Shiftyourlifedesign

I adore the opportunity to share with you all my journey through this question. I am a mother of three gorgeous kids: 11, 9, and 7, and each has brought me to a new place within my life as a mom and being overall. Motherhood is a beautiful opportunity to experience a challenge unlike any other but not just to provide for them but more to provide insight into the person I was and the woman I have become, and continue with becoming as I near further into the experience as a mom. I am forty years old, and have walked my share of disruption. I wanted to share today on my journey of becoming a mother and how it has bloomed me into a healthier individual both inside and out.

My son was the colicy child who never stopped crying, never seemed satisfied, and overwhelmed me beyond my wildest dreams. I was constantly surviving the ride, hating my experiences yet I rode the tide. This journey alone has been a stressor and a dysruption so I had no choice but to learn how to regulate my own emotional turmoil and SHIFT it into something more sustainable. I needed to learn that I no longer could control external (trust me, I sure tried). No amount of anger, threats, or negative coping mechanisms won me into the mom I have become. I had to learn that these were no longer serving any one of us, I had to reach deeper inside and work on the hard stuff.

I became a mom at the age of 29. For some this is late, some early, but for me it was perfectly right. I had my children back to back and this is where my life seemed to get off track. Parenting three children is no easy feat, especially with the overwhelming battle of ADHD. It wasn’t until my first born was diagnosed with ADHD that I started realizing that all the suffering within me was no longer serving me. I had to learn a better way to manage my frustrations, be with his frustrations, and apply better coping mechanisms. I have studied emotional health since the birth of my first child in hopes to find my way to freedom and balance again, yet no amount of knowledge can change my own emotional regulation.

We were both struggling which rippled into all of us suffering.

I am now ten years beyond all the hardest things from back then. I have learned to parent a hard child, and I continue to learn that parenting a hard child requires I check in regularly with myself. How I approach the experience ripples the experience. If Im angry, hes more angry. I learned to lose and let go of control, I learned to compromise within to maintain the equilibrium. ADHD is not just about focus and control, it is about conduct, anger, dysregulation. It is a fire of overwhelmed emotions that are hard to process for us adults let alone a child. This blog is not about adhd today, it is about hormonal balance and regulating stress to find wellness.

I am healing myself now. I lost my own sense of health trying to help someone else. I was in a constant fight, flight or flee state, trying to regulate my child, complicating my own internal ecosystem to experience imbalance. I was overwhelmed.

The past 11 years were difficult but I am in a new phase of life with each of my child. My son still has a lot of overwhelm, but the ups are now greater than the downs. We are finding our way around. Last year at 39 I began really driving my way back into my health. I started learning about neurotransmitter and hormone health not only for my son, (to better understand ADHD and the effect of dopamine) but about my own likely defects in hormonal health. I too have ADHD and often get lost with focus, am overactivity, I seek out adrenaline, and have explosive tendencies. I have struggled my entire life not knowing why emotionally I felt lonely and bored, unfulfilled and restlessness galore. It wasn’t until I began to zoom back my own lense that I began to recognize he was in me, and I was within him.

In 2018 I was suffering with dysfunctional uterine bleeding, swelling, palpitations, pains, injuries, altered sleep, new thyroid nodules, low libido, hunger, hair loss, mood disturbances, breast discomforts, headaches, nervousness, and weight resistance. I was falling apart and knew I needed help. I went to my own provider, and being one myself I knew I wanted to look into hormones and mental health (a passion of mine d/t experiencesof life). I started with my own baseline hormone study but had a knowledge deficit to fully understand the results myself. Most family providers are under trained in hormone health. You see, the thing about it all is that hormones are fluctuating. Interpreting hormone levels is an art, and does not fall into science. it does not provide insight into a condition of black and white. Learning to understand hormonal health takes hours of learning about everything that impacts these values ( environment, food, stress, lifestyle, exercise, medications, and menstrual cycles, therefore making the connection requires a pattern of interpretation. “Normal results for health and disease overlap making interpretation challenging. I was not convinced that all those factors were truly involved in my hormone health, so like many of you, I reached for a pill to correct my symptoms. I tried everything too: anti anxiety, IUD, vitamins and anti inflammatories. I wanted to heal, and looked externally for a fix, never believing the answer lied within all those other factors that continued to co exist. I am an NP and do believe fairly that medicine can help -especially when all the factors are at play and are imbalanced in some way. medical aide can support our journey to overall health- but necer alone it requires conjunction of change! Meds can assist with redirecting the pendulum into the right direction but our lifestyle must follow to have an overall correction!

