I just got back from Korea and Japan. It had a profound impact on me in a way that going to other places in the world hadn’t.

These two countries have something we in the U.S. are missing: service and respect deeper than anything I’ve ever experienced. And a sense of responsibility to protect safety and harmony in their communities.

What they don’t seem to have is self-referral. It’s all about duty. They’ve collectively decided to rise up together to become “better countries” … at the expense of their own Joy. I saw the extreme pros and cons in this.

We in the West have the capacity to bridge that gap. Because while we may not be great at it, we do care a lot about personal sovereignty. And we are simply, almost genetically, more “rebellious”.

Our frustrations lie in this battle between two forces: self-referral — what we actually want for ourselves, and external-referral — how we think we’re supposed to look doing it. Yes, they can conflict.

When we are self-referred, we access a higher level of service, respect, and ownership. We deliver safety and harmony within ourselves, and thereby in others. And. We experience Joy.

Which can only be accessed when our digestive and nervous systems are strong. Meaning we can process life in real time. We can relax when we need to (not when we think we need to, but when we actually need to). And we can take action when we need to (rather than out of performative urgency or optics).

My publication is called Food as Medicine because food is something we need daily. It’s the gateway to steady energy, clarity of consciousness, and deep sense of safety — what we need in order to do right for ourselves and others.

Coming home, we cannot instantly change a chaotic culture, but we can command our own biology. To build the infrastructure for self-referral right here, the first move is a Reset. Three to five days of simplified eating, not as a diet but as a proof of concept. To show you what’s possible. Three days is enough to see that focus and sustained energy aren’t things you have to chase. They’re what happens when digestion isn’t working overtime.

From there, you leverage this by establishing Rhythm. The Four Anchors set throughout the day give you access to yourself, no matter how busy, no matter where in the world you are. This is where the paid subscription lives. And for women who want witnessing and accountability, the Anchor Circle is there.

The reason this order matters is that people come to me in crisis, in fight-or flight, wanting the practice to save them. It can’t — not from that state. And the moment things feel “good enough,” the practice stops. Until the next crisis.

The anchors aren’t for emergencies. They’re what make emergencies less likely.

These simple daily protocols give you access to your internal powers. Yes, powers. And they are built on over time. To deliver sovereignty. Through self-referral.

True freedom isn’t just doing whatever you want, whenever you want. True freedom is having a nervous system steady enough, and a digestive fire clean enough, to choose your responses rather than react to your environment. It’s the transition from external alignment to internal authority.

Here’s what I want to know from you. Aside from the Four Anchors, what would you like to know more about to become self-referred? To activate your natural healing abilities? To soothe your frayed nervous system?

Cast your vote below, and let's begin building the infrastructure together.

Eat warm. Move well. Come home to yourself.

—Savitree

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My travel to Korea and Japan has had a profound impact on me that I’ve yet to unpack.

Partially because Korea was my birthplace, so I have a special connection to it.
But mostly because of the way the people live. And while I’ve always loved Korean and Japanese food, I had no idea just how connected food was to the way they live.

Korea has a culture that has a name: pali-pali.

It means hurry, hurry. It doesn’t mean to rush everywhere. It means to advance in no time.

When I was born (1968), Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world with per capita GDP at less then $200, putting it below much of sub-Saharan Africa. Now, it sits among the world’s top 15 economies, a global tech giant built in less than a single lifetime.

After freedom from Japan’s occupation, Korea saw what was happening in the West, and they adopted this pali-pali culture to meet it — and beyond. They made it. Not just economically. The world now loves their food, movies, and music.

But the cost was high.
You can’t tell because they’re so well put together, but they’re tired.
They have one of the highest suicide rates in the world. The burden to achieve is so high, they’ve stopped bringing children into the world, driving the fertility rate down to 0.72, the lowest in human history and well below the 2.1 needed to sustain a society.

Both Korea and Japan drink a lot of coffee, like the U.S.
But neither Korea or Japan walk around their streets with lattes in hand.
Nor do they eat walking or driving around.
They sit in cafes, and they eat warm.

In Japan, they have a word for walking while eating or drinking: Aruki-kui. And it’s considered bad manners.
Korea looks at it as a lack of self-regulation or dignity, a sign that your time is completely managing you rather than the other way around.

As densely populated their cities are — Seoul, Busan, Osaka, Tokyo — people aren’t raging. Amid the density, there’s efficiency.

No one is raging over where the frickin line begins and ends — the lines are incredibly clear.

People stand on one side of the escalator so those that want to walk can move through on the other side.

They move through spaces like they’re of one mind.
When one accidentally bumps into another, there’s no raging. They just move on.

They respect space. For meals. And for each others’ stuff.
When I go to other parts of the world, including the U.S., I’m reminded to keep my phone in my zipped-up pocket. Watch for pick-pocketers.

In Korea and Japan, to save a seat at a cafe, I can literally place my purse down on the table and walk away. Stand in line. Go to the bathroom. Even if the table is outside on the corner of busy.

Growing up in Chicago, I was made to believe that the denser the population, the more violent people become. Yet Tokyo, a metropolis of 37 million people, consistently ranks as one of the safest cities on earth, turning the myth of urban chaos completely on its head.

Back home, there’s something else happening. A lack of respect — for space and property. And for each other.

Yes, suicide may be a problem in Korea. But mass shootings aren’t. Pick-pocketing isn’t. There’s no fear of personal attack.

Safety in Japan and Korea is rooted in Wa (harmony) and a deep-seated aversion to Meiwaku (inflicting trouble/shame on others).

Stealing a phone isn’t seen just as a crime against the owner but as a rupture in the safety of the entire space. The social cost of breaking the collective trust is devastating.

Voltaire said, the health of the nation depends on the digestion of the Prime Minister.

I can’t help but make this correlation.

Breakfast begins with the country’s version of miso, rice, fish, and pickled vegetables. Warm. People aren’t shoveling food down and treating their bodies like trash compacters. The rest of the day’s meals is also warm. Soups, more pickled or fermented veggies, nori, fish, meat, rice, green tea.

They make the most incredible sweets. Their ice cream, sweet yams, Monte Blancs, and red bean desserts are to die for. Just sweet enough to be incredibly delicious without feeling like you’re going to sugar crash.

Helped by their infrastructure, which fully supports walking and taking public transportation. You can’t help but get 10-20,000 steps in every day. Even as a local.

The sounds in Japan’s intersections, elevators, and train stations are chosen specifically to calm the nervous system. They’re intentional that way.

Having said all that, I feel lucky to live where I do (because of something we have that I’ll cover in a bit).

And to be able to travel and see other parts of the world. It lets me see what they have right. What we can adopt here. What we can bridge…

1. Neither Korea nor Japan have garbage cans or alleyways with garbage dumpsters. This makes you mindful of the garbage you make. When you make garbage, it’s your personal responsibility, and you carry it with you. — I feel like I’ve been Marie Kondo’d while there. Already leaning minimal, I’ll be working on creating less garbage and minimizing my belongings to keep only what I absolutely love and move the rest on for others to enjoy.

2. Korea and Japan are masters of “scraper” foods: foods that not only nourish the body and are “heart-healthy” but scrape the ama (toxins) that are floating or getting stuck along our arterial walls and flush them through. They sit and eat warm, scraping foods made delicious. — Spurred on by my high cholesterol reading and trip to Korea & Japan, I’m now more obsessed with scraper foods than ever. I hope to share these with you in future posts.

3. They sit to consume. — I know that I’m much less likely to walk around with drink in hand now. Even Ayurveda recommends sitting down to drink; drinking while standing or walking increases Vata, which can increase joint pain and anxiety.

In the U.S. our pali-pali looks different.
It’s a kind of urgency that doesn’t let us sit. Or respect each others space, including our own: we don’t tidy up after ourselves as much as they do (again, think Marie Kondo). We have innovation but lack the respect that translates into kindness (greetings in Korea & Japan is met with a bow).

They say freedom comes with responsibility.
We claim freedom but forget the responsibility.

There’s so much here in Western culture to be proud of: we are more relaxed in general.

Let’s live into that and sit down. Eat warm. Chew. Stop running around like we can’t manage our time. Get more respectful of our own space. And see how that translates into our connection with each other.

One thing I didn’t like seeing in both Korea and Japan is that they are on their phones. Like all the time. Yes, we have that issue in the West too. But not to their extent.

While their trains are impeccably clean, high tech, efficient, on time — and silent (everyone is on their phones so as not to disrupt), ours is trashy. But the first thing I noticed taking the train back home from O’Hare airport (to avoid the horrendous 4pm traffic)? The train cars were full and people were talking to each other, smiling, and making eye contact.

We have an incredible, relaxed capacity for joy and connection in the West that doesn’t exist in the rigid structures of Tokyo or Seoul. But right now we are shouting for our freedom while forgetting the responsibility that keeps that freedom safe. We’ve mastered innovation, but we’ve dropped the micro-protocols of respect that translate into everyday kindness.

Sit down. Make space. Eat warm. Drink coffee sitting down. Respect your time. Claim that space. Stop making garbage. Calm your nervous system amid chaos.

And see how that rolls out into respect for everything else.

—Savitree

Every morning around 9am, we meet our guide for the day in the hotel lobby.

Lunch time has become a huge variable because it can take time to walk through an historic village or Buddhist Temple, and seldom do we want to eat or snack there.

So our food anchor has become breakfast. Something we can count on that’s included with our accommodations.

With this breakfast anchor, desperate decisions aren’t made during the day surrounded by food galore as we walk through food markets and temples villages.

And when I do deviate from my 90-day plan, it’s not out of desperation because I’m “starving.” It’s because it was the right moment for celebration.

Because enjoying matcha ice cream with Larry at the Golden Temple was right.

Not because I couldn’t say no. It wasn’t a failed attempt at staying “clean.” It was a pause. An intentional yes.

And, I had the “scouring” Japanese breakfast following my morning wake-up stack: meditation, arm swinging, and hot water sips to afford me this slack.

But it took me a few days to get there, mentally.

I was so “good” leading up to the trip, it took some self-coaching to remind myself that there were other ways to clog up my arteries: cortisol.

Negotiation is cortisol. The internal can I, should I creates friction. And cortisol acts like biological glue. It cancels out whatever scraping the breakfast did.

Joy is the opposite. The awe of a moment, the ease of connection — these literally open the vessels. The sovereign choice isn’t always the cleanest meal. It’s the one eaten without static.

Can this become a slippery slope? Absolutely. The trick is to know when you’re tricking or being honest with yourself. And paying attention to your body’s feedback loops: the 3pm audit, 9pm scan, and how you wake up.

