Like if I was disciplined enough, organised enough, had gone to bed even earlier the night before, I wouldn’t need to reach for another coffee just to get through the afternoon.

So I’d make one. Sometimes two. And I’d push through.

It also made me feel like I’m restarting the day! (Still does)

What I didn’t know then was that my body wasn’t failing me. It was actually doing exactly what it was designed to do, I just didn’t have the language for it yet.

Ayurveda gave me that language.

Your day runs on a clock you didn’t know existed

In Ayurveda, the day is divided into cycles, each governed by one of the three doshas: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha.

They’re energetic qualities that exist in nature, in the world around us, and inside us. They rise and fall in a rhythm across every 24 hours whether we’re paying attention or not.

Understanding this rhythm doesn’t mean you have to overhaul your life, it just means you stop fighting your body and start working with it.

6am to 10am: Kapha time

Kapha is earth and water. It’s slow, steady, cool, and heavy. It dominates the early morning hours.

This is why, if you’ve ever woken up and felt genuinely groggy and heavy, like your body just did not want to leave the bed, that’s Kapha doing its thing.

The light, grounded quality of this time is actually beautiful for slow rituals. Gentle movement, a warm breakfast, easing in.

The worst thing you can do in Kapha time is sleep through it entirely and wake up at 9:30 wondering why you feel foggy all day.

Getting up before or around sunrise, even just moving your body a little, helps you shake off that heaviness before it sets the tone for everything that follows.

10am to 2pm: Pitta time

Pitta is fire and water. Sharp, focused, driven, and hot. This is your power window.

Your digestion is strongest here, which is why Ayurveda has always said your biggest meal should be at lunch, not dinner.

Your digestive fire, or agni, is peaking right alongside the sun.

It’s not just your gut that’s firing. Your mental clarity, your ability to focus and get things done, is also at its peak. This is the time to do your hardest work. The creative projects, the decisions, the deep thinking.

If you’re spending this window on emails and admin and saving the real work for the evening, try switching it up.

2pm to 6pm: Vata time

Here we are. The dreaded slump.

Vata is air and space. Creative, quick, scattered, and light. When it kicks in around 2pm, that steady Pitta focus starts to dissolve. Your mind picks up speed but loses depth. You might feel wired but unfocused, restless, like you need something but you’re not sure what.

For a lot of us, that something becomes coffee, sugar or scrolling.

What your body is actually craving in Vata time is grounding.

A short walk. A warm drink, something like spiced chai or warm lemon water. A few slow breaths. Even just stepping away from your screen for ten minutes.

The coffee isn’t wrong exactly, but it pours fuel onto an already airy, scattered energy. It revs you up without giving you anywhere to land and then you wonder why you can’t switch off at night.

6pm to 10pm: Kapha again

As the sun goes down, Kapha returns. The body starts its natural wind-down. Digestion slows, the nervous system softens, and melatonin begins to rise.

This is your signal to ease off. A lighter dinner, earlier than you think. Less screen time. More stillness.

If you push past 10pm and get a second wind, that’s Pitta coming back around. You’ll feel suddenly alert, maybe even productive. But it’s borrowed energy and you’ll pay for it in the morning.

So what does this actually change?

Nothing dramatic, maybe not instantly anyway. You don’t need to restructure your whole day overnight.

But maybe, just maybe, you protect your Pitta hours a little more fiercely.

Maybe you stop being hard on yourself for the afternoon dip and try grounding into it instead of caffeinating your way through it.

Maybe you eat a real lunch and a lighter dinner and see how you feel after a week.

Your energy crashes are your body running its natural rhythm in a world that wasn’t designed around it.

The work is just learning to listen.

Love always,

Lily

If what I write resonates with you and brings you value, your support through a small donation helps me continue creating, writing, and sharing this work with intention and integrity. It truly means more than you know.

Buy me a coffee… or a book!

Don’t we all love a bit of chocolate. Throughout my life I’ve had the tendency to eat the whole block just so it doesn’t exist in my pantry anymore. So it doesn’t tempt me tomorrow. So I don’t feel the guilt of eating chocolate two or three days in a row.

There was even a time in my teens when I went through a two month period of keeping a box of peanut M&Ms, Maltesers, or chocolate digestives in my bedside drawer. I got into the habit of waking up in the middle of the night, at the same time every night, to eat some chocolate.

I still don’t know why I did that, on a psychological level. And I don’t know how I broke the habit either.

But the point of telling you this is to highlight the imperfectness of us all. Our humanness. Even those of us who live healthy lives, who have made helping other women with their health naturally their whole mission.

I don’t condone binge eating, of course. But last night I was tired, on my period, couldn’t be bothered cooking even though I knew I should, and all I wanted was those Maltesers.

So I ate them. All of them.

For a second, I felt guilty. Then I remembered how far I’ve grown from that 15 year old girl, eating chocolate in the dark to cope with her emotions. I wondered if this made me a hypocrite, knowing everything I know about health. But ultimately, this questionable dinner choice just wasn’t that deep.

If you’ve experienced imbalance that has manifested as dis-ease, chronic bloating, IBS, anxiety, eating disorders, hormonal disruption, weight fluctuations, or all of the above, you know how hard it can be to break old cycles and welcome in new habits that actually support your growth.

And when you finally see a breakthrough, a real positive shift, every little indulgence can feel like it’s going to unravel everything. Going out for dinner and a glass of wine feels so scary you cancel the plans entirely. You pick the healthiest thing on the menu and stick to water and spend the whole night in your head.

Our brains and bodies are intricately connected. The energy we bring to a meal affects how it turns out, how it tastes, how it sits with us. If I went out for ice cream already thinking “this is going to make my skin break out so bad,” my brain hears that and says: yes, let’s do exactly that.

Balance is always the answer. You can have too much of a good thing, but cutting out everything “unhealthy” can do just as much harm. We have to rewire the story we tell ourselves.

Enjoying the things you love in moderation is not going to undo your progress. But believing that it will? That thought is actually far more likely to.

And if you want to understand your body on a deeper level, why it bloats, why it feels heavy, why it just doesn’t feel like you, I’d love for you to join me tonight for my workshop where we get into exactly that.

register here!

love always,

Lily

If what I write resonates with you and brings you value, your support through a small donation helps me continue creating, writing, and sharing this work with intention and integrity. It truly means more than you know.

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I’ll explain.

Ayurvedic science is ancient and likes to use the elements of nature to help us understand how our body, mind, and the world around us work.

I want you to think back to your last meal. After you chewed and swallowed, your body ramped up the digestive acids to help break down the food, organising it into vitamins and nutrients, sending them where they needed to go in the body.

