Dealing with years of digestive pain, I definitely found tricks and tips of how to soothe an upset tummy. And while I am no longer in constant pain now, I find that when I want to feel adventurous or test out a food on my digestive tract, these tricks still come in handy.

So when you first feel a twinge of pain, ate too much, ate something you know your sensitive to but just couldn't resist (it happens!) here are some tricks you can try to bring your tummy back into balance.

1. Digestive Enzymes- I don't always suggest digestive enzymes as I have seen a lot of individuals dealing with digestive troubles begin to rely on them and get hooked on them. This leads the body to think that it doesn't have to work so hard producing digestive enzymes so getting off of them can be difficult if you're eating multiple at every meal. But, this handy supplement can support a troubled digestive tract for a short amount of time or an evening. When you find you have eaten a large amount of food or something just isn't sitting quite right, digestive enzymes can be an aid to boost your digestive power to break something down in your stomach that is having a hard time digesting.

2. Apple cider vinegar- ACV really just is a cure all for so many ailments. I have read so many articles recently on just how wonderful ACV truly is for our body. Often times, acid reflux or difficulties digesting a high protein meal can actually mean that you need more acid in your stomach to break down your food (not less, throw out those Tums!). Putting a 1 tsp-tbsp. of ACV diluted in a glass of water and sipping it before or after a meal can add some acid power to your stomach to help break down a meal and diminish any pain. You can even add a few drops of liquid stevia to it to make a refreshing drink. Yum!

3. Ginger- Ginger tea, ginger root, ginger capsules, ginger syrup. There are many ways to get your ginger in. Ginger stimulates the digestive system to produce more enzymes to facilitate digestion. It also helps stimulate more bile production, which can aid in making any digestive pain go away by increasing your ability to break down your food. When I travel abroad I take ginger capsules with me and they work fairly quickly in helping with a digestive woe. You can also make sure you have some ginger tea with you or if you're home break out some ginger root and start chewing. I would just suggest to stay away from ginger chews with the added sugar; the sugar takes away from the benefits of the ginger.

4. Deep breathing- Much of the time digestive pains can be due to trapped gas from possibly eating too fast. When I was going through the worst of my digestive troubles, you could often find me face down, lying on the carpet breathing into my belly. Deep belly breathing can begin to relax the muscles of your stomach switching your whole body into a relaxation response, which is what is needed to turn on digestion. When you're going through any kind of digestive upset, try to remember to breath through it. The added thoughts of "Ow, this hurts, I wish this would go away, why is this happening" causes the body to tighten even more which can in turn worsen the pain. Try lying on the ground, placing your hands on your belly, and just focusing on watching the rise and fall of your belly and feeling the support of the floor beneath you. This too shall pass.

5.  Activated Charcoal- Speaking of trapped gas....activated charcoal will be your little miracle worker. It will bind and absorb to any chemicals or gas or whatever it is that is upsetting your stomach thus diminishing the stress being put on your digestive tract and decreasing pain. Just make sure that if you're taking any medications to take this away from your medications as it will decrease the efficiency of your medications being absorbed as well. Its powerful stuff!

Just remember to add in some extra self love when you're going through any digestive pain. Loving yourself up through the process of learning what does and does not work for your body will help you to move forward from any digestive and eating experience with so much compassion and patience for your unique journey living in a body.

I would love to hear from you! What have you found has worked to help you when you're having a digestive upset?

Sometimes when my digestion starts to act up, I have to take a look at the things I am telling myself internally and not necessarily the food I am eating.  When my internal critic speaks up (and sometimes it can be really loud), I know that my whole body goes into a stress response, my gut cramps, digestion shuts down, and my ability to digest food and my life diminishes.

Meals that I could digest fine when my thoughts are kind and peaceful are suddenly not assimilating as well.  Our body reacts and responds to the words and the statements we are creating internally.  So if we are telling ourselves harsh words, putting ourselves down, judging ourselves, we are digesting those thoughts and those words along with the food we are eating. 

Often I talk about what digests and assimilates well in terms of food, but for a moment think about how the word hate would digest in your body.  Or what about the word ugly.  How would the statement I am not good enough digest in your system?  I know that even as I am typing these specific words I can feel my body tense up. 

When we think loving thoughts, let go of expectations, and just show up as we are in the moment, our body will go into a relaxation response and your ability to assimilate your food and your experiences will increase.  I know that I have had moments where I made a conscious decision to shift my internal thoughts to ones of love and appreciation for myself and then heard my stomach gurgle.  I took that as a thank you from my gut.  Thank you for feeding me love, thank you for nourishing me with appreciation, thank you for these thoughts so I can do my job properly.