I do plan on enjoying some ramen while in Japan. And a wagyu cooking class in Tokyo had already been lined up before I got my blood test results.

This doesn’t mean all is lost. It means I won’t be having Wagyu (or meat other than fish) on any other night. Fortunately I love fish, soba noodles, and matcha tea just as much if not more.

But when it’s time for Wagyu, ramen, and matcha ice cream, it will be enjoyed. Unapologetically.

—Savitree

Dispatch from the field: traveling Korea and Japan while navigating my 90-day health experiment.

This is that dispatch.

Left for the airport on Thursday, 8:45am. Connection flight in Tokyo. Checked in at our hotel in Seoul around midnight local time (or ~10am Friday Chicago time).

Total travel time from home to hotel: ~25 hrs

What I ate:

Breakfast before taking off: a mug of Mud/Wtr (a mushroom adaptogen drink) + oatmeal.

Took my hot water thermos, packets of matcha, and walnuts.

Our 12:45pm flight to Tokyo included 3 meals. I pre-ordered the Japanese meal; it was better for my 90-day protocol. Thank god I did — my neighbor across the aisle tried to get the same thing and they had run out, so she had the Western Dining option. She said it wasn’t great.

2pm: Appetizer & entree was served (lunch).

2:45pm: Dessert option of cheese & crackers or ice cream sundae. I asked for just the vanilla ice cream and enjoyed two delicious scoops. It was surprisingly amazing.

The idea was to enjoy my meals and get responsibly satiated so I don’t reach for snacks or feel austere.

I had them top off my thermos with hot water three times during this trip. Twice, I put in matcha.

I meditated for an hour, then slept three hours on this flight.

The “Before Arrival” meal came around 11:40pm (Chicago time).

We’d be landing 2 hrs after this meal, at 3:30pm Tokyo time.

With a 4.5 hr connection to Seoul + 2.5 hr connection flight, we’d get to our hotel close to midnight local time.

I said yes to this meal.

Had the rice, pickled side, miso, and a quarter of the salmon.

We landed at 3:30pm — perfect timing for my 3pm audit: I felt only slightly tired. Relaxed-tired instead of wired-tired. Instead of sitting at the airport waiting for our connection to Seoul, I walked around, moved my body, and stretched. I refrained from staring at my phone the entire time. Then slept a solid hour on the last leg of our flight.

Unexpectedly, they served us a full meal. Didn’t know they did that on a two-hour flight!

It was 9pm Tokyo time. I felt I should have said no to it, but couldn’t refuse the bibimbop. Skipped the egg, bun, and dessert.

On that first night in Seoul, I did my bedtime stack and slept 5 solid hours.

Up at 5:30am. Wake-up stack: Bathroom ritual, hot water sips, stretch, and meditation.

Then walked the neighborhood before breakfast.

First meal at our hotel, 9am: mackerel, soft tofu, rice, ginseng tea, and (not pictured) “scraper” banchan: dark greens, kimchi

It was divine.

Skipped lunch altogether — intentionally. We both needed this intermittent fast.

The next meal would be at 5:30pm with family I hadn’t seen in lifetimes (12-52 years, depending on the member) — three aunts, one uncle, and one cousin.

One aunt ordered for everyone while the rest of us were distracted trying to communicate excitement to each other — they didn’t speak English and my Korean was kindergarten level.

6pm: Everyone was served this tray for dinner. In the pot: rice. On the right: two beef patties that tasted like bulgogi (I had one, it was amazing). Not pictured: mackerel — had the whole thing.

Old photos and gifts were passed around.

Below: I’m the 5-year old held by my aunt at the airport on the day I left Seoul to move to the States. Everyone in this pic were at the dinner.

Afterwards, Larry and I thought we’d partake in the 8pm nightlife…

…but we were wiped out in the best of ways.

My 9pm scan happened at 8:30 — and we both passed out.

My natural wake-up time this morning was at 4:30am. The 14 hour time transition happened without a hitch: my circadian rhythm adapted. And hopefully, meals over time zones proves to be the most challenging part .

— Savitree

You’ve done the research. You know what to do.

And then you face the family.

The kids don’t want the bitter greens.
And you barely want to cook for yourself let alone a different plate for everyone else.

Or, your partner makes the meals, and he’s focusing on heart-healthy foods for you, to be ready at 7:30pm…
when you’re trying to eat scouring foods three hours earlier.

In either of these cases, the negotiation isn’t with your discipline.
It’s with their feelings.
And, your desire to keep the peace.

Food isn’t just something we consume to stay alive.
What, how, and when we eat defines who we are, and we’re attached to our identity.
When one person in the friend or family solar system makes a change, it holds up this very mirror.

Ever tried skipping that glass of wine at a social gathering?
It will make someone uncomfortable. And that makes you uncomfortable.
So you get something that looks like alcohol, or you cradle a glass of the real thing.
For appearances.
Because you don’t want the questions.

The same happens at dinner: Why aren’t you having this?

It’s not just about the food. It’s about the joint vibe.

So feelings bubble up when you break it.
And how we work through them determines follow-through.

They seem to get it. But then “amnesia.”

When you decide to change your diet for health reasons, people do get it.

Intellectually.

And they’re completely supportive about it. Until dinnertime — when the change feels like an affront to the way of life.

If you’re the person who had to explain the change in order to get your health back on track, this can feel like amnesia by the people you’re counting on to support your change.

Questions ensue. Why this? Why not that?
They’ll offer up alternative options that feel more convenient to their vibe.
It can be frustrating. And you don’t want to keep repeating yourself.

Truth?
It’s not amnesia.
It’s more a subconscious protest against the change in the relationship’s gravity.
This isn’t a fault. It’s all simply human.
Change is hard, and it’s met with resistance.

Here’s what solved it —

Read more

Continuation from last week’s essay: The Slack Ran Out

The numbers

As promised, my blood test results: the lipid panel.

Cholesterol: 288

The V trend here is my “tax bill.”
But looking at the current number alone omits important context, which is why I share the three-year trend.

• November 2024 reading: 261
  is the result of my 2.5 year experimentation with keto, an attempt to reverse the unwanted effects of my 2.5 year plant-based experiment. Which coincided with the onset of perimenopause.
  
  What I did: reduced meal portions. Took a Red Yeast Rice (RYR) supplement* to carry me through Thanksgiving and upcoming trips to Bogota/Medellín, San Miguel de Allende, Puerto Vallarta/Zihuatanejo, and then Los Angeles over those 5 months. And, I wasn’t feeling the alarm yet to do much more about it (nor did my doctor sound any alarm).

• April 2025 reading: Less than 5 months later, my total cholesterol dropped from 261 to 207.
  
  What I did: I took RYR for a few more months, then stopped. In November of that year, I decided to experiment with the trending “high protein-nutrient dense” diet to see how it’d support muscle mass and bone density: two things we begin to worry about with age. Increased workout + increased protein (fatty because I dislike the taste of lean protein) = feels great (as with all beginnings). The fact that this diet is socially well supported doesn’t hurt. I didn’t think about dinner timing for this reason.
  It felt good. Until it didn’t.

• My April 2026 numbers reflected this. What I’m doing is below under My 90-Day Protocol.

Triglyceride: 170

This represents how much liquid fat (unused fuel) is in my blood that my HDL couldn’t clean up due to overload (despite increased exercise).

High triglyceride levels (anything over 150) indicate insulin resistance. This is the number most affected by late dinner timing (e.g. being done by 7 to 8pm) along with the keto/high protein experiments.

HDL: 60

This number has been in the 60s (optimal) throughout and represents my “slack”.

While my LDL (194, not shown), is the ‘“trash” currently piled up from my most recent activities, my HDL is the size and efficiency of the “garbage truck fleet”.
At 60, my fleet is large, well-maintained, and ready to work. Meaning, my body has a high capacity for cleanup.
It’s the reason I’m not feeling sick despite the numbers: my system is still actively moving the sludge, even if the volume of sludge (LDL) has temporarily overwhelmed the trucks.

How I got my slack: 21-years of meditation + the four anchors practice. I’ve spent over two decades practicing what scientists call Nervous System Regulation. Chronic stress and high cortisol are HDL killers. By meditating, chanting, and eating a proper lunch (the afternoon mindfulness practice), I’ve protected my liver from the corrosive effects of the stress response. This gave me high baseline resilience.
In my classes, I’ve talked about depositing “money” in your bank account each time you show up for these practices. The HDL is the bank account.

I’m an “Average Risk”: 4.8 thanks to my HDL (buffer). You get this number by dividing total cholesterol by HDL. “High risk” begins once over 5 or 6.

As mentioned in my previous essay, my body was already telling me these numbers were high – in fact screaming at me two months prior, on the flight back from our Mexico indulgence trip: sinuses acting up for the first time in 20 years, constipation, and my natural morning wake-up time slipping from 3:30am to 4:15/4:30.

These body signals weren’t separate complaints. They were the same signal (as the blood tests) – just read through different instruments.

Here’s what these trends tell me: my body responds to change.

*Red Yeast Rice supplement is the TCM version of statin. While still not ideal, it acts more like a “scraper” than a “sledgehammer” (more on this below) working in harmony with the liver’s cleaning “night shift” rather than overriding it entirely.

Why not statin

The liver is responsible for over 500 functions, including hormone synthesis and toxin filtration. Statins shut down the biological factory in the liver that produces cholesterol, a fundamental building block of our structure.

Every single one of our cells has a membrane made largely of cholesterol, keeping the cell walls flexible yet strong. It’s the mother molecule for our hormones, without which we can’t produce estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, or cortisol. And, it insulates our nerves, allowing for the cognitive capacity and decision confidence we so deeply value.

Statins function as an “HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor,” blocking this molecule’s ability to convert into cholesterol. Since produced in the same “factory”, statins also shut down the production of CoQ10, a critical coenzyme for mitochondrial energy production necessary for cell growth & maintenance. Domino effect ensues.

The takeaway: Statins don’t just ask the liver to behave. They occupy the factory. Effectively becoming a “sledgehammer” on the liver.

This is the Viking approach: conquest and intervention.
It works for acute situations. But for someone whose body is sending stage 3–4 signals, the question isn’t whether to silence the signal. It’s whether to answer it.

By relying on statins to manage the numbers, the liver stops maintaining its own metabolic efficiency. It shifts the authority from “internal referral” to an “external” pharmaceutical authority, creating a lifelong co-dependency problem.

I’m not anti-statin. I’m pro-response. There’s a difference, and that difference is sovereignty. Consider the domino effect of the closed factory and, down the line, a kitchen table filled with prescription bottles to take care of each disabled domino.

