Home Archive by category 'Spirituality'

Spirituality

  • Relationships, Self Confidence, Self Empowerment, Self Love, Spirituality

    Finding The Elusive Balance of Masculine/Feminine

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    With the New Moon in Capricorn energy coursing through this week I have been thinking a lot about legacy establishment and strategising for the long term. There is a tendency for us to think that means carving out a path and then repeating the same behaviours over and over again in order to build something that lasts. It feels rigid, lacks spontaneity and feels kind of…well…boring.

    But there’s another way to think of it.

    The long-term is indeed a culmination of our daily habits and actions. The arc of our life only exists as a result of the millions of tiny choices we make on a moment by moment basis.

    When we think about creating structure for the long-term what we really want to focus on is establishing the behaviours we can automatise that directly correlate to the type of person we want to be and the type of life we want to live. For example, being healthy doesn’t exist as an end in itself somewhere in the future. Rather it exists in us making the choice to eat more vegetables with our meal rather than have extra cake. The easier we make all of these choices, the more automatic they become, and so we create the long-term structure for being a healthy person.

    This is exactly how it works in business as well. If you want to be successful in your business over the long-term…whatever the term successful means to you…then it’s not just about signing up one client, rather it’s about asking yourself what patterns of behaviour are consistent with someone who runs a successful business.

    Here are a few of tips for creating structure in your work as you start a new business…

    🌟Get organised, define the areas of business that need regular attention – e.g. marketing, sales, product development, client services, financial planning

    🌟Assign days of the week to give your attention to each one

    🌟Commit to spending a minimum amount of time on the specific area on the allocated day – it could be as little as 10 minutes

    🌟Track when you have spent the allotted time on the area and reward yourself – ticking off a list or crossing days off on a calendar are simple but can feel incredibly rewarding

    The most important part…at first it might seem like this would create a rigid, inflexible, ‘boring’ lifestyle. Wrong. What it creates over time is an automatic pattern of behaviours that allows you to take care of your business with very low energy output. This leaves you more time and most importantly energy to be creative, to step away and see the bigger picture, to come up with new ideas to implement, to adapt the structure. But if you don’t have any structure to start with there is no space for you to move forward.

    This is how the balance of masculine and feminine energy functions optimally in our lives. Having the right mix of masculine structure, consistency and reliability along with the space and energy to receive new ideas, to move intuitively in different directions, to dance in chaos creates the most epic blend of a life filled with the constant interplay of certainty and uncertainty. It is through this dance that the magic truly comes to life.

    Use the beautiful earthy Capricorn energy to bring in the healthy masculine and let it be friends with the depths and gloriousness of your divine feminine.

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  • Anxiety, Emotional Abuse, Exercise, Intuitive Eating, Recovery, Relationships, Self Confidence, Self Empowerment, Self Love, Spirituality

    STRUGGLING WITH OVERWHELM? 6 Action Steps To Take Right Now

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    Overwhelm…probably makes you feel a little…Anxious? Nervous? Fearful? yep, even thinking of the word can conjure an unpleasant response in our body.

    So what exactly is it, where does it come from and most importantly how do we stop it from taking over?

    Overwhelm is rooted in a feeling of powerlessness. Overwhelm happens when we have lost our sense of self and have been plunged into confusion feeling a myriad of limitless options surrounding us with no idea which way to turn. This confusion may come from outside of us or from inside our own minds – but either way – it all feels like “too much” and often makes us want to shut down.

    It pushes many of us into procrastination or gets us doing meaningless tasks that aren’t in line with our truth.

    So why does overwhelm happen? Why, even though we know it is not helpful for us, do we let it in? Why can’t we stop it?

    Here are two fundamental reasons for overwhelm 

    1) YOU ARE NOT ANCHORED IN YOUR OWN AUTHORITY

    You get overwhelmed because your focus and energy is directed outward too much. There is too much emphasis on things that are going on outside of you and what other people are doing, thinking and saying.

    This is the manifestation often of a huge boundary issue, especially for empaths. Where your sense of self and identity is based on the reflections you receive from those around you and is not generated from within.

    You then get overwhelmed because there are limitless options available to you out there and without being anchored in your own authority you have no way to narrow down those options.

    The world is simply too much and your container is always overflowing with other peoples thoughts and ideas. Your own voice is crowded out.

