It's Ok To Not Love Your Body All of the Time

Lately the Body Positivity movement has been gaining a lot of mainstream traction and thank goodness for that. There is way too much body bashing in our culture and the 'thin ideal' which is shoved down our throat by mainstream media keeps the majority of the population trapped in a diet prison of never feeling good enough. 

The alternative to diet culture has been a push towards body love. A movement where women and men are encouraged to embrace their bodies and to love them. 

While I truly believe that this is a noble and important cause I also worry that we could potentially fall into a new trap of feeling pressure to Always love our bodies and then to feel like we’ve somehow failed body positivity if this isn’t how we feel. 

I personally have a more complex relationship with my body image which doesn't fit into either of the above categories and from talking with friends and clients, I know that I’m not alone.

You see, I do reject diet culture and I fundamentally don’t believe our weight should define us. I feel so sad about all the years I and many others have lost worrying about our weight. I think about all the hot summer days I decided not to swim because I didn't want to get into my swimsuit. Or the time I travelled to South America, and instead of taking in the views, I was worrying about all the weight I’d put on and what I was going to eat.

And at the same time, I would be lying if I said I was Always loving and embracing of my body. I mean these days I genuinely do really love my body most of the time. She helps me move, has housed, grown and fed my two precious babies and she allows me to live my life in the way I want to live it.

Yet there are some days I feel more comfortable in my skin than others. The difference is, I don't let those days define me now. I know that my body is so much more than the way she looks and reducing her to an object is dehumanising and is what allowed for years of diet abuse in the first place. 

The key is can you have bad body image days and still treat your body (ie. yourself) with kindness, respect and acceptance? 

After all, we can’t change our thoughts. They are the product of many years of conditioning. We can however choose to act in a way that is loving or kind towards ourselves anyway.

It makes me think of my three year old. I don’t always love the way she behaves, but I can choose to respond with kindness or with anger. I don’t always choose kindness sadly, but the more I practice, the quicker I’m able to course correct and then act in line with my values. I feel it’s the same with our own relationship with our bodies. We’re going to make 'mistakes', but the more we practice body positivity and acceptance, the quicker we’ll become at being kind to ourselves again. 

So if you don’t LOVE your body all the time, you’re not failing body positivity! Body Positivity wasn’t created in order to impose more rules onto women about how they ‘should’ feel. It was created as a way to accept all shapes and sizes.

Also, remember, our thoughts and feelings don’t define us... So if you do have a poor body image moment, recognise it for what it is (an old belief) and then let it go and choose acceptance or kindness anyway.

Checking In When We Notice Ourselves Checking Out

I was having a great conversation with a client the other day about ways that we may ‘check out’ or distract ourselves when we’re feeling uncomfortable. Often it can manifest as a compulsion to check your phone and scroll. Or for some it may be jumping up and down like a jack in the box and opening and closing the fridge.These behaviours never feel good as there is a sense of running and of shutting out. We therefore spoke about doing the opposite. 

My client committed to practicing ‘checking in’ with herself when she noticed the compulsion to ‘check out’ in some way. She then had full permission to still ‘check out’ if that’s what she decided she still wanted to do. However the first step (and the purpose of this exercise) was to learn how to connect with herself and to try and understand what it was she was feeling when she had the desire to ‘check out’ so that she could then begin to meet her deeper needs.

So at times when she felt a compulsion to check out she began to ask herself the following questions..

1. What am I feeling right now or what is it that I am trying not to feel?

2. What do I need in this moment?

This practice was really interesting as the feelings often changed but the remedy seemed to stay the same; That is, she needed connection, self compassion and some form of self care or practical action.

The other thing she realised was that often what she thought was a big scary feeling was actually just a mild discomfort. And that even when she did experience an uncomfortable feeling, she had the capacity to hold it.

How liberating is that?

To realise that you don’t have to run from yourself and that you have the capacity to meet your own needs?

That you can sit with yourself and your thoughts and feelings without mindlessly taking out your phone and scrolling?

And that you can be with space and boredom and not have to fill in every moment with something external?

