I waved my 4-year-old son off to his Dad’s for the weekend, closed the door and the loneliness and pain I had come to know so well flooded in and washed over me yet again.
I cracked open a bottle of gin.
It was 10.30am.
Four years of single motherhood and juggling a corporate job I was no longer enjoying, commuting 3 hours a day and a son who had not slept a whole night for four years had taken its toll.
That might have all been more manageable if it had not been laid over the top of a deep lack of self-worth, zero sense of purpose and a deeply resentful relationship with myself.
I was using food, alcohol and whatever else I could to fill an empty void inside me.
But something deep stirred within me on that day.
As I muted the pain yet again, a little voice that said, “Why are you doing this when you have so much more to share with the world?”
In that moment, I was called to make a change.
I took back control, left my job and invested in a franchise teaching yoga to women and began a profound journey of self-discovery.
Through spiritual practice, coaching, therapy and deep self-care I learned to transform my relationship with myself, my health and ultimately, my life.
Through my own healing I came to see how many other women were also suffering – stuck in trauma, limiting beliefs and unhealthy patterns which are deeply entrenched in our modern society.
It became my mission to help guide women on their own transformative journey of self-discovery, health and healing.
Ridding ourselves of our limiting beliefs is where our healing truly begins.
Societal, familial and even ancestral conditioning results in long-held beliefs in women of low self-worth and the need to please others. Women have been taught for centuries that they are lovable only when they meet a socially acceptable body image and are of service to others. This results in beliefs such as ‘I’m not lovable’ ‘I’m not enough’ and, ultimately, ‘I’m not worthy’.
Many women put their needs at the bottom of the pile and get stuck deeply in comparison and shame.
This results in using things such as food, shopping, unhealthy relationships and alcohol to fill the void.
The true goal is not weight loss but self-love and acceptance
Many women want to lose weight as an external desire but ultimately their journey is one of self-love. The weight is merely a symptom of something deeper.
Dieting is one of the most deeply damaging things a woman can do. It perpetuates the belief of ‘I am not enough’ and creates a deeply shameful and disconnected relationship between a woman and her body. Most women I work with are unable to look in the mirror and hate photos of themselves.
They diet to overcome this, the cycle continues, and the void deepens.
When the intention behind health comes from a place of self-love and nourishment, then true health is easier to obtain.
No amount of weight loss will create any more inherent worth than you already possess.
Female empowerment is about achieving unconditional love and acceptance for oneself and it’s a monumental shift from believing a goal needs to be reached in order to be loveable, to realising she is wholly lovable exactly as she is.
When a woman makes decisions based on the fact she loves herself rather than she needs to be loved by others, she becomes truly unstoppable.
A woman in her empowered state is a beautiful and powerful sight to behold
By transforming their health and realising their self-worth: by unleashing their potential and becoming empowered, it pays forward in their relationships, parenting, career and community so everyone will benefit.
When your cup is full from within, there’s an overflow to go around.
Whilst I do help women how to change the way they eat, ultimately it’s always the work done on her relationship with herself that creates lifelong results.
As Rumi said, ‘the wound is where the light comes in’.
Although difficult to see at the time, the hardest moments are very often the beginning of something very special if we can find the strength to allow them to become that.
Looking back, I often think of that bottle of gin because it was in my darkest moment that I finally had the courage to find a new way forward and this courage has not only benefited myself and my family but had a huge impact for many other women I now help.
