Super Woman Rx

PART I

ACTIVATE YOUR INNER SUPER POWERS


Are you a Gypsy Girl, a Boss Lady, a Savvy Chick, an Earth Mama, or a Nightingale? In the next four chapters, you will identify your unique Power Type. Think back for a moment to a time when you felt and looked alive. Picture your life-before long workdays, jam-packed schedules, kiddie or teen craziness, family drama, husbands or boyfriends or partners, pets, noisy neighbors, needy parents—go beyond all that to a time when you felt invincible—on top of the world—alive!

Maybe it's that moment where you put on your favorite dress and it fit perfectly (go get 'em), or when a "good hair day" was a frequent occurrence, and you were actually happy with your selfies or your Polaroids or your Canon 360s. Or maybe it was when you could go to the gym without feeling self-conscious about your body, or any time you felt truly free and happy-think back to when you were your own super hero.

Too long ago to remember? Not sure what I am talking about? We cannot let that happen. You will feel this way again, and this book will give you the recipes, the secrets, and the formula to live an empowered and impassioned life. But that starts by learning more about you, by finding your type—your Power Type—a blend of your medical needs, personality, and unique values.

Read on for the formula that will give you energy, vitality, beauty, and inner peace-leading you to your natural and divinely inspired inner, given gifts. Chapter 1 starts you off by explaining the problem plaguing today's super women (that's all of us!). Chapter 2 introduces a self-assessment test that will help you establish a baseline for where you're at in regard to energy and balance. In Chapter 3 you'll get down to work by identifying your Power Type, and in Chapters 4 and 5, we'll go in-depth into the nuances and healing practices that identify, heal, and amplify your Power Type.

CHAPTER 1

THE SUPER WOMAN SYNDROME

We are supposed to do it all-and do it well—or so we think. Modern womanhood means maintaining the demands of multiple roles: businesswoman, employee, mother, spouse, daughter, sister, homemaker, breadwinner, caretaker, chore and homework supervisor, family taxi driver, meal planner, or some mixture of these and more. And whatever roles we fill, we're supposed to perform them looking eternally youthful, serene, and happy. We are expected to be super women, and we manage, but it comes at a cost. Women today show increased rates of anxiety, depression, chronic stress and fatigue, migraines, heart disease, strokes, and infertility.

Consider these findings. Women experience twice the rate of depression that men do, regardless of race or ethnic background. Researchers suspect that many factors unique to women's lives play a role in developing depression, including genetics, hormones, abuse and oppression, and interpersonal, psychological, and personality characteristics. From their teen years until around age 50, women are twice as likely to suffer from anxiety as men, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. While men and women report similar levels of stress, women are more likely to report that their stress levels are increasing and much more likely than men to report negative emotional and physical symptoms of stress, such as headaches, feeling like crying, and having indigestion, according to a 2010 survey of more than 1,600 men and women.

Women are two to four times more likely to be diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome than men. Women are also more likely to experience difficulty falling and staying asleep (63 percent versus 54 percent of men), to experience pain at night (58 percent versus 48 percent), and to experience fatigue during the day, according to a National Sleep Foundation poll.

According to the Migraine Research Foundation, women make up 28 million of the more than 38 million reported sufferers of this severe health condition. Women's migraines also occur more often, last longer, and are more severe than men's. Heart disease is the number one killer of women, with 90 percent of women having one or more heart disease risk factors. Each year 55,000 more US women than men have a stroke, according to the National Stroke Association, and women's recovery rates after stroke lag those of men.

Nearly 11 percent of women in the United States (more than six million) experience infertility issues, according to the National Survey of Family Health (data are for 2006 to 2010). Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), also known as Stein-Leventhal syndrome, is one of the most common hormonal endocrine disorders in women. Five to 10 percent of women of childbearing age are affected by PCOS. But this statistic is grossly underestimated, with many more going undiagnosed.

Juggling all these different roles lends itself to a unique array of health problems that we didn't face before in our history as women. Given the multitasking demands and multiple challenges of modern life-e-mails, cell phone calls and texts, lists, more lists, housework—something has got to give. All of this results in sacrifices in other areas of our lives-it creates dis-ease on many fronts, psychologically, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Think back to what you know of your own family history.

My grandmother didn't work outside the home and did not have much of an education, my mother-in-law gave up her career as a physician in India to raise her family, and my mother—the first super woman I knew—was determined to finish her education despite being married off at 19. She worked 18-hour days, 7 days a week to see her three daughters turn into their own versions of her super woman self.

The bottom line is this: Women have many more choices and options today, but we also have to meet multiple demands and handle more responsibilities. As amazing as our opportunities are, we often forget one very important variable—our health!

