This quote from Timothy Keller, really hits home for me. Without a strong foundation of faith - it is too easy to lose perspective of where work and health should fit in life priorities. If you’re feeling disconnected from the calm and joy that faith once gave you, maybe it’s time to look at how your relationship with God and your daily life intersect.

When Work Becomes a Driving Force, Faith Can Get Pushed Aside

Being in the fast lane often means focusing heavily on delivering results, building external value, and handling constant demands. It’s all too easy for faith to take a backseat. You may even find yourself tying your worth to your work achievements, so that every high or low in business impacts how you feel about yourself.

This drive to excel can lead to:

Perfectionism:

• Mistakes feel personal and the pressure to perform becomes intense. It increases the likelihood that you are worrying about what others are thinking about you and how you are being perceived and treated. This amplifies the stress & pressure within already challenging situations. 

Worry About Outcomes:

• Constantly pushing for certain results and trying to control everything can leave you physically and mentally exhausted. It can become hard to turn off work thoughts or let go of anxious overthinking about work, even during personal time or as you are trying to sleep.

Work-Life Imbalance Affecting Relationships:

• Even though you work to ensure a successful and bright future for your loved ones, the urgent crises and significant issues have you skipping events or not staying in touch. Work becomes a distraction creating tension in relationships from not being fully present or having enough quality time.

Chronic Stress: 

• Over time, the focus on avoiding failures and forcing results leaves little room for spiritual growth, self-care, or emotional peace. Ongoing stress leads to physical and mental fatigue, draining your energy and affecting your focus and mood.

When you are physically and mentally drained, it can be hard to maintain your spiritual health. Modern society makes it easy to slowly drift from your faith, without really noticing. In your busy & hectic life, you are doing the expected activities to lovingly support your family and living a moral life. At some point, work just started to consume most of your time, energy and focus. It's not like you stopped believing, it's just God may hear from you only on the holidays or when help is needed. 

A Shift Back to Faith and Balance

When faith becomes the central pillar in your life your perspective shifts. Faith provides a borader perspective of scale and relativity. In the grand scheme of things - is this specific situation at work all that important? Through Holy Spirit, you'll see that a lot of work-related stress is unnecessary.

Making your relationship with God a daily priority creates a foundation from which you can navigate work and life with grace. Here’s how faith-centered habits can relieve work-related stress and restore your peace:

Reframe Your Identity

When your worth is anchored in God rather than your productivity, the pressure to achieve for validation eases. Colossians 3:23 reminds us to "work heartily, as for the Lord, and not for men." This shifts your focus from external validation to a purpose-driven perspective.

Turn Mistakes into Learning Opportunities

Instead of seeing mistakes as setbacks, view them as growth moments. God calls us to “cast all your anxieties on him” (1 Peter 5:7). Lean on Him for resilience and view each challenge as a chance to practice patience, compassion, and humility.

Clear Cognitive Distortions to See Truth

Instead of falling into common traps of negative thinking, you'll see them as deceptions, causing you to feel more stress. For example, you may be mindreading how someone feels about you or fortunetelling how a situation will turn out that fuels your stress. Or anytime you tell yourself that you are not enough or don't have enough. John 8:47 reminds us "whoever belongs to God hears what God says." Challenging the thoughts and perceptions of a stressful situation with prayer and Biblical inspiration helps you see reality and God's truth.

Transform Stress into Spiritual Strength

Chronic stress is emotionally draining, but when you replace worry with trust in God’s provision, you find an inner peace. Matthew 6:34 reminds us to “not be anxious about tomorrow.” Relinquishing control over outcomes can free you from the mental cycles of worry and doubt.

How can faith act as an inner ballast to counteract the stress and overcommitment you are making to work? How would your life be different if you let God in just a little bit more? 

Practical Steps to Reconnect with Your Faith for Lasting Stress Relief

If you’ve been feeling the strain, it might be time to bring God back to the center. Here are three practical ways to reconnect and relieve stress:

Start a Gratitude Practice

There are so many ways to practice gratitude as part of reducing stress. Begin each day by writing down at least one thing you’re grateful for, asking God to open your eyes to blessings both big and small as you go through the day. At the end of the work day, find the goodness amidst a tough and stressful day. At the end of the day, recognize someone that brought a little light. This simple practice redirects your focus from pressures to gratitude, grounding you in faith.

Journal Prompt: What blessings did you experience today that you might have overlooked? Take a moment to thank God for them and to help you see how appreciating them can help bring contentment and calm.

Practice Forgiveness for Stress Relief

Holding onto anger, frustration, or resentment builds stress. Colossians 3:13 calls us to “forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Practicing forgiveness lightens your emotional load, allowing you to face each day with a renewed spirit. Sometimes it is not someone else you need to forgive, but yourself. Grant yourself some compassion and grace, even if it didn't turn out as expected, you made mistakes or disappointed people

Action Step: Reflect on one person you need to forgive—whether at work, home, or yourself. Pray for the strength to release that burden and experience peace.

Practice Breath Prayer for Calm & Peace

When you are feeling tension or distress within your body or your thoguhts running away with you due to stress, restore calm with just a few deep breaths. Pick a favorite verse for deep breathing - maybe a variant on Psalm 46:10. Inhale "Be Still." Hold for a count of 4. Exhale "so I can know you God." By connecting to God regularly, you bring calm and clarity to your day, reminding yourself that you’re not in this alone.

RELATED: Another Breath Prayer exercise

Concerned you don't have the time or energy for these, you can use faith-driven tiny habits to create the time. As you lean more into your faith and build out these healthy habits, you'll notice that with less stress there is more time.

From Hard Work to Higher Purpose

As you let God more into your life, it transforms not only how you approach work but how you see yourself and your purpose. When you are making your personal relationship with God a priority, so many of the trappings and overcommitments in the workplace begin to fade in comparison.

For those that need external validation of the benefits, there are dozens of scientific studies showing greater health and happiness when there is faith - more so when part of a supportive community of shared faith, morals and values.

Imagine living each day with more energy, greater compassion, and less stress. When you work “for the Lord” rather than to satisfy external demands, work becomes less about striving and more about serving. Work becomes more effortless and joyful when the priority is to maximize the value for the team, the customer, or the consumer through service or when value creation is based on seeing the higher purpose served by the team or organization.

As you reduce stress and improve work-life harmony, you'll be able to turn striving into thriving and flourishing as God intends.

My hope for you...

I pray that you realize that faith in God enriches your life in so many different ways, more thanwhat I've lined out. I am not here to evangelize. Yet I hope some of you that may have let the light of faith dim are willing to brighten it. Being motivated to getting better health outcomes and a more positive mental attitude is a good reason to start exploring your relationship with God (again).

Reconnecting with my faith was one of the major catalyst of change in my jourey of stress recovery. As I released the feelings I held about organized religion - I was able to recognize that these are constructs run by fallible and imperfect humans. A direct relationship with Christ and having my own personal practice has been key for re-centering my life priorities.

I willingly trade the underlying emotions that accompany chronic stress (fear, doubt, frustration, shame, guilt, anger, etc.) for connectedness, devotion, compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude. I am also willingly trading working harder for working higher.

Could prioritizing your faith bring a renewed sense of calm to your day? How would your choices, relationships, and health improve? Start with small steps, and remember that lasting change doesn’t happen overnight. Faith-driven transformation takes time, but the peace it brings is worth every effort.

If you're ready to take the next step in reclaiming your time, restoring your energy, regaining your focus and strengthening your faith-filled identity, download my free guide to building tiny habits. This guide will help you incorporate small but powerful habits rooted in Christian identity to find stress relief and greater work-life balance. Through small, actionable steps, in time you can thrive and flourish as God intends for you.

What Is Chronic Stress?

Stress, in itself, isn’t all bad. In small doses, stress helps us stay alert and responsive. For example, stress can motivate you to accomplish goals, like becoming more alert and efficient so you meet deadlines. That’s especially true for short-term stress.

