Home Archive by category 'Body Image'

Body Image

  • Body Image, Dieting, Emotional Eating, Recovery, Restriction

    “Come As You Are” – But I Am Not Sick Enough To Need Help? #NEDA

    • Comments Off on “Come As You Are” – But I Am Not Sick Enough To Need Help? #NEDA
    • by

    Let’s cut to the chase – you don’t need to look a certain way in order to ask for help relating to your relationship with food or body image.

    You don’t need to be “fat” to have a problem with your body image. You don’t need to be skeletal thin to have a serious obsessive problem with dieting.

    There is a common misperception around our emotional and mental health that we need to be diagnosed with a clinical condition in order to be ‘sick enough’ to get help.

    This is certainly the case with eating disorders. We believe we need to look a certain way in order to consider ourselves a candidate to get help.

    This is definitely NOT TRUE.

    When we are struggling and we hide it, if we pretend we are ok when we are living in a mental hell we are denying our own humanness. As humans we live in community, we share stories and we support each other. We share joy and we also share the hard times. This is how we get by. This is how we create society. This is how we heal.

    Helping each other and standing side by side is a crucial part of being human.

    You don’t need to look a certain way, display certain diagnostic criteria or be any type of way in order to qualify for asking for help. All you need to know is that you are finding it difficult to cope and you want to change because you know there is more to life.

    If you feel that you are struggling with dieting, bingeing, any facet of your relationship with food or your body image then send me a message now. Don’t wait. It is unlikely to ‘just get better’. We can change how you’re feeling in a matter of weeks, your life can completely change within months and in years…? well all your dreams can come true.

    Don’t delay the start of living the life you truly deserve.

    Message me here or comment below.

    CONTINUE...

  • Body Image, Emotional Abuse, Recovery, Sexual Abuse

    Healing Is Not Linear – Crucial Advice For Moving Through Tough Times

    In my earlier blogs I talk about the impact of sexual abuse, see here and here. This childhood trauma had a huge impact on my relationship with my body and was the main underlying cause for my disordered and emotionally driven eating.

    Healing my relationship with food and my body was the most important thing I did for healing my relationship with myself and recovering from this childhood trauma.

    I don’t spend much time these days thinking about what happened or working specifically on deep healing around it. But that doesn’t mean triggers and stories don’t arise and it doesn’t mean I can say I am ‘fully healed’. These kinds of scars run deep.

    While they don’t now impact my everyday life they are still part of the fabric of who I am and from time to time things get highlighted or called up to be seen and to be dealt with.

    This is exactly what happened these last few days. Perhaps it was Valentine’s day and all the love being shared, I am not sure. But for some reason a conversation I had with some male friends triggered a massively disproportionate amount of rage. I got so infuriated and I knew it wasn’t about them personally or the exact things they were saying.

    I know the feeling of being triggered well now. It’s something we learn as we develop our ability to listen to our intuition. As we learn how our body responds and reacts to different events, conversations, environments and people we learn what is ‘normal’ for us and what is out of character or disproportionate.

    This skill is what allowed me to not take my anger out on my friends but instead go inwards and ask myself what was going on for me. Our bodies hold so much wisdom. Our bodies know what we need and how to handle themselves. It is so so crucial to develop our ability to truly listen to ourselves.

    Not only was I able to recognise what was happening and feel my reaction rather than unleashing it unfairly on the world, I was also able to be kind and compassionate to myself in that moment, even though I was angry.

    This is the key. To know that whatever we are feeling, even when triggered is OK. ALL of our feelings are valid. Every. Single. One. We are still lovable when we are mad, we are still lovable when we are hurting, we are still lovable when we are depressed. The way we are feeling is not a determinant of how lovable we are.

    Healing is not linear. There will be days, weeks, months, years when triggers simply won’t come up for you. Where you will wake up everyday feeling energised, hopeful and excited for life, able to handle healthfully anything that comes into your sphere. Then a conversation or event might trigger something and we feel ourselves falling. We try to grasp on to the feeling of peace, of joy. But it slips through our fingers and we find ourselves deep in the anger.

