“I realized I wasn’t happy doing what I was doing, but not ready to give it up yet either.”

Does that sound familiar? It’s a quote plucked from today’s podcast where we talk about BIG stuck. The kind of stuck that feels like a slap in the face because you don’t know what’s causing it, or how to resolve it, and you’re just not feeling ready to make any sort of move.

You’re not alone! The Mavens have been there too.

This week we share our personal journeys of being stuck in indecision. Jen shares her experience of realizing that the work she did for years wasn’t the work she wanted to do anymore. Jena shares about a time recently when she struggled with motivation and direction and how she’s moved forward.

If you’re struggling with stuckness, or at a crossroads in your life, this is the prefect podcast to get you thinking about the problem from some different, solution based perspectives:

Rather read what we have to say? Check out the transcript of this podcast.

We’d love for you to join in the conversation with us in the comments- what’s your stuck story?

{By Guest Maven, Bettie Newell}

Its late afternoon and all is silent except for the occasional creak and groan of this old house and the satisfied sighs of the chihuahua in my lap.

Every member of the family is off doing something and I’ve got a blissful hour to myself to write about getting unstuck. I’m doodling in my journal, thinking about how to get started on this post. Ironically, I am completely at a loss. I am totally, unmistakably stuck. I resist the urge to jump online and see what everyone else is up to, what others might have said about this topic. Instead, I scribble a few words, stare out the window longingly at the sunshine, then give up, grab my camera, and head outside for a little inspiration.

When Jen asked me to be a Guest Maven this month, I was excited. I’m in the middle of a year-long photo project to get unstuck creatively so I figured it would be easy to share my story. But I’m a visual person, almost always preferring images to words and I realized, as I sat in front of a blank piece of paper, that this was going to prove harder than I thought. A week later, and I still only had a few random thoughts written down. And it was another couple of days before it started to all come together. As I put the finishing touches on this article (more than two weeks after my first brainstorming session and mere hours before it is due), I can see that the process I went through to write it was a perfect metaphor for exploring how I get unstuck.

In my experience, there are two different types of stuckness.

There’s the difficulty in moving forward kind, the kind that occurs because of second-guessing and other types of indecision. This is the stuckness that may not feel all that sticky at first, especially if you are in your comfort zone. I call this “pragmatic stuckness” because when I’m here, it isn’t because I don’t know what concrete steps need to be taken next. I’m stuck because I just can’t seem to feel confident enough to move one way or another. I’ve got the to-do list, but I just can’t seem to get things done. If you are someone like me who is a little resistant to change, it might take a few days (or weeks or months) to recognize that you aren’t making headway on the things that really are going to propel you forward when you are in this place.

The other kind of stuckness, the one that feels insurmountable and endlessly more frustrating, is stuckness in vision. This is the more pervasive kind of block, the one where you just don’t know what comes next, what you want to focus your energy on. It’s a desperate kind of feeling and is instantly recognizable as sticky. The people with visionary stuckness are the ones who are stressing out because they don’t know what they want to be when they grow up. Maybe they are at a crossroads in their career, or wanting to take their business down a different path. When you have visionary stuckness, you just don’t know what to do next. It could simply be that you’ve got writer’s block (like I did with this post). Or you might be asking yourself a lot of hard questions. The kind that if you can figure out the answer to even one of them, it could radically change your life.

I’ve been struggling with my own sticky demons in the last couple of years.

I left the full-time practice of law in 2010 so that I could focus my energy on my children and my creative pursuits. I was ready to turn my photography hobby into a revenue-generating business. As an attorney, I counsel businesses all the time on start-up issues. I know how to get an LLC off the ground, all the steps it takes to legitimize a business, issues to address up front to avoid having to fix a bunch of problems later. I wasn’t in the least bit worried about getting my own small project started. I had a whole notebook full of the decisions that had to be made, not a full blown business plan, but an organized and thoughtful approach for starting my new venture. But only a couple of months into my new life a number of things happened that got in the way of my progress and I had to put my plans on hold.

Fast forward to last September, many of the barriers that had been erected were no longer an issue. I got out my notebook and gave myself until the end of the year to accomplish some of the more fundamental items on my list. But as the weeks went by and 2013 began, I found I wasn’t making any decisions and, consequently, there was no forward motion. Not because I didn’t know what steps to take, but because I overanalyzed and then overwhelmed myself by just not deciding on some very basic items: business structure, banking, branding. I would pick apart my options, fret over them, and then just sit there. And if that weren’t bad enough, in addition to stalling out on the practical side, I started to question some of my bigger goals. Some of the collaborations and opportunities I wanted to pursue started to feel wrong. I put the brakes on everything (again) and was feeling utterly stuck.

I experience lots of dualities in my life. I’ve got left brain days and right brain days because I am practical and imaginative. My dual nature requires different stimulation (hence attorney AND photographer) and different approaches, just like my sticky patterns.

