Holistic Beauty & Wellness For The New Year

Happy New Year and welcome back to my blog. Over the last four years I have been so grateful for the opportunity to create work for myself that meshes so well with what I believe in. Essentially, I created this blog to share all the amazing information that I was discovering in the realm of organic beauty and wellness. You can read all about my personal journey to organic living here. Now, almost five years later I am so thrilled to look around and see how many other amazing organic beauty blogs and products are available.

Those Pesky Questions

Over the last year I began to ask myself the following question, “how can I best serve my community and at the same time honor my passions for inner-peace,  healthy-yummy food, wellness and beauty (in all it’s forms)?”. I have to say that the answers were slow to roll in, but the seeds were planted. I also knew that wherever my journey was going to lead me it would have to honor my roles as a mother to a young child,  as a wife and to my personal path.

The Uphill Journey Begins

I wasn’t sure where I would find the answer but I knew that in order to be able to listen to my inner guidance, which I’ve always relied on, I would need to find a peaceful silent place and get healthy on all levels. This included diet, physical health, spiritual growth, challenged intellectually, strong community (and a few other things I will discuss along the way).

I was off to a pretty good start with diet. When my son was 2 years old we embarked on the elimination diet journey to figure out what was happening with some food allergies. To make things simple I decided that I would go on this elimination diet as well. Basically, we would be eliminating many types of food from our diet which are known to trigger reactions from minor skin rashes to full blown gut issues. Today, my diet is gluten-free, dairy free, soy free and almost vegan.

I won’t go into the entire process of food elimination in this post, but I will share the details over time. Mostly because I know that so many people are in the same boat of the confusing process of figuring out the whole “food thing” and restore health.

Physically, I was doing OK. By ok I mean that I was feeling good consistent energy throughout the day, sleeping a decent amount and I was at a good weight for my body. I can’t say that I was feeling strong and vibrant, but I was generally happy about the way I looked. However, there were the seeds of some symptoms and pain in my gut that would prove to become linked to my spiritual journey. I had a feeling that a yoga studio was where I needed to be. And one morning as I sat crying in my car because of the pain in my gut and sadness in my heart, I found my way to a local yoga studio where my life would shift in some amazing ways over the course of a year.

Spiritual Growth, I would say that there was a gaping hole in my spiritual growth. I became pretty good at being busy with this blog, reviewing TONS of products, answering e-mails, figuring out ways to monetize, monetize, monetize, because that was supposed to be the next step in a bloggers life. And I had lots to do as the mama of a kindergarten kiddo, a wife, a mama, friend, sister, daughter etc. There is always stuff to do. But time to do the things that recharge my spirit (art, yoga, silence, meditation, time with friends and writing just because) had ground to a slow and steady halt.

Intellectually, I could say that there was a challenge intellectually in creating and running this blog. And I was pretty good at keeping things running and growing. Ads, reviews, posts, guest bloggers, all these things took creative brainpower to make happen. I even had another job as an editor for another great green social site that kept me pretty busy. But as I began to admit to myself over the last year, I was moving quickly in a direction that was not helping me to grow. I had become a reflection of something and someone that was not truly me. I have a feeling that you are either thinking, YES I know just what you mean!! or the alternative…just buck up and do your job, who cares if you’re healthy in ALL these areas. And you know what, that was also part of the problem. I was spending WAY too much time thinking about what everyone else was thinking. So poo poo on that in any meaningful way. It’s my life and life is way too short to spend any more energy on trying to guess what you’re thinking. Ahh…that feels better already.

Strong Community, friends and community have always been a very important piece of my life puzzle. But I won’t get too much into this facet right now. Just know that this EcoDiva community has been absolutely amazing. And even though I’ve put it on hold for now, the support has been incredible. That’s why I’ve decided to share this behind the scenes journey. And in hope that we can begin a conversation about your journey as well, and what it means to be strong, healthy, vibrant and beautiful NOW.

 

Where I Am Now

I am in my last month of a five month yoga intensive teacher training course. The entire process has been exhausting, exhilarating, beautiful and tearful. I want to share my journey with you (the good and the bad). This is my plan, to share share share and to listen. Truly listen to you and to myself. I can’t wait to see where we end up.

 

Thank you for listening.

Gratitude, light and love

xo

Elena

 

 

 

Tagged as: Elimination Diet, Spiritual Growth, Vegan, Yoga