Ok, so today’s post is going to be something a bit different (read: totally different). I did my first ever liver flush on Monday night this week, and then I got so excited about the results, that I posted on Facebook (are you following me on Facebook? That’s where you get all of the weird and wonderful details…), and people apparently totally want to hear about these kinds of topics on the blog (at least some of you do), so here we are. But when I set out to write this post, I realized I was going to have to explain why I had done the flush in the first place, and that led me to the epiphany that it was time. I’ve known for a few weeks now that I was working my way into a whole new level of authenticity, one where I was willing to be a great deal more vulnerable than I’ve ever been before. And because I’m in the process of taking my business to a whole new level, the next step is to be vulnerable publicly. It’s time. And yes, I’m nervous. I know that I have an amazing audience. I know that most of you don’t expect me to be perfect and even quite like it when I reveal that I’m not. I know that most of you will embrace this vulnerability as a chance to give yourselves permission to do the same. And still, I’m nervous. Because once I rip back this curtain, there’s no going back.

While I haven’t exactly tried to make out that I’m issue free (I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m not), I’ve focused mostly on talking about resistance that I’ve already overcome. I don’t tend to discuss things I’m currently experiencing, because I don’t want anyone to put any more focus on the problem. And yet, I think I can do better. If I am to continue to fully step into my power, if I want to continue to evolve, I have to follow my intuition and step out of my comfort zone, once again. I have to share more of myself with you and take the risk that comes with that. Intellectually, I know it’s not much of a risk (because other people’s opinions don’t matter; plus, you people are awesome), but emotionally, my knees are shaking a bit. And I suppose, I wouldn’t be fully authentic if I didn’t disclose that bit of fear to you, as well.

Although I’ve known for a few weeks that some kind of big, vulnerable post was coming soon, I think the final push came when another coach recently said to me: “It’s ok to evolve in public.” That hit home. I don’t want to hide my evolutionary process from you (not that I really could. Check out my first few posts to see what I mean. It’s night and day…). I think you’ll benefit so much more if I draw back that curtain and give you a much better view of the messy process of becoming enlightened. So, here goes:

My “other” passion

I have many passions. LOA is one (the main one, the big Kahuna), nutrition and health is another. The main reason that nutrition and health are a passion of mine, though, is that I’ve been struggling with my weight all of my life. Now, as many of you know, I was able to release about 100 pounds of weight a couple of years ago. This was a glorious achievement, and I was sure that I’d finally conquered the mountain. Only, to be totally honest with you, I hadn’t. Like an LOA newbie, I had focused entirely on the weight loss as the goal, instead of it being a means to an end. So, when I finally got into my skinny jeans, I realized, to my horror, that I wasn’t “done”. I still had a massive fear of gaining it all back. I wasn’t FREE. I hadn’t truly stepped into a reality where I was a thin person. I was just a fat person who’d lost some weight. That’s not the same thing at all.

Humbled by my realization (I should know better, after all, but then we all have at least one issue that makes us totally blind), I set out to do it the “right” way, by getting in touch with the fears that were still left, and learning how to become truly and finally free. I can laugh at this now, but I honestly thought it might take me a few weeks or maybe a couple of months to get the rest of the story (after all, it wasn’t as if I hadn’t found any pieces of the puzzle, I was just missing a few), so I decided to just not write about weight for a little while, and let it all come together. I had announced that I was writing a weight loss book, and by golly, I was going to do just that. No one had to know that I hadn’t actually quite yet found the Holy Grail, right? After all, it was only going to take a little while. Only, that was two years ago. And I’ve been receiving massive amounts of insights ever since. I decided to make 2013 the year that I concentrate on the physical body, and I’ve filled pages and pages in my journal with powerful realizations. I keep thinking I’ve got it, only to find out that there’s even more to be downloaded.  My journey wasn’t nearly over, and it still isn’t, although I’ve come a long, LONG way in the last couple of years. I may not have all the answers, but I have a lot of them, certainly a lot more than I had two years ago. Why does that make me feel vulnerable, you might ask?

As part of this journey, as part of my path, I had to have a few more major realizations, one in particular. It’s one that the Universe has been trying to teach me in various ways since I was a child, and one that I have been stubbornly refusing to accept. It flies in the face of all conventional wisdom, everything I’ve ever been taught about weight loss, and I just couldn’t get my logical mind around it. Until, the Universe finally bitch slapped me hard enough to really get my attention and I had no choice.

There I was, eating my mostly raw vegan diet (not designed for weight loss, just because I was intuitively led to it). I was on about 800-1500 calories a day, with moderate exercise (a bit of Yoga, a bit of walking, but no more 3 hour daily stints in the gym). My diet hadn’t changed much for several months and my weight had stayed steady. I’d stopped weighing myself (after all, how much we weigh is not important, otherwise we could just chop off a limb. It’s just a means to an end), and considering how I was eating, weight gain wasn’t really a threat. But then, suddenly, I put on 40 pounds. In a month. Just like that. I hadn’t pigged out, I hadn’t upped my caloric intake. In fact, I’d actually largely lost my appetite for a few weeks and had been eating less. My body had simply decided to hold on to more weight, and my jeans didn’t fit anymore.