However, when stress becomes a constant companion, it begins to erode physical and mental health. It also disrupts the ability to handle life’s curveballs - impacting relationships, eating, sleeping, exercising and other activity patterns. As the body continues to operate in "fight / flight / freeze / fawn" mode—elevating heart rate, suppressing digestion, and releasing stress hormones like cortisol—it never gets a chance to reset and restore. Over time, this can lead to long-term health consequences, such as:

• Cardiovascular problems: Prolonged stress can increase the risk of hypertension, heart attacks, and strokes. 
• Mental health challenges: Persistent stress contributes to anxiety, depression, and difficulty concentrating. 
• Immune system suppression: Chronic stress contributes to increased inflammation, weakens your immune response, making you more susceptible to infections and slower to recover. 
• Digestive issues: Stress interferes with digestion, leading to problems like acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and constipation. It also increases risk of obesity, particularly if quality of food choices and amount of exercise deteriorates. 

There's many references out there related to the relationship between chronic stress, chronic inflammation and chronic disease. Here are a few if you want to research further. (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) When you add in working greater than 55 hours per week, the odds for chronic disease increase.

As believers, we are called to trust in God’s provision and not carry our burdens alone. Philippians 4:6-7 reminds us: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” God doesn't want us suffering with chronic stress, He wants us to find peace through Jesus Christ. Our faith can help help us reduce work-related stress and find work-life harmony. If you decide to accept the status quo, listening and acting to all the pressures and noise of the fallen modern world, you will continue to be drained and exhausted from stress and working too much. In time, chronic stress will impact all areas of your life.

RELATED: When Anxiety Great Within, God's Consolation Brings Joy

The Ripple Effect of Stress on Your Life

When stress goes unmanaged, it impacts every area of your life, including your relationships, performance at work, and personal well-being. You may find yourself feeling constantly tired, irritable, or overwhelmed by even the smallest of tasks. Stress can even change how you interact with loved ones, leaving you disconnected from your family and faith.

While many people are aware of the dangers of stress, they may not realize how easy it is to reverse its effects through small, sustainable changes. This is where my stress recovery coaching comes in. As someone who has experienced the relentless pressure of workaholism, I understand the journey firsthand. Through personalized, one-on-one faith-based coaching, I help busy Christian professionals reclaim their health and balance with small, actionable steps.

Do You Recognize Yourself?

How stress impacts day to day life. Meet Alicia -

Right after lunch Alicia gets a work assignment and a tight deadline for tomorrow’s end of day. From what her boss said and her internal expectations, she subconsciously identifies significant consequences of not accomplishing this assignment on time and in full. The moment the consequences are identified as significant and a probable threat to her well-being, the body begins the stress reaction. Adrenaline helps her focus on delivery of the goals and cortisol provides energy to the blood stream and suppresses non-essential functions.

• Mentally she is hyper-focused on whatever it takes to deliver the goal (to get to safety).
• Her muscles are tight and ready to spring into action. 
• That lunch she just ate feels heavy in your stomach and is slow to digest.
• She is not hungry yet feels the need for more energy. She just grabs a cup of coffee or a sugary snack for a quick energy punch that can be eaten on the run and as she works. 
• Feeling like she is in a race, her heart is pounding, her breathing is faster and her blood pressure is up. She is hypervigilant and alert.
• Anytime she thinks of the consequences or feels it nipping at her heels, she gets an extra internal punch to drive forward to the goal.
• When she arrives home, her husband asks for help and wants to talk about his day. She speaks to him sharply and with little patience. Her brain is in survival mode, so doesn’t as easily access the areas that allow her to be loving in her response and to be sensitive in her communication. As soon as she says it, she feels ashamed but keeps moving on with her to do list.
• She still isn’t hungry, particularly after having had a sour stomach in the afternoon. Because she was sharp with her husband when she got home, she goes ahead with dinner plans and forces herself to eat. She is distracted with the assignment and not fully present. Bitter thoughts cross her mind because she is not working on this critical assignment, yet are quickly suppressed.
• So she can work on her assignment, she skips the evening walk with her husband and the dogs. Her husband goes by himself.
• She has difficulty sleeping. Her mind is spinning and still working on the assignment and dreams are fitful of all the bad consequences of not getting it done. Additionally, her body is still trying to slowly digest. The brain is not getting enough time and fuel to recharge.
• In the morning, she needs to do some complex calculations as part of the assignment. Her critical thinking is slower and more cloudy from lack of sleep and how her brain is still in survival mode and not as easily accessing areas for complex thinking. She gets frustrated with herself because she is not as productive and efficient as normal.

In the end, she delivers on the assignment and gets the accolades from her boss on a job well done and a quick turn around. None of the bad consequences she was stressed about occur. She feels safe and secure again. Her muscles start to relax. She is tired and wants to rest. Yet, she is hungry looking for another quick energy hit and something to satisfy and reward. She picks up greasy fried food and a dessert for dinner to celebrate and to make it up to her husband for the other night. She falls asleep right after dinner while watching tv. Another night that her husband walks the dogs by himself.

If this was an isolated event, everything would get back to normal.

She would look back and figure out how to better manage her stress reaction, how to improve her relaxation response to reduce the time in survival mode and to improve recovery, or how to make better choices as she rebuilds her reserves. This way she is better equipped the next time there is a threat that triggers a stress reaction.

On the other hand, if this is just a couple of days in a long stream of stressors and there is no time for recovery, can you see how the stress-induced behaviors can add even more stress to her life - tension in her relationship with her husband, weight gain from unhealthy diet & lack of exercise, reduced work performance, reinforcement of any existing limiting elements in her self-image? This is what differentiates chronic stress from acute stress. For people like you, chronic stress is fueled by a prolonged period with a high workload & a lot of pressure. Work is prioritized (maybe even preferrable) to other activities and relationships in life.

RELATED: Understanding Common Stressors

My own blind-spots  

Change can only happen once the need is acknowledged and embraced. Conditioned habits and behaviors are hard to break – it is easy to fall back into them when stress occurs. Additionally, there may be blind-spots in self-awareness that are obstacles to transformation. I’ll use my story as an example.

While in corporate roles, I was the stereotypical Type A person, putting career as a top priority and primary to my identity. I tried to control everything in my life and was unbalanced with the time, attention and focus I gave to work over my personal life. I lived with chronic stress for years before I figured out how to break free.

It took a trip to the hospital over 10 years ago to even acknowledge I had a problem. There was a lot of trial and error to figure out how to do more than pause chronic stress for short periods. Each break was enough to give me sufficient perspective to learn and adapt. Yet, it was so easy to fall back into the patterns of chronic stress, almost without noticing, as stress ratcheted up with different projects at work.

Looking back over the last 20 years - I probably should call myself an adrenaline junkie. While I would never engage in the adventurous actions or sports that most people think of when you say that phrase, I constantly put myself in that position as it came to work. It was an aspect of being a workaholic - adrenaline kept fueling me to work harder and more hours to get ahead of perceived threats and my weaknesses.

At some level, I convinced myself that the risk vs reward was worth being chronically stressed. Subconsciously, I would imagine all the consequences of complete failure, which created an adrenaline-fueled drive. This was magnified by consciously thinking through the risks of how decisions, projects or strategies could go wrong or fail. The approach repeatedly propelled me up the corporate ladder, allowing me to better support my husband and I.

After another major health crisis, it forced me to take a hard look at myself. Once I acknowledged I was inviting chronic stress. I adjusted perspective and approach. I no longer get caught up into a self-perpetuating cycle of chronic stress. (I still had workaholic episodes, as that was a slightly different mental beast to tame.)

To be clear – it does not mean I never experience stress. When I feel stressed, I am able to more effectively move into recovery and reserve building in order to get back to a normal psychophysiological state. With my new perspective, there are also fewer situations that trigger a stress reaction as compared to before.

RELATED: Am I a Workaholic? Or Just a Stressed Hardworker?

My prayer for you...

Each person has their own journey and will need to learn their own lessons along the way in order to reduce stress, achieve improved health, more energy and more joy.

Do either of these women demonstrate behaviors that you recognize or resonate with? 

As a Christian professional, you're not alone in feeling like there’s never enough time for everything. Yet, God offers us a way to break free from the cycle of overwork and stress. Change begins with self-awareness; recognizing where you are missing the mark of who you want to be and the plan God has for you. Matthew 6:34 encourages us, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Instead of carrying the weight of tomorrow’s troubles, start with these simple steps to manage stress today:

1. Use stress journaling to begin to recognize patterns of stressors so you can effectively address them. See where God can help you shift perspective or where He is encouraging you to grow.
2. Use quiet time for gratitude practice, prayer or other spiritual disciplines to break the cycle of stress and worry. Consistently strengthening the connection to your faith and feeling supported and calmed by God's love, breaks the stress response and calms the nervous system. 
3. Don't believe you have time or energy for either of these tactics? Use faith-driven tiny habits to begin to reclaim time and restore energy. By taking the smallest step possible, you can slowly transform your life. By anchoring your choices in your faith and Christian identity, God will guide you toward greater work-life harmony so you can thrive and prosper.