The missing piece: building vs. scraping foods

Many of you have responded to last Saturday’s essay saying you’ve tried negotiating with your doctors to avoid statin, then surrendered to it because the numbers didn’t move.

There are two reasons why this happens:

1. You eat “heart-healthy.”

2. You’re eating at the same time(s) as usual.

Let’s start with point #1: heart-healthy.

Most people who try to avoid statin follow the building playbook:

• Eat “clean”.

• The numbers don’t move.

• The doctor concludes the body isn’t working the way it should.

Truth? Your body is working the way it should. It just isn’t being scoured.

Here’s what you need to know:

Heart-healthy foods are Building Foods.

They’re clean fuel. The bricks and mortar of the body. Excellent for maintaining health. They include lean poultry, broccoli, carrots, brown rice, lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini, celery, potatoes. But they’re stationary:

• Lean Poultry (Chicken/Turkey): “Neutral Carrier.” It provides protein without the Saturated Fat Tax, BUT lacks the Omega-3 lubrication of salmon.

• Broccoli & Carrots: “Foundational Fiber.” Great for general digestion, BUT lacks the bitter “liver signal” of dandelion or the beta-glucan gel of oats.

• Brown Rice: “Stable Fuel.” A better choice than white flour, BUT it’s a “building” starch rather than a “scouring” one.

• Lettuce, Tomatoes, Zucchini, Celery: “Hydrating Fillers.” Excellent for volume and hydration, BUT they are too “light” to act as a mechanical broom.

• Potatoes (Baked): “Grounding Starch.” A clean fuel source, BUT they provide “bulk” rather than “scour.”

If you have high cholesterol, you don’t need more bricks.
You need a cleaning crew. Foods that scour out the existing debris floating around in your blood vessels. Think kitchen pipes: When there are fats floating around in them, coagulating, it takes scouring.

And with high cholesterol levels, building foods become Accumulators.
Because my 194 LDL and 170 Triglycerides indicate an oversupply, eating building foods (even heart-healthy ones) is like trying to organize a cluttered room by bringing in more high-quality furniture. It doesn’t clean the floor; it just adds to the total density of the room. This isn’t maintenance. It’s further accumulation. The building foods begin to clump with the existing sludge, which led to the sinus venting I experienced on my way back from Mexico.

This is why people get frustrated when they eat “clean” but their numbers don’t move. They’re eating to maintain a body they’re actually trying to scour.

To actively fix the problem, focus on SCRAPING foods.
Dark leafy greens, oatmeal, matcha, radish, miso, kimchi, garlic, ginger, walnuts.

These act as biological detergents that actively scour the pipes.
In Ayurveda, this action is referred to as Lekhana (scraping, thinning, liquefying).

We’ve now moved from basic healthy eating to using Food as Medicine.

Below my signature, you'll find the full scraping reference: the foods, the oils, and why red wine isn't what you think it is.

Next up: point #2

The Arsonist: why timing outweighs exercise

The Viking approach to high cholesterol: work out harder, burn more calories.

While this can help, here’s the downside of this approach: the temptation to overtrain in response to these numbers produces more of the same.

When you overtrain to “outrun” your numbers, those longer, more intense workouts create undue stress on the body causing chronic inflammation and cortisol elevation, which then stimulates the liver to produce more cholesterol.

This “work out harder” approach also doesn’t address when the body is manufacturing cholesterol and why.

The Sage approach: and why timing matters—

Your liver has two shifts (in order of priority):

1. Processing (digestion): a high-energy metabolically “noisy” event that can take hours to complete

2. Cleaning (autophagy): requires a quiet, low-insulin environment to perform cellular “scouring.”

When you eat, Insulin (the factory manager) enters the blood to tell the body to stop scouring and start storing. As long as the manager is there, the night shift cleaning crew can’t start their work.

• If you eat at 7pm, your liver is occupied with breaking down food until well past midnight.
  By the time it finishes, the hormonal window for deep repair (governed by circadian rhythm) is already closing.

• Which means the cleaning shift never starts. Because as long as there’s elevated glucose in the blood from the meal, the pancreas continues to pump out insulin.

• Baseline is reached and the manager goes home when all the fuel from the meal has been successfully moved into the cells or the liver for storage.

Insulin is the switch that tells the liver to manufacture cholesterol, and eating late keeps that switch on all night.

For Building Foods, this can take 5-7 hours.
You can run five miles in the morning and it won’t undo a late dinner.
Because while running vacuum-cleans the glucose from your blood, it doesn’t scour the metabolic sludge that’s already settled in the tissues overnight.

Exercise manages today’s fuel, but only the night shift cleaning crew has the detergent (autophagy) required to clear the existing debt.

Bottom line: the problem isn’t calories. It’s timing.

For Scraping Foods: 2-3 hours.

True story on the power of timing:

Emily (not her real name) shared that she didn’t know she had high cholesterol. It wasn’t high enough for her doctor to tell her. So she went on with her life changing “nothing.”

But she did change something: she decided to start finishing her last meal by 3:30pm. That’s it. Her next meal would be breakfast at 7am.

Her next blood test showed a total cholesterol drop of over 100 points.
Her doctor, of course, asked what changed.

The answer wasn’t food. It was the clock.

My 90-day protocol

1. Reclaim the early dinner: Finish eating by 5pm.
   For dinner, I’m choosing foods that process easily before bedtime: scraping veggies, oatmeal, beans, kitchari.
   Exception: dinners out with friends. Schedule dinner as early as possible. Choose scraping veggies when available + grilled or baked fish.

2. Reintroduce Scraping Foods as my daily go-to.
   In my monk mode era, I had them every single day, and all my numbers were in optimal range. I slowly moved away from them in my Integration era because Building Foods are what’s usually provided when hosts and restaurants are cooking. Lunch is where I’ll add chicken or fish, and where I may add building vegetables to my scraping veggies. But I have the Scrapers first to ensure I don’t fill up on the rest beforehand.

3. Drink wisely:
   - Hot water sips, especially in the morning, to flush everything through my system. As hot as my mouth can take it without burning it.
   - Matcha tea in the afternoon. With hot water, not milk or milk alternative.
   - Warm to hot water (with or without lemon) throughout the day.

4. Maintain the four anchors as instruments:
   - My lunch remains at 11:15 am: warm, on-time, sit-down, and well-chewed for optimal processing.
   - 3pm audit: through my energy and clarity levels, this tells me if my system is working effectively (if I’m making the right choices for my body).
   - 9pm scan: tells me if I’m going to bed still processing or ready to restore.
   - My morning wake-up, the ultimate feedback loop: am I waking up with ease or resistance? Self-referred or externally referred? Just 10 days into my plan, I’m already naturally waking up again at 3:30am, rested and light.

5. Continue to exercise and move my body: Not harder. Just keeping it consistent. Exercise stimulates the muscles to vacuum up glucose from the blood. Overtraining can increase cortisol that leads to higher cholesterol levels.
   My exercise routine:
   - MWF mornings: 30 min treadmill (incline to 9, speed to 3). 10 min stretching.
   - TTh: 22 min full-body workouts with dumbbells. 15 min stretching.
   - Daily: 10 min arm swings after lunch (for the lymphatics), then 20 min walk outdoors (weather permitting).
   - After dinner: naturally moving activities e.g. going up and down the stairs, folding laundry, putting things away, cleaning up. Movement to allow my muscles to take some of the glucose from my blood.

What I’m tracking:

• My energy and general resistance levels as markers for stagnation and flow. Doing this through the four anchors, which sets the rhythm the body needs to deliver the clear signals needed for self-referral.

• My weight. Same time, every day. Weight loss can be an indicator for lower triglyceride levels. It can also tell you what foods process well for you.

• My numbers: taking another blood test in July. And making my primary doctor my partner. In addition to my TCM. Feels good to have a team by my side.

Portable Sovereignty: What’s Coming

Larry and I leave for Korea and Japan at the end of this month. This isn’t an interruption in my plans — it’s the test.

Lucky for me, Japan and Korea happen to be two of the best classrooms in the world for scraping foods. Miso, natto, radish, kimchi, seaweed — the instruments are everywhere.

The question isn’t whether the protocol survives travel. It’s whether sovereignty is portable. I already know the answer, and I’m excited to live it out in the field.

Here’s what to expect from me:

Instead of full essays, I’ll be sending you shorter dispatches, still using the same Saturday + every-other-Wednesday rhythm. I’ll share things, including how I’m navigating the travel itself and how I’m navigating my plan, holiday style — given that I’m a believer of do as the Romans do, and honoring hospitality (seeing family in Korea).

A word of caution:

Do not try this at home. And by that, I mean, if you’re on medication, don’t go off of it to do what I do. Start with the Four Anchors. Establish Rhythm. Read through the 6 stages of disease from my essay: The Body Keeps a Ledger. Remember: I have over two decades of monk-mode practice, food-as-medicine training, and body literacy behind me — deep reserves that gave me a long leash before the body came to collect. What I’ve been building with you here — the warm lunch, the four anchors, rhythm before protocol — that’s the prerequisite. Without literacy of your own body, even the best protocol becomes just another form of external referral.

If this essay resonated, there are a few ways to go deeper.

Start with The Exhaustion Experiment: a three-day proof of concept to see what one protected lunch changes.

Explore the Library, where the frameworks and tools behind the work live.

When you’re ready for the full system and the witnessing that makes it stick, paid membership opens the door.

— Savitree

FOOD AS MEDICINE:

The Scouring Greens

• Dark Leafy Greens (kale, collards, arugula, spinach): High-fiber “brushes” that physically sweep cholesterol out of the digestive tract.

• The “Super-Scourers” (dandelion & rapini): Potent bitters that signal the liver to release stagnant bile and flush the system.

• Parsley: Not just a garnish! It’s a “vascular rinse” that flushes excess sodium and supports the kidneys in filtering the blood.

The Metabolic Detergents

• Radish: A biological “plumber” that breaks up metabolic congestion and clears the pipes.

• Miso: Fermented enzymes that support “Agni” (digestive fire) and help process heavy fats.

• Kimchi: Probiotic “detergents” that break down sugar and support the gut-artery connection.

The Mechanical Scrapers

• Flax Seeds: A mucilaginous broom that binds to waste and ensures a clean, daily elimination.

• Beans & Lentils: Slow-burning fiber anchors that prevent insulin spikes and lipid storage.

• Seaweed: Mineral-rich sponges that bind to toxins and help remove them from the body.

The Vascular Lubricants

• Garlic: A natural vasodilator that prevents “stickiness” on the arterial walls.

