Should you like yourself? In this honest post, I share how to distinguish between self-like and self-obsessing and why learning to love yourself matters.

There are some, perhaps even Biblical assumptions, that all humans love themselves and potentially a little too much. But I still questioned, does loving yourself mean liking yourself? Or does a dislike for yourself take self-love and turn it into a self-idol?

There’s no doubt the world is fascinated with self. We’re all concerned with who we are, what we are, and what we’re trying to become. We quickly get so wrapped up in ourselves that we put ourselves on a pedestal of judgment or praise. We make life all about ourselves, which might be why you don’t like yourself.

Not because self-like is selfish but because our self-worship shines a spotlight on ourselves, leaving plenty of room, time, and energy to judge ourselves. We can’t help but see our flaws, which leaves us self-protecting and often self-worshiping. But it’s not because we actually like ourselves (or even love ourselves) but the opposite, because we don’t.

I know it sounds crazy, but I think it’s more true to say that we’re a self-worshipping kind of people, not because we like ourselves but because we don’t. And if we could embrace true self-like, it would allow us to invest more in others because we already have what we need.

The problem is, this becomes confusing to the naked eye because we’re good at masking self-hate in things like self-care and calling it self-love.

Inside this podcast, I invited my husband Payton to come on and discuss how to like yourself and why you might be acting in self-hate more than you realized.

Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/294

What does it take to get healthy?

I've asked myself this question numerous times, but it wasn't until my health crashed that I realized how my emotions were impacting my health and how my health was impacting my mind. I had to address the two-way street of my mind and body to experience the healing I longed for.

The mindset and health spaces often overlook this intimate connection between your mind and body. But understanding each and how they work together proves the health of your body influences the health of your mind and visa versa. Likewise, what has happened to your body or mind will affect how the other responds. 

If you're human, you have dealt with some form of emotional or physical trauma. Trauma shapes your way of life, how your biology runs, and even what you think. 

But it doesn't have to stay this way.

If you feel like nothing is okay in your life, let this remind you that it doesn't have to stay that way. In this podcast, I talk with Elise Healzer, a licensed therapist specializing in a holistic approach to assessing whole-person health. Today we talk about healing the mind-body connection through changing mindset loops, healing the mind-body connection, and getting comfortable with uncomfortable things. 

We even dive into the question, should you go to therapy? 

Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/293

You want to be well, but do you know how to get there? The western world of medicine has confused healing and made it about fixing. But healing has to be the goal. Learning to heal will teach you what medicine doesn’t know.

“Do I even want to be well?”

I found myself asking that question after years of treatment that helped me get better, but treatment I had become addicted to. Not by choice, although I don’t think anyone becomes addicted on purpose. But I honestly couldn’t live without it.

When I first got sick, I didn’t bat an eye. I would do whatever and whenever to feel better. I needed help, and lots of it. But after a year of weekly (sometimes bi-weekly) treatments, I started to recognize a pattern. Go to treatment, get patched together, live a day or two before the crumbling began, and I would limp myself back into treatment.

It felt like this had become my new way of life. Until one rainy spring day, as I was driving to another appointment, I started questioning if there was something I was missing. Was this what my life would amount to?

I loved what it had done for me but hated what it had created in me. Deep down, I knew I was missing something. Something that was bound to help me get over my hurdle of dependence and break into health.

It was the answer to my lingering question, did I even want to be well?

In asking this question, I learned healing was a choice more than a treatment. Inside this podcast, Dr. Ed Cohen shares a similar story journeying through learning to heal. If you’re struggling to heal, I encourage you to listen to this podcast that dives deeper into what it means to heal.

Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/292

Change is hard but not impossible. The problem isn't what you're doing. It's your perspective behind what you do. Learn why you can't change inside this post!

Change is hard, almost impossible. Especially if you continuously focus on the fact that you struggle to change. I don't know how many times I have made a promise and committed to the fact that I was going to change but didn't.

I was going to stop.
I was going to try harder.
I was going to wake up to my first alarm
I was going to stop eating sugar.
I was going to change _ (fill in the blank).

