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.

Lately, I smell sour. It’s my sweat. I think it’s because I have been slowly losing weight. When I’m not losing weight, I don’t notice my sweat. But when I am losing weight, I notice an odor.

Actually, I can be more specific.

I have lost and regained weight many times in my life. But I never noticed a sour smell when I losing said weight. But during the past year, I have tried to go gluten-free a few times; and every time I go gluten-free, I notice my sweat becomes sour. Right now, I am about two months into being gluten-free, and the sour smell has been present the entire time.

It’s easy to think, Holy shit, my body needs gluten! But I think that’s not true. I think my body is in the process of getting rid of whatever toxins had accumulated in my body from too many years of too many carbs, and I just need to be patient.

I’m not going to try to mask the sour smell with perfume because perfume makes me nauseous.

When I got my first tarot reading at the beginning of the year, the reader told me that I need to sweat. When I saw my doctor for the first time in 2018, she also told me to sweat. The message is clear: get sweaty! I even bought a Groupon to try an “urban sweat lodge” that wraps you up in blankets and heating pads for an hour to give you the most intense sweat experience of your life.

I let the Groupon expire.

I was busy. Being a mom is hard work. But mostly, I think I was just letting Resistance make excuses so I would procrastinate and avoid losing the weight.

I think it’s time for me to stop procrastinating, listen to my body, and book an appointment for the urban sweat lodge.

Here’s to lots of sour sweat!

As a stay-at-home mother, my To Do list can sometimes feel daunting and impossible, but really, there are only a few essentials on the list:

• Breathe
• Eat
• Sleep
• Make sure my children breathe
• Feed my children
• Help my children get the sleep they need

That’s it. But these essential self-care items are not even on my To Do list. Instead, my list is cluttered and clogged with things that don’t matter. Things that are nice to do if they don’t compromise my sanity, like run the preschool book fair and be the room parent for Pippa’s kindergarten class; but ultimately, the fate of nations does not rise or fall based on these activities.

At 5 a.m., though, my To Do list feels urgent. Lately, I fall asleep at 10 p.m. and wake at 5. I try to get back to sleep for one more hour, but I end up tossing and turning in bed, with my brain blasting messages about my To Do list. The art project for the school dance! The art project for the school dance! The art project for the school dance! A very easy item on my To Do list, that does not matter in the grand scheme of things, and yet, my Ego likes to throw a fit about it at 5 a.m.

I think, as I eat healthier and healthier, my body is needing less and less sleep. Maybe the thing to do is just get out of bed and start my day at 5 a.m. instead of letting my brain go nuts for an hour.

Because in the light of day, when I look at my To Do list, as bloated as it may be, it does not seem impossible or scary. Rested and nourished, I can look at my list with a sense of humor and realize that (a) everything will get done in a timely manner but (b) even if it doesn’t, at least I have the essentials down pat.

I’m breathing. My kids are breathing.

I ate breakfast. My kids ate breakfast.

I got a good night’s sleep. My kids slept as well.

That’s it. Everything else is extra credit.

And in the game of life, there’s no need to accumulate bonus points.

When my daughter Pippa was born five years ago, my tool kit was empty. But after years of work and reflection, I think I have a decent range of tools that are helpful with different tools and situations. My tools include:

• Journaling and morning pages to clear the crap out of my head
• SLEEP. Doing whatever it takes to get my SLEEP.
• Exercise. It used to be Zumba. But now, I’m in love with walking and the Classical Stretch program.
• Babysitters. Because I need breaks.
• Accepting help from my parents. Because I need help.
• Accepting help from Nathan. Because HOLY EFF I NEED ALL THE HELP.
• Spending as little time as possible on social media.
• Getting outside into nature.
• Neglecting the housework, but also
• Decluttering whenever possible.
• Going with the flow, but
• making sure the flow is not headed for Niagara Falls.
• Reading parenting books, but
• not all the time, because,
• I have to trust my intuition.
• Dance parties in the kitchen. Sometimes a tool kit just needs the emotional equivalent of a confetti cannon.
• Silence.
• Meditation.
• Solitude.
• Mom friends with kids the same age as my kids.
• Mom friends with kids who are older than my age so I can absorb their wisdom and perspective.
• Mom friend with kids younger than my kids so I can feel wise and sage.
• Lowering my expectations. All the way to sea level. And then lower. And lower. Just assume the flight to Nebraska will be the Apocalypse and then you’ll be happy when it is only a Shit Show.
• Understanding that everything is a phase. Toddlers will eventually get all of their teeth and stop teething. (I swear, it’s true!) Your defiant preschooler will someday poop like a pro on the potty. And no child leaves for college with a sippy cup.
• Accepting that life shifts and I have to change my routines, schedules, etc.
• SYSTEMS to put as much of motherhood on auto pilot as I possibly can. This is actually the newest tool in my mothering tool kit and I feel like I need to use it now all over my life. I recently made daily checklists for morning and afternoon, laminated them, and hung them on the fridge. Then, we have containers for everything – a shoe basket, a library books box, a place for Barbies… I love systems!

Spoiler alert: expect some future posts about Motherhood Systems because they are changing my life.

