3 Easy Core-Centered Ways to Instantly Boost Your Mood, Your Confidence, and Your Sex Life

It's no question our culture is saturated with unhealthy messages of what beauty and confidence are: if only we were Hollywood's current idea of bodily perfection or we had a hit record or a million bucks in the bank, we would have something to smile about. Real confidence is a state of mind which is much broader and far more accessible than that, not an exclusive premium for a certain type of person. 

So here we go, just three easy ways to instantly amplify your happy thoughts and your sense of security in who you are. It's only as I was editing this that I realized these are all related to your core (abdominals and back, the root of your strength and self-awareness). Go figure!

1. DROP DOWN AND GIVE ME 10 

I know, exercise isn’t the easiest or sexiest way to start this list, but bear with me. We all know a regular workout is essentially to a healthy life, but it's easy to get intimidated by everything they say you "need" to do to get that "bikini body" and anything less just isn't worth your time. I am a firm believer that every little bit counts (and that a rock-hard bikini bod isn't the goal for everyone).

Quick fix: Sometimes we need a little lift but don’t have the time or desire to get full-on Jillian Michaels with it. I know! Getting down and doing a few push-ups (10-20, depending on your fitness level) and/or some *ab work will give you more energy, flush your skin with a little color, and help clear your mind. It may even stop junk food cravings in its tracks!

*I am a huge fan of core work. Whenever I’m feeling just blah I like to fire up my abs for some zest. Here are a couple of my favorite ab routines from Blogilates.

2. PELVIC-BELLY ORGASMIC ROCKSTAR BREATH 

Now you're paying attention! I've heard it called a few different things, but I don't think this breathing exercise has an official name because it serves, like, every purpose. It's that awesome. This breath is IMO one of the quickest and most powerful things you can do to feel stronger, more in tune, and more confident in your body and mind.

You are probably already familiar with the yogic breath: Take a slow stream of air into the depths of your belly first, and as you exhale, empty the belly last. In the Pelvic-Belly variation, bring your attention to your pelvic floor (your genitals) as you inhale, and as air fills your belly, imagine it filling the space in your pelvis as well. Allow all those root muscles (or “bathroom muscles”) to relax and expand. As you exhale, begin to squeeze back up and in, deep into the core of your contracting belly, and hold it as tight as you can before inhaling and opening again. This can feel a little awkward at first, but just keep practicing it and you will find control in the rhythm.

Quick fix: After just a few of these breaths you may begin to feel more grounded, less anxious, and more decisive. Not to mention conditioning those pelvic muscles increases your sexual energy and range of sensation! Try it. Win at life.

3. STAND UP STRAIGHT 

We've heard it all our lives. But what does that really mean and why is it important? There is more to good posture than meets the eye.

So go ahead, stand up. Notice your posture. Are you standing tall, open, and confident or are you hunched slightly (or a lot), your heart collapsed? How does it feel? How does it look? Adjusting the way you stand and walk has a tremendous effect on the way you see the world and how the world sees you.

Quick fix: Arms at your sides, balance your weight evenly on both feet. Roll your shoulders onto your back (imagine the circular rotation of your shoulder is a clock; if your shoulders fall forward at sort of a 9:00 position, crank them up over the 12:00 and back to a 3:00). Relax your arms away from your neck; your chest opens, your spine straightens.

Not done yet! Now notice your hips. If they’re tilted way back, you’ll see your spine is overextended, jutting your belly out, and your chest and butt are basically poppin’ it like it’s hot (which is really about as hot as a lopsided duck). Engage your lower abs as you scoop your pelvis under and forward so your spine flows more evenly into your hips. Hey, look! Your abs are even looking flatter! You should feel stable here; this is the foundation from which you can elongate and truly express your spine. This is the dancer and model look.

When you train yourself to start standing and walking like this more often, I guarantee your perspective will change. I used to be shy and lacking in confidence, hunching my shoulders and staring at the ground as I walked. Once I started standing tall, looking forward, my heart open to the world, the world itself began to open its heart to me.

Some people confuse confidence with arrogance. The way I see it, arrogance is just another barrier; confidence is a way of crossing those barriers. When you feel strong and secure in your body and your mind (if only for a day, an hour, a minute!), you are radiating confidence. This is what assures not only yourself but everyone around you that “I’m okay, you’re okay, it’s all okay.” This is a mighty gift to share!

With a regular “confidence practice” you can navigate any situation with comfort and grace (yeah, even sex!). Cultivate it within yourself, and everything around you will be affected.   

Oh, but if all else fails: tequila shots.

And the fet(us) goes on...

So I'm getting into the home stretch here of my gestational period, and I figured you might be interested in what's going on!

