When we first embark on a healthy living program - to lose weight, to build health, to age gently and with ease - what often gets in the way is our addiction to our patterns of negative beliefs and feelings.
What do I mean by that? Well, when I am coaching someone, I always go into the backstory of their life, if only briefly, to get an understanding of their past challenges, their stress points and their trauma, but more importantly, it is to asses what their beliefs are around those living points.
BTW, we all have shame, guilt stories, and feelings of being a victim. This is human nature. But to have them is one thing. to live from them is another. the goal is to transcend them...
Yes, life is challenging, and some people are challenged more than others, but for a segment of the female population, we can get stuck in our stories, those that define us, and keep us in shame or guilt.
Shame - it says 'who I am is not OK'. And this is where some women reside in their unconscious beliefs about self. On the surface, they intuitively know they are worth losing the weight and getting healthy, but their continued attempts evade them. It is rarely about the macros or the exercise...it always lies within.
Guilt - when a woman has spent years in the diet cycle and has not reached her acquired goal weight, or when her health and vitality begins to slip over the years, there is a mis-firing of thoughts and habits that can result in her swimming in guilt...over her body, her failed attempts, her resolve and she begins to feel that there really is never going to be any change (this can then lead her into apathy, a kind of flatlining of living, that
says, well, it's not great but it's not so bad living here...I've gotten used to it. It's more dangerous than being in shame or guilt, because she 'normalises' the pain and the lack of joy...there is no urging momentum here).
Then there is the one that no one wants to talk about - victimhood. Martyrdom. Here, a woman unconsciously feels that life is against her, and that no matter what she does, it is unfairly stacked to NOT work for her. Here, a woman will continually recount all the ways that life was - and still is - unfair to her, and this story, this belief system then defines her and can stifle any chances of her moving into a new perspective based on feeling
empowered.
For women, these are the three Emotional Stop Guards that I see in women showing up, who are desperate to change their bodies and their health, and this is why it is so important to work on belief systems first, and at every step of the weight loss / health building journey. It is the Inside Out Approach that coaches need to specialise in, to have a keep awareness and understanding of Psychology, mindset, beliefs, patters and conditioning.
One thing to be certain - there is no shame in feeling shame, guilt, or victimhood. They are parts of our psyche, and when we can see and accept them, THEN we can make changes toward up-leveling our thinking, our beliefs and our lives.
I have never seen a woman NOT reach her greatest goals when she is committed to this necessary shifting that has to happen within. And that is why I know that every woman who is stuck living from these places, around the state of their body and their health, always has hope on her side.
As humans, we are meant to grow and learn.
My personal motto that has guided me for most of my life is to Always Focus on Growth, and the rest will follow...weight loss, a return to health, strong relationships, awesome work and career opportunities, financial abundance, and our relationship to the world. And in here, we begin to build a vision for our life, our Legacy, and we begin to understand Why We Are Here.
Dare to dream ladies.
Dare to shift from the inside out.
Anything less is living half a life. And you are soo deserving to live a full life.
XO!
