Christina Tidwell 7/27/21 Christina Tidwell 7/27/21

The REAL Root Cause of Gut Issues (and What to Do About It)

When it comes to healing gut issues, we have to get to the roots. In this post, we’ll go through one of the real roots of gut issues that I commonly see, and some helpful practices that I use with my clients so you can begin to truly support the terrain of the body instead of chasing root causes!

THE REAL ROOT CAUSE OF GUT ISSUES (AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT)

When it comes to healing gut issues, we have to get to the roots.

Oftentimes the things we think of as the “roots” (bacterial imbalance, candida, SIBO, low stomach acid, etc.) are really just branches, and we haven’t actually touched on the root causes of dysfunction and imbalance in the body.

Instead of trying to simply fix the “one thing”, we have to keep working backward to get to the ACTUAL root.

In this short video, we’ll go through one of the real roots of gut issues that I commonly see, and some helpful practices that I use with my clients so you can begin to truly support the terrain of the body instead of chasing root causes!

Check out the video to learn more about the REAL root cause of gut issues. And if you want to learn more about healing gut issues, autoimmunity, and the pillars of autoimmune health to start bringing this all together, I invite you to check out my Live Well with Autoimmune Disease Online Program. This program gives you specific tools and the building blocks to support your body both physiologically and emotionally. The Live Well with Autoimmune Disease Online Program is completely self-paced with 12 modules of supportive information that take you through the pillars of autoimmune health essential to whole-body healing so that you can know with certainty that you're doing everything you can on a daily basis to support your body and your health in a way that feels good for you! You can learn more about The Live Well Online Program here.

Feel free to let me know in the comments if the practices in this video are helpful, and if you’d like to learn more simple techniques that help create big shifts in healing and gut health!

If we haven't met before, I'm Christina Tidwell and I'm so excited that you're here! I am a RN & Functional Nutrition Practitioner that helps those with autoimmune disease, hormone imbalance and gut issues heal without overwhelm so you can feel better in your body in a way that honors your unique needs and feels sustainable for the rest of your life.

If you suffer from:

Fatigue and energy crashes
Brain fog
Poor digestion
Painful periods and PMS
Symptoms of autoimmunity
Stress and overwhelm

...and aren't getting the support you need, I’m here to help guide you! My job is to clear the overwhelm, help you put the pieces of the puzzle together and co-create a sustainable path forward to help you reach your goals and feel better in your amazing body. When we work together you can’t fail.

In my health & nutrition coaching programs I support you in the quest to get back into balance by listening to your story, understanding your needs, getting to the roots of imbalance in the body and co-creating a sustainable path to healing together. These sessions weave together functional nutrition and science, lived experience, breathwork, mindset shifts, and intuitive guidance for a unique and full-spectrum approach to nutrition counseling and holistic health.

I always offer free 20-minute discovery sessions to get clear on your major health concerns and identify what’s standing in your way. Click the button below to set up your free consultation and we can create a plan of action specifically for you.

Book your free Discovery Session here

Christina Tidwell 6/7/21 Christina Tidwell 6/7/21

Stuck On What You "Should" Be Doing For Your Health?

Stuck on what you “should” be doing for your health? In the quest to feel better these “shoulds” can leave us feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, and guilty as we feel like we’re always one step behind. In this post, learn how I counteract these “shoulds” so we can tap into your own innate wisdom for sustainable healing!

STUCK ON WHAT YOU “SHOULD” BE DOING FOR YOUR HEALTH?

There is so much information out there about what we “should” be doing for our health.

“I should eat this certain way for my Hashimoto’s.”

“I should wake up and 5am and exercise.”

“I should love to cook and make fancier meals.”

“I should take this supplement if I want to get better.”

In the quest to feel better these “shoulds” can leave us feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, and guilty as we feel like we’re always one step behind.

I’ve been hearing this come up a lot with my clients so I wanted to dive deeper into how what we feel we “should” do for our health can really get in the way of actually creating a life that feels healing and sustainable.

While all of our shoulds will look different based on our own experiences and healing journeys, one thing that can be really helpful is to do a mental inventory of all the “shoulds” that come up in your head around health. Once you become aware of what these are, you can ask yourself: Who and where did that come from? If it didn’t actually come from you and what’s serving your body, I encourage you to rethink it and check in with what feels true for you.

Tune into the video below to learn more about how I counteract these “shoulds” and how to tap into your own innate wisdom for sustainable healing.

Now I’d love to hear from you! Let me know in the comments below what “shoulds” come up for you around your health and healing journey.

If you suffer from:

Fatigue and energy crashes
Brain fog
Poor digestion
Painful periods and PMS
Symptoms of autoimmunity
Stress and overwhelm

Book your free Discovery Session here

Christina Tidwell 1/11/21 Christina Tidwell 1/11/21

Breathwork to Support Digestion

Are you someone that eats really quickly or is always eating on the go? Maybe you eat when you’re stressed or you often end up eating between meetings or at your computer?

Breathwork is an amazing healing tool for getting ready to eat and putting our body in a place where it's able to digest. One of my favorite ways to use breathwork to support digestion is to use “four, seven, eight” breathing for digestion. This video will take you through a breathing exercise so you can try this practice for yourself!

BREATHWORK TO SUPPORT DIGESTION

Are you someone that eats really quickly or is always eating on the go? Maybe you eat when you’re stressed or you often end up eating between meetings or at your computer?

This can be true for me too! So many of us tend to eat when we’re not in a place where our body is ready to actually digest. This can lead to a lot of downstream issues like heartburn or indigestion, bloating or constipation. And then this can have a carry over effect that creates even more downstream issues that come from impaired digestion. It could lead to nutrient deficiencies. It could be bacteria imbalances in our gut or autoimmunity. There are so many things that can be influenced by the health of our gut and our digestive system.