    Know that this doesn’t mean we have failed or that we have gone ‘backwards’ this is all part of the healing journey. In fact it’s an unavoidable part of the journey of life. The important thing is what we bring to the table to support ourselves through these times. We need to bring the awareness, kindness and compassion for ourselves that we have been developing. We need to recognise these feelings for what they are which are feelings. Feelings, no matter how intense move through.

    Knowing how to handle ourselves with love in those moments is crucial however there is one even more important piece of wisdom for supporting ourselves through these times and that is CONNECTION.

    The thing that helped me the most over these past few days is speaking out my feelings to trusted friends and those who triggered me. It sounds easy writing this now. But I know it can feel terrifying. However the energy of those feelings needs to move through and needs to move out of our bodies. Sharing with a trusted person in our lives is THE most healing thing we can do for ourselves.

    There is something profoundly pure and beautiful in sharing our pain with someone who understands. This is something I was totally unaware of until I truly began my healing journey. Telling a friend you feel angry is one thing but being able to express your emotion into the world while someone sits and stays with you with no judgement through that is something very different and incredibly special.

    If you are looking for someone to share your story , someone who is truly able to listen and hold space for you with no judgement then please know you can always reach out to me through the comment section below or email me directly sasha@sashafardell.com. Otherwise use the links below and join me over on instagram or facebook. Hope to hear from you.

    CONTINUE...

  • Binge Eating, Body Image, Dieting, Emotional Eating, Recovery, Self Confidence, Self Love

    How Life Has Changed Since Stopping Emotional Eating

    • Comments Off on How Life Has Changed Since Stopping Emotional Eating
    • by

    This morning I woke up naturally, no buzzing sound of alarm calling me to ‘get my ass to the gym’, I rolled over and lay there for a while, took a few breaths and smiled to myself.

    This sounds like the start of a cheesy film…perhaps it is. And I am grateful for that. Because never in a million years did I ever think this could be my life.

    If you’ve been following along this blog for a while and have read ‘my story’ (find it here) then you will know I put myself through absolute hell with my diet and my body. And today all I feel is gratitude for this amazing life I have. This amazing life that I fought for myself to have.

    I was once that girl who appeared to ‘have it all’ – the job, the apartment, the relationship, the money, the clothes, the bags, the holidays…..the body.

    Everything looked amazing on the outside. But what I remember about being that girl wasn’t any of that. What I remember about being that girl were the endless nights I was doubled over in pain after eating a huge takeaway meal, family sized bag of crisps, a packet of biscuits, half a chocolate cake, a tub of ice cream, sharing bags of sweets and taking laxatives on top of that to try and ‘flush’ it out so I didn’t ingest the calories.

    I remember waking up the next day after 2 hours of sleep feeling like I’d been hit by a truck then putting on my gym clothes and my running watch and heading out for an hour long slog down the Thames, dragging my feet along, willing my legs to carry me. I remember wishing away the hours during the day at work or with friends so that I could be at home on my own and eat.

    The only thing I remember enjoying was shopping for my binges. My greatest joy in life was getting to go to the supermarket after work and spending inordinate amounts of money on snacks and treats. I would tell myself that I would only eat half when packets of cakes were on buy one get one free offers. That it was more cost effective for me to buy the biggest packets of crisps because I would eat them at some point anyway…knowing full well I could never stop mid-packet. I would play games with myself that because I had exercised and hadn’t eaten all day it was ok for me to devour 4000 calories worth of chocolate fudge brownie cake and ice cream.

    My emotion-fuelled binges consumed my whole life. The sadness and helplessness that enveloped my entire life was suffocating. I look back and all I remember were hazy moments of peace found mid-binge when the sugar had started to hit and I knew I still had so much more to eat. The rest of my life was covered by a huge black cloud.

    To say my life has changed is the world’s biggest understatement.

    It couldn’t be more different.

    Here’s a few of the ways my life has transformed –

    🌟I eat whatever food whenever I want and NEVER feel guilty

    🌟I enjoy ALL foods – yes, including veggies!

    🌟I exercise because I enjoy it

    🌟I love my body unconditionally

    🌟I am WAY more fun to be around

    🌟I have time to do things I enjoy

    🌟I am the happiest I have ever been

    🌟I LOVE my life

    Tell me you don’t want more of all that for yourself?