I. Freaked. Out.

I don’t mean that I was a bit shocked. I mean, I had one of the biggest anger releases of my life. I raged against the Universe, my body, the unfairness of it all, the beauty standard, the people from my childhood who had convinced me I was fat long before I actually was, the gym teachers who had turned physical exercise into a hated and humiliating experience, the diet industry, every diet book I’d ever read, every unknowledgeable practitioner, doctor and nutritionist I’d ever been to. I’d been sick, I’d recovered, I’d lost weight, I’d paid my dues! How could my body betray me like this, once again?!

After I’d finally let go of the majority of the anger, a quiet voice seemed to whisper in the darkness: It’s not about the food. You see, this wasn’t the first time this had happened to me. I’d had unexplained (according to medical science) weight gains before, even while on an incredibly strict regimen. Science’s answer after reviewing my eating and workout plan? “You must be lying about what you’re eating. That’s the only explanation that makes sense.” Only, I wasn’t lying. I was micromanaging every gram of nutrition that went into my body. I was working out like a mad woman, six days a week. I was perfect on paper. And it wasn’t working. And once again, that little voice: It’s not about the food. But this time, I finally began to hear it. For the first time in my life, I really, truly got it. It’s not about the food. It’s not about the exercise. My body could put on 20 pounds in a month with no extra calories. And then do it again. No one could explain it to me scientifically, but here I was, hauling around the proof on my ass. It’s not about the food.

The real journey

When I finally accepted this insight, this paradigm, it opened me up to the possibility of figuring out what it was truly about. Sure, sure, it’s about the energy, the emotion, blah, blah, blah. But how do you actually apply that? What does that really mean? How do you use that to get your damn body to conform to what you want (and no, I can’t cover all that in one blog post, but I will be writing about this more and more in the weeks and months to come)?

I began to meditate a little differently on this topic. I asked myself, what is it that you really want? Why do you want to lose weight? I dug deeper than I ever head. I finally applied my own process to myself (like I said, we all have that one issue). I lined myself up with the feeling I wanted to achieve, something I’d never been able to achieve before, and then I relaxed and followed my intuition. I’d love to tell you that the weight just magically dropped off the next month. But honestly, if that had happened, I’d have stopped looking for more answers (I know myself, I totally would’ve moved on to a new goal). And, since I always have to explore everything fully so that I can teach it, I had/have a lot of answers to find. So, while everyone I know is telling me that I look thinner (I still don’t weigh myself), and my jeans do feel looser, my skinny jeans lie waiting for me at the bottom of my closet. I no longer need to fit into them (although I truly know that I will).

I’ve finally decided to love my body no matter what. Coming clean to all of you is a part of that. My weight has been the source of my biggest frustration, my biggest pain and my biggest shame. I’m done with that. Or at least (because I know I’ve made that statement before, and I wasn’t done), I’m a lot more done than I’ve ever been in my entire life. I don’t need to be at my goal size in order to feel good, to be happy, or to experience ANYTHING I want to experience. I no longer judge myself, and so I’m not all that concerned anymore about being judged by others (although some nervousness still remains). The freedom that comes with that is enormous. And being able to publicly declare this is a huge nail in the coffin of my past insecurities.

Of course, as soon as I managed to feel good no matter what, my body started talking to me. Ok, it had been talking to me all my life, but I hadn’t been listening. I thought it was the enemy. I’d made peace with it to various degrees over the years, but suddenly, my body was my partner in all this, fully on board and willing to tell me what to do. Holy shit, I’d never considered the idea that I could just ask my body what it needed. I’d been intuitively eating for years, but this took the communication to a whole new level. This went way beyond the apple feeling better to me than the cheese burger. This was full on, one to one communication. And when I asked my body what I needed to do, it told me to check my liver.

“Check your liver”

This took me down a whole new path, one that’s rife with incredible information, and also a whole lot of crap. Ah, God bless the Internet. I realized that as I’d gained weight, I’d also started to feel progressively worse. After tons of research, I became (and still am) absolutely convinced that I’d had a congested liver pretty much all my life. I partially uncovered a blocked memory of a trauma I’d experienced when I was around 2 years old, the emotion of which had been stored in the liver. I believe the energy of my family made me susceptible to this (we all manifest things in our own way, in my family, trauma gets stored in the liver). I managed to manifest a nutritionist that helped a little (my emotional blockage would not allow me to manifest more than a smidgen of a solution at that point), which was enough to bring up the real culprit – the ancient trauma and the beliefs I’d adopted as a result. When I healed that trauma (or at least healed it to the degree that I had access to), options to cleanse the liver in various and effective ways started to flood into my experience.  I’d like to share with you the protocol that I put together for myself thus far. If any part of it resonates with you, then perhaps you’ve found the next step in your journey. If it doesn’t then don’t worry. Focus on what you want to feel, and let yourself be inspired to the appropriate action. It really isn’t about the food, or the exercise. Those are merely reflections of the energy within us. But, when you are drawn to a particular action, go for it. Nothing comes to us by accident. While there is no miracle cure, there is always the next step and one after that.

