What my stressed-out, puffy, & incredibly uncomfortable body has taught me

Stressed and bloated AF four weeks ago—> me today!

I shared a picture a few weeks ago that depicted the severe bloating I was dealing with 24/7. That was just the tip of the iceberg!

Truly—my belly was distended almost every hour of every day, my sleep was awful, my period went missing, my anxiety was increasing, and I was gaining weight.

Did my body do anything wrong?

Not at all! I simply missed the signs.

I lost touch with what was “normal”, because I was basing a “normal” lifestyle on what everyone else does.

Husting, always feeling the need to produce, equating rest with laziness, and comparing my work ethic to others’. Essentially, it was another form of placing my self-worth outside of myself. AGAIN.

Years ago, my entire identity was wrapped up in my perfectly healthy diet. I was the “healthy girl”, and it was expected that I show up as my overly nice, veggie-obsessed, never-miss-a-workout self.  

I felt such a deeply rooted need to fit into the category of perfection in some capacity.

 Of course, I never found the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow.

Not only were most of my attempts futile, but when I did manage to get achieve what I considered “perfection”, the bar was raised and I was off to the races again.

I had to face the fact that I was never going to win the battle against food.

I was never going to win the battle against my body. 

However, I failed to recognize that—while I had healed my relationship with food—my self-worth was still being formed outside of myself. Outside of my internal home. (Which, for the record, is the ONLY safe and true place to build it, imo.)

It was placed in my ability to produce and my work ethic.

“Hot damn, how did I miss this?”, I wondered.

Because it’s normalized! In the same way we see airbrushed pictures of bodies 99.99% of us will never have, we see the “hustle” glamorized EVERYWHERE.

And we begin to think that we need to fall in line, otherwise WE are the problem. We are the weak ones.

We’re not, and while we can sit here and blame society and our culture all we want, the reality is that we have a responsibility to:

• show up for ourselves.

• make the difficult decisions.

• challenge what “everyone else is doing”.

• ask ourselves why the hell we’re doing it all in the first place.

I share this with you for a couple of reasons:

🤷🏻‍♀️I’m not perfect in any way, shape, or form. I still uncover unwanted stories and narratives all the damn time, so if you find yourself here, you’re far from alone!

🥰Healing our relationship with food opens up SO many more opportunities and avenues for growth, and it’s absolutely essential to your freedom. However, the work rarely stops there. So—fall in love with the processJ

🔥The tools I learned (and teach to my clients) to heal my relationship with food have served me incredibly well in this chapter of my journey. This would have sent me into an epic spiral of shame and self-loathing years ago!

💃I’m committed to doing the hard work of defining myself by who I am internally, and I want you to know that it’s HARD FUCKING WORK. However, I believe it’s the most impactful and meaningful gift we can ever give to ourselves.

🧚‍♀️The more time we can spend exploring and loving our souls over our bodies, work ethic, relationship status, Instagram following, or workout regimen, the better off we’ll be.

❤️We’re all in this human experience together.