Photo by Bobby Mc Leod on Unsplash

President Trump’s administration has reopened the door to M-44 sodium cyanide devices on public lands, and the decision is being framed as a wildlife management issue. But it is not only a wildlife management issue. Yes, it is about coyotes, foxes, wolves, and the family dogs that will never be the intended targets. But the deeper question is what kind of country we become when we normalize placing cyanide into shared landscapes and call it stewardship.

The policy shift may sound bureaucratic, a memorandum, a reversal, a case-by-case review, but the practical effect is simple: sodium cyanide devices are back on the table for use on public land.

For anyone tempted to say they do not care about coyotes, the larger point remains: public land is not an industrial kill zone. It is habitat, a watershed, a soil, microbial community, a grazing land, a recreation space, a migration corridor, and an ecological common ground we all share. We keep pretending that any chemical poison can be surgically deployed in nature, as though nature respects our intended categories. It does not. What enters an ecosystem enters a web of shared life, and ecological webs do not honor our target zones.

Cyanide is not a benign tool. It is a mitochondrial poison — one that blocks the body’s ability to use oxygen at the cellular level, causing death not from lack of oxygen, but from the cell’s inability to use it. This is the same conversation we keep refusing to acknowledge about the full spectrum of toxic, chemical burdens we release into our environments, such as pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, PFAS, mycotoxins. The assumption in each case is that a toxin will stay in one place where we put it, affect only what we intend, and leave everything else undisturbed. That assumption has never once been correct. Nature does not honor our intended targets, and toxicology has been proving that for decades.

Our bodies are not separate from the environment. The animals we share this land with are not separate from the living systems that sustain it. And we are not separate from either. These are not sentimental claims dressed up as ecology; they are biological realities.

The question is not only whether M-44 devices kill predators. Of course they do. That is the intended mechanism. The question is why a society with everything we now know about toxicity, ecology, and unintended consequence is still reaching for chemical violence as a first response. Cyanide does not enter a landscape as a contained idea. Once released, it can move through air, soil, water, and the living bodies that encounter it. If public lands require stewardship, then stewardship cannot mean baiting the ground with a mitochondrial poison and hoping the ‘right’ living thing dies.

And maybe we should ask the simplest question of all: is it so wrong to care about the animals whose land we keep taking, whose habitats we keep shrinking, and whose survival we keep treating as an inconvenience?

Robin Wall Kimmerer writes that “all flourishing is mutual,” and that is the truth underneath all of this. I care about these animals for the same reason I care about endocrine-disrupting chemicals, contaminated water, mitochondrial injury, poisoned soil, and the rising toxic burden now affecting our bodies, our families, and the quality of human life. It is all one conversation, because it is all one web.

In my work as an environmental health researcher, I spend considerable time examining the immeasurable toxins that infiltrate our modern world, from heavy metals in water systems, microplastics in food chains, to chemical residues in soil. But my work as a health coach increasingly illuminates something my research findings cannot fully quantify: toxicity operates on multiple planes simultaneously.

There exists a spectrum of poison in our contemporary landscape. The obvious physical toxins are merely the surface. Beneath them lie actions that appear benign externally but harbor corruption at their core — the systems of greed, consumption, exploitation, and disconnection dressed in the language of progress. And perhaps most insidiously, the emotional and psychological poisons that emanate from them that corrode our inner landscape, fragmenting our peace and severing us from our own innate knowing.

This is not metaphor. Environmental toxic load and spiritual vitality are literally linked through the nervous system, through the subtle energetic biofield of the body itself, and through the very cellular environment in which consciousness lives. When we carry unresolved chemical, emotional, or psychological burden, the body’s innate intelligence is compromised at every level.

Our lived experience tells us something is wrong. Research gives us the language: every form of chronic stress dysregulates the nervous system, disrupting the balance between fight-or-flight survival mode and the rest-and-restore state where true healing occurs. Like environmental toxins, traumatic memories become encoded in the body itself, stored in muscles, tissues, and neural pathways creating a state where past wounds continue to trigger present physiological responses. As neuroscientist Bessel van der Kolk, and author of The Body Keeps Score, has shown so eloquently, trauma gets stored in the body itself, in muscles, tissues, and neural pathways, where it continues to operate as an unhealed wound.

