Choosing Sickness with so Much Left to Give

Today I didn’t have a panic attack after my morning coffee.  My heart isn’t racing.  There’s no longer an elephant sitting on my chest.  And that weird feeling like I was going to die is gone.

For the first time in months, I can finally breathe free again.

After 5 months of researching Leaky Gut, studying textbooks, interviewing doctors, shooting 9 hours of video, and writing over 100,000 words…

Our massive new project called “Solving Leaky Gut” is done!

And now it’s time to celebrate!

At 8:00 pm EST tonight (3/3), Jordan and I are doing a free live webinar with our friend Leanne called Healing Leaky Gut and we’re going to share some of the best new leaky gut tips we learned while creating this program.

Most of all we’re going to laugh, breathe, and smile tonight.  Hope you can join us for some fun!

Click to Sign Up For the Leaky Gut Webinar Tonight

This Project Almost Killed Us (because we let it)

For the past 2 months I felt like I was Atlas, putting the world and it’s health on my shoulders.  Balancing it as best I could but slumping under the weight.

I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t digest anything and I had 2 panic attacks in the same day.

We were in the middle of a really big mistake.  One that I want to honestly share with you in hopes that you won’t make the same mistake we did.

If you’ve seen us in the last 2 months you know we haven’t been living in integrity with our message.  During this time, our personal health has taken a major downturn.

Last week, my brain, stomach and nervous system were actually throwing me in bed.  I had heartburn all week.  No amount of diet tweaks worked.  I started taking Betaine HCL and digestive enzymes again, hoping I wouldn’t have to lie awake with burning in my throat all week.  They didn’t help.

When I meet people they often ask us how we’re able to do all the things we do at SCD Lifestyle.  Well, in the past 2-3 months I’ll be honest: we’ve done it in a very unhealthy way.

I stopped meditating and working out in the morning.  Instead I’d just wake up and start working all day long.  I stopped cooking as much and started eating lots of nuts, dark chocolate and Chipotle.  I stopped laughing and unplugging.  Instead I thought about this project day and night.  It’s all I talked about.

I started drinking coffee, lots of coffee, sunup till sundown.

There were some days in the last few months I literally thought I was going to die.  I know it sounds weird unless you’ve had that experience.

But the funny thing is: we chose to do this to ourselves.  Sure, there’s a reason… an excuse actually.

There is a reason for every action.  Otherwise we wouldn’t choose it.

Flushing 5 years of health down the toilet

When we wrote our book in 2009, we decided to make part of the tagline be “Health is a Choice.”  It was an easy choice for us.  I don’t think we fully understood just how hard it can be to choose it, though.

In the last 2 months, we flushed 5 years of choosing health away.

The formula was pretty simple and it goes like this: eat like crap, don’t sleep, do something super stressful, work all the time, and don’t have fun.  It’s a proven way to quickly reverse your health in 60-days or less.

We stopped choosing health each day.

But why? Why would we stop choosing health?

It’s a slippery slope.  It started with some massive commitments, and then some due dates.  One long weekend when we secretly rebuilt our website because it was hacked.  Then a long workweek, no sleep, and then pretty soon we looked up and it had been two months of this pattern.

It seemed like an exciting and bold idea; help 20,000 people overcome leaky gut with our new product.  Next thing I knew I was hoisting the world up on my shoulders.  At first it was fun and exciting.  But then the problems of making a project this size happen started popping up.  And instead of asking for more help or pushing back deadlines we chose to keep trying to hold the world up by ourselves.

Then, the regular things I was supposed to do stopped getting done.  And the weight of the world dropped me to my knees.  Finally, 2 weeks ago it started to feel like the world was standing on my chest.

In the moment, it seemed like it was okay to let our health slip.  After all we were going to help so many people.  It was just going to be a short sacrifice for us, one that we could handle to help so many.  But, the reality is we were sacrificing our short-term and long-term health.

What You Could Learn From This…

Honestly, we are both embarrassed.  We’re embarrassed and unhappy with what we’ve done to our health.  We’re embarrassed that we’ve had to abuse coffee and food as we’ve tried to keep working and going when our bodies were screaming to get some rest.

We’re embarrassed that we haven’t delivered on some promises.  We feel like we’ve let many of you down by not being available.

It’s been a heck of a start to the year.  One day, we’re making a massive difference in the world, the next we’re not so sure if we should check into a hospital.

The one thing I hope you can gain from our mistake is that your health must come first.  As the airlines say…

“Put the Oxygen Mask On Yourself First, Before Helping Others.”

It’s such a simple concept.  But, most people swear they’d help a child next to them first.  Which is not choosing health.

Choosing health first is a commitment to love and honor yourself.  You’re worthy of both just by being alive and reading this.  Begin to believe if you don’t.

For awhile, I thought it was selfish.  I thought it was selfish to breathe, read, workout, play for a couple hours a day with such a big project and so many people counting on me.  The reality is quite the opposite.

It’s selfish to say YES when the real answer needs to be, “NO I can’t do anymore right now.  No, I can’t help right now or do anymore work today.”

A couple days of not choosing health and you’ll blink and end up with bad health.

You’ll be in need of all the love, attention and resources of those around you without an ability to give back to them.  The equal exchange we all desperately want to provide to make sure we aren’t selfish becomes impossible when we don’t choose health.  We’re so grateful for those people who pour into us when we need it.

Jordan and I got a really good reminder of this.  We ended up needing lots of people pouring into our lives without an ability to do anything but say thank you.

Choose you and your health first every day.  Otherwise, the time will come when you can’t pour energy and resources into the people and things you love.

Without your health secured, you won’t be able to help the child next to you.

So Let’s Celebrate Health Tonight and Talk About Leaky Gut

It feels so much easier to breathe today.  It feels scary to send this to you, but it’s part of the process; it’s part of working through it.  Doing it.  Here’s a sneak peak of the NEW Solving Leaky Gut Product…

Tonight, if you want the scoop on healing leaky gut and the new product, you should attend the free webinar.  You’ll probably hear us laugh like kids again.

The product and the webinar are the culmination of 5 months of our work, an entire leaky gut research team, and some incredible Doctors that mentored us.  The Solving Leaky Gut program is filled with innovations, like the 60-question interactive leaky gut quiz and how hormones and detoxification play a role.

We are super proud.

We are breathing easier.  My gut is happy and quiet again.  And I feel my body responding to my choosing of health again.

I no longer feel like Atlas or like I’m swimming upstream.

It feels more like I’m laying on the bank of the river of life just breathing and happy to rest.

It’s going to be a fun week.

-Steve

P.S. – A Special Thanks To…

There are a lot of people who’ve worked night and day for the last week to help us get the “Solving Leaky Gut” Program done on time.  And there are many others who stepped in and supported us as we were falling apart.  We owe a massive thanks to the following people.  Katy, Elise, Keith, Mike, Bobby, Rachel, Brent, Carrie, Jason, Ian, Dr. Tom O’ Bryan, Karen, Michelle, Christine, Shannon, Amanda, Lori, Rae, Baris, Cavin, Tiffany, Dr. Allison Siebecker, Leanne Ely, Sally, Jayson, Debbie, Gary, Katherine, Ashley, Allana, Nick, Janelle and others I’ve forgotten (sorry brain is half dead).

We can’t thank you enough for helping us through this time period.  Without you, this new project would have never happened.

We’re so grateful for your help and support.