• Ginger: A metabolic heater that thins the blood and keeps the “cleaning shift” moving.

• Matcha: A concentrated antioxidant flush that protects heart health and clears mental fog. (use ceremonial grade, not culinary)

• Walnuts: Omega-3 lubricants that “oil” the arterial pipes and lower blood viscosity.

The Arterial Sponge

• Oatmeal (Steel-cut or Rolled): Contains “Beta-Glucan,” a specialized gel that mops up excess lipids and keeps the blood light and clear.
  Oatmeal works if it isn’t buried under large amounts of brown sugar or cream.
  Instead of throwing cold berries on top, cook them in for optimal digestion. If you need more sweet profile, add a tsp of ghee or cook in half a banana. Or drizzle a little bit of honey (but don’t cook). OR, try a savory version: ¾ cup oats, 2 cups chicken bone broth, a handful of dark leafy greens (I like collards), a pinch of salt, black pepper to taste.

I’ve organized this a different way for you:

The “red wine” myth: the resveratrol illusion

• The Reality: to get enough resveratrol to actually “scour” an artery, you would have to drink about 1,000 bottles of wine in one sitting.

• The Triglyceride Tax: for someone with a 170 triglyceride count, red wine is actually “arson.” Alcohol is a refined sugar that the liver immediately converts into triglycerides.

• The Verdict: it doesn’t counteract the meat. It adds a second layer of “dampness” for the liver to process during the night shift.

The oils:

Supporting Bibliography & References

1. The Red Wine “Resveratrol Illusion”

The “1,000 bottles” figure is a clinical benchmark used to illustrate the massive gap between the concentration of resveratrol in wine and the doses used in successful heart-health studies.

• Reference: Baur, J. A., & Sinclair, D. A. (2006). Therapeutic potential of resveratrol: the in vivo evidence. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.

• The Data: Clinical studies showing metabolic benefits typically use 500mg to 2,000mg of resveratrol. A 5oz glass of red wine contains only about 0.2mg to 1.0mg. To achieve a therapeutic dose of 1 gram, a person would need to consume roughly 1,000 liters (or approximately 1,300 bottles) of wine.

2. Oatmeal and the “Beta-Glucan Sponge”

• Reference: Whitehead, A., et al. (2014). Cholesterol-lowering effects of oat β-glucan: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

• The Data: This meta-analysis of 28 trials confirmed that a daily intake of 3 grams of oat beta-glucan (the amount in one large bowl of oatmeal) significantly reduces LDL cholesterol by interfering with the reabsorption of bile acids in the gut.

3. The 4:30 PM Window (Circadian Metabolism)

• Reference: Manoogian, E. N. C., & Panda, S. (2017). Circadian rhythms, time-restricted feeding, and healthy aging. Ageing Research Reviews.

• The Data: Dr. Satchin Panda’s research demonstrates that late-night eating disrupts the liver’s “cleaning shift” (autophagy) and leads to higher triglyceride production. Ending the eating window early allows the liver to switch from “storage” mode to “scouring” mode.

4. Garlic and Vascular Stickiness

• Reference: Ried, K. (2016). Garlic Lowers Blood Pressure in Hypertensive Individuals, Regulates Serum Cholesterol, and Stimulates Immunity. The Journal of Nutrition.

• The Data: This review confirms that aged garlic extract can reduce total cholesterol by 7–29 mg/dL and acts as a “vascular detergent” by increasing nitric oxide production, which prevents plaque from sticking to the arterial walls.

5. Honey as a “Lekhana” (Scraper)

• Reference: Noori, S. Al-Waili. (2004). Natural honey lowers plasma glucose, C-reactive protein, homocysteine, and blood lipids in healthy, diabetic, and hyperlipidemic subjects. Journal of Medicinal Food.

The Data: Clinical trials show that raw honey—unlike refined sugar—can actually reduce total cholesterol and LDL while slightly raising HDL, supporting the Ayurvedic classification of honey as a “scraping” agent for metabolic waste.

The exam room

Last week, my doctor called for a follow-up on my annual bloodwork. She said my numbers were worth a discussion.

I had Larry come with me so that he can hear what’s said first-hand and ask his own questions as a concerned stakeholder. The nurse took my oxygen reading and blood pressure. Larry says he would give anything to have my BP. Then we wait.

My doctor enters, sits in her chair, and says: Your cholesterol and LDL levels are high.

Knowing who she’s taking to, she sits and waits.
Larry and I both anticipate she’ll try to put me on statin.
Many of his friends are on it, so for him, it was a question of which one.
My mom had been on it, and I don’t remember exactly why she stopped taking it, but we know this is the protocol.

Me: How are my estrogen levels? (Because we decided to test this too). I know it can affect cholesterol levels.

Larry: It can??

Doctor: Yes. They’re low.

Larry: They are??

Doctor: Yes. But to be expected post-menopause. Nothing concerning.

Me: What I found more telling than my current numbers are the trends over the last three years. And the trend isn’t a steady incline. It’s a V (albeit the right arm of the V is higher than the left, hence today’s conversation). I know exactly what changed leading up to each of those three points. Which means I can fix this with food and dinner timing. I’d like to test this over the next 90 days and then take another blood test.

Doctor: What do you think about also taking a statin during those 90 days? I’ll order the tests for three months from today, and you can stop taking them if your numbers are down.

Me: No.

Larry: Savitree’s stubborn. And. I have no doubt her numbers will be down in three months.

She agreed and ordered advanced lipid testing to check my LDL type (A is large, buoyant, and generally harmless. B is small, dense, inflammatory, and contributes to plaque buildup) – what I want to see. And, to see if it’s hereditary – what she’s interested in.

I’ve spent months teaching the Four Anchors as the framework for body literacy on Substack. Twenty years teaching body literacy face to face. And here I am today with high cholesterol.

Let me tell you how this happened, and why I’ve decided to share this with you in real time.

The curse of the high baseline

I had a long rope.

21 years of meditation practice, on most days, I was going 60-90 minutes deep.
6 years of cooking sadhana: a daily one-hour morning practice in mindful cooking before the children woke up.

I built deep reserves.

My digestion became strong and forgiving.
My clarity and my energy was my ally.
My Western-trained Ayurvedic doctor said all of my tissues were strong.

As I began to integrate back into a more conventional social life of enjoying dinners out and wine and coffee dates with friends, I noticed that nothing bothered me the way they used to many moons ago. Meat didn’t make me tired. A glass of wine didn’t change my mood. Pizza didn’t bother my sinuses. Walking through the fragrance department didn’t trigger my allergies. And my clarity stayed intact.

I had built an immense buffer. Convenient for people like me who enjoy the sustainability of Sanctuary lifestyle inside a Viking (versus monastic) world filled with Viking friends. This sort of resilience is a gift of instant forgiveness.

It’s also the reason you may not hear the signal until it’s already a number on a chart 17 years after integration. That’s a lot of slack.

But the truth is: I did hear it.

I just didn’t listen. I continued on like a 20-something who doesn’t understand that mortality applies to them yet. The slack made me do it.

The gift in this is something I can offer my future self as well as you:

They say that high cholesterol is a “silent killer” because they present no symptoms while they build up as plaque along the arterial walls. I’m here to say, this is not true.

Nothing is really silent. When you’re listening to your body. Which is why signal literacy is so important.

Alas, we’re quite good at (enthusiastically) shutting that voice down so we can “go on living” the way we’ve always been.

Here were my signs at the tipping point: our annual family trip to Mexico’s best all-inclusive (less than 2 months before the time of this writing).

Every dessert on the menu made it on the table every night we were there. It was a nice resort, and the food was excellent. This was an annual family celebration, and that’s what we were there to do. Who was thinking of restraint? Not a one.

Even in Mexico, my high baseline allowed me to naturally wake up early, poop first thing in the morning, and lead my morning group meditation online before heading off to walk the beach.

While I was enjoying my 10% in Mexico, I realized later that my 90% standard had slowly degraded. I kept feeling fine.

Until the plane ride home.

My sinuses acted up on that flight for the first time in 20 years.
Back home, my bowels got irregular.
My natural 3:30am wake-up slipped to 4:15/4:30. This one’s super easy for most of us to shrug off as a more civilized time to wake up anyway.

In hindsight, I realized something: I didn’t used to worry about being around people who are sick because I was that person who didn’t get sick when everyone else did. But over the last year or two, that worry slowly crept in, and I’d pick up probiotics and supplements to ward them off. So I already knew. My body was already telling me.

The timeline

How I earned my long slack, and how I depleted it:

1. The Lost State (teens to 1997). Foggy, depressed, panic attacks, allergies, sinus issues, throat issues. Despite getting off The Pill in early 1997, missing my period just two months later, and being super tired, I didn’t know I was pregnant for almost the entire first trimester. I had zero body literacy. I was a calorie-counting, gym-loving, disciplined party girl obsessed with body image. A Viking.

2. The Transition (1997 to 2003): I became a mom, and I found yoga. When the teacher instructed us to turn our thighs slightly outward, I had no idea what he was talking about. I had no idea when my shoulders were shrugged. I was falling over trying to hold trikonasana. I was shallow and reverse breathing. After being a gym enthusiast for an entire decade, I was shocked to see how little connection and control I had over my body at a deeper, subtler level. My daughter got sick, and I found a natural foods chef to teach me to cook without wheat, sugar, and dairy. I also realized how little connection and control I had over other things, like people, current events, and my finances. The family ship hit a huge iceberg and sank.

3. Monk Mode (2003–2009). Opened with divorce and complete financial loss, but already introduced to yoga, meditation, and cooking, I entered the Sattvic life: daily morning mindfulness cooking. No TV, no news. I traded in my Mercedes for a $2000 Toyota Camry stick and raised two young children alone through this. At the dismay of my parents (Vikings), I took this opportunity to stress-test the wisdom of the sages (Sanctuaries), and found it held. In fact, it held not just a little bit but remarkably well. This is where I developed strong digestive health, self-trust and authority, and a deep well of reserves, aka a lot of slack.

4. The Integration (2009–2026). Re-entered the world. Dated. Moved into a committed relationship. Traveled. Experimented with how far I could go into the Viking world while protecting my core values. I was willing to accept consequences, trusting I could bounce back if needed. In 2018, I started experimenting with plant-based, keto, and then high-protein/nutrient dense diets. I was curious to know how they would impact my body as I entered perimenopause. I was ready for the good and the bad. I added annual physicals to my wellness checks, including bloodwork.
   The result — two tax bills came due: LEEP in 2020, cholesterol in 2026. That’s 11 and 17 years, respectively, into the integration. Shifting my publication to Food-as-Medicine was to prepare me to get back the sovereignty I had lost in this experiment. I just didn’t know it yet.

