Every year, around this time, I could almost predict what would happen.
Summer would end. Women would come back from vacations, barbecues, long weekends, dinners out, days at the pool, time with family.
And they’d say, “Okay. I’ve got to get back on track.”
So we’d start a detox. Clean up the food. Move our bodies. Drink more water. Pay attention to what we were putting in our mouths.
And something beautiful would happen. Women felt lighter. Clearer. More energized. More connected to themselves.
After 10 years of this, I started noticing something that had very little to do with food.
The real question wasn’t “What did you eat?”
It was “What made you choose something you already knew didn’t feel good in your body?”
And the answer was often so simple.
Someone else wanted it.
Her husband loved restaurants where it was on everything. Her kids wanted something different. Her family expected it. She didn’t want to make a fuss. She wanted to keep the peace. She didn’t want to be difficult.
So she ate it.
Not because she didn’t know.
Because someone else’s preference had quietly become more important than her own.
I know this pattern because I live it too.
I know cow’s milk, soy, and corn don’t feel good in my body. My body tells me every single time. And when I’m taking care of everyone else, when I’m feeding three kids, and everyone wants something different, those foods sneak right back onto my plate.
Not because I forgot.
Because in that moment, everyone else came first.
That’s where I changed my mind about detoxing.
A detox can show you what feels good in your body. That part works.
The more interesting question is what happens when the detox ends.
If you feel amazing when you take care of yourself, and then slowly slide back into the foods, habits, relationships, and choices that leave you disconnected from yourself...
maybe the problem was never that you didn’t know what to do.
Maybe you stopped choosing yourself.
I remember a client who suspected rice wasn’t working for her body. So we took it out for a while.
She felt noticeably different.
About ten days later, she decided to test it. She ate rice. Afterward, she was so tired she wanted to crawl into bed.
That was useful information. Not because rice is bad. Rice isn’t bad. It was information about her body. Her body gave her an answer.
And there was another layer.
Her husband loved going places where rice came with every meal. And she’d been eating it because it was easier.
Easier than choosing differently. Easier than being the one who wanted something different. Easier than making herself matter.
How many of us do this?
We know what makes us feel good. We know what drains us. We know what we don’t want.
And then someone else’s preference walks into the room, and suddenly our own knowing becomes negotiable.
This was never really about rice.
It’s about people-pleasing. Overgiving. Putting yourself last. Making yourself easier to live with. Choosing peace over truth.
It’s the mom who accommodates everyone. The daughter who doesn’t want to disappoint. The sister who says, “It’s fine.” The woman who says, “It doesn’t really matter.”
It matters to her. And her body knows it.
Sometimes abandoning yourself looks like eating the thing you don’t want because someone else wants it.
Sometimes it looks like saying yes.
Sometimes it looks like staying.
Sometimes it looks like taking care of everyone before you check whether you’re okay.
Sometimes it looks like setting aside your own values because they’re inconvenient.
Fall has always been a season of letting go.
The trees don’t negotiate with their leaves. They don’t apologize for releasing what they’re done with. They don’t hold on because someone might prefer them to look the way they did in July.
They let go.
That’s what I want to explore with you this fall. Not only what’s on your plate. What you’re finally ready to stop doing to yourself.
Sit with these tonight:
Where are you still choosing someone else’s comfort over your own knowing?
Where are you saying yes when your body is saying no?
Where have you made yourself negotiable?
And what might change if, this season, you stopped asking permission to choose yourself?
Maybe this fall isn’t about becoming more disciplined.
Maybe it’s about becoming more honest.
If this one hit home, watch my free class HERE. We’ll go deeper into what your body has been telling you all along.
With love,
Monica