Because here’s the thing…

If we constantly check out and aren’t ever still with ourselves, then we’ll never know how it is we truly feel.

And if we don’t know how we truly feel, then how can we ever expect to meet our needs?

It's definitely a practice (going against the compulsion to run, distract or fill up space in some way). A practice that requires patience, curiosity and a willingness to get a bit uncomfortable.

But it’s also so worth it.

Realising that no feeling is too big for you to handle and being able to meet your own needs is true Freedom.

This weeks Practice

Notice when you’re engaged in some compulsive behaviour that doesn't feel good and use that behaviour as a sign to get present and come back to yourself (with compassion). Ask yourself what you are feeling and what it is you actually need?

You may find it useful to journal in these moments, but you could also simply put your hand on your heart or your belly and just breathe. The main thing is to use these times of 'checking out', to check in instead. 

Weight goes up.. May come down.. Maybe not? Who Cares!

I woke up this morning and got into some exercise clothes. I noticed that they were feeling a little more snug than the last time I ‘d put them on.

It’s during these moments that we have a choice.

The choice about what you’re going to make this mean. The choice about what story you’re going to tell yourself about this.

Are you going to make it mean that you’re a failure? That you look awful? That there is something wrong with you? And that you better work out and get back to your previous weight?

Or do you make it mean that your clothes are just a bit tighter than normal? That weight fluctuations are normal? And then choose to move your body because of the way it will make you feel, not because you’re trying to ‘control’ your weight?

I choose the latter. Because the truth is, despite what ‘diet culture’ would have you believe, we’re not meant to always be the same size. Our weight changes due to so many factors; hormones, what season of life we’re in, where we’re at in our cycle. The question is can we love and honour our body throughout these changes or at the very least treat her with kindness?

So, my darling body. For some reason, you feel heavier at the moment and that is totally okay with me.

When Self Help Becomes a Bit too Much About The Self...

This is something I’ve been thinking about lately. Perhaps we’ve been somewhat misguided by certain aspects of the self help movement? Now as someone who has been a real student and advocate of self help for the past 10 years this is an uncomfortable thought.

Ok now don’t get me wrong, I truly believe in self development. In fact I’m deeply passionate about it (hence the work I do). I truly believe in filling up your own cup or in an aeroplane putting on your own mask first. But the part that perhaps some people have been forgetting, is that we put on our own mask first so that we can then be of support and assistance to others.We fill up our own cups so that it then overflows and we can touch the lives of others. Without this realisation, we can become a little serious, self absorbed and addicted to self help. We can end up feeling empty which can then lead to more self help as we believe the answer to our emptiness is obviously more focus on the self.

I truly believe from the bottom of my heart that we do need to look after ourselves. But it’s not just so that we can be the best version of ourselves for ourselves. It’s also so that we can give back to our community and to all those that we love around us.  As humans we’re social animals. We thrive on being in community, in helping, in supporting and in giving. When we only focus on ourselves and our own needs (as our modern day obsession with the self may encourage), our lives can begin to feel small, empty and unfulfilling.

This is something I have been playing with in my own life at the moment. When I notice myself focusing on my own needs in my relationship, I acknowledge this (as it may have some useful information) and then at the same time I begin to broaden my perspective to include how I’m showing up as a partner. How is it that I am meeting my partner’s needs?

So I urge you to continue with your self care, self reflection and personal development. But instead of letting the buck stop there, see how you can continue to support others. To give back to the world. To share all of your incredible gifts.  It may just be the missing piece of your self help puzzle.
 

How My Relationship with Food is Mirrored in Other Areas of My Life

Someone smart once famously said that;

'The way we do one thing is the way we do everything’

Our relationship with food can therefore be a mirror into the way that we’re living our lives.

It can tell us whether we’re constantly on the run or whether we allow time and space for pleasure. It can inform us about how present we are in our lives or whether we’re constantly seeking distraction. It can reveal how we’re speaking to ourselves and whether we’re kind or judgmental. Some people may realise that they don’t even know what they like or what their needs are, as they have been listening to external voices and advice for their whole life.

