You will heal. I will help.
Before giving to you my beginner’s guide to digestive health testing, I have to apologize. Seriously. I have always stated that the number one thing you must do in order to heal your gut in the most efficient and effective way is to get tested. Know exactly what’s wrong with you so that you can make the best, targeted plan for healing that/your specific condition.
[Read more…] about Beginner’s Guide to Digestive Health Testing
Many a moon ago when I featured a supplement on Instagram for Supplement Sunday, someone asked, “What is Supplement Sunday?” A couple weeks ago I made Supplement Sunday a mainstay feature on Instagram, so I want to use this post to explain what it is, with the hopes that you’ll join us each Sunday.
From today, October 1, it is exactly three months until the new year.
I listened to two incredible podcasts this past weekend. One podcast said that you should make a 5 and 10-year goal plan. The other said she used to make a 5 and 10-year goal plan, but now she only makes super short, bite-sized (and achievable) goals.
Which is the right answer?
There isn’t one because both Rachel Hollis (podcast #1 I listened to) and Amy Jo Martin (podcast #2 I listened to) are highly successful and motivated women I respect.
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I recently stumbled upon THIS image. I love it so hard, and she is lovely to follow.
6 months is a good amount of time, but lately, I feel like I fall more into the super short, bite-sized goals. Today, tomorrow, and next week seem more manageable to me than anything else.
So I’m spinning off from hers with my own because today is three months until the new year.
I believe that some goals are best when spoken aloud, shared with someone else (accountability).
But I’m in a season currently where 95% of my goals are tucked away, deep within. And the reason I love this idea of a silent goal so much is because it feels more like a goal meant for me than an accolade to present to someone else.
Sometimes I think when we feel the need to share our goals online (especially on social media) or offline it’s less about accountability, and more about “look at what I am doing.” Don’t worry, I’ve done it plenty, too.
I have set 5 very intentional silent goals to focus on from now through December 31. And when I say intentional it’s because they all address the things I’m looking to improve on in my personal life in 2019.
My silent goals do not include anything food or fitness related, probably for the first time in my life. But yours might, and that is just fine because again, these are your own silent goals.
So how do you know what silent goals to set? I believe you know deep down, if you just sit for a few minutes and listen to what your gut is saying. I’ve felt them for a long time; I’d guess you have, too.
Once you know what your goal(s) is/are, make them SMART(ER) goals to set yourself up for real success. You already know what #5 is – December 31.
Three months is kind of an odd timeframe. It’s not 21 days. It’s not a year, or 5 years, or 10 years.
Dedicate the next three months to your goals….no announcements, nothing fancy. Just do the work.
Xox,
SKH
My whole life (at least the part when I’ve been sick), I have talked about gut healing. I never once thought about healing vs wholeness…..until Friday night.
Healing vs wholeness is where this whole conversation is going to begin. It’s sort of a deep one, and if you’ll hang in here with me for a couple/few weeks, I’m going to talk about all of it.
It starts here, and the foundation was biblical, but the application is for everyone.
On Friday night I heard Terri Savelle Foy speak, and it was life changing for me. I was shaking my head “yes” to all the things, but probably not in the ways most people were.
The night rooted when she asked,
Do you believe that healing and wholeness are different?
I wasn’t sure, until she explained it via the story from the Bible about the 10 lepers that Jesus healed.
10 lepers wanted to be made clean from their disease. Jesus responds to them by physically healing them.
Of the 10, only one, the Samaritan, turns back to praise God and, “fell before his feet” to thank Jesus. Jesus asks rhetorically, “Were not 10 made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
Jesus then addresses the healed Samaritan:
Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well . (Luke 17:19)
Now, truth be told, the Bible doesn’t say (verbatim) that the 10th was made whole. I think Terri extracted that from the message because he was the only one to say thanks and give gratitude for the blessing. Perhaps she equated “well” with whole vs. simply just healed.
Regardless, Terri said that nine were healed (the leprosy went away), but only one was made whole (the leprosy went away and the missing body parts from the disease actually came back to form a whole person again).
I could not stop thinking about it. I laid in bed and thought about it that night, and I told Ryan all about it the next day when he got home.
My entire blog and even, heck, my entire life, has been built around healing – for myself and teaching other women to do the same.