Let’s Get Personal: Where Is Stress Taking the Biggest Toll?

If you’ve been carrying the weight of stress for too long—especially the kind that doesn’t go away with a weekend off—it might be time to try a different approach.

The Peace & Focus Starter Session is a no-pressure, personalized conversation designed to help you:

• Name what’s draining your energy and peace
• Clarify what truly needs to shift
• And explore how small, faith-centered changes can restore what stress is stealing

Book your Peace & Focus Starter Session here to start your journey of stress recovery.

Understanding the Chronic Stress Cycle

When faced with a perceived threat, your body initiates the stress response—an automatic survival mechanism. Your heart rate increases, breathing quickens, and stress hormones like cortisol flood your system, all aimed at keeping you alert and ready for action. This response is vital for short-term, acute stress (like avoiding danger or responding to a stress trigger), but when stress becomes chronic, your body remains in a heightened state of alertness, unable to fully relax.

Chronic stress happens when the body cannot return to a normal, calm state between stressors. Triggers can be external or internal. Common external stress triggers include ongoing work pressure, difficult relationships, or financial worries. Whereas internal stress triggers are a response to thoughts, feelings, sensations or what is occuring in the physical body.

The key to breaking the cycle of chronic stress is more than just managing symptoms—it’s about preventing the stress response from being triggered in the first place.

Why Faith Matters in Stress Recovery

At its core, stress is a reflection of how we perceive and react to situations. By connecting with your faith, you can shift your perspective and take a more grounded, eternal view of the challenges you face. Psalm 55:22 teaches us, “Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you.” This verse reminds us that God invites us to place our burdens in His hands, relieving us of the anxiety that keeps the stress cycle alive.

Here are a few ways that faith can help interrupt the stress cycle:

Embracing Christian Identity:

Many situations are perceived as stressful when viewed from the persepective of a role-based identity - employee, parent, child - or from the perspective of societal norms. When you look at the situation from the persepective of who you are in Christ and who you are to God - you'll find that you put less pressure on yourself and it is easier to stress less.

Surrendering Control: 

Many stressors arise when we feel we are losing control over a situation. Surrendering to God and trusting His plan offers a sense of peace, knowing that the outcome is in His hands. A simple way to remember this - "I Can't. He Can. I Think I'll Let Him!"

Prayer and Meditation: 

Spending time in prayer or meditating on Scripture calms the mind and provides a space for reflection, breaking the automatic nature of the stress response.

Reframing Challenges: 

Faith encourages us to see difficulties as opportunities for growth, shaping us into the person God intends us to be. Also, when something seems challenging through God we have the strength and courage to do His will. This reframing reduces the sense of threat that triggers the stress response.

Practical Ways to Use Faith in Stress Management

Incorporating faith into your daily stress management routine can be as simple as small habits that gradually transform how you approach life. Here are five actionable examples to get started:

Daily Prayer: 

Start each morning with a short prayer of surrender, where you consciously give your stress and concerns to God. This aligns your heart with the truth that God is in control and gives you a foundation of peace as you face the day. As you need calm, strength, perspective, a moment of prayer will bring you greater serenity.

Scripture Meditation: 

Take five minutes each day to meditate on a Bible verse that resonates with you. Verses like Matthew 6:34 ("Do not worry about tomorrow…") can anchor your mind in peace, helping to disrupt worry patterns. Carry your verse with you to review and invigorate you as a "shield" against stress.

Gratitude Practice:

Develop a journal practice of what you are grateful for. It can be a log of items you add to each day. This encourages a positive mindset and a source of energy when you feel worn down. Adding a prayer of thanksgiving enriches it further to help you promote calm and joy.

Stress Journaling:

Note what stressed your out through the day. Purge it so it doesn't disrupt your sleep or make it harder for you to respond to the next stress trigger. The patterns can help you create action plans, but also you can turn these situations over to God to help you overcome.

Worship:

You restore your reserves when you take a moment each day to worship and praise God. Maybe it's singing devotion songs along with the radio to get you moving and smiling. Or maybe it's quiet time in nature in awe of His creation. When you have peace, joy, or love in your heart and soul, you break the stress cycle!

None of these has to be done alone! If you want to spend more quality time with a loved one, these are great activities to do together. Many people I work with find that they are able to reduce stress AND improve work-life harmony more effectively this way.

Breaking Free from the Stress Cycle

Faith-based stress management is about moving beyond reactive responses to stress and embracing a proactive approach rooted in your identity as a Christian. When you view stress through the lens of faith, you no longer have to carry the weight alone. Jesus offers us an invitation in Matthew 11:28-30: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” This divine promise offers a way out of the constant demands of life, helping us find renewal in His presence.

By trusting in God’s provision and adopting small, faith-centered habits, you can prevent stress from ruling your life. Over time, these tiny steps will accumulate into significant changes in how you handle pressure, offering more than just relief—they offer transformation.

My hope for you...

I pray that you find the little tiny changes that you can make on a daily basis to break free from the chronic stress cycle. I know that by bringing in your faith more into your habits and routines at work (and at home), you'll be able to find stress relief and improved work-life balance. These are small powerful shifts.

In my own journey of stress recovery, sustaining stress management plans and behavioral changes became so much easier when I let God into more areas of my life. As I became more conversational with Him in my mind, instead of stress-filled thoughts, I was able to stress less and find more balance and harmony.

You Don’t Have to Keep Doing It All Alone

Chronic stress has a way of making even the most capable leaders feel like they’re barely holding it together. But what if you could move from just surviving to actually feeling clear, focused, and at peace again—without sacrificing your work or your values?

The Peace & Focus Starter Session is a guided starting point to:

• Identify what’s really fueling the stress
• Get personalized insight on how to reset
• And take the first step toward lasting balance—with God at the center

Click here to schedule your Peace & Focus Starter Session. It’s time to start your journey of stress recovery.

Lately have you been noticing that there are things you want to do do, but you just don't have the energy? There is something that you can do about this. Take a step back and evaluate how your lifestyle and food choices are impacting you. With awareness, you are able to identify and make targeted changes to improve your energy and health. Reducing ultra processed foods by eating clean, real foods as you transition to more ancestral foods will help you feel better and reduce disease risk. Employing prayer and intuition will make these changes sustainable. With God, you are guided to live your best life. 

So instead of giving up and saying that low energy or feeling off is just the result of aging - Declare Health Independence! Take steps to protect your health through ownership of lifestyle and food choices. Start the journey to change unconscious habits and address the lifestyle and food choices that could lead to disease. Your health and well-being will improve.

Declare Health Independence!

Flourishing Health!

This program is set up to help you achieve a variety of potential transformations. This four-fold approach is rooted in the values of Faith, Family & Freedom.  Education and support enable you to make empowered personal choices. Based on your goals, choices and actions, you will have a unique outcome for you. This is what is meant by Flourishing Health. Depending on what is most important to you it can include...

• Resilience and strength to weather the storm. Reduced stress & greater calm.
• Greater energy & focus as a result of more nourishing choices
• Character by willingly taking responsibility & ownership of health
• Joy from realizing what you can accomplish & overcome
• Flourish in body, mind and spirit as you achieve your health goals
• Connect with your inner wisdom & build trust in your decisions
• Feel that God is helping you have the Grace & Grit to persevere
• Feel in control & that your health outcomes are on your own terms
• Be awake to the issues impacting our food supply & be aware of how to avoid ingredients and companies that don’t share your values

Your vision for Flourishing Health may change as you are on this journey. As you employ the different approaches, you become equipped to better navigate the changes.

Increased Liberation from Globalist Influences

By being healthier, you Declare Health Independence from the industries and systems that you don’t trust. To be healthy and to win an economic battle over the giants controlling the food supply & healthcare is revolutionary. In the middle of this Modern Holy War, being healthy and caring for yourself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation. Whether you are on the front line or on home defense, it is an act of a warrior to take a stand strong against the forces that oppress us and are trying to separate us from God, to break our families and to tear apart our country.