That right there is a process of transformation, literally biochemical combustion. The digestive process is governed by the element of fire. How happy or unhappy our gut health is relies almost entirely on how well that fire is able to burn.

If we go a little deeper into the Ayurvedic terminology for a hot minute; our ability to digest is more than just stomach acid. We have our main fire (agni), the one I’ve spoken about already but it goes beyond the gut. Once nutrients leave the stomach and enter the tissues, each tissue has its own fire responsible for transforming those nutrients into actual living tissue (muscle, fat, bone, nerve). And even deeper than that we have the elemental fires that process each of the 5 elements found within all food.

Nerd science part over.

But why does this matter? Because when our main fire is struggling, everything else suffers. Tissues starve, transformation doesn’t happen as effectively and completely as it should, then all the incomplete residue left from that process floats around the body and are called toxins. The source of all disease.

None of us want to be disease ridden so let’s get into how to know how strong your fire is.

Quick dosha run down:

Vata: Air and Space. Light, cold, dry, mobile, irregular. Think wind.

Pitta: Fire and Water. Hot, sharp, intense, transformative. Think fire.

Kapha: Earth and Water. Heavy, slow, cool, stable, dense. Think wet clay or earth.

Golden rule in life: like increases like, opposites create balance

Vata Dosha out of balance - the fire is irregular and unpredictable. One day strong, one day non-existent. Bloating, gas, constipation, anxiety around food, never knowing how your stomach will react. The fire flickers.

Pitta Dosha out of balance - the fire is too intense. Acid reflux, heartburn, inflammation, loose stools, feeling overheated after eating. The fire is burning too hot and starting to damage the vessel it sits in.

Kapha Dosha out of balance - the fire is low and sluggish. Heavy after meals, slow digestion, nausea, weight gain, brain fog after eating, food sitting like a brick. The fire has almost gone out.

If your brain can’t compute right now, that’s okay! I created a quiz that helps determine what dosha is out of balance!

dosha quiz

So, how do we get that fire back to burning like it should?

For Vata: stabilise the fire with consistency and reliability in routine & meal times. Prioritise warm and cooked food always, eating at the same or similar time every day. Get into the healthy fats, ghee especially, which in Ayurveda is considered one of the most powerful tools for kindling digestive fire.

For Pitta: she’s burning a little too hot and fast. Calm it down, give it room to breathe. Cooling foods, cucumber, coconut, leafy greens, sweet fruits. Avoid the accelerants: alcohol, caffeine, chilli, anything fried, anything that arrives at the table still sizzling. Eat your biggest meal at midday when the sun is highest, because Pitta’s fire mirrors the sun and peaks at noon. Never eat when angry or stressed.

Kapha: we need to rekindle this fire asap because it’s struggling. Light, warm, spiced foods. Ginger is Kapha’s best friend, it’s essentially a match struck directly against a sluggish fire. Avoid the dampeners: dairy, heavy foods, cold drinks, eating when you’re not actually hungry. Kapha’s biggest enemy is eating out of habit or comfort rather than genuine hunger. Skip or have a really light breakfast if you’re not hungry, you can even fast in the appropriate time in your cycle.

Your gut is not broken. The fire just needs attention.

If this has resonated and you want to go deeper, come join me live this Wednesday the 29th at 7pm AEST. We’ll get into all of it in real time, and you can ask me anything!

reserve your spot!

I’d love to see you there!

love always,

Lily

If what I write resonates with you and brings you value, your support through a small donation helps me continue creating, writing, and sharing this work with intention and integrity. It truly means more than you know.

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At that point, I had been on it throughout most of my teen years and for me, on the surface, it was mostly smooth sailing. I had my cycle on time, clear skin, no worries. But the false sense of protection and ease this pill gave me faded away after a while. My body was inflamed, screaming from the inside out and it was definitely starting to show on the outside. I held onto fluid everywhere, stubborn weight I couldn’t shift, my body was in a state of stress all the time.

I started researching how to come off it and ultimately came to the conclusion of “why would I go back to the doctor that pushed me onto the pill with no testing when I was 15 when I can just take myself off it?”

The distrust I had (and still do) in the medical system was warranted.

In hind sight, maybe there were better ways to take myself off it that could have made my return to my natural self a bit smoother and less chaotic. For a couple of months, (5 to 7 from memory) my skin was soooo itchy, inflamed, irritated.

But my hormones didn’t level themselves out there. Up until 5 months ago, I would still get spontaneous breakouts for no reason at all. Of course it wasn’t random, it never is.

Now, I think I’ve cracked my own code and I’ll explain how you can do the same.

1. Pitta imbalance (inflammation + heat)

This is the most common type I see.

Your skin might look:

• red, irritated, inflamed

• sensitive to touch

• angry breakouts that come on quickly

This is excess heat in the body (think: stress, anger, frustration, coffee, hot & spicy)

What to do:

Cool your system down
Think: less spicy, less alcohol, less overstimulation
More rest, more hydration, more softness in your routine

2. Kapha imbalance (congestion + buildup)

This type is slower, deeper, more stubborn.

Your skin might feel:

• congested, blocked

• cystic or under-the-skin breakouts

• oily but dull

This is your body saying: things aren’t moving (think: stagnant, phlegmy, lethargic)

What to do:

Lighten and stimulate
Move your body, simplify your diet, reduce heaviness, lightly exfoliate
Your skin needs circulation, not more products

3. Vata imbalance (dryness + irregularity)

This one gets overlooked a lot.

Your skin might be:

• dry but breaking out

• inconsistent, flare-ups that come and go

• worse during stress or change

This is as much a nervous system issue as a skin one.

What to do:

Ground and nourish
Regular meals, warm foods, slower mornings
Your skin needs stability and consistency so stick to a routine

Chances are, we’re all a little imbalanced.

That’s life, it’s a constant journey learning how to listen to our bodies and adjust accordingly. If you’re don’t know where to start, I created a quiz that finds what dosha (vata, pitta, kapha) is out of balance.

dosha quiz!

If you ever need more support, I’m right here. You can book in for a complimentary discovery consultation here:

free consult!

I’m always happy to help!

In the meantime, I’m hosting a live call on Wednesday 29th at 7pm AEST where I’d love to see you! We’ll be chatting all things Ayurveda, a beginners run down, how our gut is the basis of our overall health and what you can do to relieve bloating, skin flare-ups, low energy and that constant feeling of being a bit “off”.

