Here’s what to work on, if you know you want to hire a Life Coach, but you’re not quite ready yet.
There are five things.
I’ve made them an acronym, so it’s easy to remember:
SMIRF.
Stress
Movement
Intimacy
Rest
Food
(Yes, I know I could have made the acronym “FIRMS”. But SMIRF is funner!)
Let’s take them one at a time, so that you know what I mean.
Stress. You need a reliable, steady form of stress relief. Movement is probably the best. But you can also process stress via hot baths, meditation, yoga, snuggling (more on this in a minute), etc. Start noticing when you’re stressed out. And start noticing what sorts of activities make you feel less stressed. Then put those two together. I know, it sounds obvious. But a lot of us aren’t doing it–we’re so used to constant, chronic stress that we don’t even notice how it ebbs and flows.
Movement. Chances are good, you’ve got movement conflated with exercise and exercise conflated with trying to lose weight. Which makes you feel like sh!t about moving. Start splitting those things up! ANY kind of movement creates positive endorphins. I’m a big fan of walking, rolling around on the floor, weightlifting, farm chores. Your environment is a HUGE INFLUENCE on how much you move. Which is why I got a dog (walking), got rid of my coffee table (rolling around on the floor), hired a personal trainer (weightlifting) and enjoy hanging out in rural environments (chores). What can you PUT INTO or TAKE OUT OF your environment to help you move more?
Intimacy. This could mean a lot of different things. Emotional intimacy–you could beef up the number of friends you connect with regularly. Physical intimacy–this could mean having more seccs or even just being more intentional with non-seccsual touching. Family therapist Virginia Satir once said, “We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth”. Is that scientific? I dunno! But I DO know that your mental health will probably improve if you get more intentional about hugging.
Rest. Beloved Friend, you don’t rest enough. You don’t sleep enough. This is the result of toxic capitalist brainwashing about the moral goodness of productivity. If you read Nikole Hannah-Jones’s 1619 Project you know that a lot of our terrible capitalist ideas about productivity are derived from whyte supremacy. These inhumane ideas hurt everybody! Stop treating yourself like a commodity for your job to consume. A fantastic resource for this is Tricia Hersey’s book, Rest is Resistance. Get that book, read it, and learn to nap.
Food. Look, I’m a woman living in America, okay? I know how it goes. You’re not feeling so good about yourself, and/or the world. You are stressed, undermoved, lonelier than you’d like to admit, and tired. So you get up in the morning, look at yourself in the mirror, and fixate on your love handles. “I just need to lose some weight!” No, Beloved. No. No amount of dieting will reduce stress. In fact, it adds to it. No amount of dieting will up your movement. Movement is separate from weight loss. Dieting will not alleviate isolation, however much the diet industry wants you to believe that only slim women deserve love. And dieting will not alleviate your chronic exhaustion. Make peace in your relationship with food. My go-to resources on this, as an intuitive eater with blood sugar issues, are Evelyn Tribole and Dionne Milauskas.
Okay? Work on these five things.
They are very simple.
They are very hard.
They will keep you busy.
They will help you love yourself.
Thoughts? Doubts? Lay ‘em on me.
And when you’re ready, let’s talk. You can book a Discovery Call with me here.
Love,
Emma