Hey!

How are you doing?  Busy? Stress much?

Are you taking time for yourself, as I mentioned a while back?

I know I’ve talked a lot about this, and I’d imagine most of you are getting it by now, but If not, I’m going to push it a bit:

Here is something I’ve noticed and I want to share with you:

The women who most need to stop and have a moment to themselves are the ones with the strongest belief that they don’t have time.

Many of us jacked are up on stress:

We are stressed because of a demanding job or owning a business, stressed because of the responsibility of caring for our kids, stressed from trying to maintain a healthy rockin’ relationship with our partner…and usually stressing around being worried about ALL of it.

Oh yeah, and add a little crappy guilt into that mix: I used to think:

I feel like I’m DOING EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME & Nothing Very Well….. Good Times.

Instead of feeling calm & in control and enjoying the pace of our lives, we are freakin’ frazzled and rushed, never finishing one task before another gets our attention and feels like it has to be addressed; NOW.

• Have you ever been late because you couldn’t remember where you left your car keys?
• Gone into a crazy a$$ tizzy because you forgot the one main item you needed to pick up from the store?
• Or couldn’t remember why you were AT the store in the first place?
• Couldn’t fall asleep because you were worrying about work, money, laundry, food shopping, those jelly beans you ate, and whether those yoga pants ended up in the dryer(!)…?
• Or, years ago, if you are like me: So preoccupied, frazzled, and CRAZY, I literally drove away from the gas station WITH the pump in the car…TWICE in one week..uh……..EM-BARE-A$$-ING!!!  Even MORE embarrassing was the owner of the gas station calling me and asking me NOT to go there anymore………didn’t he GET IT??? Doing the best I can, damn!t 😉

If you’re nodding your head, you may have a combination of monkey mind AND high cortisol. Monkey Mind is something we can learn to train (more on that next week). Cortisol is a muy important Gangsta hormone. In fact, in many ways, it’s the head honcho hormone, so it’s critical to keep it in balance. Cortisol wakes us up, gives us energy throughout the day, and helps us respond to emergencies. However, CORTISOL gone wild by overstimulation can cause major upheaval in our bodies, especially as we age (more on that later). Most of us are so freakin’ overloaded with things to manage that our brains start seeing everything as an emergency.

Forgot to pay a bill? Emergency: FOREST FIRE!

Need to make the kids’ lunch? Emergency: OUT OF BANANAS!

Girls’ night out for a birthday, forgot to buy a gift? Emergency: WEAKEST FEMALE IN THE TRIBE!

So, I invite you to join me in one of my favorite ways to lower your crazy cortisol and calm your monkey mind:

Tiara Time.

Don’t laugh. I learned this concept from Dr. Sara Gottfried, Harvard-trained OBGYN and author of The Hormone Cure; not too shabby.

Need some straight talk about this? Listen Here: Tiara Time can be just 15 minutes long, but it is absolutely luscious time.

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Here’s how I want you to ROLL:

Put on your tiara. Seriously. This is an excuse to buy something sparkly and fabulous. Then tell your family it’s “Tiara time,” and you’ll be back to help them with homework, or What-EVAH, LATER GATOR. Get them used to this:

“If the Tiara is a Rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’!”

Take 15 minutes to relax, lower your heart rate, and tell your brain to ease back on the cortisol it’s pumping through your system. Yoga, meditation, or simply deep breathing are all excellent and proven ways to de-stress quickly during this time. Think you can’t meditate? Yeah, I get it.  Try this. I did this meditation challenge for 21 days with a group of my powerhouse gal pals, and it was absolutely transformational. 

So with that: I’ve got MY Tiara on (in my mind), and I’m going to practice some meditation and get my monkey mind calmed down and my cortisol back to the place where it allows me to be my best almost zen self.

You do the same, okay?

Let me know how it goes down in the comments below.

Ciao for now,