For those of us who recognize this dysfunction, who see how toxicity on every level fragments our capacity to think clearly, feel deeply, and access our highest potential, the question becomes vital: how do we reclaim our highest expressions of self while stewarding our planet for generations yet unborn?

Our answer lies in a paradox. We must act with courage and ingenuity, applying all our accumulated wisdom and resilience. And simultaneously, we must surrender to forces larger than ourselves, trusting in the regenerative capacity of living systems, in the intelligence of life itself. Inner strength is not rigidity. It is the flexibility, as the Serenity Prayer teaches, to discern what we can change and the grace to release what we cannot.

This month, the Artemis II astronauts offered us all the opportunity to gaze back at Earth from a quarter million miles away. Our planet appeared luminous, fragile, and profoundly alone in the vastness of dark space. Carl Sagan captured this truth decades ago when he called Earth “the pale blue dot” and asked what our sense of self-importance could possibly mean against such vastness.

The answer lives in our bodies. What we do to our home Earth, we do to ourselves. What poisons her systems, poisons ours. And what restores her — attentiveness, purity of heart, reverence for all that is holy, the courage to change — restores us as well.

The invitation to purify is not abstract. It is urgent. And it begins not with a grand gesture but with a single act of trust: listening to the knowing already alive within us. Your body has never stopped speaking to you. The question is whether you are listening.

As Irish writer and poet, John O’Donohue reminds us in all his works, true blessing emerges from an inner knowing clearer than thought, a harvesting of wisdom from beyond what is visible.

I want to share something with you that’s been helping me settle in my body, really settle, in ways that have remained elusive to me even with everything I know about healing.

It’s called TTAT (Tapas Acupressure Technique), and it comes from somatic trauma work, which treats trauma where it’s actually stored: in the body. It works directly with the nervous system to clear what talk therapy can’t reach, the somatic imprint of trauma living in your tissues, by helping your body feel safe enough to release what it’s been holding. If you’ve ever felt like you never quite believe it’s safe to relax, where you can’t ever fully let your guard down because some part of you is always braced for what’s coming next, TTAT might be for you too.

It’s simple. Almost too simple. But that’s exactly why it works.

The Practice

Sit or stand, whatever feels right. You don’t need to be anywhere special.

Take one hand and place your thumb and ring finger at the inner corners of your eyebrows right where they meet the bridge of your nose. Your middle finger goes on your forehead, just above where your brows are.

Your other hand goes on the back of your head, where your skull meets your neck. You’ll feel a little ridge there.

The pressure? Light. Like you’re holding something delicate. No pressing, just resting.

Now bring to mind whatever’s sitting heavy in you. Don’t tell a story about it; just name it. “This fear.” “This tightness.” “What happened yesterday.” Whatever it is, just be aware of it.

Hold the position and let your body do what it needs to. You might sigh. You might yawn. Your breath might drop lower. You might feel warmth or softness somewhere. You might cry a little.

That’s the clearing happening.

Stay there for 30 seconds to a minute, maybe longer. When something shifts, you’ll feel it: a sigh, a yawn, a settling, maybe even a tear or two. That’s when to stop.

Take a breath. Notice what’s different.

That’s it.

You’ve actually released stored energy.

What’s Actually Happening

When you hold these points, you’re calming your amygdala (your brain’s threat detector) and activating your vagus nerve (which controls your body’s ability to rest, restore, and digest). Your nervous system shifts out of survival, fight-or-flight mode and into a restorative state where healing can actually happen.

Letting go with Ease

This isn’t about fixing yourself or working harder at healing. It’s about giving your body permission to let go of what it’s been holding, and likely for too long.

You can do this practice once a day, or whenever you feel wound up, or right before sleep. Do it when it feels right.

The more you do it, the more your nervous system learns: I can release this. It’s safe to let go. Ease is possible. I don’t have to carry it any longer.

Be patient with yourself. Some days the shift is subtle. Some days it’s big. Both matter, and over time, both change your life.