I would love to hear from you!  Have you noticed a difference in your body's ability to function when your thoughts are positive?  Have you experienced your digestion change when you under a lot of stress and thinking stressful thoughts? 

The Institute for Integrative Nutrition defines Primary Food as the type of nourishment that fills you up first.  This comes from healthy relationships, regular physical activity, a fulfilling career and a spiritual practice which can satisfy your hunger for life. "When primary food is balanced and satiated, your life feeds you, making what you eat secondary."

The Conscious Cleanse has a term called Soul Food where again how we are living our life can nourish us in a way that food can't and that often times when our soul is not being fed adequately that is when food can be used inappropriately.

This weekend my primary nourishment or soul food has been filled to the brim.  My mother came to visit.  I never wanted to move to the west coast and be so far away from most of my family, and especially her, but that was where my life was calling me.  So I only get to see her about twice a year, which we talked about this weekend how this needs to change because it is just too little.

I am literally fed by her presence, her laughter, our chats, our hugs, that food becomes secondary.  I eat when I am hungry and I stop when I am full.  Suddenly, when I am truly present and being nourished by my life and those around me, food has less power.  It becomes something that is needed to keep me going and keep my focus on getting back to feeling satiated by my life. 

Sometimes this is a concept I forget when things get super busy.  I can often lean on meal times as a crutch to feel some calm in a busy day.  So this weekend was a nice reminder that when the stress levels rise and things get hectic and busy, this is the time I need to reach out to my friends and family even more to talk, to laugh, to take walks, to decompress.  When we are filled up, satiated, nourished by our surroundings we feed ourselves the things that feel good and give us energy. 

So the next time you find yourself reaching again for a food that leaves you tired or drained or bloated or guilty try asking yourself what else could fill you up in that moment that has nothing to do with food.  Perhaps you need to take a bath, or call a friend, or put on music and dance wild around your apartment or house.  Create a list of these things and put them up on your fridge so that every time you go to reach for food you get the reminder to ask yourself what is it that you are truly craving/needing/desiring in that moment.  Are you truly hungry or are you grazing?  Do you need physical nourishment from food or are you looking to fill some emotional hunger?

No matter what you decide to do, this is all just information to use to empower you to make the best decisions for yourself.  And your primary nourishment or soul food list on your fridge can serve as another tool in which to remind yourself to connect back with you.

Fear colors a lot of things that I do these days.  The funny thing is I don't exactly fear failure, sadness, mistakes, or abandonment.  These things I know and I know them well.  What I fear is success, unbelievable happiness, love, light, and a feeling of wholeness.  Excuse me for my language, but what the hell would I do with all that?  So often when we have gone through so many hard times for so long and that we begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel or the silver lining to the dark clouds that we will actually self sabotage.  I know I am not alone in the fear of actually getting all that we desire.  It is easier to live life with the glass half empty because then there is always something externally we can complain about when we feel down or off in our own life.  Actually believing and then receiving all that we desire and know we deserve is actually a much harder task to live with.  So many of us (myself obviously included) upper limit ourselves and purposefully take action to bring ourselves back to our comfort level of right below utter joy so that we actually feel more comfortable!

This can take the form of binging on food, sabotaging a relationship, picking a fight with anyone, spending too much money on superfluous things, and the list goes on and on.  In our society today there are so many ways to run away and upper limit ourselves.  I'm currently working on allowing myself the abundance I know I deserve and secretly want in my own life.  I have lived a long time narrowing in and stressing over what I didn't have and needed to get by (like money to pay my rent).  And yet as soon as I shifted my focus away from the negative (as even negative thoughts breed more negativity into ones life) and started viewing more of the positive already existing in my life that other things started to shift.  As soon as I started to truly believe that I had and was enough just the way I am that stress and tension left my body, I began to find ways to make money, a relationship entered into my life, and digestive ailments that sometimes flare up "suddenly" disappeared.

This truly demonstrates the power of our own minds and thoughts.  If we live our life in fear then all we are attracting is more fear, worry, and anxiety.  If we keep telling ourselves we don't have what we want in our life then we will continue to have just that because that is what we believe.  Yet just with a simple switch in the brain, one can feel different sensations manifesting in the body and then subsequently your life.  And I am not saying this is an easy task; I struggle with it every day to transform my fearful worries into thoughts of abundance, prosperity, oneness, and fulfillment with the present moment as is.  Yet I work on this every day because I have seen the profound shifts positive thinking makes in the rest of my life.  It propels me to want to make positive healthy actions for myself in my own life.

So lets all try an experiment: for one day every time you feel negativity in your body or fearful thoughts are arising in your brain take immediate action and think about what is going well in your life, what you do have, and how you might be possibly upper limiting yourself because a second earlier you were feeling profound joy that you just didn't know how to handle.