I remember when I was preparing for my first pregnancy, I often felt overwhelmed by all the hormone talk and all the things I felt like I should be doing. 

Overwhelm always leads to stuckness and non-action and so I want to lovingly remind you that even just by beginning to familiarize yourself with your hormones, your body and how to ideally prepare yourself and your future baby for an amazing pregnancy, you are doing something so important and so wonderful.

Don't worry if not everything sticks right away.
You don't have to do it all perfectly.
Take it slow.
Incorporate one thing at a time.
Listen to your body.
Create space for nourishment in the form of good rest, nourishing food, and loving company.

Ok, in the last two posts I covered the importance of working on your stress levels and keeping your blood-sugar stable. In today's third (and last) post, I am going to talk to you about the importance of having a healthy microbiome. 

Alright, love, today I am going to share with you the second biggest culprit that is causing hormonal imbalances, including PMS, PCOS, endometriosis, infertility, irregular cycles, menstrual headaches, cramps, emotional meltdowns and all sorts of other aches and pains. 

Yes love, I am talking about blood-sugar imbalances. 

Many women start their day by skipping breakfast and grabbing coffee, rushing through a quick lunch without chewing properly, snacking on high-sugar treats (& more coffee) around the office, mindlessly overeating in the evening, and forgetting to take their supplements.

Even if you personally aren't THAT bad, learning how to keep your blood-sugar balanced is key in order to create true hormonal health as well as a positive, clear mind.

This is especially important for women because of how hormonally sensitive our reproductive system is.

In my next three blogposts, I am going to share the 3 most common reason why women have trouble getting (& staying) pregnant. 

The reason I am not just dishing them all out at once is because I want to explain a few things to you in each post and really provide education as well as clear action steps for you. 

I know this is a sensitive issue, but I believe that knowledge is power and as women, we must know and understand our bodies and how we function so that we can create fulfilling lives that work WITH ourselves and not AGAINST our own flow.

Are you making yourself smaller and your life dimmer because your expectations of yourself are so freaking high that joy, ease, and rest simply don't have space?

Are you waiting for that golden moment when you can finally exhale because things are glossy enough and nobody can criticize you?

That, my dear, is what perfectionism is at its core: a deep deep fear of criticism and rejection.

And so, in an effort to not be criticized or rejected, you are criticizing and rejecting yourself first. You are preventing yourself actively from feeling joy, feeling happiness, feeling connected with yourself and the world around you because you are scared that if you show yourself just the way you are, you will not find love, admiration, appreciation, and kinship. 

Today, I'm going to share some honest things with you regarding stress. 

It doesn't matter if I am talking to a life-coaching or a fertility client, 99% of the women I talk with are ambitious, driven women who are ready to work hard, live with passion, and create amazing lives, partnerships, babies, families, and careers. 

Does that sound familiar? 

But here is the thing:

As a by-product of ambition, drive and a pulsating desire for a beautiful life, there is also perfectionism, type-A behavior, anxiety, trouble sleeping, overanalyzing, fear of failure and not doing enough, using coffee to wake up and wine to wind down, and so forth... you get the picture. 

You've probably heard me talk about the importance of goal setting, the power of hopes and manifestation, the emphasis on having high expectations of yourself and those you have a close relationship with.

Don't get me wrong, love, these are all enormously important factors in creating a fulfilling life for yourself. 

You must be clear on what you want, what you desire, what you strive for. 

BUT...

One of the reasons I got certified in health coaching that focuses on women's hormonal health is because about 70-80% of my life coaching clients were dealing with anxiety. 

Wait what? You got certified in health coaching for people dealing with anxiety? 

Yup! That's right.

When I worked with women who felt stuck because of their own anxiety and overwhelm we focused lot on managing their symptoms of anxiety through rewiring their brain to have a more positive internal dialogue, strengthen their confidence and belief that great things can and will happen to them, and taking action outside of their comfort zone despite being scared.

Many of the women I worked with over the years experienced tremendously positive results from our work and truly transformed their lives. 

However, for some women, their anxiety kept sticking around.

When I was in my 20s, I weighed about 20-25 pounds more than I do today (even after having a baby last year!) although I was constantly obsessing over food and exercise. 

I was also super anxious and felt like the smallest thing could either lift me up super high or crash me down super hard. My anxiety was manifesting in an uncomfortable, tightening sensation in my throat and I was feeling tired and unmotivated.

I wasn't balanced at all although I was striving for balance all the time.

Looking back and knowing what I know now, I can pinpoint exactly what I was doing wrong:
 

When I was preparing for my pregnancy with Felix, I learned an incredible amount about the female body and how to support it gently and naturally to be as healthy as it possibly can be.