    Hand on heart, what do you want for yourself? If you had a fairy godmother who could give you one wish right now what would it be? Tell me honestly that you wouldn’t want to feel happier in your life?

    You don’t need a fairy godmother – you can be your own fairy godmother and grant yourself that wish right now. All you need to do is take one step forward and say ‘I need support to move through this transition, to quit the crazy eating behaviours’. Raise your hand and say ‘I know I can do this, I know what I need to do and I know with someone by my side I will do it’.

    I’ve got your back. I am asking for your permission to be there for you. I can and I will support you through this. All you need to do is say yes…

    CONTINUE...

  • Body Image, Intuitive Eating, Recovery, Self Confidence, Self Love

    5 Steps to Effectively Handle Bad Body Image Days

    • Comments Off on 5 Steps to Effectively Handle Bad Body Image Days
    • by

    You wake up, you feel tired, you look at yourself bleary-eyed in the mirror and that familiar heaviness washes through your body. Staring back is the you of yesterday…but fatter.

    You swear you didn’t look like this last night when you went to bed. Why are your legs all puffy and your face swollen? Why do you have an extra bloated stomach when you haven’t even eaten yet today?

    This my friends is the start of a potential ‘bad’ body image day. I am 100% positive if you are reading this blog that you will know the feelings I just described. There is no way we could have put on a stone overnight but somehow the mirror and our mind is telling us we have. The voice in our heads is screaming at us that we are suddenly too fat again, how did we let ourselves go like this, who is this girl who is so out of control of her life she allowed herself to get this fat?

    None of these things are true. But it doesn’t matter because our mind is going to keep telling us they are until we make the decision not to eat that day or to smash ourselves at the gym or try and get 20,000 steps in or all of the above of course.

    If however we are healing our relationship with food and our body, that is the total opposite of what we’re going to do.

    Here are my best tips on how to handle yourself when you are having a bad body image day

    1.Step away from the mirror

    I’m serious. Move away from the trigger immediately and absolutely under no circumstances think about weighing yourself. Stop analysing your body, in fact don’t even look at it.

    2.Go inside

    By this I mean sit or lie still for a moment and bring your attention to your breath. At this point your mind may still be going crazy. That is ok. Let the thoughts come up. Let them happen and instead of holding on to them, just notice them. By focusing on your breath you are bringing some separation between you and your thoughts. This is vital.

    3.Start saying kind things to yourself that have nothing to do with your body or how you look

    Use “I am” to make it more potent…
    My favourites are, I am a good friend, I am a loving partner, I am fun to be around etc.

    4.Explore how you are feeling

    If you have followed along with this blog for a while you will know this is my favourite tip (and if explored fully probably the only one you need). When you are feeling crappy about your body this is a SIGNAL that something else is going on. It is a signal that there is something in your life that is triggering feelings of unworthiness, not enough-ness, emptiness or loneliness. Things are happening in your sphere which are leading you to feel pain or hurt.
    In order to stop feeling bad about our bodies we need to stop feeling bad about ourselves. This means uncovering what is really making us feel bad.

    5.Be gentle with yourself

    Don’t give yourself extra tasks to do. If you are feeling a little compromised, if your energy is low and you are struggling be extra kind to yourself. Don’t beat yourself up or attempt to do a million things to ‘distract’ yourself. self-care means caring for your self. That means paying attention to her, being kind to her and helping her feel safe when your thoughts are saying do the opposite.

    Ultimately these tips work instantaneously when bad body image days pop up. But ideally we want to aim for none of these days. We want to wake up everyday and not have any negative thoughts about our bodies. Trust me, it is possible! We can get to a place with our bodies where negative thoughts simply don’t enter our minds, or if they do accidentally slip in they slip out so fast we don’t even register, let alone react to them.

    If you want to make this your reality then get on a call with me right now. I know what you need to do and I know how you need to do it. We can absolutely wave good-bye to bad body image days once and for all. Post a comment below or email me directly here sasha@sashafardell.com and let’s banish these negative thoughts for good.

    Like this post? Supplement tip 4. with this blog, with these self-care tools, and these two top tips on how to stop comparing yourself

    Lots of love xx

    CONTINUE...