My pragmatic stuckness comes from insecurity, from not feeling like I’m ready to take the next step. To get out if it requires prioritizing, it takes ACTION to unstick and propel myself forward. It requires both discipline and confidence. If you are lacking in either of these qualities, now is the time to call in your support system! When I’m stuck in this place of hesitancy, I challenge myself to just start getting things done. I might pick three to five tasks that I’ve been avoiding and commit to accomplishing at least two of them in a week. On the flip side, I also allow myself the freedom to put things off once or twice. Usually if something has made it to my list for three weeks running, I end up tackling it, just to make it go away.

My creative stuckness, on the other hand, doesn’t respond to action. It needs quiet and space which will hopefully lead to clarity and a change in perspective. It might be physical space, like a long walk or a bath. It might be psychological space, like deciding that it is okay to not figure everything out right at this moment and cutting yourself some slack. It’s an exercise in letting go.

When I’m lacking inspiration, it often occurs because of physical exhaustion or just having too many things on my plate. When I hit that point, I need to be able to get quiet enough to hear my own voice and that takes a combination of physical and psychological space, a freedom from distractions. It took me a long time to realize how much the internet negatively affected my creativity. I have to get away from everyone else’s ideas and stories to really figure out what it is I’m trying to say. A couple of hours unplugged from email and social media is often all it takes. I try to fill some of that time with real life interactions. Photo walks, happy hour, baking with the kiddos, anything that allows me to step out of whatever problem I’m trying so hard to solve and just take a breath.

If you feel stuck and aren’t sure what to do next, ask yourself, is this a problem of indecision or a problem of inspiration?

Do you need to make some choices just so you keep moving forward on the path you have selected or do you need step away and take a break? To get my business rolling, I set deadlines, brought in a few people to assist me in areas where I was struggling, and tackled some of the more fun things on my to-do list (like updating my portfolio) while also chipping away at the tasks I’ve been avoiding. And while progress is still slower than I had originally envisioned, I’m actually working towards my goal.

To get my creative juices flowing and to help me look at what might be next, I spend quiet time each and every day. I don’t have a formal meditation practice, but I do sit by myself, without distractions. I usually have a paper and pen close by so I can take notes of inspirations. It’s a wonderfully productive and rejuvenating part of my routine. I also make sure to shoot every day, to continue to take note of the little things that I tend to miss because of my busyness.

And while I haven’t figured everything out yet, each day, each experience brings me closer to knowing what works for me and what brings me happiness. Each day I feel a little less stuck.

What about you? Do you experience stuckness in different ways? What strategies do you use to start moving again?

Bettie is a business lawyer and lifestyle photographer living in Portland, Oregon. An avid thrift shopper since she was 15 years old, Bettie loves all things vintage, red and polka dotted. She has two beautiful, sassy daughters, two tiny, ridiculous dogs, and one incredibly patient and supportive husband. With one half of her professional life, Bettie counsels businesses ranging from solo creative ventures to large corporations on all issues from start-up to dissolution. She spends the balance of her work time shooting portrait sessions (and the occasional wedding) with an emphasis on real moments and unique stories. You can visit her at littlepapercities.com.

We got a question from a reader asking us how to handle being at a crossroads in your life. She’s built a business she’s not feeling stoked on any longer and wondering if she should start a new path in the direction of a new passion or whether to return to the 9-5 gig. Which path is right?

Many of us have been at a crossroads in our lives and sometimes when you’re good at a number of things it’s hard to choose which one is the right one. It’s really the dilemma of the multi-talented, which of my skills is best served in the world? What do I like to do the most? Can I make money doing that?

If you do something for awhile only to discover that it’s not for you after all, take heart in knowing, many of us have been there and found that we had to follow our dreams for our well-being, no matter our ages.

Everything you’re doing now is building a body of work and many of those skills are transferable to future work. You are building your skill set whether you’re in your career of choice right now, or not. All the work you do is not for no reason- it’s creating the foundation and room for you to grow into your future.

Our Maven Minutes episode below offers ideas on how to choose the path you’ll be happiest with when you reach a crossroads in life (transcript below):

Rather read a written version of what we discuss in the video? Check out the summary transcript.

It’s never too late to start moving toward your dreams! Here are a few famous people who have changed their careers mid-course:

- Julia Child didn’t go to cooking school till she was 36 and was working as a government spy beforehand.
- Harrison Ford worked as a carpenter for a few years between his first and second film because he thought he needed a more stable income, only to return to acting because he loved it so.
- James Joyce was writing but not publishing and worked as a singer for awhile to make ends meet until his first book, “Dubliners” was published at 32.

Give yourself some time. Save some moola. Gather your resources and DO IT! Giving yourself permission to follow your dreams is a way of being authentic and real with yourself.

