You’re not fully there. You’re reaching, eating something you don’t even really want, not quite tasting it. Your hand goes in again before you’ve registered the first bite. And somewhere underneath all of it is a feeling in your body: something is buzzy…unsettled…a bit frayed at the edges. Something needing. Something wanting.

I know this feeling, friends. I’ve been in it recently.

We had a rocky re-entry from travels: a run of insanely early wake-ups, walls and patience too thin to hold everyone’s big (LOUD) feelings. Amsterdam was incredible! The jet-lag was not. Our windshield cracked. And then the replacement cracked. Our toilet overflowed, murky water snaking insistently across the recently refinished hardwood in our bedroom. My husband got laid off. The news: sigh. My sleep has been poor. My eyes itchy.

I’ve found myself drifting toward the pantry, eating a salted chocolate-covered almond I’m not even hungry for, and then another. Or a handful of my kid’s chocolate sunflower cereal, and just...noticing.

Oh. Interesting.

I’ve been doing this work long enough to know that the reaching is not the problem. The reaching is information. My nervous system was doing what nervous systems do when the floor feels like it’s shifting: looking for something fast, reliable, familiar. A hit of something that registers as relief.

And also: that chocolate-covered almond was not going to fix the thing that felt unsettled.

Both things are true. Holding both of them is pretty much the whole game.

This is one of the reasons I don’t believe in “solving” sugar (or cravings) forever.

The relationship

What I believe in instead is relationship. Curiosity. Experimentation.

I grew up in a family where food is love. My mom is an incredible baker (among other talents). She made wedding cakes. She still makes extraordinary desserts. All the women in my family are remarkable cooks, and food has always been one of the primary ways we celebrate, notice, gather, remember, and show up for each other.

I am a live-to-eat person: full stop. When we go on vacation, food is one of the things we plan for. It is one of the main things we debrief.

What did we eat? Was it worth it? Was the pastry life-changing?

(Side bar: I did, in fact, discover life-changing gluten-free croissants at a bakery called Craft Coffee & Pastry in de Pijp in Amsterdam. I went back for warm pastries three days in a row.)

This is my inheritance. It is part of how I know pleasure.

And also: I was diagnosed with a chronic inflammatory condition in my early twenties, and I’ve spent a lot of my adult life trying to understand how different foods actually land in my body. I haven’t had the luxury of not paying attention. I’ve done elimination diets. Experimented with dates and maple syrup and monk fruit and allulose. Spent periods eating no added sugar at all, to understand more about how my body (and my brain) function without it.

I’ve learned from all of that: the question is not how do I become the kind of person who never has a complicated moment with sugar?

The question is: can I stay in relationship with myself when my pattern or my needs change?

Can I notice without turning it into shame spiral? Can I be honest without getting mean? Can I care for my body without turning food into one more place I have to prove that I am good? Can I turn toward myself with love and curiosity, and an intention to tend all parts of me when cravings arise?

And yes, sugar matters.

I don’t want to pretend the science is irrelevant here.

Sugar can definitely impact health. Not because it is inherently bad, but because it is metabolically active. And because we were designed to encounter it rarely, not have it laced through every food item we encounter.

Added sugar can affect blood sugar, especially when it arrives quickly, in large amounts, in liquid form, or without much fiber, protein, or fat to slow things down. Liquid sugar is probably the clearest example here: soda, juice, sweetened coffee drinks, and the like can deliver a large amount of sugar quickly, without much chewing, fiber, or fullness signal. That is a very different metabolic event than eating something sweet at the end of a meal.

And sugar’s impact is not only about blood sugar. There are other pathways too: glycation, oxidative stress, inflammation, the way excess fructose is processed in the liver, the way intensely sweet foods can shape cravings and taste preferences over time.

So no, sugar is not totally neutral. But the whole pattern matters. The dose matters. The delivery system matters. The body receiving it matters.

Context isn’t a loophole. It’s the crux of the story.

Sometimes I need the reminder

Chocolate is nonnegotiable for me.

I have gone through periods where I cut it out for health reasons, and I can do it, but I certainly don’t desire to do it. I invite it back in as quickly as I can.

Also, cinnamon buns.

There’s this gluten-free bakery in Cambridge called Verveine. If you’re gluten-free and live in the Boston area (or even if you’re gluten-full, honestly), stop what you’re doing. Their cinnamon buns will knock your socks off. I love them. Honestly, even Cinnabon. I walk past a Cinnabon in an airport and some animal part of me wants to be in that line. Being gluten-free does have some advantages, in that I can’t indulge that particular airport fantasy. But back to Verveine.

If I eat a whole cinnamon bun, I feel terrible.

Does that mean I never eat them? No. It means I know how they make me feel, and I try to respect my body most of the time because I don’t like feeling bad. I don’t keep them in my house. I don’t eat one every week, or even every month. Sometimes I have a couple of bites instead of the whole thing, and freeze the rest for another day.

Sometimes I dream about them for long enough that I motivate to go get one, eat too much because it’s REALLY QUITE delicious, and then my body reminds me: Ooooh right. Confirmed. This amount of sugary goo does not feel good for me.

But I don’t read that whole experience as a failure. It’s just my body giving feedback.

My brain and my mouth (and probably other, deeper parts of me) wanted a thing. A decadent, delicious thing that felt like an adventure and like a treat. The thing was EXQUISITE, and I ate it and then that didn’t feel good. Thanks, body, for reminding me what this feels like.

I honestly think that this give and take…this feedback…is exactly what a relationship with food is supposed to look like. Because bodies are (literally) always changing. And sometimes you just need a confirmation in your old meat suit that something is still true.

Ramekin desserts

In our house, for the moment at least, we’ve settled on having dessert on offer every night. Something small.

My husband and I frequently share a chocolate-covered Yasso bar with a bunch of frozen raspberries in a cute little ramekin. I call it our ramekin dessert. Or maybe we swap the yogurt bar for a small flourless chocolate brownie. My kids get one of those tiny Trader Joe’s ice cream cones, or a handful of M&Ms, or a cookie, or whatever homemade thing is currently in rotation. (They choose.)

Mostly we all choose to have dessert. But also sometimes one or more of us don’t, if we’re really stuffed, or just not feeling it. Whether dessert is available is not really a question. But it is also not the thing that fills you up. It is a little sweet treat at the end of a meal. Allowed. Ordinary. Not a big drama.

We also generally feel better when the sweets aren’t wildly, intensely sweet. We really like almond flour banana muffins with mini chocolate chips. Banana “nice cream.” Frozen raspberries with good dark chocolate. Things that are sweet and satisfying but still feel like they belong in a body someone is actively tending.

I’m not saying this is the right way. There are a hundred approaches that work for different people. Dessert rarely, but make it really count. Fruit only. No dessert at all. The point isn’t that nightly ramekin dessert is the answer. It’s that we figured out what works for us right now, in this season, and we’re open to changing the plan when we get new feedback.

I like having chocolate specifically, and dessert more generally, in my life on a daily basis. I also feel better when I don’t eat a ton of sugar. At this point, my genuine preference is that the baseline level of sweetness in things isn’t turned up to eleven. None of these things are necessarily in conflict

I want the pleasure. I want the ritual. I also want to feel well.

I want it all.

And I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

Back to the pantry

The reaching isn’t bad or wrong. It’s just information. It’s my body saying: something in me feels unsettled. Something in me wants soothing. Something in me is reaching for relief. Or for pleasure. Or all of the above.

For me, that craving is usually for something sweet and chocolaty. Maybe you prefer salty/crunchy. Or maybe it’s a cycle: a little of one, a little of the other, rinse, repeat.

A sea-salt chocolate-covered almond is not going to fix what’s actually unsettled. But the pattern is almost always worth noticing.

The reality in my life right now is that there are a bunch of balls in the air, and at least some of them will probably get dropped.

The almonds, for me, are a quick fix, but almost never a durable one. They are a signal, not a solution.

And when I have enough capacity, I get curious.

Maybe I skip the almonds for a week, just to notice what would shift. What I would reach for? How would that feel?

Maybe I pause before the almond is in my mouth and ask the question I frequently give my clients: What’s the most loving thing I can do for myself in this moment?

Maybe I want to crawl into bed earlier and read a juicy novel. Or start my morning by dancing to a silly song with my kids while we’re making breakfast.

Or maybe I need to give myself permission to eat the chocolate-covered almond with full presence, extracting every bit of pleasure from it, instead of entering a trance state.

I honestly don’t know yet.

Which is why I’m much more interested in experiments than I am in rules.

A way to listen, try something, learn from it, and keep going.

P.S. This is the exact territory I’m going into in The Sweet Spot, a 3-week Body Partnership Lab starting June 11. Three weeks of honest looking: at science, cravings, patterns, at what your body is actually telling you, and what might actually move the needle for you, specifically. If you’ve been nodding along while reading this, I’d love to have you there. Enrollment closes June 5th!

I’ve been working on this post for a while, and I’ve been having a hard time hitting “send”. I think it’s because although I love the idea of emergence, I’m actually wildly uncomfortable when I’m inside it.

I like to chew on an idea until it feels fully formed and I can hold both ends of it. Tie it up into something like a bow, or at least a square knot. And honestly? I can’t quite get there. So this is me following a thread I picked up a few weeks ago and haven’t been able to put down.

We’re going to meander.

I’m just going to trust that you’re here for the ride.

Here it is: what if the next right step isn’t always to try harder, track better, push through resistance, or finally become the magical version of ourselves who has the whole thing figured out?

What if, sometimes, the doorway is lightness? Pleasure, even? Or (gasp) fun?

What if taking “the work” (and ourselves) less seriously is actually the more efficient way through?

Cosmic joke

About a month ago, I did a plant medicine ceremony. I thought I was there for a serious download about my work, life, the universe, and everything. Ha. The main message I came home with was this:

Take yourself less seriously, sis.

Play like it’s all a game and you’re in on the cosmic joke. Move with more lightness. Follow what feels good.

I’ll be honest. That was not the medicine I was looking for.

It also felt, frankly, a little irresponsible.

Because we are living in what I consider to be very serious times. Times that are hard not to feel deeply and take earnestly. The world is on fire in fifty different directions, and some part of me was like: really? Follow what feels good? Play like it’s a game? That sounds frivolous at best, and maybe…not okay?

And honestly: I’m a serious person. Sort of constitutionally serious. I feel things deeply, want to get to the bottom of things, and have never really figured out how to do work that doesn’t feel like an intimate part of me. It’s not that I’m no fun. I can be silly, spontaneous, weird and adventurous. But I’m probably the person at the party you have a deep, honest conversation with, not the one dancing on the table at 4AM when the cops come. Please. I was home in bed hours ago.

So when the medicine said this way and gestured toward something more spacious and experimental and…um…fun, my first response was something like: Oh, interesting. But are you sure that message is for me?

And then: Okay, okay. But how, exactly? And also a little: And…to what end?

In the kitchen after the ceremony, I watched a friend mix the two soups that were on offer, a creamy carrot and a chicken, together. Another woman looked positively scandalized. My friend shrugged and said, “You can do whatever you want.”

I fucking love that.

How often are we following rules no one is actually enforcing? How often are we standing in the middle of a situation that feels much more fixed than it really is, when we could just...make a different choice? Mix the soups?

Make it weird, and see what happens?

Smooshy pizza dough

The following Friday, I showed up to forest class with my daughter. And no one else was there.

I had misread the email (unsurprising, and very on-brand for me right now). No class. Just Alice and me and the trees and the slow April light filtering through the pines.

On another day, I might have harumphed. Bailed. Headed back home to work. Carving this time into my schedule is hard, and the infinite small-business checklist is always humming loudly in the background. But on this particular day, we stayed.

“Let’s just pretend there’s class: it’ll be forest friends for two.”

We took our usual route with some side-quests: a new fort, a hill we’d never climbed, a vernal pool punctuated by mossy stones so green they looked fake. We mailed leaf letters to my grandmothers at the “post-office” stump. We pressed our bellies against our favorite grandfather tree. And then, at the puppet show clearing, we spread our blanket, lay down and looked up at the tree canopy, and above that, at the cerulean sky. We listened for and counted bird songs. We giggled at their silliness. We felt the warm sun on our bodies, and the cool ground beneath our backs.

Alice reached over and rubbed the soft part of my belly where my sweatshirt had ridden up. “Mommy,” she said, “I love your belly. It’s so soft. Like smooshy pizza dough.”

And I just...melted.

I felt so complete in that moment. So relaxed and present: really there. I had the thought: if this was my last hour on earth and this is how I spent it, I would die happy.

Heal harder

In my work I spend a lot of time with people who are doing the very earnest, sometimes very hard work of trying to understand and care for their bodies.

And our culture does not make this easier. We have this very particular flavor of wellness that I’d call “heal harder”: more supplements, more protocols, more things to track or to hack, more ways to be doing it wrong. More items on the list of things you should be doing every day for the rest of your life or else.

And it almost creates this sense that if we’re not healing harder, we’re abandoning ourselves.

In a recent session, I was talking with a client about emotional eating, hunger, fullness, and that strange dissonance of realizing, in real time: I don’t think I’m really hungry, but I’m still putting food in my mouth. But wait…am I hungry? What am I actually needing right now?

We were looking at the 3:30-to-6pm stretch when the day starts to fray: kids home from school, snack happening, dinner needing to become real. And somewhere in that tangle, I felt a nudge from the medicine ceremony: What if this didn’t have to be so serious?

What if we weren’t going to shift the pattern with more rules? What if the most useful question wasn’t “How do I stop doing this?” but “What would actually meet me here?”

Maybe she actually did need a snack at that time. And what if it didn’t have to be the most virtuous snack possible? Could it be joyful? Sensual? A date stuffed with tahini. Chocolate chia pudding with raspberries. Something sweet and beautiful and grounding, with enough nourishment to actually hold her. Could she take a deep breath and let the pleasure in?

Just trying to make it fun

And then she shared a story about her kid.

She had been trying to get him into the car. It was one of those hard mornings that every parent knows intimately. They were already late. And he ran away from her, laughing.

Which, as a mom, is the sort of thing that can make your last nerve leave the chat.

But when she finally caught up with him, he looked at her and said, “Mom, I’m just trying to make it fun.”

I haven’t stopped thinking about that.

Because of course he was. She was trying to get him into the car. He was trying to make the obligatory getting-into-the-car part of the morning less miserable.

And yes, sometimes we really do just need to Get. In. The. Car. But what if he was also naming something true? (Aren’t kids, usually, if we really pay attention?)

Because force doesn’t always move things faster. Sometimes it just makes the resistance dig in. Sometimes the soft thing, the playful thing, the thing that feels wildly inefficient, may actually be the way through.

What if a little more pleasure, a little more play, a little more “how could this feel better?” is not frivolous, but functional?

Cait Van Damm, rad pelvic floor PT colleague of mine, recently wrote about hedonism as a path to body connection: the idea that feeling good in your body can give your brain evidence that something else is possible. I keep thinking about that. About what shifts when we move toward our bodies with delight instead of a clipboard.

Not pretending the hard thing isn’t hard, but letting pleasure count as information.

A way back into relationship. A signal from the body that says: something in me is still alive enough to want.

The fool

There’s a card in the tarot called the Fool. Beginner’s mind. The thing I love about the Fool isn’t that they’re naive; it’s that they’re light. They enter each moment as a genuine experiment. They move without having calcified around the right answer yet. Every step is information. Every stumble teaches them something about the terrain, about their own body, about what they actually need.

This is, I think, one of the sneakier costs of taking your health (and yourself) too seriously: it can make you forget that this is your one precious life. Not a dress rehearsal or a before-photo. You can spend so long trying to fix your body that you never really get to live in it.

What if the experiment didn’t have to be so high-stakes? What if it was enough to soften one thing, make one moment 5% more pleasurable or more fun, and notice what shifts?

Maybe that’s the wisdom of the Fool: when you’re genuinely experimenting, every outcome gives you something to work with. Not because discipline is bad. Because curiosity has better range.

(Tarot sidebar: I literally cannot wait for Lindsay Mack’s Soul Tarot deck and book to be released later this month. They are my absolute fav.)

A prayer for emergence

I’ve been saying the Ho’oponopono prayer lately.

I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.

To myself. The part of me that got it wrong today. The part of me that overscheduled and under-slept and snapped at my kid and ate lunch standing up and forgot to drink water. The part of me that took everything so seriously that she forgot, briefly, to feel the sun. (Because let’s be clear, I don’t always make the choice to stay in the forest…)

And the part of me writing this now, no longer floating in the afterglow of the ceremony, but inside the press of real life: the work, family logistics, financial uncertainty, the too-many-tabs-open feeling of trying to build a more spacious life while still living inside the old structure.

What I love about this prayer is that it doesn’t ask me to be perfect. Or even to be comfortable. It just asks me to stay in relationship with myself.

I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.

Over and over. A kind of rhythm. An acknowledgment that I will always have something to forgive myself for, and that forgiveness, gratitude, and love get extended anyway.

Unconditionally.

Maybe that’s what “taking it less seriously” actually means. Not not caring. Not pretending the hard things aren’t hard, or that important things shouldn’t be deeply felt. Not floating above grief or pain or the very real work of tending a body in a difficult world.

But remembering that force is not the only way through.

And that sometimes you have to get it wrong to figure out what feels right.

Holding yourself, the serious and the silly and the smooshy-pizza-dough-belly self, with a little more grace. Maybe even a little more humor. And inviting a little more pleasure along the way.

What if making the soup of your life a little weird is the move?

I’m asking because I’m still figuring it out.

I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.

P.S. If this thread is tugging at something in you, I’m going to be working with it more directly in The Sweet Spot, a 3-week Body Partnership Lab on sugar, pleasure, cravings, and what your body is actually asking for.

It’s not a sugar cleanse or another set of rules. It’s a guided experiment in listening more closely, trying something on, and seeing what your body teaches you.

We start June 11. I’d love to have you there.

We are so bad at this.

At letting our bodies be what they are.

Not because we’re weak. But because the world we live in has very little tolerance for a body that doesn’t perform…a body that isn’t presentable. A body that won’t push through.

And we've absorbed that modus operandi so thoroughly, we often can't tell where the cultural conditioning ends and our own voice begins.

I know this intimately.

I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in my early 20s, and for years I threw myself completely into trying to “fix it”.

I had to know where every bathroom was between my apartment and work, and still sometimes didn’t make it. I traveled with an extra pair of underwear in my bag. There was so much energy going into just trying to appear fine: hiding it, managing it, pretending it wasn't happening, all while trying desperately to make it stop.

And I tried everything: western medicine, eastern medicine, functional medicine, yoga, breath work, therapy, elimination diets, meds, supplements, juicing, sprouting, raw, cooked…I was also regularly working 60–80 hour weeks, trying to party like a normal (okay a “cool”) early-20-something in San Francisco. Burning the candle at both ends in pursuit of healing and trying desperately not to miss out on a single thing.

Spoiler: what ultimately worked was radically reimagining my whole life.

A six-month leave from my job. Finding my way into integrative health coaching and then clinical nutrition. Building a life and career that actually accommodated a slower pace: work that felt genuinely meaningful, a schedule I could control, wellness woven into my days rather than squeezed in around the edges at 5am and 10pm.

I didn’t just treat the disease. I built a life my body could live in.

A Different Question

Lately, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, sitting with two clients in particular who are both dealing with persistent symptoms we haven’t been able to fully resolve.

One has low energy that has improved a bit but is still a huge drag. One has functional bloating that we’ve thrown everything at: elimination diets, supplements, gut-directed hypnotherapy, testing, referrals. Again, some improvement, but the main symptom remains.

I believe in healing. I hold that for both of them.

But I’ve also started asking a different question. What if, instead of leading with “How do we fix this?”, we asked something harder and more honest:

What would need to shift in your life for you to feel vital within this capacity, within this body, as it actually is right now?

What if this wasn’t our “back-up plan” or a consolation prize, but a genuine act of intelligence and care?

With my low-energy client, this question landed somewhere unexpected. She’s approaching a significant transition in her work, a change that, if she lets it, could open up space to genuinely redesign how she spends her days. So instead of talking about what we still hadn’t fixed, we started dreaming. Audaciously, actually.

What would an ideal schedule even look like? What does she want the feeling of being in her day to be? What becomes possible if less doing and more being isn’t a failure state, but the whole point? If the low energy isn’t a problem to push through, but information: about pace, about spaciousness, about what this particular window of her life might actually be asking for?

Old Friends

I asked my client with bloating to imagine, just for a moment, fully accepting it. What would she need to shift in order to really thrive within this current expression of her body?

Her symptoms are far worse in the office. Could she work from home more? Or could she start working toward that eventual shift? Could she spend more time in elastic-waist pants and flowy dresses instead of the tight waistbands she forces herself into because she’s supposed to look professional? What happens in her nervous system when she stops pushing herself through her body’s signals?

I told her: I still have GI symptoms some days. But I hold them with so much more lightness now. Partly because we’re “old friends” at this point, but mostly because I’ve genuinely dropped the struggle. Symptoms don’t mean I’m broken.

A big part is also structural: I work from home. I wear stretchy pants when I need to. I can take a walk in nature most days. If I have smelly gas, it’s really only bothering my cats.

These aren’t just practical accommodations. They’re a completely different orientation toward your own experience.

New Operating System

I see this same war playing out with so many of my perimenopausal clients. A body asking for rest, for softness, for a different relationship with the mirror, inside a culture that has no space for any of that.

I think what makes perimenopause particularly disorienting is that your brain is literally installing a new operating system. And anyone who has rage-searched for a setting that changed in the latest IOS update knows that upgrades come with a transition period that can make you question everything. The cognitive fog, the fatigue, the sense that your body has become a stranger: these aren’t signs of decline. They’re signs of a system under active reconstruction.

Lisa Mosconi’s research on the menopausal brain talks about exactly this: the brain isn’t failing, it’s rewiring. And part of that rewiring may mean you genuinely can’t keep quite as many balls in the air as you used to. Not because you’re less capable, but because your brain is becoming less suited to fragmented, frantic doing and more oriented toward depth, integration, and a different kind of power. The loss is real. But so is what it opens up.

The work of this threshold isn’t just symptom management. It’s learning to move through, gathering the tools that will actually serve you in this next phase, and learning to live with change as the constant.