Love always,
Lily

If what I write resonates with you and brings you value, your support through a small donation helps me continue creating, writing, and sharing this work with intention and integrity. It truly means more than you know.

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That content isn’t exclusive to just what we see on social media, it also includes our emails, to do lists, a messy kitchen, overflowing laundry, notification alerts every 5 minutes, rushed or dense conversations, music in the car.

It’s everything our brains are trying to take in, analyse, sort importance, respond accordingly and keep up with before we drown overwhelm and run around like a headless chicken snapping/ crying at/to everyone.

Sometimes if I feel like this, I know I need to make the time to take care of all the senses.

See

• Look beyond the computer, focus on a plant or trees outside. Notice the details

• Watch the clouds in the sky

• Turn the big lights off and turn a pretty, soft lamp on

• Do a little tidy up, even if that means shoving stuff in drawers they don’t belong in. Less clutter = calmer mind

Feel

• Lay down on your bed for a minute and really feel the bedding softening around you like a cloud

• Take a shower or bath

• F*ck it, put your pyjamas on as soon as you get home for max relax

• Change your sheets

• Go for a walk, barefoot and undistracted. Just you and the world around you

• Dust your yoga mat off and stretch

Hear

• Sit in silence (a hard one)

• Listen to the birds outside

• Put some soft music on, jazz, classical, acoustic

• Turn on Do Not Disturb

Smell

• Step outside for some fresh air

• Drop your favourite essential oils on your wrists, pillows, diffuser

• Vetiver, Patchouli, Frankincense, and Cedarwood are all very grounding scents

Taste

• Ditch the second coffee and make yourself a cup of tea

• Cook a warm, nourishing meal

• Eat slow without distraction

• Have a piece of dark chocolate 1. Because yum and 2. It helps lower cortisol significantly

By far the best thing you can to press the reset button on your nervous system is a little bit of breath work.

In for 4, hold for 6, out for 8.

This process lowers heart rate, reduces blood pressure, releases calming neurotransmitters, reduces cortisol and you’ll be able to take little practice with you wherever you may need it.

I hope this helps you create a little more zen amidst the silent overwhelm.

Love always,

Lily

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As I reached 18, I lost my way a little bit. In my external life but also my health, both which of course influenced each other.

Introducing: anxiety, poor gut health, hair loss, terrible skin, deciding to come off the pill, fluid retention and inflammation (I’m probably, definitely, missing some symptoms there).

About 2 years later, after trying all the skincare, deciding to eat meat again, what felt like 374394 doctors appointments I was feeling more and more let down by the health care system. Then, I realised if I was going to get anywhere I just had to do it on my own. And I may actually have the answers already.

And I did, thanks to my mum and dad, but also thanks to nature. I believe these holistic remedies, practices, ways of living in tune with nature and what it provides for us is at the core of all of us. Where we can all thrive.

So that leads me to enlightening you to the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda because when I first heard about it, honestly, I was a bit confused and it took me a minute to wrap my head around the concepts.

A lot of us are a little more familiar with Chinese Medicine (TCM) so I’ll preface by saying it shares similar ways of viewing the body, mind and world just different wording and concepts.

What Ayurveda is:

• An ancient science over 5,000 years old

• Before it was written down, what we call the vedas, it was passed down orally through families throughout generations, so it’s very likely much older than we can date back

• Considered to be the oldest healing science

• Focuses on prevention rather than cure so we can get to the real root of imbalances

• Recognises our individuality in our physical, mental and emotional realms and supports them together, not separate

• Created 3 unique mind body types known as doshas to help us understand our bodies, minds, foods, seasons etc (biggest life hack)

• Uses simple, everyday tools like food, herbs, routine and awareness to create lasting change

• Honours the connection between us and the world around us, seasons, environment, lifestyle, everything plays a role

What Ayurveda is not:

• Definitely not a quick fix or detox

• One size fits all

• Eliminating foods or drinks without context

• Forcing your body into submission

• Not separate from modern life, it’s designed to work within it

• Not about perfectionism or doing everything “right”

• Not something you need to overhaul your entire life to begin

• Complicated or confusing when you have the right foundations and guidance

I have been proven time and time again that these profound types of sciences, practices, philosophies find you when you’re ready for them. Even if it seems confusing or unclear at times but you keep coming back to it or reminded of it, it’s calling you.

One thing that genuinely helped me so much when I was studying is to understand your unique mind body type - Dosha - and what one or two of the three may be out of balance. That’s why one of the best things I’ve created is my Dosha Quiz and if you take one thing out of this piece - let it be that! Oh and it’s free!

dosha quiz!

Remember, like increases like, opposites create balance

If you have any questions, as always, message me or comment!

Love always,

Lily

If what I write resonates with you and brings you value, your support through a small donation helps me continue creating, writing, and sharing this work with intention and integrity. It truly means more than you know.

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Herbs and spices are incredibly medicinal and have played a key role in healing the body & mind in both Ayurvedic science and TCM for thousands of years.

They can energise, stimulate, cleanse, cool, detoxify, dry out, warm, ground, lubricate, depending on what your individual body type is and what you need.

So this piece is going to become your reference guide for what herb and spice does what as well as what dosha it increases and decreases.

*Dosha/s: are three fundamental bio-energies called Vata, Pitta, and Kapha which govern all physical and mental functions, forming our unique constitution. They are made up of the 5 elements - air, earth, water, fire, space/ether. I’ll add a link to my dosha test below so you can see what one you are. Once you find out, it’s usually like a light bulb moment!

free dosha quiz!

Turmeric: Anti-inflammatory, blood purifier, supports skin & liver, heals the gut

Increases: Pitta

Decreases: Vata & Kapha

Ginger: Boosts digestion, reduces bloating, stimulates circulation, warms the body

Increases: Pitta

Decreases: Vata & Kapha

Cumin: Improves digestion & nutrient absorption, reduces gas and bloating

Increases: Kapha

Decreases: Vata & Pitta

Fennel: Soothes digestion, reduces bloating, cooling to the system

Increases: Kapha

Decreases: Vata & Pitta

Coriander: Cooling, supports digestion without overheating, great for skin

Increases: Kapha

Decreases: Vata & Pitta

Black Pepper: Stimulates digestion, clears toxins, boosts metabolism

Increases: Vata & Pitta

Decreases: Kapha

Cardamom: Light, uplifting, reduces bloating, supports breath & digestion

Increases:

Decreases: All doshas, aka, tridoshic

Cinnamon: Warming, improves circulation, balances blood sugar, supports digestion