5. Sovereign Integration (now). Monk mode tools, Viking-world life. The experiment I’m now sharing with you.

Why the tax bills are gifts

The LEEP (2020) and the cholesterol (2026) weren’t failures of the method I teach. They were the method working. The body kept the ledger. The invoice arrived. The body didn’t get louder than it needed to because the buffer absorbed it.

Nor were they errors.
They were proof. That nothing’s silent when you listen. Akin to being shocked when a relationship “abruptly” ends.
Wisdom through experimentation: this was no longer intellectual knowledge for me. It was cellular.

The tax bills? They were gifts. Knocks on the door to let us know they aren’t in fact silent killers.

Admittedly, the Korean eldest daughter part of me that cared about optics wanted to elicit shame around the numbers and not talk about it. But that’s borrowed. From an outdated, obedient culture.

Here’s the thing about the slack that I had: it wasn’t all gone. I hadn’t lost my self-trust. Just a little bit of timing that said, let’s try it but then forgot to stop until the numbers came in.

I’m about to explore Korea and Japan with Larry at the end of this month. I can’t tell you how many past clients in similar situations would have said to me: I’ll start when I get back.

Which is why doctors hand out statin as the first line of defense.

Not only do I understand the importance of the return rate, I also understand when food is called to become medicine. And I have monk mode muscle memory.

This time, instead of going back to the Monk Mode era, I’m stepping forward into Sovereign Integration. My life looks different now: my children are grown up. I’m in a committed relationship. Together, we enjoy time with our Viking friends. And the act of writing to the world has mostly replaced journaling to myself. So I get to put myself out there this time. Do that kind of scary. And share this 90-day experiment with you.

This upcoming trip to Asia isn’t an interruption. It’s an important part of my sharing. Because we need to see that sovereignty is portable. Otherwise it’s a cage, not a refuge.

And in sharing my numbers with you (soon), I’ll also show you how sovereignty is measurable and logical as well as portable.

The Experiment (what I’m doing and why I’m sharing it)

I’ve written for months as the teacher. Laying down the foundation to upgrade your hardware. Now I’m the subject.

I’m not doing this because the method needs proving.
I’m doing it because you need to see what the method looks like from the inside: in a real life, in a real partnership, and inside a real schedule. Not in a monastery.

I’ll share my numbers next week. Tell you what I’m doing instead of statin over the next 90 days. This includes what I’m already doing that gave me slack and information in the first place, what I’m doing for “medicine,” and why they work. I’ll mention exercise and how I’m learning to bridge the communication gap between Sanctuaries and Vikings. And share my trip to Asia with you.

My hardware is not “broken”. I have my anchors, which gives me slack, intuition, and self-trust. Which means I can run my software to use food as medicine to transform instead of drugs to intervene.

The Anchors

Cholesterol (or any other “silent killers”) isn’t a silent killer when you have the instruments.

This is where the Four Anchors come in.
The warm, sit-down lunch, the 3pm audit, the 9pm scan, and the wake-up stack all work together to give you rhythm, which gives you muscle memory you can access on command, internal points of reference for insanely good information, and a calm nervous system to be able to listen in and trust what you’re experiencing. You’ll cut out the external reference points that, quite literally, gaslight you into a more co-dependent state of mind.

I “ignored” my signals due to the immense amount of slack I earned. The numbers had to tell me what my body was already signaling. But the anchors I held have gifted me access to everything I will ever need in order to ask the right questions, look for the right feedback, and take back my response-ability. And sovereignty.

Quick note here in case you haven’t yet read Wednesday’s essay: I’m not anti-drug or Western medicine. There are specific places where those are amazing gifts, and we need them. But not as much as we use them. Not to take away our response-ability.

A word of caution:

Do not try this at home. And by that, I mean, if you’re on medication, don’t go off of it to do what I do. Start with the Four Anchors. Establish Rhythm. Read through the 6 stages of disease from Wednesday’s essay: The body keeps a ledger. I have over two decades of monk-mode practice, food-as-medicine training, and body literacy behind me. Deep reserves that gave me a long leash before the body came to collect. What I’ve been building with you here — the warm lunch, the four anchors, rhythm before protocol — that’s the prerequisite. Without literacy of your own body, even the best protocol becomes just another form of external referral.

—Savitree

You’re led into the exam room where the nurse takes your vitals and asks a few basic questions. Later, the doctor comes in and gives you not-so-great news. No, you’re not dying yet. But the numbers don’t look good, and to avoid a more invasive action (or premature death), she tells you to take this medicine.

The doctor assures you this happens to the best of us, especially as we get older, offers you some basic cliche diet, exercise, and lifestyle advice, you nod, and ten minutes later, you’re on your way to the pharmacy.

Here’s what she never asks:

What changed in your life that produced this?

Why they don’t ask

My daughter struggled with foot fungus for a good decade, first caught in high school diving, not helped by barefoot practice in the circus arts. She “tried everything.” Desperate, she got her liver tested in her late 20s to make sure she could take this 6-month drug protocol that’s so invasive that they first test for liver health before you can take it, and then continue testing for liver health throughout. After just a couple of weeks, she felt horrible enough to stop. They decided to try a topical cream that her doctors honestly didn’t know if it worked (though they didn’t tell her that just yet).

She had to apply it daily. And it worked.

Her doctors were thrilled, they asked permission to take pictures of her feet for evidence. They admitted they didn’t know if it actually worked because no one had followed their instructions to a tee the way she had. (She said she was desperate)

Doctors care a whole lot. And for that, here’s what they assume: most people won’t change their behaviors.

If we can’t apply cream as per instructions, or remember to take a supplement daily, then how can we be expected to stop gulping down our food and chasing it with ice water or stop compromising sleep for “me time”?

This isn’t cynicism, it’s architecture. And this architecture: medical training, insurance incentives, and appointment windows – are all built around intervention, not transformation. Some people may think this is “evil.” Others will argue you have to meet people where they are.

Which means conventional medicine is built around not denying you your desire to indulge in whatever you want. At least until it’s life or death.

Let the drug do the work, not you.

But here’s what you must know: the prescription is the external referral. Someone else reading your body’s data and handing you the answer.
And it comes with a heavy tax.

Read more

I know what it feels like to be exhausted.

Not tired from a wedding that goes until 11pm, a hospital emergency, the flu, or working through the loss of someone you love.

I mean exhausted. Stressed. Burned out. Nothing really happened other than normal life.

Over the last two decades, I’ve learned to peel off the layers of borrowed urgency.

Now, I start my day with non-negotiables.

Meditation, movement, deep work — all before lunch at 11:15.

My mornings are optimized. Which means I have a strong reference point. Which means any change in quality gives me real data.

So when I’m exhausted, I know where to look.

The symptoms

I’m fighting my mornings. My mind is agitated. My meditations aren’t as deep. My deep work, also not as deep.

The checklist

I’m practicing my four anchors. I’ve protected my non-negotiables. I’m staying hydrated. Everything I do in my day is a conscious yes for me.

I see my TCM monthly for acupuncture and cupping. He asks questions, looks at my tongue, confirms that I’m good. I get my annual bloodwork done. All this since 2020 when I had a cancer scare. I get my spine adjusted monthly to keep potential back and neck problems from inconveniencing my life.

Hardware: check. Healthcare: check. Anchors: check.

So where is it?

The variable

After cooking three meals a day for 24 years, Larry now does more of the cooking for us. He’s gifted me space to write before lunch. His cooking is amazing. I’m very lucky.

Except that I enjoy cooking, and that time has been replaced by writing, which I also enjoy. Equally.

Writing won so I can make this my work.

Here’s the real variable:

I’ve been writing with urgency in mind rather than writing to fully realize my potential. Intention: fast. Consequence: slow. Experience: exhaustion.

Here’s what that looks like:

My 3pm tells on me. I’m exhausted.
But the data isn’t even that slow — it comes right after lunch. By 1pm, instead of walking, I want to nap.

Not from lack of sleep, but from grind.
And I don’t have a to-do list. Nor is my calendar maxed out.

Performance is grind. Urgency (vs promptness) is grind. It’s the slow cut. It looks like efficiency but it’s not. It’s at the expense of your best work, and it grinds down your connective tissue and your connection to others.

The tell

When this happens, I start feeling like I need to get you to believe what I do. So that you’ll give it a try. So your life can become yours. Because I know it can. Because I know what I’m talking about. I just need you to understand it.

Do you see the grind in that paragraph?

This is external referral. It doesn’t always look like a to-do list. Sometimes it’s just the mind, grinding.

So then I think about quitting. Because exhaustion makes us think that way. Why not just enjoy the life I already have? Cook more. Travel more. Exercise more.

Why not? Because I’m called to do this. And I love getting to know people from all over the world. I love collaborating with others whose work matters. I love to write. And I change lives. Including my own.

The fix

I don’t need more sleep. I don’t need a better diet.

I get to do this work for me.

To stop listening to bestsellers that tell me to write with tension, get the hook right, align the funnel, and take my time — they did it “slowly” in three to six months, from zero to 10k.

These things matter. But not so I can get to you. So I can get to me.

Otherwise it’s exhausting.

This is self-referral. The energy that doesn’t burn out but sustains.

Truth?
When I think about taking you all with me, I feel like no one’s paying attention. Nothing’s enough.

When I make my own life amazing, and when I turn work into play, people want to know what I’m doing.

Analytics and funnels? Likes and comments? Sure. But not at the expense of my voice.

Make important things. For you first. Because this is where your gem, your deepest contribution, lives. This is the legacy.

I’ve identified my variable. Easier because my anchors are in place, and I have strong reference points.

I’m writing for myself. And my family (whether or not they read it while I’m alive). And from there, anyone else who cares to have a conversation with me.

If you want to do this together, join me in the Anchor Circle. I’d be honored to witness what you’re working on.

— Savitree

I see you.

You have plans. Real ones.

A book you want to write. A business you’re building.
A creative project that keeps whispering your name.

But when do you work on it?

After everyone’s asleep.
During school pickup while sitting in the car.
On Sunday mornings before the house wakes up.
In the margins of someone else’s schedule.

You’re stealing time.

And by the time you sit down to do the work, the work you actually care about,
you’re already depleted. And you’re thinking of other things that need to get done.

Your body’s been running all day.
Your mind’s been negotiating all day.
By the time you claim 45 minutes for yourself, you’re operating on fumes.

So you open the laptop. You stare at the blank page.
And instead of creating, you’re reorganizing folders. Watching tutorials.
Checking Slack.
Making another cup of coffee.