I’m in it right now. Two young kids, a full practice, a life without much slack in it. Radical restructuring isn’t available to me in the way that it was when I was in my 20s. In this moment, I only have the capacity to focus on small shifts. I usually go to bed at 9pm so that when my body wakes me at 4am, I’m actually okay. I use that quiet time for writing, meditation, gentle movement: a morning practice that grounds me for my day. I don’t drink alcohol much anymore because the cost is just too high. Yes, I’m on HRT. I start my day with protein.

But here’s the thing: with reduced capacity also comes reduced bandwidth for “doing all the things”. So the calculus has to change. In my work with clients right now, we spend a lot of time figuring out what's actually worth spending precious energy on: what's genuinely helping, what we can let go of, and where acceptance might honestly be the smartest medicine.

Grief

I also want to acknowledge that being in a changing body or a sick body is really f’ing hard. You’re allowed to grieve the loss of prior versions of yourself. The body that was more energetic, or less bloated, or didn’t have to track every bathroom between home and work.

I hold space for this grief in so many sessions. Often there is a feeling of rupture: a story that everything was fine before the diagnosis, before the weight gain, before the fatigue, before the gut issues, and then something just arrived out of nowhere. The past self was whole. The current self is broken.

I want to be gentle here, because the grief is real and it’s always worth feeling. And I also want to be honest: if we look carefully, there were often whispers before the body started shouting. The “before” was frequently already under negotiation.

But even when something genuinely does arrive like a lightening bolt without warning, the answer is the same. There is only one universal truth aside from the fact that we’re all going to die, and it’s this: we cannot go backward.

Your current body isn’t a failed version of the one you used to have. She’s just the one who’s here.

Why We Hold Out

There’s a part of us that resists this kind of acceptance fiercely. It’s worth looking at why.

I think it’s at least partly because acceptance has been culturally coded as giving up. As weakness, settling. We’ve been taught that shame is a reliable (perhaps even a necessary) fuel source for change. That if we just feel bad enough about the belly, the fatigue, the symptoms, we’ll finally do something about them.

We’ve been told that self-acceptance is what you do when you’ve stopped trying.

Even without the shame, there’s a completely legitimate, deeply human part of us that just doesn’t want to be in pain. That wants to feel like ourselves again. That wants to feel in control of our own experience, and especially of our body. And from that place, acceptance can genuinely feel like self-abandonment. Like closing a door you’re not ready to close.

So instead we push through. We perform “fine.” We add managing the symptoms on top of having them.

And the suffering compounds.

On top of feeling the hard thing, we’re also trying not to feel it. We’re making it mean we’re broken. We’re pushing through or shoving it down. The original experience: the pain, the fatigue, the bloating, the body that won’t return to what it was, gets layered over with shame and resistance and the exhausting effort of trying to make it stop.

I get it. I really, really do. And I’d still suggest that sustainable change almost always lies on the other side of acceptance. Because a body that feels like a battleground cannot heal the way a body that feels like home can.

A Life That Fits

I’m absolutely not arguing that symptoms don’t warrant treatment, or that acceptance requires abandoning the search for healing. I believe bodies can change: are always changing. I work toward that with my clients every day.

But I’m increasingly convinced that part of the path through is this: treating the body’s current reality as valid rather than as a failure state. Creating actual structural accommodation for what’s true.

Asking not just how do we fix this, but how do we live well within this, right now?

This reframes every health choice too. HRT, strength training, an elimination diet, a supplement or protocol – none of those are inherently resistance. They become resistance when the only reason you’re doing them is “I am not okay as I am right now.”

What if the criterion was simpler: does this make me feel good while I’m doing it? (Or, if not while I’m doing it, at least better for having done it.) Does doing this thing make me feel stronger, or more clear, better rested or more spacious, better nourished or more ALIVE in my body? Not just in hope of some future result, but now, in this body, today. What if you had to live as though the outcome might never come? Because honestly, it might not.

Not all suffering resolves. But some of it transforms — into information, into wisdom, into a tenderness toward yourself you couldn't access while you were still at war. Sometimes the moving through is the whole point.

The space we create when we stop fighting our own bodies might be exactly where healing begins.

What if you stopped waiting for your body to change to give her a life worth living in?

What would you do differently tomorrow if you decided your body was already enough?

Come find me in the comments. I would love to hear what’s landing for you.

And while writing this – East Coast winter gray, 15 degrees, snow falling (again) outside my window – I’m conjuring a recent trip to Mexico. I’m not able to drop back into it on command. I wish I could. But I can feel the pull of it. Like my system is reaching for that frequency again – trying to metabolize what happened there. To harvest what can be translated back home.

Beauty, everywhere

Because in Mexico last month, I experienced awe so regularly it almost stopped being surprising. (Except somehow it never stopped being surprising.)

The kind of awe that catches in your throat. The kind that makes you whisper: “What the fuck, how is this even real?” And also: “Who am I to be experiencing this?”

A technicolor sunrise spilling across ocean and sky: molten orange, yellow and pink. Warm sand. Salt water. Whales breaching. Colorful butterflies flitting past like tiny, low-key miracles. Moving my fingers through dark water and watching it answer back with sparkles of bioluminescent light.

And then: 950 baby turtles.
Brave, flip-floppy, impossibly small.
Making their way to the sea.

In circle

I was on retreat for a week at an off-the-grid eco-resort just south of Zihuatanejo, sitting in circle with a group of women who have become kin. Women with big callings and full lives. We listened deeply. We told the truth. We witnessed each other without flinching. We called each other forward. The kind of space that makes you remember what becomes possible when nothing sacred has to be sacrificed.

And the food, my god. Meals that felt like love made edible: sea-salt-rimmed shots of frosty pineapple, passionfruit and basil; tortillas handmade at every meal; rotating platters of local vegetables and beans and fish and herbs. Something for everyone.

Awe at sunrise. Awe at sunset. Awe in circle. Awe watching whales. Awe being seen.

Earth, my body

Toward the end of the week, in a cacao ceremony with a local elder Curandera, I received a message. (Go ahead and call me woo if you want to, I can take it.)

Your body and the earth are one.

Obviously not a new idea. But it landed differently. Not in my head, but in my bones. An old chant came to root in me: “Earth, my body, water, my blood, Air, my breath, and fire my spirit.”

And ever since, I’ve been thinking about how easily we experience awe for nature. And about how infrequently we extend that same reverence to our own bodies.

The ocean. Mountains. A 2,000-year-old redwood. Verdant, cushiony moss with its tiny spores and delicate architecture. The sheer intelligence of life at every scale.

We would never stand in front of a redwood and wish it were smaller.
We don’t ask the ocean to be more predictable, or a mountain to take up less space.
We don’t think of mycelium, the weird, brilliant underground internet of the forest, and call it “too much.” We just trust that something complex and unseen is doing essential work.

But our bodies, the most intimate ecosystems we’ll ever live inside?
We don’t offer them the same generosity.

We manage them. Criticize them. Try to shrink them or fix them or optimize them into something more acceptable or more productive or easier to decode. We treat them like problems to be solved instead of wild, ancient things to be marveled at.

But they are. Wild and ancient things to be marveled at.

The miracle inside us

Right now, in this very moment, there are trillions of bacteria in our guts in constant conversation with the rest of us. There is an entire ecology inside us: negotiating, translating, adapting. Our guts have their own friggin’ nervous system, a whole second field of intelligence running alongside the one in our skulls.

Don’t even get me started on mitochondria: ancient organisms that took up residence in our cells millions of years ago and now power every single thing we do. I recently learned that mitochondria even emit faint light – biophotons – like bioluminescence in our brains.

And let’s talk about eating. We take in something that was once sunlight and soil and rain, filter it through a plant, and somehow it becomes us. It feeds our microbes. It communicates. It turns genes on and off. The living world becomes both nourishment and information inside our bodies.

All day long, our bodies are making decisions without a single to-do list. Repairing. Sorting. Signaling. Remembering. Forgetting. Cleaning up. Keeping us upright. Keeping us alive. Moving us through this beautiful and terrible world. There are processes unfolding inside us that we don’t even have names for yet!

It’s fucking wild. We can’t even begin to understand the complexity of what we are.

So I keep wondering:

What would shift if we could regularly feel genuine awe for our bodies?

Not acceptance. Not tolerance. Not the grudging truce of “I guess this is what I have to work with.”

But awe. Reverence. The kind of attention you give to something alive and ancient and wildly intelligent.

The experience of awe isn’t just poetic. It lives in a body. It has a physiology. In studies, awe seems to have the ability to “bend time” – making the day feel less rushed, more spacious within the same exact hours. It pulls the mind out of narrow focus and back into the wider web of connection – of belonging to something larger than our own to-do list. Some research even links awe with lower IL-6, a marker of inflammation, and with a nervous system downshift out of “fight or flight” and into “rest and digest”. And when we feel spacious and connected? Repair, perspective, and care become easier to access.

Which is part of why I keep coming back to it: awe isn’t just beautiful. It’s regulating.
Which matters, because most of us aren’t living at an eco-resort.

Held

And I’ve been noticing something else: awe isn’t just an idea. It’s a state. And it is easier to access when you’re held.

In Mexico, I didn’t just feel “supported” in some abstract way. I was held physically, emotionally, energetically, by women who saw all of me and didn’t flinch. Messy. Contradictory. Uncertain. Real.

I was held in more ordinary ways, too: meals prepared, spaces tended, a rhythm I didn’t have to manage. Yoga in the morning, and enough time to actually do it. I wasn’t responsible for the ten thousand invisible things that keep a life running. My nervous system got to unclench – not because I tried harder, but because the conditions were different. Beauty and spaciousness weren’t something I had to chase. They were just…there. “Big Awe” was effortless.

That kind of experience obviously doesn’t come around every day.

But the retreat was also the beginning of a nine-month circle I’m in with Nisha Moodley. Which means I didn’t come home and lose all of it. I have weekly calls with those beautiful women now – little, consistent doses of being held and seen, and holding and seeing one another. It’s not the same as being fed and tended and flooded with beauty for a week. But it’s enough to stay connected, and to remind my nervous system what support feels like.

Small doorways

Here at home, I’m noticing how quickly awe gets crowded out when we’re managing everything. When the mental load is loud, the days are filled with logistics, we’re task-switching, and our bodies are bracing for the next thing. It isn’t that awe disappears. It just gets harder to access.

Dropped back into the daily grind, it’s easier to forget that you’re an ecosystem, not a productivity machine. That you are a fucking miracle on legs.

But I also notice this. Awe is still available.
It’s just more like a micro-dose. Smaller. Quieter. More ephemeral. You have to slow down enough to catch it.

But honestly, I think it matters even more here.

Yesterday morning my son pointed out the intricate, wave-like pattern the snow and wind had formed on our roof during the blizzard. Sunrise this morning over the woods behind our house was breathtaking. Even the swirl of bubbles in our tea kettle as I heated water for matcha, glittering and dancing in a stream of early morning light, gave me access to that same feeling.

Sometimes it’s a cozy morning snuggle with a kiddo. Sometimes it’s taking an extra three minutes to let hot water run over my body in the shower, or rubbing oil onto my skin while I’m still in that damp, steamy space. Sometimes it’s arranging a few perfect flowers on my desk, just so.

These aren’t always “awe” in the dramatic sense. They’re thresholds. Small beauty. Small pleasure. A nervous system softening enough to notice what’s already here.

You just have to be willing to let it in.

But I think if we attune to it, we can use even micro-moments of awe as a bridge into wonder, and then into reverence for our own bodies – which, for me, is always a doorway back into reverence for everything.

Because when I’m in awe, I’m gentler. I stop narrating my body like it’s a problem. I get curious instead of critical. And everything gets a little more spacious: my day feels roomier even with the same to-do list. Spaciousness makes me kinder. It widens what I’m capable of. I’m more willing to pause. More willing to eat like I’m feeding something precious. To move like I’m letting my body do what it was made to do. I can let pleasure in. I can let it land.

Questions

And as I’m getting ready to hit publish: the sun is shining. Despite my 10,000-item to-do list, I chose 30 minutes outside. The clear cerulean of the sky against bright white snow. The intricate shadow play of trees across a frozen lake. The tiny geometry of ice crystals on a frozen puddle in the path.

And it’s making something very clear: awe is available. It can be a daily choice.

Of course Mexico was awe in high-def: macro-dosed, impossible not to feel. That week mattered so much to me. It had been a long time since I’d been truly held, since I’d been able to relax all the way down and receive. I want that for all of us.

And: I can feel the power of awe right now. Right here, in this place, in this moment. No travel required.

Here is the inquiry I’m holding:

What would shift if we offered our bodies the same reverence we offer redwoods, or sunrise?

What tiny, ordinary doorway into awe is available to me today?

I don’t think these questions have one right answer. In fact, just the asking may be part of the medicine.

And I’m curious: when was the last time you felt genuine awe? For something in nature, for your own body, for anything? When did you last feel truly held?

I’d love to know.

You guys.

I had a completely different post written for you. A neat little January offering about capacity and intention-setting and how to choose commitments that match the life you actually have, not the one you think you should have. It was about how even though the cultural drumbeat tells us we should all be in “expand mode” this season, so few of us actually are. Our country sure the hell isn’t. And I can tell you, from convos with my clients this week, it probably would have resonated.

And then life lifed hard.

Like: my three-year-old got a stomach bug, we thought it passed, and then she puked again at 1am on New Year’s Day. (Happy 2026.) I felt awful all that day but pushed through, and then went down hard myself that night. Up all night. So, so sick all the next day. And then Friday morning at 5:45am, my son called me in: he’d thrown up. Five times. All over his wool rug, his bedding, himself.

So here I am, writing from what is, not what I thought it would look like or what I wanted it to be. Knee-deep in the dumpster: trying to salvage something worth keeping.

I love that line. I’ve been carrying it around like a little talisman. (James’s book of poetry, The Wilderness That Bears Your Name, is wonderful. Highly recommend.)

But last Friday, standing in my son’s doorway, still nauseous myself, staring at the scene before me like a crime documentary, I had a different thought:

Get me the fuck out of here.

Not just this room. This body. This life. This country. Put it all in the trash can and get me a new one.

“Come home to your body”, the poem says. But what about when you want to leave?

Burn it all down

There are moments when being in a body feels tender and holy and miraculous.

And then there are moments when being in a body feels…gross. Overstimulating. Painful. Unbearable. Like you are trapped inside a malfunctioning meat suit while the rest of life keeps demanding you behave like a cheerful, high-functioning adult. Or while you caretake and scrub someone else’s vomit for an hour when you’re feeling sick yourself.

Sometimes the desire to leave isn’t philosophical. It’s visceral. It’s a nervous system flare. It’s your brain trying to get distance from sensation, emotion, chaos.

If you’ve ever had food poisoning, a migraine, a panic attack, a grief day, a postpartum night, a chronic flare, a depressive episode, a week where the wheels just come off: you know this place.

And I want to say something plainly, because it matters:

Wanting to leave your body when it hurts doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It means you’re human.

A good body

The surprising thing, for me, wasn’t only how sick I felt.

It was how quickly sickness turned into a story about my worth. How quickly I wanted to dissociate.

Not consciously. I know better than to say the quiet part out loud. More like a background program I couldn’t close.

I had plans for how my post-holiday week at home was going to go. I had a vision. I was going to get the holidays packed away, clean the fridge, get a jump on business and life planning, and even have some time to sit on the couch (in my super-clean living room) to do some sewing or reading or journaling. I was going to host a craft night and teach everyone how to make their own customized winter brew of medicinal tea! I was going to start a “no-buy” month.

Instead I was entering 2026 already behind, snapping at my family, wanting to throw away everything in my house that wasn’t bolted down, with Christmas still not put away and my husband probably next in line for the bug.

And underneath the nausea was this:
I shouldn’t be triggered like this.
I should be healthier than this.
I should be more resilient than this.
I teach about being in your body, and I just want to get out of mine.

And that’s the part I’ve been thinking about on my walk today: how being unwell doesn’t just feel bad: it can also make you feel unacceptable. Unlovable. Like you’ve slipped outside the narrow band of what gets to be valued in this culture.

Not because anyone said it to you directly (though sometimes they do).

But because we live inside a kind of cultural logic that constantly whispers:
A good body is healthy.
A good body is high-functioning.
A good body is disciplined enough to stay that way.
A good body is calm, regulated, productive.
A good body doesn’t derail plans.
A good body doesn’t require accommodations.
A good body is easy to live in — and easy to live with.

This is where “coming home” gets complicated.

Because what if part of why we want to leave isn’t only the sensations?

What if part of it is the shame we’ve been trained to feel when our bodies are messy, limited, sick, fat, disabled, aging, grieving, postpartum, perimenopausal, neurodivergent, chronically inflamed, hormonally chaotic, not “high-functioning,” not optimized?

There’s a word for this: healthism. This is the idea that health is primarily an individual responsibility and, more than that, a kind of moral status. Healthy becomes shorthand for good, disciplined, worthy. Unhealthy becomes a personal failure.

And when healthism is the water we’re swimming in, illness doesn’t just disrupt our plans.

It threatens our belonging.

It tells us (quietly, relentlessly): If you were doing it right, you wouldn’t be here.

Aubrey Gordon talks about this eloquently. How even the mainstream “body positivity” world often expands the circle only slightly, leaving a pretty tight set of bodies still deemed acceptable: not too fat, not too sick, not too disabled, not too unruly, not too outside the lines.

There are such narrow parameters for what gets to be lovable.

And if you think about it for five seconds, it’s obvious why that’s a problem:

Bodies do not stay inside parameters.

Bodies change. Bodies break. Bodies leak. Bodies swell. Bodies scar. Bodies need. Bodies rest. Bodies stink. Bodies age. Bodies get sick for reasons that have nothing to do with merit or effort.

If lovability requires staying within a narrow window of “healthy enough” and “functioning enough,” then none of us gets to stay lovable for long.

Which is…a pretty shitty deal when you think about it.

Coming home

This is where I’ve been landing, slowly, between loads of laundry and sips of electrolyte water.

Maybe coming home to your body isn’t a vibe.

Maybe it’s a practice of refusing abandonment.

Not in a grand, triumphant way. Not in a “my illness taught me a sacred lesson” way. (Sometimes it does. Other times, it’s just a virus, babe.)

But in a small, stubborn way.

A decision not to add contempt on top of discomfort.

A decision to stop making the sensations mean you are broken.

And honestly? This feels like more than a personal practice right now. With the machinery of cruelty running hot in this country, there’s a similar impulse to check out of everything — to numb, to scroll, to go dead-eyed, to say “I can’t take one more thing.”

But staying doesn’t mean accepting what’s unacceptable. It means refusing numbness. Letting yourself feel what’s true, finding your people, and then taking whatever small, real steps of resistance you can.

Which is part of why I keep coming back to the body. Because the body is where numbness ends. It’s where we can feel what’s real, if we let ourselves. And the way we practice care here is how we learn to keep our humanity out there.

On her podcast this week, Jessica Lanyadoo (who I adore) said something that has been ringing in my ears:

Read that again.

Now imagine what would change if you actually believed it. Not as a concept, but as a way you hold yourself when you’re not at your best.

When you’re in pain.
When you’re grossed out.
When you’re struggling.
When your capacity shrinks.
When your body is doing something you didn’t approve.
When what’s happening out there makes it hard to stay in here.

How I came back

A few days after the worst of it, I noticed something:

I no longer wanted to flush my body down the toilet.

She still feels tender. Slow. Not quite at full speed.

But we are back in communication.

And it wasn’t because I had some massive breakthrough. It was because I started doing small things that signaled, I’m still here. I’m not leaving you.

For me, that looked like:

• Canceling anything even remotely optional (reduced capacity has a way of clarifying boundaries that my “normal life” self loves to negotiate with)

• Keeping food extremely gentle: toast, broth, congee, smoothie, scrambled eggs if I can manage them. I will tell you that this week, veggies have been scarce. I just can’t stomach them.

• A short, simple morning meditation — this has been in lieu of a morning movement practice

• Letting myself be a little less nice, a little less efficient, a little less “on,” without spiraling into self-judgment about it

• One hand on my belly now and then like: I’m here. I’m listening.

None of this is revolutionary.

But it is relational.

It’s the difference between “my body is ruining my life” and “my body is having a hard time and I’m going to stay with her.”

And I guess that’s what I’m making from the mess: the practice of staying.

Here we are

This is not the New Year’s post I thought I was going to write.

But maybe it’s a more honest one.

Because a lot of us are entering this year not from a clean slate, but from the messy middle of something. A body thing. A family thing. A grief thing. A chronic thing. A world-is-on-fire thing.

So here’s what I want to offer, gently and directly:

You are worthy of care, respect, and tenderness even when you can’t tolerate the sensations of being in your own body.

You are worthy of that when you’re sick.
When you’re overwhelmed.
When you’re not functioning at your usual level.
When you don’t look the way you want to look.
When you’re not “doing it right.”

Especially then.

And if you want a few questions to sit with, try these:

• Where do I notice the urge to leave my body lately?

• What story am I telling about my worth when my body feels bad or my capacity is low?

• What standards have I absorbed about what is required for me to be “lovable”?

“As many ways as there are to leave our bodies,” Pearson writes, “there are just as many calling us back.”

May we all find one of those ways this week.

And if you want to tell me, I would love to hear: How’s re-entry going for you? What small act would connect you to your body this week?

P.S. If you’re new here, welcome! I usually I include a recipe or two in my posts, but not this week because…tummy bug. I’ll be back with some fresh winter kitchen inspiration in the next post: stay tuned!

And also: I am absolutely gutted by what’s happening in the world. The callousness. The breathtaking cruelty. The sheer number of tragedies landing in a single week. The willful inaction of people with the power to do something. To demonstrate a shred of compassion, common sense or genuine leadership. If you are anything like me, you are holding a bottomless well of grief and rage and fear alongside your holiday planning.

I wrote a while back about being in a body while the world burns. Everything in that piece feels true again (still…even more) now.

This post is about something smaller: how to get through the holidays without losing yourself. But underneath that, it’s about something bigger: how we stay human when so many things feel inhumane. How do we stay tethered to ourselves so we can stay connected to one other, even when everything feels like it’s coming apart at the seams.

A small offering

I always think I’m going to use the holidays to get ahead.

I’m going to exercise every day. I’ll bring my journal and do a little end-of-year reflecting, a little new-year visioning. I’ll finally have the spaciousness to think, to rest, to be intentional. Time will slow down, and I’ll use it beautifully.

