Mornings, Mondays + Periods | All Amazing Fresh Starts

I remember the time I used to look at my period’s imminent arrival with a certain sense of dread, an “oh no, this again” sort of outlook.

So, it’s incredible to be in a place where I actually look forward to my period. And I’ll tell you why. 

You period is a fresh start. 

Now I know there are PUH-LEN-TEE of women who would disagree.

And I get it. Periods can suck. They can come at inconvenient times, cause of lot of pain and suffering, and make some god awful messes. 

I’m not here to tell you that changing your perspective can heal your horrible periods. That requires a bit more work. BUT changing your outlook is part of that journey. 

Let’s say you don’t have end of the world periods. Today is for you. 

I was having a great conversation with one of my “students" recently, and she mentioned how she looked forward to her period.

She explained it like hitting a restart button on everything. 

And I couldn’t agree more. 

There’s always this big sigh of relief when I start bleeding, almost as if my body is giving me permission to just take a much needed "slow out” (It’s like a time out, but with out actually stopping everything. Just moving at a more conscious pace.) 

And since the dawn of time there’s also a few, "Phew, I’m not pregnant” sighs of relief. 

It’s like a brand new year, or the start to a new week. 

Later this month I’m going to talk about my love for Mondays, and I think it’s very much the same thing. 

If you’re a morning person it’s quite similar to waking up to a brand new day ahead of you. 

It’s like, no matter what happened yesterday, last week, month or year this is a clean slate. 

Your period (along with the rest of these moments) is a great time to just let go of all that baggage you’ve been carrying around up to that point. 

Let it go. Shed a few layers. And enjoy that effortless lightness that follows. 

Now, you may think I’m a total loon. 

Someone who likes mornings, Monday and getting her periods? 

A few years ago I would have rolled my eyes and gagged a little if I heard some peppy young thing spouting all this. 

But these are the moments that all but beg for us to hit that reset button. 

And I realized as she said all this that I viewed it the same exact way. 

When my period is on its way I always slow down, step back from life and assess a few things. How’s it all going? What’s working? What can I let go of? What can I do to improve this next month? 

I take a deep breath and kind of re-up on all of my goals, redrafting them for the month ahead. 

And I promise if you take this perspective on your coming periods you’ll see nothing but positive results. When I first heard about some of these concepts, just being aware of them was enough for changes to start taking place without any real effort from myself. 

But now that I have put in a conscious effort I am pleasantly surprised month after month. 

Stop Counting Calories | A Better Use of Food Journaling

I have tried to count calories on maybe two separate occasions, and both times I failed at whatever restrictive goal I had set for myself. 

I don’t know about you but I finally realized that counting calories just isn’t something I’m interested in. When I hear about people tracking what they eat, the majority seems to be using it to keep track of the caloric aspect of food. 

But today I wanted to share an alternative benefit I have found from tracking what you eat, and it has nothing to do with losing weight or restricting yourself. 

The first time I discovered the power of tracking what I ate was back in 2012. I had suffered from never ending stomach pain that I just sort of wrote off as normal for the longest time. I was uncomfortable, groggy, and constipated. 

But it finally clicked, pain and discomfort should not be the norm. Not to mention that I thought one bowel movement a week was perfectly normal. 

I decided to track what I ate for a week, and how I felt after that meal. A pretty simple task. I knew it must be something I was eating that was causing me so much pain, but I couldn’t figure it out before recording my meals. 

So I would write down what I ate, the ingredients involved, and then how I felt after. Was there pain, discomfort, bloating, and when was I going to the bathroom. Things like that. 

From this I discovered that meat, especially red meat was a big trigger for the stomach pain. I was a pretty typical Iowa girl. I love potatoes and bread, but I decided what’s the harm in giving up meat for a week just to see if anything happened? 

And if you’ve heard any of my story before you know the answer. I felt so so much better after that week. But just to make sure, I decided to eat meat once more to see if I could tell a difference. And I could. The stomach pain, bloating, etc. returned quickly after eating that meal containing meat. 

I thought, ok what’s the big deal with giving up meat. I can do that. So I started in on my vegetarian journey in October 2012. I felt so much better after that switch that in the following April I decided to go 100% vegan as well as cut out gluten. And that summer was a definite peak in life on how I felt. I had no more stomach pain, bloating, I lost 5 - 10 pounds, and started having daily bowel movements, which I’ve learned is the norm.

I have done it on a smaller scale since then. Sometimes while traveling abroad I will experience some digestive issues. By tracking what I am consuming, and how I feel after I am able to see what foods I need to cut out while my stomach heals itself. 

Another time I’ve done it is when I started breaking out again this past summer through this winter. I started paying attention, and discovered the culprit, sugar. Because of this I challenged myself to take a month long break from added refined sugar, and have been pleasantly pleased with the results. No longer is my forehead broken out. Yes, I still get the occasional pimple or two around ovulation, but that cluster of ever lingering acne on my forehead is almost gone. I have also noticed renewed energy as well as less of an afternoon fog, and sudden drops in energy throughout the day. 

What in your life is currently ailing you? Is there a chance it could be related to your diet or fixed by food? Start tracking your meals, not restricting anything, but just noting how you feel after each meal. What are your food triggers? Maybe you don’t have any, but maybe you do. 

Keeping a food journal is a great first step into starting to pay attention to what you put in your body, next you can start noticing environmental factors. Quality of sleep, daily activities, exercise, relationships, work, etc. 

Feel free to share anything you’ve noticed through food journaling.  

I Started Saying "I Love You" to My Acne

Crazy I know, but one day I just started doing it. 

As I would go through my skincare routine every morning, and evening, I began to say "I love you, and you, and I especially love you" (to the bigger pimples) as I rubbed my cleanser, serums, lotions and whatever other elixirs I felt like that day. 

I’m not quite sure why I started or what exactly made me do it. But doing it made me feel better about my breakouts. It honestly did. 

And it reminded me of something I used to do years ago, where I would name the really big pimples. I would then go around introducing him to my friends, and other weird stuff like that. By making it into a little bit of a joke, it was easier than trying to hide it and hate it every time I looked in a mirror. 

Now, I don’t believe that by me saying “I Love You” is healing my acne, but it did create a significant shift in my perspective towards my zits. I stopped picking at my skin when I started thinking more fondly of it. And I started taking better care of it, taking more time each day. 

And it made me want to do things nice things like drink more water and eat better food to nourish my body and my skin. 

Google “power of positive words experiment” and you’ll see science fair like set ups where someone takes the same food (an apple cut in half, or rice scooped from the same pot), keep them in two separate containers, and each day these people say sweet, nice things to one, and hateful, mean things to the other.

Guess which one started decaying and molding faster? Yup, the one that was spewed all the negativity, and hate. 

I believe in the power of energy because it changes how you act towards something. And what you put out into the world is what you receive (not always of course). 

It’s very similar to changing your perspective towards your menstrual cycle. If you can start looking at it in a positive, loving way, you’ll begin to learn how to coexist with your own unique cycle. 

So I challenge you to start looking into not only your mirror, but to you life in general with love and understanding. Say kind, loving words to yourself. Hell, set up your own apple experiment if you’d like. And I guarantee you’ll be surprisingly pleased with the results.