The dream doesn’t need more time.

It needs you to show up with capacity.

The hardware problem

We join communities, enroll in courses,
hire coaches to help us write the book,
build the business, learn the skill.

These are software upgrades. And they’re good.
They teach you what to do.

But if your hardware is crashing,
if your nervous system is fried, your digestion’s a mess, your afternoons are fog,
and your sleep is wired-tired,
the software can’t run.

You can have the best book-writing framework in the world.
But if you’re working from depletion, you’ll stall.

You can have the clearest business strategy.
But if your body doesn’t trust you to stop, rest, and nourish, you’ll grind.

Truth?

Before you can do meaningful work sustainably, you need an operating system that doesn’t crash under pressure.

That’s the hardware.

And the way you upgrade your hardware isn’t through another course.

It’s through rhythm.

Specifically: the four daily anchors that regulate your nervous system so your body stops fighting you and starts supporting you.

What crashes look like

You have your coffee, maybe you meditate, and maybe you’re present with your kids at breakfast.

Then the day starts.

Meetings run long. Lunch gets pushed.
By 2pm you’re starving but you have another call, so you grab whatever’s fast:
a protein bar, leftover pizza, a handful of almonds standing at the counter.

By 3pm, you’re foggy. Decision fatigue sets in.
The creative work you were going to do after the kids go down now feels impossible.

So you scroll instead. Or you batch emails.
Or you start another organizational project that feels productive but isn’t actually the thing.

By 9pm, you’re wired-tired. Your body’s exhausted but your mind won’t stop.
You tell yourself you’ll go to bed early, but instead you stay up and rally: this is your me time...

and you wake up the next day already behind.

This is what happens when your nervous system never gets the signal that it’s safe to stop.

And when you never stop, you never digest.
Not just food.
Everything else: ideas, emotions, decisions, the day itself.

You’re running on borrowed energy. Adrenaline. Urgency. Caffeine.
And the emotional push of I have to get this done.

That borrowed energy works. For a while.

But this is why you can’t access the deeper work.
The creative work.
The work that requires you to be present, not just productive.

The anchors are the signal

These are four moments in your day where you practice stopping:

1. Wake-up: The first 15 minutes set the tone.

2. Lunch: Warm, on-time, seated, no screen. It’s the hinge of the day.

3. 3pm audit: Read the data your body’s giving you. This is valuable feedback.

4. 9pm scan: Close the loop so you can actually sleep.

Treat these as real data points instead of wellness rituals, and your body will learn:

I can stop. It’s safe to digest. I don’t have to keep scanning for the next emergency.

When your body learns that,
when your nervous system shifts from reactive to regulated,
your capacity comes back.

The fog lifts. Your 3pm steadies.
The creative work that felt impossible starts to feel accessible again.

That’s your hardware upgrade.

Why small circles

Here’s the thing about building new rhythms:

It’s hard to do it alone.

Not because you lack willpower, but because the grind is so familiar.
It’s comfortable.
It’s how you’ve known who you are.

The moment you try to slow down,
to protect lunch, to sit instead of scroll, to close your laptop by 9pm
every part of you will fight it.

Your calendar will scream. Your inbox will pulse. Your identity will whisper:

If you’re not grinding, who are you?

This is where most people abandon the practice.

Not because it’s not working, but because they’re doing it alone, and alone feels dangerous.

We need witnesses.

Not cheerleaders. Not coaches telling us what to do.

Witnesses who see you practicing,
who are practicing alongside you,
who hold the space when your nervous system throws a tantrum because it didn’t get its adrenaline hit.

Small circles make the unfamiliar feel less dangerous.

When you see another woman protecting her lunch window,
imperfectly but consistently,
you start to believe you can too.

When you share that you skipped lunch three days in a row and someone asks,

“What was happening earlier? What made it feel impossible to stop?”

—instead of feeling judged (by yourself), you’ll see patterns.

When you witness someone else’s breakthrough,
when they say “I had energy at 3pm for the first time in months,”
you’re not just happy for them. You’re gathering proof that this works.

Small circles create the conditions for change that big communities can’t.

The Anchor Circle

I’ve been running the Anchor Circle quietly since December with three women.

We had our first live Zoom call two weeks ago.
The second is scheduled for two weeks from now.

The Anchor Circle isn’t a course. It’s a practice space.

How it works:

The four anchors are the practice.
Lunch is the entry point: warm, on-time, seated, no screen.
But the real work is learning to read your body’s signals.
To notice when you’re reactive vs. regulated.
To see what you’re protecting and what you’re giving away.

Everyone in the circle is working on something non-negotiable.
A book. A business. A creative project that matters.
Something with a healthy dose of urgency. Born from an inner calling (not borrowed).

The anchors aren’t separate from that work.
They’re what make that work sustainable.

When you protect lunch, you’re not just feeding your body.
You’re practicing self-referral.
You’re building the capacity to claim space in the middle of the day.
Which is the same capacity you need to claim time for:
your work, boundaries in your relationships, and authority in your decisions.

The circle holds the container:

• Asynchronous check-ins (weekly, even briefly)

• Witnessing each other’s patterns and shifts

• Frameworks from 20+ years of teaching internal authority

• Honest feedback when you’re stuck

• Monthly live calls where we work through what’s actually happening

What becomes possible:

• Grounded energy at 3pm instead of fog and crash

• Waking up clear instead of dread

• Showing up for your work from capacity instead of borrowed energy

• Saying no without apology

• Being present because you’re already full

This is what one Circle member said after her craniosacral therapist confirmed her stress levels had dropped: “I’m grounded. Rooted into the earth.”

And another: “This space is entirely judgment-free... it really does feel like an anchor in my life.”

The Anchor Circle is capped at 12 women…

…because I need to actually know your patterns. I need to remember what you said last week. I need to see you. I can’t do that with a larger group. I’ve been adding slowly so I can get to know you one by one.

Currently there are 4 women.
8 spots remain.

The alternative is to continue trying it on your own.

Here’s how to know if the Circle is right for you:

• You have a specific goal with non-negotiable, self-directed urgency (writing a book, building a business, creating something that matters).

• You don’t want to “burn the candle at both ends”.

• You’re willing to practice the four anchors daily (not perfectly, but consistently).

• You want witnessing, not hand-holding.

• You’re ready to be seen and to see others .

The Anchor Circle is included with paid membership ($120/year).
But it’s not automatic. There’s an application.

When there’s space, I reach out to those who seem like a fit.

If it’s full, you’re added to the waitlist.

Before joining, you’ll complete the Day in the Life Assessment (accessible to paid members). This is a diagnostic that maps your current rhythm and shows you where you’re operating from depletion instead of capacity.

I’m in a hurry, but also not in a hurry, to fill the Circle.
While I’d love to fill this group, I’d rather have 6 women who are all in than 12 who are half-present. Listen: I, too, need to coach myself to balance quantity vs quality…

If you’re ready for something small, real, and built for depth…

Apply here: https://tally.so/r/vGDQzX

Join paid membership for the Assessment, the four anchor frameworks, and the tools that make rhythm stick.

Your work is waiting.
But it needs you to show up with capacity, not fumes.

— Savitree

The morning dread didn’t start that morning.

And the wired-tired feeling most of us carry into bed isn’t a sleep problem.

It’s about what we never put down.

I know this because I lived the loop for years. I told myself I was a night owl. It felt true: I came alive after everyone else went quiet, the house finally mine, the demands finally paused. I stayed up late and called it freedom.

What I didn’t see was what I was carrying into those hours. The day’s unfinished business. The urgency I’d absorbed and never metabolized. The decisions that didn’t get made, the edges that didn’t get closed, the sense that I hadn’t quite had my turn yet.

I wasn’t unwinding. I was still running. Just without an audience.

And then I wondered why I couldn’t stop grinding. Why the mornings felt heavy before they’d even begun. Why the dread arrived before the alarm did.

The loop wasn’t random. It was architectural.

The carry-over nobody names

Here’s what the Four Anchors taught me. Not as a framework first, but as lived experience:

Every anchor either closes or compounds.

A protected lunch closes the morning’s accumulated urgency.
A steady 3pm closes the afternoon’s drift.
And the 9pm scan closes the day — or it doesn’t.
And if it doesn’t, everything unresolved gets carried forward. Into sleep. Into the body’s overnight repair window. Into the first moments of waking.

Your morning dread isn’t a morning problem. It’s the previous day’s carry-over, compounded by a night that never fully closed.

Most approaches to sleep hygiene focus on the hour before bed: the blue light, the magnesium, the wind-down routine. These things matter. But they’re treating the symptom and missing the source.

The real question is: what are you bringing to bed with you?

Read more

You finished the reset.

By Day 3, something shifted. The fog lifted. Your afternoon stayed steady. You sat down for lunch and actually tasted the food.

By Day 5, you had data — not someone else’s data, but yours. Evidence that your body can feel different when you give it the right conditions.

And then the reset ended.

Maybe you kept the hot water sips for a few days.
Maybe you sat down for lunch twice the following week.
Maybe you told yourself you’d keep going.

But the meetings came back. The mornings got faster.
The phone found its way back to the table.

And somewhere around week two, you noticed the fog again.

Not dramatically. Just persistently.

This is the part no one talks about.

The reset paradox

Every reset — every cleanse, every detox, every “new protocol” — creates the same arc:

Clarity → motivation → slow fade → return to baseline.

Not because the reset didn’t work. It did.

Not because you lack discipline. You don’t.

Because a reset changes your state.
It does not change your architecture.

State is temporary.
It’s how you feel on Day 5 of kitchari when the noise has cleared and your digestion is running clean.

Architecture is what happens on a random Tuesday when the morning runs long, lunch gets pushed to 2pm, and by 3pm you’re making decisions from depletion instead of capacity.

The reset can’t help you on that Tuesday. It already happened three weeks ago.

What actually fades (and why)

When you did the reset, several things were true at once:

You ate warm food at consistent times. You sat down without screens. You chewed slowly. You gave your nervous system a predictable rhythm it could trust.

The clarity you felt wasn’t just about the kitchari. It was about the conditions around the eating — the timing, the warmth, the stillness, the consistency.

Those conditions told your nervous system something it rarely hears during a normal workday:

You can stop. It’s safe to digest. Nothing is chasing you right now.

When the reset ends and the conditions disappear, the nervous system goes back to its default:

stay alert, stay reactive, keep scanning.

The fog returns because the signal changed.

Not because you failed. Because the architecture that was sending the signal was temporary.