While my relationship with food is now simple, free and intuitive, I think it’s interesting to see how some other areas of my life have taken on the characteristics that food once did. Just like the big bad wolf dresses up in grandma’s clothing, some of my latest habits are now just a new manifestation of what food used to be for me.

Let me get specific…

Prior to working on my relationship with food I used to consume as much information on diets, health and wellness as I possibly could. Hours would be spent pouring over the latest research, health blogging sites and recipes. In fact I owned every new diet and recipe book on the shelf, somehow believing that by just owning the books and reading the sites, I would magically turn into the people on the front cover, become the picture of ‘perfect health’ and turn into a chef extraordinaire.  

Needless to say none of those things happened. I just became more and more anxious and more and more disconnected from what was truly right for me.

Nowadays I don’t consume recipes or health information like that (preferring to listen to my own intuition and taking a ‘less is more’ approach to cookbooks much to my families relief). But this hasn’t stopped my desire to control things at times or to fill up on other things.

The mediums have simply changed.

Now instead of endlessly consuming media on health and diets, I can consume media on coaching and personal development. I can binge on podcasts at an olympic rate, hungry to know as much as possible and to ‘fill up’ on as much information as I can.

This style of moving through the world makes me feel safe on some level. There’s some belief that if I just know EVERYTHING (no small feat), then I’ll be safe and secure.

Here are some other examples:

Now instead of looking for approval in regards to my weight, I sometimes seek it professionally.

Now instead of my personal development being all wrapped up in being the ‘perfect’ weight, I’m putting pressure on myself to be more ‘evolved’ in all this personal development s**t (This is something I can never ‘achieve’, as just like with my weight, as soon as I ‘get somewhere’ the goalposts move and there is a new destination to get to. Talk about exhausting, not to mention, futile.

Before, I used to be perfectionistic with food. Now I can be perfectionistic with parenting, personal development and how I’m showing up in the world.

I share all this because I think it’s fascinating how our habits can really give us insight into how we’re living our lives and what beliefs are driving us. While my relationship with food is completely different to what it once was, some of my old beliefs can still be found in different areas of my life. Dieting and controlling our weight is just a coping style and so it makes sense that these coping styles can merely change shape and form.

This isn’t disheartening, it just is. We’re all a ‘work in progress’ and so use these habits as a way to get curious about your deeper beliefs and eventually they’ll shift… and so will your life.

Why I Don’t Like Terms like Clean Eating

I have to admit. I haven’t always disliked this term. I too got sucked into the image of beautiful health bloggers, green juices and overflowing vegetable bowls. I actually love those things and so it wasn’t a hard sell. But what I began to question is the judgement that comes along with terms like these.

Sure, a move back to wholefoods has its advantages, but making foods 'good, bad, clean and dirty' can promote feelings of guilt, morality and shame. And food eaten from this place will never make you feel good no matter how 'clean' it is.

Clean eating also doesn’t take into consideration that there is more to eating then just nourishing and sustaining our bodies. While health is a value of mine, I believe that health is holistic and shouldn’t only focus on the 'physical' but also the mental, emotional and spiritual. 

Food is there for pleasure, for joy, for connection, for love and for satiation. A good croissant for me is one of life's greatest pleasures. I’ve had times in my life when I cut them out for various reasons and while my diet looked super 'clean', I was miserable, felt deprived and ended up binging in secret on all the foods that I wasn't allowing myself to eat and more. 

While terms like ‘clean eating’ may have come from a good place (as big business often doesn’t have our best interests at heart), and so highlighting some of the issues with eating lots of processed foods is helpful.

I still don’t think the answer is making food and eating a moralistic activity or using didactic language such as, 'clean', 'good' or 'bad'. 

I especially don't believe in basing our self esteem in our food choices.

All foods can play a role in our life and the more we tune into our needs, the better able we’ll be to listen to what it is we truly need and want in each given moment. 

All of this to say, we need to get back to connecting to our bodies and our intuition. To feel into how certain foods make us feel and then to make choices based on that information. We need to take into account All of our needs. This includes emotional, physical and spiritual and then to eat from a place of allowance, pleasure, self love and wellbeing.