  • Body Image, Dieting, Emotional Eating, Recovery, Self Confidence, Self Love

    Your Body Is Not A Commodity

    • Comments Off on Your Body Is Not A Commodity
    • by

    In order to sell something that thing has to be useful to someone, it has to have some value, it has to look a certain way, perform a certain way or have certain functions that make it attractive to a particular person.

    We understand this and therefore we set our own expectations and judgements around things, we set parameters around what we like and don’t like and what we value or need. Therefore when it comes to buying things or choosing things for our life we know what we are looking for and we can simply pick them out and away we go.

    The thing about ‘things’ is that they have no feelings, thoughts or emotions. They just exist as they are. They don’t care if you pick them or not. They are not reacting to your judgements and expectations. They are just there and they just are.

    Bodies are not like that. And guess why…

    Because bodies are not ‘things’ bodies are HUMANS. Real life human people.

    When we try to make our bodies a certain way in order to ‘sell’ ourselves to the world we are DEHUMANISING ourselves.

    When we mess with our food through excessive dieting, bingeing or over-exercising we are treating our body as a commodity.

    We are saying to ourselves that our body is an object that must be changed to look or function in a certain way in order for it to be ‘sellable’, i.e. acceptable, to the world.

    This is not necessarily our fault. We have been trained to think about our bodies in this way by a lot of mass market media. We are shown that legs should look long, slim, white and tanned, that waists should be slim and trim and breasts perky and perfectly round. We are told we need to make our bodies look like that in order for people to buy into us as women.

    This is disturbing for many reasons and something that might not change in the media for a while. But something we can change is the way we react to this.

    Ladies, we can say no. We can stand up and say I am a woman and my body is my home. My body is perfect exactly the way it looks naturally. I refuse to cause myself harm through unhealthy behaviours to try and make my body look a specific way.

    This is about reasserting ourselves as whole people. Your body is not something to be judged and scrutinised or compared with an unrealistic ideal. Your body is a living, breathing, moving, sentient being, the home of all your hopes, dreams, wishes and future plans. It is not something to be destroyed, trashed, terrorised all in the name of someone else’s beauty ideal.

    We have a right to live freely and happily in our bodies, exactly as they are. Our bodies are not a commodity.

    TW: For another post on our bodies as home related to sexual trauma check out my post here

    CONTINUE...

  • Blogvember, Body Image, Dieting, Emotional Eating, Intuitive Eating, Recovery, Restriction

    24 – Find Flexibility – Find Food Freedom

    • Comments Off on 24 – Find Flexibility – Find Food Freedom
    • by

    A huge shift has taken place in the diet/health industry. People have woken up to the fact that being skinny does not necessarily equate to being happy and healthy, that fat loss is not the be all and end all. Size zero is definitely not as ‘in’ as it once was.

    However this has given rise to a new obsession with finding what ‘healthy’ really is. In comes the race to find the most super superfood, the ‘best’ balance of macro and micronutrients, the best time to eat. It’s not just about counting calories anymore. The diet industry is morphing into a health and wellness industry focused on ‘healthy’ eating and with that a growing number of us falling into orthorexic tendencies.

    As you know I like to keep this blog pretty practical and personal rather than going into the factual minutiae but for background orthorexia has been defined by NEDA as “an obsession with proper or ‘healthful’ eating”. It is not clinically diagnosable at the time of this blog but it feels like it’s only a matter of time.

    Not only is there a general push towards finding the ‘healthiest’ diet people have also become more conscious of the environmental implications of the food industry. This has led to a shift towards more people choosing veganism and claiming that it is the healthiest way to eat not only for your body but for the planet as well.

    As a coach supporting absolute food freedom for all I don’t actively support any particular way of eating or trends in the wellness industry. I remain neutral not because I don’t have an opinion but because we are all totally unique and different and therefore what looks and feels like food freedom for me will be different to what looks and feels like food freedom to you.

    I also focus on the emotional basis of our crazy eating habits, binges and fad diets because if we don’t dig deep and look at the real reasons WHY we get so obsessed with particular dogma around food we won’t be able to heal it and find a healthy food freedom that will last a lifetime.

