Holistic Life Navigation

Are you waking up at night feeling panicked or with a dry mouth? Discover how nighttime disturbances might be linked to glucose spikes and adrenaline surges. Learn practical strategies for maintaining stable blood sugar levels to improve your sleep. The discussion also highlights the power of community and nutrition in holistic healing, emphasizing how food choices affect emotional wellness. Dive into transformative retreats that foster mental and physical well-being in a nurturing environment!

Sitting in Costa Rica, by driftwood and the sea, Luis contemplates the mysteries of nutrition. Having studied the dense and "boring" side of nutrition, his fear of being wrong was triggered when he was called out on social media. This experience prompted his beach-side musings on efficient and non-efficient proteins, how individuals process carbohydrates, and his historic obsession with being right. Do we eat to suppress and comfort, or to feel, recover, and nourish? We can turn to nutrition text books for facts to find out, but there is also the indigenous research of tuning in to the wisdom of the body. Our body can help us decipher the wisdom of our cravings. When we are under stress, and likely to have cravings, our bodies need protein to turn amino acids into neurotransmitters that help balance our mental health.  Luis had a stressful double day and he craved a big fat salty chocolate chip cookie... tune in to see where the wisdom of the craving took him. Register here for the upcoming August 9th webinar, "Supporting Boys Through Puberty: Navigating P*rnography, Hormones & Isolation". Join Luis for a three-day in-person workshop connecting whole foods nutrition, somatic wisdom, and stress recovery at Kripalu. You can read more about, and register, here. Sign up for our 6-month Embodied Relationships group, beginning in October: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/relationship-group----You can learn more on the website: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/ Learn more about the self-led course here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/self-led-new Join the waitlist to pre-order Luis' book here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/the-book You can follow Luis on Instagram @holistic.life.navigationQuestions? You can email us at info@holisticlifenavigation.com

Ever feel anxious, panicked, or  like a "floating head" detached from your body? When in these states we can lose our instinct to tend to our body. For example, we might not realize we need to eat, pee, or take a deeper breath. Maybe you need a pillow, one of Luis' favorite strategies for being with stress and trauma.  The humble, and often accessible, pillow technique is explained, as is the back up for when you don't have access to a pillow. Using a pillow can help stimulate the parasympathetic response and bring blood flow back into the body, resourcing the body, and perhaps allowing us to respond from a more resourced place. Remember, it's a practice.Listen to the episode about postprandial blood flow here:https://www.buzzsprout.com/278649/episodes/16437452Register here for the upcoming August 9th webinar, "Supporting Boys Through Puberty: Navigating P*rnography, Hormones & Isolation". Sign up for our 6-month Embodied Relationships group, beginning in October: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/relationship-group----You can learn more on the website: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/ Learn more about the self-led course here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/self-led-new Join the waitlist to pre-order Luis' book here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/the-book You can follow Luis on Instagram @holistic.life.navigationQuestions? You can email us at info@holisticlifenavigation.com

Luis reads us a chapter of his upcoming book "Food Therapy" (2026). In it he discusses how eating is relational. Our body receives the being of a plant or animal and digests it, breaking it down into chemicals that relate to our bodies' chemicals. In this unconscious alchemy food becomes our bodies. We often use this shift to change our chemistry and avoid feeling. Luis worked with three wives, all who said if they gave up chocolate they would get divorced. They helped him realize that food can be broken down into three categories: depressants, stimulants, and balancers. Understanding these categories became Luis' compass, what he calls the Quiet Diet, used to navigate his own recovery from binge eating. When we embody how foods affect us we become a conscious alchemist, sober to how we actually feel. Food is a potent medicine that can shift our inner ecology and build our capacity to heal from stress and trauma. Have you noticed, how does your body relate to food?  Register here for the upcoming August 9th webinar, "Supporting Boys Through Puberty: Navigating P*rnography, Hormones & Isolation". Sign up for our 6-month Embodied Relationships group, beginning in October: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/relationship-group----You can learn more on the website: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/ Learn more about the self-led course here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/self-led-new Join the waitlist to pre-order Luis' book here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/the-book You can follow Luis on Instagram @holistic.life.navigationQuestions? You can email us at info@holisticlifenavigation.com

