Sometimes we become so busy building our lives that we forget to turn around and recognize how many of our old prayers are now part of our everyday reality.
What Success, Family & Healing Have Taught Me About Holistic Wellness
It's late here, and I don't know if anyone will even read this.
Maybe that is precisely why I feel like writing it tonight.
There is something about the end of the day, when the phone finally stops ringing, the work slows down and the noise disappears, that makes it easier to hear what has been sitting quietly on your heart.
Tonight, I realized something that brought tears to my eyes.
A few years ago, I prayed that my whole entire family, including my extended family, would become healthy.
I prayed for my mom, my sisters, my brothers-in-law, my nephew, my cousins, my aunts and uncles, and even our animals.
I didn't have some beautifully constructed prayer. I simply wanted the people I loved to be healthy, happy and here.
Recently, I realized that my mom, my sisters and I have all lost significant amounts of weight and made meaningful changes in our health.
I check in on my cousins from time to time, and they all appear to be doing well.
I asked my mom about my aunts and uncles, and she told me they seem to be doing great too.
For a moment, I just sat there thinking about it.
You truly never know how precious life is until there has been a real possibility of losing someone you love.
There were moments throughout the years when I wasn't sure everyone would make it through the difficult seasons life handed us, and perhaps that is why I don't take a healthy phone call, text message or visit for granted anymore.
Sometimes we spend so much time praying for the next thing, working toward the next goal or trying to fix the next problem that we fail to recognize when we are already standing inside something we once prayed for.
Tonight, I recognized it.
And I am incredibly grateful.
My Definition of Health Has Changed
I have spent decades immersed in wellness, and if there is one thing age and experience have taught me, it is that health is much bigger than what is happening on a plate or what someone looks like in a photograph.
I love living foods. I love fresh juices. I love movement, herbs, fasting, time in nature and many of the holistic practices that have been woven into my life for decades. I believe deeply in taking responsibility for the body we have been given.
But I no longer believe that physical discipline alone equals wellness.
You can eat an extraordinarily clean diet while living with an extraordinarily cluttered mind.
You can exercise every day while ignoring exhaustion.
You can have a beautiful morning routine while maintaining relationships that continually dysregulate you.
You can look wonderful while privately carrying far more than anyone realizes.
That is why my understanding of holistic wellness has become increasingly literal over the years.
Whole-person wellness means looking at the whole person.
It means food, movement and physical health, but it also means your nervous system, your thoughts, your relationships, your boundaries, your environment, your sense of purpose, your ability to rest and the way you speak to yourself when nobody else is listening.
I know this because I have had to learn it myself.
I Have a Huge, Sensitive Heart and I Used to Think I Needed to Hide It
I have a huge, sensitive heart, and over the years I have learned to cover parts of it up in order to protect myself.
The truth, however, is that at the end of the day, I would do absolutely anything for my family and the people I love.
Anything.
I used to think becoming stronger meant becoming less sensitive. Now I think real strength is learning how to remain loving without continually abandoning yourself in the process.
There is a difference between having an open heart and having no boundaries.
There is a difference between forgiveness and access. There is a difference between compassion and allowing another person's choices to repeatedly disturb your peace.
Those distinctions have become part of wellness for me too.
I even found myself praying recently for people outside my family, including a client who had been in the hospital and a dear friend who lives in another state. I am incredibly grateful that they are both doing well now.
And yes, I even prayed for my enemies.
I prayed for clarity in their minds, integrity in their actions and authenticity in their lives.
That doesn't mean I need to invite everyone back into my life.
Sometimes loving someone means releasing them and sincerely hoping they find whatever healing they need somewhere far away from you.
Peace does not always require reconciliation. Sometimes peace requires surrender.
Never underestimate the power of a prayer whispered from a heart that loves deeply.
Then, for the First Time in More Than a Decade, I Missed an Appointment
Something else happened recently that initially felt completely unrelated to all of this.
For the first time in more than a decade, I missed an appointment.
Not just any appointment, either. It was a magazine interview I was genuinely excited about.
I had written down the wrong day. The frustrating part is that I walked past the reminder multiple times and somehow never noticed the mistake.
My immediate reaction was exactly what you might expect from someone who has spent much of her life holding herself to an extremely high standard.
I was frustrated with myself.
How could I miss this?
How could I write down the wrong date?
Then I stopped.
Instead of continuing to ask, "How could I miss this?" I began asking a much more important question:
"What is this trying to teach me?"
I have always believed our lives whisper to us before they scream.
Sometimes the whisper is physical.
Sometimes it is emotional.
Sometimes it is a mistake so out of character that it forces you to examine what has been happening beneath the surface.
Since my surgery in January, I have been carrying far more than I probably should.
I let go of a valuable team member, and instead of replacing that support immediately, I quietly took on almost everything myself alongside my trusted developer.
The weight has been real.
There is an approximately $11,000 monthly business overhead to meet, along with clients, content, writing, websites, interviews, partnerships, administrative responsibilities, a household and all of the invisible decisions involved in keeping a business moving forward.
I am grateful for every part of what I have built, but gratitude does not mean pretending something isn't heavy.
