I started researching the gut–brain axis because I wanted to understand how the gut and brain actually communicate. I thought I was researching digestion. I ended up researching myself. The deeper I went, the more I realized that the gut–brain axis isn't simply “your gut affects your mood.” It is a two-way conversation involving the nervous system, stress response, hormones, immune signals, the gut, the brain, and even the microbes living inside us. But then my research wandered somewhere I wasn't expecting. Into motivation. Into stress. Into procrastination. Into learning. And finally, into the way we respond to ourselves when something is difficult. That made me stop. I've spent a lot of time thinking motivation had to come first. I need to feel motivated, then I'll do the thing. But what if sometimes I have that backward? Research into motivation and learning suggests that action can create new information for the brain. A small action can lead to a successful outcome. That successful outcome becomes experience. Experience influences what I expect the next time. And suddenly the next step may not feel quite as impossible. Then I started thinking about procrastination differently too. Sometimes I may not be avoiding the task itself. I may be avoiding what the task makes me feel. Overwhelmed. Confused. Bored. Uncertain. Afraid I'll fail. Avoiding it can give me immediate relief. And that relief can unintentionally teach my brain, “Hey, avoiding this worked.” That was an eyebrow-raising moment for me. Because beating myself up afterward doesn't necessarily solve that problem. If I procrastinate and then tell myself I'm lazy, useless, or should be doing better, I've just added another unpleasant feeling to the task I'm already struggling to approach. Maybe accountability doesn't require attacking myself. Maybe it can sound more like: “That didn't work. What happened?” “What was I actually avoiding?” “What does my body need right now?”

“I’ll get back on track when life settles down.” Sound familiar? This might be one of the most common things I hear from women when it comes to their health. But lately I’ve been thinking... What if the motivation we’re waiting for isn’t supposed to arrive when life gets easier? What if we actually create it by taking action while life is still chaotic? I wrote about this in my latest newsletter, including a story from years ago that completely changed the way I think about motivation. Because maybe motivation isn’t something you have to find. Maybe it’s something you create. Read the full newsletter HERE And feel free to comment : What’s one thing you’ve been waiting to feel motivated to do?

I've been sitting with something Charlene brought to my attention: What is the difference between rest and collapse? 🤔 That simple question sent me down a much deeper rabbit hole than I expected. I started wondering why so many of us feel that we have to push through everything before we've earned the right to rest. Finish the work. Take care of everyone. Get through the difficult thing. Accomplish enough. Then we can rest. But the more I researched, the more I began wondering if I've been looking at rest backwards. Our bodies don't treat recovery as a reward for being productive. Physical, mental, and emotional demands use resources, and recovery is part of how we replenish them. That made me think about two very different patterns: Effort → recovery → effort → recovery versus Effort → push → override → push → override → eventually I can't continue. And suddenly Charlene's question looked very different. Am I actually resting, or am I waiting until stopping is no longer a choice? That led me into resilience. I've sometimes thought resilience meant being able to endure difficult things and simply keep going. But resilience is more complicated than endurance. It can also involve adapting, recovering, changing strategies, using the resources available to us, and knowing when we need support. Then I noticed something else. Sometimes we treat asking for help exactly the way we treat rest. "I can handle it." "Other people have their own problems." "I don't want to inconvenience anyone." "I'll ask if I really need it." So we wait until we're completely overwhelmed before asking for support, just as we sometimes wait until we're completely exhausted before allowing ourselves to rest. At that point, I realized I wasn't really researching rest anymore. I was researching permission. Why do we sometimes wait until we're exhausted enough to deserve rest? Overwhelmed enough to deserve help? Hurting enough to deserve care? Why does a need sometimes have to become undeniable before we consider it legitimate?

Charlene mentioned the gut-brain axis, and I understood the basic idea that our gut and brain communicate with each other. But understanding the words and actually understanding what they mean are two completely different things. So naturally, I went down a rabbit hole. 😂🐇🕳️ The first thing that clicked for me was that our gut isn't just a tube that food passes through. It's an entire environment filled with microorganisms—our gut microbiome. Some of those microbes help break down parts of food that our bodies can't completely break down on their own. In the process, they can make substances called metabolites. Basically, microbes eat or transform something and create something else. Some of those metabolites can then interact with our intestinal cells, immune system, and other parts of the body. That's where I started thinking, Okay...this is a lot bigger than digestion. Then I learned that the gut and brain have several different ways of communicating. One is the vagus nerve, which is a major communication pathway between the brain and internal organs. Another involves hormones and chemical signals. Our immune system is involved too. And then there's the enteric nervous system, which is basically a huge network of nerve cells built into our digestive system. But the part that really connected the dots for me was this: The communication goes both ways. Think about being extremely nervous. Your stomach starts hurting. Maybe you suddenly need to use the bathroom. Maybe food sounds absolutely disgusting. Or maybe stress makes you want to eat everything you can find. Those aren't necessarily separate things happening randomly. Your brain, nervous system, hormones, immune system, and digestive system are constantly communicating with one another. And information can travel in the other direction too. What's happening in the gut can influence signals going back toward the nervous system and brain. That made the phrase “gut feeling” much more interesting to me.

I'm home alone today, sore, and taking it easy. I took my meds, heated up a sausage-gravy pot pie, grabbed my orange juice and water, and settled into my chair. Then Snapchat reminded me that filters exist. Well…challenge accepted. 😂 Somewhere between ridiculous hair, giant eyeballs, glamorous makeup, a screaming egg 🍳, and eventually becoming a golden queen 👑, I realized I was genuinely having fun. And throughout my self-care journey, I learned something valuable today. ❤️ Maybe I don't have to polish everything before I let people see it. I didn't plan this moment. I didn't research it. I didn't turn it into something productive first. I wasn't trying to teach anybody anything. I was sitting in my chair being an absolute goofball because it made me laugh. And maybe that counts too. I've been learning that self-care isn't always another task to complete or something I need to do "correctly." Sometimes it's eating something, drinking enough, resting when I'm sore, taking my medication, laughing at myself, playing with ridiculous filters, and allowing myself to simply enjoy being alive in that moment. The lesson didn't come before the play. The lesson came because I let myself play. Maybe everything doesn't need to be polished before I share it either. Maybe sometimes being authentic, messy, goofy, thoughtful, serious, ridiculous—and completely myself—is enough. So here's today's highly scientific self-care progression: 😌 → 😂 → 👁️👄👁️ → 🍳 BLULULUL → 👑 Apparently enlightenment comes in mysterious forms. 🤣❤️