Rachel Rainbolt, creator of Sage Parenting, homeschooling mamma, gentle parenting advocate, and general badass, and I, recently had a fabulous conversation for her Sage Family Podcast. We talked about values and how they relate to parenting, health, and general wellbeing. Rachael is wise, thoughtful, engaging, and eager to investigate the issues that matter to many modern parents and the children we’re attempting to raise. I was thankful and humbled to share this conversation with her.
Most of us want to be sexy. Many of us want to be beautiful. It’s easy to think of these terms as synonyms, but they’re not.
The lifestyle of minimalism is realizing what is impeding your path, then taking action.
It’s easy to feel that our world is falling apart at the seams. When was the last time you read or turned on the news and found an uplifting story? It’s been a while. Spreading negativity congregates eyeballs, but it doesn’t cultivate wellness in any aspect of life — public or private.
Late last summer, in a post called Emotional Nourishment, I wrote about a 150 day personal challenge I undertook which included daily meditation, yoga, and abstinence from alcohol. My hope was that the emotional nourishment challenge would help improve my awareness of and ability to handle stressful times. The 150 days ended on December, 31 2017 and now that it’s well into the next year, it’s time to discuss and reflect upon that experience.
I’m on a plane, looking out at the sun rising over the southern California mountains. It’s a warm, clear Sunday morning in Los Angeles and I just said “see you soon” to my partner Joshua — I’ll be back in a week. You see, my daughter Ella lives in Missoula and Joshua lives in Los Angeles — I split my time between the two. The two-legged flight between Los Angeles, California and Missoula, Montana, is my commute.
Last fall we moved into an apartment in Missoula, MT that is half the size of the house we’d been inhabiting – 800 sq. ft instead of 1,500 sq. ft. While the overall space is about half as big, the kitchen is less than a quarter in size. It’s minimal. To prepare for the move, I whittled down my previous kitchen arsenal to the absolute essentials required for preparing healthy meals for our family and developing recipes for you.
There was a gobstopper-sized lump in my throat as I wrote an email to a mogul in the health and fitness industry declining an offer to become one of his nutrition coaches. After days of debate I decided that I couldn’t say “fuck yes” to the offer, because that would mean saying “no” to something else — I’d be saying “no” to Minimal Wellness. But during this internal debate, I also stumbled to say “fuck yes” to continuing to work for myself.
When I became a Registered Dietitian in 2006, anxiety wasn’t on my radar as a consideration when working with clients. But during the decade from 2007-2017 the U.S. saw a staggering increase in people suffering with anxiety. 18.1% of the adult US population now struggles with an anxiety disorder, making it the most common mental health issue. More than a decade into my career, I’ve worked with hundreds of clients who identify anxiety as a primary health challenge.
Last week I had a meltdown under the pressures of caregiving, single-parenting, co-parenting, moving, traveling, and entrepreneurship. (The privilege of my list of trials makes the shame of temporarily loosing my shit feel even heavier.)