    2) THE VOICE OF YOUR INNER CRITIC IS LOUDER THAN YOUR INTUITION/HEART

    You haven’t cultivated a strong enough relationship with your intuition and the voice of your ego takes over often.

    Your ego voice is one of fear. This conditioned voice will keep telling you you are not good enough, you need to be small, you shouldn’t cause a scene, you shouldn’t speak up.

    You feel overwhelmed then because suddenly everything feels like too much of a challenge. Everything is too scary, too dangerous, too risky. So you end up not doing these things – your ego has won – it has kept you safe and small.

    The pressure inside your mind has overwhelmed any dreams or desires you have in life to go and do what you want to do.

    The outcome as a result of either 1) or 2) or both is that you feel small and restricted in your own life and feel out of control.

    In both scenarios you are perpetuating a concept of separateness. You are disconnected from source, disconnected from truth.

    The natural order of things is wholeness, balance and abundance. The concept of overwhelm is a construct of your mind that keeps you feeling small because it wants you to be safe. 

    Overwhelm often comes with a growth moment. It is when you are asking more of yourself than you have done before.

    But, very importantly, you CAN grow without overwhelm.

    Here’s how…

    Here are 6 tips you can action whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed in order to reduce the overwhelm and allow you to move forward in life in whichever direction you want to go

    1) GET INTO THE BODY AND MOVE THE ENERGY

    Any intuitive movement is good, even just focusing on the breath works.

    Overwhelm manifests in the body but lives in the mind. Therefore you need to acknowledge it, and then move it. Examples include dance, yoga, stretching, walking, gym workouts. Any somatic practice that takes you out of your mind and into your body works well here. This is not the best time to learn a new physical skill though because you need your mind for that. Choose easy movement that you know how to do.

    2) TELL YOURSELF A NEW STORY

    Use affirmations to change the story in your mind. The most important thing here is to find statements that feel true to you. Here are a couple of examples.

    “I am more powerful than what is making me anxious”

    “I am a divine limitless spiritual being having a human experience”

    3) SET BOUNDARIES

    This will feel hard at first and may even feel more overwhelming but once you have set them and then stick with them your life will feel so much easier.

    A very tangible example here is setting boundaries around giving your energy to others. If you are constantly being asked by other people to do things for them and have no time for you then start setting boundaries with the people in your life. State clearly that you are happy to help them out but with conditions. Give time limits, share how much resource it takes you etc. let people know what you are available for and if they ask more of you then stay firm and say “no”. Make sure you are always spending time each day giving your own energy back to yourself.

    4) BREAK DOWN TASKS

    Break down tasks into the smallest conceivable size.

    I love this Hemingway quote that always reminds me of this…he talks about writing a book, saying that the idea of writing a whole novel can feel too daunting, too overwhelming…instead of thinking this he says “all you have to do is write one true sentence”.

    That is a beautiful example of breaking down a huge, overwhelming task – writing a book – into its smallest conceivable next step – writing one sentence.

    Take that principle to your to-do list.

    5) CHANGE THE TIMELINE

    Give yourself more time to do things. You don’t need to have everything done yesterday. This is so simple and so effective.

    We consistently overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can achieve in a year or in a lifetime.

    Remember the tale of the tortoise and the hare. Consistent, sustainable effort over a long time period WILL give you results so long as you stay committed. Remember that you are in charge of your time and resources. If someone is asking too much of you you get to say “no” (remember action step 3 here)

    6) DO NOT STOP COMPLETELY

    When we get overwhelmed there is a tendency to want to shut down. But when we do that we lose momentum completely and it becomes more difficult and – to be honest – more overwhelming to start again. 

    Remember action step 4 – what is the smallest conceivable task you can do to keep the momentum rolling?

    For example, if you are moving house you may feel paralysed by overwhelm about sorting out and packing up your whole house – set yourself the task of clearing out and packing one bookshelf. The satisfaction of doing that will likely motivate and inspire you to do another shelf, and another. If it doesn’t then at the very least you have completed that one task and you can do another the next day. Just do not give up completely.

    I want to share one last BONUS action step….

    GET SUPPORT

    With all of these tips remember that you never need to go through this alone. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and like you cannot manage your life reach out and share those feelings with someone. Speaking out and sharing your experience is so so helpful in moving that energy. I want you to feel empowered to deal with overwhelm in your life but I also want you to know that empowered people still need support and guidance.