I used to run a mom-to-mom postpartum support group. I started it Spring 2014 when my daughter was one-year-old because it was something I needed and wanted. I had made mom friends; I had told people I had postpartum depression; but I needed mom friends who had had similar postpartum experiences.

The group went on hiatus when I was pregnant with Julian. I puked the entire pregnancy and just couldn’t handle scheduled meetings when I needed to be in bed, feeling like death.

I rebooted the group when Julian was about six months old because my intuition decided it was time. It felt right. Running the support group inspired me to start my podcast Adventures With Postpartum Depression so I could reach moms who could not attend group due to nap times and geography. After a few months, I found the group a permanent home at The Family Room. Instead of sporadic meetings at playgrounds, I hosted the group every Thursday afternoon in a climate-controlled room. It was great. It was the right thing for me to do.

Until one day, it wasn’t.

A few weeks ago, on Pippa’s first day of kindergarten, an idea bubbled up from my intuition: it was time for me to stop running a postpartum support group.

What?! That seemed outlandish. I had assumed I would run the group for at least five more years.

Nope, my intuition said. It’s time to stop.

Okay, I bargained. What if I run the group once a month?

No. You need more time to write. Even one afternoon enough takes away too much time from your writing.

Okay, I thought. What if I run the group once a month at night? I never write at night, but I like socializing at night.

No, my intuition said, that’s not right either. You need to stop doing the group all together.

I realized, about 48 hours after the idea first bubbled into my conscious thought, that “ending support group” was more than an issue of needing more time to write. It was (and still is) about my personal healing journey.

I told the owner of The Family Room that I needed to stop running the support group because my intuition was telling me to move on. She wants to continue the group in some capacity but was very supportive of my decision. And so, that is what I’m doing. Last week, I hosted my weekly support group for the last time. Now, a week has passed and it is Thursday again. Instead of packing up and driving over tosupport group, I’m writing at Starbucks. In an hour, I’ll be getting a massage.

I don’t know yet why my intuition wanted me to stop running support group. I have a few inklings about “needing more time to write” and “taking my foot out of 2013, when I had PPD, and placing it in 2018, when I’m working on different issues.”

Maybe ending support group will help me build and strengthen the relationships I have with the people in my life. With weekly support group, I got the chance to have deep, powerful conversations with amazing women every week. But most women only attended once and then moved on with their recovery. So I was having meaningful conversations but not building meaningful relationships. Maybe, just maybe, the support group was becoming a crutch that excused me from truly opening up to my friends and family because I was already being open with strangers at a weekly support group.

Huh.

I don’t know.

Ultimately, there are probably a lot of different reasons that I needed to end support group. I think it’s important for me to stay tuned in to myself and recognize my shifting and changing wants and needs. I can have five year and ten year plans, but ultimately, life is uncertain. I am changing every day with every experience I have. I could have resisted and kept limping along with support group for several more months or even years, lashing myself onward and forward because “it was the right thing to do.” That’s what happened when I went to law school and became a miserable lawyer. I made myself practice the law for years and years because I had spent the money on law school and it was the right thing to do.

But postpartum depression pushed me to a higher level. Now I’m at a place where I can tune into my intuition’s frequency, figure out what I want and need to do, and make big changes when they need to happen.

I wonder what magical things will happen in my life next!

Meditation makes me feel like a better version of myself. I have known this for years, but still, I have had trouble sustaining a regular practice. I have tried attending meditation classes at yoga studios, using Tibetan singing bowls, staring at candles, and various guided meditations on YouTube. Every time, I get into a good groove but after a few weeks, I get irritated or bored and quit. It seemed like meditation just wasn’t my jam.

When I started weaning off Mirtazipane (the medication that helps me sleep when I’m anxious), I realized I needed to find some new tricks to fall asleep at night. Meditation has been helping enormously on that front, but I’m doing it entirely my way:

1. When: Right before I go to bed. It’s the last thing I do before falling asleep. Previously, I meditated in the morning or around 8 p.m. Morning meditations felt wrong because I’d rather journal when I wake up; and the 8 p.m. meditation would make me sleepy, but then I’d watch t.v. and get a second wind, thereby undermining the benefits of paying attention to my breath for ten minutes.
2. Where: In my bed. Lying down. With my head on a pillow. I don’t care if I’m “supposed” to meditate sitting up. I meditate better when I’m comfortable in bed.
3. What: I’m using the Calm app. I listen to different guided meditations. Right now, I’m listening to the stress management series.
4. Why: To relax at night and unwind from the day so that I fall asleep easily.

Meditation is a tool that is helping me right now in August 2018. Will I still be meditating in September 2018? I have no idea! I don’t even know if I’ll meditate tonight.

But this is what I’m loving about my current meditation practice: I’m doing what works for me. According to the Calm app, I’m supposed to meditate sitting up. Well, I don’t want to do that. I want to lie down, damnit, so that’s what I’m doing.

I’m sure there are some meditation experts who would roll their eyes at my techniques, but that does not bother me. I’m not meditating to impress anyone. I’m just doing what feels right for me right now.