Breathwork is an amazing healing tool for getting ready to eat and putting our body in a place where it's able to digest food. Even slowing down and looking at the food in front of us can start this process of digestion. One of my favorite digestive support practices is 4-7-8 breathing. The video below will take you through this process so you can try this practice for yourself!

PREFER TO LISTEN? TUNE INTO THE LIVE WELL PODCAST BELOW (AND DON'T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE SO YOU'LL NEVER MISS OUT!)

Click here to listen in iTunes

Click here to listen in Stitcher

For those of us who deal with digestion issues like heartburn, indigestion, bloating, constipation, autoimmunity, and nutrient deficiencies make sure to stay tuned to this episode for a breathwork activity that you can do prior to eating.  Sometimes our digestive issues can arise when our bodies are not ready to receive food, and so this breathing exercise will help to support your body and digestive organs.

If you suffer from:

Fatigue and energy crashes
Brain fog
Poor digestion
Painful periods and PMS
Symptoms of autoimmunity
Stress and overwhelm

Book your free Discovery Session here

Christina Tidwell 12/15/20 Christina Tidwell 12/15/20

How to Create a Life That Feels Healing

In this post we look at giving ourselves permission to rest, why we have so much resistance to resting, and how it can actually feel really scary to just slow down. Rest doesn’t necessarily have to mean taking a day or week off but instead is something that we can simply build into small moments in our daily lives. I also share common beliefs that tend to hinder many of us from resting. This is one of the most important pillars of healing that I do in my work with my clients and a big way we start to create a life that feels healing, where our interventions can take root.

HOW TO CREATE A LIFE THAT FEELS HEALING

From time to time on Instagram I will give out what I like to call "Adult Permission Slips," giving people permission to rest without guilt.

Every time I do I get a ton of people saying “Ok! you don’t need to tell me twice!” and also several messages from people saying how hard it is. How much resistance they feel to resting.

While I’m very sensitive to circumstances that we all might find ourselves in that don’t allow for much down time (multiple jobs, homeschooling, caring for others) as a coach I see the opportunity here to get curious about the resistance. Because that’s where the good stuff is.

So why do many of us feel resistant to something as benign as resting our bodies and minds?

By rest I don’t mean you have to lounge around all day or stop caring for your family to take a day long bubble bath. That’s the first part that gets misunderstood - the idea that rest can only come from vacation or pushing pause on life rather than it becoming part of our life.

We've come to associate the idea of rest with taking a vacation, and this idea that we can only really rest or turn off when we escape from our day-to-day lives. And then people start to think, well I can't because of XYZ… so many different reasons start to come up. What I want to first introduce is the idea that rest is available in lots of different forms. We need to shift away from the idea that we can only rest if we're taking a week off of work. Or that we can’t rest until we give ourselves the opportunity to do it at some set time. Rest can come from five minutes of breathing. Rest can come with laying down for a moment when we feel that our body needs a break. Rest can come from just a few moments of silence. Rest can come from sleep. It can come from taking a day off or taking a mental health day.

It's something that we want to build into our daily lives. We are human beings, not machines, and we've come to live with the idea that our bodies should be able to handle so much. And then we operate from this idea that we can only really rest when we have these long stretches of time. It doesn't have to look like being in a bubble bath all day and completely ignoring the needs of your family and anyone calling for you. Rest is accessible in many different forms.

Rest is simply giving ourselves moments of care. Of laying down for a few minutes. Of meditating. Of being in silence. Of breathing consciously. Of slowing down. Rest is something we build into our day. Because we are human beings not machines.

When we investigate with curiosity we may discover that when some random person on the internet (me) says to rest, and you feel triggered, it’s because there is a belief there that rest is for everyone else but not you. Or resting is lazy. Or in order to be worthy, successful or loved you have to produce and achieve, and resting doesn’t fit into that. If we hitch our worth to productivity then who are we if we take moments of rest and BE without doing?

Coaching hundreds of women dealing with autoimmunity I’ve seen how these beliefs can literally making us sick. Which is why I care enough to challenge you here if you feel resistance to pausing. Because I want to help you create a life and day that is healing, not something you constantly want to escape from.

Some common beliefs I hear that come up around this are: Everyone else can rest, but not me. That's not for me. That's not available for me. I have actually dealt with this myself too, and the idea of, if I rest then who am I then? What am I doing? Because our worth can oftentimes be tied up in productivity or achieving. We might have that belief in our head that resting is lazy, that we shouldn't do it, that we need to continually be achieving and doing and pushing to feel worthiness.

This is one of the most important pillars of healing that I work with my clients on, in one-on-one coaching, where we start to explore the idea of how do we create a life that feels healing and where our healing interventions can take root.

You deserve to rest and recharge, even if it's only for a few moments. So if a few moments is all you have, start there. Rest can look very different for each of us. Drop any expectations around it or ideas of what you “should” do to rest, and just ask yourself what’s available to me today?

I hope that is helpful for you andI would love to continue this conversation because it is has been so important for me in my own life, as well as for my clients! Tune into the video below to learn more.

PREFER TO LISTEN? TUNE INTO THE LIVE WELL PODCAST BELOW (AND DON'T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE SO YOU'LL NEVER MISS OUT!)

Click here to listen in iTunes

Click here to listen in Stitcher

In this episode we'll be talking about giving ourselves permission to rest, why we have so much resistance to resting, and how it can actually feel really scary to just slow down. Rest doesn't necessarily have to mean taking a day or week off but instead is something that we can simply build into small moments in our daily lives.