    If you are building a new coaching or healing business and are feeling overwhelmed and confused then I am here for you. I work with new coaches and healers to put together beautiful signature offers and build their business in a way that feels amazing and allows them to find success with ease, grace and flow. Click here for more information

    ALSO FEATURED ON MINDFLOWHARMONY HERE

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  • Recovery, Self Confidence, Self Empowerment, Self Love, Spirituality

    Doing ‘The Work’

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    Work cannot fill a hole in our heart space.

    The rhetoric around being ‘busy’, and reaching perfect levels of ‘productivity’ feels like we’re missing the mark when compared to the sheer scale of what is happening in our universe that is totally outside of our awareness let alone our control.

    Our bodies are always doing infinite things at any one moment, the number of messages that get sent within these vessels and the layers of communication that exist between us and the outside world is far more comprehensive and complex than any conceivable level of conscious productivity.

    You are infinitely busy and productive simply through being alive, and even after death. When you are resting you don’t stop growing. When you take a break your cells don’t stop rejuvenating. When you are not working you don’t stop breathing. So why do we think we need to ‘do’ in order to fill our heart space?

    I fell into a space of spiritual busywork trying to navigate these past few weeks – as if I was supposed to be somehow conducting this flow, as if I even could.

    We might call this ‘doing the work’.

    But when are we ever not doing the work?

    It’s happening, consciously or otherwise. Your whole life, existence, essence of being is the constant flux of evolution. Everything is always at work. It is not our job to label what is ‘the work’ and what is not.

    Our job is to stay open to every moment as an opportunity to see things differently and to know that whether we engage or not the work is still happening.

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  • Recovery, Relationships, Self Confidence, Self Empowerment, Self Love, Sexual Abuse, Spirituality

    What I have learnt about love this month – a Valentine’s special

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    ❤️Happy Valentine’s Day My Loves🥰😘

    And I couldn’t be happier. I used to dread this day as a single lady, never feeling more alone or unloved. But everything is so different now I have truly found the love that resides within me. The love that can be accessed and lived in all the time by all people. Our only job is to seek it until we find it, then nourish it and cultivate it until it is pouring out of us, lighting up anyone and everyone around us.

    This has been a huge moon cycle for me – I’ve come into my bleed 4 days early my body was so ready for this shift – in healing more layers (signed up for infinite layers apparently…🙋‍♀️) of my core wounds around my relationships with men, sexual abuse and pretty much every single way I made myself smaller or gave away parts of myself – sex, time, money, intellect, personality, humour… – to any man in return for ‘love’.

    Years into this journey, it surprises and excites me every single day how much there is to still discover about ourselves – these past few weeks have been eye-opening and HARD work – no one said this healing life was easy đŸ˜‰

    But with this work comes Truth – and this month I have received one of the greatest gifts of all – the redeliverance of my most sacred feminine energy.

    Calling back in this part of myself to experience at new depths has been a wild inner journey this month (friends who have held me – I love you đŸ˜˜)

    But now I have a new depth of Truth – I have felt and seen and know how I truly want to be loved. I have a new understanding of what it means to be in equanimous relationship with my own power and that of someone else’s.

    My boundaries feel stronger and more alive than ever even though I have experienced new depths of openness. I am not afraid to live in that part of myself and I know I am supported there. I know my own medicine – I delight in it and nourish myself with it every single day.

    When you feel your own depth, there is no way you can settle for less than that from another. If you are able to be more present to yourself in love than who you’re with can be, then what’s the point?

    For me a relationship is about love.

    I am deeply romantic, idealistic, dreamy, sensitive and get completely carried away in love. Why not ask to feel more love than you’ve ever felt before?🤷‍♀️ Why can’t it be like your wildest dreams?! Or better?

    All the things we’re NOT supposed to want, feel and protect ourselves against in this so-called harsh world. All the things I stopped myself from being.

    But I was closed off to my truth (perhaps The Truth) And despite (or because of) the layers of protection still got my heart smashed to pieces đŸ™‹â€â™€ď¸…and it was largely down to me…I was always wanting more, something deeper, more real but I hadn’t truly learnt to embody it for myself so was constantly placing responsibility for that on others to provide it for me (and all the rest of it that comes with painfully codependent relationships🤦‍♀️) Then of course in the end everyone ends up hurt and there’s no real love at all.

