How to prioritise self care so that you can reclaim your life
Do you want to feel “normal” again?
Do you want to be who you were before your illness took over your life?
If you can relate to this, know that you are not alone!
One of the major challenges of dealing with any chronic condition is the feeling of helplessness that comes along with dealing with symptoms and challenges on a daily basis.
“Self care means giving the world the best of you, instead of what’s left of you”
Katie Reed
A lack of confidence in ourselves and our bodies
Dealing with a chronic illness wears us out emotionally.
It saps our confidence in our bodies as our bodies. We can lose trust in ourselves to make the right decisions and make it really hard to uncover what’s really going on underneath.
Exploring the root causes and addressing underlying imbalances forms the basis of a Functional Medicine approach to chronic disease. Yet, I find that even in Functional Medicine, we often overlook certain basics of long term health creation.
Focusing solely on
changing our diet
our lifestyle
supporting detoxification
improving gut health
using supplements to provide key nutrients
getting more data from Functional testing
means that we often overlook some key aspects that are equally important.
And focusing only on external factors such as these can add to a lack of confidence and trust if we are not careful.
Tools in your toolkit
One of my favourite way of explaining how I work in my own coaching practice is by using the example of a toolkit.
You see, my objective in working with my clients is that they should have all the tools in their toolkits so that they not only get well but stay well.
They should reach a stage where they are not completely dependent on me or any other practitioner/expert once they have reached a certain level of stability. I want them to have the tools such that they can be guided by their own intuition and body’s wisdom.
Long term and sustainable health creation are only possible when the person is able to figure out when certain changes need to be made so that they can stay on track.
And a consistent self care practice is key to this.
This is why SELF CARE forms an integral part of “PEACEFUL MIND, HEALTHY BODY” framework that I use inside my coaching programme “Healing from within”.
The 3 main pillars of my framework are SIMPLIFY, RECONNECT and SUSTAIN.
And one of the main themes that link two of these pillars is “SELF CARE”.
I have written about this topic in earlier and you can read it here and here.
When getting transformed seems “effortless”
One of my superpowers is being able to simplify the health creation process so that my clients are actually able to get the results that they want.
Another one is to be able to draw out the deeper reasons why someone would actually want to get well.
You see, if you are not really clear about what “optimal health” means to you and you are not aware of exactly how important it is for you, you will struggle.
One of the reasons that I find that many people remain stuck even when they are addressing the root causes is that they miss out on getting clear on what really want in terms of their health.
In my coaching practice, we delve deep into this with the help of many different activities like gentle reflection, journaling, and guided visualisation.
In fact, when asked what was the “best bit of coaching, many of my clients have shared
1. The question “what are you celebrating this week” makes them think of the hidden joyful moments in their lives
2. They don’t realise that they are getting transformed since it seems so effortless
You see, when you learn how to tap into your own inner guidance, and become aware of what has meaning for you, what is really important to you, your transformation becomes effortless.
WHY?
What is so unique about the framework “PEACEFUL MIND, HEALTHY BODY”?
Most importantly, when you learn to trust your body’s innate wisdom you always find a way to support your healing process, no matter how hard it gets.
This happens when you are
working WITH your body
aware of what is important to YOU
aware of what brings joy into your life
clear about what brings meaning to your life
If you would like to know more about the programme, click here.
If this happens then
How can you NOT reclaim your life with or without an illness?
This is exactly what happened to my client and you can hear her story below