We all make a lot of promises to ourselves, many of which we'll never keep. Instead, we tend to keep doing the things we want to change, feeling frustrated and even guilty that nothing ever changes.

Leaving me to question maybe your thought that you need to change is preventing you from living it.
Not because change isn't possible but because how we try to change makes it impossible.

Inside this podcast, I dive into the science of change, the top five reasons you're making change impossible, and how to stop trying to change to create it. It's a prime example of the backward law that states the more you try to change, the less likely you are to experience it. Inside this podcast, you learn why you can't change. Spoiler: you're trying too hard!

Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/291

I’ve thought of many things, most of which were never true. Or at least it never came to fruition. Although, I still let my mind wander into the black hole that can take a common headache and make it a death sentence with one quick conclusion that it must be brain cancer.

Looking back, it seems silly to have thought such things. But there are other normalized thoughts that are just as silly, but because they’re normal, they get overlooked. In time, they become our reality.

What you think creates your action, no matter how much you will yourself to do something different.

Researchers estimate we have upwards of 70,000 thoughts each day. Contrary to popular belief, these thoughts aren’t floating around in the space between your skull. They have a biological impact, changing the action you live and the outcome you experience.

Ironically, of those 70,000 thoughts, at least 95% are the same as they were yesterday. Our mind follows loops and repeated patterns because patterns are a form of safety. You must understand your thought loops and why you have them to healthify your thoughts.

Inside this podcast, my husband Payton and I talk about our five years process of doing the work to improve our minds with healthy thoughts and what we found in the process. It may shock you as it goes against the self-help norm.

Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/290

I’m a headache person, or at least I used to be. When I got too tired, fell out of my normal routine, or got close to the menstruation point in my cycle, I could almost guarantee a nagging headache would surface. Sometimes they were more of a nuisance than a day-altering issue. But other times, it left me stuck in bed with a full-on migraine.

If you’re a headache person, I know the struggle. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.

Over the years of healing my body, adding energy, and changing my perspective on stress, I’ve cleared 98% of my headaches, leaving me to go months and months without symptoms. I believe you can get here too. Of course, everyone is different, but changes are possible for all of us.

I invited an expert in headaches, Dr. Meg Mill, to come on the show and explain why we get them, how to relieve them, and even prevent headaches from popping up. Listen to this podcast to learn more about headaches.

Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/289

To diet or not to diet? That’s the million-dollar question that has flipped in the last decade. The number of people looking to diet or jumping into one has fallen drastically. Not because they don’t want health but because they’ve watched dieting fail time and time again.

Yet, I’d have to argue most people still want to achieve health. The question is, how do you get it without jumping into another diet program?

Reverse dieting could be the answer.

But to understand reverse dieting, you must recognize the dangers of traditional dieting.
In this podcast, I invited metabolic expert Ashley Filmore to talk about metabolic damage, using reverse dieting to heal your metabolism, and what it looks like to begin the process.

Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/288

If you're tired, you're not alone. Most of the population falls somewhere between exhausted and just going through the motions. Being tired seems to be the American way of life.
But it's not supposed to be that way.

Energy is something we all have. It's inside of us. The first law of thermodynamics proves this by stating; energy is neither created nor destroyed but only altered.

You have what you need. Even if it feels like your energy is lacking, it's not. It's just being suppressed or channeled in a way that makes you feel like you have no energy. How your body channels energy changes what you feel, producing action accordingly.

Think of it like a lightbulb. A lightbulb can exist, but without energy, the bulb never glows. The same holds true for your body, the energy is there, but you must turn the switch on to experience it. How you turn that switch is determined by the safety of your body.

In times of stress, your body down-regulates your energy production, leading it to store, hoard and conserve energy rather than use it. In times of safety, health, and nourishment, your body has abundant energy to use to live.

The question isn't, what happened to your energy, but why is your body altering the flow of energy to conserve it rather than use it?

You don't have to be tired all the time. Your body was made to thrive. Learning how to live that way is the secret to health. Inside this podcast, I dive into what energy is and how to get more energy. Take a listen to learn this life-giving health information.

Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/287

“Just think more positively.” 

