I recently closed the chapter of an illuminating (and extremely stressful) situation. It required a lot of time, a lot of energy, and unfortunately some money. Even though it came out of the blue it somehow didn’t surprise me. But I still hadn’t budgeted the time, energy or money for it. I drew on deep emotional reserves to get through it.

Now that’s it’s over I have so much clarity about what my lessons are.

I thought sharing them with you might help you avoid such harrowing experiences. Certainly, naturopathic medicine and my approach can and does treat and heal stress but as the old adage says, "Prevention is worth an ounce of cure."

It’s far better to prevent stress - when we can - then try to clean up the mess of it afterward.

The Lessons:

My first (and biggest) lesson:

I needed to reconnect with my values. Joy. Love. Peace. Kindness. Integrity. I mentioned those once or twice in this article. I had fallen off track with what I was allowing myself to be around. Please take note of the accountability here. I am fully aware, I allowed it.

My second lesson:

Intuition is everything and should be heeded no matter how hard or inconvenient it is. When I talk to my patients about stressful situations I often ask them if this stress was a surprise to them. Generally, the answer is no. That little voice told them it wasn't a good fit, but they stuck around anyway. Have you been there?

I had made choices that went against what my heart and gut (aka the "hut" ala Alex Franzen) were telling me. That didn’t pay off. It's time to recommit to those instincts.

My third lesson:**

I had to be strong and stand up for myself. I found the courage to uphold my integrity. This was perhaps the hardest thing I’ve had to do. Perhaps in my entire life.

Harder than five days of grueling exams to become a naturopathic doctor, after 9 years of school.

Harder than filing for bankruptcy.

Harder than breaking someone’s heart.

Drama aside, I'd never had to stand up for myself in this way before.

It was huge.

With retrospect being 20/20 (and this article being rife with verbal cliches) I can look back and see where I went wrong. It is easy to identify the decisions that led to the behaviors and experiences that created the situation I found myself in.

I thought, “What if we don’t have to look backward to see the lessons, but can have enough foresight to anticipate sticky situations and plan for them?”

What would have been useful to know then? Back at the beginning of it all?

How can I move through my life proactively to maintain alignment with what feels good to me?

Here are four steps to prevent stress from catching up with you:

1. Identify your values.

Joy. Love. Peace. Kindness. Integrity. Those all feel good to me. In fairness, I haven't always just known what those values were. They've slowly solidified as I've been evolving.

Allow me to offer you some guidance on how to find your values now, instead of desperately searching for them after the stress has already taken its toll.

This exercise comes out of a book called, “I hope I Screw This Up” by Kyle Cease. This is a pic of me and my besties chilling with him in Seattle. No big deal. He's hilarious and an amazing transformational speaker.

You gotta write down 5 lists. Each list will have 100 items on it. (That’s a lot, I know!)

List 1 - Your Assets: Things you have, or people you know.

List 2 - Your Potential Assets: Things you could have or people you could know. Don’t limit or filter at this stage. Just write all the things you could have if you were aligned in the right way down.

List 3 - Your Skills: Get. Them. All. Down. On. Paper. Don’t be shy. Brag it out.

List 4 - Things You Love: From chocolate to trampolining to ocean medicine to dancing. Write 'em!

List 5 - Things You Know: All the bits and bots of wisdom you have from your all experiences. Woah.

These lists don’t happen in one sitting. Well, at least they didn’t for me. It took me eight 20-30 minute writing sessions to get all the things on paper. I never said it'd be easy.

And now I have 500 things that I know, love, am good at, have, or could have all in one place. Awesome. I'm starting to get a sense of who I am, how I can make the world a better place and who I need around me to make that happen. This gives me a decent footing for step number 2 below.

(Another great resource is Danielle LaPorte’s Desire map).

2. Filter everything through those values.

Every choice. Every relationship. Every mood (yep these can be conscious choices). Every Action.

Discern. Filter. Reevaluate. Does this match my values? How can I change things so I'm more in line with them?

3. Keep only those around who allow you to connect to your own values.

It's definitely okay if your peeps have different values than yours. The important thing is to make sure theirs don’t interfere with yours.

4. Visualize the outcome you want.

Over and over and over. Experience it with all your senses in your imagination. Talk about it as if it’s over and time has passed and all these amazing things have come out of the experience. Do this every day.

Why am I talking about all of this?

Because of how stress affects our body’s ability to heal. (Hint - it kinda hinders it.)

The more we can identify what lights us up, who we want to be and how we want to show in the world, the less likely we are to attract stress into our lives.

The less stress in our lives, the less our body has to be in fight or flight mode.

The less we exist in fight or flight mode, the more we exist in REST, DIGEST, HEAL, and SEX mode (aka THRIVE-O-RAMA!)

That means things get better: 

Check these hyperlinked articles - there's a Tonic for that. (Get it?)

• The rash clears up.

• The stools normalize.

• The infections don’t stand a chance in your solid physiology.

• The anxiety dissolves.

• The babies are conceived.

And no. I’m not deluded. I know life is a bumpy journey. This is not about eliminating tribulations because that is how we grow. I’m certainly a stronger, clearer, kinder me because of this experience. Aaaaaaaaaand... I’ma be far more conscious about what I let chillhang around me.

To your healthy, thriving, delightful life,

** My Forth Lesson:

This one is all about forgiveness.

Working. On. It.