Full Capacity Living… Women’s health · Perimenopause/Menopause The Body That Forgot How to Rest On weight, hormones, and what we’ve been taught to ignore You’re eating well. You’re lifting weights. You’ve cut back on the long cardio sessions. Your labs look reasonable. And yet your body keeps holding on, or gaining. If this sounds familiar, the missing piece probably isn’t what you’re doing. It’s what your nervous system still believes about the world. Why the math stops working…

Full Capacity Living… ROOT & RISETUESDAY LETTER — MAY 2026 The Quiet Work of Coming Home to Yourself On rediscovering who you were before the world told you who to be—and the deeper layer of healing I’m beginning to share, including the thoughtful use of plant medicine. __________________ A subtle restlessness lives in so many of us these days—a sense of unfinished change. It’s not always loud or obvious. Often, it’s a quiet, persistent feeling that something isn’t quite aligned. Maybe life…

Small consistent practices within your day make a significant difference to how your body handles daily stressors.

Full Capacity Living… You’ve Been Eating Vegetables. But Are You Getting Their Nutrients? Full Capacity Living | Tuesday Edition It turns out, I didn’t know as much as I thought I did. My grocery cart has always been loaded with vegetables and fresh fruit — berries, greens, radishes, even kohlrabi. I thought I had the produce aisle figured out. Then I read Eating on the Wild Side by Jo Robinson, and while I was already a fan of the basics, it was the subtleties that shifted things for me….

Discover eco-friendly lawn care tips, natural pest control strategies, and the surprising benefits of dandelions—while reducing your family’s exposure

Full Capacity Living… A favorite mural in a tunnel leading to the Pacific Ocean..Crystal Cove My work in health and wellness started as a medical speech-language pathologist, I’ve spent decades listening—not just to what people say, but how they say it. The patterns, the tone, the underlying meaning. And what I’ve come to understand, combining my work as a therapist and functional medicine is this: Language doesn’t just reflect how we think—it shapes how our body functions. The Conversation…

Full Capacity Living… Early morning owl at Chapin Forest What Your Brain Has Been Trying to Tell You About Sleep Yesterday morning on my hike, I came across a magnificent owl—alert, steady, completely in its element. It struck me how often we borrow the term “night owl” to describe ourselves… without ever questioning whether it’s actually true. Because here’s the reality I see every day in my work: Many of us aren’t natural night owls.We’re just running on a wired, overstimulated brain that…

Why do I feel better on vacation and how to recreate that at home…

Why Smart, Disciplined People Lose Their Best Habits Under Pressure…and how this connects with competitive rowing.

Electrolytes: Helpful Tool or Overhyped Habit? How to discern the need…

Kindness and a super seed nut butter recipe…

Full Capacity Living… This started with a conversation about stale air with my niece… And the potential for mold in our homes. About how tightly we seal our homes all winter — insulation, weather stripping, closed windows for months — and what that means for the air we’re breathing every day. That curiosity led me to research a Nordic practice. In Sweden it’s called vädra, and in Germany Stosslüften, or “shock ventilation.” Even in the middle of winter, they open doors and windows on…

Full Capacity Living… Best of friends hiking Cathedral Rock, Sedona AZ Cathedral Rock hike, Sedona AZ We often think health is about discipline. What we eat. How we move. When we sleep. But one of the strongest predictors of long-term health outcomes isn’t found in a supplement cabinet or workout plan. It’s connection. Research continues to show that social connection significantly impacts longevity, cardiovascular health, immune function, and mental wellbeing. Chronic loneliness has been…

Full Capacity Living… Organic cotton clothing by Pact Hi friends, We talk a lot about what we put into our bodies — food, supplements, hydration, sleep — but there’s another daily exposure that often gets overlooked: What touches your skin. Your skin is not a barrier; it’s an active, intelligent organ. What we wear sits against it for hours at a time, day after day. Fabrics matter more than most of us realize. Many conventional clothing materials are made from synthetic fibers like…

Full Capacity Living… A client said something today that stopped me in my tracks: “Exercise is not going to be in our conversation. I get tired when I work out… and then I beat myself up because I still have so much to do.” And yet—this same woman runs around with her grandkids, gardens, cooks, cleans, carries heavy things, dances, and stays on her feet most of the day. Here’s the part we often miss: That is movement. That is exercise. Research from psychologist Ellen Langer showed this…

Full Capacity Living… Hormones are having a moment.And yes—when done the right way, they can be incredibly supportive.But here’s the piece that often gets skippedHave we addressed lifestyle first?Because cortisol (hello stress hormone) doesn’t play nicely with estrogen, progesterone, or testosterone (men and women alike in the testosterone conversation). Chronically elevated cortisol can steal from our hormone reserves and turn peri-menopause and menopause into more of a cliff drop than a…

Full Capacity Living… Who doesn’t love a warm winter salad? Here is a recipe inspired by one of my favorite blogs www.minimalistbaker.com. Whenever I need a trusted source for simple, nourishing meals—think 10 ingredients or fewer, one bowl, or 30 minutes from start to finish—this is who I turn to every time. One of my tweaks to this recipe is lightly steaming the kale first. It’s easier to digest and helps reduce naturally occurring goitrogens, which can interfere with iodine…

Full Capacity Living… You’re capable, responsible, and used to holding a lot. And yet, somewhere along the way, your energy became inconsistent, fragile, or harder to access—despite “doing all the right things.” You find yourself getting sick more often than others. You don’t have the energy you used to but there’s no obvious reason. This small-group experience is designed for women who are high-functioning on the outside but feel under-resourced on the inside. Together, we’ll address the…

Healing the Gut Beyond Food: When The Stress Response Is the Missing Piece In a recent conversation on the Rich Roll Podcast, one of my “go to” podcasts, Rich Roll and gastroenterologist Dr. Will Bulsiewicz explored a truth many people sense intuitively but rarely hear stated so clearly: you can do all the “right” things for your health—and still not heal—if the body is living in an unaddressed stress or trauma response. They discussed the deep, often invisible connection between early life…

Full Capacity Living… Matcha vs. Coffee — Why Functional Medicine Loves Matcha (and Why Coffee Still Has a Place) In functional medicine, we’re always looking at how daily choices affect the nervous system, hormones, inflammation, and long-term resilience — not just short-term energy. That’s one reason matcha has become so popular: it supports the body in a steadier, more balanced way. Why Matcha Gets So Much Attention Matcha isn’t just “green tea powder.” It contains a unique combination…