Your body adapted brilliantly to all the stressors you’ve experienced. But for real healing to happen, it needs to feel safe to return to rest and restore mode. That’s where the magic is, learning to live with ease.

Christmas Poem by Mary Oliver

Says a country legend told every year:
Go to the barn on Christmas Eve and see
what the creatures do as that long night tips over.
Down on their knees they will go, the fire
of an old memory whistling through their minds!

[So] I went. Wrapped to my eyes against the cold
I creaked back the barn door and peered in.
From town the church bells spilled their midnight music,
and the beasts listened –
yet they lay in their stalls like stone.

Oh the heretics!
Not to remember Bethlehem,
or the star as bright as a sun,
or the child born on a bed of straw!
To know only of the dissolving Now!

Still they drowsed on –
citizens of the pure, the physical world,
they loomed in the dark: powerful
of body, peaceful of mind,
innocent of history.

Brothers! I whispered. It is Christmas!
And you are no heretics, but a miracle,
immaculate still as when you thundered forth
on the morning of creation!
As for Bethlehem, that blazing star

still sailed the dark, but only looked for me.
Caught in its light, listening again to its story,
I curled against some sleepy beast, who nuzzled
my hair as though I were a child, and warmed me
the best it could all night.

 

 

A Christmas Blessing by John O’Donohue

May the Angels in their beauty bless you.
May they turn toward you streams of blessing.

May the Angel of Awakening stir your heart
To come alive to the eternal within you,
To all the invitations that quietly surround you.

May the Angel of Healing turn your wounds
Into sources of refreshment.

May the Angel of the Imagination enable you
To stand on the true thresholds,
At ease with your ambivalence
And drawn in new direction
Through the glow of your contradictions.

May the Angel of Compassion open your eyes
To the unseen suffering around you.

May the Angel of Wildness disturb the places
Where your life is domesticated and safe,
Take you to the territories of true otherness
Where all that is awkward in you
Can fall into its own rhythm.

May the Angel of Eros introduce you
To the beauty of your senses
To celebrate your inheritance
As a temple of the holy spirit.

May the Angel of Justice disturb you
To take the side of the poor and the wronged.

May the Angel of Encouragement confirm you
In worth and self-respect,
That you may live with the dignity
That presides in your soul.

May the Angel of Death arrive only
When your life is complete
And you have brought every given gift
To the threshold where its infinity can shine.

May all the Angels be your sheltering
and joyful guardians.

I was not taught healthy boundaries as a child. Were you? The absence of this skill can cause all sorts of havoc in our lives—in our relationships, our health, our peace of mind, and literally every area of life. So I’ve been practicing setting healthy boundaries for some time now, and one of my favorite quotes always shows up when I contemplate things: “How I do anything is how I do everything.” I could feel how off I felt if I said yes when I really meant no.

This past week I set a boundary that I’ve long needed to set. When I finally said no out loud, I could feel a ding in my gut that resounded with a clear, unmistakable yes: “This feels right. This feels good. Nothing more needed. This no is necessary.”

When I ignore my body’s cues in any area, I pay for it in every way–physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. We can’t be in integrity in one area and out of integrity in another. Whole body healing doesn’t work that way.

With the week before Christmas here, and all the pressure that comes with it, now is the perfect time to get clear on what your yes’s and no’s actually feel like in your body. In Human Design, this is called your authority, the way your body speaks truth to you before your mind has time to talk you out of it.

Here’s what I’m working with this week.

Mind

“Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.” ~Brené Brown

I can literally feel how much clearer my thinking is when I listen to my body’s cues. When I say yes but mean no, my mind can fill up with resentment, excuses, and doubt. The minute I set a boundary, this boundary, confusion stopped. My mind felt clear again. Very clear.

If we don’t set limits, some people won’t either. It’s not their job to guess what we need—it’s ours to say it. That’s why boundaries are healthy and necessary. They protect what’s ours to protect: our energy, our peace, our ability to show up empowered, clear, and strong.

Boundaries aren’t selfish, as many of us have been taught. They’re maturity and clarity– and maturity and clarity start with listening to what our body knows is best for us. We can’t give what we don’t have. We can’t pour from any empty cup.