Like David and other warriors that stood with God before our generation, by being your healthiest self you will have the clarity of thought, resilience and energy to stand through the battles in this war.

Need a Little Support & Direction to Achieve Goals?

Please reach out via email if you think that our four-fold approach to Declare Health Independence will work for you and help you achieve your vision for Flourishing Health. Download the mini-course to start with upgrading your snacking to be able to boost energy naturally! We offer group classes periodically. When there is an enrollment period, there will be announcements on the webpage and in email.

For years, I was chronically stressed & highly wound. I was wired into the pace of corporate life and thought I could control everything to the demands of my schedule. For example, I would often ignore the physical signals of hunger, thirst, needing to use the restroom or needing a break to push through to when I decided it was time for needs to be attended (usually a 5 minute window in between meetings). I was totally focused on work and getting ahead. Self-care was way far down on the priority list. Whenever I would get sick, depleted or burnt out, I tried some new approach to reducing stress or feeling better. The chronic stress cycle kept repeating itself though.

Nothing was sustainable until I included God. Once I decided to have Him for support and as an accountability partner, it changed everything. What I was not able to do for myself, I was willing to do when I prayed, meditated and kept a bigger perspective. Because of the habits I made for myself, I had to re-learn what the physical and mental signals are when my body is expressing its needs.

This personal experience is part of why I highly recommend that anyone seeking to build their own health and wellness also employ prayer and intuition. (Even non-believing scientists find that it is helpful.) Being able to reconnect with the innate wisdom that God granted each of us and being open to God is a true compass to flourishing health.

Declare Health Independence!

When you are not feeling your best and you want to have enough energy to fully enjoy life's experiences with your family and loved ones - Declare Health Independence! Take steps to protect your health through ownership of lifestyle and food choices. Start the journey to change unconscious habits and address the lifestyle and food choices that could lead to disease. As you seek God on this journey, you will find yourself exactly where He wants you to be.

Employ Prayer & Intuition!

God loves each of us as we are right now! We are never alone and always supported. Our Creator can help us become healthier when we keep the connection open with prayer and gratitude. God designed each of us to have a purpose and so much potential! With our free will, sometimes we drift and bring on more challenges to ourselves. God wants us to restore our focus on Him as we become more Christ-like. When you struggle with a change or need motivation, prayer for health and wellness can help you through.

When we were in our mother's womb, God embedded innate wisdom in our cells. Our cells know their function, how to repair and maintain themselves and how to replace themselves. With all the choices that we've made through life and what we've put our bodies through, our cells may not be operating as they were originally designed.

Feel the difference when choices to strengthen cells, instead of weakening them. Employ intuition to re-connect with body's innate wisdom. This starts with re-learning to listen to body signals. As we open our intuition, we'll be guided to making better choices that are specific to what we need for nourishment in the moment.

You and God know what nourishes you the best. You are the expert in your needs. The simple steps are:

• Be Present

  • Be in the moment to best connect and appreciate. Quiet you mind, acknowledge feelings, notice physical response, and open your heart.

• Invite Presence

  • Invite God. Listen for Guidance. Tune into Innate Wisdom.

• Enjoy Presents

  • Our Creator has given us so many gifts. Practice gratitude for what you get to experience in this life.

• Rest to Restore

  • Find the space to ensure that you do not over-extended & have sufficient time for “repairs” to body, mind & spirit

Techniques / Tools To Employ Prayer & Intuition

Gratitude for the First Bite 

• As you take that first bite of food from your plate, be fully present. Be grateful for the food on the plate and everyone involved in getting it to you. Praise how it will nourish you body and energize you. As you put that first bite of food in your mouth, note all the sensations - sight, smell, taste, texture, sound. Thoroughly chew and enjoy that first bite.

What Do You Really Need? 

• As you go for a snack, check in to see if you are really hungry. Or are you wanting something else and food is a substitute because of convenience and habit?
• When you look at your schedule for the day and feel tired already, what small change can be made to allow it to energize you?

Morning & Evening Routines

• Are you satisfied with how you use the time before bed and when you first get up? How are you honoring God, self and family in these periods? Are there changes to be made in these time windows that would nourish you more? What would allow you to start the day with joy & intention? What enables you to close the day peacefully for a good night's rest?
• A suggestion for a daily gratitude practice to incorporate into your routine. Relax in a GLADE: Identify 5 things that you are grateful for, with at least one in each of the following categories: Grateful for today, Learned today, Achieved today, Did better than yesterday, Evolved thinking from limiting to growth (or negative to lowing).

Survival Tactic

• During intense moments, what do you need to do differently to connect with your inner awareness and with God? For example: When you catch yourself winding up and getting tense, how do you bring God into soothe you? Or when overwhelm overtakes you, how do you remember to call on God to help you gain perspective?
• Recharge and unwind with micro-breaks. Find inspiring, energizing or relaxing activities that take 5 min or less to include in your day. Get quiet and check in with your intuition to feel what you need. Take a moment to Praise & Rejoice. Quick stretch different parts of your body to find where tightness can be found and stretch it more deeply before it becomes pain. Take a walk outside and appreciate the beauty of the world.

Employing Prayer and Intuition is an intensely personal process. These are what light your way on your health journey and give you hope and motivation to keep moving forward to achieve your goals. You'll be able to make effective changes that have a real impact on your energy level and health. Prayer magnifies coping skills and ability to change. Through adopting small simple habits, you can have a significant impact on stress levels and begin to experience greater work-life harmony.

In the comments let me know how it goes if you try any of these techniques or have a favorite technique that works for you to employ prayer & intuition.

You want to be at your best, to have enough energy to accomplish a lot and to fully enjoy life's experiences with your family and loved ones. Just lately have you been feeling "off," but not enough to be sick? Noticing that you are lower in energy or that your body is sending signals that it is not digesting as well as before?

Over time, lifestyle and food choices can catch up with the body. As a more extreme example, once the initial physical response to smoking is overcome and it becomes a habit, the smoker doesn't feel like it is eroding health for the first few years. The body fights the toxins and impact and it takes time before the negative effects are felt. The same can occur with food choices. Mild food sensitivities can become worse as the body's defenses are worn down. Artificial or ultra refined ingredients can slowly impact the micro-biome or liver, having a cumulative effect over time based on what else occurs in life.

Once there is awareness of possible issues, you can choose to take empowered actions. Identify the unconscious habits / choices that might be contributing to you feeling off and experiment if you feel better by making alternative choices.

Declare Health Independence!

Take steps to protect your health through ownership of lifestyle and food choices. Start the journey to change unconscious habits and address the lifestyle and food choices that could lead to disease. 

Take Empowered Action

Employing Personal Choice to Take Action

Cultivating awareness and building knowledge is great, but nothing changes if action is not taken. Lifestyle and food choices that may be okay today, may not work in the future. The need for change and adaptation is constant. But personal growth through action is a choice.

Think about it ... if action is taken without personal commitment or choice, there is a greater tendency to backslide or not to sustain it. The goal is to achieve transformation not the status quo. Think of all the times you were told - "You must do X." How did that go? If you chose for yourself, how did that implementation compare?

As a result, this is why I do not give one size fits all plans for anyone I work with. You need to own your own transformation! It's like the adage about the value of teaching someone to fish, instead of just giving them a fish. It is key to be clear on vision, goals and milestones. They provide direction and define what next steps are required. The result is transformation - more energy, vitality, productivity, concentration.

Lifestyle Dimensions

As mentioned earlier, nourishment is bio-individual. Life is multi-dimensional. There are so many facets that we engage in on a daily basis. Nourishment is about more than food, it includes all of these dimensions. (This article focuses on the lifestyle dimensions, Eat Ancestral Foods will focus more on food choice and home cooking.)

Consequently, this is why lifestyle is as important as food choice in the journey to have flourishing health. Eat the healthiest and most nutrient dense food, but if there is stress or dissatisfaction in another area of life, you will not feel nourished. Depending on what is important and enriching to your body, mind & spirit, your energy will improve as you make changes in habits / routines and invest more time into priorities that nourish you. 