I heard that advice over one thousand times in my healing journey. It’s the mental health advice heard worldwide – just think better. But when I put it into practice, disciplined practice, I didn’t feel any more optimistic. In fact, I felt like I was falling further into a dark place, not just because of my thoughts but because what was supposed to work wasn’t. If it didn’t work, what was left?

I know so many people who want to change. They need to change. I was one of them. Living as an actual pain addict, I didn’t know another way. Even though I hated the pain, it was also incredibly comforting to me. It was my normal, even if it wasn’t healthy.

I had to change, so I invested time into talk therapy. It was incredibly beneficial – something I recommend to most people. But I found the process exhausting. It worked but only for so long. As soon as we started to dive into the deeper places, my entire body shut down, and I stalled out.

The healing didn’t happen the way I had expected. At least not until I added the extra component to mental healing (and biological healing), the deep intimate connection of our body, mind, and soul. When I began to nourish my body by energizing and feeding it well, my mind went a little deeper, allowing me to heal the things I had been unable to deal with. Things that were running and ruining my life because I wasn’t in a place I could deal with them.

Today on the podcast, I talk with Niecia Nelson about the desperate need for physical health in mental healing. You can’t heal your mind without supporting your body. Learn the tools to heal inside this podcast, broken up into two parts.

Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/286

“Just think more positively.” 

I heard that advice over one thousand times in my healing journey. It’s the mental health advice heard worldwide – just think better. But when I put it into practice, disciplined practice, I didn’t feel any more optimistic. In fact, I felt like I was falling further into a dark place, not just because of my thoughts but because what was supposed to work wasn’t. If it didn’t work, what was left?

I know so many people who want to change. They need to change. I was one of them. Living as an actual pain addict, I didn’t know another way. Even though I hated the pain, it was also incredibly comforting to me. It was my normal, even if it wasn’t healthy.

I had to change, so I invested time into talk therapy. It was incredibly beneficial – something I recommend to most people. But I found the process exhausting. It worked but only for so long. As soon as we started to dive into the deeper places, my entire body shut down, and I stalled out.

The healing didn’t happen the way I had expected. At least not until I added the extra component to mental healing (and biological healing), the deep intimate connection of our body, mind, and soul. When I began to nourish my body by energizing and feeding it well, my mind went a little deeper, allowing me to heal the things I had been unable to deal with. Things that were running and ruining my life because I wasn’t in a place I could deal with them.

Today on the podcast, I talk with Niecia Nelson about the desperate need for physical health in mental healing. You can’t heal your mind without supporting your body. Learn the tools to heal inside this podcast, broken up into two parts.

Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/285

Fasting is one of the oldest recorded health practices. Arguably it has been around since the beginning of creation, first noted as a religious practice more than a health practice. But even most religious traditions have incredible health benefits. Like prayer, singing, connecting, and seeing beyond yourself. I’d love to dive into all these at some point, but today we will talk about intermittent fasting.

There seems to be controversy popping up with intermittent fasting, questioning if it’s harming your metabolism forming two camps of people. One camp is those who follow a strict fasting protocol. The other believes you should eat when your body is hungry regardless of timing.

Honestly, there is valid information on both sides. But this information feeds the confusion that already exists in this space. On this podcast, I dive into the science on both sides, working to find a common balance. Get the full details answering the question, is intermittent fasting bad for your metabolism, inside the podcast.

Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/284

Health hasn't been easy. Truthfully it's not for the majority of people.

Yet, I can't help but think it shouldn't be this complicated. I've often been my own worst enemy. I seemed to be a master at creating a self-fulfilling prophecy surrounding my happiness and the health of my relationships. Yet, I couldn't imagine that was the case for something I had worked so hard for, given up so much for, and genuinely invested in my life. I couldn't imagine I was the one self-sabotaging my health.

I know we don't like to look at it that way, that our problems could be because of our own making. Even if it is the case, there is no room to blame yourself or beat yourself up over. What's been done is done. But we can change how we move forward.

Today on the podcast, I'm sharing a health update and why I feel like I've made so much progress and still feel stuck. Inside this episode, I'm joined by my husband as we talk openly and vulnerably about this crazy health journey we're on—a story of health freedom.

Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/283