This weekend something happened.
It was like a penny dropped and a started to understand a few things that I think I had understood before. But now I understood them differently.
Two things
1. All the things that you do but don’t want to do and all the things that you don’t want to do but you do, are driven by fear.
2. Fear is a state of stress and stress is a state of fear. And when we are in this state we are out of alignment and we act in a way which is unhelpful to us - like jumping into the cookie jar and eating all the cookies!
One of the things I continuously stress to my clients is that, when they sign up to work with me, the THINK they are buying a nutrition plan. They THINK that I have some magic eating formula which is going to change their life.
In some ways this could be true but what they are actually buying into is the tools to address the two things listed above.
1. the ability to change their state
2. the ability to change their story
And yes, with the right strategy, this all comes together and creates fantastic weight loss results. But what am I really going on about?
I had a call with a client today who basically admitted in the first minute of speaking with me that she had not been doing what she was supposed to.
She knew what she should be doing, she just wasn’t doing it!
[I am sure that this may sound familiar to some of you reading this]
Her question was;
“What do I need to do to get back on track? Do I need a diet plan which is more strict? Do I need to take progress pictures and share them with the coaching group?”
My answer was;
No.
Dieting harder and making yourself accountable only works to a certain extent. At some point, we need to address WHY things are REALLY going wrong.
It is not a lack of willpower. It is not that you are lazy. It is not that you are not committed enough.
And even if you are some of these things, it’s the reason behind these reasons.
9 times out of 10 it is emotional.
Emotions which are essentially driven by stress or fear.
So I started chatting to the client a little more. Trying to find out what was going on in her life.
And there was the answer.
There was a lot of stress. Stress that was being created by being a new mom, possibly suffering from some post natal depression and conflict in the house hold between her and her husband.
THAT was what needed to be dealt with to get her back on track.
I won’t go into the details of our full conversation. I will tell you she went away happy and focused.
The key thing was, we needed to bring her back into alignment. She was so stressed, unhappy with no time for herself.
This was in conflict with the vision she wanted for herself which was to be a happy, healthy, balanced and supportive mum. Because of this conflict between her actions and her intentions, she was reaching for the biscuit tin to make herself feel better.
The only problem was, that then she felt guilty.
It wasn’t the biscuit that was the problem. It was the constant hammering of her self esteem that happened afterwards that made her feel not good enough to set aside the time she needed for her.
Because she felt guilty taking time for herself she was exhausted and burnt out, filled with negative thoughts and lacking fulfillment.
The entire cycle was being played on repeat.
The funny thing was. I had the same conversation with the next 3 people I spoke to!
I speak to women every single day who want to lose weight. Women who are super hero’s; mum’s, wive’s, friends, girlfriends, career women, carers, you name it!
None of whom understand that putting yourself first is not being selfish. In fact it’s the opposite. You cannot be the best possible mum, friend, girlfriend, wife, employee, boss, carer, you can be if you do not look after you first.
This is because you are out of alignment. You are burnt out, stressed, unhealthy and overweight.
So how do we bring you back into alignment?
You take the time to focus on you.
You remove the stress (or learn better ways to cope)
You start a meditation practise
You take up yoga
You write a gratitude journal
You find that thing that brings you back to being YOU.
If you have dieted before you know you have to eat well every day. So if your emotions are why you keep failing you have to nourish them EVERY DAY, just like you would your body.
[I’m going to write this again because I want you to actually hear that this is the whole point and purpose of this incredibly long email]
If your emotions are why you keep failing you have to nourish them EVERY DAY, just like you would your body.
I have plenty of tools that can help you do this. You just have to get over the fear which is stopping you (because it is ALWAYS fear stopping you from doing what you really want to do), take responsibility and jump!
Anna x
PS. If this makes sense to you, then I want to work with you and help you change your life. All you need to do is ask for the help.