Often, it’s a crisis of some kind that instigates a major lifestyle change. Perhaps you wake up one morning and don’t recognise the person looking back at you in the mirror. How did you get so tired, and where did those extra kilos come from?
Or maybe you’ve had a health scare that becomes your line in the sand moment. Whatever the starting point, for lifestyle change to be easy and sustainable, it’s important to look not just at what’s going on with our physical health, but also to look at our mental and emotional wellbeing.
And what you’ll find, more often than not, is that there are areas of your life that are out of balance, which is what led you to take less than ideal care of yourself in the first place.
So to bring yourself back to vibrant health, it’s essential to address this. In fact, this is the place to begin. Because when we start by improving our mental & emotional wellbeing, positive changes to our physical self care habits happen more effortlessly.
You see, unless we have a good relationship with ourselves, and really accept who we are, it will be difficult to do those things that support our health and wellbeing. There will likely be a mindset of deprivation so you’ll experience resistance to the change, because it feels like an effort and takes a lot of willpower. And willpower is like a muscle that gets exhausted by overuse.
On the other hand, when we accept ourselves unconditionally - when we love ourselves - it becomes easy to do the things that are good for us.
Because when you love yourself you...
- don’t want to feed yourself food that harms your body. You want to nourish yourself with food that makes you feel good.
- create healthy boundaries around yourself, so you don’t end up overworked or overstretched and needing to comfort yourself with food or alcohol.
- get so much joy from life so don’t need to fill up on substitute joy from overindulging.
- give your body the movement it needs each day, because you feel so much better for it.
- choose relationships with people who really value and love you for who you are, because you know you deserve no less.
And I get it, loving yourself can feel like a bit of a stretch, if you’ve been raised to wear self deprecation as a badge of honour or grew up in a family environment that didn't teach you to love yourself. These learnings can run deep.
So a more comfortable starting place can be to accept yourself, just as you are.
But before you can do that, you need to know yourself intimately, and have a clear understanding of your unique conditions for flourishing.
So the path to healing often looks like this:
Learn who you are
Accept who you are
Love who you are
If you can do this, all the rest will fall into place. Healthy lifestyle choices, nourishing relationships, a life that you love... they all become yours for the taking.
Self knowledge and self acceptance are at the heart of it all.
Easy to say. Not always so easy to do.
Over the years I’ve gained some powerful tools to assist people on their path to a joyful, vibrant life:
Hypnotherapy to shift old limiting beliefs and entrenched thought patterns.
Energy healing to release blocked emotions or past trauma held in the body, and realign you to a new way of being.
Positive psychology coaching methods to help you understand yourself better, see yourself in a new light and create actionable steps towards a bright new future.
What I know is that this approach to health doesn’t require self deprivation. It doesn’t require huge amounts of willpower.
It just requires that you stay on the path, and believe, in your heart of hearts, that you deserve to live a beautiful, vibrant life. That a beautiful life is your birthright.
Do this, and the rest will fall into place.
About Samantha Dawn
Samantha Dawn is a Mindbody Therapist & creator of the Illumine Method. She specialises in Life Transitions & Direction, Trauma Resolution, Weight Loss, Emotional Eating, Anxiety & Relationships.
Samantha consults in Adelaide, South Australia and online. Book a consult with Samantha here.
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