What dream are you going to go after, Mavens? Let us know in the comments below and even if it still feels in the far distant future, shout it loud and proud- we believe in you!

ps: if you have a question or idea that you’d like to see us address in a future Maven Minutes, we’re all ears! Drop us a line at hello{at}themavencircle.

{by guest maven, Alena Hennessy}

Often times in life we get comfortable to our own grooves.

Without even realizing it, years pass, and family, society, personal relationships influence us, often times on sub-conscious levels, and patterns within us are made. Our soul carries these experiences and we allow ourselves to become comfortable in what we know, acting out what life has revealed to us. That is why living an uncommon life, one that asks us to step out of our comfort zone, back into the realm of possibility and true purpose, is both exciting and pretty vulnerable.

It’s an interesting thing I have found about life- as young children we are often never stuck or without that pure zeal and passion for existence. We live in that flow, or moment to moment awareness of the magic that sits right in front of you. So the well of inspiration is rarely dry, and being yourself is not something to strive for, its just what you do.

Remember how that felt? Sure, there was sometimes fear but also, there was pure joy. It’s the process of becoming an adult: responsible, mature, accepted, liked, popular, cool, successful…that gets our minds a little fuzzy, or forgetful of our true nature. The outside world and what others think become incredibly important, and we may forget just what made us tick to begin with.

Hummingbird by Alena Hennessy

So for me, I have been making art ever since I was four. I would spend hours and hours drawing fantastical worlds and drawn out narratives on blank sheets of paper. It’s just what I did and I loved it. Sometime later in high school and in the early college years, that artist went away and other things became a priority. I am not saying that did not need to happen, or was not part of my own evolution, but the artist was definitely in the backseat.

Somehow along the way though, later in college, I began to do the morning pages as prescribed by Julia Cameron. Pretty quickly I discovered how much I loved to make art, how I still found myself drawn to it, and how I slowly realized a degree in Education was really not what I wanted to do.

So, I did the unthinkable and got a degree in Fine Art. This was unusual for me because as much as I have a wild and free spirit, I am also very practical. I decided I would worry about what I would do for a living later on (I had some ideas, many of them involving a Master’s degree) but for now, this is what my soul called for me to do.

Art by Alena Hennessy

Today, I cannot tell you how grateful I am that I took that brave step. My book, Cultivating Your Creative Life, discusses many of these things, including ways to deeply tap into your most inherent creative self as well as how to support and make a living as an artist. Since 2005, I have been a full time artist, teacher, author, and designer and I simply cannot imagine doing anything else. I love to move people, to inspire them to greater heights, and to allow them to find their own unique voice and visual language.

I also have a new book coming out this year (still a secret!) and find myself doing what I love everyday and being true to that inner muse and what moves her. I adore that muse, I want to keep her happy. If she’s feeling good, my work will flow and flourish. So I do lots of self care, nature walks, artist dates, and even collaborative projects. I also love to share and inspire, so my online workshop is a dream come true.

One of my most simple little tricks for becoming unstuck (which is actually a pretty big one) is to practice gratitude. So everyday I make an effort to remember just how grateful I am for all the love in my life, both creatively and personally. Gratitude is a magic trick, it often gives you more things to be grateful for.

Alena Hennessey does what she loves best, living life as a working artist, author, and teacher. She is deeply inspired to teach others the creative process and to find their own unique voice though art making. She also has a passion for yoga, plant spirit medicine, and the healing arts. She has designed and created custom art for numerous business entities and her prints and giftwares can be found through out the US and abroad.

It’s fitting that stuck rhymes with muck, because that’s exactly what we get stuck in- the swampy muck and mire of our own self-doubt and expectations.

We deny ourselves so many of our innate, deep desires because they seem too big. And hard. And scary. And so far away.

It seems selfish to go after what I really want, you convince yourself, as your heels start sinking into the mud below. It’s crazy to think I could even do that, anyway, you argue on, slipping ankle deep into the thick sludge.

Then the what ifs? begin, the likes of which you’re powerless against. What if I fall flat on my face and fail? What if I succeed and become rich and famous and I can never find a good man because dating famous guys totally sucks and normal guys are way threatened by powerful women? What if everyone looks at me funny? What if no one even looks at me at all? What if they see that I was never actually smart or pretty or talented enough to do any of this, and that I’m a total sham, and just who the hell do I think I am, anyway?

All the while you’re standing still, in the mud, slowly sinking further and further. You finally look down to see you’re now waist deep in relentless swamp goo and girl, you are stuck. (There’s another choice word that rhymes with stuck that’s perfect to use at this point of realization.)

I have found myself in this waist-deep stuckness too many times to count.

I’ve been stuck in relationships, both romantic and friendly, that were one-sided and just not working. For years, I was stuck at an easy-breezy cubicle job with amazing benefits that was on a deep, creative level, wholly unfulfilling. Heck, I even got stuck for a few days writing this post on stuckness!