Some days, it genuinely feels as though I am carrying an entire company on my shoulders.
And apparently, one day my calendar decided to remind me that I am still human.
One missed interview became an unexpected reminder that accountability does not require self-punishment.
Then I Remembered the 27 Interviews and Features I Didn't Miss
Once I stopped criticizing myself, perspective returned. Over the last year and a half, I have been featured in approximately 27 magazines, and none of those were paid placements.
Across my career, I have made close to 100 news appearances, not to mention countless podcast interviews.
Sharing the message of living foods, conscious health, and holistic transformation across broadcast television and media.
My work and story have appeared in publications and outlets covering wellness, entrepreneurship, lifestyle, spirituality and personal transformation.
My written work has appeared in places including HuffPost, YourTango and The Good Men Project, and over the years I have had opportunities to speak about living foods, holistic health, relationships, detoxification, intuitive healing and the experiences that shaped the woman I became.
Published articles and editorial features discussing holistic wellness, relationships, and cellular health.
Archived press features in major national publications and regional newspapers documenting decades of holistic wellness leadership.
There are moments when I still have to remind myself that the younger version of me would have been absolutely astonished by some of this.
Yet achievement has a peculiar way of becoming normal once we attain it.
We accomplish something we once desperately wanted, celebrate it for five minutes and immediately move the finish line.
What's next?
What haven't I done?
What needs fixing?
What could be bigger?
That mentality can make an extraordinarily blessed life feel perpetually insufficient.
When I remembered those 27 features, something shifted inside me.
Instead of criticizing myself for the one interview I missed, I became grateful for the twenty-seven opportunities that came before it.
One mistake did not erase decades of discipline.
One missed appointment did not erase my professionalism.
One overwhelmed day did not erase a career.
Perhaps the lesson wasn't about the appointment at all.
Perhaps I simply needed to remember that even strong, capable women aren't meant to carry every burden alone.
Featured in VoyageLA sharing insights on intuition, healing, and holistic living.
Recognized by NY Weekly Magazine among the Top 30 Women Entrepreneurs.
When I stopped focusing on the one interview I missed, I remembered the many opportunities I had already been blessed to receive.
Grateful for continued media appearances and features highlighting the power of holistic living.
Holistic detox and sound healing features spotlighted across national wellness publications.
Success Can Become Another Form of Stress If We Never Allow Ourselves to Arrive
This is something I wish more high-achieving women talked about.
Success can become addictive in a way nobody warns you about.
Not necessarily because you want applause, but because achievement can become intertwined with safety, identity and self-worth.
You tell yourself that once you reach the next level, you will relax.
Then you reach it and immediately invent another level.
I have spent decades building my work. I have been interviewed, written books, appeared on television, worked with clients from all walks of life and watched ideas that once existed only inside my mind become real things in the world.
I am proud of that.
But I don't want to become so focused on building the next chapter that I fail to inhabit the one I prayed for.
That would be an extraordinary tragedy.
Career milestones are meaningful, but they become even more meaningful when we allow ourselves enough stillness to actually experience them.
Media recognition across LifestyleMind, P.O.W.E.R. Magazine, Shoutout Arizona, and Digital Journal.
Press highlights from The Hollywood Magazine, USA News, SDVoyager, and The Sun.
Eight Life and Wellness Lessons I Have Learned the Long Way
These aren't ideas I collected from a textbook. They are lessons I have learned through living, building, losing, healing, loving, succeeding, making mistakes and beginning again.
1. Listen When Your Life Whispers
Don't wait for your body, relationships or circumstances to begin screaming before you pay attention.
If you are unusually exhausted, forgetful, irritable or emotionally depleted, become curious rather than immediately judgmental.
Ask yourself what has changed.
2. Stop Treating Rest Like a Reward
Rest should not only happen after you have pushed yourself beyond your limits.
A regulated nervous system is not laziness. Rest supports clear thinking, creativity, digestion, emotional regulation and better decision-making.
3. Healthy Food Cannot Fix an Unhealthy Pace
I will probably advocate for living foods, fresh juices, plants and real food for the rest of my life.
But I will also tell you that a green juice cannot delegate your calendar.
A salad cannot establish a boundary.
A supplement cannot have the difficult conversation you keep avoiding.
Food matters enormously, but wellness asks us to look beyond food.
4. Delegate Before You Become Desperate
If you are running a household, business or family and everything collapses when you stop moving, that is not necessarily evidence of how indispensable you are.
It may be evidence that the system needs support.
I am learning this one right alongside you.
5. Stop Moving the Goalpost
When something wonderful happens, allow yourself to experience it before demanding the next accomplishment.
- Celebrate the client transformation.
- Celebrate the article.
- Celebrate the business milestone.
- Celebrate the healthy test result.
- Celebrate the fact that your family is doing well.
Your life is happening now, not after your next goal.
6. Protect Your Sensitive Heart Without Hardening It
Boundaries are not walls around the heart.
They are doors with discernment.
You are allowed to love deeply while becoming increasingly selective about who receives access to your time, energy and inner world.