Amongst my explorations, I found a study that was spearheaded by the Environmental Working Group that showed that an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants were found in umbilical cord blood. The study also revealed a total of 287 chemicals found, of which 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests. (1)

When I learned about this, I knew that some things had to drastically shift in the kind of food, household supplies, and skincare I was choosing.

Confidence. Do we ever need more confidence than at the very moment we become moms?

There is no job in the world that requires more decision making (& many of the decisions you make will have a serious impact for the rest of your baby's life), more patience, more team-playing spirit, more communication, more resilience, more intuition and, of course, more love than parenting! 

All of these qualities are deeply rooted in confidence.

That's why I am interviewing my dear friend and colleague, Anna Goldstein on "Walking into motherhood with confidence." You can access the interview here. 

In my last post, I started to talk to you about your skin's health. In that post I covered the importance of decreasing inflammation by healing and strengthening your gut. If you missed it, you can check it out here. 

Today, I want to talk to you about how balancing your hormones is absolutely crucial in order to have even, radiant, beautiful complexion (as well as healthy weight, a good sex drive, plenty of energy, a rocking fertility, and a positive mindset that can manage stress well).

At least once a month I get an email from a woman somewhere in the world, 

I have to confess: I am somewhat of a skin freak. Some women love emphasizing their eyes or their lips or whatever else, but I've always been a skin girl. Hand me a good moisturizer and some blush and I'm a happy camper ;) 

That also means that if my skin feels and looks healthy and smooth, I feel confident, and if it doesn't, well, you know how it goes:
I spend too much time in front of the mirror picking at my face while telling myself to stop (but not listening!) and then beating myself up the next morning when I see the battlefield that is now my face. Ugghhh... why is that so tempting?!

Luckily, I've been able to solve these issues for the most part in recent years and in today's post, I am going to start dissecting the issue of beautiful, glowing skin, how it is connected to your hormones and your greater health and what you can do NATURALLY! to finally get to the root-cause of what's causing your skin problems and how to fix them.

FEMALE VITALITY.

Sounds good, right, but what does it actually mean?

FEMALE vitality, to me, means living in a strong and active way inside your own female body and life!

It means living in harmony with who you are, with ease, equipped with a sense of humor about yourself and the world.

It means you are actively fueling yourself with foods, people, and choices that are adding value to your life.

....

This post is a bit unique because it's not about delivering you coaching value but it's simply about sharing some of our highlights from our Europe trip this summer (in case you are not following me on instagram). I hope you enjoy them :)

A huge part of living a fertile life is having quality time with people who energize you and in environments that fuel you. 

This is for all new moms (so if you know a new mom, forward this to her!)

I am giving away 3 free 30-minute post-partum support sessions. 
 

You can win one of them by filling out a simple questionnaire about your post-partum experience here (the deadline is this Friday 8/19).

Yay- I was featured in The Huffington Post a few weeks back :) Check out the article on their site or click on the picture of me and Felix.

n today's episode of The Fertile Life Interview Series, I am chatting with the lovely  Luise Jørgensen, a student expert of qi-gong, meditation, DANCEmandala, mindfulness, and Buddhist psychology on "Tune into your body wisdom & create trust in yourself."

Besides pregnancy (& life!) being a marvelous journey, it is also an emotional and physically demanding experience.

One of the most important things for women to become pregnant successfully and have a beautiful experience being pregnant (not to mention a calm mindset once they become moms!) is that the body is in physical, hormonal as well as emotional balance. 

Sometimes things happen in life that we cannot explain to ourselves, perhaps these things even make us angry, frustrate us, make us deeply sad. 

Or, we're standing in front of a challenge, a question, a hurdle that we don't quite know how to take. 

Today, I decided to record a little video for you from my morning hike in the Swiss Alps (I'm still a bit sleepy in it lol, but I was thinking about a very important topic which I wanted to share with you + my view was just so spectacular;))

One of the biggest questions for the women I have met in the last years -whether through my coaching work or through my private friendships- is: how can I stay calm and grounded, especially in times of transition, stress, and uncertainty. 

(Think, times of heartbreak, career stress, self doubts, anxiety, hormonal imbalance and infertility, death of a loved one... the list goes on.)

You've probably heard that parenting can be challenging. Growing into the role of a mother often comes with self-doubt, guilt, and overwhelm.

As a new mom myself -we recently celebrated Felix's first birthday :)- I have gone through a series of intense emotions over the past year simply because I love my little man so much that I want to do this parenting thing "right." 

That obviously increases the pressure we create within ourselves enormously.