have come face to face with having to "walk my talk" in that I often guide my clients that when stress increases we must also increase our level of self care. What I often see in our culture is that when stress increases, our level of self care goes down. With the presence of stress, our cravings for particular foods can increase, our brain can feel a little fuzzy, and it can become harder to make decisions that are in alignment with what will be best for ourselves physically and emotionally.

So in the spirit of self care, this post will be short, but I'll leave you with this: Create a list of all the things that emotionally nourish you. This list can be filled with things like walks, talks, reading, writing, dancing, gardening, laughing, baths, tea, candles, games, whatever feels nourishing to your soul and each day you can reference this list and engage in one self care act to constantly be fueling yourself, not just physically, but emotionally as well. And when stress increases, this list can be your go to of ways you can support yourself through more stressful times so that you have a game plan moving forward of how you would like to take care of you when the external world feels a bit more hectic.

We all have a relationship with food and body. This relationship can get fostered at a young age by the experiences we have around food in our family, our friends, and even what our mother ate when we were in the womb. As we grow older, that innate ability to hear our hunger and fullness cues can get altered by holidays that revolve around food telling us to eat more, moments where we reach for food to emotionally self soothe, and when food becomes a source to numb, to foster joy, to cultivate comfort, to instill peace.

On any journey in cultivating a new relationship with food and body we can begin to distinguish the difference between dieting mentality and setting boundaries. Dieting mentality can be all about restriction, deprivation, and will power. Setting boundaries can be focused on self nourishment, self empowerment, and focused on our vitality. So if there is a food you have discovered does not feel nourishing and loving and grounding in your system, then we get to change internal language from, "I can't have this", to "I don't want this for my health and vibrancy." This way you are putting the power back in you and less in the food that you always have a choice in what is going to feel most loving and supporting and nourishing in any moment.

Telling ourselves No to certain foods is not a "bad" thing. There are so many different messages we receive in our culture that we "should" be able to eat any food and yet if there is a food that leaves us feeling bloated, gassy, lethargic, anxious, then these are messages from our body we are meant to listen to that these foods do not resonate with our system. It is like telling a child, No you cannot run with scissors, as you are putting the care and safety of the child first. Saying No to certain foods we know do not resonate with us is putting the care and safety of our body as a top priority in our life and does not mean that we are on a diet, but setting boundaries for our body and being so that our body can also relax and trust that we will be deeply listening to the messages it has to send us.

One of the many concepts I learned in Graduate School was that Movement can be considered in the context of five fundamental actions:

1. Yielding
2. Pushing
3. Reaching
4. Holding
5. Pulling

The one of these five fundamental actions that has continued to show up in my personal life again and again is yielding. Yielding as defined by Susan Aposhyan "is a quality of resting in contact with the environment and underlies our basic relationship to the world. It is about the state of being versus doing, and forms the basis for the ability to act effectively in the world. In being in contact with the environment, discernment can be developed as to whether push, reach, or pull is desired or appropriate."

Yielding can be allowing ourselves to just be; be with whatever is present, give ourselves space to express our truth, to show up raw and vulnerable with others so that we can feel more connected to ourselves to hear our inner wisdom in what actions are going to feel most nourishing and supportive moving forward in our lives. Yielding can be softening our hearts to allow others in and be able to discern who we want in our lives and how we want to show up for ourselves and with others. I know personally, and for many of my clients, family, and friends, we have all built up walls to protect ourselves from the world to make sure we feel safe and protected and sense some kind of control in an external environment that is ultimately not within our control.

These walls can ultimately make it harder to yield and allow ourselves to just be. What these walls can create is a body that is in a tense, stress response most of the day in fostering thoughts in our mind that we are constantly in danger and need to protect ourselves. If you have ever felt like your intuition is blocked, you are not sure what to eat, experiencing difficulties tuning in to whether you are feeling an emotional hunger or a physical hunger, yielding can be a truly powerful practice to explore.

Practicing yielding can be as simple as taking time to turn off your phone, put away technology, and find a place in your home that feels comforting and safe and lie down on the floor. Feel the floor beneath you and your muscles relaxing into the solid ground under your body supporting you. You can notice what sensations arise in allowing yourself to just be on the floor and not have to do or be anything. These sensations can be a guiding light on any day that you can focus on cultivating and bringing forth when those walls want to arise and protect you. You can remind yourself of what it feels like to know that no matter what happens you will be alright.

Our body can hold on to wounds and pains from our past in every muscle of our being. Every symptom that then arises can also be our body trying to get our attention that some part of us is needing our loving attention and affection to heal on deeper and deeper levels. Extra weight, for example, is not "bad." Extra weight can have so much incredible wisdom and insights to offer in how we are processing, digesting, and assimilating our life experiences. I personally have gained and lost 30 pounds 3 times so far in my life time and each time has taught me so much around my body, what resonates with it, and what does not.

When I met my now husband almost 7 years ago, I gained a significant amount of weight. There were wounded parts of me that could not understand why this amazing individual liked me. Food can often be connected to love as it is the first form of love we received as a baby from a parent or care taker. For the rest of life, if we are not feeling seen, heard, held, acknowledged, supported, food naturally comes in to provide us with the emotions and sensations we are looking for. In having someone in my life for the first time who truly saw me was so triggering to my body and felt misaligned with how I was normally seeing myself that food and weight came in to provide protection and a sense of safety during a time that felt confusing in my being.

As the years went by and old beliefs that were no longer serving me to hold on to around my ability to be loved were released so did the weight naturally find homeostasis once again. In our culture, whenever weight starts to come on we are told we need to get rid of it right away and are given a million different strategies in how to do that. What if instead our weight and symptoms are there teaching us something? To quote Tony Robbins, "What if every problem and pain you had was life happening for you – not to you?" Our weight, symptoms, pains, and wounds are meant to be slowed down with, embraced, and explored what wisdom they have to provide us in what is no longer serving us to hold on to any longer.

When we welcome in and accept whatever is present for us that is when emotions and sensations can decrease in their intensity as we release any internal battle of fighting what is. So to be able to release whatever is present for us in our life, we first must step into awareness of how our symptoms, habits, patterns and emotions are serving and protecting us in some way, and in that new space of awareness, foster compassionate understanding that whatever pattern we have adopted was created at a time in our life when we needed it and we simply no longer need that habit or belief to feel safe in the world today.

I would love to know, what will you embrace today and what are you working on releasing from your body at this time of your life?