One thing has become clear to me over my 10 years of clinical experience as a women’s wellness expert: women are suffering. We are not socially programmed to thrive. Instead we are often walking around feeling “fine,” “good enough” or worse, “stuck.” The reason I am in practice is because I have made this settling for sub-optimal unacceptable and it should be unacceptable to you especially if you’re one of the women suffering.
Did you know that the incidence of autoimmune diseases have tripled over the past 40 years, affecting women 75% more than men? In fact, it is estimated that 30 million American women have at least one autoimmune condition, many of them completely unaware of it. As a functional medicine dietitian, I became obsessed with autoimmunity as my clinical focus became women’s hormonal health.
At the root of this epidemic of mediocre health are a few things, but one of the most powerful roots I’ve found to take hold of how one gets stuck, changes or grows is the powerful beliefs one holds about their body. It turns out, our beliefs dictate our behavior and our behavior directly dictates our health.
Research continues to illuminate how powerful our thoughts are as they impact the function of the 37 trillion cells in our body. Patterns of thought repetition easily manifest themselves as “I am exhausted,” “I am so puffy and inflamed,” “why can’t I ever stop eating sugar?”. All of these conscious and subconscious thoughts are translated into cellular function which of course we feel on a physical level.
In Aimee Raupp’s book, , Body Belief: How To Heal Autoimmune Disease, Radically Shift Your Health & Learn to Love Your Body More, she outlines in more granular detail the impact our thought patterns and actions have on the shift in your wellness and outlines many tools to empower you to shift into a mental state of adoration. Why? Because you deserve to feel good, you are worthy of abundant health and most importantly, you are capable of healing yourself.
Here are a few tools you can implement now to begin the radical health shift you are worthy of:
1. Say “yes” to prioritizing more ease and less effort in your day-to-day tasks. I understand it’s not feasible to say “no” to all of your day-to-day obligations but can you get pickier about what you allow yourself to tolerate? Can you even slightly refine your to-do list to be more of a reflection of your relationship with yourself and your deep values instead of what you’ve just learned to do out of obligation over time?
2. Before you do something ask yourself, “does this feel good?” If it doesn’t, can you first see if the habit, ritual or task can be shifted to feel better in your body? For example if you’re heading out for a run [because you always run on Wednesday’s] and it feels forced, what would it look like to slow down to walk and soak in nature while metabolizing your day with more ease and less effort.
3. Talk to yourself, all the time, every day. Just as you would a dear friend, ask yourself, “How can I better support you? How can I nourish you? What’s something I can do for you today?” Then, listen to what yourself says and honor it. Honor it in a way that you would royalty. Because [[first name]]? You are royalty.
4. Allow life to turn you on! We talk about turn on often only in respect to sexual turn on but there are so many more facets to it. Turn on can be you treating yourself to the most beautiful bouquet of flowers just because it’s Tuesday. Turn on also could entail lingering in the first sip of a gorgeous cappuccino. Or maybe turn on for you today is layering some of your favorite jewelry in a way that makes you feel like you’re going out on the town. Watch what shows up today when you walk into the day “turned on.”
5. And finally, shift your narrative. If you find yourself starting most of your sentences with things like, “I’m so stressed” or “I’m so busy” or “I’m overwhelmed” or really anything that makes you feel tense, shift it. Take it from a place of stress and worry to a place of ease and hope. Try these instead; “There’s a lot on my plate but I’m seeking support” or “I’m getting better at managing my stress” or “Life is full and abundant .”