Increases: Pitta

Decreases: Vata & Kapha

Clove: Strongly warming, antimicrobial, supports digestion & oral health

Increases: Pitta

Decreases: Vata & Kapha

Oregano: Antibacterial, supports immunity, clears congestion

Increases: Vata & Pitta

Decreases: Kapha

Parsley: Detoxifying, supports kidneys, reduces water retention

Increases: Vata

Decreases: Pitta & Kapha

Basil: Uplifting, supports respiratory system, reduces stress

Increases: Pitta

Decreases: Vata & Kapha

Rosemary: Stimulates circulation, sharpens focus, supports digestion

Increases: Pitta

Decreases: Vata & Kapha

Sage: Drying, reduces excess mucus, supports hormones & digestion

Increases: Vata & Pitta

Decreases: Kapha

Dill: Calms digestion, reduces gas, gentle and slightly warming

Increases: Pitta

Decreases: Vata & Kapha

Chilli Flakes: Highly stimulating, boosts metabolism, clears stagnation

Increases: Vata & Pitta

Decreases: Kapha

Paprika: Mildly warming, supports circulation and digestion

Increases: Pitta

Decreases: Kapha

Nutmeg: Grounding, calming, supports sleep & nervous system

Increases: Kapha & Pitta

Decreases: Vata

Cayenne Pepper: Intensely heating, boosts metabolism, clears congestion

Increases: Vata & Pitta

Decreases: Kapha

It’s extremely important to note the golden rule of life: like increases like, opposites create balance.

Anything consumed in excess is not going to do you much good and the same rule needs to be applied to these powerful herbs & spices. Don’t underestimate them!

I will admit, I’ve always struggled getting all the good medicinal properties into my very western cooking so for you, my clients and also myself, I created a little e-cook book “How To Spice Up Western Food”.

If you want to give deeper, you can grab the eBook for free (for my substack community only <3) using code SUBSTACK

download me here!

Any thoughts, insights, questions or comments - feel free to ask anytime!

Love always,

Lily

If what I write resonates with you and brings you value, your support through a small donation helps me continue creating, writing, and sharing this work with intention and integrity. It truly means more than you know.

Buy me a coffee… or a book!

They’re genuinely done with feeling bloated every day, living in discomfort, waking up exhausted, dreading their period, having to hide behind heavy makeup, anxiety stopping them from doing and say the things they want to. Not just in their minds, but their whole being is ready for the change, whatever it may look like. What’s on the other side of the work is a healthier way of living, feeling, being.

The hardest clients are the women who have become comfortable with their suffering. Almost like we need it to be so debilitating we to collapse into a heap and if I have observed anything about women, it’s how good we are at suppressing things that cause us pain.

It could always be worse, right?

A phrase I have asked myself many times before. And most of the time it’s true, it genuinely always be worse. We always have something, many things, to be grateful for. But that doesn’t mean what we’re experiencing is normal. It doesn’t mean we have to live in discomfort, pain, anxiety, stress.

We need to remember how to be selfish, in the healthy way (of course). You may have noticed, if you’ve run yourself a bath and taken some time to yourself, you tend to show up as slightly better version of yourself. You cook yourself a nourishing lunch and eat it without doing anything else at the same time. Bliss.

Our nervous system begins to calm. Our inflammatory response lowers. Our digestion strengthens. We start to move with more ease and flow.

We don’t need to wait until we’re dead and dying on the floor to get help. Yes, it’s familiar, it’s tolerable, but it convinces us it’s not serious enough to change, until one day it is. We certainly shouldn’t wait for what that day holds.

Whether you feel ready to face it or not, you’re allowed to listen early, to choose a different outcome for yourself, to choose feeling well not as a last resort, but a standard.

A question I like to ask women who find subconscious comfort in their pain is this - “Who could you become if these symptoms weren’t holding you back?”

Sometimes it takes just one question to have a break through. Just one question to get past the doubt, noise, overwhelm and deeper into ourselves to find real healing for ourselves.

I have a present for you!

If you’re craving a little more space to breathe, I created something gentle for you.

The Mini Meditation Reset is a simple 7-day practice to help you feel clearer in your mind, lighter in your body, and more connected to yourself again.

Use code SUBSTACK for 100% off <3

download me here!

If what I write resonates with you and brings you value, your support through a small donation helps me continue creating, writing, and sharing this work with intention and integrity. It truly means more than you know.

Buy me a coffee… or a book!

with love always,

Lily

In a series of voice notes to and from my best friend, we were catching up on things in our lives, important decision making, the pain in both our necks form sleeping weird, getting older, love that lives half way across the globe, the future and the meaning of it all (and we don’t typically go that deep).

I was reminded of this beautiful thing called detachment. A gorgeous, yet often misunderstood state of being. It seems to be one of the many keys to unlocking a higher state of being which creates a ripple effect on every little thing in our lives from the way we experience our emotions, to the way we move through challenges, relationships, our health, our ability to manifest and more.

Yogic psychology describes detachment, Vairagya, is the art of cultivating an inner state of non-attachment, equanimity, and mental freedom while engaging fully with the world. So with that in mind, I’ll start by telling you what detachment is not.

It is not:

• Acting cold

• Being distant

• Not caring

• Having no influence

• Becoming inactive

• Becoming compliant

• Living minimalistic

• Selfish

• Isolating

• Giving up

• Feeling numb

Instead, detachment is:

• Letting go of outcomes

• Doing what you can

• Acting within your influence

• Trusting the universe, god, source

• Raising your vibration

• Loving with independence

• Allowing people and things to come and go

• Responding to people, places, things, situations with clarity

Detachment has been an incredibly powerful practice in every area of my own life.

It has strengthened my relationships with others and myself, enabled me to allow things that are meant for me to flow through, released physical tension in my body that tends to build up with stress, create a deeper awareness and presence in the world around me, throughout each day. Truly, it has helped to alleviate the self inflicted pain and burden we tend to put on ourselves.

So how do we practice it?

The first step is to question the reasons why we tend to attach in the first place. I believe for most of us, all roads will lead back to fear.

A little map to practicing detachment can look like this:

• Journal on fear; what are you afraid of in your relationships, in your career, your goals, your health

• Practically, whats the worst that can happen in all those scenarios? Notice how much of your fear is a story rather than fact

• Meditate to bring awareness back into your mind and body, to slow down and practice observing thoughts, feelings, emotions

• The key is to watch them come and go, not needing to judge or change them

• Understand that we are more than a body; whoever or whatever created our intelligent, intuitive and spiritual being also has a hand in the unfolding of our lives. Trust it

And with this practice, we turn attachment into ease. What a beautiful place to be.