    With this move towards healthy eating now being equated with clean eating, i.e. eating in the most nutrient efficient, unprocessed way, and people getting confused with the all too nebulous term ‘balance’ I want to broaden your minds as to what ‘healthy’ could mean in reality for you.

    Health and balance when it comes to food and your body is not just about what you eat and what you look like, it’s not even just about what you feel like. Having a healthy and balanced relationship with food and your body means eating in a way that not only feels good to you and your body but that also slots into your life with the proper priority level.

    Eating well and caring for our bodies is super important. I am a huge advocate of taking care of ourselves in every way we can so that we can show up in the world and give our true and best selves. However sometimes this doesn’t look like waking up naturally at 7am sipping on a lemon water and eating overnight oats then eating our carefully planned, prepped meals every 2-3 hours.

    Sometimes this means getting up super early in the morning to go and pick our family up from the airport, grabbing a coffee and croissant there even though we know that’s not the best for our energy levels, spending the day running around doing chores to get ready for a work event, having an impromptu pizza lunch date, then collapsing onto the sofa with random leftovers we have put together from our fridge.

    Even though that day didn’t look like a perfect ‘healthy eating’ day, we still fuelled ourselves, we were able to get on with what we wanted to do that day and we showed up in our lives without letting the food options available stop us.

    The magic thing is that after a few days like this, if you are truly seeking health and balance and are able to listen to your body, it will naturally start craving more variety, more fresh foods, different proteins and vegetables. You will find yourself reaching for different foods if your follow your body’s intuition. You don’t need to reverse engineer or restrict your daily activities thinking that you need to eat in a certain perfect way to be healthy. Your body is constantly working on the subconscious level to keep you alive and healthy. When you start allowing your mind to dictate everything you are actually fighting against your body. When you are trying to second-guess what your body needs all the time you are trying to predict the future.

    The only way to find food freedom and be healthy is to listen to your body in the moment. To be aware and use your knowledge to support the choices you are making but not to be bound by this knowledge if your day does not go exactly to plan.

    I encourage you before you say no to things because of the food options available to remember that your body is an incredible, amazing thing that is able to self-regulate and is always looking to bring you back to balance. Knowing what is healthiest for your own body doesn’t mean you have to be dogmatic about sticking to those exact things.

    Life is really just about how well we can adapt to constant change, you’ve heard it before and I will say it again, the only thing we can be certain of in this life is uncertainty!

    Be careful when you are saying no to things because of food choices that you are not actually saying no to life.

    If this resonated check out this blog on how to cope with body change; this one on change in our daily food requirements;
    and this one on finding freedom outside of control

    Lots of love xxx

    CONTINUE...

  • Blogvember, Body Image, Intuitive Eating, Recovery, Self Confidence, Self Love

    23 – Are you really not your body?

    • Comments Off on 23 – Are you really not your body?
    • by

    There are a lot of messages around self-love that tell you that “you are not your body”; that there is so much more to life than your body, hence don’t waste your time focusing on it or getting so obsessed with it.

    I took this approach when I first stopped dieting and tried to get a hold of my emotional eating. I stopped looking in the mirror, stopped caring what I looked like and how I felt in my body. Instead I shut all of those things off and just tried to eat ‘normally’.

    It was a disaster. Within a few months my health had deteriorated to the point I was suffering from chronic headaches, fatigue, debilitating periods. I thought that when you stopped bingeing and dieting your health and body would improve, or at least stay the same…I was completely shocked.

    So why am I sharing this with you?

    It is a myth that you are not your body. If you are wanting to get a hold of your emotional eating and change your relationship with food the key part is not to start ignoring your body and what it feels like but actually to get deeper into relationship with it than ever before. Every single day of your life you will live inside this body you have. It is as much you as your mind. It is not a part of you to just forget sometimes. This body is your home, it is your life.

    When we diet and emotionally eat we are attempting to separate our basic needs as humans from what we think we should need based on society’s expectations. We deny our own reality when we try to make our body something that it is not.

    If you are not your body then how do you expect to live in this world? How do you expect to show up and be the best version of you if you don’t focus on your body, the very vessel that allows you to experience this planet..?