Large amounts of refined foods have the power to elicit big hormonal responses in our bodies. If we have a subconscious desire to shape shift to a new state, we often go to food to make that change for us. Depressed? We might reach for foods that make us feel more alive. Wound up and anxious at the end of a long day? We might reach for foods that depress us enough to fall asleep. What we eat, and how much of it we eat, has the potential to release opioids, serotonin and dopamine into our system, facilitating that shift for us. It is the state the food puts us in that we are addicted to, not the food itself. Luis asks, what need is the food meeting and what is the state change I am after? He offers a practice around binge eating to help us relate to our animal bodies and start to release shame. Join Luis and explore how we can relate to ourselves in ways other than with food. Register here for the upcoming August 9th webinar, "Supporting Boys Through Puberty: Navigating P*rnography, Hormones & Isolation". Sign up for our 6-month Embodied Relationships group, beginning in October: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/relationship-group----You can learn more on the website: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/ Learn more about the self-led course here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/self-led-new Join the waitlist to pre-order Luis' book here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/the-book You can follow Luis on Instagram @holistic.life.navigationQuestions? You can email us at info@holisticlifenavigation.com

Camille and Luis enjoy a playful conversation about the trendiness of terms including DEI, decolonization, woke-ness, Queer, witch, and liberal. Trends are cut off from the deep rooted culture of the thing itself, and therefore come and go. Luis reveals how the appropriation of these words into trends feels in his body and why.They discuss intent and impact before conversation flows to decolonizing versus re-indigenizing. A question forms, are we dominating or relating to our body, the land, and others? True healing, whether in the DEI or decolonizing realms, takes time and space to go deeper and root. The speedy passing of trends does not allow for this rooted healing to occur. Discussion includes exploring inclusion as holding space for each person to have their own opinions, knowing we will not all agree. Consensus and rules, or mandates, do not equate to inclusion. They acknowledge the roots of the term Liberal as "Big Tent", as an inclusive place that holds many perspectives.Essentially, is something a dissociative trend, or is it culture, deeply rooted and healing? Register here for the upcoming August 9th webinar, "Supporting Boys Through Puberty: Navigating P*rnography, Hormones & Isolation". Join Luis for a three-day in-person workshop connecting whole foods nutrition, somatic wisdom, and stress recovery at Kripalu. You can read more about, and register, here. Sign up for our 6-month Embodied Relationships group, beginning in October: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/relationship-group----You can learn more on the website: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/ Learn more about the self-led course here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/self-led-new Join the waitlist to pre-order Luis' book here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/the-book You can follow Luis on Instagram @holistic.life.navigationQuestions? You can email us at info@holisticlifenavigation.com

Are beans an anti-nutrient due to their phytic acid content, or are they a superfood? Come investigate what is really behind the phytic acid scare around beans. How much phytic acid IS in a 1/2 cup serving of cooked beans anyhow? Luis does the math and gives us tips on how to reduce phytic acid, why it's worth the trouble, and how a little bit can be a benefit to our health. Beans contain protein, fiber, minerals, and vitamins, and can help detoxify the gut. Learn how this pre-biotic powerhouse affects toxins, stress metabolites, cholesterol, and blood glucose levels.  Luis also offers suggestions on how to titrate this sustainable superfood into your every day diet. Register here for the upcoming August 9th webinar, "Supporting Boys Through Puberty: Navigating P*rnography, Hormones & Isolation". Sign up for our 6-month Embodied Relationships group, beginning in October: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/relationship-group----You can learn more on the website: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/ Learn more about the self-led course here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/self-led-new Join the waitlist to pre-order Luis' book here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/the-book You can follow Luis on Instagram @holistic.life.navigationQuestions? You can email us at info@holisticlifenavigation.com