Body

My body tells me the truth. Yours tells you, too. For me, my throat tightens and my gut sort of recoils when I ignore my no and say yes instead. A heaviness takes over when I give more than I’m capable of giving.

“In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them.” ~Bessel van der Kolk

This week I felt that deep, super clear gut-level yes rise up–my sacral authority saying “enough.” I heeded its communication. I spoke my truth, and it’s crazy how fast the tide of relief came to me. I could literally feel my body sigh.

Boundaries aren’t just mental decisions, as some would have us believe. They’re actually more physical than mental. Our body knows when we’re out of alignment, and it will keep sending us signals until we pay attention. Ignoring these signals doesn’t affect just how we feel physically, they create a ripple effect of mental confusion and spiritual disconnection.

This is holistic health in its finest expression: Our body speaks to us and we actually listen.

Spirit

Setting this boundary reminded me that taking care of me isn’t selfish. It’s healthy. Vital. Necessary. When I give more than I can give, when I allow others to drain me, I lose touch with myself and what I need. How can I be my best self, how can I bring forth my highest expression of self, if I allow others to take from me what I’m not capable of giving? Boundaries help us notice when we’re giving more than we can.

“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” ~Mary Oliver

Creating healthy boundaries that feel good to me honors what feels best and right for me.

Boundaries are an act of self-love. Boundaries are spiritual practice in action.

I’ll keep practicing this. You keep practicing too. We’re learning together.

She sat across from me, hands wrapped around a mug of tea she wasn’t drinking. Dark circles. Shoulders slumped. The look of someone fighting a battle she was starting to think she couldn’t win.

“I can get through work,” she said. “But that’s it. By the time I get home, I have nothing left. I snap at my kids. I can’t decide what to eat for dinner. I go to bed praying tomorrow I’ll feel different, and I never do.”

Her doctor had run the tests. Thyroid normal. Blood work fine. “You’re healthy,” they told her.

So she did what everyone desperate to feel better does. She started taking B vitamins and adaptogens. Cleaned up her diet. No sugar, no gluten, no dairy. She followed every rule the IG influencers told her to do.

And she felt worse.

When I asked her what exhaustion felt like in her body, she stared at the wall for a long time.

“I don’t know anymore,” as her eyes welled up with tears. “I just know I’m not me.”

When Exhaustion Becomes Disconnection

That sentence haunts me because I hear versions of it constantly. Heck, I’ve lived it… and not just “I’m tired” but “I’ve lost myself.” Not just fatigue but a fracture between who they know themselves to be and who they’ve become.

If you’ve felt that gap, you’ve probably blamed yourself. Wondered if you’re lazy. Wondered what everyone else figured out that you missed.

You haven’t missed anything. Your body is dealing with more than one problem. That’s why single-fix solutions keep failing.

What’s Actually Happening Inside Your Cells

Every cell contains tiny power plants called mitochondria. They convert food and oxygen into ATP—the energy that runs everything. Your thoughts, your heartbeat, your ability to function. Everything. Without adequate oxygen reaching your cells, that conversion stalls no matter what else you do.

When those power plants struggle, you struggle. Brain fog. Low mood. Weak immunity. That feeling of wading through knee-deep mud to accomplish simple, ordinary tasks.

Most supplements target one part of this system. A B vitamin here. Magnesium there. And if you only had one problem, that might work.

But most people running on empty have several problems stacked together.

Cells aren’t getting adequate oxygen. The gut is inflamed, so nutrients leak out before reaching cells. Cell membranes have lost their electrical charge, so nutrients can’t enter. The energy cycle is missing fuel. Toxins block electron flow. Trace minerals are depleted, leaving enzymes unable to function.

One supplement cannot fix all of that. One mechanic cannot fix a car with a dead battery and an empty tank and a blown transmission, because they’re not all his expertise.

Why HydrOxygen Works Differently

HydrOxygen addresses the full picture.

