Is The Best Version of You Asking For Some Help?

Our body is great at letting us know that it’s not firing on all cylinders and needs some love.

Many of us have forgotten or weren’t even taught how to give ourselves that TLC though.

Before we start, if you’re not feeling like the premium version of yourself right now, I want to gently remind you that there are not many people who are completely and utterly happy with their health are there? Walk down the street and ask twenty people what they’d change about their health and you’d only have a tiny fraction of people saying ‘nothing’ if any at all.

This is one of the many puzzles of being a naturopath that I have – pondering why so many of us know we’d like to change aspects of our health, but it takes us all so long to take action.

There’s no judgment there by the way as it took me years to take my own action too!

So why does it take us all so long?

What do you think?

Here are some of my musings out loud and I’d love to know if you feel the same too – let’s keep it blame free though shall we? No being hard on yourself here as you’re definitely not in the minority…

Life Is So Busy Now That Food Often Takes A Back Seat

It wasn’t a million years ago that women were expected to be domestic goddesses devoted purely to caring for their families. They would have plenty of time to research recipes and cook impressive meals from scratch as their reputation as a homemaker and wife depended heavily on The Show put on each night at the family dinner table.

As this was the standard construct in most households, ‘talk’ of food preparation would be highly present in day-to-day chatter, with mothers passing down beloved recipes from generation to generation. Meals would be delivered with pride to immaculately laid tables for which the entire family would expect to be present at the table, and food gatherings were very much the cement that kept families connected back then.

Times have thankfully changed a lot since then as more and more women released their shackles and opted for careers and equality. Household tasks were demoted, including the clear definition of food responsibility in the house.

Not many people have the same level of ‘food consideration time’ that we had only a few generations ago, so eating has become more of a necessary function than an enjoyable experience.

We don’t often have the luxury of having all day to think about, and then prepare a lovely family meal and let’s be honest – unless it’s a special occasion most of us would opt for something a little more exciting than this on our day off.

Food wasn’t so mass-produced and processed so more nutrients were present in the food, and when we think about how much headspace we allow for food in our busy lives now, it often gets shoehorned into the to-do list with food being grabbed on the fly and delivered to a busy family between swimming clubs and homework or overtime.

We Need To Accept Where We Are Now In Order To Make Changes

This one is bigger than it seems on the surface. Anyone can make a change at any point, can’t they? But if you don’t know your starting point, your current biological bandwidth, then you can’t know what capacity for change you really have. You’re then far more likely to do that thing we all do – create a huge over-estimation whereby you try to change too many things all at once and ask too much of yourself and then… hey ho – you’re now setting yourself up for failure.

If you wanted to book a flight, you wouldn’t wander into a travel agent and say “It doesn’t really matter where you pick me up from, I just want to go to Iceland”. They kind of need to know the details but more than that, so do you.

For two main reasons…

You Can’t Change What You’re Not Aware Of

Being oblivious to some things may seem like bliss, but with our bodies, we’re not ever fully oblivious are we? Our body tells the story; it sends us messages that it wants some TLC and they start off subtle, but they get progressively louder if we ignore them.

If you do a check-in on what’s actually going on, you get your starting point. It doesn’t have to be spot on, but if a few key pointers are uncovered via DNA testing, for instance, a personalised herbal formula can be created specifically to nourish YOUR needs and start to expand your narrowed bandwidth.

This can bring the size of the ‘massive change’ your mind has decided your health needs, down to something manageable by kickstarting your body’s biological bandwidth again. This gives it that essential ability to allow for change, and even to look forward to it instead of it being another thing you know you ‘have to do’ and dreading it.

The Ongoing Guesswork Of What You Need To Change Is Exhausting

Living in our era of tech gives us information within seconds. Twinges in our body can be researched or questions answered instantly such as which vitamin or bio-hack fixes brain fog.

The problem is that there is so much data that we end up being bombarded with information and the overwhelm freezes our intentions of doing anything about it.