And then I’m at my parents’ house in Kentucky. It’s 2pm: I’ve been up since 5AM with kids on a time-change, eaten nothing but carbs, haven’t been outside, showered or even changed out of my pajamas, and I’m not entirely sure what day it is.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand: the holidays fill us up in so many beautiful ways and they deplete us in others.

They give us things we can’t get any other time of year: connection, beautiful traditions, time and presence with people we love, and a break from the relentless pace of regular life.

And they crowd out things we rely on the rest of the year: our routines, our sleep, our sense of autonomy, our usual ways of caring for ourselves. (I’m also occasionally inclined to revert to the emotional patterns of my fifteen-year-old self, therapy be damned, but that’s a topic for another post…)

Both things can be true. What I’ve found is that when I narrow the chasm between what I expect the holidays to be and what they actually are, the whole thing gets a lot easier.

Reality check

In my fantasy version, the holidays are restorative. Time opens up. I sleep in. The weather accommodates long walks, and I find the perfect quiet spot in the house to do yoga. My kids sleep in and wake up happy and play peacefully with their cousins. All snow is the fluffy, dry, snow globe variety. I sit by the fire with a book. I feel rested and grateful and ready to start the new year refreshed.

In my actual reality, the holidays look more like this:

My time isn’t mine. I’m technically “off” of work, but I often feel more depleted than a regular week, and I’m usually still fielding emails or squeezing in a couple of rescheduled client sessions. I’m parenting more than usual: managing kids in a different time zone in a less familiar (albeit completely wonderful) environment, navigating logistics without my usual support systems, being “on” for extended family in ways that can drain as much as they sustain me. I’m eating outside my comfort zone, sleeping sweatily in a bed that isn’t mine (hello, back pain, my old friend), running on someone else’s schedule. And usually all of this at the tail end of a month of less self-care, more social commitments, longer work days and all the added mental load of Holiday merrymaking.

And the kitchen. The kitchen is the gathering place, the hub, the cozy room everyone wanders into when they don’t know what else to do. There’s always food out. I find myself grazing not because I’m hungry but because I’m there, and the food is there, and time is moving strangely and I don’t have anywhere else to be.

I usually drink more. My sleep quality tanks. By the time I get home, my body is crying out for my own rhythms: my own bed, my own food, my own routines.

I’m not really a “cleanse” person. But after the holidays, believe me, sometimes I understand the impulse.

Lower the bar

Over the years, I’ve realized something important: the holidays are not the time to optimize. They’re a time to just “keep the lights on.”

In Body Partnership, I call this sustain mode.

Sustain mode means accepting that this particular stretch of time is structurally hostile to your best intentions. Maybe you’re in someone else’s space, someone else’s kitchen, someone else’s schedule. Or maybe your own home is suddenly full of family, your fridge stocked with things you didn’t buy, your routines interrupted by people you love. Either way, your usual anchors and rhythms are probably out the window.

So instead of trying to be your best self, I suggest that you aim for something simpler: just don’t lose yourself.

My “sustain mode” list

For me this year, it’s three things. And I mean seriously three things:

1. Eat protein at breakfast. Not a balanced breakfast. Not necessarily my usual breakfast. Just some protein to anchor my blood sugar before the day goes sideways. For me this has become a non-negotiable. I just feel too crappy otherwise.

2. Move my body somehow. A 15-minute walk down the driveway in the snow. Stretching in the living room. Walking lunges in the front hall while the kids play. Even a “Frozen” or “KPop Demon Hunters” dance party with the 3-year-old set will do. Anything that reminds me I have a body and it feels better when it moves. At a loss for ideas? My friend Anna Maltby has an excellent Substack called “How to Move” with accessible, body positive workouts each week, many with no equipment required.

3. Drink water. I’m generally a rock-star on the hydration front because I sit at my desk talking to clients all day long with a big-ass water bottle next to me, sipping as I work. When I’m out of my routine this habit needs some help. I’ve started bringing my big Owalla with me when I travel – handy to avoid $10 water at the airport, and helpful once I’m there to have a concrete goal of draining and refilling it at least twice each day. Sometimes I even add a little pinch of electrolytes to make the whole process a little sexier (I’m into the raspberry flavor of these Superieure ones right now, introduced to me by a dear client.)

That’s it. That’s the whole list.

And here’s the thing: I don’t even always hit all three every day. Some days I get one. That’s sustain mode. The bar is low by design.

Why this works

A lot of what I do with clients this time of year is help them set their expectations even lower than they think they should.

Because here’s what happens when you set ambitious goals for a period that can’t support them: you fail. And then you feel bad about failing. And then you start January already behind, already in a shame spiral, already feeling like you need to make up for lost time.

But if you set your sights low enough that you can actually hit them? You come out of the holidays feeling like you maintained something. You kept one thread. You didn’t completely lose the plot. You stayed connected to yourself.

The psychological difference is huge. “I kept the lights on” feels completely different from “I have to rewire the whole damn house come January.”

Now, if you’re reading this thinking, “Au contraire, mon frère: I have two weeks at home! I’m motivated and I have the supports and structure I need to keep this self-care train rolling,” then sustain mode may not be your move. You might be in expand mode: a season for building, not just maintaining. If so: love that for you. Skip ahead to the recipes, my friend. You’ve got this.

What the holidays do give us

I don’t want to make this sound like the holidays are miserable. They’re absolutely not. Even if you don’t believe in santa (or “Hanukkah Harry” for any of my old school SNL peeps), there’s a steady thread of magic running through the season. It’s hard to name but easy to feel. And it doesn’t really exist outside this window.

It’s why we do this every year: the comfort of tradition, the particular joy of being with people we love and don’t see often enough, the way time slows down from the usual pace of work and obligation. Children opening presents with unparalleled glee and reckless abandon. Late-night conversations. Afternoon boardgames. The feeling of being held by something bigger and a bit more sparkly than your regular life.

The holidays fill buckets that don’t get filled any other time of year. Sustain mode is what makes it possible to actually receive those gifts, because it keeps your own foundations intact. You stay regulated enough to take in what’s beautiful, instead of spending the whole time fighting a losing battle to also be your best damn self.

About that holiday food...

About the kitchen being a constant display of edible possibilities…One thing that’s helped me – and that I share with clients – is a simple question to ask yourself before eating something that’s just sitting there:

Would I order this at a restaurant?

In other words: is this something I actually want? Something I’d seek out? Or is it just...there?

If it’s truly something you love: your mom’s famous rugelach, that one weird family dessert that is objectively absurd and still somehow perfect, the cheese dip you hover over every year like it’s your job? Then yes. Enjoy it. That’s what the holidays are for. (In my case, it’s my mom’s Kuchen, and she makes a special little gluten-free one on Christmas morning just for me! Wheee!)

But most of what tempts us during the holidays isn’t actually that tempting. It’s just around. And available isn’t the same as desirable. One of my clients calls this “The Pumpkin Roll Problem.” She doesn’t even like pumpkin rolls, but there she is every year, eating it anyway and thinking “Whyyyyyy???” with every bite. That’s the gap between what’s around and what you actually want. Noticing it can save you a lot of mindless eating and the vague regret that follows.

If you’re not sure, take one “reconnaissance bite” and channel your inner snobby food critic. Seriously: pretend you’re getting paid to be discerning. Is this a 9 out of 10? Then by all means. If it’s a 4 out of 10, we’re done here. Chimi-chuck it in the bin. You’re not obligated to finish something just because you started it. The first bite is intel. If it’s not excellent, you’re allowed to walk away.

Pack your safety snacks

One more strategy that’s helped me: stock the house (or your suitcase) with a few things you know will make “sustain mode” easier. This might be Greek yogurt, eggs, or cottage cheese for that protein-at-breakfast goal. Your favorite non-dairy milk for your non-negotiable morning latte. That bar that actually satisfies mid-afternoon cravings without making you feel like crap. Some crudités to add to the cheese board or greens to make a salad. Offer to do a grocery run so you can pick up some items that work for you, or send a delivery ahead—I’ve done this with Thrive Market in past years.

And consider bringing a dish to the gathering: a big beautiful salad, a quinoa pilaf, a healthy(ish) dessert. Something you can fill your plate with and feel genuinely good about eating. If you’re the one hosting: all the better!

You’re not being rigid or high maintenance. You’re being strategic about having options that actually feel good, so you’re not white-knuckling your way through a week of foods that don’t serve you. If you can fill half your plate with colorful fruits & veggies at one or two meals per day and start your day with some protein? You’re way ahead of the game, my friend.

Here are two recipes I love for exactly this purpose:

Tahini-stuffed Dates with Dark Chocolate

These are my go-to when I want something sweet that actually satisfies. The tahini and dates give you some substance, and the dark chocolate makes it feel like a real treat. Plus: they’re so pretty!

Ingredients:

• 12 large Medjool dates, pitted

• 1/4 cup tahini (let it come to room temp and make sure it’s mixed well)

• 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom

• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1 teaspoon maple syrup (optional)

• Flaky sea salt, a generous pinch, plus more for sprinkling on top

• 1 tablespoon rosewater (add by the teaspoon, to taste)

• 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips, melted

• edible dried rose petals, optional, but extra lovely

Instructions:

Split the pitted dates down the middle to make room for the filling. I usually place these on a sheet of parchment paper, to start.

In a small bowl, mix the tahini, cardamom, cinnamon, maple syrup, and sea salt.

Slowly add the rosewater, a teaspoon at a time, mixing thoroughly—the tahini will thicken as you incorporate it. Continue until you have a creamy paste. (If you need to thin it, add cool water by the half-teaspoon, continuing to stir vigorously until well assimilated.)

Stuff small spoonfuls into each date, dip in melted chocolate, and top with flaky salt and rose petals.

Holiday Napa Cabbage Salad

This is my remix of my Manu’s famous “celery cabbage salad” salad that she served every year at her tree trimming party, alongside her famous vegetable beef soup and herbed garlic bread. It’s crunchy, bright, and hearty enough to anchor a plate full of holiday food. My holiday additions were the raddichio, pomegranates and pecans, and I like a little less onion than she used, but you can increase that if you’re a big onion lover, or cut it out if raw onions make you queasy.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 head napa cabbage (include some of the super crunchy bits toward the bottom), sliced thin

• 1/2 small head of purple radicchio (or less, if you’re sensitive to bitter)

• ½ to ¼ red onion, halved and sliced thin, separated into half-moons

• ½ cup crumbled blue cheese (or more or less, depending on your taste – I just dump a good amount in so that there’s a little piquant blue in every bite)

• pomegranate seeds (a good, hearty sprinkle)

• toasted, chopped pecans (about the same amount as pomegranate seeds)

Dressing:

• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

• 3/4 cup olive oil

• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt a good dollop of grainy or Dijon mustard freshly ground pepper to taste
  *This will make extra dressing; just keep it on your counter to use for future salads – your future self will thank you.

Instructions:

Add your napa cabbage and radicchio to a big, wide salad bowl. Combine cabbage well with onion and blue cheese. If you prep this ahead, I would wait until close to serving time to add the pecans and dressing, as the pecans are best crunchy. That said, this because of the heartiness of the napa cabbage, the salad won’t get soggy like tender greens are wont to do – we happily eat leftovers the next day.

Before you go

If you’re heading into the holidays (or already in them), try this:

Ask yourself: What are the two or three things that will help me feel human?

Not ideal. Not optimized. Just: “What’s the minimum that will keep me connected to myself?”

Write it down. Keep it simple. And when you inevitably miss a day or eat the cinnamon bun for breakfast without some eggs or skip the walk—let it go. The point isn’t perfection. The point is maintaining enough of a thread that you don’t have to rebuild from scratch in January.

And when your basics are covered, you have more bandwidth for the magic. And for the grief. For lighting candles in the darkness, literal and otherwise. For sitting by the fire with a friend or family member while the world rages outside. For staying soft enough to witness what’s happening, and sturdy enough to keep going.

The horrors persist. But so do we, my friends. So do we.

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“To those to whom much is given, much is required.”

That framed needlepoint sat on my grandmother’s desk my entire childhood. It wasn’t just a decoration: it was a map for how to live. An expectation woven into everything she touched.

The women in my family taught me what deep care looks like.

They show up. They make things happen. They hold community together with fierce, relentless love. Growing up, I watched them build lives around service — to family, to friends, to causes they believed in, to their communities. The care was real. Deep. Beautiful. Their generosity shaped everything I know about what it means to be there for people.

I also saw some of the hidden costs of their giving.

Bodies that were rarely fully rested, needs that were rarely fully tended, rhythms that were overridden in service of everyone else’s. I saw what happens when you give from an empty cup — not because you’re doing it wrong, but because the model itself doesn’t account for the giver’s needs.

The model that shaped them said: your worth is measured by what you give. Your needs can wait. Tending yourself feels selfish. Service requires sacrifice.

So I tried to find a different way.

When I was diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease in my 20s, I had to learn to tend my own vessel. It wasn’t optional. I turned inward — partly out of necessity. I went to therapy. I learned about boundaries and nervous system regulation and filling my own cup first. I built elaborate routines around rest and movement and nourishment. I got very, very good at this work. I needed to.

And somewhere in all that healing, I became aware of a different trap.

Stuck in a loop

The endless optimization loop. Six workouts a week. The perfect diet and supplement routine. An elaborate morning practice. Reading the right books, taking the right courses, seeing the right healers, trying to figure out the exact right practice to unlock whatever blocked thing needs clearing. In bed by 9PM, up with the sun. Rinse, repeat. It became its own kind of extraction — self-directed, navel-gazing.

The self-care machine can run endlessly if you let it. You can stay in that phase forever, tending and tending and never pouring out.

I see this pattern frequently in wellness culture, especially in health optimization and longevity spaces. Always something new to buy. Another protocol to try. Never ready, never good enough. It leaves people feeling strung out, exhausted and confused, not well. And it so rarely pauses to ask: for what? In service of what?

It’s like accumulating wealth that never circulates. At some point, no individual needs another billion optimizations. The abundance needs to flow outward.

Here’s what I’m learning: both models are incomplete.

Overgiving without tending yourself can lead to exhaustion, resentment, even illness. Endless self-optimization without offering can leave you feeling hollow: disconnected from community and purpose.

What I’m reaching for is a third way. An integration.

Tend, then offer (imperfectly)

Last week I made soup for a friend who needed it. Several hours of shopping, chopping, simmering, tasting, adjusting. Then I drove across town to deliver it. I made the choice to do this instead of other things. But I didn’t do it at the expense of my own nourishment. I’d moved my body that morning. I’d slept well. I had capacity, and I chose to pour it out.

Here’s what surprised me: how much that offering nourished me back. I got more from making and delivering that soup than I would have gotten from those same hours spent “checking things off my list”. More aliveness. More participation in something that mattered.

This is what I learned from watching generous women: service feeds us. Not because we get validation or recognition, but because sincere participation in care creates reciprocity. We’re nourished by the act of nourishing when it comes from a place of having enough to give.

And this is what chronic disease taught me: you have to tend the vessel first. You need to know your rhythms. Honor your capacity. Understand your limitations. Nourish your body. That work is necessary.

But it’s not sufficient.

At some point you have to ask: what for?

Self-care as preparation

Jessica Lanyadoo said on her podcast that there’s an astrological transit this week (don’t ask me which one) that helps us get in touch with our body’s ideal pace and rhythms, so we can engage with our passions, creativity and take meaningful action in ways that are sustainable. What struck me is that it starts with befriending your own vessel — your needs, desires, limitations, capacity. But it doesn’t stop there. It uses that self-knowledge as the foundation for sustainable engagement with the world.

Not self-care as an endpoint. Self-care as preparation.

What I’m learning is a model of care that honors both the vessel and the offering. A way of caring that recognizes interdependence. That my wellbeing is not separate from yours. That tending the body is not selfish — it’s preparatory. That sacrifice is sometimes necessary, but not as penance. As participation.

This means learning to discern in real time: What can this body-mind-spirit vessel hold today? When do I have capacity to pour out? When do I need to pull back and replenish?

The answers change. The capacity fluctuates. That’s not a problem to solve. That’s the nature of being a living system in relationship with other living systems.

Learning the edges

I need to be clear about something: this framework doesn’t demand equal circulation at all times. Some seasons require sustained, prolonged tending. Chronic illness. Pregnancy. Major life transitions. Early motherhood. These aren’t detours from “real” service — tending is hard, legitimate work. And reduced capacity in these seasons isn’t a failure to circulate. Often these seasons teach you something irreplaceable about vulnerability, about asking for help, about what it feels like to be on the receiving end. Your capacity to give becomes richer, more nuanced, more human.

Learning to discern capacity is itself a practice. There’s a sweet spot where you’re resourced enough to stretch, to be uncomfortable, to make sacrifices — and still return to center. That offering will feel generative. But there’s also the edge where you’re truly pouring from empty, and that leads to resentment and depletion.

You learn through trial and error. Sometimes you’ll think you have capacity and you’ll give and end up feeling resentful and sick. That’s information. Other times you’ll make the imperfect offering and feel filled back up in ways you didn’t know you were missing — by the community, the creativity, the use of your gifts to ease someone else’s path. That’s also information. Both teach you where your true edges are.

Service is not always comfortable. It won’t always make your ego happy. You might offer imperfectly. You might make soup that’s just okay. (I did! I cooked it too long, and the muffins I baked to go with it were lumpy and ugly but still tasted good.) You might do it wrong or piss someone off or create something messy and human. That’s part of learning. (Simone Seol has been instrumental in helping me understand this — she talks on her podcast and in her program “Together” about how service gets to be imperfect, messy, and uncomfortable. I can’t recommend her work enough.)

If you wait for perfect conditions — perfect capacity, perfect clarity, perfect skill — mostly what you’re doing is protecting your ego from the vulnerability of sincere participation. And gosh, I’m guilty of this more often than I’d like to admit.

Recipe: Tuscan Bean & Vegetable Soup (Ribollita)

Ingredients

2 TBS extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
4 carrots, sliced
5 celery stalks, sliced
2 leeks, white and pale green parts only, sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 quart chicken stock + 2 cups water (or sub bone broth for more protein, or veggie stock to make it vegan)
28oz can chopped tomatoes
1 TBS tomato paste
15 oz can white kidney (cannellini) beans, drained and rinsed well (I like beans, so sometimes I used 2 cans)
1 bunch kale, destemmed and sliced
10 oz butternut squash (can use frozen or pre-cut to save time)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Splash of sherry vinegar
2 TBS grated Parmesan (optional), for serving
Red chile flakes (optional), for serving

Directions

Heat the oil in a soup pot over medium-low heat. Add the onion, carrots, butternut squash and leek and cook until softened but not colored. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the stock, tomatoes and their juices, and tomato paste.

In a bowl, mash half the beans with a fork and stir into the pot. Bring to a boil over high heat. Return the heat to medium-low and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add the remaining beans and kale and simmer for 30 minutes more. Taste and add salt, pepper and a splash of sherry vinegar (to taste).

Top soup with a sprinkle of Parmesan and some red chile flakes before serving, if desired.

The tide

I keep coming back to this image of circulation. There’s an inflow and an outflow. A tide. If I’m always pouring out, I end up empty — resentful, sick, brittle. If I’m always collecting, I end up stagnant — disconnected, inert, slightly self-absorbed in the name of healing.

Sustainable service feels like learning to move with that tide. Tending the vessel and keeping it full enough to pour, and pouring it out so that tending has meaning.

Maybe that’s what it means to serve sustainably: to let care move through us like breath. In, out. Receive, offer. Tend, give. Rest, act.

A rhythm instead of a role. A relationship instead of a performance.

Tend, then offer. Give what’s alive, not what’s perfect.

All outflow, no inflow: depletion. All inflow, no outflow: disconnection. What I’m learning to practice is circulation. Flow. Reciprocity.

Not exactly the model I inherited. Nor the reaction I adopted. But a third way that honors both the vessel and the offering.

I don’t have this figured out. These ideas are still uncomfortably emergent for me. I’m learning as I go, making imperfect soup and ugly muffins, checking in with my capacity, offering what I can when I can. Some days I have more to give. Some days I need to receive. That’s the tide.

What the women in my family taught me: care matters. Show up. Be generous. Build community.

What I had to learn the hard way: you can’t pour from an empty cup. Tending yourself is not selfish. Your needs matter too.

What I’m teaching myself now: two things can be true. The vessel needs tending AND the offering needs making. It’s not one or the other. It’s both/and.

In, out. Give, receive. Tend, pour. Rest, act.

Not extraction. Not stagnation. Flow.

What I’m sitting with

This is the heart of body partnership work. It starts with befriending your vessel — knowing its rhythms, honoring its capacity, tending its needs. But it doesn’t stop there. That tending becomes the foundation for sustainable participation in the world.

You learn to move fluidly between tending, containing, and offering. You practice discernment in real time. You let service be imperfect and alive.

Some questions to explore:

• What patterns around giving and care did I learn growing up? What did I see modeled — and what was missing?

• Where am I in the cycle right now — tending, containing, or offering?

• What privileges, resources, or abundance do I have right now that could flow outward?

• What does my body need today to feel resourced?

• What’s one act of imperfect service I could offer?

• How do I discern between generative discomfort and depletion?

• How do I know when I’m performing care versus participating in it?

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You have an individual body. So do I. You’re learning, maybe struggling, to care for it. To feed it appropriately. To meet its needs without shame, punishment or judgment. To decode its messages and find your way through a morass of conflicting dietary advice. I help to facilitate that work, and I’m doing it right alongside you.

But our bodies don’t exist in isolation. We are all part of a collective body. And right now, our collective body is in crisis. Forty-two million people may lose SNAP benefits because of the government shutdown. States are warning they cannot issue November payments. Millions of bodies, told their hunger doesn’t matter.

And the safety nets we rely on when government programs fail are already collapsing under the strain. Food banks and community pantries are experiencing record demand from families squeezed by rising grocery costs and from people losing benefits they’ve depended on. The organizations we expect to catch people when SNAP fails are themselves starving for resources, facing unprecedented need with diminished capacity to respond.

When the collective body starves, we cannot be well. Not truly. Not completely. The suffering happening to other bodies affects all of us, even if our own access to food feels secure.

Food changes lives

I know this not just theoretically, but from years of direct experience. Right now, I work mostly 1-1 with folks in private practice. But I have worked at WIC. I ran the nutrition department for Community Servings, a large non-profit that provides home-delivered medically tailored meals to ill individuals and their families, most living in poverty. I’ve volunteered cooking with and feeding formerly incarcerated women in a prison reentry program in San Francisco.

