Things I’ve learnt since having a baby…
Hey hey – welcome back to my blog… it’s been a while.
ICYMI – I had a baby! Thea was born at the end of January and wow has she tuned our lives upside down, in the best possible way. Admittedly I do wonder if we’ve ruined our lives on a near daily basis (joke… surely all new parents must think that?!), but it’s safe to say that old cliché is true – I cannot remember what life was like without her.
Those of you who know me / have been following me for a while will be aware that I had two miscarriages before having Thea, and knowing how heartbreaking that was makes life with our baby now she is finally here that little bit sweeter.
That being said, I can assure you that baby spam will not start to fill these pages – I’m here for YOU, and you (I hope!) aren’t here because I had a baby. We’ve made the personal choice not to share pictures of Thea online but if you are reading this and are a personal friend or family member you’ve probably already been landed with a significant amount of Thea spam!
Time to reflect
As I start to ramp up my coaching business once again, it felt prudent to start with a reflection of all I’ve learnt these last three months. This time away has prompted a bit of a shift in my focus, and I’m so excited as to what that means for you moving forwards.
Kicking procrastination out the door
Life plus a mini means I no longer have endless hours in a day to tinkle about with little bits here and there – one massive benefit to life +1 is that I’ve reduced the amount of time I spend procrastinating by about 150%. When you know you only have about 20 minutes if you are lucky before you’re going to hear a tiny wail demanding your full attention you really do make the most of the time you have to yourself.
What that has meant for me is that my social media mindless scrolling has reduced to almost 0, save the odd burst here and there when I’m feeding the babe, and I have to say I haven’t missed it one bit. It prompted me to have a good clean up, especially of my Facebook, in the later part of my maternity leave – inspired by Cal Newport’s book ‘Digital Minimalism’ which I bought last summer and finally got around to reading in February. Well worth a read if, like me, you were horrified by The Social Dilemma on Netflix and wanted to do something about it, but weren’t sure where to begin.
Taking a step back, in order to move forwards
These past 10 weeks has provided the perfect opportunity to consider how I proceed with my business in the future. I’ve been working as a coach for 18 months now, so having an enforced break has given me the time to consider the elements of this work that I love and enjoy doing as well as reflecting on the clients that I have worked with and the success and transformation that they have had within my programs.
What I have realised is that my strengths, and the areas in which I am able to generate the most amazing results for my clients, come from two places – a focus on intuitive eating, but also a focus on life outside of food or dieting. In the past, clients I’ve worked with have found – as is so often the case- that what they thought was an issue (food) is actually a cover up for an area in their life where they weren’t satisfied.
That was certainly the case for me (check out my blog post about using dieting & food to cover my insecurities here), and I’ve had clients make profound shifts in areas such as career or their home environment and actually find that their struggles with food, dieting and their body, if not melt away, certainly seem to pale in significance once they have found true happiness in other areas of their life.
Social justice within the Health at Every Size community
This has coincided with some issues within the Health at Every Size movement around the social justice (or rather, lack of) of a community which was started by fat, black women being monetised and brought into the mainstream by thin, white women who have never actually experienced the oppression or social exclusion that being in a body not considered ‘acceptable’ by mainstream society brings.
I won’t go into the full story here – if you’d like to learn more please visit @fatmarquisele, @bodyliberationwithlindley and @haes_by_asdah. This is something I had been feeling uncomfortable about for a while, and have been debating my place the HAES community when I have the amount of privilege that I do in terms of body shape and size.
Everyone deserves to be able to access help
That being said, I firmly believe – and indeed know – that there are plenty of people just like me who suffer from issues with food, dieting and their bodies who do need help. Me just quitting my practice altogether – which was something I briefly considered – is not going to help anyone. What I am going to do is pivot slightly and ensure that I’m still able to support people just like you who are struggling with these issues in a way that feels right.