The difference between a reset and a rhythm

A reset is a controlled environment. You cleared the calendar, simplified the meals, removed the noise. It’s a greenhouse.

A rhythm is what grows in open air.

It’s the practice of maintaining enough of those conditions — not all of them, not perfectly — inside a real life with real demands.

One warm lunch, sat down, on time. Not every day. But most days.

A 3pm check-in that takes thirty seconds: Am I running on capacity or borrowed energy right now?

A morning that starts with something other than your inbox.

These aren’t dramatic changes. They’re architectural ones. They change the default your nervous system falls back on when the day gets hard.

The reset proved your body can feel different.
The rhythm is what makes “different” the new normal.

Why most people skip this part

Because the reset felt like progress. It was tangible.
Five days, clear results, a beginning and an end.

Rhythm doesn’t feel like progress. It feels like repetition.

Eating the same warm lunch on a Tuesday doesn’t give you the dopamine hit of starting a new protocol. There’s no Day 1 excitement. No dramatic shift by Day 3.

There’s just Tuesday. And then Wednesday. And then a month later, you realize your 3pm hasn’t crashed in weeks and you can’t pinpoint when it changed.

That’s how architecture works. It compounds invisibly.

The reset is the proof of concept. The rhythm is the investment.

What this looks like in practice

You don’t need to eat kitchari forever. You don’t need to recreate the reset conditions permanently.

You need four anchor points in your day — moments where you deliberately practice regulation instead of reactivity.

How you start the morning. How you eat lunch. What you do at 3pm. How you close the day.

Those four moments, protected consistently, create the architecture that the reset only simulated temporarily.

The reset showed you what’s possible. The rhythm makes it yours.

If the reset gave you something you don’t want to lose, the next step is building the system that keeps it.

That’s what the paid membership is built around — the Day in the Life Assessment, the four anchor points, the meal framework, and the ongoing support to make rhythm stick inside a real life.

→ Join the membership

Or if you want a smaller next step first, The Exhaustion Experiment is a three-day proof of concept — one protected lunch, tracked results, your own data.

— Savitree

What happens when you slow down enough to actually hear yourself?

Not just your voice. Your signals.

We didn’t know exactly what the answer would be. We were our own experiment.

What surprised us

What surprised Jane: The screen.

Not the phone during a meeting, not the laptop during a call — but the screen when eating alone. The moment no one is watching, no one is waiting, no one needs anything. The moment that should be the easiest to protect.

That’s when the pull is strongest.

What surprised Savitree: The communication.

The expectation was that this challenge would be about food. About chewing slowly, eating warm, protecting the lunch window. And it was. But what wasn’t anticipated was how much the listening would change. The prompts didn’t need to be followed day to day. Reading them created awareness. And that awareness — that slight pause before speaking, that willingness to stay in the question a little longer — changed how we showed up in every conversation.

There are receipts. Watch the first live, then this one. You’ll see it.

Something Jane wrote in Chat midway through the challenge stopped us:

“My stomach already closed the door.”

We laughed. But the question underneath it wasn’t funny: Do we keep speaking after the door is closed?

What was hardest

The same thing. For almost everyone.

Putting down the screen. Sitting with the meal. Not reading, not scrolling, not listening to something. Just eating.

Savitree: Twenty years ago, my teacher found out I was eating while driving. He was horrified. He gave me an assignment: sit and eat. Chew your food. Don’t read. Don’t listen to music. Just eat.

What he was teaching me — though I didn’t have the language for it then — was that presence is the flavor enhancer. Extra spices become unnecessary when you’re actually tasting what’s in front of you.

One participant wrote in Chat: “Definitely chewing — and I wanted to swallow so badly. I did a few times almost without even thinking about it.”

Another shared that the challenge made her aware of how much she used to eat under stress. A warm midday meal, she said, not only nourishes her body — it lets her breathe.

Someone in Notes mentioned she makes it a point to eat lunch outside as much as possible. For those who can’t get outside: make your plate the nature. Take it in through your senses. That’s enough.

Jane: The urge to run the moment eating was finished. To get up, move on, answer the next thing.

We recognized this immediately: that’s normal, right? We’re always asking what’s next. We’re trained to move through moments, not stay in them. We seldom sit for a second and take in what just happened.

Anna wrote in the live: “It’s interesting to notice when you’re feeling fidgety — to not reach for a screen. Just noticing the nerves.”

Jane: “Yes, it is.”

In yoga, when you start to feel the shakes — that’s when you know it’s working. Don’t abandon the position.

What changed when we slowed down

Posture. Presence. The space we claim.

We talked about how the way you hold your body affects the space you occupy — and how that space affects your mind.

Savitree: I’ve been teaching meditation for a long time. I always remind people: you are royal. Sit like one. Royalty doesn’t rush.

Jane: Lunch as your meditation in the middle of the day. That’s exactly it.

Claiming your lunch — being present to it, protecting it — is a more honest act of gratitude than any rote list. How you feed yourself now is how you feed yourself after.

We also talked about claiming space in conversation.

Savitree: In group settings, I’m more prone to listening. I find it interesting to see where things go. But it takes me out of the equation a little. And I noticed I don’t like that.

Jane: [laughs]

It’s about claiming the proper space. For someone wired to listen, even claiming a little space can feel like hijacking. The challenge — in eating and in speaking — is learning the difference between taking up space and taking over.

What remains

For Jane: The pause.

“Even in my working rush hour — to pause, take time, to know it’s not necessary to rush. My biggest learning: take lunch, take a little pause, and then we can run faster. There’s more power.”

The slow cut is the fast cut.

For Savitree: Claiming space. The on-time lunch is where it starts. A protected meal in the middle of the day is a rehearsal for claiming space in everything that follows — in conversations, in decisions, in the work that actually matters.

And the pause itself.

Without pause, jokes aren’t funny. Music without the pause wouldn’t become symphonies. Sound without pause would be noise.

And our day without pause becomes an exhausting grind.

What we asked at the beginning — and what we know now

We asked: what happens when you slow down enough to actually hear yourself?

Here’s what we found:

The screen gets harder to put down when no one’s watching. The chewing feels impossible until it doesn’t. The fidgeting is the nervous system downshifting — don’t abandon the position. The urge to run after eating is the same urge that makes you speak before you’re ready. Posture is not aesthetic. It’s the space you give yourself permission to occupy. Presence at lunch is practice for presence everywhere.

And the most surprising thing: you don’t have to change what you say. You change how you listen. And everything else follows.

The practice is yours now

The 21 days are over. The prompts will always be in the Chat — you can start at Day 1 any time. The recordings will be there.

But the practice doesn’t live in the challenge. It lives in your lunch. And in the pause before you speak.

Whatever you choose next:

Jane’s Rehearsal Room opens next week — a real room to practice speaking before it matters. If you’re not ready for the hot seat, witnessing is its own form of learning. Find it at Captain Rhetoric.

Savitree’s Exhaustion Experiment is three days of your own trackable data — one protected lunch, one shift in your afternoon. Find it in the nav bar at Food as Medicine.

Whatever you choose — keep the lunch. Keep the pause.

The practice is yours. You built it.

— Savitree & Jane

The alarm rings and your first thought is: Not yet.

You hit snooze. A wave of dread settles over you — not dramatic, just heavy. The kind that’s been there so long you’ve stopped noticing it.

You are now faced with a choice that will give a fortune teller everything she needs to know about how your day will go.

She’s not that mystical. She just understands physics.

The morning you’re actually having

Here’s what I hear from women when I ask about their mornings:

When I ask what they had for breakfast, they tell me what their family had. I have to ask again: What did YOU have?

They pause.

Whatever was left over.

Gulped down fast. Or hanging out of their mouth on the way out the door.

Lunch is at whatever time they can squeeze it in — sometimes it’s skipped entirely.

By the time they’re in the pickup line, they’re almost resentful. The child seems thankless. Now she has to think about dinner.

And underneath all of it, the question that keeps surfacing:

When’s it my turn?

The Wake-Up Stack is the answer. Not someday. Not after the kids are older. Not when things calm down.

Now. In the first 15 minutes of your day, before anyone else is awake, before the world makes its demands.

This is where your turn begins.

If you’ve been practicing the warm, on-time lunch — that was your first act of taking your turn in broad daylight, in the middle of the world’s demands. The Wake-Up Stack is the quieter version. The one that happens before anyone else is awake. The one that makes the lunch easier to protect.

Read more

The first thing people notice when they try to eat lunch without their phone isn’t calm.

It’s discomfort.

Not dramatic discomfort. Just a strange, jittery feeling.

You sit down. The plate is there. The food is warm.

And suddenly the nervous system starts asking:

What are we doing?

There’s a subtle urge to reach for something — the phone, a message, the next task.

Anything to get the momentum back.

In a challenge I’ve been running with a small group, this is the part that keeps surfacing:

The first three to five minutes of stillness.

What’s actually happening

Most people assume slowing down should feel relaxing immediately.

But physiologically, that’s not how the nervous system works.

When you’ve spent the morning answering messages, switching tasks, reacting to demands, your body is running in sympathetic mode — the state that prepares you to act quickly and respond to pressure.

It’s efficient.

It’s productive.

But it’s not calm.

When you suddenly sit down, screen off, with nothing demanding your attention, your system has to downshift.

And that downshift doesn’t happen instantly.

First comes restlessness.

Then a wave of impatience:

Okay… this is nice. Can we get back to work now?

But if you stay there a little longer — if you don’t pick up the phone, if you decide to take actual time for lunch — something else appears.

The turning point

Calm.

Not dramatic. Just quieter.

The breath deepens.

The chewing slows without effort.

You start to taste the food.

People in the challenge have been noticing this shift in real time.

One participant described it perfectly:

“It took a few minutes to calm my system. I could feel the jittery energy, wondering why I was suddenly getting off that train.”

Another noticed the same pattern:

restlessness → patience → calm attention.

This is the nervous system remembering what regulation feels like.

Why this matters

Lunch isn’t important because of the food.

It’s important because it’s one of the only moments in the day where you can deliberately practice downshifting.

Despite the noise.

When the body experiences this shift regularly — from urgency to regulation — other things start to change.

Conversations become more intentional.

Words come more easily.

The afternoon no longer feels like grinding through mud.

Because you gave your nervous system a daily rehearsal of stability.

Most people assume the discomfort means they’re doing it wrong.

In reality, it’s the first signal that the shift has started.

The body notices the pause before the mind does.

If you’re experimenting with this, the invitation is simple:

Stay for the first five minutes.

That’s where the change begins.

If this essay resonated, there are a few ways to go deeper.

