If you pay attention, you can hear your body talking! I began my wellness journey by learning how to tune into my body. Listening when I made good choices, suffering when I made bad choices. It’s so easy to blame outside forces for that headache, or our low energy. But what if you had the power, through listening to your body, to understand your body’s needs?
What we eat and how we approach the stress in our lives create the fuel on which our body and our moods thrive or not. I’m not an advocate for total abstention of sugar, and there is no way to live a totally stress free life. I do believe there is a way to understand the effects of both sugar and stress. This understanding gives us the power and the control to turn sugar cravings and stressful habits around. I base my practice as a health and lifestyle coach on the fundamentals of slowing down, listening, and being your own expert on what you need for wellness in your life.
It wasn’t always this way.
I spent my entire childhood eating peanut butter and Fluffernutter on white bread for lunch and a ding dong for dessert. I wondered all through my middle school and high school years why I couldn’t concentrate in school. It was because I was on a major blood sugar roller coaster. I had awful stomachaches and headaches, mostly from what I was feeding my body. What I didn’t know all those years was that I was the ultimate authority of my body.
When I lost my mom to cancer over 20 years ago I learned what stress and diet can actually do to one’s body. My mom had a great deal of stress in her life. After she died young, I came to learn how stress is the number one precursor to many diseases. I knew I had to do something with all that grief I was holding.
Accepting that stress played a role in my mother’s illness changed everything for me. I dove into this world of wellness head on. I met with nutritionists, acupuncturists, naturopaths, and tuned into mind-body connection. Along the way, I learned how what we eat is the most important gift we can give ourselves. Making food choices that propel us to good health and good living is a way to show up for oneself. It’s a funny comment, showing up for oneself, but think of it as a way to honor your own life, to judge it worth the same time and effort we give our loved ones, our spouses, our children, our pets and our work.
I followed through in this new thinking in a way I never had before. I learned how the foods I ate made me FEEL. I started noticing changes and found new energy I had not had in years. It was at this time I had my “Aha!” moment. I started truly listening to what worked for my body.
Our bodies change as we age. I found that different foods became problematic that were not in the past. I also learned that what works for me may not necessarily work for someone else. I had turned my grief into something that fueled my life with power and control. In a funny twist, women were asking me how I had so much energy and what I was doing to feel so good everyday! The answer was the basis for my becoming a health coach. I was listening to my body! I know my body better than ever just by paying attention. I hold a deep connection with choices that will lead me closer to the best version of myself.
We are the total authority on what works and what doesn’t are we not? We just have to stop and pay attention. Most of us are so busy in our lives, we do not do the one most important thing, and that is to listen to what our bodies are telling us. It is our own feedback system and the most reliable source for good choices.
Originally a guest post from Lisa: view here.