Oddly enough, I have felt stuck most of all in jobs of my own making. Go figure. I think when you become your own boss, you thus become bossy with yourself and create bossy kind of expectations.

You forget that you can do whatever it is you want to do in this life.

Or maybe it’s not that you forget, so much as, the freedom and responsibility of having so much power in being able to choose, in and of itself can become overwhelmingly paralyzing.

So, you mean, I just, like, decide what I want?

Makes me shudder just thinking about it, because therein lies the crux where all stuckness occurs- choice.

Choices are inherently scary because we believe there’s one right one and one that will surely lead us straight into impending doom.

So often, when we’re stuck in that mire of indecision, the choice to just stay where we are, right here in the thick, stinky mud becomes more appealing then the choice to move on. Even though you don’t really like being in the muck, well, you’re here now and at least you know what you’re dealing with.

And besides, the other choice you have is waaaaay over there, beyond the swampy basin and over a cliff you have to jump off to reach the valley below. It’s so far down you can’t see from here whether or not you’ll land on a bed of fluffy puppy bellies, or rusty nails.

So you tell yourself that one must be the wrong choice, and is most definitely the scarier one. And you decide to stick it out in the mud where there’s some people around that you know and the comfort of predictability. And even though it stinks like sulfur here, you’re kind of getting used to it. And hey, it’s not so bad, really. You’re gonna plant some rose bushes over there, put a cute carpet down here- make it like, swamp deluxe.

You have just entered the ignore-your-instincts-and-try-to-pretend-everything’s-ok phase of stuckness.

This phase may go on for days, months, even years. It’ll go on and on until the moment when that still, small voice inside you rises up and says enough of this shit and starts shouting at you loud enough that you can’t deny its presence any longer.

It gets SO MAD at you for ignoring what it’s been trying to tell you for SO LONG, that it starts to whine and wail and throw its fists around like a four-year old having a tantrum at the grocery store, screaming I! Don’t! Wanna!

I don’t want to do this anymore! This is not where I want to be! This is not what I want for my life! Fuck this muck!

I don’t know about you, but when my inner voice starts throwing a tantrum in my chest, I shut up and listen.

This is usually my wake-up call to realize that even though what’s on the other side of that cliff is unknown and potentially scary, and that the journey through the swamp just to get there might be hairy, that it’s got’ta be better than this stinky pile of sludge I’m currently in that I know isn’t making me happy.

So I start to make my move. I hatch escape plans. I exercise my no! skills. I rebel in small ways, like not answering my email for weeks and finding the world will still keep turning. I practice hard conversations in my head- Stick it up your butt! I quit! I visualize the possibility of happy rainbows and fluffy puppy bellies being down in that valley to greet me when I reach it. And reach it, I will.

I start to stack up more and more evidence to convince my rational brain that this inner voice know-it-all-person is right, and we better hightail it on out of this mud before we’re up to our necks in it.

All this helps to build up my courage, bit by bit, until it feels like going over that cliff is not only the most right thing to possibly do, but it might even be a little fun!

It’s at this point of enthusiasm, motivation and girl-I-got-this-gungho-go-for-it-ness that it’s like strapping a jetpack with rocket boosters onto my back. I am propelled.

The fire inside me is enough to launch me straight out of the muddy pit and right over the cliff where I can safely parachute my way down to the valley below, all the while taking in the awesome views.

When I land, everything’s different and unfamiliar and yes, scary, but now I’m on solid ground, where I can put one foot in front of the other and start moving towards the life I really want to live.

Now I view stuckness as a sort of siren call.

It’s a signal that there is something bigger and better waiting for us beyond all this mud.

It’s a door opening to an opportunity for us to jump feet first into the life we really want.

When you find yourself stuck in indecision, the scarier choice is not actually jumping over that cliff into the unknown. It’s more terrifying to stay in a place you already know is not where you want to be.

When you find you can’t gain any leverage through the goo, the muck, the dissatisfaction, the frustration- quiet down enough to hear your inner voice, and it will guide you to solid ground. I promise.

You just have to listen, believe, and trust in the possibilities that life has to offer you. (Think endless fluffy puppy bellies.)

We’d love to hear from you in the comments below, where do you get stuck? And remind yourself of some times you’ve broken free from that muck, because you can, and will, do it again!

Towards the end of each month we share five of our favorite things to UP the AWESOME in your life!

This week, we’re sharing five fave phone apps that help us balance our minds and bodies.

We thought it’d be a good way to round out our whole month on the topic of balance with some of the favorite apps we turn to when we need a little more calm, a little more health consciousness, or a little more thankfulness for where we’re at right in this moment.

It’s so awesome that we are living in an age where we literally have the tools right at our fingertips to help us start to move towards our centers and live more fulfilling lives.

