Tag: upw

RITUAL DE CAFE

Published on by Amy D LuxLeave a comment

Coffee has always been a prized start to my day but lately, it is even more cherished.

Almost 2 months ago I was finally able to develop – and stick to – a morning routine that would start my day on the right foot. I have struggled my whole life to be a morning person, in fact, I stopped trying years ago. But when I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism in 2016 it got MUCH worse.

Once this disease took over my body I was dysfunctionally exhausted all of the time. I barely made it through the day. I was going to bed at 6pm and waking up at 2am with insomnia. If I didn’t have a day job I would have been in bed the whole day without question. No matter what I did I was beyond exhausted around the clock. I could not function to save my life.

Once my medication was dialed in, which took almost a year, my sleep cycles didn’t become normal, but were more manageable. Insomnia happened less frequently and exhaustion levels went from impossible to somewhat sadly manageable, but my mornings never recovered. It felt like whatever my body was doing to process this illness it was doing overnight and in the morning I had a mega ton of bricks weighing me down. It took everything I had to claw out of bed.

I missed my formerly energetic self, my old life. I knew, like many other tragedies in my life, that this would be no different: I must refuse to be a victim. I did not want to live the rest of my days on Earth feeling this way, plain and simple. This was the WHY that kept me searching for answers.

Of course the road is not that easy with a chronic illness and though I wished to cure myself overnight, it has taken several years to gain back my strength and diminish the ever powerful symptoms of chronic fatigue, brain fog, joint pain, chronic muscle and bone pain, and more.

Coffee wasn’t waking me up, but the aroma, the steam rising from the cup, the warmth touching my lips, still gave me a cozy way to start my day. I was devastated to learn that I would not be able to drink coffee upon waking with my new medication which requires an empty stomach for an hour before ingesting anything…and 4 hours for ibuprofen so you better not wake up with a hangover.

So I started setting my alarm at 5:30am so I could take my pill and fall back asleep until I was allowed to have coffee. For the first few years I thought it would be nice to be able to actually wake up at this time and do a work out or get some writing in, but it seemed to be harder and harder to wake up even when my symptoms were *mostly* under control. “Is this medication really serving me,” I often wondered.

In the beginning of March I attended Tony Robbins’ Unleash The Power Within and unleash we did! In full transparency, I have visualized aplenty, and I have incredible will power in many areas of my life, but I think what was different for me this time was we practiced a visualization where we didn’t see the outcome we wanted, but the outcome we didn’t want. What would life be like if you continue on this path you are on, where you are not practicing the rituals and actions that would make the difference in your life? Who would you become? How much more would it hurt? How much worse would it get? What would your life look like years after doing nothing differently that you’re doing today? How would your relationships turn out? Your body? Your mindset?

I can’t even begin replicate Tony’s incredible guidance in a blog post because it is genuine total immersion and the exercises we do over those 4 days unlock so many blocks within you using neuropsychology and other scientifically backed techniques that create multitudes of AHA moments, but for me particularly, it was beyond transformative to go into the depth of that negative visualization that really gave me the boot in the rear I needed to break the cycle I was stuck in.

What on earth does this have to do with coffee?

For the past 7 weeks I’ve been waking up at 5:30am 🤯 and getting into a myriad of amazing things to start my day. I have a nice walk with my dog, I have a glorious morning facial routine, a cold shower, drink lemon water and celery juice, meditate and prime my body and mind, and I work out with @kinrgy every day. This has been a game changer. I still have to pinch myself it’s going so well. *The full details of my morning routine will be posted on May 4th, my 2 month anniversary of being a legit morning person!

I don’t even have coffee until 7:30am! By that time it is the icing on the cake and it just tastes that much better. I have eliminated sugar from diet and I feel a gazillion times better for it. I simply add some pure, creamy, non-dairy, alt-milk like @nutpods and sometimes I’ll top it off with cinnamon and it is the perfect reward to everything I’ve already accomplished.

I love that I don’t need coffee to wake me up, but I get to simply enjoy the flavor and ritual of the ceremony.

☕️ How do you take your coffee? ☕️

Turning A Should Into A Must

Published on by Amy D LuxLeave a comment

This was me at 6am on the first day of turning a “should” into a “must”.

It was the day after attending Tony Robbins Virtual Unleash The Power Within. I have known for some time that the key to unlocking my next level of potential was in my body. To once and for all cure the chronic illness I’ve been battling for 5 years, to get my full energy back, to literally unleash the power within.

The thing was, I was having the damndest time following through, despite knowing this was the answer, this was crucial, this was non-negotiable. I am so disciplined and structured in just about every other aspect of my life – my house is clean and organized (and delightful!), I have a succesful Real Estate side hustle, I am crushing it in my career, I have deeper, more sincere relationships than ever, my nutrition has become outstanding… but exercise – I was SO inconsistent.

Why? I always feel WAY better afterwards. My symptoms improve or vanish when I would have a regular spell of exercise. Yet, I always ended up working through lunch instead of going for a jog. At the end of the day I’d be too tired to workout and I wanted some downtime after busting my hump all day. And mornings? Fuhgettaboutit. That was when my thyroid symptoms were the worst. No matter how good my intentions, I would hit the snooze button over and over again while my brain fog and inflammation sunk me deeper into total of loss of will power for physical exertion.