Establishing a Vision of Flourishing Health

Start with the end in mind! Planning is how we hits targets and win wars! With as hectic and busy as you are, you may not have the time and resources for a shotgun approach. In order to be impactful and sustainable with the time and resources you are allowing for self-care, you need to be focused like a sniper. Get specific about what is important and is most impactful, before you take the first action! (Here's a worksheet to help get you started with establishing your vision for flourishing health. It is in the free guide Liberate Your Snacking. Even if you are not interested in that as a goal, the worksheet is a great start!) 

Breaking it Down into SMARTIE Goals

After you identify your vision for flourishing health, it is time to break this down into goals, milestones and action plans. Between your vison and what you learned as you cultivated awareness, what is the first area of focus? What are the current pain points / obstacles that are holding you back from achieving your goals? Of these, which is the easiest to impact or is of the greatest priority to change for you? Either of these last two are great places to start making a roadmap to achieve your goals.

To help ensure you get specific enough goals and have sufficient motivation, the acronym SMARTIE can help:

• Specific - Have a narrow scope of action

• Measurable - Define the goal and actions required objectively

• Achievable - Possess or can access resources, skills and knowledge to accomplish individual action steps. There is a reasonable expectation that the goal and actions can be completed.

• Relevant - The outcome of the individual action steps leads to the accomplishment of the goal. The goal is a milestone closer to bringing the vision for Flourishing Health manifest.

• Time Bound - Set due dates for actions and a deadline to close out the goal 

• Inspired - Recognize how the goal and actions are tied to vision for Flourishing Health, which helps motivation

• Energized - Enthusiasm to accomplish the goal and actions, which also helps motivation

I've seen too many times when people establish dry and dull SMART goals and nothing gets done. They don't leave the starting line. Being Inspired & Energized is really important to fuel the goal and action plans. Lose 1 lb in a week with 30 minutes on the treadmill a day is technically a SMART goal, but it lacks something. Being able to have the energy and stamina to chase the kids or the dog around the yard for a Sunday playdate after 30 minutes of daily treadmill this week is much more inspiring and energizing!

Change Doesn't Have to Be a Dry List of Action Steps

Once you have goals defined, remember, there are a lot of ways you can make a change. Getting started, you want to focus on actions that are achievable so do not make anything a stretch goal or complex. You don't want to get caught in big black / white types of decisions. Additionally, build confidence by starting with simple, manageable changes.

Change is a journey ... you can combine a number of different steps to get started. Use a blend of strategies for your actions: stop, start, continue, reduce, replace, substitute, or switch. (I know some of these sound like synonyms - but sometimes the word choice makes it feel more possible.)

If a list of action steps on a table is not inspiring, figure out what makes your transformation process meaningful and exciting. Maybe it is fun post it notes, a tracker with stickers, a brightly colored collage, a inspiring voice memo or video of the plan replayed daily, or some quiet journal time each day related to actions. Whatever works for you!

Blossom Grace & Grit As Change Can Be Hard

There are some changes that can be made easily. Like when it's a minor change to existing routines. (When time is tight, my favorite is to stack tiny habit changes to get to a significant transformation. I'll write separately on that approach as I use it with most clients.) Or when there are supportive resources, like loved ones, helping with accountability.

Yet there are other situations where changing habits or behaviors can be hard. Progress stalls. Obstacles arise. Blocks stop. Dig deep into self-awareness to learn what is going on. These are a natural part of the process. Grant grace and allow prayer as these can be complex and multi-layered. Avoid being discouraged. Be patient and loving until understanding arises.

During these situations, getting clarity on self-talk or limiting beliefs will be necessary. Once the inner constraints and limitations are identified, they can be re-framed (or forgiven). Then, with a positive and growth mindset, continue to take action toward your milestones and goals. As needed, develop the survivor tactics and routines for healthy living to improve coping techniques and build resilience for change.

Example of Challenging Lifestyle Change 

When dealing with stress and overwhelm from hectic schedule, setting boundaries to give more time to a more nourishing activity may be a challenge. Spending time in creatively expression is relaxing and rewarding. There's a little bit of guilt for not doing the activities you currently are; maybe a sense of a bit of selfishness for indulging. Those feelings must be reframed in a meaningful way whenever the mind chatter and mental looping begin. Examples could be:

• "When I am fulfilled creatively, I am more energized to be productive and can more easily access my creativity to solve other problems!" 
• "My loved ones, enjoy participating in my creative process. We make great memories together!" 
• Or you post up Bible verses in the area you are doing your creative work to inspire you to stay engaged or to remind you to pray with thanksgiving for the gifts you've been endowed with.

Then, there are situations that trigger giving up creative time. An effective routine to protect the time may be to put it in a scheduler or calendar. To reduce likelihood of interruption or distraction, a survival tactic may be to put devices on do not disturb.

CELEBRATE

There are multiple benefits to recognizing and rewarding yourself for each accomplishment.

• Regular motivation and encouragement to make progress
• Builds self-confidence and appreciation of the little things in life
• Creates proof in your capabilities. This reality can be used to quiet the negative self-talk and limiting beliefs.
• Fertilizes greater growth mindset
• Positivity blooms with each win
• Writing it down (or some other capture) ensures you have your own success to counteract when you are feeling down

It is also important to include your support group in your celebration. They surround you with positive influences and help you into the future.

Techniques / Tools To Help Take Empowered Actions (NOTE: For After You Set Your Vision!)

Try these techniques / tools as a starting point for any type of lifestyle change.

Plan for Growth

• Identify which dimensions are the greatest priority. Equally important is to figure out which dimensions would have the biggest impact on your health if a change is made. Then, break it down into specific goals and small action steps to implement the desired lifestyle change. As a suggestion, break one goal down into steps that take no more than two weeks. Celebrate each baby step!

Experiment

• Experiment for 5 - 10 days with making the desired change. The experiment confirms that there is beneficial impact. Maybe it is a change not worth sustaining or it is actually a change worth investing more time into. This can be easier if with a support group - friends, family or other like minded people. Movement and rest is usually a good place to try experimenting with. It can have less emotional charge and is easier to embed in daily routines.

Seeds of Grace

• While making the desired changes, work through obstacles that arise. Journal out any negative self-talk or limiting beliefs. Find Bible verses or other inspiring affirmations to help gain a more positive perspective about. With prayer, forgiveness or introspection, reframe thoughts and find deeper motivations to keep moving forward. God will help you through!

Developing Grit 

• Root changes within daily routines. Set up personal accountability structures with trackers or whatever works for you. Repeat new behaviors until they become habits. Ensure recognizing and rewarding the steps forward. These routines should recharge energy, not become check the box tasks. Identify triggers that cause backsliding or a plateau, establish a survival tactic (aka a contingency plan). These tactics also need to be come second nature in order to build the resilience to cope with change. 

Final Thoughts

Taking empowered actions is the majority of your health journey. Hold tight to the vision of Flourishing Health and make it come alive! Find the techniques that work for you. Develop the capability to stay motivated and continue to move forward. When there are obstacles, grace & grit builds resilience, improves coping skills and supports successful transformation. As familiarity with these tools and techniques is built, you'll continue to return to this element every time you want to implement a new change. In the long run, many small effective changes have a real impact on your energy level and health. Remember, making lifestyle changes can be challenging, but with the right mindset, tools, and support, you can achieve your goals and enjoy flourishing health.

The next article in the series focuses on eating ancestral foods. It gets into food choice and home cooking, ensuring food choices are made that nourish as much as the lifestyle choices noted here.

As you take empowered action stemming from personal choice and blossom grace and grit, you will be able to reduce stress, improve resilience and boost energy naturally.

In the comments let me know how it goes if you try any of these techniques or have a favorite technique that works for you to take empowered actions to improve health.

Maybe feeling tired more often than you'd like, experiencing a bit of brain fog, having some mild recurring digestive issues or feeling stressed a lot? Worried about your risks for disease? Questioning if you are doing the right things for your health? You want to be at your best, to have enough energy to be able to keep up with all of life's demands and to fully enjoy life's experiences with your loved ones. It's just lately you are not feeling as energized.

With all of the conflicting information out there on health, diet, exercise, and lifestyle, you don't know where to start. Some approaches you've tried didn't work, because they were too cookie cutter. You want a personalized approach for wellness. 

Declare Health Independence!

Take steps to protect your health through ownership of lifestyle and food choices. Start the journey to change unconscious habits and address the lifestyle and food choices that could lead to disease. 