Intuitive Eating; Intuitive Living
To me, this means maintaining a heavy focus on intuitive eating, combined with supporting you to live a more intuitive life. We are all born with an innate ability to eat intuitively – feeding my little girl these past 10 weeks has cemented my understanding of that. When she’s hungry, she cries and cries – and when she’s had enough to eat, she stops. The end – no drama. Unfortunately, this ability to eat intuitively is so often lost along the way, as we move through life.
You are influenced, intentionally or not, by your parents & other adult role models from an early age; teachers, friends and then later media and celebrities – taught a thousand different ways as to why your body is ‘wrong’ or ‘not good enough’, and sold the lie that if you just diet, control your food or exercise in a certain way, you’ll be able to ‘fix’ yourself.
Blaming yourself
No wonder then, that when life doesn’t go your way – when you miss out on the job that you really wanted, the boy you fancy doesn’t like you in return or a friend spreads hateful rumors about you, you automatically put it down to your body not being ‘good enough’, rather than tapping in to your intuition – your innate wisdom of the real reason why you may have lost out on opportunities.
This is my passion, and what fires me and lights me up. Living a life in tune with my own intuition; whether that was moving halfway across the world for a job or getting engaged after just 7 months of dating; has brought me no end of joy, and that’s exactly what I want for you, too.
So what does all this mean?
Well, it means you’ll see a slight shift in the way I do things over the coming weeks and months.
More of the things I love, and less of the things that I don’t. Quite frankly, I just don’t have the time anymore to be wasting on something which I’m not passionate about, which isn’t firing me up on the inside, too.
What’s in?
My weekly emails
I’ve missed communicating with my inner circle on a more personal level each week. If you are signed up to my mailing list you won’t have missed me completely – I prepared a series of 10 pre- written emails before I went on my maternity leave – but that isn’t quite the same as sitting down on a weekly basis and spreading some joy and hopefully, some helpful titbits, every week.
RESET
My group intuitive eating coaching program. I promised it would return and it has – doors are now open & they close on the 6th May. Click here for more information and to reserve your space!
My Facebook Group
Previously called ‘Break the Diet Cycle with Bex’, I’ve renamed the group ‘Intuitive Eating; Intuitive Living’ – and it does what it says on the tin. Aims to inspire you to live your best life, by tapping into your gut feelings, each and every day. I’ll be going live with helpful videos, sharing posts that I find inspiring and aiming to facilitate a joyful, helpful community full of women wanting to break free of dieting and issues with food and their bodies and live life to the full.
Coaching
The very thing that I’m passionate about. Whilst I’ve been away I’ve been completing training with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, the school where I completed my coaching program back in 2020, and I’m very excited to be joining them to facilitate coaching calls for their students within their program from June this year. I’m also opening my books again for private, 1:1 coaching – click here for more details of my program and to book a complimentary consultation.
What’s out?
Instagram - Not completely, but it won’t be a big focus for me anymore. I spent far too much time there which wasn’t good for my own mental health, and the statistics around reach and impact make for pretty depressing reading. I’ll still show up from time to time, but it won’t be my main hangout.
100% focus on HAES and non-diet content – instead, I’ll be sharing with you far more about using your intuition and tapping in to your gut feelings to get the most out of your life.
What’s in the pipeline?
My podcast! I had planned to launch this in January, pre-baby, but that just didn’t happen. I’ve already recorded three episodes though and it’s a major goal for me this year – watch this space…
So – what do I want from you?
I’d love to hear from you! How can I best serve and support you? What do you want to hear from me? I’ve designed a brief survey and I would be so grateful if you would take a few minutes to fill it in.
As a thank you, I’m happy to offer a 30 minute complimentary coaching session to anyone who takes the time to respond.
Join my Facebook group – I’ve visions of an amazing, supportive community of like-minded women – and I want YOU to be part of it.
Finally, enroll on my mailing list to make sure you don’t miss out on updates, musings, guidance and support – helping you to break free of the diet cycle, once and for all, trust your gut and live life on your intuition.