My goals were to reduce pain, heavy menstruation, and offscale the weight. I was stuck in every domain yet ready to make change.

I wanted to finally go from the stuck weight of 186 and find a pre pregnancy weight again, yet no amount of medicine brought me to my inner wisdom. I was dysregulated within, including my behaviors of coping mechanisms: over snacking, over training, over supplementing. I was searching for an easy system. I started to realize that something within my choices had to shift, I had to start saying no to quick fixes (including sugar). I had to take the next and begin regulating pattern recognition.

By late 30’s we often slow down producing progesterone naturally as a result of life phases. From here we then start to shift into fewer ovulations which also is known to be as a cause of fluctuating estrogen. My first step was to find a way to function through these transitions, and I knew the route I was on was not serving me at all. I took the advice of the expert woman who have gone before me, and began to implement the lifestyle changes they recommended: Relaxation, slowing down, improving diet to regulate bowel habits, reduce stress (relaxation), exercise and eat well; lol there it was, the annoying truth into it all. Lifestyle change is as hard as it gets but let me tell you it has been so worth it.

Where did I begin? I began focusing on my responses within, my mental chatter, and my mindset wisdom. I had to get a hold of my stress response as a starting point. I could no longer carry on the way things were – trying to function at home, at work and giving everyone else my all, yet nothing came for me at all. I was experiencing emotional burnout from my own anxieties. I was afraid to set my son off, for the ripple response it caused for us all. I had to learn to breath in time to let the moments pass and pray that someday we would find a balance to the madness. I began with the free workout programs at nourish move love where she provided me inspiring short video workouts to support my exercise regimen. These workouts were mostly Short and sweet, but it was the time I have so it fit in well to my daily regimen!

I had to learn to listen. When I was fatiguedI I listened. No longer would I stress to fit it all in, I would take in what I could and re begin when I felt I could.

I had to stop over obsessing about ‘all the healthy things I was eating, yet nothing was happening’. I started to realize that I was eating tons of healthy and tons of unhealthy in between which complicated calorie intake and made any attempt for weight loss wasteful. I began to recognize how eating was a comfort mechanism for me. I realized how many licks, tastes and bites I was consuming and how these altered my daily intake overall.

I had to eliminate something. I read a book that helped me see I was using food to comfort me. Sugar and Flour: these finally changed my addiction to foods in a whole new way. By making a cautious decision to SHIFT away, I started to have control over food decisions and it gave me back the power of choice again. I now eat healthy grains in ways I did before, but no longer breads and pasta or pastries as this contains the flour. Although I have chosen to stear away from these foods that do not serve my health, I do sometimes indulge in a snack, but it only comes around maybe once a month at most. but its now a conscious task! I have been learning the most about my patterned behaviours by intentionally being aware of things i had done before to things i do now. Making an elimination gave me back the freedom to see, I food filled a starvation emotional need.

I dabble in supplements now, but not for weight loss but for the power of nutrition. Omega 3, Vitamin D, Vit B 100, tumeric, and I use magnesium and zinc! These medications as I know offer me a way to enhance neurotransmitter communication that has helped to offset chronic inflammation.

I am a true believer we can heal with foods and I hope this article inspires you too. Food is medicine, but food can be a contribution to our greatest health risks. Are you ready to make a change, start getting real with your daily experiences and find your way? is so, I encoursge you to start with this-

How are you?

I am far from my goal but as a whole but i am now on a roll and ready to learn to let go. I have learned i needed help overall and I can see now I had to allow myself to feel vulnerable! Not only have I managed my way through some hard parenting, I am entering a new phase, called perimenopause, that comes with its own complicated regulations! I have seen that harships can be a phase and it is most important to always be open to new ways. Never lose sight of the idea that there shall be soon better days!