Across all of those settings, I saw the same thing over and over: when you give people access to whole, nutritious food, lives change. Not because nutrition is the answer to all problems. But because hunger makes everything harder.

Personal health choices can feel endlessly complicated. I’ve built my practice around honoring that complexity, around recognizing that our relationships with food and our bodies are deeply personal and often fraught.

But I’ve also seen how simple it can be to transform health when we just give people access to good food. When we remove that one massive barrier, people can breathe. They can think. They can parent. They can heal.

That’s what makes this moment so devastating. We know what works. We have programs, imperfect though they may be. We have the infrastructure. We have decades of evidence. And we’re watching it all be dismantled and defunded.

What hunger does to bodies

When people don’t have enough food, their bodies suffer in obvious ways. Malnutrition. Illness. Impaired cognitive development in children. Increased risk of chronic disease. Physical pain.

But hunger also does something to the collective body. Research shows that when food insecurity increases, crime increases. Not because hungry people are criminal, but because hungry people are desperate. Studies across multiple states confirm the correlation between food insecurity and violent crime.

Desperation makes people do things they would never do if their basic needs were met. When you cannot feed yourself, when you cannot feed your children, the normal calculations about safety and risk and consequences collapse. Survival instinct overrides everything else.

This is not a moral failing. It is a predictable response to an unbearable situation.

I’ve sat across from women who stole food to feed their children. I’ve watched people make impossible calculations about whether to buy groceries or pay for medication. These aren’t abstract policy discussions. These are real people, facing real desperation, because our government has decided their hunger is acceptable.

We have the money

Here’s what makes this so fucking enraging: we have the resources to feed everyone.

The United States is a nation of astonishing wealth and of deep disparity. We have ~$6 billion in USDA contingency funds available right now. November SNAP benefits require $8 billion total. Yes, there’s a gap, but even partial funding could ripple outward into millions of kitchens, keeping the lights on and the pots simmering a little longer. Some legal experts also argue the USDA could interpret the Food and Nutrition Act to treat SNAP as an entitlement program—like Medicare—that isn’t subject to annual appropriations, allowing benefits to continue regardless of the shutdown.

We have comprehensive economic research showing that SNAP isn’t a drain on resources: it’s an investment. Every dollar cut from SNAP costs society between $14 and $20 in long-term consequences. Each dollar invested generates $1.79 in economic activity. For children specifically, every SNAP dollar returns $62 in lifetime value.

When we feed people, everyone benefits. Crime drops. Health improves. Children develop properly. Communities stabilize. The economy grows.

When we refuse to feed people, we guarantee worse outcomes for everyone: including people who think they’re insulated from the consequences of others’ hunger.

Choosing violence

In our current stage of capitalism, almost none of us control our own food production. We are reliant on complex systems to grow, distribute, and sell our food. When those systems fail – or when they’re deliberately broken – people starve.

Food prices have risen 24% from 2020 to 2024. Grocery costs are up 3.2% this year. Even people not on assistance are feeling the squeeze. The people who depend on SNAP and WIC are facing an impossible situation: rising costs, benefit cuts, and now potentially total suspension of aid.

This is not lack of resources. This is a choice to prioritize some things and some people over others.

When you choose not to feed people, you are choosing violence. You are choosing the suffering that comes from hunger itself. You are choosing the desperation that breeds crime. You are choosing to harm the collective body in ways that will affect every individual body within it.

And maybe our government is choosing this path because it serves a larger purpose. Desperate people are easier to control. Violent communities justify increased police presence, military intervention, the further erosion of civil liberties. Creating desperation creates license for authoritarian responses.

Whether or not that’s the conscious strategy, it’s the predictable outcome.

How we respond

Self-care cannot be separated from community care. Not in this moment. Not when millions of bodies are being denied the most basic necessity.

In body partnership work, we learn to trust and understand our body’s signals. Hunger. Fullness. The need for rest, movement, pleasure, care.

This work matters. It is necessary. It is healing. But that healing exists within systems. Systems that are being deliberately broken to let millions go hungry.

We can’t heal our relationship to food and our bodies in isolation from these realities. When our neighbors are going hungry, when children in our community don’t have enough to eat, when the collective body is being systematically starved: that violence touches all of us.

This is not complicated. Access to food is the most fundamental requirement of a functioning society. And when we deny people access to food, we don’t even save money: we guarantee that we’ll spend vastly more addressing the cascading consequences of that denial.

Want fiscal responsibility? Feed people.

Want safer communities? Feed people.

Want better economic outcomes, higher educational achievement, reduced healthcare costs, and more stable neighborhoods? Feed people.

What to do this week:

1. Call your representatives. Demand they end the shutdown and require the USDA to use contingency funds for SNAP and WIC benefits. Make this personal. Make this urgent. Find your representatives here or use the Five Calls App. You’re just going to leave a message, and I promise it only takes a few minutes. Here’s a script from Five Calls if you need one:

   Hi, my name is [NAME] and I’m a constituent from [CITY, ZIP].
   

   [IF CALLING REPUBLICAN]: I’m extremely concerned about the impact of the government shutdown on SNAP and WIC benefits for millions of Americans. I’m calling to ask that [REP/SEN NAME] immediately move to end this government shutdown by extending the ACA tax credits and blocking Trump’s illegal budget cuts. Prolonging this shutdown will cause untold suffering for millions of vulnerable people.
   

   [IF CALLING DEMOCRAT]: I’m extremely concerned about the impact of the government shutdown on SNAP and WIC benefits for millions of Americans. I’m calling to urge [REP/SEN NAME] to pursue stopgap measures to keep these programs running while still holding firm against any federal budget deal that does not extend the ACA tax credits and block Trump’s illegal budget cuts.

   Thank you for your time and consideration.

2. Donate to Feeding America or find local food banks in your area. Food banks are already experiencing unprecedented need. They need money. They need volunteers. They need the community to show up.

3. Find little free pantries or community fridges near you. Donate food from your own pantry if you can’t donate money.

4. Refuse the narrative. Every time someone suggests food assistance is a handout or that people are gaming the system, push back. Share the economic data. Explain the correlation between hunger and crime. Make it impossible to pretend this is anything other than a choice to harm people.

5. Connect the individual and collective. Talk about how a commitment to personal health includes fighting for all bodies to have access to food. Make the connection visible between personal healing and systemic justice.

No body is expendable

In body partnership work, we practice a radical idea: our bodies hold wisdom. Their hunger is legitimate. Their needs matter. They deserve care.

That can’t be true for just some bodies. Either all bodies deserve respect and care, or the principle collapses.

Our government is declaring that some bodies are expendable—that poor bodies, bodies of color, disabled bodies, immigrant bodies don’t deserve food, don’t deserve care. That some hunger is acceptable. That some suffering is justified.

This destroys the foundation of body partnership. You cannot truly believe your body deserves care while accepting that other bodies deserve starvation.

The work of healing your relationship with your own body includes fighting for all bodies to have what they need. The collective body and the individual body are not separate. When millions starve, we all suffer. When we ensure everyone has food, we all heal.

Right now, our government is choosing hunger. We can choose differently. We can choose care—for ourselves, for our neighbors, for the millions of bodies that need food to survive.

No one deserves to go hungry. Not here. Not in Gaza. Not in Sudan. Not anywhere. No body is expendable. Not one.

What Will You Choose? When the systems around us declare some bodies expendable, how will you choose to honor the interconnected wisdom of our collective body?

This is our first Fall visit, and It happens to coincide with the first stretch of really cool days we’ve had this season on the east coast. I’m struck by how different the quality of the light is here in October: how much richer and deeper the hues of the water, stone and moss. Perhaps it’s because we know it’s our last trip, but everything feels high contrast and extra saturated.

I’m also noticing how different our shared meals are –  driven by seasonal availability (dark leafy greens, last of season peppers, winter squash, apples, pears, carrots) and the cooler, shorter days. The kids have been picking bags full of apples from the orchard and we’ve been turning them into ginger-laced compote to stir into tart, creamy yogurt, slicing them onto hearty greens with smoked trout, potatoes and a mustardy vinaigrette for lunch, crunching them with sharp cheddar for an afternoon snack on a wind-swept beach. This seasonal tug is but one of the ways that plants and our bodies communicate.

As I was stirring chia seeds into my morning oatmeal, watching them bloom and gel in the creamy, purple-hued mixture studded with wild Maine berries (from frozen – picked this summer), I realized: those chia seeds and blueberries weren’t just adding “fiber” to my bowl (although they were of course adding fiber to my bowl), they were also delivering a complex symphony of compounds that would spend the next several hours communicating with my microbiome and my genes, stabilizing my blood sugar, quenching inflammation, supporting smooth digestion, and even helping to regulate my cholesterol levels. And anyone who also read my protein post knows that the egg and almond butter I mixed in next weren’t just providing protein, they were making up the building blocks of muscle and helping me feel satisfied longer into the morning.

Plant Allies

Let's talk about plants. Not because your mom told you to "eat your vegetables" (though she wasn’t wrong), but because the evidence is overwhelming: polyphenols –the compounds that give plant foods their vibrant colors and sometimes bitter flavors – are consistently associated with healthier aging, fewer heart attacks and strokes, lower incidence of type 2 diabetes, and slower cognitive decline. (And since these days I’m prone to walking into rooms and forgetting why I’m there, I welcome anything that keeps the lights on upstairs.)

Beyond delighting our senses and grounding us in seasons, plants communicate with our bodies in profound ways: turning genes on and off, feeding beneficial bacteria, building cells, quenching inflammation. They connect us not just to land and to one another, but to our own biology in an ancient conversation that has been happening for as long as humans have existed.

Here’s the Body Partnership lens: eating plants is also one of the most fundamental ways we can show our bodies we care. Not in a punitive “eat your vegetables or else” way, but as an offering. You don’t need to crave kale to benefit from it. You just need to find ways to include plants that feel (and taste!) good to you: whether that’s the convenience of frozen berries, the comfort of a warm vegetable soup, the visual pleasure of a colorful plate or the delightful crunch of an apple fresh from the tree.

Action Challenge: Download my free “Ultimate Plant Foods List” PDF below. Highlight in green all of the plant foods you like or love, cross off any that you abhor, and highlight in yellow any that you’ve never tried or just aren’t sure what to do with. Challenge yourself to include a good variety of your “green” plant foods, plus 1-2 from your “yellow” list, each week to expand your palate. Extra sparkly bonus points from your microbiome if you manage to include 30 different plant foods per week. I included handy little check-boxes for you to keep track!

Ultimateplantfoodslist Bodypartnerhip

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The Fiber Family

Now, about fiber specifically. Technically, fiber is the cell walls of plants: it gives them structure. Here’s where it gets really interesting, though: fiber isn’t one thing—it’s a whole family of plant compounds (cellulose, pectin, beta-glucan, resistant starch, inulin, lignins) that resist digestion in our small intestine. Some types can be fermented by our gut microbes, while others pass through relatively unchanged.

Think of your gut microbiome as a diverse ecosystem. Different microbes thrive on different fibers—some feast on the pectin in apples, others prefer the beta-glucan in oats, still others work on resistant starch from cooked and then cooled potatoes or rice. And it’s not just fiber: gut microbes also metabolize those colorful polyphenols we talked about earlier, transforming them into beneficial compounds your body can use.

This is why eating a variety of fiber and plant sources matters more than just hitting a number. Research suggests that consuming at least 30 different plant foods per week supports greater microbial diversity, which is associated with better overall health. If you only eat one type of fiber (like when you take a single fiber supplement or fiber-enriched cereal), you’re only feeding part of the microbial community—like tending a garden but only watering half the plants.

There are two main categories of fiber worth understanding:

• Soluble (Viscous) Fiber acts like nature's gentle regulator. It dissolves in water to form a gel-like substance that slows digestion, feeds beneficial bacteria, and helps regulate blood sugar and cholesterol. Think oats, beans, apples, and avocados.

• Insoluble Fiber is your digestive system’s broom. It doesn’t dissolve but adds bulk and speeds up waste elimination (IE, pooping), keeping you regular and helping food move efficiently through your system. Think the skins of fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, and whole grains.

Most plant foods contain both types, and that’s exactly what your body wants. These fibers work synergistically: soluble fiber slows digestion and feeds your microbes, while insoluble fiber keeps things moving efficiently through your system. Together, they create the optimal environment for both digestive health and microbial diversity.

Sometimes we try to target more of one or the other depending on tolerance, digestive constitution, or specific health goals. But for general health? A good mix of both fiber types from a diversity of plant foods is the key.

Fiber’s Hidden Superpowers

Here’s how fiber works its metabolic magic: viscous (soluble) fiber acts like a gel in your digestive tract, essentially coating it and slowing down how quickly sugar gets absorbed into your bloodstream. Think of it like plugging some of the holes in the sieve of your digestive tract and “gumming up the works” (which in this case is a good thing!)

And if you’re tempted to think that you don’t need this particular benefit: I would argue that blood sugar balance matters for everyone, not just people with diabetes or insulin resistance. Those mid-afternoon crashes? The sudden irritability before lunch? The 3pm desperate need for something sweet or a cup of coffee? These are often signs of blood sugar swings that fiber can help smooth out.

But fiber’s magic doesn’t stop at blood sugar. That same gel-like fiber also acts like a sponge for cholesterol. As it moves through your intestines, viscous fiber binds to cholesterol and bile acids (which your body makes from cholesterol) and flushes them out in your stool. This is how eating things like oatmeal, chia seeds and psyllium husk can actually lower your LDL (“bad”) cholesterol numbers.

How Do You Like It?

Let's talk for a minute about how different storage and preparation methods impact the fiber and phytonutrients in plants:

Using frozen fruits and vegetables like my wild blueberries? The total grams of fiber stay the same, but freezing converts some insoluble fiber into soluble fiber by breaking down cell walls (which is why frozen veggies can feel mushier when thawed). This shift toward more soluble fiber actually gives your gut microbes more beneficial fuel.

And here’s a bonus: frozen produce is typically picked at peak ripeness and flash-frozen, preserving (and sometimes even concentrating) vitamins and phytonutrients. Your frozen berries may actually be more nutrient-dense than out-of-season fresh ones that traveled thousands of miles to reach your fridge.

Blending fruit or veg into smoothies? Blending doesn't destroy fiber, but it does break it into smaller pieces, potentially making it easier to digest. Essentially, some of the mechanical digestion is done for you by the blender. Surprisingly, some research shows that smoothies made with seeded berries like raspberries and blackberries may actually cause a lower blood sugar response than eating the whole berries, possibly due to the release of dietary fiber from the ground seeds.

Raw versus cooked? This is where it gets interesting. Cooking actually transforms the fiber in your vegetables—breaking down those tough cell walls and converting some of the insoluble fiber into soluble fiber that your gut bacteria can more easily feast on.

For those with sensitive digestion, cooking also softens tough fibers and breaks down compounds that can irritate the gut lining, making vegetables like cruciferous greens much gentler on your system in their cooked vs raw form.

Of course, there are tradeoffs. Cooking can reduce some heat-sensitive nutrients like vitamin C, although can simultaneously increase the bioavailability of others—like lycopene in tomatoes and beta-carotene in carrots.

Both/And: Rather than choosing one or the other, think about what your body and gut ecosystem need. Both raw and cooked vegetables offer unique benefits, and my main takeaway is that I want you to eat plants however you most enjoy, tolerate and can access them.

As we move into cooler months, many people naturally crave warmer, more cooked foods—this isn’t just comfort, it’s wisdom. Your body may be asking for the easier digestibility of cooked vegetables during seasons when your digestive fire needs support. This is also a perfect time to experiment with how eating more cooked versus raw vegetables may impact your unique digestive system.

Okay, But How Much Should I Have?

Official recommendations for fiber are 25g for women and 38g for men, but I generally encourage clients to gradually work toward 30-35g daily and adjust as needed once they are regularly hitting that target. This range tends to support microbial diversity and metabolic health. (For context: populations with particularly low rates of chronic disease often consume 50g+ daily, largely from whole plant foods.) That said, quality and variety matter just as much as hitting your numbers—and listening to your body’s response matters most of all.

I often find that getting enough daily fiber is easier when you have a few higher fiber “anchors” in your daily diet (like chia seeds in your oatmeal or yogurt, a serving of beans with your lunch, and a high fiber fruit for a snack). On top of that, aim to include several different colors in each meal and snack, which helps to ensure that you get the daily and weekly variety that you need.

High-fiber champions:

10g+ per serving: Navy beans (19g per cup), split peas & lentils (16g per cup), black beans (15g per cup), chickpeas (12g per cup), artichokes & avocado (10g each), chia seeds (10g per 2 tbsp)

6-9g per serving: Raspberries, blackberries & edamame (8g per cup), winter squash (6g per cut), pears (6g each), flaxseeds (6g per 2 tbsp), whole wheat pasta & barley (6g per cup)

4-5g per serving: Quinoa, broccoli, carrots & figs (5g per serving), pumpkin seeds (5g per oz), sweet potato, Brussels sprouts, apples, beets, brown rice & oats (4g per serving), kiwi (4g for 2 medium)

3g per serving: Almonds, pistachios, sunflower seeds & hemp hearts (3-3.5g per oz/3 tbsp)

Simple additions:

• Sprinkle seeds on yogurt, into oats or on salads

• Choose fruits with edible skins

• Add a handful of leafy greens or frozen cauliflower to smoothies

• Swap refined grains for whole grains

• Include one serving of beans or lentils most days

Slow and Steady

Okay, so maybe I’ve convinced you that plants are good for you and you’re ready to add more fiber to your diet. (Huzza!) Now we need to get tactical, my friend. Please hear me when I say this: your gut needs time to adapt to changes in your fiber intake.

Whether you’re adding more beans, increasing vegetables, or incorporating new whole grains, increasing fiber too quickly can cause digestive distress as your microbiome and digestive system adjusts. The classic scenario: you decide to “eat healthier” and suddenly jump from 15g of fiber daily to 35g. Your gut responds with bloating, gas, and discomfort—not because fiber is bad for you, but because you’ve overwhelmed a system that wasn’t prepared.

If you haven’t been eating beans regularly and suddenly consume a large bowl of six-bean chili, you’re going to feel (and possibly smell) the effects. This isn’t necessarily because your body “can’t handle” legumes: it’s more likely because your microbiome hasn’t developed enough of the right bacteria to process them smoothly.

I see this pattern all the time. A client recently told me she was convinced she had a bean intolerance after an uncomfortable run-in with black bean soup. But when we started with just a tablespoon of well-rinsed beans three times a week—with a little digestive enzyme support initially—her body told a different story. Within about six weeks, she was enjoying full servings without discomfort. Her body didn’t reject beans; it just needed time to develop the right bacterial populations.

The enzyme needed to break down the oligosaccharides in beans (alpha-galactosidase) is actually produced by beneficial bacteria in your gut. With regular, gradual exposure, your microbiome can adapt. (Hot tip: like my client, while you wait for your body to catch up, you can add a bit of extra alpha-galactosidase enzyme – like “Beano” – to support thorough digestion.)

Try this:

• Increase slowly: Add 3-5g of fiber every few days rather than making dramatic changes all at once. Your gut bacteria need time to proliferate and adjust.

• Stay well-hydrated: Fiber works by absorbing water, so inadequate hydration can actually worsen digestive discomfort and constipation. Aim for half your body weight in ounces of water daily as you increase fiber intake.

• Chew thoroughly: Digestion of carbohydrates begins in your mouth with salivary enzymes. Taking time to chew fiber-rich foods well gives your digestive system a head start and can significantly reduce gas and bloating.

Partnership Pantry: Blue Protein Oats

Sometimes the most nourishing meals are also the most beautiful. This bowl combines multiple fiber sources with protein for sustained energy and blood sugar stability—exactly what your body is asking for in a morning meal.

What makes this a fiber powerhouse:

• Oats: Provide beta-glucan, a soluble fiber that helps regulate blood sugar and cholesterol

• Chia seeds: Pack 5g fiber in just 1 tablespoon, plus omega-3s and protein

• Wild blueberries & raspberries: Deliver both fiber and anthocyanins—those powerful polyphenols that support brain health and may improve insulin sensitivity

The recipe:

• 1/4 cup Bob's Red Mill high protein oats

• 1 cup water

• Pinch of salt

• 1/2 cup egg whites or 2 eggs (stirred in during last couple minutes of cooking)

• 1 tablespoon chia seeds

• 1/3 cup frozen wild blueberries

• 1/3 cup frozen raspberries

• Cinnamon powder

• 1 tablespoon almond butter

Add oats, water, chia seeds and a pinch of salt to your pot. Bring to a boil and then simmer on low for 10-12 minutes, stirring occasionally. When the oats are mostly cooked, whisk in 1/2 cup egg whites or 2 whole eggs until well-combined and cooked through (your oats will become “fluffier” and double in volume). Then stir in fresh or frozen fruit and top with cinnamon and a drizzle of almond butter.

Body Partnership notes: Notice how this meal balances multiple textures and flavors—creamy oats, chewy chia, tart berries, rich almond butter. Your body craves variety, and this bowl delivers it while providing nearly half your daily fiber needs plus substantial protein for lasting satiety.

Why frozen berries work beautifully here: Beyond being more economical and available year-round, frozen berries retain their fiber content just as well as fresh, and freezing may actually make some of the fiber more soluble and accessible to your body. That gorgeous blue color? It's pure anthocyanin power, perfectly preserved from peak ripeness.

Want a more seasonal fall option? Finely dice an apple or pear and add to the pot at the beginning of cooking. Use some cinnamon and ginger to season. The fall fruit will stew a bit and soften in the pot while the oats cook. Leave the skin on to get the most “bang for your buck” in terms of both fiber and phytonutrients.

Remember those apples the kids picked from the orchard? Here’s the ginger-laced compote we’ve been stirring into yogurt and oatmeal all week:

Partnership Pantry: Fall Fruit Compote

This versatile compote has been on repeat in our Maine kitchen—stirred into tart yogurt for breakfast, spooned over oatmeal, or enjoyed warm as an afternoon snack. It’s delicious as-is or with a dollop of almond butter.

Recipe:

• 4 apples, diced into ½” squares (skin on!)

• 2 pears, diced into ½” squares (skin on!)