The formula itself delivers bioavailable oxygen directly to your cells, supporting the very thing your mitochondria need most to produce ATP. Jerusalem artichoke repairs the gut lining so nutrients absorb. Sea minerals restore cellular electrical charge so nutrients can enter. Magnesium malate fuels the energy cycle and activates the enzyme that produces ATP. MSM provides sulfur for glutathione, the antioxidant that keeps mitochondria from burning out. Fulvic and humic acids move electrons through the respiratory chain and clear toxins blocking the pathway. Marine algae delivers seventy-two trace minerals so enzymes can function.

Six problems. Addressed simultaneously.

What Happens When Your Cells Get What They Need

That client? Three weeks in she noticed a shift, though she said she felt it with just one dose. She started making weekend plans again. She woke up wanting to get out of bed. Her mind felt sharper. One morning she caught herself humming while cooking—something that hadn’t happened in years.

But the change that mattered most to me wasn’t just the increased energy. She felt like herself again. She could hear her body. The connection came back.

I think that’s what we all really want when we say we want more energy. We want to come home to ourselves.

You cannot get there throwing one supplement at a time at a five-layer problem. You get there by giving your cells bioavailable oxygen, gut repair, electrical charge, mitochondrial fuel, antioxidant protection, electron transport support, and trace mineral cofactors together, to get this level of results.

If you’ve tried everything and nothing has worked over the long haul, the problem was never you. The problem was addressing one facet of support, when your body needs all six.

HydrOxygen is where I tell people to start.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” — Mary Oliver

The Checklist Life

There is a blessing that comes with getting older: the recognition that living a checklist life is empty and meaningless if we don’t have context for why we do what we do.

Got to the gym. Check. Ate the right meal. Check. Took the supplements. Check.

But what’s missing in all of that checking off? There’s something about who we are—our values, what really matters most to us—that gets lost when wellness becomes merely transactional. It can’t simply be about looking good. It has to be about something deeper.

Over two thousand years ago, Aristotle named this deeper aim: eudaimonia—often translated as happiness, but more accurately understood as human flourishing. He defined it as “an activity of soul in accordance with virtue in a complete life.”

Notice: it’s not a state to achieve or a box to check. It’s an ongoing activity of the whole person—mind, body, and spirit—aligned with our deepest values, practiced over a lifetime.

When Success Becomes Violence

Wayne Muller, in his book Sabbath, writes something that stopped me in my tracks:

“A ‘successful’ life has become a violent enterprise.”

He describes how we have lost the essential rhythm between work and rest—a rhythm that exists in the heartbeat pausing between each life-giving beat, in the lungs resting between exhale and inhale, in the seasons quieting from summer’s growth into winter’s necessary dormancy.

“Because we do not rest,” Muller writes, “we lose our way. We miss the compass points that would show us where to go, we bypass the nourishment that would give us succor. We miss the quiet that would give us wisdom.”

This is where the wellness industry often fails us. It feeds us more: more programs, more protocols, more optimization, more retreats promising answers. But in the relentless pursuit of wellness, we can become unwell. We look everywhere but within.

The Perfect Diet Paradox

Consider the wellness world’s obsession with diet. From raw vegan to paleo to carnivore to highly specialized elimination diets—people don’t know what to eat anymore. The confusion has become madness.

But let’s say someone does master one of these dietary approaches. They’re eating perfectly, making fresh juices, crafting the ideal smoothie. And yet they carry unresolved trauma in their body. They harbor angry thoughts. They spread venom into the world from wounds that have never healed.

What good is the perfect diet if we are spiritually fractured?

This is the deeper question. When we are disconnected from ourselves, how can we access that sacred space Viktor Frankl wrote about in Man’s Search for Meaning—named one of the ten most influential books in America by the Library of Congress, with over sixteen million copies sold? From his experience surviving Nazi concentration camps, he observed: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

But how can we feel into that space—how can we connect to our own inner wisdom—if we’re still caught up in perfecting what the world says is right for us versus what we know is right for us? When we’re constantly chasing the next protocol, the perfect diet, the right supplements, we miss the quiet voice within. We’re so busy following external authorities that we can’t hear our own inner guidance.

Mind, body, and spirit are not separate areas of life we optimize independently. They are one integrated whole. And the integration point—the place where they meet—is in that space Frankl described. This is what I call the sweet spot: the space where we stop reacting to what others tell us we need and start responding from our own inner knowing.