I'll be 31 weeks on Monday, and I'm feeling pretty great. I've had an incredible amount of energy lately, my eating habits are surprisingly under control, and I'm getting surreal twinges of superexcitement at the thought of our little one's arrival. It seems like I've been pregnant forever, and it's hard to even imagine him actually being here, outside of me. I've had a couple disturbing dreams about him being born with acne and this really gross yarny-wire-curl across his forehead, oh and in one I gave birth to puppies, but other than that fear doesn't ever really pop up. I'm delightfully present.

As far as food goes, I have yet to have any "weird" cravings you always hear about. Maybe that comes later? Whatever I must have in any given moment is either fruit or vegetable: I've been purchasing cantaloupes for the last couple weeks--I never bought cantaloupe in my life! I never even liked it much! I've been blessed to have picked flawlessly ripe ones at the store though. Yay. If you're wondering how to pick a ripe cantaloupe (cuz I didn't), feel ones that are slightly soft and have a bit of a melon smell. It doesn't matter that the rind is still green, apparently. I made the wonderful decision to get hummus the other day too, which I've been practically drinking the last two days. I'd been wanting a pita roll with hummus and kalamata olives (à la Angeli's in New Orleans), but since I didn't want to buy pita and olives, I went with just the hummus. Joseph's Red Pepper hummus. Party size. Holla. Last night I threw down five huge romaine lettuce leaves, ripped into small pieces, and rolled em up with the hummus, a slice of celery, and sometimes a square of Monterey Jack cheese. OMG worthy. I'd finished off the last few bites of a slice of some crazy flavor cheesecake Allison had brought home for me the other night, but I was feeling kinda icky after it, and the fresh veggie snack alleviated the quease of the sugar and dairy immediately.

I have pretty much the same breakfast every morning (or afternoon): scrambled eggs w/ black pepper and Cajun seasoning on whole grain toast, spread with a layer of peanut butter, sour cream, salsa, and then topped with the eggs. Sometimes a leaf of lettuce. Mike thinks the peanut butter with all that is disgusting, but it's fucking delicious, and I get extra protein and omega-3s (my peanut butter has flaxseeds in it). I might eat a snack a couple hours later, but sometimes I have no appetite again until dinner. When that happens I tend to overdo it at dinner, and I easily get too full which has more severe consequences in pregnancy than it does normally. Now that my uterus is so far up in my belly, if my stomach expands too much it all squeezes together and presses on my lungs and my ribs, which is quite uncomfortable. It's difficult to sit down unless my back is totally straight because there's just no room for everything! And my breathing becomes impaired for an hour or so, which sucks. Overeating is more than just gas and underwear cutting off your circulation when you're pregnant!

But on another note, there's been absolutely no swelling, and really no apparent weight gain in any other part of my body but my belly! To me it's kind of weird looking, like I'm actually holding a basketball under my shirt. But for that I am thankful it will probably be rather easy to get the baby weight off when the time comes. Buuut, I do have two months left to go, and it's around this time that I should be gaining something like a pound a week. Fun.

And then there's the skin and hair. I slather myself with coconut oil every day after my shower, and it's effectively kept my skin from ripping (much). I have a couple unfortunate pink spots, but I am certain those showed up when I ran out of coconut oil for a week and had to use cocoa butter. They say cocoa butter is the anti-stretch mark savior, but I think it just totally screwed me. My hair feels great though! They say prenatal vitamins make your hair and nails really nice, but I wasn't noticing a damn difference until I started doing coconut oil treatments every other day. I comb a big dollop of coco oil into my hair and leave it in for an hour or so. Then I shampoo it out, no conditioner, and voilà, beautiful shiny hair. I've been doing it for about three weeks, and I'm noticing a vast improvement in the quality and texture. My hair was so damaged from way too much Hawaiian sun and generally not caring about it because I thought it was a lost cause. But I have a renewed sense of hope that I can not only have softer hair than ever before, but I can grow more of it too.

I've been keeping up with my exercises a few times a week. I sit typing over the computer all day with my writing, and it fucking kills my back. I desperately need a good professional massage, but until I can afford that, I just stretch it out. I still do Pilates leg exercises and a bit of gentle yoga to get things moving, not to mention all the neverending housework! Other than that I'm not hitting the gym or even powerwalking, but what I do feels good enough. No need to overdo it.

So I guess that's it for now. I'll give you more juicy details as things get more juicy. Love.

Sunday Morning Madness and Stillness

Well, it's a grey Sunday morning, and the Christmas spirit is winding down. So far I have avoided the post-Christmas depression as I've been occupying my mind with my new Ayurveda book and cute clothes. However, I know when my sister Kim gets on her flight back to Florida tomorrow, it will really be over, and then what will I do with myself? Well, I do have this baby still growing in my belly, and at this point it's fun to begin visualizing my birth and other decisions regarding his ultimate well-being. Only three more months!

