st. francis + the virus
This prayer reminds me of St. Francis’s Prayer for Peace, updated for our contemporary world. A dear friend shared this with me, and I think it’s worth sharing far and…
Advance? Retreat?
If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ve probably come across my Kale + Kryptonite exercise, which is a tool I use with my clients to help them assess the…
Spring into health
Spring has sprung, the grass is riz…. My father used to recite the poem every year around this time. In Michigan, it’s still blustery, and the the grass is not…
Sweeten it, naturally
I recently conducted a survey of my virtual community to learn more about you, and one of the requests that came up most frequently in response to my question about…
Food porn fast
‘Fess up: did you binge watch the first season of Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix? Because yeah, I did. And I read the book in 2015. I saw…
What’s your value?
This month, I’m taking a look in the rearview mirror at 2018 and a peek ahead at the road ahead in 2019. I invite you to hop in and take…
My relationship with what?
This month, I’m taking a look in the rearview mirror at 2018 and a peek ahead at the road ahead in 2019. I invite you to hop in and take…
Early birds, night owls, and soul care containers
I’ve always looked at my ability to wake up without an alarm as a superpower: whether it’s for my usual wake-up time (ungodly early) or from a power nap or…
Who are you comparing yourself to?
I recently walked the Dexter Ann Arbor 5K in 40:49 (beating last year’s 52:12 by a long shot despite the pouring rain)—I had meant to run this year, but some…
Normal vs. common | Learning in the loud moms’ corner
I’m not much of a gym fan—I’ve flirted with them before, even had (always brief) love affairs with them, but I always return to working out at and from home….
Pet Lessons
Is it really possible that Spring has sprung in Michigan finally? This past winter really felt endless—more so than others for some reason. And yet, thanks to a new furbaby…
The Elves began it….
I’m a walker—no matter what form of exercise I’ve done in the past—from running to aerobics to HIIT—I always come back to walking. It’s as though there’s a set point…
#healthcoachvacation
When I was growing up, it seemed as though my vacations never lined up with those of my parents, who taught at a small liberal arts college. There may have…
I can still get 3 hours….
I’m one of those lucky people, blessed with the ability to fall asleep just about anywhere, anytime, even during a bus or train commute (yeah, sleeping on the Red Line…
My own personal summer
Sooo much wisdom (and a fair bit of humor!) in last week’s conversation on the blog in response to my question about what (if any) curve ball/s your body suddenly…
SOUL food | Unique
This is the third post in the SOUL food series—you can find the first one at SOUL food | Seasonal and the second at SOUL food | Organic. Integrative Nutrition®…
Do you really need another blender?
My biz bestie, Holly Southerland of Waco Home Organizers, recently sent a note of encouragement to her email list about FOMO (fear of missing out) and doing a “digital detox”…
How do you come to the kitchen?
As I mentioned last week, explaining what I do as a health coach can be difficult: while the profession is certainly growing, it’s still an alien concept for many. I…
A few of my favorite things | Books
Last week’s post on the podcasts I recommend generated quite a few replies, one of the more common being, “But what if I don’t listen to podcasts?” I don’t find…
Guest Post | From Ow to Wow, Overwhelm to Wonder
Look, look—another guest post! This one comes from Linda Joy Stone, OMD, L.Ac., with whom I connected on Daocloud, which I describe as social media for practitioners and answer-seekers in…
Multitasking | To hack or not to hack?
If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’m a big fan of podcasts—I listen to a fair number of self-improvement, health, and entrepreneur/business related ones, and my…
“Getting” religion, getting spiritual
It’s April 22 (Happy Earth Day!), and if you’ve been following along on the blog, you’ll know that the past month has seen me on the West Coast, in the…
When the power goes out: on habit + ritual
I once asked a native Michigander why, while rain and snow storms are common in Michigan and even tornadoes occasionally pass through, the city where we live—Ann Arbor—seems to largely go…
Fill Your Plate | Feed Your Life
One of the fundamental principles of Integrative Nutrition® health coaching is that we are not only nourished (or toxified) by the food we put in our mouths—our secondary foods; we are…
“Harry was Voldemort, and Voldemort was Harry”
I’ll be honest: my candidate was out of the running after the primaries, which may be one reason that I’ve been feeling a bit detached from the aftermath of the…
Baby Step #11 | SOLE Kitchen
This is the eleventh of a 12-part series titled “Baby Steps.” On the first of each month, I post 1 tiny step toward better health that you can take every day…
Q + A with Su Hansen | Where does your soul want to go?
As a health coach, I love meeting colleagues who not only can serve as a resource for my clients but also challenge and inspire me in my own work. Personal and…
Q + A with Carl Gunderson
Loved sitting down for a chat with my friend Carl Gunderson of Simply Holistic Fitness today! Carl is a member of the Caerusnet referral group I am part of and is…
Self-care + Happy Stockholders!
I wrote this for a wonderful networking group I am privileged to belong to—if you’re an entrepreneur looking for a facilitated referral team, check out Caerusnet (and if there isn’t one…
Baby Step #10 | An attitude of gratitude
This is the tenth of a 12-part series titled “Baby Steps.” On the first of each month, I post 1 tiny step toward better health that you can take every day…
Ask us anything | The recording
Yesterday, I had the extreme pleasure of sharing an hour on the phone with Andrea Catherine Bachman of Grounded Here, LLC. We had a great conversation about who we are,…
15 Ways to Make Life Simple Again
“It’s complicated….” Just about everything feels complicated these days, … and there’s a great excuse for not taking action, which causes us even more (di)stress. How to make life simple…
How I learned to meditate
About five years ago, I switched from a conventional primary care physician to an integrative medicine physician. My hope was that when I brought up alternative therapies such as massage…
How do you show up in the kitchen?
You can read my most recent guest post on mindful cooking on the blog at Crazy Wisdom Community Journal!
Health is a journey – be sure to carry a map!
Before I work with a client, we have what I call a YOURstory session (like a history, but a little less gendered and a bit more personal!), an opportunity to…
What media messages do you ingest?
As an integrative nutrition health coach, I spend a lot of time working with clients to identify their ideal nutritional choices – the ones that nourish their bodies in a way…
How do you come to the table?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea that we show up at the table much the way we show up in the rest of our lives, and it is…
On the edge of getting it right
I have an 11-year-old son and a husband, so (if you’ll forgive a generalization) I watch a fair number of action movies. Okay, full disclosure: I kind of like them,…
What my father left me
A love of language… The legacy of Russian for Everybody (the version for Americans): I’m always amazed when I meet people who studied Russian in the 1970s – 1990s: without exception, they used…
Unplugged…on vacation in Montague, MI
Last weekend, my kids and I spent 24 hours “unplugged” at a fellow IIN student’s lakeside cottage in Montague, MI. (Our kids were initially a bit weirded out by the fact…