• 1 tbsp butter or olive oil

• 1 tsp fresh ginger, grated (or a cube of frozen ginger)

• 1-2 tsp ground cinnamon

• ½ tsp vanilla extract

• 1 cup frozen or fresh cranberries (optional)

• pinch of salt

• Juice of ½ lemon

Melt butter in a medium saucepan. Add apples and pears and a pinch of salt and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until they start to release their juices and soften (about 5 minutes). Add ginger, cinnamon and vanilla; stir well. Add cranberries if using, plus 1/4 cup water. Reduce heat to low and simmer 20-30 minutes until desired consistency is reached—I like mine soft but with some chunkiness. Stir occasionally, and add an additional splash of water if needed. Remove from heat, stir in lemon juice. Refrigerate up to a week.

Body Partnership notes: I make this differently every time based on what’s around and rarely measure. If you have tart apples (or prefer things sweeter), stir in honey to taste at the end or add finely chopped dates with the cranberries. The skins add both fiber and phytonutrients, plus they practically dissolve during cooking.

Partnership Pantry: 7-Minute Cooked Salad

Sometimes "salad" doesn't have to mean cold and raw. This warm, fiber-rich bowl combines the best of both worlds—lightly cooked vegetables that retain their nutrients while becoming more digestible, plus the satisfying warmth your body might crave as seasons shift.

Recipe:

• 2 cups cruciferous crunch mix (from Trader Joe's or similar)

• 1/4 cup white beans, rinsed

• 1 clove garlic (or frozen garlic cube for speed)

• 5 cherry tomatoes, halved

• handful of marinated artichoke hearts

• 2 oz leftover chicken breast, diced

• 1 tablespoon pesto

• 2 teaspoons grated Parmesan

• Salt and pepper to taste

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add artichoke hearts with their marinade, garlic, and tomatoes. Cook 2-3 minutes until fragrant. Add cruciferous mix and beans, cooking another 2-3 minutes until greens are just wilted but still have texture. Remove from heat, stir in chicken, pesto, and Parmesan. Season to taste.

Body Partnership notes: Notice how this combines both raw elements (the pesto herbs, fresh Parmesan) with gently cooked vegetables that become more digestible while retaining their crunch. The artichokes and beans provide substantial fiber, while the chicken adds satisfying protein. This is exactly the kind of meal that honors both your body's seasonal wisdom and your need for nourishment that doesn't require extensive prep time.

You can vary the vegetables based on what you have around and what’s in season – shredded Brussels sprouts make an excellent swap for the cruciferous crunch mix (which is essentially a blend of shredded kale, cabbage, broccoli and Brussels sprouts), and could be combined with leftover roasted winter squash, some chicken sausage for protein, a few shavings of good parmesan, hazelnuts and lemon juice.

“But I Can’t Tolerate Fiber”

Some bodies need more nuanced fiber strategies—particularly those with IBS, SIBO, IBD or other digestive conditions. If you consistently experience significant bloating, pain, or digestive distress with fiber-rich foods despite gradual introduction, this isn't a your body failing you: it's valuable information.

Your body might be asking for:

• Specific fiber types (soluble vs. insoluble, or lower FODMAP)

• Different preparation methods (peeled vs. unpeeled, cooked vs. raw, blended vs. whole)

• Digestive support strategies (chewing well, enzymes or digestive bitters, probiotics)

• Temporary reduction while addressing underlying issues

• Professional support to investigate root causes

Let me know in the comments if you’d like a specific post digging deeper into how to handle fiber when you have a sensitive gut!

The Invitation

This week, choose one plant food that feels alive to you — something seasonal, colorful, or just new. Maybe it's trying chia seeds in your morning oats or yogurt, adding pumpkin seeds and an apple to your salad, finally opening that can of cannellini beans in the back of your pantry or roasting a delicata squash for the first time this season.

Ask your body: What plant foods are calling to you right now? What colors, textures, or flavors feel appealing? Trust these signals—they're often your wisest guide to what your unique body needs in this moment.

Notice how your body responds — energy, digestion, mood, satisfaction — and share your observations in the comments. I’d love to hear what you notice when you tune into the language your body and plants speak together.

Our bodies remember how to be in conversation with plants. The invitation is simply to start listening again.

Feeling stuck? Try one of the recipes in this post, or download the Ultimate Plant Foods list, and start there!

Ultimateplantfoodslist Bodypartnerhip

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What's your current relationship with fiber-rich foods? I'd love to hear about your experiments and discoveries—both the successes and the challenges. Your body's feedback is the most valuable data we have.

This morning, my body felt restless and unsettled – jittery and buzzing in that particular way that makes me want to either reorganize my whole life or just hang a big sign on the door that says “gone fishin’”. The kind of internal friction that signals that something needs attention, even when I can't quite name what.

As I walked, trying to move my way through that edgy energy, I found myself wrestling with a question that has been coming up for me a lot lately both in my practice and in my own life: how do I decide when to "let it be easy" and when to "do the work"?

How do I know whether I’m dropping unnecessary struggle or taking shortcuts that don't actually serve me? Where is the line between honoring my genuine capacity and simply avoiding what's uncomfortable?

We live in a culture that insists everything valuable must be struggled for: that if it's not hard, it's not worth doing. But we're also surrounded by endless "solutions" promising to make everything effortless. Somewhere between grinding ourselves into exhaustion and outsourcing our agency to apps and billionaires, there's got to be third way.

I'm learning that sometimes what looks like the longer route ends up paradoxically being more direct because it is sustainable in my body and aligned with my values.

What appears inefficient – taking time to rest when I'm stuck, honoring my body's signals, choosing alignment over speed – often turns out to be the most effective path forward.

Sometimes giving myself permission to lie in the grass for two hours creates a breakthrough that wouldn't have happened with hours of grinding at my desk.

This isn't just about bodies (although ultimately, it’s always a least a little bit about bodies). It's about learning to distinguish between necessary effort and unnecessary struggle. And about how we navigate deeply embedded cultural beliefs that everything valuable must be struggled for, while also recognizing that sometimes the struggle itself is what's keeping us stuck.

Questioning the grind

I absorbed the cultural expectation to always be achieving, always be productive, early in life - and somewhere along the way also the idea that if something came too easily, it probably wasn’t valuable. Rest is for the weak. Work hard, don’t sit down, get the grades, pull the all-nighters, get the results. Linear. Left-brain. Type A. Meritocratic.

This patterning still shows up in my life:

In my practice, where I've fallen into the trap of squeezing more clients into my schedule than I actually have capacity for, leaving me exhausted by the end of each day.

And in the internal pressure to be the busiest person in the room. As if there's some moral superiority in overwhelm, as if my worth is measured by how little breathing room I have in my calendar.

But there's another way of moving through the world that I'm learning to trust: one that honors cycles, follows intuition, and trusts my body's signals about her capacity.

My biz coach, Jenni Gritters, made a distinction in her most recent newsletter that feels valuable to repeat here: the difference between easy and ease. Easy is about lack of effort – avoiding challenge, taking shortcuts. But ease? Ease is about clearing away unnecessary resistance by creating alignment between your inner knowing and outer actions.

Sometimes when you're feeling stuck, giving yourself permission to lie in the grass for or take a meandering walk is actually the most efficient path toward allowing inspiration and change to come through.

This isn't easy: it often requires more courage to trust your inner knowing than to follow external rules. But it can be easeful.

Effort vs. struggle

Let me be clear: I'm not advocating avoiding effort. I think of my son learning to read fluidly. I assure him that one day reading will feel like breathing, but his brain still wants to consume complex information far more quickly than he can decode words on a page. He is frustrated. He resists. But there's no shortcut to building those neural pathways. There is a part of learning (and, one might say, of building any muscle) that requires effort, reps, resistance.

But there's a difference between necessary effort and unnecessary struggle.

We've implemented a 15-minute daily reading policy in our house. He has to do the work, but we can help him create ease around that effort. For him this looks like: reading first thing in the morning vs. at the end of the day, getting cozy, reading on his kindle, where he can control the font size, picking a "just right" book series that truly captures his interest while meeting his ability level, and keeping the required reading time manageable.

The effort remains. He's still decoding words, building skills, putting in reps. But we've helped him to drop some of the resistance to having to do the damn thing. We've helped him create conditions that work with his capacity rather than against it.

This distinction matters because effort often serves us. It's the internal struggle – the shame, resistance, and mental loops we add to necessary work – that depletes us.

Over easy

But then there's the other extreme: the endless iteration of techno-capitalist 'solutions’ offering the seductive promise of frictionless living. Amazon same-day delivery. AI-enabled everything. Grocery delivery. DoorDash. Fast fashion. Self-checkout machines. Streaming algorithms. Social media that promises connection while delivering isolation and nervous system overwhelm.

These things do save time—enormous mountains of time. And for those of us juggling work, kids, relationships, and the general chaos of modern life (raises hand), they've become the only way to stay afloat in our over scheduled lives.

But here's what I keep bumping up against: Have these things made our lives better, or just easier? What if the real problem is that we've designed a way of living that's fundamentally unlivable?

I don't like the world that this kind of "easy" is creating: one of disconnection, environmental destruction, and the continued consolidation of power in the hands of a (very white, very male) few. And yet, many days I feel well and truly trapped in these systems.

To be clear, I'm not anti-technology. I (judiciously) bounced ideas off of AI to help craft this very piece, and I'm grateful for tools that genuinely enhance my capacity. But there's a difference between technology that amplifies our humanity and technology that distances us from it.

And the gap between my values and my daily reality feels vast sometimes.

Anyone else feeling this way?

A different framework

So how do we navigate between these extremes: the grind culture that glorifies productivity at any cost and the techno-convenience culture that promises effortless solutions but actually makes us more dependent on systems that extract from us (our money, attention, agency) while disconnecting us from community and authentic choice?

When I sat with this tension, a few questions emerged that might help to serve as helpful filters:

Does this choice align with the future I want to create—for myself AND for the world?

What would it look like to bring my full presence to this work while releasing the need to make it harder than it needs to be?

How can I honor where I am now while staying open to growth?

And here's what I'm realizing: there's no "pure" way to live that doesn't involve trade-offs or compromises. Everything we do, from how we work to how we shop to how we care for our bodies, exists within imperfect systems.

And honestly? Those systems feel more broken and extractive every damn day. Our job isn't to find the perfect path, but to navigate the one we’re on with as much integrity and self-awareness as possible.

Applied to my business: reimagining how I work so I'm not constantly depleted? That creates ease. It aligns with a future where we all work sustainable hours, have time for rest, movement, family, and lying in the grass staring up at the clouds when we need to. Where we bring our full selves to meaningful work rather than grinding ourselves down to nothing.

Applied to those seductive conveniences: some pass the test, some don't. Using AI to help with my clinical charting when I'm seeing back-to-back clients? That creates ease: it reduces the administrative burden so I can focus on being present in my sessions.

Having Amazon deliver everything so I never interact with my local economy? That's just easy, and it doesn't align with the connected, sustainable world I want to live in.

Last weekend I felt proud making it to the local thrift store to update my kids' wardrobes and pass along their outgrown clothes.

But, real talk? Today there were 3 Amazon envelopes on my doorstep holding birthday party gifts for this weekend’s kid birthday party gauntlet (IYKYK), because I used the little bit of discretionary time I had this weekend to go for a walk in the woods. Sometimes the gap between my values and my daily capacity is painfully real.

The ongoing conversation

I don't have neat answers to these questions. Maybe that's the point. Maybe the work is staying in the conversation with ourselves.

The question isn't "Is this perfect?" but rather "Of the available options, which one allows me to show up most fully for what matters and feels most alive to me in this moment?"

These aren't one-time decisions but ongoing negotiations with ourselves and our changing circumstances. The "right" choice in one season of life (or even from one day to the next) might not be right in another.

And sometimes those negotiations reveal something bigger.

Sometimes I realize the deeper work isn't just about making better choices within existing structures, but about recognizing when those structures themselves need to change.

I'm thinking about my own business model – how I've been trying to optimize within a framework that might be fundamentally unsustainable, rather than questioning the framework itself. Zooming out, I wonder how many of our collective challenges stem from trying to reform systems that were never designed to support human and planetary wellbeing in the first place.

These bigger shifts take time to navigate. They require financial planning, difficult conversations, and sometimes the courage to imagine a completely different way of living.

But I'm learning to pay attention to the dissonance when it arises. That uncomfortable feeling when my actions don't align with my values isn't a sign I'm failing (although it can definitely feel that way in the moment) – it's valuable information about what might need to shift in the longer term.

What I do know is this: shame and “should-ing” never led anyone to sustainable well-being. Curiosity and self-compassion, on the other hand, can guide us toward choices that actually serve us, and create space for others to do the same.

Your turn

What tensions are you navigating between "letting it be easy" and "doing the work"?

What messages about hustle culture or constant productivity are showing up in your life?

Where might you be able to release some struggle?

What would it look like to create more alignment between your inner knowing and outer actions?

I would love to hear from you.

Recently I’ve been writing about some of the deeper philosophical and political aspects of body partnership that have been on my heart—the cultural and emotional terrain we encounter when learning to collaborate with and care for our bodies in a difficult to navigate world. Today I want to shift into more tactical territory. Because here’s the thing: we can have the desire to care for ourselves and still lack the information and support to know how to actually do so.

A good friend reminded me the other day that much of the nutrition knowledge that's become second nature to me after almost 20 years of doing this work isn't as obvious to many.

Sad fact: our bodies don't come with an instruction manual, and sometimes they can feel like a black box: "Listen dude, I'd love to take care of you, but I'm not actually sure how to interpret your error messages and I’m getting all kinds of conflicting information." Been there?

Right now, protein is having a real moment, with social media and health influencers yammering non-stop about high-protein diets and companies racing to keep up with protein-boosted ultra-processed foods. I know, I know: here I am adding another post about protein to an already crowded space. But much of the advice floating around is either confusing, misleading, overwhelming, or simply untethered from what it actually feels like to live inside a human body, and I find myself explaining the nuts and bolts of this nutrient on the daily to my clients.

Here's the thing about nutrition advice that I want you to keep in mind as you read this post: it's not gospel. Not because the science isn't valuable, but because it’s imperfect and ever evolving, and because each of our bodies is unique and even our own needs shift over time.

My “Manu” (my mom’s mom) lived to be 94 years old and took almost no prescription medication, even at the end. Most mornings, as long as I knew her, she started her day with a slice of toast with butter and homemade jam and a glass of orange juice or 1/2 a grapefruit, often enjoyed on a tray in bed while sharing the New York Times with my grandfather. Would I recommend this breakfast to most of my clients? The breakfast-in-bed part: 100%. The breakfast itself? Not likely. Would my grandmother have felt better starting her day with more protein? Maybe. Did she seem to suffer from not doing so? Not particularly. This is why I always encourage treating nutrition recommendations (including mine) as invitations for personal experimentation rather than rigid rules to follow. What worked for my Manu may not work for you, and that's exactly the point.

So let's bring this conversation down to earth: to your kitchen, your morning routine, your actual body.

Why Do We Care About Protein?

Protein is one of three macronutrients that we need to eat in relatively large amounts (carbs and fat being the other two), and it's the one most closely tied to our body’s structure and repair. The amino acids that make up protein are literally used as building blocks for nearly everything in our incredible meat suits: muscles, bones, tissues, hormones, immune cells, neurotransmitters: you name it. In this case, we literally are what we eat.

Unlike carbs and fat, which our bodies can store in dedicated reserves for future energy needs, protein doesn't have much of a storage plan. This means we need a relatively consistent supply of it to keep up with daily demands.

But How Much Do We Need?

The answer is: it depends. Like so many things, our protein needs change throughout our lives, and understanding these shifts can help to explain why the same eating patterns that once worked beautifully (or at least didn’t feel terrible) might not be doing the trick anymore.

Children and teens are super efficient protein users. They're producing growth hormone out the wazoo and building new tissues and muscle constantly. Their bodies are able make the most of whatever protein they get throughout the day. (Spoiler alert: most kids don’t need protein shakes…and this carnivore diet trend, don’t even get me started.) A 4-year-old needs about 19 grams of protein per day, whereas a teenager might need 46-52 grams. Most kids intuitively balance this out over time without too much intervention, but I do encourage my kids to grab “a protein food and an energy food” for snacks because having a little protein on board will generally help them to feel more satisfied. Think crackers with peanut butter or an orange and a cheese stick.

Most young adults do well with the general guideline of 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight (about 0.36 grams per pound). For a 150-pound young person, that’s about 54 grams per day—not a terribly lofty goal in a varied diet. If you’re training hard or recovering from injury, you might feel better with more, but for most folks in this stage of life it’s not critical for basic muscle maintenance. In fact, some research suggests that keeping protein in the moderate range at this stage, and leaning into more plant-based sources, may have long-term health benefits.

Middle age is where things get interesting. Starting around our 40s, our bodies become less efficient at muscle protein synthesis: the process of using protein to build and repair muscle tissue. This unfortunate phenomenon, called anabolic resistance, means we need larger amounts of protein both overall and at each meal to maintain our muscles. While younger adults can make good use of smaller amounts of protein throughout the day, we need more substantial "doses" to turn on the muscle-building and repair process. This is a perfect example of how and why we may need to shift our diets (and likely also our work-out routines, although that’s a convo for another day) throughout our lifespan.

And maintaining muscle isn’t just about strength. Muscle is metabolically active tissue, which means it uses more energy than fat even when you’re at rest, but its benefits go well beyond calorie burn. Muscle also acts like a reservoir for blood sugar, pulling glucose out of your bloodstream and storing it for later use. The more muscle you have (and the more you use it), the better your body is at keeping blood sugar steady, energy levels stable, and cravings in check.

For most of my clients in their 40s and beyond, I recommend aiming for 1.2-1.5 grams per kilogram of body weight (~.55-.68 grams per pound). This means that our fictional 150-pound person’s protein needs have now increased from 54 grams per day to ~75-100 grams per day. (You can do your own math to calculate your daily needs.) I also encourage people to try to include at least 20-30g of protein in a couple of their main meals (leaning toward the higher end for plant-based meals) to help stimulate muscle protein synthesis.

You'll find recommendations as high as 1-2 grams per pound of body weight, but I usually find these targets difficult for people to meet consistently in practice and, although likely safe, I think this much protein is unnecessary for most people. You may find that you benefit from more protein than my baseline recommendations, or you may struggle to meet even the low-end of my recommendation and need to work gradually up to that amount.

The Morning Protein Advantage

If you focus on shifting just one meal, I would make it breakfast. This is honestly where I see the biggest impact for most of my clients. Note that your breakfast doesn’t need to be only protein (nor should it be): you just want to try out including 20-30g of protein alongside whatever else you enjoy.

While the muscle-maintaining benefits of protein might not be something you feel in your body day-to-day, the energy and mood effects can be immediate and noticeable. Including protein, especially earlier in the day, helps stabilize blood sugar, reduce cravings, and keeps most people feeling steadier and more energized throughout the day.

A protein-rich breakfast supports:

• Blood sugar balance: Eating enough protein early can help smooth glucose (blood sugar) curves for the rest of the day.

• Satiety and reduced cravings: Higher protein intake in the morning often leads to fewer late-afternoon and evening snack attacks—weird, but true.

• Muscle maintenance: Getting 20–30 g of protein in the morning gives your body the raw materials it needs to repair and maintain muscle—an especially important process as we get older and need bigger “doses” of protein to keep that system running well.

A Breakfast Protein Experiment

If you’re curious to see how this recommendation lands in your own body, try a little experiment. For the next 5 days, endeavor to include 20–30g of protein at breakfast and pay attention to how you feel.

No need to force foods you dislike or overhaul your entire routine. Just gently shift toward more protein and see how your body responds. If you are not a breakfast eater, or practice fasting in the morning, then try this experiment with your first meal of the day – your “break-fast”.

Questions to explore:

• Do you feel more energized and focused in the morning?

• Are you satisfied for longer between meals?

• Do you notice fewer cravings?

• Does your mood or mental clarity shift?

• If you tend to snack and graze in the evenings, do you notice any changes there?

A Big List of High Protein Breakfast Ideas

But what does 20-30g of protein actually look like in practice? Great question. Here’s my big list of breakfast ideas to give you a sense for it. Hopefully you’ll find one or two things on this list that fit your mood and preferences. I’ve listed the approximate protein content per food and for the meal so that you can adjust portions to fit your hunger and preferences. Obviously exact numbers will vary depending on the brands and specific products you choose.

Yogurt or Skyr Parfait: 1 cup plain Greek yogurt or Skyr (24g) + 2 tsp chia seeds (2g) + 2 TBS chopped nuts (4g) + 1/2 cup berries = ~30g protein

Overnight Oats (dairy-free): Combine in a jar or bowl and refrigerate overnight: 1/3 cup Bob's Red Mill High Protein GF oats (10g) + 1 TBS chia seeds (2g) + 1 TBS hemp hearts (3g) + 2/3 cup soy milk (5g) + 1 TBS nut or seed butter (3-4g) + berries = ~23-25g protein

Greek Yogurt Overnight Oats: 1/3 cup Bob's Red Mill High Protein GF oats (10g) + 1/3 cup plain Greek yogurt (8g) + 1/3 cup milk (3g) + 1 TBS chia seeds (2g) + 1 TBS nut or seed butter (3-4g) + berries = ~26g protein

*Another thing to try: sometimes I’ll make a simple smoothie blending the milk and/or yogurt I’m using with 1/2 a banana and/or some other fruit, and 1-2 TBS of protein powder, hemp seeds or collagen peptides, and use that as the liquid for my overnight oats. The fruit naturally sweetens things up nicely and if you’re using a powder it gets thoroughly blended in this way.

Power Smoothie: 1 serving protein powder or 1 cup plain Greek yogurt/skyr (20-24g) + 3/4 cup frozen berries + 1/2 frozen banana (optional, depending on sweetness of protein powder, if using, or use an extra 1/4 cup berries) + 1 TBS nut or seed butter (3g) + 1 TBS ground flax (1g) + water (1 cup for powder, ½ cup for yogurt) = ~24-28g protein
BONUS ADDS: a handful of fresh or frozen spinach or kale + 1/4 cup frozen riced cauliflower + anti-inflammatory spices (fresh or frozen ginger or cinnamon or turmeric). You won’t even taste the veggies, I promise!