    Our body’s are to be respected, to be loved, to be cared for. You are your body. Your body is you.

    Internalise this concept, take it to heart and healing your relationship with food will come naturally.

    Lots of love xx

    CONTINUE...

  • Blogvember, Body Image, Emotional Eating, Intuitive Eating, Recovery, Self Love

    20 – Nourish yourself with Self-Care – Three Tools

    • Comments Off on 20 – Nourish yourself with Self-Care – Three Tools
    • by

    A lot of what we speak about when we look at the topic of self-love and self-acceptance is all the ways we can best take care of ourselves mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually in this life so that we can show up as our best selves and do the things we want to do.

    When we are abusing food and our bodies through extreme emotional eating, dieting or punishing exercise routines we are not taking care of ourselves. Not only when it comes to food and exercise but likely in many other ways as well.

    Some people might like to argue that controlling their food or exercising all the time is healthy for them. I’m not going to dispute that, for example if you are a competitive athlete than living your best, most full up life will likely involve a pretty strict diet and exercise regime. However for most of us to live our best lives we could probably do with being a little kinder to ourselves.

    In this blog post I want to share some of the ways you can heal your relationship with food and your body and yourself without actually focusing on changing the way you eat and move.

    Let me explain. Often when something goes wrong we try to figure out the solution by focusing on fixing the thing that is broken, for example if your knee is hurting then normally we contain our problem-solving to different things that could have gone wrong with the knee. But we miss the fact that even though the knee is the site of the pain it might actually be our hip or shoulder or neck that is out of line that is causing the knee pain in the first place. So perhaps short term we can fix the knee, but long term the problem is likely to return. We haven’t really solved the deeper issue. Do you see where I’m going with this?

    Let’s bring it back to abusing food and exercise.

    Our poor relationship with food and our bodies is normally a symptom of deeper feelings of low self-worth. Focusing on changing how we eat and stopping emotionally eating is just putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. Eating in a more balanced way and exercising differently won’t solve the underlying problem. It is unlikely that by just changing your food and exercise regime you will suddenly begin to live this incredible full-up life of your dreams.

    This certainly wasn’t the case for me. I reformed my eating habits and exercise routine (more on me and exercise here), began resting a whole lot and eating a whole lot more nourishing foods, in a more balanced fashion but I still wasn’t really taking care of myself. Not really. The band-aid was firmly on but the bullet wound was not healed. In fact when I realised I was still struggling with so much in my life despite this change in attitude to my food and body, I thought ‘this isn’t working’ so I slipped back in to trying to control my food and the destructive eating and exercise habits came back.

    I needed a longer term solution.

    I needed to find real self-acceptance that came not from changing my food and exercise but from nourishing who I was as a person.

    None of my tips for nourishing yourself are revolutionary and there is actually good reason for this. We are talking about nourishing your human side. Humans have been living on this planet for thousands of years, and yes we have made a hell of a lot of progress in that time but we are still essentially human beings and this is still pretty much the planet we began life on.

    So let’s get in to the list

    1.Nature – Get into Nature

    There is nothing in this world more healing and nourishing for our humans souls than pure connection and nature is one of the most abundant sources of this powerful energy. Parks and gardens are ok but really I am talking about ‘big’ nature – a forest where you can surround yourself with trees, the ocean, a lake, the top of a hill. Any type of nature where you can escape shops, billboards, cars, sirens…you know what I’m saying.
    If you want to feel more at peace with yourself, more supported or held then get into nature.
    A big part of the reason we mess with our food and bodies and don’t love ourselves is because we feel disconnected. We carry around this sense of isolation and loneliness, we feel unloved and unworthy, the feeling that we are not good enough for this world. This disconnected feeling is because we are not in touch with our true selves. Being in nature reminds us of who we really are in the most basic sense. We are living beings, we are alive in the same way birds are alive, the same way trees are alive. Being in nature reminds us of that. When we are reminded of that we feel connected to things outside of ourselves lessening that sense of loneliness and abandonment.
    Maybe you’re not sure what I’m saying here about connection and energy, you don’t need to believe me, just go and spend some time out in nature, switch your phone off, take a look around and then see how you feel after. Chances are you will feel more relaxed, lighter and at ease with yourself. This is the feeling we are after when we talk about nourishing ourselves.