In this Maven Minutes, we share five of our favorite phone apps to help us exercise our gratitude, our brains, our bodies and our life-balancing muscles! (transcript below):

Rather read a written version of what we discuss in this video? Check out the transcript.

Links for you to the fave apps we discuss:

#1: Gratitude 365

#2: Brain Trainer

#3: Runkeeper

#4: Omvana

#5: Fooducate

These are just a few of our favorite apps we use to bring more balance into our minds, and bodies. We’d love to hear from you, what are some of your favorite apps to help with self-care, or anything balance related? Let us know in the comments below!

You know how some days you wake up and as the day gets rolling you realize you feel really discombobulated and unbalanced? This was my normal functioning level for a long time.

I was so busy. Running from project to project. Working so hard at trying to stay on top of everything that I missed the basic fact that I was falling apart. All aspects of my health were fading. My energy was gone. I was bloated all the time and although my stomach didn’t hurt, it didn’t feel right. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I had a growing feeling that something was wrong.

I’d wake up in the morning utterly exhausted. I’d look in the mirror and see the enormous dark circles under my eyes and think, “What is wrong with me? Why do feel so depleted all the time?”

All I really wanted to do most of the time was lay down.

Fast forward to six months ago – through a series of tests I was diagnosed with Celiac disease. Dum, dum, dum dum!

Since then I’ve learned so much about food and the mind/body connection, just as a way of healing my own body. In my case, I was sick with this disease for most of my life and eating tons of gluten. I actually craved it. I could eat it endlessly. It tasted so delicious that I just couldn’t get enough.

I never knew why I was so tired. I never understood how I could get sick so often, why I would stay sick for so long or why I had so many random symptoms and issues: asthma, aches, pains, brain fogs, clumsiness, anxiety, depression and more.

The good news is, I’ve got all of that under control now through my diet and I have insights that could be helpful to you too.

The thing that I’ve realized from this experience is that it’s possible, and even easy, not to realize how the food you eat affects you. It sounds crazy, I know, but this is exactly what happened to me!

Food is a mood balancer

In my quest to understand my body’s functioning better I’ve learned so much cool stuff about various parts and functions of the body. One area I want to touch on today is regarding neurotransmitters. Did you know that most of the neurotransmitters that you need to have a positive mood are first created in the stomach? It’s true. So when I was eating foods that didn’t agree with me my body wasn’t receiving the building blocks it needed to make all of the feel-good messages for my brain. The result was a bad mood, along with many other symptoms.

You know that old adage, “you are what you eat”? It’s absolutely true and now you know one of the reasons why.

How food affects mood

I’ve been devouring all food related blogs and books and youtube videos lately and have been surprised to learn just how little I knew about our food supply, and how the things I’ve grown up considering healthy for me weren’t good for me!

One thing I didn’t know is that the American diet is a very high allergen diet.

These are the top eight allergens:

• Milk
• Eggs
• Peanuts
• Tree nuts (such as almonds, cashews, walnuts)
• Fish (such as bass, cod, flounder)
• Shellfish (such as crab, lobster, shrimp)
• Soy
• Wheat

Why food and bodies are so confusing:

1. Food Chemistry
Food, along with the mind and the body are sort of like a giant chemistry experiment. You change one thing and it can affect many things, or sometimes you have to change many things to change one thing. Let me explain…

Most of us eat the eight most common allergens for almost every meal – I know I did. After I cut out gluten I started to feel a little better, but then I got really, really sick. So sick that I could barely get out of bed. My entire digestive system was so taxed from the primary intolerance – wheat – that I couldn’t process lots of foods. It got so extreme that I was even having reactions to other things like GMOs and other additives like food colorings, and MSG.

Ultimately, it created a situation where until I removed ALL of the foods that I was sensitive to, my body could not fully heal. To fully heal I had to remove all grains and all of the top eight allergens for 30 days with the elimination diet. That’s when my body really let go of the sickness I’d carried around inside of myself for most of my life.

Now that I’ve healed my digestive system, I know that there is one thing I must do- keep gluten out of my diet. It has changed my entire constitution. I’m stronger and healthier than I’ve ever been and it’s allowed me to heal from many chronic diseases and problems I’ve had for my whole life.

2. Body Detective
Did you know you can have delayed reactions to food, where you react eight hours or more later? This totally happened to me. I never reacted right away, so I couldn’t tell what was causing what.

Another sneaky thing bodies do is they are strangely resilient and good at hiding the truth from you, until you’re so sick that you can no longer deny the truth of the situation. This happened to me too and it affected my mood every day. I felt angry and sad often and I didn’t understand why.

Even something as simple as being dehydrated can make you feel, tired, panicky, hungry, overwhelmed and more.

You can see how if you have a day where maybe you aren’t able to do some food planning- maybe you forgot to bring a lunch and a water bottle- and before you know it your “check engine” light is coming on in the form of a bad mood.