We should feel free to choose foods that make us feel good on every level and then also sometimes to not.

The most important thing is to stop judging yourself. Your food choices don’t mean anything about you as a person or how you’re measuring up in this life.

How to Transition into the Night so that you can Actually Relax

I have only just really begun to understand the importance of transitions and how much we underestimate or ignore them in our busy modern lives. Something which has been a common theme with my coaching clients (and that I can definitely relate to), is that they feel like they’re living their lives on an adrenaline train, rushing from one thing to the next.

They then wonder why they find it hard to relax at night. I know for myself that I would often sit down after all the chores were done with the intention of relaxing, but instead of finding calm, I would find myself jumping up and down, finishing various tasks, opening and closing the fridge on repeat or just scrolling on my phone and watching television simultaneously in an incredibly unsatisfactory way. 

This is a common theme and I began to reflect on why I and so many others found night times hard and unsatisfying. I realised that we’re not allowing ourselves the time or the space to transition from one activity to the next. This means that the often frantic energy of our day just naturally carries into the night, making it impossible to relax.

So I began to experiment. After putting my little one to bed, I made space to transition. I would turn down the lights, put on some lamps or light some candles, maybe have a shower, journal, meditate, stretch, listen to some music, put on some comfortable clothes and ugg boots, maybe have a bath? 

 It didn’t really matter what I did (although showers, trackies and ugg boots are definitely my favourite). What mattered was that I was making time and space to reflect, shift gears and welcome in the night.

This simple practice has made such a dramatic difference to my life. After doing one of the above activities I’m able to be present, relax and enjoy whatever it is I choose to do with my night.

So the practice this week is to play with this and see if it helps you wash off your day and shift gears so that you’re better able to relax at night. It can be worth initially planning what it is you’re going to do and then as time goes on allow this to become more intuitive.

The Art Of Failing

Let's be honest. No one likes to fail. But how cool would it be if we saw failure for what it is? A wonderful teacher and learning experience?  An opportunity to grow and to look at things freshly? A chance to get creative? 

Sure it can hurt like hell as well but what if we didn't let that define us? What if we saw failure as inevitable? Considered it a sign of growth and kept going anyway?  Why do we even have to call it failure anyway? 

As a recovering perfectionist, I used to have a terrible relationship with failure. I believed that failure was unacceptable and something to be avoided at all costs. This meant that I didn’t take many risks, as to risk, would mean to risk falling down. It’s a safe place of course, not putting yourself out there or not beginning a project, but it’s not very fulfilling and doesn’t make for a very interesting life. 

I was always waiting until the day I was truly ‘ready’  before putting myself out there or taking those first steps. I didn't realise that often the only way to get ready or to know if something is 'right' is to jump right in, do what scares you and then learn from your mistakes. There is actually a quote I really like that says;

‘Anything worth doing is worth doing badly’.

The first time I heard this quote I felt liberated and  like I could finally take a big exhale. It just took all of the pressure off immediately and gave me permission to be a beginner. It gave me permission to be terrible at something. Permission to be a failure.

A great way to welcome failure into your life and embrace mistakes is to read people’s biographies. By doing this, it soon becomes apparent that the road to success is never smooth. But what separates people who go on to 'succeed' and those who don’t, is that those who 'succeed', see mistakes as a crucial part of the learning process. They don't take it all so personally and keep persevering, taking the long term view as opposed to judging every minute step along the way. 

Another practice that can support you in becoming less fearful of failure is to follow the fear and the thoughts surrounding that fear and keep questioning them to the very end. Often we stop at the fear and don't actually keep asking questions such as 'So what if things don't work out?' 'What’s the worst that can happen?' 'What’s the cost of not taking any action?' 

We need to give ourselves permission to make mistakes, to be imperfect and to make room for all of the ups and downs of life. This is what builds resilience and promotes growth afterall.

So let’s practice the art of failing and drop the judgements and welcome it into our lives as the wonderful teacher it can be. 