With love always,

Lily

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Now before this goes a little too woo, I’d like to back my point up with some psychological and physiological evidence.

When you go through emotional stress, the body activates the fight-or-flight response which triggers:

• cortisol release

• sympathetic nervous system activation

• changes to the immune system

These changes can reduce immune protection and increase inflammation, making infections more likely.

Research in psychoneuroimmunology (the science of how the mind affects immunity) shows that psychological stress can actually alter immune markers. For example:

People under psychosocial stress have lower levels of protective immune antibodies in saliva, which normally help defend against respiratory infections.

This directly affects the body’s first line of defence in the nose and throat, where cold viruses enter.

A pattern researchers often see is:

• You push through a stressful period

• Your body stays in high adrenaline/cortisol mode

• When the stress ends, your nervous system drops

• The immune system rebounds → symptoms appear

This is sometimes called the “let-down effect” where people get sick right after stress ends (e.g. after exams, travel, deadlines).

And this is exactly what happened to me. On Friday, I went to see my kinesiologist for a session (Zuanna Kinesiology, Gold Coast) and we did some deep work into fear, anger, and stress - all of which I couldn’t place and I didn’t consciously feel scared, angry or stressed.

We discovered my root, heart and throat energy centres were blocked. After some clearing with tuning forks, light and visualisation, I was feeling calm and energised. I went away with some flower essences to take (pink rose) with a warning that they’re quite powerful and I may feel some emotions bubble up. I didn’t think anything of it really. Until the drive home, I dropped some under my tongue and instantly felt the effects.

My throat and chest felt heavy, like I needed to swallow to pass the feelings, maybe even push them back down. It was working and it was working well.

Saturday morning, my throat had somehow grown razor blades and I felt elephant sat on my head and chest. Truly the worst cold I’ve had in years. My emotions were all over the shop all weekend (hello anger, stress and fear) and my cycle decided to join in on the purging and arrive early.

Now, to the average person, this all might seem like an unfortunate series of events, totally coincidence. But to me, this was the clearest message my body could have given me. A stern reminder that my body is not separate from my spirit. That what I suppress emotionally and spiritually will eventually surface physically. And that’s exactly what this sickness is.

Now it’s Monday and thank god I have the space to continue to rest, for that I’m unbelievably grateful.

When something is ready to move, it will. It will show up in your breathing pattern, emotions, tension in the body, or illness that knocks you off your feet.

It’s rarely ever random.

Love always,

Lily

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For so long, I copied and pasted what other people were eating, how they structured their days, what workouts they did, thinking it would sit well with me. I tracked my food, logged calories and exercise, told myself I should work late into the night because that was what everyone else seemed to do. I ignored feelings of discomfort, force and disease - my body’s way of telling me that this isn’t for me, this just isn’t working, stop trying to be something you’re not!

During this time, I was well out of balance. Emotionally ungrounded, insecure, unsure, attached, anxious. Of course, this was all reflected in my body as well. I was chronically bloated, holding onto excess fluid and fat, vegan (which was not good for me), inflamed skin, painful periods, hair loss… and I was only 18.

Honestly, I didn’t address each one of these symptoms individually. At the time, I would have imploded if I tried. But the body and the mind are so intrinsically linked. Once the chaos in my life began to calm, I was able to naturally lower my extremely high cortisol levels and create some brain space to start breathing again.

All those symptoms dissipated over time. When I look back at what the turning point was, it’s undeniably clear.

Studying Ayurvedic science was like a light bulb going off for me. We all have our light bulb moments. Things that just make sense to us.

So, I’m hoping this will be your light bulb moment.

A little history first: Ayurveda began in India over 5,000 years ago and is rooted in the ancient texts called the Vedas. Before that, we can’t trace it accurately but its knowledge was passed down through families verbally. It speaks of incredible wisdom on the body, the mind, philosophy, the universe.

Physiologically and psychologically, Ayurveda looks at:

• How you digest

• How you sleep

• How you think

• How you handle stress

• How you respond to food, weather, and routine

It says we’re all made up of three energies, called doshas:

• Vata – movement and air

• Pitta – heat and transformation

• Kapha – structure and stability

Everyone has all three, but in different amounts.

When your doshas are balanced, you feel:

• Clear

• Energised

• Calm

• Comfortable in your body

When they’re out of balance, symptoms show up.

Instead of suppressing symptoms, we ask:

Why is this happening? What’s out of balance?

Then we use simple tools:

• Food

• Routine

• Herbs

• Breath

• Rest

• Awareness

By now we know not to underestimate the impact of these things.

Note: I’m in the middle of building a quiz you can take to figure out your dosha but I just wanted to get this article out to you all as soon as I could! So, I will send you all an update when the quiz is finished!

Dosha Quiz!

When you understand how you naturally are supposed to move in the world, everything seems to make so much more sense. Health issues get simpler, cooking gets easier, you don’t have to over-consume on information, you develop a better relationship with yourself.

For me, this was like turning the volume all the way off on the external influence I opened myself up to. And I’ve never flourished more.

Love always,

Lily

If what I write resonates with you and brings you value, your support through a small donation helps me continue creating, writing, and sharing this work with intention and integrity. It truly means more than you know.

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Pop a Panadol and the headache is gone. We just know it works to block the pain receptors, instead of understanding why they were flaring up in the first place (in case of a future headache: a glass of water with some salt likely would have done the trick).

But the headache returns, the pain could become worse, effecting visibility, becoming sensitive to light and sound, unable to concentrate or think straight. Suddenly we’re dealing with chronic pain and migraines for god knows how long.

This cycle happens to so many of us, through an array of different medical conditions and diseases.

The fortunate answer to break the cycle is that every issue has a root cause that we can get to. The unfortunate truth is that this can take work. Our bodies are different to on another.

We digest differently.

We handle stress differently.

We sleep differently.

We process emotions differently.

We store weight differently.

We burn out differently.

We heal differently.

To understand our conditions and diseases without ourselves, we must not underestimate the complexity and intuitive nature of our bodies. They are incredibly smart. But this doesn’t mean that understanding it has to be something only a trained medical professional can do.

Many of the women I speak with have almost written off trying to understand their body. I honestly don’t blame them, I was at that point for so long. They’d rather put their trust in a doctor or medical practitioner to advise and prescribe what’s in their best interest. I’d like to think most doctors do indeed this, but in the end, their training has failed them in many ways.

Most of us have ended up with bandaids piled on top of a big gaping would that just won’t heal.

The natural health industry has seemed to have had a resurgence. A remembering, even. And for good reason. Holistic medical practices like Ayurveda and TCM can be traced back thousands of years and they didn’t have a fraction of the technology and information we have today.