Ownership is the question explored in this epic podcast where Luis interviews Unique Hammond, Zeena Ismail, and Hadar Cohen to share their distinctive perspectives of being forced out of their home/land. The inspiration for the podcast arose from the ashes of the LA wildfire where Unique's home was burnt to the ground as nature evicted her.  Forced from their homelands, Zeena Ismail is a Palestinian living in Jordan and Hadar Cohen is a Arab Jew living in the United States. Luis' queries if it is more painful when nature takes your home, compared to your home being taken by humans and war? All were forced to leave their homes, and there is a wisdom in their leaving. Unique notes that when you fight with reality, reality wins 100% of the time. Indeed, we may leave our land, but the land is carried in our bones, and never leaves us. Zeena shares her experience of learning to belong to a new land and welcoming it's wisdom. As the author Robin Wall Kimmerer says, she became indigenous to (a new) place. The added layer of identity is weighed. Identity, as Hadar sees it, is just a lens, not eyesight itself. Can we release the bind and binary of identity? Ultimately we can claim, colonize, and extract from a place, or we can belong to a place. As Hadar asks, if you belong to the land why do you need to control it? Would there even be war if we did not have ownership? A universal question emerges, do we grasp at what was, or can we allow transformation to occur? You can visit Unique Hammond's website here: https://www.youregreat.com/You can visit Zeena Ismail's website here: https://www.zeenaismail.com/You can visit Hadar Cohen's websites here: https://www.hadarcohen.me/ www.malchut.oneRegister here for the upcoming August 9th webinar, "Supporting Boys Through Puberty: Navigating P*rnography, Hormones & Isolation". Join Luis for a three-day in-person workshop connecting whole foods nutrition, somatic wisdom, and stress recovery at Kripalu. You can read more about, and register, here. Sign up for our 6-month Embodied Relationships group, beginning in October: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/relationship-group----You can learn more on the website: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/ Learn more about the self-led course here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/self-led-new Join the waitlist to pre-order Luis' book here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/the-book You can follow Luis on Instagram @holistic.life.navigationQuestions? You can email us at info@holisticlifenavigation.com

"As of today it will henceforth be official policy of the United States Government that there are only two genders, male and female." - Donald TrumpLuis explores how this policy effects transgender, transsexual, non-binary and intersex folks. He discusses the fluidity of gender,  whereas sex is biology assigned at birth. Luis reads this policy as a statement of two sexes, which Nature assigns.  A lot of confusion enters the discussion at large when sex and gender are confused for each other.  Gender is flowing and we choose how we identify. He notes that there has been a movement to make the fringe trendy and commodify it, but in so doing the deep culture of the fringe is lost. Have a listen and tell us how you feel about this new policy, and lets discuss it in the comments below. [Bonus Episode] Navigating DysphoriaRegister here for the upcoming August 9th webinar, "Supporting Boys Through Puberty: Navigating P*rnography, Hormones & Isolation". Sign up for our 6-month Embodied Relationships group, beginning in October: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/relationship-group----You can learn more on the website: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/ Learn more about the self-led course here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/self-led-new Join the waitlist to pre-order Luis' book here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/the-book You can follow Luis on Instagram @holistic.life.navigationQuestions? You can email us at info@holisticlifenavigation.com

Let's explore the often ignored connection between nutrition and trauma. Luis breaks foods down into three categories: stimulants, depressants, and balancers. When we eat sugar there is a spike in blood sugar levels, triggering a spike in insulin, leading to a drop in glucose, resulting in an adrenaline spike. You heard that? Your body is having a stress response, and you haven't even heard today's news yet! You've only eaten breakfast. Luis offers suggestions on how to leverage the balancers to still enjoy the stimulants and depressants. We may not be able to reduce the external stressors, but we can reduce the inner stressors.  Register here for the upcoming August 9th webinar, "Supporting Boys Through Puberty: Navigating P*rnography, Hormones & Isolation". Sign up for our 6-month Embodied Relationships group, beginning in October: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/relationship-group----You can learn more on the website: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/ Learn more about the self-led course here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/self-led-new Join the waitlist to pre-order Luis' book here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/the-book You can follow Luis on Instagram @holistic.life.navigationQuestions? You can email us at info@holisticlifenavigation.com