Health Archives

What I’ve Learned: Mental Health During COVID-19

Last week, we talked about how challenging October was and why it’s important to create new intentions for November. (Feel free to check out that post here). The changes we are experiencing in November are far from over, regarding COVID-19 and the political climate. The ironic part about this year is that we are really getting in touch with our humanity.

Developing awareness around our mental health, during COVID-19, is something we are developing. It’s necessary NOW because we all are going through something… we are all impacted, in different ways.

Looking at what we’re all dealing with, we can find some common ground. We’ve all settled into some sort of new norm this year that we haven’t had before. A lot of people are isolated and lonely who are not reaching out or talking. Many are having trouble talking or engaging with others. Some are self-harming and others are dying. We’ve lost friends to suicide, and are at risk of losing more.

Coming together to support each other

We watch This is Us and there are some really great examples of what families are going through. In the latest episode, Randall sought therapy. He talks about what it takes to find the right therapist.

I want to offer similar opportunities and resources for help, and one is a really amazing organization called Roots Counseling in Cedar City, Utah. Milton and Rochelle are the owners and are amazing at what they do. They’ve developed an online therapy program for those that are struggling during COVID-19. The therapy they offer is dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). In the world of behavior change, DBT is a really great resource.

Roots Counseling has been a great resource for my family. The fact that people close to me have been able to access this therapy online during COVID-19 has put me at ease. It’s available for your family, too.

DBT helps with is developing new skills. It’s so much different than regular psycho-therapy or talk therapy. DBT helps develop new skills by building foundational behavioral changes. What’s been a huge topic for mental health during COVID-19, is that everything people are isolated, unengaged,…. which results in feeling lonely, anxious and depressed.. DBT at Roots Counseling is designed to help these issues.

Roots Counseling

Our family is separated during the holidays

My kids and family in Utah have been on my mind a lot. With COVID-19 cases rising again in Utah at an alarming rate, people close to me are getting nervous to leave their homes again. My oldest daughter, Acacia, is immuno-compromised which means that everything we planned for Thanksgiving is being canceled. Those who aren’t immuno-compromised in the U.S. have “COVID fatigue”, getting tired of staying away from friends and wearing a mask. This behavior puts the immuno-compromised at a huge risk. On top of that, it’s getting cold and dark, which multiplies the COVID mental health issue.

What can you do? I urge you to take the time for yourself. Whether that’s taking a morning walk around your neighborhood, meditating, journaling, baking, Facetiming with family and friends… prioritize yourself, your connections and your own mental health.

Healing the planet starts with you.

Share in the comments below some techniques that have worked for you, or any questions that you have. I would love to start a conversation about this.

The Journey

Community Connections, Health

I’ve been practicing yoga for about 20 years, but my journey to becoming a yogi has been a priority of mine in the last 3 years. The transition to yogi for me meant to fully embody the practice, not just in the hour long class at a studio, but in my everyday life. In this blog I want to chat about my yoga teacher training, the amazing yogi I have been practicing with, and what I have learned from practicing at home during COVID.

Teacher training

I had been looking for a lot of different yoga teacher training when starting my yogi journey, and I decided to do my training through Corepower Yoga since they do a 200-hour training. I was really happy that I did go through Corepower, I really loved the structure of their classes and I really enjoy the ability to have consistency in the practice to help me develop and grow. When you’re in yoga that constantly changes, you are just a student of that class. When you get into a class that has a very similar structure each time and doesn’t vary, then you start seeing how you are developing. In the same pose day over day, you can see how you’re progressing, changing, and developing. Everybody at Corepower is trained in the same way and focuses on proper alignment and joint health. This in itself is important to me, but the consistency of practice at this studio is what ultimately made me choose this studio.

When I got my training there, I met someone very special and his name is Joshua. He taught several of the classes in my teacher training, and he has a great foundation in philosophy and a background in anatomy. I really loved just being a student in his class, and the most exciting thing for me on Sundays was always to go to his class. It’s a funny thing, when I think about his name, I immediately think of the song “Take Me To Church” by Hozier, because that’s what Joshua’s yoga class is like for me on a Sunday morning. He brings things that are going on in our world that can be very conflicting to a place of balance and harmony. He brings it to you on your mat where you can actually process what’s going on in the outside world through yoga. He is able to bring together a community that’s very diverse in background, views and opinions into processing together.

Practicing again

I’ve been wanting to go back to Joshua’s class on Sundays, but due to COVID-19 my yoga studio has been closed. I had to develop my own practice at home, and I realized that I couldn’t have developed my own practice if it hadn’t been for the skills that the classroom has taught me. This weekend I was able to “go to church” with Joshua, he is now teaching classes outside and I was able to get together for his class at Kate Sessions Park overlooking the ocean. He brought a beautiful message to the practice, and I would love to invite you all to come to his live classes at the park. Find his schedule here.