3. Not all foods are healthy for all bodies
We’ve all been raised to think a certain way about what healthy foods look like. I know I was someone who thought wheat was healthy for me, but it was totally toxic to my body, because of my body sensitivities. I was raised to think milk is healthy too, but just after I was diagnosed with Celiac disease, and before I did the elimination diet, I became extremely intolerant of all dairy. All dairy products made my stomach so bloated and painful to the touch that I just avoided them. It’s no fun to eat foods that make you sick.

Because the food and body connection is so complex, it’s easy to miss signs that food is affecting your mood. This is actually quite common. This used to happen to me, I might be in a terrible mood – grouchy, short tempered, frustrated – and now, in retrospect when I trace it back, gluten was at the center of the problem.

Obviously there can be plenty of other reasons for a grouchy mood. Check out our recent podcast about being out of balance and how to fix it.

Interestingly, food was the last thing I was thinking about as the reason for my mood and other health issues. I had a million theories, but none of them had food as the culprit. Even if it’s not a food you are sensitive to, like me, it could be just that you ate a bunch of sugar in the afternoon because you were feeling tired and looking for an energy boost, but now you feel so wiped out that you need a nap. It’s really the same issue- food.

Power your life-vehicle with good fuel. You don’t put corn syrup in your gas tank and expect your car to operate, don’t expect that of your mind and body either.

How to get back on track with balance through food

Now that we’ve gotten those tidbits of information out the way, the question is, how can a person go about finding balance through the food they eat? Well, I’ve got ideas and tips!

1. Green smoothies
Green smoothies are the easiest way to increase your fruit and veggie intake. They are packed full of vitamins and nutrients needed to actually boost your energy. They are also delicious. This is a much better afternoon pick-me-up than coffee, or sweets could ever be. Over on my blog I’ve got lots more info about green smoothies.

2. Avoid sugar and high Glycemic carbohydrates
If you want to balance your mood, eat foods that are balancing. Sugar and high Glycemic carbs create high blood sugars levels in the body. From there the sugar creates a situation that causes your body to crash faster than if you picked a lower Glycemic carbohydrate.

Some ideas to help balance your mood:

• Fats and protein – start your day with a good fat and protein. Here are some foods that have this covered: avocados, nuts and eggs (be careful with nuts and eggs because nuts are a higher allergen food).

• Eat as little sugar as you can – avoid all high fructose corn syrup products. If you must eat sugar try to eat sugars that are made from cane sugar (unless it says cane sugar it’s more than likely not and is mostly made of beet sugar which is a highly GMO crop).

• Grains – the most common grain – wheat – is one of the higher Glycemic foods that you can eat. For the average person this means that if you choose to eat a piece of toast, for example, it won’t give you same sort of energy longevity that, say, a handful of nuts and green smoothie can.

If you’re curious about the Glycemic Index of the foods you like to eat, it’s really easy to get this information online.

3. H2O
Get a head start on your water intake for the day by drinking a glass or two of water first thing in the morning, before your coffee or tea. Here’s a little known fact: most people don’t need 64 oz of water, they need more than that!

Here’s a formula so you can customize your water intake. Take your weight and divide it in half. That’s how many ounces of water you need daily. Now, if you drink diuretics, like coffee and alcohol, to rehydrate you need to drink 1.5 times the number of ounces you drank in diuretics. In other words, if you drank an 8 oz coffee, you need 12 oz of water to replenish the water loss.

4. Processed foods
Eating processed foods is a big mood killer. This is because the body cannot easily breakdown chemicals, GMOs, color and flavor additives and so forth. As a result, when you eat processed foods your body has less nutrients to work with and more damaging toxins to manage. This can affect all aspects of your body’s functioning. Those neurotransmitters that the brain needs to have a stable, positive mood? Those cannot develop and form properly in the gut when your body is full of processed foods. Bodies and moods love REAL food.

These are just a few ways to begin to find balance through food. If you are finding that these tips are not enough and you are still feeling out of balance try an elimination diet. This is where you eliminate all possible allergens from your diet for 30 days and then slowly reintroduce your regular foods back into your diet to see what happens. The Elimination Diet is really the best way to identify hidden allergens in your diet.

Final Thoughts

Balance isn’t easy.

Until I went through this experience, I never realized just how much balance comes down to the food you eat.

When we eat food it doesn’t just go straight through us- the food we eat becomes us. Our cells regenerate with the fuel we put in our bodies.

If you’re eating foods that aren’t particularly good for you – whether they are junk foods or healthy foods that you may have a sensitivity to – your body suffers and not just from that one meal. Eating foods that aren’t especially good for you is like building a house on a weak foundation. It will collapse at some point – like mine was trying to do, but I saved myself through dietary changes.