I have a 286-page book called, The Gutsy Girl’s Bible: an approach to healing the gut.
Part of my mission is to help women worldwide heal with food and lifestyle vs drugs and medication.
Healing, healing, healing. The word means to become sound or healthy again.
But whole…..whole means all of; entire, in an unbroken or undamaged state; in one piece.
The way Terri described the difference is very simple: Healing will make you well; disease (or problem) will stop, but only wholeness will allow you to move forward, fully repair, and rebuild.
I’ve been thinking about and praying hard on this.
What if I’ve been wrong all along? What if healing and wholeness are truly different? What if the reason we all struggle to heal indefinitely is because of a/the missing link?
For the nine lepers it was their lack of gratitude and thankfulness.
Is that our missing link? Is that my missing link? And if not, what is?
It seems like we heal, then relapse, heal then relapse…..everyone, over and over and over again. For you, maybe it’s not your gut, maybe it’s something else – some other area of your life, but you heal, then relapse, heal then relapse.
I don’t care who you are or what your status might currently be. If you dig deep, I’m guessing you’ll find yourself wedged in the scenario somewhere.
I started peeling back the layers immediately because I truly believe I have not yet been made whole because of my own missing link. Of course I still believe that there is an underlying condition that is the SIBO bottleneck, but why have we still not found it (when I have been searching so hard) and what caused the trigger this time (after staying in remission for so long)?
Through Terri, I heard very clearly on Friday night that in order to address this and a whole host of other things, I need to,
Clean Up and Clean Out
Leaving that thought here for the day, and I’ll be back for more soon.
Xox,
SKH
I am doing an exercise in can vs meant to, and I wanted to share it with you today in case it might inspire even one more person to take it on, too.
I’ll start here.
I had planned to go to the gym at 5 am Thursday morning. Either Ryan or I go at that time daily, but not both – obv.
Wednesday night I told Ryan, “Actually, don’t worry about it. You can go to the gym tomorrow morning. I want to do a little experiment.”
Yesterday morning, bright and early, he went to the gym, and I stayed back. I opened my Studio Run App, and set it for an “Advanced 45-minute run.” Even with the warm up, cool down, and all in between “rest” intervals, I ran over 5 miles. So yes, it was a hard workout.
But that was my goal. I wanted to do a 5-mile hard run because I wanted to monitor and measure the rest of the day.
Like usual, my stomach was off for most the day, I felt famished all day long, and by 7 pm I could barely keep myself in an upright position.
And this is the typical way I feel whenever I run 5 or more hard miles at any given time.
I can run 5 miles or more. I can run them hard. I can exert a lot on my body for longer periods.
But my body is always telling me, “You’re not meant to.”
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Start here, and answer the question(s) (in a real, raw, and honest way):
What CAN I do? But what am I MEANT TO do?
I got out my working inspiration notebook, and I made two columns: Can and Meant To. I started listing out all the things I can do on the left side, and all the things my gut is telling me I’m meant to do on the right.
(Note: You can do this exercise for a certain part of your life – personal or professional – or all of it. I’m currently in the thick of doing it all.)
It’s easy to think can and meant to are the same things, but they aren’t necessarily. One is not dependent on the other. However, all the items on the Meant To side are also on the Can side; but not vice-versa.
The Can side is far longer than the Meant To side. That’s the point, but here’s the catch. Once the list is done, you have to dig deep and ask yourself,
Should that really be on the Meant To side?
In the very beginning of this exercise (I’ve already been at it a week, thinking about it before I started writing it out), I was listening almost entirely to my head vs. what my gut was saying. The mind will play tricks because of course you can do it all, but dig deeper — you’re just not meant to.
It’s been almost two years since I realized I can’t “raise” two sets of babies at once.
I still can’t do the whole planter boxes and babies, and while I’m clearly far from having a green thumb, I do understand the major stages of a flower life cycle.
Not only do I understand the life cycle, but I think it’s a beautiful metaphor for this whole Can vs. Meant To exercise.
I keep on thinking and believing (and even willing it to be) that my life is constantly in the #3 stage: Growth.
My will and drive to make that happen has seen it happen. But not without paying a price.
It is not possible for a flower to only grow.
In fact, “Some plants flower within days while it takes others months or even years.”