They didn’t need it.

They understood we come from nature, we will all go back to nature eventually so it only makes sense that the principles of nature are found and applied within us.

Stumbling upon the science of Ayurveda seemed entirely random at first. For those of you who are extra woo, I truly don’t even remember what I googled or how I found the facility I would train with. It really just appeared. But it found me at a time where I was exhausted my health, looking for actual answers and most importantly, I was open and ready to do the work.

That seems to be the key. The easiest clients I’ve worked with are the ones who are done with feeling bloated every day, living in discomfort, waking up exhausted, dreading their period, having to hide behind heavy makeup, anxiety stopping them from doing and say the things they want to.

A question I like to ask those of you who find a subconscious comfortability in their pain is this:

“Who could you become if these symptoms weren’t holding you back?”

I’d love to hear your answers in the comments if you’d like to share

With love,

Lily

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This system has been around since the start of the industrial revolution in the 18th century. Since then, I think we can all agree we seem to have got sicker.

Of course, modern medicine has brought us great developments and understanding of our bodies. But the second the medical schools removed botanical medicine, homeopathy, and other “non science” based remedies from the curriculum, the pharmaceutical industry skyrocketed as we got hooked on the temporary relief prescription medicine gave us.

Take Ayurveda or Chinese medicine for example. They’ve been around for more than 5,000 years (that figure is as accurate as we can trace it back). Their sciences share many corresponding similarities, using simple philosophies to understand ourselves, the universe around us and how it impacts us. How surprising (not) these eastern medical sciences are still relevant today, even more so than back when they were first transcribed.

My decision to study natural health, specifically Ayurveda, was one that came about quite randomly. Having grappled with my own painful bloating, anxiety, inflamed acne, fluid retention literally everywhere, hair loss, I discovered that there was no supplement, prescription medication, or serum that would truly fix it.

I slowly came back to my roots of herbal tinctures and capsules, eating whole foods, focusing on journaling out of my mind and onto a page. In time, my body and mind returned to its natural state of balance. It sighed a long exhale of peace, finally.

Our bodies are wildly intuitive and individual. We each are born with a different physiological and psychological make up.

What works for a Greek woman born in a warm country with a rich, sun-soaked Mediterranean diet, long summers and slower afternoons may not work for a woman born in northern England, raised on heavy winters, central heating, darker mornings and a completely different food culture.

The climate, the soil, the seasons, the light exposure, the ancestral foods, the pace of life, even the emotional conditioning passed down through generations, all shape our nervous system and digestion.

So why do we expect one universal diet, one workout trend, one supplement stack to suit everyone?

We need to unlearn this misconception, the sooner we do, the easier improving our health becomes.

So a little bit of Ayurvedic science for you: first we need to understand that we are one with nature. We are born of it. We are impacted by it. We’ve just forgotten that we are.

We can look at our bodies through the lens of the elements. Once we understand this concept, we can apply it to every health problem there is.

Number one rule: like increases like, opposites create balance. There is no light without dark. There is no sun without the moon. Our world is made up of duality.

Every little thing in our universe can be described with one or more of the elements: air, water, fire, earth, and space.

Air is movement.

Fire is transformation.

Water is cohesion.

Earth is structure.

Space is the container that allows it all to exist.

These are the building blocks of your body, your thoughts, your moods, your digestion, your cycles, your creativity.

Too much fire and you feel irritable, inflamed, impatient.
Too much air and you feel anxious, scattered, ungrounded.
Too much water and earth and you feel heavy, stagnant, stuck.

To bring balance back to the body, introduce the opposite.

Cold and dry? Add warmth and oil.

Heavy and dull? Add lightness and movement.

Scattered and overstimulated? Add routine and grounding.

I have seen the power in the ancient remedies, and they have never ever failed me or my clients like modern medicine has.

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What I’m about to share with you may feel like that at first but once we understand the chain reaction in the body, the bigger picture will become clear.

Let’s say, every day we put ice in our water. It’s cold, refreshing and especially satisfying in hot weather. After we have a sip, or skull half a litre, we experience bloating, feel heavy or even get some stomach cramps.

This is because the temperature of the water slows our digestion. It can reduce gastric contractions, constrict blood vessels, making it harder to digest food - especially those of us with more sensitive guts.

It’s important to take into consideration the climate you’re in. If you’re in the sunshine state of Queensland, Australia where it hits 30 degrees celsius at 9pm, then a little bit of cold water will benefit you more than do you a disservice.

If you’re in -15 degrees celsius in Eastern Europe, you’ll want to stick to room temperature water and hot teas.

Intuitively, we know what kind of drink our bodies need. Sometimes we just overdo it.

Think about what happens when we digest. Our bodies break down the food and use the nutrients to fuel us. This action is a transformative one, one that metabolises and burns. A fire. We want to keep that fire burning - how well we digest both internally and externally shapes the core of our overall health.

If we look through an Ayurvedic lens, our digestion is known as “Agni” or digestive fire.

See what I mean about the big picture coming together?

A good rule of thumb when it comes to anything in life is; like increases like, opposites create balance.

Whether your digestion feels sensitive and reactive, or you think everything’s working just fine, try swapping cold drinks for room temperature ones.

The shift can support your body in quieter, more subtle ways than you might expect.

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New research has discovered that whether or not you’ve meditated before, deep changes occur within the amygdala and hippocampus, the emotional and memory sector of the brain. A simple loving kindness meditation changed the strength and duration of the brain waves. This impacts our neuroplasticity, its ability to literally rewire itself. Through meditation, we can shift our stress response more easily and if we practice it consistently, we can reduce chronic stress and improve our emotional regulation, sleep, memory, the list goes on.

Much like every other holistic thing we add into our routine, meditation has a ripple effect throughout every aspect of our life. Our responses to stressful situations go from “the sky is falling in” to, “everything happens for a reason, it’s not that bad”, our perspective shifts. Our relationships with ourselves become deeper, we can become grounded enough to face the things we’ve been pushing down for so long. This, in turn, improves our relationships with others. We learn to detach, to soften, to let go. We become more in tune with our bodies, listening to it daily instead of ignoring it like we used to.

A lot of people think meditation is sitting there, being quiet and having a peaceful, relaxing experience. You absolutely can experience this, but I can almost guarantee it won’t be like this all the time, if not even 50% of the time.