    2. Caring for your body – going back to basics

    Here I am going back to basics, talking about mindful washing of ourselves, the most basic form of self care but that we mostly just do on auto-pilot, we jump in stand there worrying about what we have to do that day, think ‘sh*t, I’m running late’, jump out and get on with our day.
    An amazing way to nourish yourself is to spend this time actually caring for your body. The best thing is that it doesn’t take any extra time because we all regularly shower anyway.
    There is no set routine or way to do this correctly. The point of this is to show our body some care, to focus and give our attention to loving the skin we are in. You don’t need to move into ‘body love’ mode, just focus on the caring act of washing yourself clean. Giving your body a mini fresh start. Its amazing what a mood booster this can be when we wash mindfully. If you find your mind wanders bring it back to the moment by saying to yourself what you are doing, e.g. let your inner voice say ‘washing my feet’ as you are washing your feet.
    If you want to make it into a ritual by having a soak in the bath that’s also an option. But the point here is that actually the small moments where you are acting in an intentionally caring way towards yourself are just as valuable and nourishing as the big gestures!

    3. Give yourself the gift of sleep

    Giving your body some security in terms of sleeping patterns is one of the most caring things you can do for yourself. It’s telling your body that it’s ok to rest. We need to encourage our bodies to shut down. We need to get proper rest otherwise how are we supposed to do everything we want to do in this life? Often we can’t sleep or our sleep is disturbed because of anxiety that is based in fear. When we are fearful or anxious about things our adrenaline is switched on and we are constantly on high alert. Our bodies don’t feel safe to shut down in that state because we are afraid of being attacked or that something will happen where we will have to defend ourselves. Having a regular bed time and a bed time routine, whatever that looks like for you, is vital in reassuring our minds and bodies that it is safe to sleep. Having more restful sleep is absolutely vital to taking care of ourselves.

    We are caring for ourselves when we stop doing as much. Being still and resting in this busy chaotic world is one of the highest forms of self-care there is.

    Please have a go at implementing these tools, and let me know how you get on – just drop a comment below or email me sasha@sashafardell.com. Such simple things practiced over time with patience and consistency are absolutely life-changing.

    Lots of love xx

    CONTINUE...

  • Blogvember, Body Image, Recovery, Self Confidence, Self Love

    19 – Physical practices that make self-love easy

    Growing your self-love practice means getting comfortable with your own body. By that I mean getting intimate with yourself, and not necessarily sexually although that can be a helpful way.

    I’m talking small ways you can physically show yourself love. These suggestions are tools you can use any time and only need to take a few seconds, but they are practices, the more you do them the stronger they get. Try these practices for a few days and see how you feel.

    Before doing any of these first focus inwards. Take a few deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth. Feel the air moving in and out of your lungs as it inflates your chest and tummy then empties again. Once you feel calm and relaxed then begin. These exercises give you the opportunity to fill your heart with love. If that’s something you are not sure of or are unable to do just go through the physical motion and try to pay attention to what is happening inside your body. Just holding space for yourself is very powerful.

    1. Hug yourself – yes, it is as simple as it sounds. Take your arms out wide, fill your heart with love then wrap your arms around yourself. You can do this standing, just wrapping your arms around your upper body. Alternatively you can sit on the floor with your knees bent up to your chest and put your arms around your legs and lower your head so your forehead is against your knees. Stay there for as many breaths as you need until you feel a calm relaxation come over you, you may start to feel warm and hopefully comforted as well.
    2. Pat yourself on the back – I mean physically. When you do a good job, act in a positive way, say something kind to yourself or do something on your to-do list give yourself a little pat on the back. To be honest you can do this anytime, even if you make a decision that wasn’t quite right for you give yourself a little pat of encouragement anyway. Acknowledge yourself throughout your day. Regardless of the circumstances remind yourself that you are doing your best. Again this might sound a little empty if you’re randomly patting yourself but this self-love practice is incredibly powerful in building up your connection between what you are doing in your daily life and your physical body. It is interrupting the auto-pilot where you spend entire days acting only from your head.
    3. Mirror work – this isn’t for everyone right away. Mirrors can give a very distorted picture and can be pretty triggering, but I encourage you to give it a go in the knowledge that it is just a mirror and is not actually exactly what you look like or who you really are. My first recommendation would be to look in the mirror and look yourself directly in the eye, don’t look at your body, and say ‘I accept myself’ or ‘I accept you’ whichever resonates more. Say it multiple times. Repeat it until you believe it. Then try ‘I support myself’, ‘I respect myself’. Try different words depending on what you find hardest. Then move on to ‘I like myself’ before moving on to ‘I love myself’. This is about progressing towards really looking at ourselves and believing it. There is no point in saying it if you are not yet ready to believe it.