Start with The Exhaustion Experiment — a three-day proof-of-concept to see what one protected lunch changes.

Explore the Library, where the frameworks and tools behind the work live.

When you’re ready for structure and witnessing, paid membership opens the full system.

— Savitree

Laptop open. Email half-answered. Podcast playing. Food disappearing without you tasting it.

You tell yourself it’s efficient. You’re getting two things done at once.

Except by 3pm, you’re foggy. Irritable. And when you walk into the conversation that matters—the one where you need your words—they’re not there.

This isn’t a time management problem. It’s a nervous system problem.

Why this matters / what we covered

Last Monday, we went live for Week 2 of the Eating & Speaking Challenge. We looked at what actually happens physiologically when pressure rises, and why the techniques you’ve learned (the pause, the structure, the presence) vanish when it matters most.

We also ran a live experiment: same sentence, two different internal states. The difference was visceral.

That’s the real cost of multitasking through lunch. You’re not just losing digestion — you’re losing access.

The next step

Want to see where you’re leaking capacity?

The Day in the Life Assessment maps your full day, from wake-up to sleep, and shows you exactly which anchor point needs protection first. Free to preview. Take a look →

Find your voice.

Jane Bormeister is a speech scientist and rhetoric coach who works with leaders, researchers, and founders in high-stakes moments. If your techniques vanish under pressure, this is where to start. Learn more about her work. Pressure speaks a different language than competence. That's where I work.

Other posts you might like:

• Why Brilliant Women Go Silent

• A Speech Scientist’s Guide to Speaking Under Pressure

• The 3pm Reckoning: If you’ve written off half your day, here’s how to get it back

• The Grind Mode

Next live:

Monday, March 16 at 1:15pm CT / 8:15pm Berlin

We’ll close out the challenge together on Day 21 — Integration & Identity week. What stays? What becomes part of who you are?

See you there!

—Savitree & Jane

Curious to see what three days of data from your own body can tell you?

Here’s everything you need to run the experiment.

Five PDFs. Three days. One protected lunch.

How to use this

Start here: Download “Proof of Concept Toolkit – Start Here” first. Read it before you do anything else. It will orient you to how this works and why.

Then follow these steps:

1. Print or save “What Are You Really Hungry For?” and the “Body Signals Tracker” where you’ll actually see them

2. Choose your lunch window (45–60 minutes between 11am–1:30pm) and protect it like a meeting

3. Run the “3-Day Performance Check” as written

4. Track your 3pm and 9pm — you’re collecting data, not scoring yourself

5. On Day 3, notice: What’s different? What’s clearer? What can you no longer pretend you don’t know?

Download your toolkit

Read more

A woman told me recently that she’d read green tea helps with brain fog.

She’s pregnant, weeks from her due date, navigating the haze that comes with growing a human being. She wanted to know what to eat. What to add.

I understood the impulse completely. Food as medicine — that’s the promise.
Of course she was looking for the thing that would cut through it.

But what she was describing wasn’t a deficiency.
It wasn’t a green-tea-shaped hole in her day.

This reminds me of spraying air freshener in a room that needs to be cleaned. The smell is real. The solution (adding fragrance) isn’t addressing what’s actually there.

Here’s what I keep seeing:

We’ve been trained to match symptoms to remedies.
Foggy? Find the thing that clears fog.
Tired? Find the thing that gives energy.
Bloated? Find the thing that reduces bloating.

It’s a reasonable approach. It’s also why nothing ever quite sticks.

Because most of what we’re dealing with isn’t acute.
It’s not a deficiency, a pathogen, or a bad day.

It’s accumulation.
Things that have been building quietly, incrementally, without a single identifiable cause until the system starts to slow down, back up, and signal.

When we add something to address that signal, we’re not wrong exactly.
We’re just working at the wrong level.

I recently got back from five days in Mexico with Larry and his family. It was a beautiful trip. Wine with dinner every night, dessert after, chia pudding with almond milk every morning. I was present, I was celebrating, I was in my “10%”.

On the flight home, my sinuses flared — something I haven’t experienced in twenty years. Then constipation. Then (TMI warning) when my body finally started moving things through, the poop was hard, incomplete, and mucus-coated.

I knew immediately what it was: five days of what Ayurveda calls kapha accumulation — the heavy, slow, cool quality that congests the system when it builds unchecked.

My body wasn’t sick. It was backed up.

The response I got was: “You must have caught something.“
And: “But that was over a week ago.”

These responses are completely logical.
We all learned to think this way.
Symptom appears → something caused it → find and address that thing.

We expect cause and effect to be close together, visible, traceable.

But accumulation doesn’t work that way.
It builds quietly. It borrows against your reserves.
And when it surfaces, it rarely looks like its actual cause.
It looks like fog. Like fatigue. Like a sinus flare on a plane twenty years after your last one.

The green tea won’t touch it.

This is the pattern underneath so much of what women bring to me.
The fog that won’t lift. The bloating that comes and goes. The fatigue that sleep doesn’t fix. The allergies that appeared from nowhere. The digestion that’s been “a little off” for years.

We keep looking for the acute cause. The thing we ate. The bug we caught. The supplement we’re missing.

But the body is a system. And systems don’t break from single events. They degrade from accumulated load. Slowly. Invisibly. Until one day on a plane, or one morning at your desk, something surfaces that feels sudden but has been building for months.

Adding green tea to that system isn’t wrong. It’s just not working at the level the problem lives.

The question worth asking isn’t what should I add?

It’s what has accumulated, and what does my system actually need to clear it?

Read more

And then, when it matters, you can’t access it.

The presentation. The difficult conversation. The moment you need to hold your ground.

You lose your thread. You second-guess. You defer.

The problem isn’t knowledge. It’s access.

Jane calls this the “Dare Gap” — the gap between insight and execution under pressure.

For 21 days, we’re practicing two things you already do every day: eating and speaking.

Not to optimize your life. To stabilize your presence.

What we’re actually addressing

What Jane sees: Brilliant people who know their material backward and forward. They can demonstrate perfect technique in rehearsal. But under pressure—it vanishes. The body, voice, and words that were aligned in practice contradict each other when the stakes are real.

What Savitree sees: The same pattern across trading floors, recruiting calls, high-stakes moments at work or in personal relationships. When the body is in flow — grounded, responsive, no second-guessing — words come naturally. The moment the nervous system shifts into overdrive or doubt, the voice disappears. Not from lack of knowledge. Because the body can’t hold the state that lets you access what you know.

The pattern we both keep seeing: People practice the techniques. They understand the Rhetoric Code. They know what to say. But something underneath isn’t stable. And under pressure, none of it sticks.

Because you can’t run sophisticated communication skills on a nervous system that’s running on fumes. The hardware can’t support the software.

The hardware upgrade

Here’s the piece most people are missing:

Your vagus nerve — the largest nerve in your body — is the superhighway between your gut and your brain. It’s the CEO of your parasympathetic nervous system. The part that lets you rest, digest, and actually process what’s happening around you.

When you rush through lunch — cold food, laptop open, barely chewing — your nervous system never gets the signal that it’s safe to downshift.

By 3pm, you’re still running in fight-or-flight. And when you walk into the speaking moment later that day? Your body is already grinding. The techniques you’ve learned aren’t accessible because the physiological foundation isn’t there.

The constant: Lunch

On-time. Warm. Sit down. Screen off. 15 minutes minimum.

This isn’t a break from work. It’s the rehearsal that ensures your voice is actually available when you need it.

How eating affects speaking: When the body is rushed, tense, overstimulated — language becomes tighter, faster, less connecting. You might still sound competent. But presence fades.

Lunch is the hinge. When you sit down — truly sit — your system shifts. Capacity returns. Breath deepens. Access widens.

And from there, speaking changes.

The software upgrade

This is where the daily speaking prompts come in. Each day, a small focus:

• Notice when you hold back

• Notice when you rush

• Notice when your voice tightens

• Notice what shifts when you feel steady

Week 1: Awareness — create the space to perceive yourself

Week 2: Experimentation — observe what changes when tension decreases

Week 3: Integration — let the practice become part of how you are

Not someone who performs. Someone who takes space.

What we’re noticing already

We’re five days in. Here’s what people are discovering:

On noticing the pattern:

“I wouldn’t have connected how we eat with speaking. I’m always catching up. This is a good practice to engage in.” — Sheri

“I’ve been ‘trying’ to diminish the amount of time I watch something on my phone while eating and screentime right before bed. I haven’t been as successful, but when I do it, I feel the difference.” — Alexandra

On actually doing it:

“While I often eat without a screen, I was in the middle of screening when I remembered to sit down for lunch. So it took me more than a few minutes to calm my system. The cool thing was, I could feel it. The nervous jittery energy, wondering why I am ‘suddenly getting off that train.’ I checked the clock for 15 minutes and I found it funny that I purposely slowed down my chewing, put down my spoon between bites, and cut my food into smaller pieces because I needed my meal to stretch out a little longer.” — Anna

“I love this practice! It is about learning our own essence pace. Def chewing and I wanted to swallow so badly and did a few times almost without even thinking about it.” — Diary of a Relationship Coach

On what shifts:

“I’ve done a bit of stepping into my voice and taking space within the last hour, unintentionally. More to come, so now I will pay attention and observe.” — Anna

The thing is, this isn’t about being perfect. It’s about return rate. You’ll have 10% days — chaos, travel, back-to-back meetings. The win isn’t a perfect streak. It’s how fast you come back to the anchor.

The 90/10 Rule: 90% of the time, you honor your anchor. 10% of the time, life happens. And when it does, you don’t blow up the whole system. You just come back at the next meal.

Listen to Day 1

In this recording, we talk about:

• Why speaking techniques vanish under pressure

• The physiological connection between eating and speaking

• How to use lunch as strategic preparation

• The structure of the 21-day challenge

The invitation

You can start anytime. The Chat remains open.

One constant: Warm, on-time lunch. Screen off. Sit down.

One variable: Daily speaking prompt in Chat.

That’s it.

The world challenges and delights us every day. Make sure your internal OS is upgraded — so you can harness the challenges with your feet on the ground and access to your words. And celebrate the delights without apology or waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Because there are many delights. You just need to be present enough to notice them.

Your voice tomorrow is built by your lunch today.

Don’t borrow from your capacity. Fund it.

Start with your next meal.

—Savitree & Jane

P.S. — Second Live: Monday, March 2

1:15pm CT / 8:15pm Berlin

We’re kicking off Week 2: Practice & Experimentation. We’ll look at what happens physiologically when pressure rises—and what disappears first in your speaking. Then we’ll run a live experiment together.

Bring your observations from Week 1.