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This is the most important step for your best health

Writer's picture: Christine at Homegrown Holistic CoachingChristine at Homegrown Holistic Coaching


I want to confess that for most of my adult life, I had health and wellness backwards. I focused on foods and movement, but never gave much thought to my stressful work environment or other stress-inducing aspects of my life.


I thought that life was supposed to feel this way as a grownup.

It’s what most of us have come to believe.


And yet, societally, we are deeply suffering. Reports show that we’re experiencing anxiety at record levels.

This underscores what I already knew to be true: we’re doing life wrong, and using a flawed medical model to “fix” what’s wrong.


It’s a broken model that cannot heal what’s collectively ailing us.


Because our nervous systems were not designed to handle the stressors we face.


Up until now, at least in Western medicine, the symptomatic parts of us have been treated as separate from one another. The head as separate from the body. The body disconnected from the mind.


Bodies cannot fully receive and utilize the gifts of even the best nutrition and exercise when the nervous system is stuck in overdrive, the body is under stress, and the gut (your second brain and a critical part of your nervous system) is chronically fighting inflammatory internal and external triggers.


Jon Kabat-Zinn is American professor emeritus of medicine and the creator of the 'Stress Reduction Clinic' and the 'Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society' at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.


He describes overwhelm as the all-too-common feeling "that our lives are somehow unfolding faster than the human nervous system and psyche are able to manage well."


How do we slow things down?

How do we get to the place where time isn't racing by and unfolding too fast?

How do we protect and heal the body?


We address overwhelm.

We nurture the nervous system and pay attention to body signals. We engage in the art of non-doing. We live from joy first.


How to live from joy first

Most people wait for vacation to tend to their nervous system, without ever realizing they’re doing so.

When we go on vacation, we spend time engaging in activities that are easy on the nervous system. We eat slowly, we rest, we tune into our five senses, work with our hands creating art, knitting, music, or maybe receiving massages. Our stress response is able to turn OFF.


Which means that the other 98% of the time, unless we’re mindfully tending to the nervous system, our stress response is turned ON.


When we suffer from stress indefinitely, we feel anxious. We experience pain, weight struggles, and insomnia. The body suffers physiological stress and eventually, injury and chronic illness.


Tending to your nervous system is non-negotiable if you want to feel your best and age healthier.


And aging healthier and feeling better is possible for all of us.


But you'll need to get a little counter-cultural and start reuniting body and mind.


Don’t wait until you run yourself into the ground. Your life is more than the precious than the 2% vacation time reserved for slowing down so your nervous system can catch up.


I dedicate a lot of teaching time to methods for creating little vacations in your body every single day. Tending to the part of you that’s stuck on high alert. Allowing your body to heal and thrive. So that your body can keep up, and your mind can slow down.


This is how you become well. And feel better. It’s step one, ahead of nutrition and exercise.


It’s what I knew deep down but didn’t embody for most of my adult life. And now it’s what I practice and teach to others. Through Pilates and much more.


You don’t need to wait for your next trip to decompress.


You don’t have to be like everyone else, living for the weekends.


Little vacations are required throughout the day. Until you become your own resting place.


Join me in Aligned. Aligned is my whole-body approach to wellness, beyond what you thought possible. We use Pilates and coaching to set and accomplish goals with simplicity and ease. Reconnect to intuition, learn whole-body tools to age healthier and feel better tomorrow and 5 years from now.


I invite you to a call. You receive 45 min with a Board-certified professional health coach, 100% focused on your well-being. Joining Aligned, my comprehensive Pilates and coaching program is one option, but no matter what, you will leave the call unstuck. I am here to help you identify the real problem so you can create a real solution, a best next step for accomplishing your goals.



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