MULTIPLE ROLES EQUAL BIG TROUBLE

A UK study in 2013 made headlines globally, with its evidence that women were better multitaskers than men. What the research didn't cover was that taking on the multiple roles of mother, career woman, wife, etc., takes a toll—not to mention stressing over meeting the ridiculous, unrealistic demands of feminine perfection, of being "beautiful." Women have to work twice as hard to get half as much, and all the duties and demands drain our energy, health, and happiness.

According to a 2013 Mayo Clinic survey, women are more likely to suffer from skin disorders, osteoarthritis and joint issues, back problems, lung diseases, anxiety and depression, headaches and migraines, asthma, thyroid issues, and anemia than their male counterparts. The average American woman today weighs 166.2 £ds and is 5 feet 4 inches tall, which gives her a BMI of 28.5 (25 to 29 is considered overweight, while a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese). Finally, consider that it used to be men who were more likely to suffer from heart disease; today women have taken the lead in deadly heart attacks.

I hear similar stories from hundreds of women every month who come to me complaining of all of the above mentioned ailments and more-all of it boiling down to feeling overwhelmed but with no place to cut back. Woman after woman tells me how she's failed to find solutions to her health even after numerous appointments with multiple doctors and specialists, trials on prescription medications that come with too many side effects, and dozens of tests that yielded no answers at all. The fact is that we women are in trouble. We want and deserve it all, but our health and our relationships are suffering. Most of us want or need to have both a career and a family life, but even for those who decide or need to do one thing at a time (stay home or focus on career), today's pressures are just as overwhelming.

Let's take moms. Have you called a stay-at-home mom lately? If you have, I'm willing to wager that she wasn't at home when she answered. It's more likely that she was taxiing kids to or from after-school activities, assisting in the classroom, coaching soccer or leading a Girl Scout troop, and on and on. And if she was home, it's a sure bet that she was busy doing some sort of work: cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, putting away groceries, supervising homework, putting a bandage on a boo-boo, and/or paying the bills. She sure wasn't lounging around the pool, popping bonbons into her mouth. Mom-ing is a full-time job all on its own.

Alternatively, the women who are the CEOs, stockbrokers, and business owners—a different set of pressure points—are usually either the breadwinners for their families or have sacrificed the pursuit of a family as they pursued a career. Many of my CEO friends feel anxiety and urgency to keep up with their male counterparts at the table and put in as many or more hours to prove themselves. They hop on planes, manage meetings, build teams, and watch the bottom line, afraid of—almost panicked at—the idea of taking a moment to slow down to nurture their energy and their spirits.

And then there are the women who do both—they have children and/or parents to care for and they run companies, lobby for world peace, and sign up as room mom, troop leader, or PTA president year after year. It's too much, and we don't have the powers to keep it all up all the time. I know I didn't. It's trying to juggle too many different roles and please too many people that burns us out, fries our brains, and destroys our health. Yes, you might bring home the bacon, but you also are probably getting fried to a crisp.

WHAT'S NEXT: ACTIVATING YOUR SUPER POWERS

I found my super powers, I restored my health and well-being, and I found my purpose and my gifts. I've helped countless women do the same and understand that it is all related-that by learning your chemistry and finding your type, you will also find your own super powers. You cannot broker world peace, run a business, or look amazing without understanding this formula.

In this book, I make sure these super powers are available to you too! Most diets, weight loss plans, even health regimens tend to be one-size-fits-all, but you are a unique individual who requires a customized plan to fit your specific Power Type. Nowhere is this one-size-fits-all mentality more obvious than when looking at the popular diets on the market. Most weight loss plans are generic-trying to appeal to the "average" woman and making claims that they will work for all women. Sure, a lot of diet programs tweak the amount of calories allowed based on your height, age, and weight goal—but they don't go far enough.

You and I are far from average—you are amazing and capable, and you also have a unique makeup that deserves an equally individualized plan to improve your health and happiness. That's what you're about to learn. There are a few diet books out there that recognize and address the need for different plans for different types of individuals. Eat Right 4 Your Type, The GenoType Diet, and The Diet Cure, for example, attempt to offer a somewhat customized program for different individuals, but these diets still only focus on one sort of "typing," such as blood type, genetic history, or common hormones while ignoring so many other factors, including Eastern medicine typing, body clues, laboratory values, and emotional makeup.

Conventional Western medicine focuses on the management and control of symptoms and disease, not on finding a true solution to the underlying problem. There is value in conventional mainstream medicine—but alone, it is a broken system. I don't want you to have the same frustrating experience I had 15 years ago.

There is a better way! The best health care is a blend of several of the best and most valuable healing practices from around the globe, ancient and modern, from the East and the West—and it's all truly within your reach. You've already started by reading this book! READY? Turn the page to begin reclaiming your super powers.