How It All Connects

The science bears this out in ways that are both humbling and hopeful.

Environmental toxins—glyphosate in our food supply, heavy metals in our soils, mycotoxins in water-damaged buildings—damage the gut lining. This creates permeability that allows inflammatory molecules into the bloodstream. These travel to the brain via the vagus nerve, affecting mood, cognition, and our capacity for spiritual connection. The liver becomes overwhelmed trying to process what doesn’t belong, impacting hormone production and detoxification pathways.

Meanwhile, chronic stress from this physical dysfunction dysregulates the HPA axis—the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system that governs our stress response. Stress hormones further damage the gut, creating a vicious cycle.

But here’s what fascinates me most: when we heal our relationship with ourselves—when we learn to trust our inner wisdom rather than constantly seeking external answers—we begin to break this cycle. The nervous system calms. The stress response normalizes. The body’s innate healing intelligence can finally do its work.

Removing What Doesn’t Belong

There’s a story about Michelangelo and the statue of David. When asked how he created such a masterpiece, he reportedly said that David was always there inside the block of marble. All he had to do was remove what didn’t belong so that this perfect being could emerge.

This, to me, is quintessential to my work, to my life, the idea of wellness and human flourishing. We don’t need to add more. We need to chip away what obscures our natural radiance.

Human flourishing is what happens when we remove what gets in our way of being healthy and happy—the toxins, yes, but also the limiting beliefs, the trauma patterns, the endless seeking outside ourselves for answers that can only be found within.

Learning to Hear the Inner Ding

I spent years studying with teachers who claimed authoritative knowledge on healthy living. What I eventually realized was that their positions were predicated on their life experiences—not mine, and not yours.

Michael Singer’s work changed something fundamental in me. He wrote The Untethered Soul while the federal government was indicting him—and through that crucible, he never flinched. He had already mastered the understanding that we are not our thoughts. Through meditation and surrender, he overcame the mental chaos that most of us believe is simply who we are.

When I learned that I am not my thoughts, really learned, I began to hear something else—what I call the inner ding. That subtle knowing in the body that says yes or no. This is what’s best for you. This isn’t.

The more I cultivated a relationship with my inner guidance, the stronger it became—like going to the gym, but for intuition. Standing in the kitchen with all the ingredients to make the “perfect” smoothie, but feeling the body say: actually, not today. Learning to honor that.

You cannot hear your own inner wisdom if you’re constantly moving in the world looking for answers from other people. There’s a reason all world religions and mystics speak of being in this world but not of it. The time alone—the sabbath rest that Muller describes—is when we start to hear our own inner teacher guiding us.

What I Would Tell My Younger Self

If I could speak to my younger self, I would say: You are radiant. You were always gorgeous, just as you are. Go within. You and only you know what’s best for you…

Yes, experience life. Read and learn and study from those who resonate with you—but only to help you know better who you are, what you love, what matters most to you. Because all those teachers out there, the many who say they’ve got your answers? They teach answers to those questions based on their life experiences. Not yours.

You have one wild and precious life. Pursue happiness—not a checklist life, but genuine flourishing. Yes, cultivate healthy habits, because if we’re distracted by chronic illness and symptoms, we cannot live our most fully expressed life. But never forget that the goal is not the habits themselves. The goal is the radiant being those habits are meant to serve.

The Holistic Path

Mind, body, and spirit are not three separate projects. They are one integrated whole, and changes in one area inevitably affect the others. Emotional stress creates physical tension. Poor physical health clouds mental clarity. Spiritual disconnection leaves us grasping at quick fixes that never satisfy.

The holistic path addresses root causes rather than symptoms. It asks not “how do I fix this problem?” but “what is this problem trying to tell me?”

Aristotle reminded us that “one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a person blessed and happy.” This is a lifetime practice. The inner ding grows stronger. The noise quiets. The marble falls away.

And what emerges is what was always there: your radiant, flourishing self—living well, in harmony with your deepest values, fully expressed in your one wild and precious life.

“Everything that we choose, we choose for the sake of something else—except happiness, which is an end.” — Aristotle