Or you try something, knowing that there are another ten options to try too. This instantly dilutes the efficacy of anything you try because you’re not confidently trying anything – the phrase ‘Aim for everything and you’ll hit nothing’ springs to mind.

However, when you know the unique biological needs of your own body, and how best to meet those needs in the context of your life, you can build on that with confidence.

This guesswork or watching every change in your body like a hawk can easily deplete your bandwidth rather than adding to it, so health changes without clarity feel too big to contemplate anymore.

Now, instead of solutions, you have more reasons for demoting your health even further down the list of priorities.

We’re Expecting Ourselves To Always Be On

This is one of the main health thieves in most people’s lives. That older way of living I mentioned before where women were in the kitchen and men went to work, despite it being archaic, had super clear boundaries. No, I’m absolutely not saying we need to go back to those days, but do have a very quick think about what a week would have looked like back then.

Shops were closed in the evenings and on Sundays. TV had limited channels. Radio was limited too. The palms of our hands didn’t have stimulation available via gadgets 24/7. Bosses couldn’t email us at 10pm, texts couldn’t disturb our sleep, and games couldn’t fill the tiny gaps in our days.

This always-on mentality, particularly for women or the chief nurturer in the home, compounds two issues that so many of us have…

We Need To Support Ourselves To Switch Off

This needs our lives to be at least partially organised where boundaries are clear around tasks and roles. Who is doing what and when, and then life not getting in the way at any point.

I don’t know about you, but not many people have this construct in their life – ducks don’t often line up this nicely for us do they??

Switching off also needs intentional action for many, because their biological ‘off-switch’ is glitchy and/or they have an increased sensitivity to adrenaline which makes calming down and relaxing more of an issue.

So your body keeps on going… and going… and going…narrowing your biological bandwidth and continuing to drain you emotionally, mentally, and physically along the way.

We Don’t Get Vital Feedback From Our Body If We’re Not Even Listening

That ‘off’ time that is so elusive brings so much more than a rest.

It’s the internal breathing space to simply ‘be’ in your body.

We’re all familiar with the scenario of counting down to a holiday and then we’re ill virtually straight after checking in to our destination.

We’ve looked forward to it for so long – to switching off and relaxing and then bam – we get the feedback we’ve been ignoring for so long via ailments or aches.

And we have this endorsed via our peers sharing how that’s always the case for them too so it’s almost accepted as part of a busy life.

If you spent only 5-10 minutes feeling into your body and doing nothing else, you’d get a lot of information.

You’d notice positions that you’re not comfortable sitting in or that your core needs some love.

That your skin is feeling taut or that you’re not breathing properly or fully.

You’d notice your energy levels, your brain capacity, how engaged you are with your day or if you’re disconnected in any way.

Even writing this seems like we’re talking about some hippie practice reserved for the meditating, tree huggers out there, but there was a time when this space would naturally, and regularly have opened up within our days.

We’d notice what’s going on because we’re not knee-deep in a to-do list longer than the Bayeux Tapestry or distracted all of the time.

None of this is a finger-pointing exercise. It’s a gentle nudge to ask yourself, what does TLC look like for you?

How far down your list is it and if your body has been trying to get your attention – have you been listening?

My passion is to help others spend less time and energy searching for answers and start feeling better sooner and I’d absolutely love to help you if this feels like something you’re ready for. The beauty of how I help is that I take all of the thinking out of the process for you.

I can almost hear the brains of my clients breathe a sigh of relief when I confidently tell them (almost straight away in most cases), that not only do I know what the missing piece to their optimum health is, but that I have a solution that they can implement quickly without needing their own bandwidth to conjure up or suss out.

My Biological Bandwidth arsenal is pretty powerful now!

From nutritional advice with recipes or DNA-based remedies to seeing how far your life is taking you away from your core values, I love the variety of ways I can create such personalised health and well-being plans.

You honestly don’t have to do what I did and endure a very shouty body – for me, the transmissions being broadcast were IBS and anxiety – but whatever messages your body is sending you, I can help you to decipher them faster so we can get you feeling much better far more quickly.

Get in touch if you’d love some support with this.