I suppose that was a bit vulgar or maybe too much information to be writing in the morning, but it’s true, at one point I hadn’t shat in a full seven days. I didn’t understand, I was eating better than I ever had, writing in my food journal daily and analyzing it like it was the Matrix. But still, I hadn’t gone to the bathroom in a week. I was exhausted and felt like throwing in the towel and saying hello to wheat and dairy because, at that point, I couldn’t give a shit…nor take one. 

I was 27 years old and I had it all, or at least what seemed to be. I had a wonderful fiancé, a gorgeous home we had just purchased, a closet filled with clothes and several vacations a year. But somehow I wasn’t happy. I had spent thousands of dollars on practitioners to fix me and it wasn’t until I studied Chinese Medicine in addition to being a Nutritionist that it suddenly clicked.

The depression breakthrough

I didn’t realize that the life society had deemed I should have wasn’t the one I wanted and for that, I felt ungrateful and ashamed to tell anyone. I felt trapped and stuck and would slip out of bed to cry quietly in the bathroom at 3am. This feeling of being stuck was truly my breakthrough. Feeling stuck is a classic sign of Liver Qi stagnation. If the energy in our livers are not flowing properly then constipation will arise. This is where a lot of practitioners fall short. You can detox yourself out the wazoo, but if you neglect the emotional component that could have been the catalyst to physical ailments, then nothing will change.

Once I made the decision to leave my fiancé, sell my home and go back to being a poor student swinging two jobs, my bowels moved. I had made the bold move to live authentically and finally let go…and boy did I ever.

In my private practice, emotions and thought patterns are a huge part of what I work with patients on because it can ignite physical imbalances. Our thought patterns can create deep-seated, repressed emotions that can stagnate our livers. Suddenly we find ourselves sighing constantly or replying, “I’m fine” curtly because our energies internally are stuck. And all of this can manifest into pellet poops or constipation that can last days. I’ve seen this especially in rape victims who finally were able to have a bowel movement once they expressed that they had been raped…and hadn’t told a soul, until they were in clinic with me. But what about the rest of us that suffer from constipation?

Somehow, as a society, we have created a tribe of women who put themselves second to their partners, children, friends and family. To be honest to their greatest desires would deem them as ungrateful, so they’d rather bury it instead. I’m here to tell you otherwise.

All I ask of you is to dig deep into the dark emotions that you’ve been holding onto – it will be scary but you can do it and you’ll be thankful that you did. Soon, it will be time to understand the true meaning of detoxing, let go and bloom.