    Now I don’t care if I live in a dreamy, impractical world when it comes to love (I can be practical in other ways đŸ˜‹) I know how to live it authentically without seeking it from others and it feels intensely real to me and completely freaking epic. It is my truth and I own it for me đŸĽ°

    The love you want exists. It exists because you exist. So ask for it and don’t accept anything less from yourself or anyone else❤️

    Happy Valentine’s Day – loving you from the deepest depths of my heart đŸ˜˜â¤ď¸

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  • Anxiety, Recovery, Self Confidence, Self Empowerment, Self Love, Spirituality

    The ONLY thing that’s stopping you is you

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    You’ve heard this before but let’s break it down for you so you can truly understand what this means.

    You are blocking yourself due to 3 things…

    Current Beliefs

    Fear

    The Unknown

    Your current beliefs are what you know to be true about yourself right now. And right now you are not where you want to be. Therefore you are stuck in this cycle of doing what you have always done with the knowledge you have always had staying stuck in your current position.

    The only way to break free from this is to change.

    Sounds simple.

    Here’s the catch. In order to change you need to move into the unknown. To become a new version of yourself you have to shed the current known, comfortable version and become someone new.

    This is uncomfortable AF.

    It’s literally like jumping off a cliff into total darkness.

    This is where fear comes in. Fear is your body’s natural response to this prospect. Why the hell would you want to go diving into the deep abyss of the unknown?

    This fear of the leap is ultimately why you are stopping yourself.

    The current version of yourself is holding on with all her might to your current patterns and ways of doing things.

    The known will beat the unknown every single time unless you can get comfortable with the idea of taking that leap.

    You are the only one who can know in yourself whether you want to do that. So you are truly the only one stopping you.

    Ultimately it comes down to how much you want it…how much do you want your life to be different? Are you willing to push yourself further than you ever have before? Are you willing to trust yourself to make the best decisions? Are you willing to go forth into the unknown and create something magical from your life?

    If the answer is yes then I have a tip for you.

    While you are the only person who can make the decision to leap you don’t have to do this alone. You don’t need to wade through the depths of the unknown solo. You are allowed to have help! In fact I guarantee you are going to need support.

    Coaching is an amazing way to receive the support you need while moving through this exploration of the unknown.

    As a coach I hold space for you to discover the new you in an environment that is totally safe and supportive.

    Looking to start your coaching business? Get in touch – I have just the program for you!

    Loving you as always xxx

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  • Recovery, Self Empowerment, Self Love, Spirituality

    Sharing our stories IS adding value

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    When I originally thought of writing a blog I didn’t think about ‘tips + tricks’ or ‘adding value’, I thought about sharing and connecting.

    Somehow I lost my way a little.

    I forgot that sharing stories IS adding value. Sharing who we are and what we go through is a way of communicating tips + tricks.

    The packaging might look different but the outcome is the same.

    Sharing your story is enough, however you want to do it. You don’t need to brand or repackage you. You are enough exactly as you are and the way you want to express yourself in any given moment is perfect.

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  • Anxiety, Blogvember, Emotional Abuse, Intuitive Eating, Recovery, Self Confidence, Self Love, Spirituality

    22 – How to feel your feelings for real

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    This is one of my all-time favourite topics, firstly because I think it is just so incredible that we as humans who have this beautiful ability to sense the wonders of the world around us purposefully numb ourselves to its beauty so that we can avoid any hint of unpleasantness. I could talk for days about how we are taught to numb ourselves and how society is created on the foundations that in our life we should seek to live a life with only pleasure and any pain is bad and dissonant with our purpose here on earth. But this is not the purpose of this blog post!

    You want the action steps right? You want to know how to really get into your feelings. You know you numb yourself. You know that you don’t cry when you’re sad, you don’t speak out when you’re angry, you pretend you’re ok when inside you are slowly shrivelling up silently wishing you could hibernate forever…

    So how do we get past this, how do we get into our real feelings?

    As a disclaimer, read through the exercise first and if you have never done anything like this before I strongly suggest you do it in the presence of someone you trust, a therapist, coach or close friend or family member. If we have been detached from our feelings for a long time it can sometimes be quite overwhelming when we begin to explore them.

    The first thing to know is that feelings are bodily sensations. The way we experience feelings is visceral, it is felt physically. You can’t have an emotion just in your head (I will use the words emotion and feeling interchangeably in this post). If you think you can feel your feelings only in your mind then this is a surefire way to tell you are numbed to or have repressed your own emotions.