Letting Go

Last year I turned 34. The age my mum was when she died. It’s been the strangest experience. On one hand, I’m struck by how young she was when she died. This makes me feel incredibly grateful for my own life and the fact that I and many loved ones are still here. And on the other hand, fear has become a companion of mine. It’s therefore no surprise that control (fears best friend) has also been playing a lead role in my life.  

It's a funny thing fear. I consider myself quite a positive person most of the time and at the same time, I seem to often predict the worst (mainly when it comes to health). Our anxieties attach themselves to our vulnerabilities and then we react by trying to take control of other areas of our lives. This could be trying to control our diet/body, or needing everything to be ‘perfect’, or  it could even be trying to control other people or at the very least, other people’s opinions of us. Worry is another way that we try to control things. It gives us the illusion that we’re doing something about what is bothering us even though it actually just sends us further down the rabbit hole of fear and anxiety.

It’s a scary thing realising that we actually have very little control over our lives. That we could do everything ‘right’ and still get some chronic illness and die at the age of 34. I really felt this when I was pregnant. I felt so responsible for this little life growing inside of me and yet so much felt out of my control. Pregnancy for me is a constant teacher, urging me to let go.

I think we live with the illusion that if we just make the ‘right’ choices, then we’ll get a certain outcome and sadly this just isn’t the case. We of course should make the choices that are right for us in any given moment, but then there also has to be an element of surrender.  Just like the gardener who carefully and lovingly plants her seeds but cannot control the weather, we too can create the conditions but ultimately cannot control the outcome of what happens in our lives.

I’m beginning to realise that what started as an incredibly scary prospect could in fact be the key to my liberation. The more I let go and see the superfluousness of trying to control my life or others, the more space there is for ease, presence, acceptance and gratitude.

I’ve realised that worrying about some perceived threat to my future won’t  help me in any way and will actually only make me go through the experience twice if my doomsday predictions just happen to be right.  Luckily experience has shown me that I’m a terrible predictor of the future and this gives me more and more faith to not listen to those voices in my head, but to instead trust, relax and to just be grateful for all that I have right now.

I feel that this is going to be a lifelong practice. It’s not something you just GET and then never have to wrestle with again. It’s a constant noticing and befriending of fear and then instead of following the oh so tempting loop of worry, anxiety and control... Letting go instead. It’s deciding to believe that things are okay until proven otherwise and not using worry as a way to protect yourself from hurt and disappointment. It’s believing that no matter what happens, even that which you fear the most, that you’ll ultimately be okay. It’s allowing yourself to be vulnerable with whatever is tender in your heart and to feel the uncertainty of being a human on this earth. 

Where in your life are you using worry as a way to control things? Where and how can you let go? Even just a little? Or at least accept what is out of your control?

Taking Steps Before You’re Ready

I’ve been watching my one year old learn how to walk and It’s been an incredibly humbling and inspiring experience. Her tenacity, courage and resilience has been incredible.

I can’t count the amount of times she’s fallen over, flat on her face, never mind the amounts of bumps and bruises to her beautiful little head.

But she kept going. Getting up fall after fall. Sometimes there were tears, other times acceptance or laughter, but what remained the same was her sheer persistence and determination.

I think about my own experiences of falling down. Or even lack of experience. I think what is more painful for me than all the bumps and bruises I’ve accumulated in my life, are the times that I’ve failed to take those first brave steps due to fear or perfectionism or some limiting belief that I hold. 

So it’s with this thought that I take my first humble steps in writing my first blog post. It’s with this inspiration that I send this out to the world; imperfect, but authentic.

I’m sure there will be many stumbles, mistakes and perhaps some bruises along the way, but I’m convinced that it’s in these moments that our resilience is formed. It’s our willingness to be vulnerable which makes the difference between whether we follow our dreams, grow and reach our potential or whether we stay stuck, perhaps comfortable, but with the ache in our heart that we know we’re not living up to who it is we could be.

So in the words of Brene Brown;

I choose courage over comfort. 

Where could you be more courageous in your own life? Take those first steps and risk falling down in order to grow or learn or to satisfy some deep longing?