Cultivate Awareness of Your Bio Individuality

Body is Wonderfully Made

From the moment of your conception as a cell and with the spark of life from God, you have been unique - genetically and spiritually. As you grew and matured, your body also changed in unique ways based on your environment, experiences, and thoughts / feelings. 

As a simple example, your natural immune system has developed based on what you've been exposed to. If you've never had a malaria vaccine or been exposed to it, you may not have natural immunity.

As a more complex example, look at the number of microbial cells in our body (~39 trillion) versus human cells (~30 trillion). The health of our microbiome is just as important as the health of our human cells, because of the role they play in our survival and ability to adapt. Our microbiome changes on almost a daily basis according to how we are living and what we are exposed to. Our human cells can have a longer lifespan than a microbial cell, but they also react and respond to what they are exposed to. An example of this that most people are aware of is when cells become cancerous.

It is miraculous how our bodies work with all of this complexity! Just thinking about it I am filled with AWE at what God has accomplished!

Importance of Recognizing Our Uniqueness

As a result of how different each of us are, we each respond differently within our body, mind and spirit to food, stimulus and situations! It keeps changing a little bit each day as we age and changes can be significant over a long enough period of time.

Yes, biochemistry and biological systems work pretty similarly, but there is a wide range of variability even within healthy populations!  This is why some people get horrible side effects with certain food or pharmaceuticals and others don't.

As a result of this uniqueness it can be important to get to know how you are physically, emotionally and spiritually feeling. God designed us to have these cues to provide guidance, even if someone does not have the Holy Spirit acting within them. Often modern life creates a lot of noise to mask. Modern western cultural norms also train us from a young age to control, shut out or freeze what our body, mind or spirit is telling us. Cultivating awareness includes learning to identify if you are getting a signal from your innate wisdom, responding from an unconscious belief or habit or otherwise acting from external stimuli. Then identifying if it is a behavior that is helping or hurting, healing or injuring your body, mind, spirit.  We'll get more into the idea of innate wisdom in the article on Prayer & Intuition.

Unconscious Beliefs, Values, Habits & Knowledge Related to Food

Through our lifetime each of us have picked up a diverse array of beliefs, habits, and knowledge related to food. This makes food mean more than just the macro and micro nutrients that are it is made up of, more than just bio-chemical instructions and information that we are consuming. These beliefs and behaviors are quietly woven into our days, part of what we accept is normal. Usually this is not challenged. Yet, some of these beliefs, values and behaviors may no longer serve us for where we are today in life and what we really need. Some of the knowledge we acquired when we were younger may no longer be accurate. Everyone has had different experiences and reactions so these all play into defining your bio-individuality around food. Here are a few examples.

Personal

• We've been told our whole life what to do for our health, what to eat, when to eat, how much to eat, etc. If your parents were like mine, I had to eat all of the veggies before I could eat dessert. If I did not eat everything on my plate, I had to save it for leftovers at the next snack time. There was no wasting food. The reward of an ice cream sundae for a perfect report card, influences desired recognition when there are major accomplishments. Foods can get associated with memories, where food becomes a connector or substitute when stress or certain emotions arise. These were so drilled in that they became unconscious beliefs and habits until I stepped back and looked at them from my current life perspective.

Marketing

• We get bombarded with marketing messages every day from companies trying to get us to spend money on their food products. During the soda or chicken sandwich marketing wars, people dug into their preferred brand or defended it even if they had not tried the competitive products. 
• Marketing can get into the psyche, and influence habit or underlying thought patterns. There are campaigns centered around not being able to control eating - remember Lay's Potato Chips "Betcha can't eat just one" or Pringles "Once you pop, you can't stop." 

Shopping habits

• Grocery store shopping becomes habitual - just keep putting the same products into your cart. It is worthwhile to double check on some of these products to make sure you still want to support the company or eat the food item.
• In a recent example, for years my husband and I enjoyed Marie Callendar's Pot Pie when the weather got cold and gloomy. When I recently looked at the label - I learned that they no longer put real pieces of chicken in. They put in chicken / soy isolate pieces. Exploring further I noticed this occurred in many ConAgra products. I don't support "fake" meat, particularly when they are being sneaky about the substitution, so we don't but this anymore. 

Out-of-date knowledge & conflicting information

• A lot of what we learned in school, on Main Stream Media and other marketing messages about health - is not necessarily the most current information. It may not be right for you as an individual. For example, many of us grew up with the USDA food pyramid that said grains and cereals were the most important food we should be consuming.
• I've come to realize that this was not scientifically supported back then, but a move by lobbyists to sell more cheap foods lacking in nutrient density. Even the USDA has changed the food pyramid and reduced the amount of grains and cereals they recommend.
• If you are still following this advice and have sensitivity to any of the ingredients or additives commonly used in grain and cereal products or any conditions / genetic factors that would recommend a low carb diet, this is likely contributing to low energy, brain fog, digestive upset, etc.

Food design

• The mega food companies design foods to crave! The combination Salt, Sugar & Fat and complex flavor combinations in ultra processed foods influence our bodies at a bio-chemical level. Certain foods and eating patterns can bypass our satiety signals. Others allow us to consume more sugar than if we just had a sugar bowl in front of us. Yet sugar can light up our brain as if we are addicted to cocaine or heroin, so we become like an addict.
• These symptoms may not impact everyone the same because of how different we all are. All of these factors unconsciously influence our food relationships.

As you can see habits that were picked up long ago, may no longer serve you. Food items that you consume may not be the most nourishing for you at this point in time. Cultivating awareness is about being curious and questioning. This allows you to begin to identify the best opportunities you have for change and better understanding where there can be major impact on your health. This is not about how these unconscious habits impact others, but how they impact you. It takes introspection, intuition and prayer to look at some of these from enough angles to objectively understand (without judgment!).

Beyond Food...

The same thing can happen as we look beyond food into other lifestyle dimensions. There are so many variations on this idea, I won't get into this today. I think you get the idea. Everything you do today and have experienced in the past makes you unique to who you are. Who you are into the future is just as unique, wonderful and beautiful as who you are now. 

Cultivating awareness of what brings joy, happiness, gratitude and sense of purpose are just as much of a compass for your health as energy and vitality. Or if it is easier to imagine - stress, fear, guilt, shame, pride, or loneliness are just as much of a compass for poor health as digestive issues, exhaustion, headaches, brain fog, moodiness, or pains.

In the article on Prayer & Intuition we'll get more into how God's love for you and desire for you to be more Christlike influences your health and the guidance you receive.

Internal vs External Awareness of What Factors Nourish You

 As you deepen your awareness of what drives your habits, behaviors and choices you can make decisions on whether they are supportive and nourishing for you today. The following are a few examples that I plan to share a lot of information about.

External

• Learn about the food companies that you currently purchase from. Identify their values or corporate culture to determine if they align with your beliefs and values. 
• Learn about the practices and processes used in industrial agriculture and the food industry. Identify within those processes if there are actions that DO NOT align with your beliefs and values. For example, many vegans have a moral issue with industrial animal husbandry.
• Societal norms can have a significant impact on beliefs, values and behaviors. Identify where societal or community concepts of work ethic, volunteering, body image, and personal value have influenced your actions. Determine if they are aligned with your Christian beliefs and values and are supporting what you need to be healthy.

Internal

• Develop a deeper awareness of how current eating patterns, triggers and certain foods / ingredients impact you. Experiment to determine if you have any sensitivities or if certain foods energize you more than others.
• Develop a deeper awareness of current daily habits / routines. Assess if you are prioritizing activities that nourish you. Identify if there are activities that drain you and no longer support you.
• Understand how the different lifestyle dimensions nourish you. Assess if there are changes that you could make that will have an impact on your health and energy.
• Understand your system of food values - not the calories and macronutrients but the beliefs and emotions that the food evokes.
• Understand your food boundaries (or if you need to put some in place). 

Cultivating awareness internally and externally, sets you up with enough information to make effective decisions and take empowered actions. This phase is all about learning about yourself and identifying priorities.

Techniques / Tools To Help Cultivate Awareness

Read the labels 

• You may be surprised at what you learn about the ingredients and the company. Pick 3 foods that you and your family / loved ones eat regularly and go through each detail to see if it is something that you want to spend money on or eat. Look up every ingredient about what it is derived from and potential risk factors. Look up all the layers of corporate ownership and look at their website, particularly strategy, press releases, recent advertising and company culture on the hiring pages.