    Lets take a look at an example. An obvious one we all can identify with…fear. When we feel fear our heart rate increases, our palms get sweaty, we might need to go to the toilet, our hunger evaporates, we may feel our muscles tense and our senses become heightened. This is an extreme bodily response as when we feel fear our body sends around a massive amount of hormones in preparation to take action to save its own life, survival becomes our priority when we feel fear.

    What about other more subtle emotions? Every individual will experience their emotions in a way that is unique to them, they will have their own flavour but the way to identify them is the same.

    As a human you will have an emotional reaction to pretty much every change in circumstance around you whether you are aware of it or not, for example you will automatically respond when someone has said something kind (or mean) to you, if someone has offered to help you or you have solved a problem you have been working on for a while. In our ever-changing world we are constantly responding to evolving circumstances around us.

    In that moment where you sense a change in yourself, or if you don’t sense a change but something has happened and you think you ‘should’ have reacted then take a second to stop. Stay still. Sitting or standing. Close your eyes. Breathe in and out a couple of times. Bring your attention first to the breath coming in through your nose and feel it track down through your windpipe and into your lungs, filling them, then trace the air moving back out, feeling your lungs empty and the air coming out through your nostrils. Once you feel comfortable with this bring your attention to any sensations in your body that are acute, for example any pain, pressure or tightness. Move around your body and explore what is happening. Keep moving your attention around your body remaining curious and non-judgemental the whole time, take a few minutes. As you are doing this you will sense your mind making sense of your bodily sensations and it will start to give you potential answers to what you’re feeling. For example you might close your eyes and breathe and feel your legs become tingly, you might feel a tightness in your chest and the back of your eyes might begin to burn, your mind will spontaneously provide you with answers for how to make sense of what is happening. It might offer you heartache, grief, sorrow. Your intuition will know when you have the right answer. Remember that your body has felt this many many times in your life it is just that you haven’t been aware of what has been going on.

    When you first start doing this, especially if you have numbed yourself or repressed your feelings for a long time, the most common responses are likely to be anxiety, fear and emptiness or loneliness. That is ok. Remember we are doing this exercise with no-judgement.

    It might take you some practice to get answers on what you’re feeling, to start with you might not be able to tune in to your body. But this is all the more reason to keep trying.

    Reconnecting our mind and our body is absolutely vital to improving our well-being, spirit and happiness within ourselves.

    The amazing thing is that you have literally hundreds of opportunities to practice this throughout the day as you are constantly responding and reacting to the environment around you. If you are not sure where to start do this exercise in a scenario where you already know the feeling. For example, if you get angry when someone cuts in front of you in a line, next time it happens take a moment to check in with how your body is feeling. By reverse engineering it you will see how your body responds in different scenarios.

    At the other end of the spectrum, feeling huge emotions fly through your body taking you on a rollercoaster ride on a daily basis is a very different matter. This often disproportionate emotional response to what is going on around you can signify that there is something deep you are repressing and it is trying to be released any way it can, like a pressure cooker needing to let off steam. The exercise described above can still be very useful as you may notice that your body is actually telling you of the ‘real’ emotion that is lurking beneath the intensity of the one you think is being shown. For example often under intense anger there is actually a lot of pain and sadness

    If you would like to explore this exercise or go deeper with me please just book in for a free clarity session where we can discuss how to feel your feelings in more depth, just email me here to book a time.

    Lots of love xx

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  • Binge Eating, Blogvember, Emotional Eating, Intuitive Eating, Recovery, Spirituality

    17 – Is mindful eating important and what even is it anyway?

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    For me the term mindful eating has been wrongly appropriated by the diet industry. Diet tips often include things like ‘savour your food’, eat slowly, put your knife and fork down between bites, drink water as you eat, chew your food 20 times before you swallow.

    All these things are technically mindful eating, however the way they are sold is as though if you do these things they will help you to eat less and therefore lose weight. I want to reclaim these mindful eating tools as helpful ways to train us to eat intuitively and NOT as weight loss tips.

    Mindful eating is great for us in a myriad of ways. It helps us focus on our food rather than eating distractedly, it brings ceremony and importance to our meals which helps us enjoy them more and it also help us connect with the food we are eating and therefore aids our digestive process. All of these things help us tune in to our bodies more, enjoy the food we’re eating and therefore cultivate a healthier relationship with food and our bodies.

    Mindful eating is an amazing way we can learn to eat more intuitively. It helps us quit dieting and stop emotionally eating.

