I don’t know about you, but the idea of intuition is really exciting to me–  and always has been.

We all have access to incredible wisdom.. within us? WTF? YES, PLEASE!

When I took myself on my own Fuck It Diet, it started to get easier and easier to really listen to my intuition, not only with food, but with everything else.

So I went on a quest to learn everything I could about intuition, so I could share it with people going on the Fuck It Diet.

What I see over and over again, is that The Fuck It Diet, and becoming more normal and trusting with food, is just the start of a way more intuitive, joyful, and fulfilling life.

Intuition happens in the body. Intuition doesn’t really happen in your head, you have to be grounded and present in your body in order to feel and follow intuition.

You are already accessing intuition. It’s just a matter of paying attention, practice, trusting, and being brave enough to actually follow it.

It’s really … easy. Some of the lessons I teach in the intensive are so simple they seem like they couldn’t possibly be profound. But they are. Intuition isn’t elusive or far away or reserved only for sages or shamans. Everyone is intuitive. And learning to listen is allowed to be really simple.

I want to share some incredibly easy ways to access your intuition, so I made a free little email course. It’s called Intuition for Lazy People. Yep.

 

I’ve been talking about this on social media recently, and I’ve been making it sound a little bit like a joke, but it’s not a joke.

I’m on two years of rest.

Let me explain.

I just realized that for the past 15+ years I have been stressed out of my mind.

I have been ruled by the constant subconscious pressures to get somewhere and the constant subconscious guilt that I wasn’t getting anywhere . Every moment I should be doing something to benefit my career(s), my personal life, my health, and of course, before the Fuck it Diet: to be beautiful and thin and to live forever.

I was an actress for years doing things I didn’t want to do, feeling like I should be doing things I didn’t want to do, guilty out of my mind that I didn’t want to do what I needed to do, and that I wasn’t as successful as I should be, and on and on. I was on stupid dating apps, pretty much hating every moment. I was living in New York and  forcing myself to do improv at bar basements late at night an hour from my apartment. I was always so far from my house and so cold and so tired and so anxious that I wasn’t doing enough or didn’t know all of the things that I was supposed to be doing.

Two years ago, I had a notebook where I wrote all the things that I was trying to put together: The Fuck It Diet + Solo Comedy Shows + Comedy Songs + Writing a Web series + Regular Acting/Broadway + LATE NIGHT IMPROV + MISCELLANEOUS WRITING + PERFORMING + BABYSITTING + COACHING + MAKING MONEY + NOT GOING CRAZY + LOTS OF OTHER BULLSHIT

And I would go cross-eyed trying to figure out how it was all going to fit together.

I would feel guilty every day when I’d stay home to write (what I craved) and not out going to auditions for brooooadddwaayyyyy because I live in New York and I majored in this and I am a good singer and I shoulllld because I am only going to be this young and miserable once and if I poop on my dreams and they never come true I’ll only have myself to blame when I realize I’m a failure and it’s all my fault.

I subconsciously didn’t think I was doing enough or doing life right.

I’ve been constantly exhausted, and constantly just pushing through.

I’ve been trying to juggle every kind of career and squash them all together into some big magical perfect career thing. In a way I’m glad I really tried to reach all my stressful goals, because it made me realize that I want to stop. Forever. Or in the very least, just for two years.

I don’t think my life is harder than yours. It’s not. It’s actually probably easier. Which is why you probably need two years of rest, too.

All of our lives are hard. Especially when we put years and years of miserable subconscious pressure on ourselves and are ruled by elusive, societally dictated “shoulds” that make us feel like we are constantly inadequate and falling short.

That’s what we all have in common: subconscious, miserable, judgmental dialogue, running as a constant open program in the background, telling us for years we aren’t doing it right.

Well it made me tired. It makes us all tired, I think.

I’m tired physically from all the adrenaline, constant social drinking, and worrying. I’m physically tired from the rigemroll I put my body through, and the environmental and genetic stuff I didn’t have the wherewithal or time or rest to heal from.

I’m tired emotionally and mentally from all the anxiety I always had while I believed I wasn’t doing enough, and that I had to make everything work together, and had to make people think I could do it all and that I never, ever failed.

And I am tired existentially, because I have been anxiously thinking I’d end up alone, and it was all my fault. And every year that went by just proved this more and more: I was going to die alone. It was my fault. I should be… doing something about it? But I am tired I just want to chill and think about Game of Thrones.

Well, I’m fucking done.

I’m tired.

I’m tired and I’m not sorry.

And I am going on two years of rest.

FAQ

Why two years, you ask?

Because one year isn’t fucking enough.

Why not 5 years?

It probably will be. But 2 feels like a nice start.

What am I doing about rest? Like how am I applying rest?

I’m letting myself off the hook in every way. I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to accomplish anything I don’t want to. I will say no until the cows come home. I will say no AFTER the cows come home. I will do what I need to do to preserve my fucking life force that I have been bleeding and sacrificing for years.

I will do the things that bring me joy, feed my soul, and everything else, forget it.

I do not have to be anywhere else in two years. I don’t have to get anywhere.

If I am in the exact same place in two years, great.

No pressure. No need for advancement or glory. No nothing.

