I broke up with processed sugar nearly four months ago on August 5, 2018. I’m still eating as much fruit as I want. I’ve also had sugar I’m sure at restaurants, but I’m not worried about a random sprinkle of sugar on a savory dish. My problem is with sugary desserts: cakes, ice cream, cookies, more ice cream, candy, and did I mention ice cream?

Since August 5th, I have allowed myself a few desserts. I can count them on one hand:

1. Some candy the day before Halloween because hello, the day before Halloween.
2. Tons of little mini bars on Halloween. Delicious.
3. Apple pie and ice cream on Thanksgiving.
4. A slice of boysenberry pie the day after Thanksgiving. And by “slice,” I mean “about 1/4 of the pie.”
5. 1.5 Red Vines the Saturday after Thanksgiving while at the movies with my kids.

Compared to how much sugar I was eating (ahem, inhaling) before the Great Sugar Breakup of August 2018, this is basically nothing.

Then there’s gluten. I’m sensitive to a protein in wheat and oats, so I’ve been avoiding all things gluten and oats since mid-August.

I’ve lost ten pounds, but bonus points: my menstrual cycle has changed. My cycle used to be unpredictable, ranging from 28 days to 35 days long. There was only one thing that was dependable about my cycle: PMS. I would always have some mood swings and a night of awesome insomnia right before my monthly visitor arrived.

Since eliminating processed sugar and gluten, my cycle has been 28 days or less. Most recently, I had a 26 day cycle! I’d complain about having my period more frequently, but I’ve noticed that I’m experiencing less PMS. My mood swings are not nearly as drastic, and I did not have insomnia this past cycle. Woot woot!

I initially assumed my body was just changing with age (I’m nearly 40), but then I realized my cycle changed shortly after I dropped sugar and gluten. That seems like too much to be a coincidence, no?

Next up: I’ve decided to get really, really, really, amazingly good at eating my vegetables. Hopefully I’ll keep seeing positive changes on the health front. I’m nearly forty years old and I’m finally accepting that old axiom: you are what you eat.

Most of my life, I assumed I was locked into a certain personality – stressed, anxious, worried – but hey, I could not help it. That’s just who I was. Besides, my Type A personality kept me busy, productive and successful. I would surely be a wreck of a human being if I gave up my anxiety.

Then again, maybe not.

After I was diagnosed with postpartum depression, I tried cognitive behavioral therapy with a psychologist. We did not just eliminate my PPD symptoms. We kept working, even after I had recovered from PPD, and helped me become a much less anxious person.

Now I know that I am not locked into a high-strung, anxious personality. I can train my brain to become the person I want to be.

Lately, I’ve been working on the following areas of Brain Training:

• Gratitude. I try to practice gratitude daily. It always makes me feel good and warm inside.
• Abundance. Love is abundant. Success is abundant. There is enough magic and wonder to spread around for everyone.
• Embracing uncertainty as something good and magical.
• Being flexible with setbacks.
• Realizing nothing is automatically good or bad. Something that immediately seems like a setback may actually be a blessing in disguise.
• Compassion for others and myself.
• Breathe. Remember to breathe. How is it I have been alive for nearly forty years and paid almost zero attention to my breath?
• Mindfulness. Which is tricky to reduce to a bullet point. It’s one of those slippery words that can mean different thing at different times. I think. Maybe not. I’m learning!
• Acceptance of human limits, especially my own. Like right now, I’m tired, so I have to accept that my body needs a little rest.
• Discomfort is part of life. If I spend all my days trying to eliminate discomfort, then I’ll miss out on the magic of life.

I think I’ll try to use these bullet points to write some more detailed blog posts over the next several weeks.

A few months ago, I stepped back from running a mom-to-mom postpartum support group.

Last week, I posted the last episode of my podcast Adventures with Postpartum Depression.

It seems like my intuition is leading me towards something new. I don’t know exactly what, but slowly, as I let my mind wander across journal pages, thoughts are emerging.

• How much was my experience with postpartum depression an isolated mental illness? And how much was it a stage in a spiritual and/or personal journey?
• What part of my experiences with postpartum depression were just a result of my personality? I’m an introvert. I need space to be quiet and alone and experience deep solitude. But when I became a mother, I felt like I was supposed to be some idealized version of a mother (that probably only exists in my head and social media), and that mother was supposed to flourish at large mommy and me classes, when in actuality, I do better in small group settings. So certain symptoms of PPD might have been at least partially the result of me trying to be someone I am not.

Deep breath.

Sometimes, when I start a blog post, I hope to come to some incredibly concise epiphany that I can share with the world. But I think right now, I’m supposed to feel a bit lost and vague. I think I’m supposed to use this space to wander around, ramble and thrash with some ideas that are percolating… ideas that I could not explore when I was deeply involved with the community of moms who have postpartum depression. Or rather, ideas that I did not feel comfortable exploring on my PPD blog, my PPD podcast, or at my PPD support group; because for a mom in the darkness in PPD, she just needs to do what she needs to do to get out of that particular darkness. The ideas I’m exploring these days are not the sort of ideas that would help a mom in the throes of PPD.

And so long as I was hosting a PPD podcast and support group, I was not mentally or emotionally in the right space to explore new ideas.

I’m starting to understand that I had to end my podcast and support group, because I’m on a journey. For a time, I had to play the part of PPD advocate. But now, I’m continuing my personal journey, and I am supposed to move in new directions and force myself to grow into new roles.

I have no idea where my personal journey is taking me. I just know that today, I am where I am meant to be.