As far as your diet goes, if you feel great, don’t change a thing! Because, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. But, if you’re struggling through your day, if you mood is low, or your energy is non-existent, try some food tweaks to help stabilize things.

So that’s my story. How about you? Do you think food could have something to do with your mood?

{By Guest Maven, Erin Loechner}

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editor’s note by Jena: I reached out to the insightful and delightful Erin of Design for Mankind, one of my favorite bloggers, to see if she could write a guest post for us on balance. She responded saying, “I’m wondering if I can submit something I’ve already written? My priority is with my family these days, so I haven’t been putting in a lot of time into guest posting or writing elsewhere…” and she sent a link along to a beautiful post she had recently written on slowing down.

I thought, dang. Not only is this post perfect to share with our readers, but seeing Erin actually walk the walk and define her priorities and make a decision from there was a truly great example of acting from a balanced place. So now, I think she’s even more awesome. And I’m so happy she’s agreed to let us share this post with you here, originally published on Design For Mankind.

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Whenever I find myself saying, “I don’t have time,” I mentally re-word the phrase into “That’s just not a high priority for me right now.”

Because I have the same 24 hours as you do and your neighbor does and the uncle who took you to your first movie growing up had. But our priorities are different.

My priority right now, this very second, is to maintain a healthy relationship with my husband, care for (and find enjoyment in) the early months of my daughter’s life and end the day feeling fulfilled, restful and at peace. (I have a theory that I, personally, can only juggle three priorities at once, but I know many folks who have plates that overfloweth and feel content in that state. I am not one of those folks.)

What this means is that I often check myself throughout the day to make sure I’m working toward those priorities. When I sit down at my desk to work, I stop and think about what I’m hungry for (not literally, although that answer will likely be some form of cheese). Today, I was hungry to write. To have a conversation with myself that might result in some sort of personal growth. To host a discussion about priorities and timing and work and balance and helping others and all things good and perfect, Amen. And by feeding this hunger, I know I’ll end my day feeling fulfilled (priority #3 for those keeping score at home).

Baking muffins for my neighbor might fulfill me one day, but welcome stress and anxiety the next. Because priorities often overlap and bend and sometimes break until we forget they were important to us in the first place. The trick, I suppose, is knowing what we’re hungry for and which priorities take precedent over the other. They change, as do we.

Photo from Design For Mankind

I once read a beautiful passage in Donald Miller’s “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” about change, personal growth and the beauty of seasons:

People get stuck, thinking they are one kind of person, but they aren’t … The human body essentially recreates itself every six months. Nearly every cell of hair and skin and bone dies and another is directed to its former place. You are not who you were in February.

The slower me understands this. I see deepened lines in my furrowed brow and remnants of old habits regenerating into new. And the slower me feels free when reading this. Because we are growing, whether intentional or not. The world is changing and we are in the world and we are the world. Cue Michael Jackson.

I’ve never been a gardener, but I know that bushes often need to be pruned for this reason. They grow and grow and grow until one wild branch often shapes the bush into something else entirely. For me, slowing down was simply another way to prune the bush. To force myself into cutting away certain parts of my life so that I don’t wake up next February, blooming roses I don’t like.

It’s hard, slowing down. We’re taught as young children that life is a buffet and the world is our oyster and we can wear many hats, but then sometimes we wake up and realize that our waistlines are too large and seafood is slimy and we’re tired of hat hair.

So we purge the hall closet of our berets and caps and bonnets until we’re left with empty space – a space that’s simultaneously inviting and terrifying. Because empty space is life’s first date where the awkward silence is deafening and there’s no bread left to butter. And we’re left watching the clock, wondering if there will be a spark or dessert or a goodnight kiss.

Or a pruned rose.

My garden is growing and shaping, but into what? I’m not yet sure. And I suppose it doesn’t matter, because tomorrow I’ll awake and become hungry for something else, or decidedly not hungry for anything at all. And in six months, a new me will regenerate and I’ll grow wild until I gather my pruning shears yet again.

But sometimes, I think, the empty space might sprout a tiny seed and something new will be planted in its place. And although I don’t know much about gardening, I kind of think this happens in February.

A former ad agency copywriter in Los Angeles, writer Erin Loechner now resides in a sleepy Midwestern town with her husband Ken, daughter Bee and two dogs. A pioneer “design blogger” featuring trending products and lifestyle images, Loechner recently shifted her focus to a more personal quest for creativity on her award-winning site, Design for Mankind.

“Is this all there is?” It’s a question that most of us have asked ourselves from time to time.

But the truth is, the question itself reveals many answers about what you may need in your life.

Finding balance is about more than balancing work and your personal life. It’s also about reaching your dreams and that means getting there one small act at a time, through busy, everyday life.

We all have deep curiosities that we want to pursue and when that curiosity grabs hold of you and won’t let go, we believe it’s a call from our deepest passions. But we don’t always make time to take action in the direction toward those passions. Our dreams get deferred to “someday” and then we’re left feeling unbalanced and longing for something else.