    One of the main things that happens when we emotionally eat is that we disconnect our minds from our bodies. Our minds are in distress, we are upset or angry so we turn to food. We ignore whether our body is saying it is hungry or full or whether it is craving vegetables or protein, instead we follow the part in our mind which is saying ‘feed me food that will bring instant pleasure right now’. Because we have trained ourselves to respond to our thoughts all the time there is no room to listen to what our bodies are saying. We have learnt to short circuit our own internal cues.

    This is where mindful eating comes into play.

    Mindful eating practices help us to reconnect our minds and bodies. When we eat more slowly and with more focus our mind relaxes it’s control and we can hear more clearly what our bodies are saying.

    Binge eating is an extreme manifestation of mindless emotional eating. We want to crush down how we are feeling, or repress it before it even rears it head, so we stuff down as much food as we can. We are abusing food. Food is actually for nourishing our bodies, giving us energy and bringing a little simple joy into the experience of being alive. If we are shoving it into our mouths to forget our feelings we are purposefully using food for the opposite reasons. In order to stop binge eating we can change how we eat – the speed, the thoughts and the process – in order to reset ourselves and therefore start using food for its intended purpose.

    A key tenet of mindful eating is slowing down. Put your food on a plate, eat with a knife and fork, chew your food properly before taking another bite, pause briefly periodically while you’re eating and see how your stomach feels. Slowing down is not just about being able to listen to what our stomach is saying but also what the rest of our body is experiencing.

    By slowing down our eating the emotion we are trying to hide (in the case of emotional eating/bingeing) might come up to the surface. Tears might threaten to pour, a scream might rise up from the bottom of our lungs. This is what you are supposed to be dealing with. This is your body saying please stop hiding your feelings with food. If emotions rise up put the food down and honour your feelings. Honour yourself, honour your body, respect the reality of the moment.

    Being more mindful with our food is another avenue to being more mindful with ourselves. Another way we can get to know ourselves better. When we get to know ourselves better, paradoxically we don’t need to hide from ourselves in food anymore. Therefore more mindful eating means less emotional eating and bingeing.

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

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

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    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.

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  • Blogvember, Dieting, Recovery, Self Love, Spirituality

    12 – An Anti-Diet Manifesto – What are you missing out on?

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    Let’s face it, dieting is a miserable way to exist. Restricting our existence based on what foods we can eat at what times and how much we need to exercise leaves very little room for spontaneity and excitement in our life.

    Don’t get me wrong I think a little discipline is great for us as humans and we thrive with a bit of security, but when we set ourselves up to follow an extremely rigid diet or exercise regime we are not giving ourselves any opportunity to pivot, to try something new, to change direction. Our life becomes this small pattern of repetitive behaviours that keeps us imprisoned in the life we already exist in.

    There is no room to dream bigger. We develop a big fear of colouring outside the lines, of leaving our box. We stop imagining something different for ourselves and instead can only see the finish line of losing x pounds, or hitting y PB in the gym. Everything else falls to the wayside, socialising with friends becomes fraught with anxiety if they invite us over for tea and cake and it doesn’t fit with our diet plan. Or we have to take food scales and prepackaged protein bars on our holiday lest we veer too far off-plan and ‘ruin’ everything.

    When you look at it like that how small has our whole life become? It is not just about shrinking our bodies anymore, it is shrinking everything. Our ability to socialise, our ability to relax, our ability to share experiences with our loved ones, our ability to enjoy a moment for what it is rather than thinking what it could do to our waistlines.

    I implore you, please please think just how much you are really giving up when you start dieting. It is so rarely just a change in calories. It is taking everything in your life and making it small.

    And what the world needs now more than ever before are women who are able to play big. Women who want to take up more room in this world. Women who are ready to shine their light into the darkest recesses of our society. Powerful women who know their worth and are not afraid to be who they are. Women who will stand up for what is right and fight against what is wrong. That woman is not a woman who is scared to eat a piece of cake or miss a workout. That woman is one who embraces her real hunger, her hunger not just for good food, but for life. Her hunger to be full-up and strong. This woman is a warrior and she respects that about herself by not trying to put herself in a little society defined box.

    When you diet or when you let food control you you are handing over your power to societal restrictions. You are selling yourself short compared to who you truly could be. You are worth so much more than you will ever know if you allow yourself to be controlled by the way you eat.

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