When we have an instructor like him who can help take us through the journey, we can get a lot deeper personally and get more connected to a diverse community and help find balance and peace to deal with the things that are happening in our world. We don’t pretend that the things in the world aren’t happening, it is more of coming together and dealing with what we need to get through as a community. Reach out to me if you would like to come to his classes with me!

from my practice this morning:

When we’re working on creating victory in our lives, we have to make space for that. Waiting for victory to happen, or chasing fires and hoping victory will come of it does not work. When we are able to get preventative, putting our mindfulness and self-care in front of everything, then we get to actually sort out how the victory is going to happen. It allow us to create the space, have clarity and develop a structure so we know exactly how our day is going to look in order to be victorious. Then we have the power and grace in things to happen the way that we intend for them to happen.

We’ve been watching Alone on Amazon Prime, and there is a certain mentality that I’ve been seeing on that show that is similar to people who have a dedicated practice or are successful entrepreneurs, and it’s the ability to get their mind right. The background of the show is that 10-15 survival experts are left in a remote location with 10 items and are told to survive. There is no time limit, there is no interaction. Just survive, and if you want to leave, then call for help. Some left because of an injury, a broken heart, or just not being able to battle their internal demons. The ones who stay and win the show are the ones who are able to keep trying and create new strategies, new plans, and keep innovating until the last day when they win the $500,000. That shows so much about mindset, it’s not about always doing the right thing, but it’s about always having intention and creating victories for yourself, rather than trying to let someone else do it for you.

Nutrition for Entrepreneurs

Health

I spent the last three years finding myself. I didn’t realize I was lost, under a pile of tasks, until I started to make a personal inquiry about finding peace and joy. That journey began with the implementation of self-care, including: nutrition, exercise, and meditation. It wasn’t until I started receiving profound results, that I discovered my true self.

Life has a way of carrying you along for a ride, unconscious about who you are, why you live the way you do and how you go about doing it… at least I was.

I heard a yogi say, while I was on my mat, that if I wanted to find myself all I needed to do is incorporate the practice. This was such an interesting concept to me and it felt so simple. As I began to reflect on my yoga practice, just getting on and off the mat on a regular basis, I began to see a pattern of deep reflection. I was developing a relationship with my physical body, with my chakra energy centers and with calming my mental mind.

I realized, as I focused on creating STRUCTURE in all areas of my business, this must also be created in my self care practice. I began to incorporate a “practice” or regular schedule for yoga, meditation, sleep and nutrition. It’s not that anything was hard…. It’s just that I allowed it to become regular (the same as yoga, allowing me to deepen my relationship on a physical & spiritual level).

If I were to deepen my self care, all encompassing, I could incorporate the same structure, a practice, of developing a relationship with nutritious foods and a sleep schedule that flows with Gaia, our Mother Earth.

I began looking for ways to clean out my mess, so I could start my practice clean. Then, I found a medical medium, Anthony William. What I like about him is this: Since age four, when he shocked his family by announcing that his symptom-free grandmother had lung cancer (which medical testing soon confirmed), Anthony has been using his gift to “read” people’s conditions and tell them how to recover their health.

https://www.medicalmedium.com/liver-rescue

Anthony William wrote the book linked above titled The Liver Rescue, designed to guide you in cleansing your liver from toxins. We followed the instructions in the Liver Rescue and had a very insightful 9 day cleanse. In all, it was about two weeks of a complete diet change. It left me feeling renewed, detoxed, and ready to connect to food and nutrition at a whole new pace and newfound freedom.

One thing that is a constant, and will be implemented into my mornings forever: Lime Water first thing in the morning, followed by celery juice.

There are some AMAZING smoothie recipes in this book. The staple smoothie is the Liver Rescue Smoothie and its PACKED with goodness: papaya, banana, blueberries, and dragon fruit.

I actually gained a relationship with my liver and gallbladder, which came as a complete surprise because I had never really acknowledged all that they do with my drinking and eating habits. I’ll do better, now, offering them a break and some clean options, every now and then 🙂

In addition to the Liver Rescue, Anthony William is also the originator of the Global Celery Juice Movement. Millions of people are healing thanks to drinking 16 ounces of straight celery juice on an empty stomach every day – a specific healing practice that Anthony has been recommending since he was a child in 1975. With the release of his four bestselling books, all of which include information about the undiscovered healing properties of celery juice, millions of people have now tried celery juice and found it to offer them improvement, relief and healing from all kinds of acute and chronic illnesses and symptoms, including digestive issues, skin conditions, migraines, fatigue, autoimmune illnesses, brain fog, and hundreds of others.