Upgraded Avocado Toast: 2 slices whole grain bread: like Dave’s Killer Bread or One Mighty Mill (6-10g) + 1/2 avocado mashed with 1/2 cup shelled edamame (9g) OR topped with 2 oz smoked salmon (13g) + 1 TBS hemp seeds (3g) + spritz of lemon juice and sprinkle of sea salt = ~18–26g protein

Snack Breakfast: 1/2 cup cottage cheese (14g) or plain Greek yogurt (11g) or 1.5oz hard cheese (11g) + 1/2 oz almonds (3g) + 1 hard-boiled egg (6g) or 3 oz marinated baked tofu (10g) + 1/2 cup berries + cucumber slices = ~20–27g protein

Protein Pancakes: Blend until well combined and then cook like normal pancakes: 1 cup old fashioned rolled oats (12g) or Bob's Red Mill GF Protein Oats (30g) + 1 cup cottage cheese (28-30g) + 2 eggs (12g) + 1/2 banana + 1/2 tsp cinnamon + 1/4 tsp baking powder + 1/4 tsp salt = ~26–36g protein (for 1/2 recipe – or use 1/3 recipe and top pancakes with 1 TBS nut or seed butter)

Cottage Cheese Toast – Savory: 2 slices whole grain bread: like Dave’s Killer Bread or One Mighty Mill (6-10g) + 1/2 cup cottage cheese or whipped cottage cheese (16g) + sliced tomato + 1 TBS hemp seeds (3g) + fresh basil = ~25-29g protein

Cottage Cheese Toast – Sweet: 2 slices whole grain bread: like Dave’s Killer Bread or One Mighty Mill (6-10g) + 1/2 cup cottage cheese or whipped cottage cheese (16g) + sliced strawberries + 1 TBS chopped pistachios (2g) + drizzle of honey or balsamic reduction = ~24-28g protein

Huevos Bowl: 2 eggs (12g) + 1/2 cup black beans (7g) + 1/3 avocado + 2 TBS salsa = ~21g protein (to lighten this up and increase volume and protein, try 1 egg scrambled with 1/2 cup egg whites for 28g protein total)

Beans & Salmon Bowl: 3 oz salmon (17g) + 1/2 cup white beans (8g) + 1 oz feta (4g) + handful of baby arugula or spinach + drizzle of good olive oil + spritz of lemon juice and sprinkle of sea salt + (optional) fresh herbs = ~29g protein
(~25g if feta is omitted for dairy-free; for vegan, increase to 1 cup white beans and include 2-3oz of marinated baked tofu or tempeh)

Mediterranean Cottage Cheese Bowl: 3/4 cup cottage cheese (24g) + diced cucumber + cherry tomatoes + 1 TBS pistachios or slivered almonds (2g) + olive oil + chopped fresh chives, dill or parsley = ~26g protein (increase to 1 cup cottage cheese for 34g protein)

Chickpea & Egg Salad: 1 cup chickpeas (14g) + 1 hard-boiled egg (6g) + 1 TBS chopped red onion + 1 TBS olive oil + 1 TBS apple cider vinegar + 1/2 TBS chopped cilantro or parsley + salt and pepper = ~20g protein (add 1oz feta for a salty/creamy kick and bring the total up to ~23g protein)

Tofu Scramble: 1/2 block firm tofu, crumbled (24g) and sautéed in 1 TBS olive oil until dry + seasonings (1/4 tsp turmeric + 1/4 tsp garlic powder + pinch of salt), cook until golden in spots then finish with 1 TBS unsweetened non-dairy milk = ~24–26g protein (Serve with avocado, sautéed greens, and/or whole grain toast.)

High-Protein Veggie Scramble and Toast: 3 whole eggs (18g) OR 1 whole egg + 1/2 cup egg whites (19g) + 2 tbsp cottage cheese (3g) OR 1 tbsp hemp seeds (3g) + sautéed vegetables + 1 slice whole grain bread (3-5g) = 24-26g protein

Lazy Breakfast: 1 slice whole grain toast: like Dave’s Killer Bread or One Mighty Mill (3–5g) + 1 TBS nut or seed butter (4g) + 1/2 “off the shelf” protein shake like OWYN or ORGAIN (10–16g) = ~17-25g protein

Protein for Grounding

There's one more reason I often recommend protein as a starting point: it’s emotionally grounding. When we're overwhelmed or depleted, we often reach for sugar or starches, and while those may offer a quick lift, they can also lead to crashes that leave us feeling even more unstable.

Protein is steadier. It's a form of nourishment that doesn’t spike and crash. When we’re going through it, as I think many of us are these days, protein can serve as a gentle anchor—a reminder that even on days that feel out of control, we can take a deep breath, have a little snack, and carry on.

A handful of almonds and a hard-boiled egg. A piece of toast with nut butter. Greek yogurt with berries. These are simple things. But they can help us ground into our bodies and build the solid foundation we need to navigate whatever comes next.

A Note on Balance

Protein is a powerful partner. But it isn't the only one. Plant foods, with their fiber, phytonutrients, and connection to the rhythms of nature, are equally foundational. If protein is the scaffolding that holds us up, plants are the soil and sunlight that help us grow. We need both to thrive.

The science on protein is compelling, but remember: your body's feedback is the ultimate data point. My Manu's toast-and-jam breakfast worked for her. Your ideal breakfast might look completely different from mine, or from the examples in this post. The goal isn't to follow any protocol perfectly: it's to stay curious about what makes your unique body feel most alive, grounded and nourished, and to stay tuned in to its changing needs throughout your life.

I'd love to hear how this lands with you. What's been your experience with protein? Does any of this spark a shift you'd like to try?

But.

This morning my body was floored by a tension I know many of you feel too: how do I talk of protein and healthy fats while others are being starved even of bread? How do we hold both personal wellbeing AND collective responsibility? How do we hold moments of personal joy alongside collective grief? How do we make space for it all in our sweet, tender bodies?

I slept poorly. I feel a rawness in my chest and a cough coming on. My nervous system is jittery—unsettled, reactive. I am exhausted. Tired and wired. But mostly just...tired. I know that doomscrolling isn’t the antidote, but neither is tuning out. There is a titration that I have yet to master, although I keep trying.

I suit up to head out for my 5:15AM morning walk as usual. When I get downstairs, I realize that we have left our front door wide open all night. I listen, look around a bit, and see that all is quiet—nothing is amiss. I think about the unbelievable privilege we enjoy, the safety. We lay like cats in the sun with our bellies exposed. I think how many people have no safe space from violence. From hunger. From terror.

Although it will supposedly reach the 90s today, the 5AM air still feels cool and slightly damp. My body drags. I reach my moss-covered boulder and rest my head on it. No, my body says. No, no, no.

I head back inside. Sit on the couch. Rest my hand on my stomach. Breathe.

How are you feeling?
Sad.
Breathe.

How are you feeling?
Overwhelmed.
Breathe.

How are you feeling?
Tired.
Breathe.

How are you feeling?
Sick.
Breathe.

How are you feeling?
Scared.
Breathe.

How are you feeling? (Conjure an image of my daughter making fierce silly faces and poses while dancing before bed last night…)
Hopeful.
Breathe.

How are you feeling? (Think about somebody else's daughter starving in Gaza or Sudan.)
Devastated.
Broken Open.
Breathe.

How are you feeling? (Let the early morning sun fill my eyeballs. Watch the shadow and light dance across the living room walls.)
Human.
Breathe.

The Dissonance of This Moment

I hear my elders, incredible humans who I respect and revere, tell me that (on the whole) things are getting better for humans—that these times are not as unprecedented, perhaps not even as dark, as they seem. Or at a minimum, that we have been here before. And more. I can wrap my head around this intellectually. But I have a hard time feeling it in my body today.

When I look at my fridge, chaotic and bursting with healthy foods, and think of millions of people, children, starving. And immigrant families too scared to leave their homes, or living in squalor—disappeared in a detention center. I just don't know how to assimilate that cruelty. I want to believe that humans are essentially good. But how can thinking, loving, feeling humans look away? How can we not see that allowing and perpetuating this kind of cruelty touches all of us?

For me, part of the rupture is in the dissonance between what I feel so deeply should be possible, and what is, instead, playing out all around the world.

A Vision of What's Possible

In the world I want to create, humans lead with compassion and care. We elect leaders who are connected to their bodies, have regulated nervous systems, possess and acknowledge multiple forms of intelligence, and lead, in collaboration, with wisdom, love and creativity.

In this world, there is childcare for all. We build towns and cities with community gathering and mutual aid in mind—vibrant libraries, community gardens, community hearths and well-designed multigenerational outdoor gathering and play spaces. There is universal healthcare and universal basic income. We could not imagine a world where these basic human needs and rights were not guaranteed for all.

Families come in all shapes, sizes and colors. Multigenerational households and communal living are as common as single family dwellings. Everyone who wants a roof over their head has access to one. Robust mental health care for all is a given.

Schools are places for play, investigation, emotional development, and learning that acknowledge and accommodate the fact that all kids learn differently. Kids learn to question, to be curious, to know themselves and to work with others and lift each other up. They learn how to think, how to problem solve, and discover what lights them up.

Work hours no longer comprise the lion's share of our time. There is time each day for movement, for rest, for hobbies, for family, for the preparation and consumption of nourishing food—these activities are no longer pushed to the margins.

Each person also has time built in for rotating community care tasks, many of which can be participated in as families. This participation supports community connection, friendship, investment and accountability. For example, if trash collection was managed in part by rotating community members—working alongside professional coordinators—each family would become much more invested in creating less waste and ensuring collection processes run smoothly. Think of a co-op model, where a few hours of community contribution per month creates deep investment in collective wellbeing.

We extend the idea of "Little Free Libraries" to super local "Free Sheds" where people pass along goods they don't need and extra bounty from their summer gardens, removing some of the friction from sharing and reducing waste in the system.

Multi-billionaires do not exist—we've moved beyond the myth that unlimited individual wealth accumulation serves society. Instead, we've designed economic systems that incentivize shared prosperity, realigning both wage structures and people's priorities, and distributing wealth far more evenly without reliance on plutocracy to distribute and prioritize care.

We acknowledge that we all live on one earth, in a largely globalized economy. We have functional and productive international coalition bodies that help to ensure that all countries contribute proportionally to the care of the planet we share.

We have humane migration policies that foster movement around and through this global village, with an understanding that we are all connected—that the welfare of the least of us is intimately connected to the welfare of those with the most. This reinforces systems where global bodies come together to ensure that resources, infrastructure and aid are globally available.

We value nature. We value open space. We value art. We value curiosity. We value making things with our hands. We value the world of ideas and of science. We value literacy and history. We value design. We value many ways of knowing.

Infinite growth and productivity are NOT our goals. New technologies, systems, products, structures—they are measured by how much they improve our connection to ourselves, to our bodies, to one another. By their true sustainability and impact on the earth. By how they are created and whether each hand that touches them is well fed, safe, respected and fairly compensated.

Cheaper, easier, faster, more, bigger, longer, harder—these are not the goals of this new earth. Connection, curiosity, care, compassion, intention, sustainability, diversity, community—these are our goals.

Finding Hope

How do I find hope on such a morning?

I find hope in speaking out, even though a part of me worries that I am beating this same drum too loudly or repetetively for some folks’ comfort. I find it in my children's laughter and unabashed inhabitation of their bodies and of their unique freaky little selves. I find it in the glittering rays of sunlight filling my eyeballs like a whirling kaleidoscope—letting them wash over and fill me. I find hope in dock workers in Greece refusing to load arms ships bound for Israel, and in thousands in Israel marching for peace and to end the genocide. I find it in writing through my big feelings and in articulating and holding a vision for a better future. I find hope in you, and you and you—also deeply feeling, deeply thinking, holding gentler and more loving visions of the future alongside me.

I reflect again on our open front door.

I am safe: what do I do with this safety?
I am loved: what do I do with this love?
I am well-nourished: what do I do with this body?

Here is my hope: that safety becomes a platform for speaking truth. That love becomes fuel for extending care beyond my immediate circle. That this well-nourished body becomes a vessel for showing up, for holding space for both grief and possibility.

I remind myself again that caretaking my body isn't separate from my responsibility to the world—it's what makes that responsibility sustainable. When I honor what my body needs (rest when I'm depleted, movement when I'm stuck, connection when I'm isolated, nourishment when I’m hungry), I'm better equipped to use my privileges in service of the vision I hold.

Dear body, what do you need this morning?
Peace. Peace. Peace.

This morning reminded me, again, again, that body partnership isn't just about protein smoothies and morning walks—it's about staying connected to our humanity and wisdom when the world feels scary and cruel. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do for ourselves is to feel the full weight of this moment—the grief, the overwhelm, the hope, to vision what's possible—and let our bodies guide us toward what we need to stay present and engaged rather than numbed out or burned out.

This can be true even when the feelings are big. Even when they're dark. Even when it seems like they all should have been processed by now. Even when feeling them racks our tender bodies with sobs until we are all rung out.

And Protein

Maybe today we can't see clearly to the other side. But we can see each other - holding space for both grief and possibility, tending our bodies so we can tend our world.

I did eventually make a smoothie - frozen peaches, water, protein powder, hemp seeds, flax seeds, frozen cauliflower, spinach and some matcha. It tasted like green sunshine and earth and felt like a small act of care: choosing to nourish the body that carried me through this morning. Maybe that's enough for now.

Your body's wisdom in this moment—whatever it is—matters. And so do you.

A morning song:

“Good” hair

For most of my life, I’ve had thick, course, unruly hair that seemed to have its own agenda: neither curly nor straight enough to make any sense. As a child, it was a source of embarrassment, shame and sometimes even mocking: unpredictable in humidity, so thick it required multiple rubber bands just to form a ponytail, never (ever ever) doing what I wanted it to do. God, how I longed for thin, straight hair or cool, bouncy curls. Why couldn’t my hair just pick a lane?

Eventually, I discovered tools of transformation: products, flat irons, treatments, skilled stylists. (To be fair, I don’t even think conditioner existed when I was a little girl, so maybe I actually had to wait for these tools to be invented.) In my college years, an indie/punk kid who relished standing out, I wore my hair short and dyed it an ever-changing kaleidoscope of colors. But by my early 30s, I had grown my hair out, ditched the rainbow colors, and learned to tame it into something that drew compliments. Improbably, and with no small effort, I became someone with consistently “good” hair.

But this transformation also came with a price. Once a week, I spend about an hour and a half washing, drying, and styling my hair, then wearing shower caps for a week or more between washes and touching up the waves when needed. Never mind the actual price tag of salon visits—less frequent but not insignificant investments in maintaining this “good hair” version of myself.

This system works, mostly. Except for the inevitable times when my environment has other plans—a sweaty night, humidity, rain. Or when my body longs for something different: a sweaty workout, a swim, or just a break. I could even argue that because I go a week between washings, the total time I spend on my hair probably only amounts to 15-20 minutes per day.

But beneath the routine lies a deeper tension: the fear that if people saw “the natural me”—the real me—they would be…less impressed. There’s also the quiet resentment that builds around that hour and a half each week, the way it constrains my schedule and, more subtly, my choices about how to move through the world.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ There’s something in the energy of it that just doesn’t feel fully aligned to me: an undeniable dissonance.

Head above water

There are times—especially in summer—when I want to submerge myself completely in water. To swim with my whole body, head included. To have a regular practice of being in lakes and pools and oceans. To thoroughly enjoy hot, humid, tropical places, without caveats.

In recent years, these desires have come with a familiar conflict: engage fully in the experience and deal with untamed and unpredictable hair (and undeniable discomfort in my appearance) until I could carve out styling time, or compromise—swimming with my head above water, wearing a hat, keeping my hair clipped up atop my head.

More often than not, in that cost/benefit analysis, I choose the compromise. I have become one of those women at the pool or beach, in the water but not fully immersed, ducking and dodging to avoid errant splashes: literally keeping part of myself above the fray.

Walden Pond

A few weeks ago, I had blocked off a Wednesday morning—a rare gift of unscheduled time that I have been painstakingly trying to carve into my calendar for writing, creative and “body time”. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with that time: to take my sweet body on a date for a walk around Walden Pond and stop for a swim in a quiet cove, something I hadn’t done in years, but used to absolutely love.

Walden is magical—a 1.5 mile wooded loop (yes, of Thoreau fame) with little paths down to the pond shore every few hundred yards, each offering access to remarkably clear, cerulean water and a clean, pebbled (not slimy!) bottom. Even at 9 AM, many of the little beaches and rocky nooks were already occupied by people, old and young alike, reading, journaling, swimming—engaging in the kinds of restorative activities in nature that make my heart glad and give me some hope for the future.

I started to get a bit nervous that my vision of a solo swim in a quiet cove would be thwarted by similarly minded earlier birds, but about ¾ of the way around the pond I found a perfect little sheltered entry spot with stones providing a staircase down to the water. Then came the moment of reckoning: I had washed & styled my hair two days earlier, and I had a full afternoon of client sessions ahead and a party to attend in the evening. No time for the hour-plus it would take to dry and re-style.

Was I really going to diminish this experience by keeping my head above water?

The answer arrived with startling clarity: Absolutely fucking not.

I waded out and dove under completely, letting the cool, clear water envelop me. It was exactly what my body had been asking for—not just the physical sensation, but the fullness of engagement, the refusal to hedge my current experience against the fear of future discomfort.

Lessons from my 3-year-old

This moment reminded me of my three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, who possesses an enviable relationship with her own wild hair. Whenever I attempt to run a brush through it, she tells me, “Mommy, let it be wild. Let it be wild!”

She came into the world giving zero fucks about conforming to expectations, and her certainty about her hair feels like wisdom I once possessed and somehow lost along the way.

After my swim, I had post-pond hair for all my client sessions. That evening, I attended a summer solstice art event—the kind of gathering where I would typically want to appear “effortlessly cool” (but secretly put together). I pushed right through my discomfort: and it felt liberating.

The deeper shift

I recognize there’s something very “perimenopause energy” about this story—the growing (even burning) desire to give fewer fucks about things that once felt important. (Think Melani Sanders “We Do Not Care Club”.) And touché — I am indeed solidly in this transition.

But there’s a big difference between wanting to care less, and actually making the embodied choice to prioritize experience over appearance. Actually releasing the fuck from my tightly gripped hand, letting it fall unceremoniously to the earth—and then refusing to pick it back up again—that was, for me, the revelation.

We’re in a moment right now when so many freedoms—of our bodies, of speech, of choice—are being taken from us and from others. Especially now, I don’t want to unnecessarily restrict my own freedom. Now feels like a time to be all in, to be uncompromising about things that bring me joy and about things that rob it.

What I discovered is that choosing my full engagement in life (even when it meant wild hair) felt infinitely more authentic than the careful management I’d been practicing. In being someone who jumps wholeheartedly into a pond on a Wednesday morning, who makes time for that but not for ninety minutes of hair styling, I was radiating something I actually wanted to embody so much more than I care about “good hair”.

I was even willing to entertain the possibility that my “post-pond hair” combined with embodied “all-in” energy might actually be more beautiful than “good hair” but a half-in, half-out approach to living. For me (even though I would have no problem coaching someone else through this same line of thinking) actually living into this choice honestly felt like sort of a big deal.

Ripple effects

For the first time in perhaps thirty years, I spent that vacation week on my family farm in Kentucky without touching a single heat styling tool. I also left my makeup to languish in its bag. I swam with my kids every day, not squeamish about their gleeful splashing: letting my hair air-dry into its natural texture, a little bit different every day. The decision cascaded into other choices. When I awoke one morning to rain, instead of avoiding my morning walk or calculating how to protect my styled hair, I thought, “Who cares? I can change my clothes. My hair is already wild—what’s a little more water going to do?” and headed out into the drizzly morning.

This liberation of time and mental energy was remarkable. The hours I would have spent managing my appearance have opened up for presence, for connection, and for the kind of embodied experiences my body has been quietly requesting.

The water is fine

I know this story might sound more than a little bit frivolous to those who can't imagine investing such effort in hair maintenance in the first place. Honestly, even sharing this feels vulnerable. Like I'm revealing a vain and slightly shameful secret. And what a boring thing to be ashamed of!

But I suspect many of you have your own version—some aspect of appearance or "self" management that quietly constrains your full participation in life. Some part of you that thinks: "If people saw the real messy me, they probably wouldn't like it as much as the carefully cultivated version of me I'm always working diligently behind the scenes to maintain."

Maybe it's body size or shape that keeps you from wearing the swimsuit, joining the dance class, or showing up authentically in spaces where you fear judgment. It might be feeling like you need to hide your struggle with mental health, chronic illness, or disability to appear more "together" or “normal” than you actually feel. Maybe it's feeling pressure to have a perfectly tidy home before having people over, or saying “no” to spontaneous plans because you need time to "get ready."

For some, especially those who face discrimination for their natural hair texture or other physical traits, these choices carry weight I don't experience. We all navigate different constraints, but collectively, I think we spend enormous energy trying to make ourselves conform to external expectations rather than learning to inhabit our lives and bodies fully and richly as they are.

I'm not prescribing what anyone should do. You’re the boss of you, boo boo. I'm simply reporting from the other side: giving fewer fucks, and reclaiming that energy for doing more things that make your body feel good and free and that make your soul sing? Come on in, sister, the water is fine.

Honoring all the parts

Recently, I was discussing with a client the various internal voices that arise when we’re making decisions about self-care and authentic living. It struck me how many competing aspects of ourselves show up in moments like my Walden Pond choice—each with their own valid concerns and desires.

For me, there’s the part that values aesthetic beauty and sees personal style as a form of creative expression (the former designer in me makes this voice particularly loud). There’s also the part that worries about how others perceive me, that wants to maintain control over my image and presentation to the world. And there’s the part that fears judgment or rejection—the part that whispers "What will people think if I do? What will people think if I don’t??" There’s even a part that finds genuine pleasure in the styling process: in the transformation and the artistry of it.

These voices aren’t wrong—they’re trying to protect me, to help me navigate social spaces with confidence, to honor the aspects of myself that do care about beauty. They deserve acknowledgment rather than judgment.

But alongside these protective voices, there’s another one—the part that wants to prioritize experience over appearance, that craves authenticity over perfection. The part that wants to be all-in, that desires to live the fullest, most embodied expression of myself without constantly calculating the social or aesthetic cost.

My hope, for myself and for you, is that we give this voice the keys to the bus a little more often, and give everyone else a comfortable seat in the back. Because in my experience, she’s the one who’s going to take us where we actually want to go.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

On beauty and objectivity

A final note: Whether my natural hair is “objectively” more or less beautiful than my styled hair is completely irrelevant. Some of you might look at my natural texture and think it’s lovely (my 8 year old son says: “It’s so cute, mom!”); others might prefer the styled version. There’s no universal authority on appearance—beauty truly exists in the eye of the beholder.

