“There’s no place for guilt in wellness.” Totally profound. This is my burning issue in life right now. I’m a life coach and one of my main areas of focus is working with women’s food and body issues (specifically women who eat for emotional reasons). Once I got into coaching school I stopped working out and starting eating a lot more and gaining weight. I realized that I had been so over focused on dieting and exercise my whole life and I just didn’t want to attend to it for a while. I wanted to focus on my studies and not have to navigate the hungry state that I had grown accustomed to keeping myself in. And frankly there are only 24 hours in a day and working a full-time job, going to coaching school and keeping up with the course work took up every moment I had. I realized I could continue making sure I get to the gym six days a week on top of everything else I was doing OR I could do really well in school, not lose my job, and maintain some sanity but I could not do both. I chose the latter.

Fast forward two years later: I run a workshop called Feed Your Soul, Feed Your Body that helps women to get in touch with what’s driving the need to turn to food. But now I’m the heaviest that I’ve been in a long time and I’m struggling with finding a balance because I feel so overwhelmed by the weight gain that I get totally disgusted and lose all motivation to do anything about it. After reading your post it occurs to me that feeling overwhelmed and powerless over their bodies is the reason why a lot of women eat compulsively. So when I read the line: “who am I to be giving health advice when I’m so stuck myself” my entire being resonated with it. It is so reassuring to know that someone else is struggling with this same thing and is brave enough to talk about it. Every time I go out of balance with my food I think, “you are a total hypocrite.” But yet when I read your blog the following things come to mind:
When we have been through something, we are in a much better place to help other people with that issue. If we are totally perfect all the time, we’d have nothing to write about, discuss or give examples of. If we had it all figured out and mastered then we would end up preaching and really, how compelling is that? Frankly, after reading this post it makes me want to work with you more than if I had not known the backstory. Much more.

I think one of the major components of doing healing work is compassion and if you’re struggling with something yourself it breaks down the barriers of communication with your client/patient because you instantly “get it” –you’ve already been there so there’s no need for long explanations.

How can you advise others on finding balance/maintaining good health/feeding their soul so they inherently know how to feed their body, etc. if you haven’t had to struggle with it yourself? And if you still struggle occasionally that only adds to the depth of what you’re giving. It doesn’t make you a hypocrite–it makes you human and I’d much rather work with a human than the alternative any day.

Danielle, thank you for a beautiful, thought provoking post. This was just what I needed today.
.-= Cathy´s last blog ..A Remembrance of Bathing Suits Past =-.

I have the same vague irritation as well with the whole “wellness” concept. It’s like it’s presented to us in this black and white context so no wonder it’s all so intimidating.

I feel like the internal issues and finding the beauty inside the grey zone is where real wellness actually occurs.

Makes it a lot less stressful, anyway.

:)

I always feel vaguely irritated by “wellness” professionals who are all “just do x”..Whatever x is, doesn’t really matter, it could be eating organic or exercising or whatever, which are all these super great things of course. But it is so easy to get caught up in this mental cycle of guilt and shame and to feel crappy about yourself in the process. Which is like the total opposite of wellness to me. And it’s so rare to hear anyone talk about these internal issues.

Anyway I just wanted to say that *you* are exactly the type of healthcare professional I would love to read more from :) Excellent insights, with such a comforting, real, and accepting attitude. The world needs you. *Love.* ~ Eileen
.-= Eileen´s last blog ..The Gumshoe’s Guide to Getting Off the Couch, Part 3: Station Identification =-.