    These practices are just that…practices. You need to keep coming back to them to keep reaffirming to yourself that you are at home in your physical body and that you accept and love yourself as you are. It will take time, think how many times you told yourself you were not good enough or looked for hugs from other people rather than comforting yourself? This is a new skill you are learning so keep practicing and you will get there.

    Lots of love xx

    CONTINUE...

  • Blogvember, Body Image, Recovery, Self Confidence, Self Love, Spirituality

    16 – You are one of the 5 people you spend most time with

    • Comments Off on 16 – You are one of the 5 people you spend most time with
    • by

    We are all aware of the concept that we are the product of the 5 people we spend most time with right? This makes a lot of sense logically, and we have probably experienced it for ourselves, where you start saying the same phrases as your best friend, or ending up wearing the same outfit as your partner. These are fairly harmless examples, but there are of course loads of other ways we subconsciously integrate what those around us are doing. How we feel about our bodies and ourselves is certainly one of them.

    Think of it this way, when one of our friends says she thinks she is fat and goes on a diet, and then our colleague sitting next to us at work is constantly telling us to ‘hide the biscuits’, what message are we hearing?

    We are hearing the voice of restriction, the voice that says we are not good enough as we are. Those comments are reaffirming that we are not ok enjoying our bodies, enjoying our food. We shouldn’t be a certain way, shouldn’t look a certain way. Even if we are confident in ourselves if we continuously spend time around people who are not loving themselves, who are restricting what they eat or are constantly on a mission to ‘beat the bulge’ then these messages will eventually get through to us.

    I’m not telling you to ditch your friends or swap seats in the office. This is not other peoples fault! We are adults now and we have a choice to change the narrative of our daily lives.

    When we were children we didn’t really get to choose the 5 people we spent most of our time with. They mostly included our family, caregivers, teachers at school and classmates. Most of us grew up in a competitive environment based on comparison which we were ill-equipped to deal with because our parents didn’t know to teach us about self-love. It was also an environment where fat is bad, where we compared the size of our thighs to our friends, where boys picked girls based on how pretty they were and nothing else. Our parents and teachers told us to just ‘get on with it’, to hide our feelings, to hide our personality, to blend in. We were taught from a young age that we are not acceptable as the unique individual we naturally are.

    This is exactly the message that many of us are now continuing to pass on. With all this talk of dieting, over-exercising, feeling ‘fat’, it is all part of the same narrative that we are not good enough.

    So rather than ditching the people we love in search of others who might have a different story to tell why don’t we start with ourselves.

    The magic of being a product of the 5 people we spend the most time with is that we are a part of that! We are influencing the 5 people closest to us as well. And that means we can change things.

    So starting with yourself, change that inner voice. Tell yourself you can eat whatever you want, look in the mirror and tell yourself you are beautiful and perfect exactly as you are. Tell your friend she is an absolute goddess and will continue to be whatever dress size she is. Ask you colleague how she is really feeling and why she gets so agitated when treats appear in the office.

    Yes, we are a product of the people we spend the most time around. But don’t fool yourself into believing that you don’t have the power to influence those people right back! Be the loving, positive force you really are and watch those around you shift in response. Create your own body positive, anti-diet community by starting with yourself!

    If you want help and support on your journey to filing every inch the superstar you are in the body you are in then please drop me a comment down below or email me sasha@sashafardell.com and let’s get started. Changing the world starts with you.

    CONTINUE...