In this case, I am the ultimate beholder. I’m the one who needs to be at peace with my reflection, and if I can’t accept myself in an “unmanaged” state, no amount of external validation will create genuine self-acceptance.

All that week, I felt proud of my wild-haired, low maintenance self, and interestingly, no one else commented on my appearance at all. (Well, except my son.) This choice that felt so significant to me barely registered to others—a beautiful reminder that much of our self-consciousness exists primarily in our own minds.

Does this mean I won’t style my hair again? No, I’m sure I will. I genuinely like the results of my somewhat laborious hair routine most of the time. But will I also go weeks without feeling shackled to it, either because I don’t feel like doing it, want to prioritize that time for something else, or because the joy of being wet or sweaty trumps my desire to have “good hair”? Unequivocally: yes. And when I do style my hair again, on my new terms, I wonder if it will feel a little less like punishment and a little more like artistry?

The Body Partnership invitation

To me, this story is really about the broader question of what becomes possible when we choose embodied experience over image management. When we listen to what our bodies are requesting (or demanding)—whether that’s full immersion in cool water, unrestricted movement, or authentic self-expression—and honor those requests even when they conflict with our carefully constructed presentations of self.

Here’s a question to sit with: What experiences have you been denying yourself to maintain the version of you that feels safe to show the world?

Maybe it’s not swimming because of your hair. Maybe it’s not dancing because you’re worried about how you look. Maybe it’s not hitting the gym or yoga class because you don’t have the “right” body for athletic wear. Maybe it’s not eating something utterly delicious because it doesn’t fit the diet you feel you “should” be following.

Your body remembers what it feels like to move through the world without constant self-monitoring: to be present rather than performative. To be all in.

As my daughter would say: Let it be wild.

What tiny rebellion might you be ready for? What embodied joy might be waiting for you on the other side?

I started The Body Partnership because I believe we can transform our relationships with our bodies—from control and criticism to collaboration and care. I have seen that there are untold riches available when we truly partner with our bodies: the wisdom of our nervous system, the intelligence of our gut, the poetry of our seasonal rhythms. This work feels deeply meaningful, even sacred, to me. But I've been struggling to hit “publish” on the posts I’ve been writing lately, and I think it's because I haven't said this yet.

Right now, I'm heartbroken and fucking furious about what's unfolding in this country. As lawmakers strip access to food, healthcare, reproductive autonomy, and basic public protections, my own body reacts—tight chest, shallow breath, tension down my spine. Rage rising like bile in my throat. The kind that screams, raw throated and guttural, that a better world must be possible.

These aren't just emotional responses—they're somatic truths. They're reminders that body partnership is not separate from body politics.

Health is lived in flesh, but governed by systems.

Whether we have access to clean water, nourishing food, medical care, safe housing, or education—these aren't "lifestyle choices." They are outcomes of policy, power, and collective values. We don't regulate (or dysregulate) our nervous systems in a vacuum. We co-regulate within environments shaped by justice or injustice.

When we understand our health in context, care becomes not just personal—but political, relational, and collective.

The both/and

In integrative and functional medicine spaces, there's often an implicit assumption that health is an individual pursuit—found through biohacks, personalized protocols, or hyper-specific nutrition advice. And there is power in that paradigm. We are all unique, and part of our job is learning the specific care instructions for our own quirky human meat suit.

But individualized care only becomes meaningful when the basics are in place—when people have access to the resources that make health possible in the first place.

When I ran the nutrition department at Community Servings, an amazing Boston-based non-profit providing medically tailored meals to critically ill individuals and their families, I watched people stabilize blood sugar, manage kidney disease and radically improve their health not through expensive personalized protocols, but through regular delivery of healthy meals—whole grains, fruits, vegetables, lean proteins. Not trendy. Not performative. Just consistent access to healthy foods, plus human contact with our wonderful delivery drivers.

We weren't debating seed oils—we were making soup. And it reversed diabetes.

While some argue over micro-doses of additives in our food supply, the systems that actually keep people alive, nourished, and cared for are being gutted.

My stake in the ground

So let me be explicit:

• I believe in the power of personalized nutrition and body literacy.

• I also believe that no amount of biohacking can substitute for public infrastructure that enshrines care for all bodies.

• I believe food is both medicine and a human right.

• I believe healing is possible—but not yet equally accessible.

• I believe that public health and private health are not in opposition—they are interdependent.

• I believe that rage can be sacred, and compassion can coexist with conviction.

True health—the kind worth fighting for—includes all bodies, not just the ones with access to farmers markets and boutique supplements. When we expand our definition of wellness to include collective care, our individual healing becomes more meaningful, not less.

This is where, although I consider myself to be an integrative practitioner, I diverge from much of what has become mainstream in the "alternative health" space—a space that too often weaponizes nuance to take a stand for the wrong things. Many of the people most vocal about "clean food" fail to acknowledge that their ability to worry about the quality of their groceries rests on a foundation of food security and a functioning infrastructure.

This isn't to say I'm in favor of ultraprocessed diets. Bodies are complex, and I've worked with patients who've had meaningful reactions to vaccines, food additives and other substances—real responses that matter deeply for their individual care. But the fact remains that for most people in the U.S., the greatest barriers to health are not these individual sensitivities or trace chemicals. They're poverty, racism, medical neglect, and disinvestment in the commons. We can hold space for both individual complexity and sound population-level policy.

The work of solidarity

Body partnership is not about self-perfection. It's about learning to listen—closely and compassionately—to the signals of our own bodies, and then extending that same attunement to the communal body we're a part of.

Body partnership teaches us that we are not isolated, self-contained units but beings in constant relationship—to the air we breathe, the food we eat, the people we touch. Learning to honor these connections in our own bodies naturally expands into honoring them collectively.

This Substack will focus largely on the personal—practices, recipes, seasonal rhythms, nourishment. These are acts of reclamation and care within imperfect systems. But true body partnership begins with these practices and must move outward: toward solidarity, toward justice, toward all of us.

Lessons from my mom’s garden

In many ways, the same capacity for care that heals us individually is exactly what collective healing requires. Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in The Serviceberry about the indigenous understanding that "the gift must always move"—that abundance shared creates more abundance, that care given creates more capacity for care.

I'm hailing this week from my parent’s farm in Kentucky, where my mom has the most extraordinarily abundant vegetable garden. She relies on friends to pick for her when she is away in the summer, and in return has what is essentially a free CSA all growing season for her family, friends and her local soup kitchen — she puts together baskets of vegetables, fruit and flower and ferries them all over town once a week or so. There's something so embodied about her approach: she tends her garden with the same care she tends her relationships, and the overflow naturally finds its way to where it's needed.

I've been thinking about simple ways to practice body partnership that honor both our individual needs and our interconnectedness. These aren't grand gestures—they're the kind of everyday acts that weave personal and collective care together:

• Cook an extra portion and share with a neighbor

• Clean out your pantry → donate to your local food bank or free fridge

• Channel my mom (if you have your own veggie patch) and share extras with neighbors and friends

• Practice the same deep listening you use with your body when talking with others — check in with them the way you’d check in with your body: "How are you holding up? What do you need?"

• Share resources that have genuinely helped you—books, posts, practices

• Offer to watch a friend's kid or do a camp pickup when their capacity is stretched

• Leave a small jar of flowers on someone's doorstep—a tiny reminder that they're seen and cared for

I will be honest—in the thick of my “always busy” life, being a bit of an introvert, and not having a particularly green thumb, some of the above suggestions feel a bit edgy to me. Maybe they do to you, too. This kind of local community care doesn't necessarily come naturally to me, but I'm beginning to see that creating the world I want to live in requires both political action AND nurturing these small webs of mutual support right where I am. I'm planning to pick a couple of these to try in the coming weeks—not as another “should-do”, but as experiments in extending the partnership beyond my own skin.

What's coming

In future posts, we'll explore the intimate work: seasonal eating, nervous system regulation, the art of listening to your body's signals. These aren't frivolous concerns—they're acts of reclamation within systems that profit from our disconnection.

But they'll always be in context. Because body partnership—real body partnership—recognizes that individual capacity to heal is bound up with the collective capacity for care. Your body's wisdom extends beyond yourself. We need you. All of you. Exactly as you are.

A wish for community

In my dreams, this space holds more than just my voice—it becomes a site of collaboration, exchange, and care. I'm navigating this fucked up world right alongside you, and your perspectives matter deeply here.

I'm curious: What's on your bedside table or morning scroll that's helping you connect the dots between personal healing and collective care? I'd love to know what's catalyzing you or giving you hope right now, or hear examples of community care you've witnessed or created in your own life.

Share in the comments—I want to learn from your wisdom. This work is always stronger when we do it together.

(I’ll start: right now I’m reading Viral Justice by Ruha Benjamin and The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer.)

Leave a comment

How are we supposed to carry on with the mothering, the exercising, the working, the feeding and caring for our sweet, singular bodies in the face of so many others who have had these basic human rights stripped from them? Why isn't everyone screaming and crying and scratching their eyes out all of the time in the face of this chilling cruelty?

Attending a “No Kings” protest with my little family this weekend did help me to connect to other humans expressing our collective outrage, grief, fear and overwhelm. All these bodies, standing and dissenting together. I found myself tearful and verklempt, and a little bit hopeful.

But this morning, the foreboding is back with a vengeance. Instead of burrowing deeper under the covers, I got up and went outside. There was a gentle drizzle. I pressed my forehead and the palms of my hands gently but firmly against my favorite moss-covered boulder in the forest behind our home. I allowed the low vibration of my voice to merge with its ancient vibration. One, two, three, four times.

This morning, I also shook and danced in the kitchen while waiting for my yerba maté to brew—three minutes of letting my body move the anxiety through rather than storing it in my tissues.

These aren't solutions to the world's problems. If only. But they're how I'm learning to be in partnership with my body during unprecedented times.

Bodies in the world

Here's what I'm learning: although it may seem that caring for our own bodies when others have had that choice stripped from them is unfair or even frivolous, the relationship between self and body is the most primary, the most ancient, the most primal relationship we have.

Whether you believe that we get one turn on this earth or thousands, the alchemy between your unique meat suit and its animating force—in this particular embodiment, however long yours lasts—is singular. You’ll never inhabit this exact form again. When all else has fallen away, in our first breath and in our last, it will be this soul in this body.

This isn't about self-care as escape from the world's suffering—it's about cultivating the resilience and presence we need to stay awake, to feel deeply, and to act from a place of groundedness rather than reactivity.

The more connected we are to our own bodies, the more we can feel our interconnection with all bodies. The more we can hold our own grief and terror without being consumed by it, the more we can show up, with our bodies when necessary and possible, for collective healing.

Partnership practices for difficult times

Body Partnership is an approach I've been developing that treats your body not as a project to fix or machine to optimize, but as a wise partner in your most intimate lifelong relationship. It's about listening to your body's messages, responding with compassion and care rather than control, and creating a collaborative relationship that honors both your current capacity and your deeper needs.

When the world feels overwhelming, here are some ways I've been practicing Body Partnership as both resistance and resilience lately:

Start where are

I woke up in dread. Wanting to hide: to crawl back under the covers and stay there. Instead of judging that impulse, I honored it. Feeling angry, overwhelmed, sad, even frozen — these are completely normal responses to what is happening in the world right now.

Then, knowing that for me staying in bed all day isn’t a viable option, I asked my body what tiny step might feel possible to connect in and move through the stuckness. Sometimes it's just putting both feet on the floor. Sometimes it's three minutes of shaking. Sometimes it's pressing my body against something solid and ancient, or just hauling myself outside barefoot to feel the sun in my eyes and my feet on the soil.

Try this: When overwhelm hits, and you feel frozen, ask your body: "What's the smallest thing that would help me thaw right now?" Honor whatever comes up, even if it seems inadequate to the scale of the world's problems.

Use your body as an anchor

In times of collective trauma, our nervous systems can become dysregulated by constant exposure to distressing information. Our bodies can serve as anchors to the present moment, to what's actually here and now.

Try this: Throughout the day, place one hand on your heart and one on your belly. Take three breaths into your belly, feeling your body's aliveness. Ask: "What do I need to stay present and grounded right now?" If even this feels too difficult, try touching and naming five parts of your body: "heart, stomach, forehead, breast, thigh…"

Connect to something larger than yourself

When I pressed against that moss-covered rock, I was connecting my small, anxious body to something ancient and stable. This isn't spiritual bypassing—it's remembering that we're part of something larger, which can help us hold difficult emotions without being consumed.

Try this: Find a way to connect with the more-than-human world daily, even briefly. Touch a tree, put your bare feet or hands in the soil, listen to birds, lay your body on the ground and watch clouds for a few moments. Marvel at a peony bloom or a tiny mushroom. Let your body remember its place in the larger web of life.

Move the energy through

Anxiety, grief, and rage are energy in the body. When we don't move them, they become stuck, creating more suffering. Movement—whether it's dancing, walking, or even just conscious breathing—helps energy flow.

Try this: Put on one song and let your body move however it wants to. No technique required. Let your body express what it's holding. Recently, I've been moving and shaking to a track called Kolkata by Degiheugi. A client yesterday told me that every time she hears a song that lights her up and makes her want to move, she's been adding it to a playlist. You could even have playlists for different emotions – rage, grief, anxiety, joy.

Seek connection, not isolation

When the world feels dark, our impulse might be to withdraw. But isolation often amplifies suffering. Connection—with trusted humans, with nature, with our own bodies—is medicine.

Try this: Reach out to one person this week, not to fix or solve anything, but simply to say "Life feels like a-lot right now: how are you doing?" Sometimes just naming it together reduces its power. Sometimes sharing some of the small joys and struggles of being human is enough. For me, showing up for some collective action was also a kind of antidote.

The both/and of feeling deeply

I think that one of the most challenging aspects of living in dark times is holding the both/and: both feeling the full weight of global suffering AND continuing to find meaning, joy, and purpose in our daily lives.

Body Partnership teaches us that we can both be heartbroken about injustice AND committed to caring for our bodies. Both outraged about the state of the world AND grateful for moments of beauty. Both taking action for change AND resting when we need to.

This is the complex reality of being human during difficult times. And I would argue that the ability to hold space for this kind of nuance is one of the most precious gifts we can cultivate in moving toward a better future.

When caring for your body feels frivolous

Sometimes it feels absurd to worry about what to eat for lunch when children are going hungry or being torn away from their families. To focus on getting enough sleep when others are sleeping on floors, or staying well hydrated when others have no clean access to water. To practice yoga or go for a walk when others can't move freely.

But here's what I'm learning: depleting ourselves doesn't serve anyone. When we care for our bodies with intention and awareness, we're not turning away from suffering—we're preparing ourselves to engage with it more skillfully.

The more resourced we are—physically, emotionally, spiritually—the more we can show up for the work that needs doing. The more connected we are to our own bodies, the more we understand that all bodies deserve care, respect, and dignity.

Small acts, large impact

I carved out precious time for tea with a friend. I walked in the forest and placed my hands on stone. I blocked social media from my phone during certain hours. I wrote in my journal, articulating my dread, grief and overwhelm and asking for guidance. I had an afternoon snack with some protein and some color and refilled my water bottle. I hung a rainbow flag and put up yard signs. I wrote a letter, made another donation, painted protest signs with my kids and found rally to attend.

None of these acts will stop wars or end suffering. And to be clear, so many parts of my life are a complete mess: checks undeposited, bills unpaid, toys on the floor, clothes stacked on chairs, scheduling wires crossed with spouse.

But focusing on one small thing helps me show up as a more grounded, present, compassionate human being. These small acts help me respond rather than react. They keep my light burning so I can share it with others.

Frankly, they help me get out of bed in the morning.

The work we're here to do

Your body chose to be here, in this time, for reasons your soul understands even when your mind doesn't. The work isn't to transcend the difficulties of being human during dark times—it's to learn what this particular body, in this particular moment, has to offer.

Maybe your work is direct action and advocacy. Maybe it's raising conscious, compassionate children. Maybe it's creating beauty or holding space for others' grief. Maybe it's simply learning to be more loving and present in your daily interactions. Maybe it's some aspect of each of these.

Whatever your work is, you'll do it better when you're in partnership with your body rather than depleted, overwhelmed, or disconnected from it.

A practice for right now

Take a moment to place both hands on your body somewhere that feels grounding—your heart, your belly, your thighs. Feel the aliveness there, the warmth, the pulse of life.

Ask your body: "What do you need to stay present and engaged during these difficult times?"

Listen for the answer. It might be rest. It might be movement. It might be connection. It might be creative expression. It might be direct action.

Whatever comes, trust it. Your body knows how to navigate dark times—it's been doing it for millennia. You don't have to figure it all out. You just have to stay in the conversation.

The world needs you present, not perfect. It needs you grounded, not depleted. It needs your body and soul working together in service of whatever healing you're here to offer.

Your partnership with your body isn't separate from your engagement with the world's healing—it's the foundation that makes that engagement possible.

PS: If this resonated with you, I'd love it if you'd hit the heart button, leave a comment sharing your thoughts, subscribe for more body partnership wisdom, and share with a friend who might need this message today.

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It's amazing to experience how the increasing light and emerging sunshine can transform not just the landscape, but my internal state as well. Can you relate?

And then, today, as I edit these words, it's gray again and there has been some kind of new pollen bloom, activating my seasonal allergies in a way I haven't yet experienced this year. I feel like I'm literally dragging my body and mind through thick, humid fog while carrying a ton of bricks.

This contrast—between days of expansive energy and days of contracted capacity—perfectly mirrors what I want to share with you today.

The Natural Rhythm of Capacity

I've been thinking a lot about capacity lately—how our bodies naturally cycle between periods of expansion and contraction, much like the seasons themselves.

I was reminded of this last week with a client who navigates chronic migraines. When we met a month ago, her new treatments were working well, and she was experiencing an amazing increased capacity to move her body regularly and start a strength training routine. The food changes we'd implemented were helping her feel more balanced and energized throughout the day.

This was what I think of as "expand mode"—that glorious time when we have extra energy and get to ask, "What am I wanting to grow in my life? What's my body asking for that I haven't been able to give it recently?"

But when we met last week, things had shifted. Her migraines had worsened as she approached the end of her treatment's efficacy window, compounded by quixotic weather and pressure patterns. She was back to experiencing two or three debilitating episodes each week.

This led us into a rich conversation about what I've come to see as one of the most crucial aspects of body partnership:

How do we honor our body's needs when our capacity is reduced?

The Trap of Constant Expansion

It's natural to want to be in expand mode all the time. Our culture celebrates peak performance, growth, and productivity—not maintenance, contraction, or rest. And it's painfully easy to judge ourselves when we're experiencing a day, a week, or a season of lower capacity for whatever reason—be it chronic disease, parenthood, demands at work, the overwhelming state of the world, seasonal allergies, or perimenopause.

I see a pattern in how many of us (including me!) respond to these contracted periods:

1. We make our body wrong. We judge it for not functioning at the "peak capacity" we experienced during expand mode. We see our body's limitations as failures rather than natural fluctuations.

2. We try to push through. We expect our bodies to do exactly the same things they've always done...which may work for a little while. Until inevitably...

3. We completely abandon healthy habits. We "fall off the wagon" so to speak—we start eating foods that don't serve us, stop moving our bodies entirely, forget to hydrate, and so on.

This all-or-nothing approach creates a painful cycle of expectation, failure, and abandonment of self-care, usually when we need it most.

A Third Path: The Sustain Mode

I'd like to propose an alternative system—one where we acknowledge that life has a natural rhythm of growth and rest, expansion and contraction, and that this is not a flaw in the system but its design.

As Simone Seol said in a coaching session I was listening to recently: "Even the most powerful predator—a lion—sleeps. Even the most powerful beings have lulls. They rest because they're living beings."

If we can start to understand these rhythms within our own lives, we can plan for and honor them, stepping out of this binary "on" or "off" way of living and into a more responsive way of being.

One of the ways I work with this is by helping people to identify their unique "Sustain Mode" practices—those essential elements that keep you feeling grounded even during challenging periods. This isn't about forsaking your body's needs, but about honoring them differently depending on where you are in your natural capacity cycle.

The process starts by asking yourself: "What makes me feel balanced, nourished, and whole?" There will be an "ideal" version of this...probably a "stretch" version beyond that...and then what I'm asking you to do is take the "ideal" version down 3-4 notches to find your "do not go below" line.

If ideal is an hour-long walk on most days and stretch is that plus a long hike on the weekend, then maybe "sustain" is just getting outside for 10-15 minutes in the morning for a literal walk around the block. Or even just sitting on your stoop, taking some deep breaths, and letting the light and air hit your skin and eyeballs.

Your inner perfectionist will say: "Why even bother? That's not enough!" And the part of you that's feeling overwhelmed/sick/drained may say: "I don't have time or energy for that..." But the "wise self" part of you knows that even this small act can shift your mood, your energy, and your relationship with yourself.

Sustain Mode & Expand Mode in Practice

For my client with migraines, we talked about establishing her “Sustain Mode” — baseline practices that help maintain resilience even during contracted periods. For her, these included:

• Getting outside for even just 10-15 minutes of fresh air daily

• Being especially mindful of her migraine food triggers

• Continuing her habit of packing lunch leftovers while she cleans up from dinner

• Maintaining her twice-weekly gentle strength training sessions, rather than pushing to expand to three days as she'd originally planned. Substituting stretching on days when even gentle strength training feels like too much.

The goal during these times isn't growth or expansion, but simple maintenance: doing things that feel supportive and nourishing within current capacity, and sustaining commitment to self-care even when that care needs to look different.

Then, when her body naturally cycles back into a period of greater capacity, she can shift into "Expand Mode" again—perhaps extending her walks to 30-45 minutes or adding that third strength workout.

This cyclical approach mirrors what we see in nature—periods of growth, fallowness, death, and rebirth. There are very few things in the natural world that are blooming and in intensity all the time. And despite our culture's obsession with constant productivity and infinite growth, we are not separate from these rhythms.

Body Partnership Practice: The Morning Check-In

A simple practice that can help you tune into where you are in your own expand/sustain cycle is this:

Each morning, place one hand on your heart and one on your belly. Take a few deep breaths, feeling your belly expand into your hand. Then, as if speaking to a dear friend, gently ask:

"Hey body, how are you feeling today?"

