Ep. 136: End of Season Health Update and Family Meeting

Instead of show notes I’m going to write you a note from me. It felt like the time to pop in a personal blogpost update and to let you know about the future of Just Enjoy Health.

I’m currently sweating in my sauna and supporting my body’s ability to detox and what a better way than that to do this update.

Now it’s just where to start in my long health update.

First, let’s start with the podcast. After 5 years of the Just Enjoy Health podcast, I’ve decided it’s time to take a break until I have the capacity to come back and bring you more episodes. It’s the end of a season, not the end of the podcast.

Thank you for being a loyal listener. From learning from me as I released new episodes and interviews. It’s one of my favorite things to do, and I work hard at it for you! The podcast is one of the most fun and meaningful parts of my business.

I love podcasting, but my energy levels and mental capacity aren’t high enough to keep releasing episodes. There’s a lot that goes into the back end of a podcast and I don’t have those hours to devote to creating good content for you.

The break could be a few months, or could be as long as a year. I’m not sure, and am leaving it open to God to direct my next steps with the podcast.

Why the sudden change?

Well, it’s actually a couple of months in the making. 2020 has been a full year for us. Outside of what has been going on in the world, it has brought with it our busiest year yet.

We bought a house and were set to move (and sell our house) before Covid even hit. We had a long closing on our house and it ended up on the calendar for us to list our home and move all during our state’s stay at home order.

We debated on whether the right move was to move, sell our house, or just trust that we were to move. They say moving is one of the most stressful things a person does. I don’t want to know how the stress of moving during a global pandemic ranks. We lived it and it was a lot.

After we moved into our house I got to unpacking and also, working more on my business. I felt good. And I took the extra energy and poured it into mu business almost every box in the house and organizing almost every room in 2-3 weeks after moving. Then we added protesting and rioting to our city and added another layer of stress to the mix.

You can see where this is going. Stress heaped on stress isn’t good for the body. I wasn’t sleeping as much and I was also pushing my body hard doing some intense detox protocols (hindsight is 20/20 on this… not wise when you are moving during a pandemic)

And in early July my health crashed. I had the biggest flare up of my symptoms in 10 years and felt nearly unable to manage the house, my kids, and getting food on the table.

I’m going to leave about 90% of the details out of this story, and maybe I’ll tell them at some point. But the last 8 weeks have been hard, but have also yielded answers I haven’t had for 15 years.

I finally figured out the root of my health issues.

I have been working almost non-stop on my health for a decade. I only have taken breaks during my pregnancies and immediately postpartum. And despite all of the work I have done, I just couldn’t seem to shake a handful of symptoms (particularly chronic fatigue) and then my symptoms flared after the birth of my second child.

I’m thankful for answers, although there’s still a long road of healing ahead. I figured out through the help of a highly trained integrative MD that I have something called Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS) and don’t have the ability to bind biotoxins (in my case mold biotoxins) and get then out of my body. And that causes an inflammatory response that doesn’t shut off as long as the biotoxins are present.

When it was exactly triggered, we don’t know. But we know it got worse after I lived in a very moldy apartment from 20-22 and I was so sick and became less and less functional as the years went on.

And the things I’ve been doing through nutrition, exercise, detox, and supplements over the last decade has allowed me to function close to normal.

But after the birth of my second child two years ago, I just haven’t felt like I quite recovered from her birth. That was another trigger for my CIRS.

But now I’m on a path to healing.

The last 2 weeks I’ve felt like a human being again. But I have a long way to go.

So that made me take a hard look at my business. I couldn’t keep working at the same capacity around 20 hours a week with only 5 hours of childcare per week. I need the ability to nap during quiet time. Have restful evenings vs working many nights. My health depends on it.

That’s why the podcast is taking a temporary break. And why I am doing less in business so I can focus on areas of business that are most important right now.

And that area is Beautycounter.

I’m going to be putting 80% of my business work hours and time into Beautycounter. I love working as a Beautycounter consultant. I love being there for my clients and offering clean beauty suggestions. I love my team. And I finally have more time to devote to mentoring those amazing ladies.

Over the next few months, you’ll see a shift into a little more Beautycounter content. But, I still love to teach women about health. And of course, you’ll see me deliver that content to you as I can on Instagram and my newsletter.

That’s where you’ll see me show up now.

And I also have to say thank you to my Beautycounter clients and team. This business I never intended to do much with has grown and been such a source of education, purpose, and connection in my business. And I want to be able to offer the best customer care and education I can in this space.

Thank you for following along and I’m also so thankful to be able to run a flexible business where I can step back where I need to.

Dr. Meghan