These are the parts of your mind you may meet along the way:

The Monkey Mind:

Our minds are the most active and stimulated they have ever been. It takes a significant amount of practice to calm whats known as the monkey mind - a state of restlessness, distraction, and uncontrollable thoughts that jump from one topic to another. So prepare to experience this. It’s completely normal! The key to get around it is to see these thoughts and feelings pop up and refocus your attention to your breath. How it feels, its pace, the beating of your heart. This will be your baseline. Basically refocus your attention to other sensations that ground you in your body until the voices and feelings quieten, if they do. If they don’t (they may be persistent if you’re new) that’s why it’s called a practice!

The Inner Critic:

If you tend to speak to yourself negatively, this one may be quite strong for you. Our inner critic can be relentless and judgemental, often speaking out of fear and interrupting what may be small pockets of peace. It can sound like “I’m doing this wrong”, “I’m wasting my time”, “this is dumb”, “it’s not working”. This voice is protecting us from failure, from judgement, from not being good enough. May as well quit while we’re ahead. This isn’t true, but through the malleable state of our brains in this time, we can rewire our thought patterns. We don’t want to ignore this voice, instead we can thank it for trying to protect us but acknowledge it doesn’t serve us. We can prove it wrong and continue to develop a stronger version of ourselves.

The Observer:

The observer is just that. It’s aware and witnessing. It’s watching our thoughts, emotions, sensations from a detached state. Without judgement or reaction. For some, this feels like our higher selves, like an extension beyond our body. The observer is calm, spacious, limitless, free. Over time, the observer can begin to feel less separate from us. A unified experience which connects us back to source, whatever that may mean for you. This is a part of us we need to carry out of practice, into our lives.

Whoever you meet along your meditation journey, know that there’s no way to do it wrong and it’s not a straight line to enlightenment and eternal peace. It’s a practice which some dedicate their entire lives to. So with that in mind, it’s not meant to be easy, it’s not going to be instantly peaceful. If it were, we probably wouldn’t need it.

Meditation isn’t about escaping what’s there, it’s about learning to sit with it.

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Just recently, I embarked on a research journey into cycle syncing. I found that I’d been doing it intuitively for the last couple of years and that it’s vital to our overall health.

The essence of it is pretty self explanatory: exercising, eating, resting, working in tune with the different phases of your cycle and listening to what your body needs in each phase.

We have seen a concerning rise of chronic disease of the mind and body across both men and women in society as a result of many different factors like the economy, social agendas, and a modern way of living that places relentless demand on the mind and body.

I genuinely wonder what a different place the world would be if all women grew up cycle syncing.

So let’s learn how to work with our body, not against it.

We start our cycle off with… our period: typically 4-6 days

According to Ayurveda, this part of our cycle is governed by movement (Vata dosha), specifically downward movement, pushing the menstruation down and out.

Instead of dreading this part of our cycle, this is actually the most perfect time for introspection and creativity. Our bodies have forced us to slow down due to a drop in hormones and iron levels. This can naturally allow us to tap into our intuition and creative power more easily.

Whatever this phase brings for you, these are some ways you can honour where you’re at in this part of your cycle:

• Journal

• Write

• Paint

• Brainstorm

• Daydream

• Meditate

• Cook warming foods

• Steak, iron rich foods

• Hydrate

• Warm teas

• Yoga

• Gentle pilates

Hopefully you’ll notice a theme here. When you’re on your period think slow, soft, nourishing, warm, calm and gentle.

If you experience bloating, difficulty sleeping, constipation, excessive tiredness, or anxiety during this time, try to try to actively bring more of those qualities into your day. Supporting your body this way helps settle the nervous system, ease digestion, and allows your cycle to move through with more ease rather than resistance.

Next up, our body prepares for a baby: ovulation, typically 7 days

This is a time where we are energised and glowing, both inside and out. Governed by structure and lubrication. These two qualities are the building blocks of our fertility - estrogen and endometrium (Kapha dosha). Our bodies are strong in this phase, getting ready for conception. We tend to be more confident, social, communicative so this is the best time to do big decision making, meet new people.

Ways you can honour where you’re at in this part of your cycle:

• Plan your hardest tasks in this phase (you have the energy to complete them)

• Book in for a HIIT class, Salsa, run, CrossFit, whatever floats your boat

• Cook with broccoli, cauliflower, sprouts to clear estrogen

• Increase vitamin e rich foods, olive oil, sweet potato, green vegetables

• Cook all meals for optimal digestive capacity

In this phase think flirty, fun, energised, motivated and empowered. If you tend to experience tiredness (mentally and physically), heaviness, sensitive boobs, fluid retention, weight gain in this phase you may not want to be doing any of what I mentioned above. To create some change in how you may be feeling, focus on supporting your body’s ability to clear excess oestrogen through nourishment, gentle movement, quality sleep and reducing inflammatory stressors.

Last but certainly not least: luteal phase, typically 12 to 14 days

There’s a fire that fuels part of both our ovulation and luteal phase, encouraging transformation (Pitta dosha). If an egg was fertilised, our bodies begin the transformative journey of pregnancy. If we didn’t have our egg fertilised, our body actually doesn’t immediately know whether fertilisation has occurred. After ovulation, it always enters a potential pregnancy stage. At this time, we still have a bit of that fire. We may be more prone to feeling emotional, hot-headed, snappy and could feel like we’ve never eaten in our entire lives.

Ways you can honour where you’re at in this part of your cycle:

• Increase magnesium to cool PMS

• Cacao, fish, avocado, bananas, dark choc, spinach, beans, lentils

• Allow yourself to eat a little more than normal if you need it (we’re gearing up to shed)

• Always, always, always cook all meals for optimal digestive capacity

• Alternate exercise day to day, yoga on Tuesday, a run on Wednesday and so on

As our bodies come to the end of our cycle, we can use up whatever we have left from ovulation but generally start to slow down again as we head into our period. If you have some excess heat in your system, it may manifest as skin irritations, headaches, diarrhoea, irritability and overwhelm. We know by now what to do - stop forcing productivity and start supporting the body to release, cool and reset.

And that’s cycle syncing! Nothing fancy, nothing complicated. Simply understanding what’s happing internally and adjusting your external world as best you can to support yourself.

Whatever phase you’re in, I hope you can incorporate a little piece of newfound knowledge into your cycle.

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We live in a time where we have become desensitised to influencers sharing every minute of their day from the minute they wake up to the minute they go to sleep. Their local coffee shop, their neighbourhood, their pilates spot, their kids, their relationship, the ups the downs. All in real time.

It’s become so expected of us to share everything that it’s weird if you don’t, god forbid you don’t have social media at all.