I woke up to a quiet downstairs apartment around 10:30 and listened in to the noisy upstairs. I'm not allowed up there until this afternoon because today is my baby shower! Mom, Peter, and Kim are hard at work up there preparing for the festivities, All That Is bless 'em! Allison's just peeled herself out of bed and the bathroom to join them shortly. Mike's still sleeping (silly wabbit stays up much too late!), so I took to my crisp new cerulean blue yoga mat and did a few exercises I hadn't done in far too many days. The cat-cow yoga stretch is one of the best for a preggo, and indeed it does feel amazing. I feel it stretch and make room in my belly for the baby as well as strengthen my back and elongate my neck. Yummy tummy. I hear it's great during labor.

I moved on to my old Pilates leg routine, the usual thing: leg raises, bicycles, circles, as well as a little move I made up myself that reeeeally squeezes that saddlebag area. Want me to explain it to you? Great! So you're lying on your side, one hip raised and stacked over the other as with your other leg exercises, and you just pivot that hip up and down. Turn the knee up, knee to the side, squeeze the knee up, gently squeeze to the side, squeeze up, to the side. If my body were an artist's rendition of itself, that hard-to-work outer flank would be sweating, and there'd be some scientific-looking circles sketched around the leg, back and forth. I've experimented with the breathing a little bit with this move, and I usually just breathe normally because the movement is rather quick. Though feel free to play with it, slow it down, and correspond the breath to the movement if you like.

I continued my routine with a series of slow, relaxing breaths (did you read my last post?) and quickly became inspired to research the Lamaze breathing technique. I'd had this perception that Lamaze went hand-in-hand with a medicalized, hospital birth, a breath that wasn't particularly conscious but more so a hopeless attempt to simply ease the pain of labor. I've come to learn that that is not--or was not--the original design behind it. Dr. Ferdinand Lamaze outlined the labor breath specifically for the assistance in natural births, to avoid the need for pain medication. I never really connected with the "hee hee hoo" when I saw it being futilely performed in movies where sweating, writhing, laboring women only attempt it for mere seconds at the comic behest of their anxious (and completely terrified) male partners. The atmosphere is always chaotic, and the mother never gets a snowball's chance in Hell of relaxing and delivering her baby naturally. Well, I need to learn that the media does not ever show an accurate depiction of the pregnancy or birth process, and as a real pregnant woman, I must consciously set aside those misconceptions and take everything from the ground up (a routine hospital birth being the first I shunned!). The rapid "hee hee hoo" is really a conscious method of delivering more oxygen to the blood than your everyday involuntary breath, which reminds me of the Breath of Fire from the Kundalini Yoga practice. When partnered with three other types of relaxing breaths to be employed between contractions, the "hee hee hoo" is apparently quite effective in managing contraction pain. It is not to be mistaken as an attempt to eliminate the pain of childbirth, but rather a method of effectively withstanding the natural pain, which is an all-encompassing rite of passage, and focusing on the most important part of labor, which is relaxation. When you relax, the baby relaxes, and your body delivers him much more easily.

So I don't know if I'm going to seek out a Lamaze class or if I'll simply listen to my body as it happens. I'm not new to breathing exercises, and I understand the power of the breath, so either way I know I'll be just fine. I trust my body will tell me if it could use a "hee hee hoo" or something else.

Oh gawwwd, then my mind wandered on over to circumcision. This is a topic neither Mike nor I had definitely said one way or another we had decided on. In my gut I knew it was not necessary and indeed quite traumatic for the infant. The foreskin does have a biological purpose, including protecting the sensitive head and keeping out infection. But I was also considering the idea that it is such a socially expected aesthetic procedure, and also I'd want him to look like his father (he's cut). But the aesthetic aspect of it was the only reason I could come up with in support of this (disgusting!) custom. I watched two videos of live circumcisions on infants, and I am totally horrified. It's not like on TV (once again, that misleading media) where the doctor (or rabbi) stands over him, snips real quick, and it's done. No, it's over five minutes of terror and screaming with no mollification from either parent. It involves clamps and scissors and scalpels, and at the end the little head of the penis is bloody and exposed in an unnatural way, like a layer of skin has literally been ripped off, and that just ain't right! There are multiple risks to the operation, including infection. Ummmm, no thanks. I hope our son thanks us too when we show him what could have been!

So that's my day so far. Now everybody is upstairs getting ready for the shower, so I'd better get ready and take a shower. I stink!

Much love, y'all