And when I feel that familiar twinge of pushing or groping for things or worrying that things won’t work out and that I’m doing it all wrong, I pause and remember, Fuck That. 

No really, Fuck That.

Also, I’m on two years of rest.

 

FIVE YEARS LATER:

Five years later I’m editing this to let you know that I have a book coming out (my second book) inspired by my two years of rest! It goes way deeper into my exhaustion, and my rest period, and how you can bring rest into your life too.

It’s called Tired as F*ck and you can pre-order now, and read the beginning for free!

 

I’ve gotten this question a lot.

What is the Fuck It Diet’s take on alcohol???!?!??

Do I need to stop restriction of alcohol?

Is restriction of alcohol making me crave it more?

As you might imagine, this question normally comes from people who feel like they are drinking “too much.” Whatever that means to them.

So here is my honest answer to how the Fuck It Diet works in with Alcohol.

And the answer is probably not going to be as straight forward as you hope.

Alcohol is not food. No matter how many funny memes you read about it being an important food groups. So when I’m asked “are your thoughts on alcohol the same as your thoughts on food?”, I need to be clear that they are not the same beast.

Restriction of food biologically wires you to crave it (for SURVIVAL). Restricting lowers your metabolism and can mess with your health.

Not drinking does not do that. Not drinking, or just drinking less, is arguably good for your health.

Again: not eating, or even trying to eat “perfectly” (whatever that means) is arguably bad for your health.

So we are already comparing apples and oranges.

WHY are we drinking?

Drinking in moderation isn’t the problem. Nobody reaches out to me to ask about drinking if they feel like they drink in healthy moderation.

So the question is why do we drink “too much”? Too much is actually the problem. And too much is something different to different people.

When we drink too much, we are drinking to numb, to help calm ourselves down, to escape the extremity of our emotions, to dull the highs and lows of being alive.

We are using it to escape.

Do I believe in the need for complete alcohol abstinence? That one drop will make you lose control? I don’t. But then again, I am not the person that has struggled for years in and out of rehab. Alcohol never ravaged my life.

I’m talking based on my experience as someone who used to drink significantly more than I do now. My experience may not be applicable to yours. Or maybe it is.

This article sums up my beliefs and understanding of addiction, and corroborates my experience with “food addiction,” too (which is largely a symptom of restriction and low metabolism.)

I am just someone who seems to have healed my relationship to both food and alcohol.

I used to drink way more than I do now. In fact, all through the first few years on the Fuck It Diet I drank a a good amount more. More than is recommended. 7 drinks a week? I remember tallying up my normal about of drinks per week and thinking… “whoops”.

I wanted to be one of those people who could have a glass or two of wine with dinner every night. And maybe sometimes with lunch. I used to joke that I wished I could become a functional alcoholic …Hilarious.

Normally it was just drinks with friends, not crazy parties. And I actually felt like I had a good handle on it. I was normally drinking less than everyone else, and there were times I could feel when my body was “done” with alcohol after 2 or 3 drinks, just like with food. But again, they are different beasts. There, we are leaning more into the intuition side of things here than pure biological signals.

Drinking a good amount worked fine with the Fuck It Diet. I became fully normal with food as a moderate social drinker. I just didn’t worry about it too much. I just focused on becoming normal with food, and roughly listening to my intuition, and working on the emotional side of everything (hellooooo, energy work!).

Recently I’ve cut back on drinking because there is no other way of slicing it: it makes me feel horrible physically. It ruins my entire next day. Even one or two drinks. I have come to accept that some people are better ‘detoxers’ than others, and I just feel like my body is mad at me when I drink.

But I was originally resistant to cutting back. I like the lifestyle. I liked bars. I liked the buzz. I liked the escape.

I liked the escape.

And that’s ok. That’s allowed to be a choice. We are allowed to relax. We don’t have to be ‘on’ all the time. That’s allowed to be a part of how you navigate life.

But once your are using alcohol to consistently escape and numb yourself, it’s not healthy or happy, and that escape can become compulsive.

But it’s not the alcohol that needs to change. It’s not about the alcohol. It’s about what’s underneath. It’s about what you’re escaping.

It’s your willingness or unwillingness to feel. It is all about dealing with the pain and anxiety that is underneath. 

Why are you drinking? What are you not willing to feel? What are you not willing to face?

In my opinion and experience, dealing with those things, however slowly, by going to therapy, journaling, feeling your feelings, “upping tolerance” for feeling your emotions – old and new, awareness, compassion, slowing down, energy work, choosing joy and happiness, making conscious changes to the way you see yourself and taking ownership over your life… that’s a better way to deal with this.

Dealing with the reason you are drinking is the answer.

You can, alternately, cut out alcohol in an attempt to force yourself to deal with what you were using it to avoid.

Without working on what’s underneath, you’ll cut out alcohol and replace that escapism and attempt and numbing-out with something else, only to maybe fall back on alcohol or some other addiction eventually, instead of dealing with what’s really going on.

It’s less about what you’re using, and more about what you’re using it for.

That is why the emotional work underneath the Fuck it Diet is important.

That’s why I do energy work and encourage you to allow yourself to be vulnerable, imperfect, and to feel your emotions.

That’s the overlap with the Fuck it Diet – being willing to deal with what is underneath.

And being kind to yourself.

And eating, obviously.