Wait for an answer, which might come as a sensation, a color, a word, or simply a feeling. If you don't get a clear response at first, you can gently ask again: "I really want to understand you and I'm not sure I got that the first time. How are you feeling today?"

Once you have some sense of what's present, you can ask:

"Hey body, what do you need today?"

The answer might surprise you. Your body may feel deeply exhausted, but when you ask what it needs, the answer might not be what you expect. Sometimes the antidote for exhaustion is indeed rest—perhaps a slower morning or a few extra minutes in bed. But other times, what an exhausted body needs is connection, touch, or something that breaks you out of your routine.

Our conscious mind may think it knows what our body needs, but when we approach our body as a deep listener, with a spirit of genuine caregiving, even the smallest changes can shift our experience profoundly.

Seasonal Treat: Matcha Mint Latte

I’m definitely more in “Sustain Mode” than “Expand Mode” this season, and have been finding myself needing “a little something” after school drop-off to entice me to dive into my workday. This matcha mint latte has been hitting the spot: giving me a little boost and something to look forward to. It's been the perfect mid-morning drink that feels like a little gift to myself. Matcha does have some caffeine, but it’s balanced with L-Theanine, which makes it less jittery than coffee, and its vibrant green color broadcasts its high phytonutrient content. I blend with unsweetened almond milk and fresh mint, and with collagen powder for protein and bone support. I also like a touch of sweetness, and for that I’ve been using Allulose, although 1 date would also be lovely. I’m using allulose right now because it has a really neutral sweet flavor and can help to lower (instead of raising) blood sugar levels.

The exact recipe that I’ve been using is:

• 2/3 cup Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk (I’ve been using Malk or Elmhurst)

• ½ cup water

• 1 scoop Collagen Peptides (optional)

• 2-3 large leaves of fresh mint

• 1 teaspoon RxSugar Syrup (Allulose) or 1/2 medjool date

• 1.5 teaspoons ceremonial Matcha (I’m using Hikari Single Origin from Matchaful right now)

• A couple of ice-cubes

To make this recipe vegan, simply eliminate the collagen peptides. In this case, I would recommend using a milk that has some protein, like organic soy milk. Vegetarians who do well with dairy could just use regular milk.

Body Partnership in Practice

The approach I've been describing—this cyclical, responsive way of relating to our bodies—is a central principle in the Body Partnership Method. It recognizes that our capacity naturally fluctuates, and that fighting against these fluctuations often creates more harm than good.

When we approach our bodies as collaborative partners rather than machines to optimize or projects to fix, we open up a different kind of relationship—one based on deep listening, genuine responsiveness, and a commitment to being in conversation even when (especially when) things get challenging.

This approach to capacity—honoring both expansion and contraction—creates a sustainable path for navigating health challenges, life transitions, and the natural cycles of energy we all experience.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. How do you navigate the natural expansions and contractions in your own capacity? What helps you stay connected to your body's wisdom even during challenging times? What “mode” do you feel like you’re in right now? I would love to hear!

PS: If this resonated with you, I'd love it if you would hit the heart button, leave a comment sharing your thoughts, subscribe for more body partnership wisdom, and share with a friend who might need this message today.

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Food is one area where I love bringing both creativity and flexibility—approaching cooking as a form of personal artistry where I can play with what feels nourishing in each season and moment.

This simple, infinitely adaptable brown rice dish is one I recreated about 15-20 years ago after tasting something similar at the Massa Organics stand at the Ferry Building Farmers' Market in San Francisco. This week I made it alongside simply prepared salmon, pickled fennel, and roasted asparagus. (I drew on this recipe as inspiration for the salmon and fennel, although I use WAY less garlic…)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup short or medium grain brown rice (unsurprisingly, I like Massa Organic)

• Good extra-virgin olive oil

• Something sweet: yellow raisins, currants, dried cranberries, or pomegranate seeds

• Something crunchy: toasted slivered almonds, pistachios, or seeds

• Fresh herbs: dill, thyme, parsley—whatever looks vibrant

• Acid: sherry vinegar, lemon juice, or red wine vinegar

• Sea salt to taste

• Optional: something bitter like radicchio, arugula or broccoli rabe

Directions:

1. Cook the brown rice like pasta in an abundance of salted, boiling water for about 45 minutes, then strain and let sit covered in the pot for 10 minutes. Alternatively, you can use a rice cooker or instant pot for this.

2. While still warm, add a generous drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkle of salt and a handful of your sweet element (I used yellow raisins this week).

3. Add your crunchy component (I used pistachios), chopped fresh herbs (fresh dill was my choice), a splash of acid (sherry vinegar), and salt to taste.

4. If desired, fold in something bitter just before serving so it barely wilts from the residual heat.

This dish hits all the notes—sweet, crunchy, herby, acidic—and can be adapted to whatever you have on hand or whatever your body is craving.

The original combo that I tried way back in the day that I still return to often was thyme, currants, sherry vinegar, toasted almonds and broccoli rabe – I coarsely chop the rabe and add it while the rice is still hot enough to wilt it when it gets mixed in.

Here on the East Coast, spring arrives in fits and starts. Snowdrops are beginning to bloom, but I'm still bundled up in a down jacket and hat. This weekend it's supposed to hit nearly 80°F (what?!), but I'm certain next week we'll plunge back into another cold snap. This little dance between winter and spring: the gradual, sometimes reluctant awakening, is mirrored in my body's changing appetites and energy patterns lately.

The body knows

Have you noticed your body asking for different foods lately? In the past couple weeks, I've felt a distinct shift in what my body craves. The grocery store shelves might look essentially the same year-round in our modern world (pretty wild when you think about it), but my interest in certain foods has definitely changed.

After months of reaching for grounding, warm, creamy, dense foods that matched winter’s vibe, I'm suddenly feeling powerfully drawn to fresh herbs, crunchy veggies, bitter and sour flavors and lighter proteins. My eyes are drawn to the fennel, herbs, asparagus and radicchio in the produce aisle. It's like my body is saying: "Hey, sister: we're done with that heavy winter stuff: let's lighten things up!"

This is exactly what Body Partnership looks like in practice. Our bodies are constantly communicating with us if we're willing to listen. These seasonal cravings aren't random; they're our body's intuitive understanding of what it needs as we transition between seasons.

Lindsay’s Spring Bowl

This shifting appetite has led me to create what I'm basically calling my "whatever looks good and crunchy" spring bowl. It's super flexible and totally based on what I'm craving when I'm shopping the produce aisles, and then on what's in my fridge at lunchtime. The beauty is in the mix-and-match. I've been playing with different combinations of these elements (pick one or two from each category):

Build Your Spring Bowl

Proteiny Things: (pick 1-2):

• Edamame (my current obsession!)

• Smoked salmon (those pre-packaged filets are so convenient)

• Leftover chicken or salmon

• Tempeh

• Marinated, baked tofu

*Personally, I’ve been combining about 1/2 cup of edamame with about 2oz of another protein and loving the combo. This keeps the bowl relatively high in protein (~20-25g) for satiety without feeling heavy!

The Crunch Bunch:

• Thinly sliced fennel

• Cucumber (I've been using the mini ones)

• Purple daikon radish

• Sugar-snap peas

Bitter Beauties:

• Arugula

• Cruciferous Crunch mix from Trader Joe's

• Radicchio or other bitter greens

Flavor Medicine:

• ALL the fresh herbs: dill, mint, cilantro, parsley (whatever looks good!)

• Capers (these little bursts of salty brightness are everything)

Healthy Fat FTW:

• Avocado (because...avocado)

• Goat cheese or feta

• Slivered almonds, crushed pistachios, or Furikake

Grounding Grains (optional):

• Brown rice

• Quinoa

• Farro

I've been loving a little bit (maybe 1/4-1/3 cup) of leftover brown rice in my bowls OR, I’ll have a few whole grain crackers on the side...

The Final Flourish:

• Lemon juice & a drizzle of good olive oil OR

• Brown rice vinegar & toasted sesame oil (could top with Furikake or Eden Shake if you’re feeling fancy...)

I just chop everything up in roughly equal proportions, drizzle in the oil and acid, toss it all together, and honestly, it's magical: a sensory delight for both the eyes and the tastebuds. Takes me 5-10 minutes to prepare and clean up.

Some days I keep it super simple with just 3-4 things; other days I go wild and throw in everything fresh and vibrant I can find. It's less a recipe and more a general vibe — bright, fresh, crunchy, and so satisfying! If i’m wanting more asian flavor (like today), I would go with edamame, tofu or tempeh, daikon, cilantro, mint, avocado, cucumber, brown rice vinegar, toasted sesame and Furikake. If I’m feeling brighter and more citrusy, I might do edamame, salmon, avo, arugula or raddichio, cucumber, dill, mint, parsley, capers, evoo, lemon juice. If I need some healthy starch, I’ll throw in brown rice or quinoa. If I want more volume, I’ll up the quantity of greens. You get the idea...

The wisdom of cravings

This intuitive shift in appetite lines up perfectly with how various wisdom traditions talk about spring. In Chinese Medicine, spring is associated with the Wood element, representing growth, flexibility, and vision. It's connected to the liver and gallbladder, which govern the smooth flow of energy throughout the body and help with detoxification.

The bitter greens I've been craving actually support these liver pathways. Bitter flavors (like those found in radicchio, arugula, and dandelion greens) are known as cholagogues. They stimulate bile acid flow and digestion, helping our bodies process the heavier foods we may have consumed during winter.

In Ayurveda, spring is when you're supposed to dial back on heavy, oily, and sweet foods (which were beneficial during winter) and increase bitter, astringent, and pungent flavors to help balance the body. So the light, fresh qualities of these spring bowls align perfectly with traditional recommendations. Neat, right?

What amazes me is how my body knew this intuitively before my mind even caught up.

Honoring your rhythms

What I find most compelling about this seasonal transition is how it reinforces a core principle of Body Partnership: trusting our body's wisdom.

Some days my energy is higher and brighter; some days it's lower and slower. By honoring these rhythms with the foods I eat and how I move my body, I'm building a deeper relationship with my physical self. When I approach my body as a collaborative partner rather than something to control, sustainable health becomes so much more accessible and, honestly, way more joy-filled.

This approach has me tuning into all the cyclical shifts that influence us: seasonal changes, daily patterns of light and darkness, moon cycles, and for those who menstruate, hormonal fluctuations throughout the month. These aren't obstacles to overcome but wisdom to embrace.

An experiment in body listening

As we edge toward spring, I'm super curious: What is YOUR body asking for right now? Are you craving different flavors, textures, or eating patterns? What might these cravings be telling you about what your unique body needs during this transition?

Maybe try creating your own version of a spring transition bowl, or simply experiment with adding one fresh herb or bitter green to your regular meals. Notice how your body responds, and let that guide your next steps.

The beauty of Body Partnership is that there's no single "right" way to eat for spring: there's only what's right for YOUR body in THIS moment. Your cravings, energy levels, intuitive hits and “gut reactions” are all data points in the ongoing conversation with your body.

What patterns are you noticing in your own body's wisdom as the season shifts? What foods are you being drawn to? How is your energy changing? I'd love to hear what you're discovering.

At the end of February, I attended the Integrative Healthcare Symposium in NYC, as I do every year. The conference always provides plenty of food for thought and honestly, it can be all the things: humbling, inspiring, overwhelming, depressing, enlightening, confusing, hopeful…not unlike the world right now! (Side note, if you’re in NYC, the PH Tonic & spicy carrots and at DIMES were off the hook, and I had a yummy/easy but nourishing bowl from Springbone Kitchen that totally hit the spot one night. If you’re gluten-free - Modern Bagel is a must, although I didn’t make it this trip.) But back to business, I wanted to try to distill a few key takeaways for you that bubbled up for me during the conference:

Food is Magic

Food is powerful—magical, even. It literally has the power to change the expression of our genes and alter our metabolism, independent of canges . At the conference, I was fascinated by presentations on "immuno-metabolism"—the relatively new understanding that our immune system and metabolism aren't separate systems but are deeply intertwined partners in a constant dance.

When your immune cells encounter a threat, they need to rapidly shift their energy production to mount a defense. The food on your plate directly determines whether they have the right fuel to protect you or whether they remain sluggish and confused. When your metabolism and immune system are in harmony, inflammation stays in check—mounting a balanced response when needed, then quickly resolving.

Some of the biggest actors on this stage are phytonutrient compounds found in plants. When we consume plants, we're engaging with complex biological information that speaks directly to our cells, turning beneficial genes on and harmful ones off—like tiny switches that help our bodies thrive. The phytonutrients in blueberries tell a different story to our cells than those in kale or carrots or parsley, and when their stories are woven together, truly amazing things happen.

Small Step: Add just one extra serving of richly hued fruits, vegetables, herbs or spices to your daily routine this week. Think frozen wild blueberries on your morning oatmeal or an extra handful of spinach in your soup before you reheat it. Is there a color that is under-represented on your plate right now? This week I remembered beets (Hi, old friends!) and added them back into my routine, and I’ve been enjoying my apple sprinkled with cinnamon. Small, consistent additions create profound shifts over time, and variety is part of the secret sauce.

Movement Medicine

It's not just about the food. It never has been. While nutrition is foundational, our bodies respond just as profoundly to movement, connection, and moments of joy. Those same epigenetic immuno-metabolic changes that we talked about above are, unsurprisingly, deeply influenced by sleep, stress, and movement—sometimes even more powerfully than by food alone.

One of the most fun findings from the conference, from Dr. Geetha Matter-Clarke’s powerful keynote, was that dancing several times per week is associated with a 76% reduced risk of dementia—more than twice the protective effect of reading (35%) and even better than crossword puzzles (47%) - ref. Dance stimulates the release of anandamide (our "bliss molecule") and is also remarkably effective at lifting mood and reducing stress. I don’t know about you, but I would say that we need movement medicine now more than ever.

I think it’s easy to get caught up in finding the perfect exercise routine, or to shame ourselves for not showing up consistently enough — especially in winter months. I propose that we reframe the conversation and start to focus on joy. What kind of movement makes you feel more alive, more connected, and more embodied? Let’s all try to do a little bit more of that.

Small Step: Put on your favorite song and dance for just five minutes. Yes, actually dance—in your kitchen, your living room, wherever. Throw on your headphones and dance in the dark if you’re concerned your family or the neighbors will think you’re crazy. No technique required, just movement and music. Your cells (and your spirit) will thank you. I’ve made this part of my morning routine this week, and I highly recommend it. Not sure where to start? I love this guided “shaking and dancing” meditation from the Center for Mind Body Medicine.

Community Care

Health simply cannot be thought of as a purely individual pursuit. Just as our immune cells and metabolism are in constant conversation within our bodies, we too exist in constant exchange with the world around us. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the communities we build—these shape our wellbeing in ways that transcend personal choice.

Think of the forests. Trees appear to stand alone, but beneath the soil there is an intricate mycelial network connecting them—sharing nutrients, sending warnings of danger, supporting the young and vulnerable. The mother trees, oldest and tallest, closest to the sun, don't simply hoard resources: they redistribute them throughout the community. Our human health functions much the same way. The stark disparity in life expectancy between high and low-income groups in the US (a gap of about 15 years) isn't just an unconscionable statistic—it reveals the fundamental truth that individual health and collective wellbeing are inseparable.

It’s true that each body is unique, and we get the awesome job of learning what our own body needs to thrive, but I think what we often miss in our individualistic approach to wellness is that we, like trees, are connected through invisible networks. The chronic stress experienced by marginalized communities creates a kind of "weathering"—a premature aging and deterioration of health that eventually ripples outward, affecting our collective resilience. None of us can truly thrive when parts of our human family are struggling to survive.

Small Step: Reach out to someone in your life this week—not to give advice or solve problems, but simply to connect. A text, a call, even (gasp) a handwritten note. These small threads of connection are like the mycelial strands beneath our feet, strengthening not just their wellbeing, but yours too, and by extension, our collective resilience.

A Final Thought

Our bodies, like nature, are these complex and exquisite symphonies—all parts interrelated, instruments harmonizing to create the whole. Like a rainforest, the more diverse our ecosystem, the more stable and resilient we become.

As we edge toward spring, I invite you to consider: How might you nourish not just your individual body this season, but also the collective body we all share?

Let me know how this landed for you! What else would you like to see here? I’m all ears…

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And then...life happened.

Since stepping back into private practice in 2020, I've been so focused on providing intensive one-on-one care (and on having a second child at age 43) that I haven't taken the time to "zoom out" and think about how I might share the approach that has emerged from my work with hundreds of clients over the years.

So here we are: welcome to The Body Partnership—a space to explore what it means to treat your body not as a project to fix or a machine to optimize, but as your most intimate lifelong relationship and the vessel through which you experience this wild ride on earth.

Honoring Natural Cycles

Despite the fact that our social feeds are almost always insisting that it’s the perfect time for a radical transformation or dramatic reinvention (cue “New Year, New You!”, “Summer Body Challenge!”, “30 Days to the Best You Yet!” and countless other entreaties…) I've learned that our bodies needs don’t always align with cultural or media timelines for transformation. Sometimes we're in seasons of expansion and growth. Other times, we're in periods of internal processing, rest, and reflection—our bodies forcing us to slow down through fatigue, symptoms, or simply a deep need for stillness.

We were not designed to be productivity robots, and sometimes the soft flesh of our bodies demands that we slow down the churn. That we get gentle and then even gentler.

In the world around us, winds blow, fires and wars rage, dear ones are displaced, fundamental human rights are challenged. It's a-lot, my friends.

Some call these contracted periods a "fertile void"—a time of doing less that is critical for germinating future periods of activity and growth. For me, trusting and doing less has never come easily. Often my body has to remind me to slow down. To trust that all is unfolding in the perfect rhythm; to recognize that it's okay to need and to receive support. Over time, I'm getting better at listening. Better at asking.

Body Partnership Practice: The Most Loving Thing

A question I often ask my clients to reflect upon in sticky moments is:

"What is the most loving thing I can do for myself in this moment?"

The beauty of this question is that there's no one right answer. The most loving thing in this moment may be completely different than the most loving thing two hours or two weeks from now.

This question is also potent because YOU are both the giver and the receiver in this equation. So "the most loving thing" needs to honor the capacity of the giver as it tunes into the desires and needs of the receiver.

The most loving thing might be:

• A piece of dark chocolate at 8:15pm, or keeping a commitment to yourself to close the kitchen door at 8pm so that you can curl up early with a good book.

• Emptying the dishwasher while listening to an audiobook or music so that you feel calm in your external environment, or letting the dishes pile up while you take some time to write, take a walk, or make a nourishing meal.

• Asking someone else to handle a task so you can attend to your own needs.

• Taking one small step in a direction that you think will feel good, and then checking in with yourself to see if it actually does feel good.

For example, I generally walk outdoors every day, but yesterday as I headed down the block the wind blew right through me and my body just said "no thanks." I went back inside for a cup of tea instead.

One of my coaches, Nisha Moodley, described a similar concept recently in such a beautiful way: "Tune into what helps you feel like you're able to thaw a bit..." In other words, what brings you to life right now? Those things become the practices of the season (or the day, or the week) for you.

The Foundation of Body Partnership

This approach—listening to what your body is asking for and responding with compassion rather than judgment—forms the foundation of what I call the Body Partnership Method.

At its heart is a simple but radical premise: your body isn't a problem to solve or an enemy to conquer, but your most intimate partner on this journey through life.

Bodies and lives are always changing. Routines are great, and they are designed to be tweaked, interrogated, and sometimes released. Different seasons of life bring different energy and different needs.

When we approach our bodies with curiosity and collaboration rather than control, we open up to a wealth of wisdom that can guide our choices. This partnership becomes your most reliable compass for navigating the often overwhelming landscape of health information—helping you discern which diet approaches, lifestyle practices, and even supplements are actually a good fit for you, rather than following generic prescriptions that might work for someone else's body but not your own.

The Power of Both/And

One of the most liberating aspects of the Body Partnership approach is that it creates space for "both/and" rather than "either/or" thinking. Because it focuses less on achieving specific outcomes and more on being in right relationship with ourselves throughout any process, it allows us to hold seemingly contradictory truths simultaneously.

This framework creates space for us to both accept ourselves and our bodies fully—at this size, at this capacity, in this moment of health or disease—AND to want to make changes to our body size, increase our capacity, or work to lessen or resolve symptoms.

What Body Partnership asks of us is simply to stay in the conversation. As we select a path forward, we feel how it lands in our system: Does it feel sustainable? Does it give us energy? Does it make us feel free? Is it aligned with our values? Or are we pushing through an intervention that feels restrictive and wrong because something we watched on social media or some expert told us that it was what we "should" do?

An essential first step is to tune into why we want to make changes in the first place. Is it "to be able to engage more fully in life"? "To feel more at home in my own skin"? "To have the energy and capacity to care for my children and aging parents"? These deeper motivations become our guideposts in whatever intervention we choose.

This is not "the ends justify the means" type of work—the means is the work. If the path to get there squashes the feelings you're hoping to feel on the other side, it's probably not the right path in the first place. A diet that promises energy but leaves you feeling depleted, a wellness routine that promises peace but creates anxiety about "doing it right"—these approaches fundamentally contradict their own stated purposes.

The Body Partnership Method isn't about finding the "perfect" diet or wellness regimen. It's about developing a nuanced, responsive relationship with your remarkable body so you can make choices that truly support your unique physiology and current needs—whether those choices involve acceptance, change, or most likely, a dynamic dance between the two.

Questions for Reflection

As you begin this exploration, I invite you to consider:

• What is the most loving thing you can do for yourself in this moment?

• How can you honor your capacity as both "giver" and "receiver" right now?

• Do you have any routines that need tweaking to better align with your current needs?

• What brings you to life and helps you feel more connected to yourself?

What You'll Find Here

In future posts, I'll be exploring different dimensions of the Body Partnership approach—from decoding your body's unique language of sensations to navigating the complex terrain between cultural body messages and personal experience. I'll also dive into evidence-informed nutrition approaches and how to determine whether they're right for you, offering practical tools for discernment and simple experiments to help you discover what truly serves your unique body. Rather than prescribing one-size-fits-all solutions, we'll explore how to become your own best health detective through thoughtful partnership with your body.

For now, I invite you to experiment with this question of "the most loving thing" and notice what emerges. Your body has been waiting for this conversation.