The implied idea is that if you want to grow an audience or community that listens and engages with you, you have to share excessively about your life. After battling with this myself, feeling the push towards sharing beyond what I deem to be useful or necessary, I don’t believe this to be true - albeit it may be an easier and quicker way to find those that connect with you.

Once, our energy belonged to our own lives and the people around us. Now it’s scattered across strangers on the internet. We know the details of Jessica from Utah’s life, her wardrobe, her routines, her milestones, while she remains completely unaware of us. Think about that for a minute, it’s truly bizarre.

Our energy is vital to us and it’s important we pour into the things that fuel us, light us up, nourish our bodies, minds and hearts.

If you are a follower, I implore you to cull your following list to include people that give true value to you.

If you are a creator, set yourself some boundaries. Don’t give in to the unspoken expectations of social media. Just because others do, doesn’t mean you have to. Your people will find you and you will grow on your own terms.

Privacy is not secrecy, it’s self-respect.

1. From many of my client’s and my own personal experience, it’s not sustainable or effective long term

2. Repeated dieting actually can lead to weight gain because the brain is kept wondering when the next time we eat is, or how much, so it stock piles fat to keep us ticking along

We can get sucked into the often temporary, motivating feeling of flipping your diet 180 degrees to be cleaner, less caloric, less in quantity. The high of a health kick where momentarily, skipping breakfast feels great - it gives the digestion a break. You feel flatter, less bloated, energised. Until the coffee wears off and you realise you’re actually just running on cortisol because your body is in fight or flight mode. When food intake drops but stimulation stays high, the body often compensates by increasing cortisol and adrenaline to keep blood sugar stable. This is a stress response, not true energy. Then inflammation sets in and your body is really stressed now, subsequently storing fat.

And the cycle begins.

If this sounds like you, I have good news.

You don’t need to put yourself through this. In fact, you don’t have to even cut out anything you enjoy at all. Just the quantity we are consuming it. Understanding our bodies and why we develop dis-eases is often due to excess. We can’t have too much of a good thing, thats where the issues arise, in imbalanced eating.

The other factor in this equation is our mental perceptions around food. We know our words and beliefs hold great power. What you embody, you are. If we believe that delicious pain au chocolat will add cms to our waist, science has shown it might just do that. Preoccupation with food and self-judgment creates stress, increasing cortisol and we just learned that high cortisol encourages the body to store fat. In addition to this, by thinking intensely about, or obsessing over, foods that you’ve forbidden yourself can cause the body to release insulin in anticipation, leading to higher insulin levels that promote fat storage even before the food is consumed.

Surprising but not, isn’t it?

The answer isn’t strict dieting and restriction. Don’t get me wrong, you definitely shouldn’t have a packet of Krispy Kreme donuts a week but we can start to develop a better relationship with food by not hating the things we love. Just reducing them, deciding they don’t fuel us positively or really fill that emotional hole.

Over time, as our routine builds, our bodies get healthier and our brain learns, we can enjoy those treats without guilt. Straight to the heart and the calories won’t make a dent in how far you’ve come.

Photoshoots where the models don’t exist and the clothes never materialised.

Breaking news coverage of tragedies that never occurred to the degree they’re portrayed, showing images of people who never existed.

What our future children would look like at every month of their life with insane accuracy (although only time will tell).

Memories stretched, filtered, and embellished, until the holiday no longer resembles the real moment.

Sometimes we can spot it, most of the time we feel it.

Research professor and bestselling author Brené Brown spoke on AI - “AI is such a seductive alternative for tapping out of human vulnerability.”

We are craving real people. Real interactions. Real faces with expressions that colour their conversations. People speaking from their soul. Reading sentences that aren’t perfect, not riddled with em dashes. Sharing their imperfectness with others who likely feel the same. Developing true connections.

We are in desperate need of pure creation, not always careful scripted content that ends up being a marketing tactic or engagement tool.

When we step out of the mental hole we get sucked into and see content for what it truly is, the contrast becomes obvious. There is energy in a human exchange, and a subtle absence of it with AI.

As tempting as it may be, engaging AI too much has already shown to have detrimental impacts on our brain. We literally become lazier and dumber. On an energetic level, we suffer just as much as the brain does. We listen to our intuition less, we become lonelier, less social, more robotic, awkward and uncomfortable. We regress.

If you look to ChatGPT as gospel, please stop.

If you don’t think you do, audit yourself.

Every day we need to nurture our discernment, our critical thinking, our essence, our passions, our creativity, our vitality and authenticity in a world that easily pulls the wool over our eyes.

I absolutely still do, but only a short time ago, coffee really didn’t love me back.

During my studies of natural health and Ayurveda, I discovered that coffee is rajasic, meaning it is fiery, stimulating and also very dehydrating.

Now, because I know and understand my mind-body constitution (one major key to your health), I can see where I was going wrong for so long.

For a few years of my life, my external world was pretty ungrounded and not predictable at all. For a girl who loves her comfort zone and hates change, this was hard mentally.

Because I was faced with things completely out of my control, my mental landscape suffered. I was in constant survival mode, cortisol through the roof from the moment I woke up. Always on the defence, inflamed everywhere, hormones off kilter, unable to digest anything comfortably. For years, not fun.

Our bodies react in survival mode to protect us, but after life started to give me a break for a while, my body kept responding the same. It wasn’t until I dug deeper in my studies, learning about the mind body connection.

I stumbled upon this theory -

What if my reaction to coffee is shaped as much by my mind as my body?

Not a new idea, I know, but sometimes it takes going through something first hand for the answer to truly land with you.

So that’s what I did.

I fine tuned every moment, so consciously aware of how I moved throughout my day. One fundamental thing I did was made sure I had enough or extra time to do everything in my day. From picking my outfit the night before to setting my alarm earlier so I could wake up slowly, eating breakfast without multitasking, to leaving the house with a buffer instead of rushing out the door. It really made a world of difference to me.

I know not all of us have the luxury of more time, when days are scheduled to the minute, filled with meetings, children, and too little sleep.

A little calm can be created in chaos 1. If you really want to and 2. if you make it very easy for yourself. Waking up just 5 minutes earlier for a grounding, meditative practice can completely change how you respond to the day.

That practice could be simply staring out the window, breathing deeply, thinking of nothing.

When I finally reintroduced coffee into my morning routine, it felt much more aligned. I eat something before I drink it, I stick to one a day and I skip it if I wake up feeling anxious for whatever reason.

So coffee and I are back together. It was a long journey but I did the digging to get to root cause of why we weren’t working and healed it.

Now it’s back in my life, it no longer tips me out of balance.