The magical liver

I’ve done a lot of different cleanses in my life. I’ve been a big believer in getting rid of toxins for years now, and fully support the idea that as we raise our vibration, we will be inspired to clean our bodies up so they can keep up with our energetic selves. Where limiting beliefs clog up the mind, toxins clog up the body, and are often representative of our resistance. So, getting rid of toxins can not only make it easier to raise our vibrations, it may well be a necessity. For thousands of years, mystics and spiritual teachers have sworn by the effects of fasting. Fasting is a great way to detox. There are, of course, other methods.

With all the detoxing I’ve done, however, I never really paid any special attention to the biggest detox organ of them all: the liver. I clearly wasn’t ready. Had I known about the importance of the liver, I’d have gone after it with my usual vengeance. But that would’ve brought up the emotional issues I wasn’t yet ready to deal with.

Since I’m not a doctor, I’m not going to do a full recap of the hundreds of functions that the liver is responsible for in this post. If you’d like to learn more about this vital organ, you can do so here. I’m going to focus on the bits that are important to the topic at hand.

The liver regulates most chemical levels in the blood and excretes a super alkaline substance called bile (it’s yellowy green), which helps carry away waste and break down fats in the small intestine during digestion. All the blood leaving the stomach and intestines passes through the liver. The liver processes this blood (clears out the poisonous substances) and breaks down the nutrients (and drugs) into forms that the rest of the body can use. In other words, the only reason the toxins in our food and environment don’t kill us, is because the liver manages to filter them out and neutralize them.

Now, imagine that the liver isn’t working at 100%. You’d think that doctors would be all over that shit, right? Turns out, no. They only get involved when the liver is already at least 70% compromised. In other words, if your liver is not functioning optimally, it will still show up as A-OK on medical tests. You’ll feel like crap, but that’s not considered a relevant variable. I’m not telling you this to be snarky, I promise. I’m merely pointing out that medical science only checks for very specific parameters. Just because they say that everything is fine, doesn’t mean it is (and just because they say things are not fine, doesn’t mean they aren’t). Go with how you feel. Your body knows what it’s doing (this is what my body wants your body to know. And yes, I know that sounds kind of dirty. You’re welcome.)

So there you are with a clogged up (i.e. congested) liver, which is struggling to filter out the toxins in your blood. Depending on your own situation and energy, eating a super clean diet and living well may not be enough for the liver to fully recover. But there are things you can do to assist it with its cleansing process (once you’re ready to uncover the emotions that will release, of course).

I’m going to share some of these techniques with you… on Monday. I know, I totally suck. But honestly, I know that for many of you, this is Thanksgiving, and the next part of this post is going to be, well, gross. You don’t want to be reading the part of my journal (which I’ll be sharing with you), that talks explicitly about things that go on in the bathroom. That’s just not polite dinner conversation. Also, because it’s my journal, there will be a lot of cursing. You’ve been warned (or titillated. You know who you are).

Phew!

So, there you have it. I’ve pulled back the curtain and shared like never before. I have to tell you, it’s been strangely cathartic. And not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I’m no longer nervous about publishing this. I’m no longer afraid of disappointing you. If seeing my imperfect side, if realizing that just because I’m able to channel information doesn’t mean I’m automatically a master at applying it in all areas of my life, causes you to unfollow me or unlike me or tsk and shake your head at me, then I was never really the right teacher for you to begin with. But maybe, just maybe, my willingness to put myself out there, warts and all, vulnerable and exposed, will give some of you the courage to do the same. Because I promise you, I’m still here. I’m standing. And I’m no worse for the wear. In fact, I’m better.

Additional note of celebration: Today is my birthday (it’s really no coincidence that this post is coming out today…), and I’m getting ready to fly off to the island of Ibiza tomorrow morning, to spend a long, girly weekend of celebration, food and energy work with mah ladies. All I want for my birthday is that you perhaps share something of yourself in the comments, something authentic, maybe a little vulnerable. See how it feels. Take the leap. I promise, you’ll feel stronger for it.

Second note of celebration: Because this is also Thanksgiving in the US, and because of this post, I can’t think of a better day to thank all of you for being here. I know that you think you’ve come here in order to further your own evolution. But really, it’s a co-creation, and you all are helping me with my growth, as well. Today’s post is the perfect example of that. By providing me with the forum in which I can share so openly, so vulnerably, so authentically, you are giving me the opportunity to release my fear and expand my energy to new levels. I can’t even find the words to thank you enough or to express the incredible love I feel for all of you right now. You’re not here by accident. And neither am I. As Abraham says, “We’re all in this together”. And we really, really are. Thank you.

Oh my freaking God, I can’t wait to read your comments.