So it is remarkable and I couldn’t be more thrilled that today is my 2 week anniversary of finally succeeding in this shift! Everyday at 6am I do a @kinrgy workout. I LOVE this workout. It is so much more than a workout. They guide us through the elements in dance and expression and it feels so good! Plus their guides are incredible – I LOVE Rebeka’s energy. She reminds me of myself pre-trauma, and inspires me to keep working on getting back to that effervescent part of myself. And Ulato brings big Jamaican energy and brilliantly quotes historic black leaders and poets that take this movement and connection to a whole new level that I honor so much and fuels me to keep fighting for love and equality. Christine is just pure light and makes me feel so playful, genuine, and connected. I mean, I could go on about every single one of them – I love them so much!

So what changed? I turned a should into a must. Tony Robbins and his crew gave us so many tangible tools to go deep and find our why. It was so much more than words though. Through a series of exercises (written, spoken, and physical), and alot of intentional physiological changes and upgrades, I was able to unlock blocks that I was holding in my body and in my psyche that I thought I had cleared years ago. These blocks were holding me back BIG TIME and I had NO idea.

By the end of UPW I was magically a morning person. Well, maybe it wasn’t simply magic. I found my why, I created genuine intention, and I unleashed the power within. I feel literally unstoppable! Not only do I now workout daily at 6am, I follow it with a Priming meditation, and a COLD shower to tap into the Wim Hof method. By 7am I’ve done all of this, drank a pint of lemon water, and walked the dog. My mornings have never been like this before. Not only has my morning routine benefitted, but I have much more energy all day, my brain fog has lifted, joint pain is GONE, and I’m happier than I’ve been in years. I was already pretty happy because I have deep philosophies towards that way of being, but now I have this innate joy vibrating through my body in a way that hasn’t happened since before the tragedies of 2004.

Yep, that was me at 6am on Day 1. Bright eyed, bushy tailed, and ready to take on a new day, a new life!

THANK YOU Tony Robbins Joseph McClendon Kinrgy Julianne Hough Karissa Kouchis Egoscue Team Tony
Master Co

LIFE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME

B O U N T Y

Published on by Amy D LuxLeave a comment

Hello Sweet Loves of The Glorious Universe!!

I just wanted to pop in real quick with some VIBRANT GREEN ENERGY. Yesterday I got a mega grocery haul delivered from Sprouts. I just finished #UnleashThePowerWithin with Tony Robbins and am PUMPED BEYOND BELIEF. Team 23 is LIT! 🔥🔥🔥 A few of us stayed in touch and one of the new motivations that we decided with was to jump into a Whole30.

This is my 5th! Everytime I do it I feel better, and I get better. My healthy habits increase, my bad habits decrease, and I become unaddicted to the “foods” that were never serving me in the first place. #UPW wasn’t just motivating, it went into THE DEEP. Like buried psyche deep. I unlocked blocks that were concealed so deep I had no idea they were still there. I thought I had “taken care of that already”. I can’t begin to explain, I can just say, this is something everyone should do. It is genuinely life changing. ✨💕🙏🏼💕✨

SO, I decided not only would I do Whole30, I’m going to try it differently this time. For one, I’m doing it 100% ORGANIC. I haven’t done that before. 30 days of all organic is going to be magical. I’m also going to go ahead and try it vegan. WHAT?! This is a little trickier since the vegan diet relies so much on legumes and grains, but I have some good tricks up my sleeve. I’ll go into that another day.

Anyhoo, I am also in the middle of moving so even though I want to write like crazy, I am going to go unpack and try to get my shizzle together. I just wanted to say hi real quick and ask you this – what are you feeding your cells? Sluggish foods that are hard for your body to process? Foods that are known to cause cancer? Foods that are known to clog arteries? Are you eating live, bright, fresh fruits and veggies? Are you eating straight out of nature’s own package? Are you getting all your colors or is everything white and beige? Are you eating alot of pesticides? Do you know where you food comes from? Does it use prison labor to manufacture? Does it cause pollution? Is it reliant on tons of petroleum? Is it full of antibiotics and hormones forced into it? How do you feel?

I’ve been witnessing massive transformation for myself. I’ve learned how my diet directly affects my hypothyroid symptoms. On multiple occasions I have eliminated my symptoms completely, and as I become less of an emotional eater and more cognizant of the fuel I need to give me energy and help me thrive, the better I feel. I love feeling better every single day; feeling younger than I did when I was in my 20s. It’s true what they say, you are what you eat.

After unlocking my true potential at Unleash The Power Within, I now, finally, understand why I was giving in to poor choices for so long. This is the biggest gift I could ask for. I finally found my why. All the reasons I would contradict my true desires. All the reasons I would cheat myself “just this once”.

This is YOUR LIFE. Your one and only precious life in THIS BODY. What else could you do with your body if you ate healthy foods? How clear would your mind become? Would your brain fog lift? How much inflammation would leave your joints? Would it be easier to get out of your eat? Would you find yourself connecting with others more? Just wondering. Chronic fatigue lifted, pure joy in your heart, high vibrational energy that grows exponentially, daily, can you imagine? I love you so much and I want you to prosper. Eat Bountifully. AND SPREAD LOVE.

xo,
Dlux