For me personally, it took years, and I think that’s why I have tried so hard to stay here in growth mode vs. reaping the benefits of all the other stages. We never want to leave our favorite moments, days, and stages of life.
In growth mode I’ve realized all the “can’s.” I didn’t want to let go here, not now, not yet.
But as I began to look at the Meant To column, the ah-ha moments started happening.
All the things in my Meant To column (also) make up every single other stage: Seed, Germination, Reproduction, Pollination, and Spreading Seeds.
Those stages might not seem as exciting because they come with a delay, but they are the bulk of the flower life cycle.
I won’t just let all the can’s go overnight. I’m not built like that. I am built for deep reflection, and for me, that’s probably the Seed Stage. If I have to sit here for a bit to really dig deep on the Can vs Meant To exercise in order to Germinate, then that’s what I’ll do.
I am getting into other personal reflection and calm zones in order to allow these things to float up and float into my life. I’d love to share some of the strategies with you soon.
A life filled with Can’s might pay the bills or prove something to someone, somewhere along the way. But what’s the point of living like that?
Proving and pushing are unforgiving.
Our Meant To’s are the sweet spot of life.
I reached out to my friend Brian on this yesterday (by the way, during this personal reflection period, his 30-day course for inspiration and encouragement – “30 Days to a Simpler Life” is on my must-do list).
He mentioned these words from his friend Ally’s book, Packing Light:
Where your passion meets their need, that is your calling.
It’s simply called Purpose.
Purpose and Meant To are far shorter lists than what I’ve been prioritizing on the Can.
Xox,
SKH
Today I’m sharing the top 11 ways I continued healing in 2017.
This is my favorite time of year for all things blog related because it’s the time of year when I reflect, remember, and then plan and prepare for the next year.
I kick off this season with the reader survey, which I recently published. You can share your thoughts and voice by clicking HERE (it will remain open until January 1, 2018).
And then I plan and prepare posts to share with you for the upcoming year on both blog and personal goals, as well as the past year recaps. This year, I’ve added one more recap – this one – the top 11 ways I continued healing in 2017 because I think the information could be useful for many of you.
How am I able to write this post with ease? Because 2017 was, by far, my healthiest and best healing year yet! Did I have some lumps and bumps along the way? Of course. Success absolutely looks like this….
(source)
In 2017, though, the kinks and coils on the upward were far fewer than any other year.
And these are the things I attribute to that.
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{The list below is in no particular order of importance.}
So now you might be thinking….but how do you know you healed so much in 2017?
Symptoms and numbers. It all comes down to symptoms and numbers.
From a symptoms standpoint, I can count the number of times I thought my SIBO might be trying to relapse and of those times, symptoms lasted less than a week (while I re-routed efforts and corrected anything I knew was throwing me off – i.e. intense running). My SIBO never came back in 2017, and I never needed Rifaximin, Neomycin, herbal supplements or anything else targeting SIBO directly. (I did, however, use Atrantil in the beginning of the year, which I believe worked wonders in setting me up for the rest of 2017.)
I go to the bathroom now like a normal person. I rarely feel bloated, and most of the time if I do feel bloat it’s only the type of female-monthly-friend bloat (which, by the way, is nothing compared to SIBO bloat).
My energy came back! I am able to function the way I wanted to for so long. Of course, I’m still tired at night by 8 or 9 pm, but I’m also up every single day between 3:30 – 4 am (you can read a typical day via Experience Life Magazine HERE).
My weight stabilized. When my gut is off, I always know because my weight changes quickly – like within just a day or two. For several months now, the scale has not budged much, and it’s at a place that feels natural and comfortable.
From a numbers standpoint, my SIBO tests showed that, while not completely eradicated, it was improving (and by the way, the last time I did this test was early 2017 I believe – I have made leaps and bounds progress since then).
“Overall,” said Dr. Amy, “your DUTCH profile looks good.” T3 is still somewhat low, but we are managing that and I am retesting those levels in early 2018.
My blood pressure continues to be fairly low and my hands and feet remain cold (I am trying some new things for that, too!), but all blood counts are normal and “healthy.”
We are continuing to do some testing in 2018, and most everything will remain the same (not fixing anything that’s not broken). I’m hoping for another healthy and vibrant year in 2018. And I wish the same for you as well!
Xox,
SKH
