I recently explored the concept of state and the necessity of becoming aware of the state we’re in for self-growth. You can read about that here. Often we unconsciously attempt to shift our internal states in less than ideal ways or seek attention based on our childhood patterns. However, if we become aware of our state, we are then freed to choose a more skilled way to shift this state. We learn how to live from our empowered adult self. …
State:
What state are you in right now?
Are you feeling tired yet hopeful? Vulnerable but passionate? Do you have to pee or are you hungry? Are you anxious about the future or regretting the past? Maybe you are bored or worried.
We are always shifting through different states. …
As long as I can remember I have been seeking.
I remember when I was 6 years old having two distinct thoughts:
Is this it?
Is this what life is all about?
Most of the grownups in my life seemed somewhere between bored and depressed. I remember thinking, “So I just stay in school and learn a bunch of useless calculus (no offense to those of you who love and use advanced math daily), go to college and suffer in a career for the next 30 years?” …
When I went to school to be a naturopathic practitioner, it wasn’t uncommon for me to be the only man in a class of 25 students. Currently at the Wellness Collective, we have 20 natural health practitioners and only two men. 75 percent of the clients I see are women. This leads me to the questions of:
Where are the men?
Where are the men interested in asking the deeper questions?
Where are the men wanting to live from a place of depth and purpose?…
There’s a lot going on in the world of natural health. Most of it’s really great, but every once in a while, we see stuff that makes us cringe. Over the next couple months, we’ll share our perspectives on a few of these. First up: diets and spiritual bypassing. Here’s what naturopaths Christie Kruisenga and Micah McLaughlin have to say.
What’s a trend in the world of natural health that makes you cringe?
Christie Kruisenga: As a naturopath, I get asked a lot about what diet I think is best. My short answer: NONE.
There are far too many factors to consider when looking at a person as an individual to say that everyone should be vegan, paleo, ketogenic, macro-biotic, raw, vegetarian, etc. We each have our own constitution and what bring us into balance and throws us out of balance is variable from one person to the next.
Things to consider include, but are not limited to, your blood type, your dominant nervous system type, your dosha type, your glandular type, if you’re more yin or yang, the balance of your elements, eating with the seasons, etc.
In simpler terms, some people’s bodies thrive on meat, others do …
When I was a kid I was allowed to get mad, well, at least sometimes. My mom would let me hit or scream into a pillow in my room. I spent countless hours outside with a broom handle beating the shit out of a tree. (Yes, it’s still alive.) I played sports, and I channeled that anger to push myself beyond my edge and do everything I could to win. It felt good to yell and to hit things. And permission from my mom to “let it out” felt like a gift in my childhood.
Somewhere along the way, though, I stopped letting it out and started holding that anger in. …
I found a pen in my office the other day, and on it read this: “I’M THIRD God is first, Others second and I’m third”
I am not sure where it came from, who left it, or why it was on my desk. Rarely do slogans on pens get me thinking so much, but this one certainly did.…
I found an old can of paint in the basement of our house leftover from the previous owners. The Alger Heights hardware store tinted the paint key lime pie green for $3. With two gallons of paint and a six-pack of beer, my friend Chad and I tackled the white office walls.
The whole suite resembled an abandoned 1970s dentist office. It was what I could afford, close to my house, and I negotiated for a gentle and gradual increase in rent for the first six months. I decorated almost the entire office with furniture from Goodwill and a desk found at a garage sale for $25. It wasn’t much, but it was my not much.
While school had prepared me to sit with clients and offer nutritional, herbal and lifestyle suggestions, we never got a course on running a business, LLCs or trying to decorate a suite in desperate need of updating. My wife and I were about to have our second child, and no time really seemed right to get this business started. I was gambling. I was betting on me.
The moment I was introduced to naturopathic medicine, I fell in love with it. From herbs to …
“How you do something is how you do everything.”
From the simplest to the most complex processes, we’re always getting a deeper picture of how we show up in life, if we pay attention. How do you keep your house? Are you meticulous, detailed-oriented and very aware of where things are, or do you tend to procrastinate, stuff things in drawers and take care of them in a monthly purge? When driving, are you passive and laid back, letting other drivers come and go as they please or are you controlling the road as you run late and fly through yellow lights? Even the simplest things in life can be observed, analyzed and improved upon if we are living in a growth mindset.
In Carol Dweck’s book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, she outlines two basic mindsets that we can approach the world through. …
The deeper I have traveled down the path of self-discovery in my own life, the more I believe that the mind, body, emotions and spirit cannot be separated. I have the privilege of teaching this at Anamaya Resort in Costa a Rica in a workshop series called Create the Life You Want. The series is designed to help identify what’s holding you back, how to move forward and create a life inline with your deepest you. Please consider joining me February 20 – 27 for a week of amazing classes, yoga, surfing and community! To register or explore pricing, please contact enjoylife@anamayaresort.com.
Get a sneak peak of Anamaya here.
Here’s a look into the Create the Life You Want series.
Understanding the Enneagram
Unlock the mysteries of your unique personality type
We all have a default setting. It’s the way we’ll typically respond if we aren’t paying attention. This innate response of our personality is so deeply tied to our way of being that most of us have little awareness of it.
While this default is often helpful in childhood, over the years, this automated response no longer works for every situation. The Enneagram is a profoundly helpful personality …
