This was my very first episode of Gut Guru. 

In this episode I talk about cravings and how they are meant to be heard, they are meant to be listened to, and they typically have a message for you.

How do you typically approach your cravings?  What do you find yourself craving on a regular basis?

The stomach lining changes over about every 5 days, your taste buds change every two weeks, every day you shed over a million skin cells, the uterine wall for a woman sheds every month.  We are constantly changing and from day to day we are never living in the same body.  How will you begin the process of coming into relationship with your body and your gut for who they are and what they need today?

I can't apologize for disappearing.  Sometimes life calls us away from being so external and whispers to us to come inside and sit and be still.  Lots has changed over the past couple of months and life was calling for me to heal some deep wounds.  I am not saying I have ultimately healed these wounds but the questions bouncing around in my head, my mind, my body, my soul can no longer be contained and I am ready to write again.  The idea of the feminine and how I want to inhabit my feminine form has been a large question in my life lately.  I have not always embraced being in a female body and this is not just my own issue but a cultural one as well.  Our culture does not make it easy to be in a female form.  Skinny, curvy, apple, pear, muscular, ultimately the grass is always greener on the other side.

I was at the gym tonight and I looked at the machines in front of me at all the women sweating away.  All shapes, all sizes, and each one in their own form was beautiful.  Yet, I wondered what each one was thinking in their minds at that moment.  Why were they all pushing themselves so hard to be something different?  Furthermore, why have I pushed myself so hard to be something different.  I wonder now, why did social media, magazines, my brothers and their friends, have such weight and authority in telling me what I "should" look like?  And after 25 years of being ingrained with indoctrination not only from the outside world but also from myself, it is so hard to break out of my culture and be something different.  To actually embrace your body, in whatever form it currently is at is a truly radical act.

My body is speaking to me.  Its telling me to slow down.  Its telling me I have to learn how to love being a woman or else it is going to cause me some pain.  Now for some TMI (too much information): For the past three periods I have had the most intense cramps that this past weekend I almost passed out.  I spent from 9 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon half non-coherent to the world while my boyfriend tried to figure something out as I refused to go to a hospital.  I have never experienced pain like that before ever (not even in all my years of digestive woes) and I also never take medicine but after hours of excruciating pain I was convinced to take some ibuprofen.  My body is speaking to me.  And its funny how it takes pain to finally slow down and listen to its messages.

It says love me.  Love my curves.  Love my ebbs and flows.  Love my blood that can one day produce life.  Love my fat that keeps me warm and my brain functioning.  Love my large hips and my strong thighs.  Love me because I love you no matter what you do to me.  No matter what you feed me or how you treat me I will still love you.  Our bodies love us unconditionally.  They don't judge us or leave us.  They keep working and healing and growing and changing no matter what.  So the question I will leave you with today, something I will be working on myself, is will you allow yourself to love yourself back?