7. Take the Ordinary Moments Seriously
- Call your mother.
- Answer your sister.
- Walk your dog.
- Sit outside.
- Watch the sunset without turning every beautiful moment into content.
One day, you may discover that the moments you thought were interruptions were actually your life.
8. Do Not Use One Imperfect Moment as Evidence Against Yourself
This may be one of the most important.
We are remarkably skilled at forgetting 100 things we did well because of the one thing we didn't.
Correct the mistake.
Apologize if necessary.
Learn from it.
Then refuse to build an identity around it.
What Holistic Wellness Actually Looks Like in My Life Today
After all these years, I find myself returning to simple practices more than complicated ones.
Eat Food That Still Resembles Nature
I have built much of my wellness philosophy around living foods and a plant-based lifestyle because I believe deeply in returning to what is simple and recognizable.
Fill your plate with colorful produce, leafy greens, herbs, fruits and whole plant foods that genuinely nourish you.
Give Your Nervous System Moments With No Agenda
- Take a walk without listening to anything.
- Sit outside.
- Watch the sunrise or sunset.
- Pray.
- Breathe before you eat.
- Spend time with an animal.
You don't have to optimize every quiet moment.
Move Because Your Body Was Designed to Move
Walking, stretching, rebounding, strength work and other forms of movement can become expressions of gratitude for the body rather than punishment for what we ate.
That distinction matters.
Audit Your Relationships as Carefully as Your Pantry
We think carefully about ingredients while sometimes allowing people into our lives who continually leave us anxious, confused or depleted.
Emotional environment matters.
Ask for Help Before You Think You Deserve It
You don't need to collapse before support becomes legitimate.
This is one I am actively reminding myself of.
The work I teach publicly is also work I continually practice privately: nourishment, self-awareness, emotional resilience, boundaries and learning how to live in greater alignment.
The Accomplishments Matter, but They Aren't the Things Giving Me Peace Tonight
I am enormously grateful for my career.
I'm grateful for the magazine features, the television appearances, the podcasts, the articles, the people who read my work and the clients who have trusted me during deeply personal chapters of their lives.
I'm grateful that something I started building decades ago continues to evolve.
But sitting here tonight, those aren't the things giving me the deepest peace.
My family is healthy and happy.
That is what is bringing tears to my eyes.
The people I love are here.
A client I worried about is doing well.
A dear friend I prayed for is doing well.
My mother is here.
My sisters are here.
Life is still giving us opportunities to call each other, annoy each other, laugh together, grow, change and love one another.
No magazine cover can replace that.
No number of followers can replace that.
No professional accomplishment can replace that.
Maybe real wellness is reaching a place where you finally understand the difference.
Grace Isn't Earned Through Exhaustion
For years, I believed strength meant being able to handle more.
Today, I think strength sometimes means knowing when enough is enough.
It means recognizing that being capable of carrying something does not necessarily mean it belongs on your shoulders.
It means understanding that surrender isn't failure and receiving support isn't weakness.
It means realizing that the body, mind and spirit are not separate departments we can manage independently.
They are constantly speaking to one another.
I still have enormous goals.
I still love my work.
I am still ambitious.
I am still excited about what is ahead.
But I also want enough spaciousness in my life to recognize what is already here.
Grace isn't earned through exhaustion.
Sometimes grace appears the moment we stop trying to prove we deserve everything we have worked so hard to create.
Five Questions I Want You to Ask Yourself This Week
A Personal Wellness Check-In
Before you add another goal, protocol or obligation to your life, take a few quiet minutes and ask yourself:
- 1. What am I carrying right now that someone else could help me carry?
- 2. What has my body been trying to tell me that I keep overriding?
- 3. Which relationship or responsibility consistently leaves me feeling depleted?
- 4. What accomplishment have I barely allowed myself to celebrate?
- 5. What am I living today that I once prayed for?
That last question may change your entire day.
It certainly changed mine.
And Finally, Something Very Personal About My Father
There is one more piece of this that I cannot leave out.
My father's birthday was August 7.
He passed away at the incredibly young age of 36.
Losing someone that young changes your relationship with time. It teaches you far earlier than you should have to learn it that another year, another birthday, another conversation and another ordinary day with someone you love are never guaranteed.
As I get older, I understand more clearly how profoundly losing my father shaped the woman I became and perhaps even why health, healing, family and longevity have remained such powerful themes throughout my life and work.
It is also why I refuse to take the people I love for granted.
I created a tribute to my father for his birthday, and I want to embed it here because it belongs in this conversation about health, family, gratitude and what actually matters when everything superficial falls away.
Read my tribute to my father and watch the video here
Tonight, I feel incredibly grateful that my family is healthy and happy.
Nothing can bring me more peace than I feel in this very moment.
If someone you love crosses your mind while reading this, call them.
If your body has been asking you to slow down, listen.
If you've been judging yourself for one mistake while ignoring a lifetime of things you've done well, give yourself some grace.
If you are standing inside something you once desperately prayed for, stop long enough to recognize it.
And never underestimate the power of a prayer whispered from a heart that loves deeply.