Until one day you ask yourself, “Is this all there is?” This is the rally cry from your inner self begging you to grow into the you you’re “supposed” to be and not the one that you think you “should” be.

So how can we create space in our everyday lives for those deep curiosities, big dreams and passions?

We share 3 important tips to help make it easier in this Maven Minutes video (transcript below):

Rather read a written version of what we discuss in this video? Check out the transcript.

Think about something you can do to make a little time for something that really matters to you and schedule it in your week THIS WEEK! Adding it to your actual schedule makes it real and tells your mind and body that your passions matter.

So, what deep curiosity is on your to do list for this week?

{By guest maven, Bridget Benton}

Balance is dynamic. It’s an in-motion kind of a thing.

Imagine standing or walking over big, smooth, round river rocks. You’re tuned into a center of gravity, deep in your core, and every step moves from that place.You can feel tiny muscles all over your body twitching and flexing to keep you upright on the ever-so-slightly shifting stones.

Our bodies really do show us the way.

My body has been out of balance for a long time. I get cyclical bouts of deep fatigue and brain fog, and have for at least the past six years. Then, in the fall of 2011, I pushed hard to launch my self-published book, broke my foot, had surgery, and accepted the presidency of a non-profit board. Under the pressure, my already struggling immune system just crashed. I’ve always been an over-achiever, a go-getter, a make-things-happen kind of a gal, but after this incident, the fatigue really started to put a cramp in my style.

Of course, what I’ve been learning over the past 16 months is that “my style” really hasn’t really been working very well for me.

I was trying to run a small, all-volunteer non-profit; run my own business; teach part-time at a community college; and travel to teach and promote my newly published book while barely being able to stay awake and focused more than a few hours each day. The caffeine and sugar that I’d used for years to push through the fatigue were now only making things worse. I’d also gone through diagnoses and treatment for – to name a few – sleep apnea, anemia, depression, and intestinal parasites, with only minor improvements to the cycles of fatigue.

It was a radical notion that I had to adjust my life to fit what my body could do rather than ramp my body up so that I could do the things I thought I should.

So, over the course of the last year, I have let go of or radically shifted all of those commitments. I have gradually moved from trying to force my body to run over a dry, rocky riverbed at top speed to stepping slowly and thoughtfully from stone to stone. I stand still a lot.

I’ve shifted from trying to fix and push my body to listening to it and nurturing it. I have come to radically shift my diet, doing more and more of my own cooking, eating whole, simple foods without sugar, dairy, wheat, corn, soy, legumes or grains. And shifting my diet, has, more than anything else, made a difference in my energy levels.

And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Thinking about why the heck I had made those choices in the first place. Choices to keep doing more, achieving more, always saying “yes” to the next opportunity. I was doing things I loved, and I felt like I was making decisions based on my own personal mission.

My work in this world is helping other people access their creativity. I’ve known this since 2000. More and more amazing things keep happening to open doors to let me do just exactly that. But here’s the deal – one of the subconscious criteria I was using to help me decide what to say “yes” to (and I rarely said “no”) was “Will this help me be successful?”

I don’t want to dis success; but I have had to get real about what my definition of success actually is.

For some people, it’s about achieving goals; for others, it’s about feeling stable and secure. My deep-down definition of success is largely about being recognized and acknowledged for making a positive impact. I was making choices based on whether a given activity would help me be seen, or reach a bigger audience, or support my reputation as an expert. From a marketing standpoint, that’s all solid stuff!

The problem is that it’s also largely external. I was basing much of my decision-making on something outside of myself – the moving target of other people’s opinions and reactions.

And trying to balance based on a center of gravity that was outside of my own body JUST DIDN’T WORK. It’s like I was running full tilt over those river rocks with a wiggling 40-pound puppy tugging at the leash in my hand. Maybe you can make it work for a little while. But then, you’re gonna fall over. And possibly break your foot. And let’s not even think about what happens to the puppy.

So, over the past year, part of the slowing down and the nurturing I’ve been doing is to shift my center of gravity. I needed to put down the puppy and find the solid weight of my own deeper purpose in the core of my body. When I’m making decisions about where to put my energy, I’m trying to ask more and more, “Does this support my well-being?”

Well-being is utterly internal. The fatigue is still there; the gentle search for solutions goes on. But now, I feel infinitely better about being right where I am. And that is starting to feel like success.

Bridget Benton loves making stuff and loves helping other people make stuff.  Bridget is a passionate teacher, coach, and facilitator, crafting supportive environments and exercises that allow adults to access and develop their own creative voice.  She is the author of the award-winning book The Creative Conversation: Artmaking as Playful Prayer. To learn more about her book and workshops, visit http://www.eyesaflame.com