Childhood food memories

• Sort through your most significant food memories, how are they impacting your food choices and eating patterns. What patterns do you notice?

Food / mood diary

• Track your eating patterns and what impact highly consumed foods have on your body and mind. No need to start big - just pick 1 - 3 foods that you eat regularly to see what triggers your desire to eat it, how you physically and mentally feel before and after eating it for up to 4 hours. There's plenty of templates or tracking apps online to get you started. Try it for 3 work days and see what you learn. I also find work days are different from days off as it comes to food & drink, so that may also be an area to check into too.

Situational awareness diary

• Track the major points of stress or strong emotions in your day. What situations or feelings send you to food? Which create feelings of stress? Which make you turn away from your personal needs? Track for a couple of days to see where there may be an opportunity to build resilience and to grant yourself more grace. Are there times you turn to food when you really need something else to satisfy or fulfill you?

Compare priorities to realities

• Make a list of the priorities that energize you with feelings of joy, happiness or purpose. For example, it could be time in prayer to build relationship with God and spending time with family & loved ones. Go through your daily routines, how much of your time aligns with your priorities? How much of your time goes toward your purpose, joy or happiness? Are there changes you can make to maximize your joy or happiness? How much of your time goes to activities that drain your energy or make you feel anger, doubt, fear, guilt, or shame? Are there changes you can make here? How can God help you make the changes that best support you, so that you can better serve?

Food technology 

• When has science gone too far for your values? What is the line between a food that nourishes and edible industrially produced substance that you don't want to eat any more? For example: Are you okay with consuming artificial ingredients / chemicals that don't exist in nature or don't exist in that quantity in nature? Are you okay with bio-engineering to create plants and animals that couldn't exist without a laboratory intervention? Should stem cell technology using the cells from aborted fetuses be used in any development or testing of food ingredients? As you learn more, you can decide if there are certain processes, practices or ingredients that you don't want to support anymore.

Food values & boundaries 

• Through journaling work through what do you think is good vs bad, healthy vs unhealthy? What eating patterns reward or punish? There will be interesting patterns some you may be ready to work on and change and others, more resilience or inner work & healing with God is needed.

Final Thoughts

Cultivating awareness, being curious and experimenting are all great places to start your health journey. It is not about taking action, but helping you to understand your current reality so you can best prioritize what to address and take action on. You want to find techniques that work for you and develop the capability to keep learning and becoming aware. As you learn more or look at other aspects of your lifestyle and food choices, you'll continue to return to this element. 

As you understand how you feel and where you stand, you'll be able to make effective changes that have a real impact on your energy level and health. This really helps you identify what your priorities are. Many experts focus on diet and exercise as the place to start, but maybe for you it is food relationship or stress management.

The next article in the series focuses on taking empowered action, based on everything you learned, to nourish self and blossom grace & grit.

As you make changes, you will be able to accomplish all that you want (and need) to do in order to be your best self for God, Family & Country.

In the comments let me know how it goes if you try any of these techniques or have a favorite technique that works for you to cultivate awareness.

Eat Clean, Real Food

You can be vegan or carnivore and the principles I am about to share can still apply. The approach I recommend is not about maintaining a strict diet with rules and counting. This is a lifestyle about honoring what you need and want. It is about taking steps to increase peace of mind by avoiding practices / processes that do not align with your beliefs and values. It is about minimizing consumption of edible industrial substances (you'll stop thinking of them as food). Reducing highly processed ingredients that do not energize you or that your body has a sensitivity for. This approach advocates food freedom and not feeling guilt or shame about food choices. Food systems are complex so absolutes are hard to maintain. Also too many restrictive rules takes away joy and satisfaction from other areas of life. 

Introduction to God's Foods Over Laboratory Imitations

Simply put, ancestral food is God's Food and anything made in a factory is a laboratory imitation. Yet this does not take into the account all the complexity that comes with recognizing that humans have free will and are inspired by God to take technological leaps. There may be some ingredients that are made in a laboratory or factory that according to your beliefs and values is food whereas someone else may believe that it is an (in)edible food substance.

Let's take dairy for example.

Technology

• Millenia ago someone figured out how to make cultured milk products because of how quickly it spoils. Then more recently, someone figured out pasteurization and refrigeration. Similarly, the auroch (a wild ancestor of cattle) was tamed to be part of nomadic life. At some point more traditional farming practices were developed. Most recently, factory farming where the cows are kept primarily indoors was developed to keep costs low.
• Some people are totally disgusted and grossed out by modern factory farming practices and pasteurization - they are against how the animals are treated and / or think grocery store milk is mainly "pus." On the other hand, some people believe that pasteurization and modern factory farming are acceptable tradeoff and will buy grocery store milk. Or they put conditions on the type of grocery store milk they purchase - organic, pasture fed, hormone & antibiotic free, etc.

The Body

• On top of the beliefs and values assessment you have the physical assessment. There is a full spectrum of people with sensitivities to dairy. Based on where their ancestors are from, there are populations of people where their bodies never developed the capability to digest milk. Other areas of the world, milk and dairy is a primary food so it is easily digested.
• Some people view milk as a "poison" because of how badly their body reacts. Yet others, really benefit from it. I've also met strong advocates for raw milk because they can't drink the stuff at the grocery store due to digestive distress.

This is why I keep emphasizing that this is bio-individual. Your beliefs, values and physical response will determine what for you is in the definition of God's Food versus Laboratory Imitation.

Bio Individuality & Food

As discussed in Prayer & Intuition and Cultivate Awareness, it is also important to understand how different ingredients or additives impact you. Those practices help provide a feedback loop for you to decide what ingredients deplete you the most so you can seek to minimize consumption. Everyone has different physical needs based on current state of health, sex, stage of life, genetics, microbiome, and food allergies / sensitivities.

As an example, I just don't feel good after I eat MSG, artificial sweeteners & sugar alcohols so have been avoiding them as much as possible once I identified them. 

Role of Beliefs & Values In Regards to Food Technology

As discussed in Cultivate Awareness, once you identify from a beliefs and values standpoint where you feel that man has gone too far you can take action. Your decisions and value judgments may be different than mine. 

For me, there are certain bio-engineering and stem cell research practices I can't align with. I also have a morality issue with how companies push the regulatory bodies to accept new ingredients. In many cases science is lacking and there is no real desire to look at how these new additives will impact health in the long run.

While I don't have the time, money and control to 100% avoid everything, I actively minimize allowing them in my kitchen. I don't feel guilty if I go out to eat or purchase & enjoy baked goods or a comfort food with loved ones. Our food environment is overwhelmed by all of these ingredients and it becomes too restrictive to avoid everything.

What Are Ancestral Foods

The following are the broad categories of Eat Ancestral Foods:

Home Cooking

The easiest way to know what is in your food is to cook at home. It is a great way to bring families together to help and to make memories together. Home cooked food seems to nourish more because of the love and effort put into it and the caring act of sharing with others. While you may not have a lot of cooking skills, I encourage you to make choices that align with your lifestyle and capabilities. 

There are many great resources as you get deeper into the lifestyle of preparing ancestral food. The Weston A Price Foundation has great resources and advocates a full ancestral, traditional diet. It's a great supporting resource with many cook books. There are many homesteading websites that have videos and cook books to teach cooking skills.

Change Takes Time

Converting your cooking and eating patterns to ancestral food, takes time as skills may need to be acquired and time needs to be prioritized for more home cooking. I am not advocating for an overnight or even over a one year to do a full transformation of your foods. Set the vision, define the boundaries and get started.

Every step away from a diet heavy in ultra processed foods, particularly added sugars, industrial seed oils and artificial sweeteners, colors, flavors, helps your body to recover. Not everyone has strong reactions to these, which is why it is important to experiment. As the microbiome changes, your sensitivity may also change. This approach emphasizes the importance of starting the journey by selecting processed foods with more kitchen ingredients, fewer bio-engineered (BE) / genetically modified organisms (GMO) ingredients, and reduced exposure to pesticide and herbicide residue.

Initial Steps To Start Eating More Ancestral Foods

• Read the label and pick one food item to swap out of your snacks (or meals) with one that has a higher nutrient density or has fewer additives in it. See how you feel after several days.
• Pick one meal or snack per week to make at home. If you already cook at home, identify if there is anything that you could change to feel more nourished by preparing and sharing food you make. Use the least processed ingredients that you have access too and you have the capability to prepare.
• From the grocery store pick a whole food (nothing with an ingredient listing on the package) that you haven't worked with before to eat in a snack or a meal.
• Have fun with a recipe book or searching online (clean recipes, real food recipes, traditional food recipes, whole food recipes, etc). Find something that inspires you to try.  
• Employ any of the tools / techniques learned in Take Empowered Action. They can help structure or motivate your changes related to food choice.
• Here's a free mini course on how to make changes to your snacking, a week at a time. Choose 1 or 2 items to change in a week or all of them! 

Final Thoughts

Food is a source of energy and joy. God's made so many wonderful options to nourish us. Many of the laboratory / factory made ingredients after long term consumption can cause digestive upset or impact metabolic health. It is key to find the foods that nourish and fuel you the best. Experimenting and trying new cooking techniques, ingredients and recipes helps you figure out what works best to energize you. You'll be able to make effective changes that have a real impact on your energy level and health.

As you make food swaps and have increased self-awareness of what beliefs, values, emotions and behaviors are linked to them, you'll also be able to find food freedom. Breaking the ties that draw you back to old habits that no longer serve you. The next article gets into that topic more - Employ Prayer & Intuition.

You will be able to accomplish all that you want (and need) to do in order to be your best self for God, Family & Country.

In the comments let me know how it goes if you try any of these techniques or have a favorite technique that works for you to Eat Ancestral Foods.

When you go to the grocery store and buy non-branded raw pork that is indicated as being from the US, you are most likely supporting a private American farmer, co-op or farmer working through a larger management company. 

As you look for bacon, ham or sausage, the major brands are owned by globalist or foreign owned companies. Look for small boutique brands, private label or use your butcher if you are looking to Buy American.

Once you finally find a company works for you and your family and is a tasty pork product - there is one remaining concern. It is unknown if the pig received a mRNA vaccine, since there is no disclosure required on the label. There is growing evidence that the vaccines are killing the pigs - so what happens when humans eat it? The industry really needs to be listening to the consumers more, at least get us labelling to make a choice! As the states debate making laws around use of mRNA and other bioengineering technology, please add your voice to make sure we get at least transparency in labelling.

I know pork is not a food that everyone believes fits within their dietary guidelines. In my house – we LOVE pork! It is consumed more than any other meat – daily as breakfast ham or bacon plus multiple times per month for dinner. I’m always able to count on finding an affordable cut. We also keep lard or bacon grease on hand to use instead of butter in a lot of recipes. If you haven't ever tried it ... lard or bacon grease makes great popcorn!

One thing that gives me hope is that the global trend for meat (and pork) consumptions continues to grow. Maybe the consumers can shape the market instead of the companies!

We all define Buy American a little differently based on the food product. Some are satisfied so long as it is made or grown in the US. Others want to avoid giving globalists or foreign companies our hard earned money. Others want to ensure that they are supporting companies that share values or are using technology in a way that is aligned with values. Regardless of how you define Buy American, what we all share is a desire to Make America Great Again!

Vote with your fork (and your wallet)! Eat Ancestral Foods as God Intended! Real pork from a pig - not some lab created alternate protein or meat protein imitations.

In my opinion, these globalist run mega companies want us CRAVING their products in order to CONTROL our wallets. There are ultra processed foods that are designed for the bliss-point, which creates a inner set of bio-chemical reactions that over-ride healthy behavior. Eating too much ultra processed food keeps the consumer weak and compliant. It is best to keep these as occasional foods or to avoid them. Similar to what we learned the last few years about the medical and pharmaceutical industry, none of these mega food companies profit significantly from health & nutrition, nor care about the overall health of the consumer.

The book Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us was published a decade ago and it is sad how little has changed. The food company lobbyists appear to still hold sway. Let’s look at a few recent examples that seem to provide evidence:

• Recently we are starting to see dietary guidance in other countries reduce the maximum recommended calories from added sugars. Most are dropping it from 10% of calories to 5% of calories. Reducing the amount of added sugars consumed is correlated with reducing obesity and supporting metabolic health (protect liver, feed gut, support brain). US instead of leading the way, remains steadfast with older recommendations. It is a shame because we have higher obesity rates and metabolic related diseases than other countries. This feels similar to the slow response the FDA took toward making sure the consumers understood the health impact of hydrogenated vegetable oils and got the food manufacturer's to stop using them.
• The FDA has been declaring new non-sugar replacements as Generally Regarded as Safe (GRAS) with minimal research, even though these ingredients are being used at non-naturally occurring levels. Recently two rare natural occurring sugars were approved by the FDA - tagatose is in apples and allulose is in figs. To naturally consume 1 gram of tagatose from apples, you would need to consume approximately 100 kilograms, of apples!! To naturally consumer 1 gram of allulose from figs, you would need to consume approximately 1 kilogram of figs!! (Nothing natural about eating that much!) To me, it appears that US consumers were part of the experiment, while other countries waited to approve until there was more safety data. Tagatose was approved for US in 2003 and for EU in 2005. Allulose was approved in 2012 for the US and is still pending for EU. (BTW – neither of this sugar alternatives are actually extracted from their natural source. They are chemically derived from GMO dent corn.)
• The industry / globalist trend for alternative proteins, food as medicine and plant based proteins, does not mean what most consumers think these terms do. These trends are not driven by the consumer, but by the companies.
  • Alternative proteins include insect derived ingredients and lab grown meats. Most consumers would think alternative proteins would be more along the lines of seitan (vegan alternative made of gluten) instead of beef or oat milk instead of dairy milk. Lab grown meats are more expensive and less accepted by the consumer at this point compared to real meat. entoMilk is already being sold – insect milk ice cream!
  • Food as medicine includes delivery of pharmaceutical grade vaccines as part of food, where the plant or meat is genetically modified to be a delivery system. The traditional meaning of food as medicine is about using natural nutrition of plants & animals to build health and target specific symptoms or concerns.
  • Plant based foods includes using highly refined and ultra processed plant materials as a substitute for clean, real food. Plant Based Foods is part of the globalist sustainability / climate change agenda. Most people think that is another way to advocate for vegetarian eating or to consume more fruits and vegetables.
    • You may have caught some of memes about John Kerry farting in the middle of his speech at a climate change meeting. There are press releases about how at this meeting they made all the attendees eat plant based foods that they are trying to popularize. Clearly John Kerry's digestive system was not happy!!!
• The term “stealth health” is prevalent inside the food industry. They make changes without informing the consumer, just quietly changing the nutrition facts and ingredient listing on the label. Sometimes these are healthy changes, sometimes not. The food industry leverages “health halo” in naming ingredients or using color, flavor and marketing images to make us think more favorably of the food. In other cases they substitute cheaper ingredients to supposedly help claims. These often are new and novel ingredients (think chemicals).
  • Ingredients that are generating too much noise in the press and impacting consumer spending get new "health halo" names, yet they don’t change the actual ingredient. “Beet sugar” sounds more natural / healthier than “refined sugar.” It has a "health halo" because people associate normal roasted red beets or beet supplements as healthy. Yet many consumers don’t realize "beet sugar" means GMO sugar beets and that it is still refined sugar  (same as what is likely in the sugar bowl at home). 

These globalist-run mega food companies could create healthier foods that support health in more than just their niche brands. There are private companies making ultra processed foods (and more natural foods) that are keeping a better balance of macronutrients & micronutrients and minimizing additives and toxins while keeping the foods delicious!

These mega companies expand capabilities mainly through acquisition, instead of evolving their existing successful brands. When one of these companies purchase an upcoming brand or a niche health brand, one of the first steps is to make it more profitable. We see how sometimes the parent company goes beyond simple volume leveraged cost savings. They start to dilute what made the brand unique in the first place.

Even though they take long term view for globalist agenda - these publicly traded companies take short term view on profits and don’t want to impact their current blockbusters. They don’t want consumers to stop CRAVING their blockbuster foods to risk giving up CONTROL of the consumer wallet.

Vote with your fork (and your wallet)! Stop supporting the companies that don't support you or align with your values!