A glass half-full pep talk - the one about self care.

It's Friday. Fill up the cup, or pour it out - here's a collection of random thoughts that might be useful if you've had a hard week.

Are you enough?

The next time you are judging yourself and think you’re not fit enough, small enough, eat the right foods enough, ask yourself what would be enough?

And if you’re one of the few who can answer that, what happens when you’re ticking off the things that are enough?

Are you getting more sleep? Earning more money? Have your teenagers miraculously started speaking to you again?

Probably not.

So what’s the point?

Are your clothes not fitting as well as they used to?

Are you feeling sad or shame over that?

Your feelings are always valid here, but also, there’s nothing you can do in that moment to change how your clothes fit.

There’s an abundance of clothes in the world.

You can always acquire different clothes that fit better.

You can buy new ones. Swap with friends and family. Sell what you have, buy from others.

Clothes are not the problem. Fitting our worth up against the clothes is absolutely the problem.

Self care

Self care can be foreign to a lot of us. We’ve either never had the space for it, or didn’t think we deserved it. If you’re my age or above, even the term self-care probably won’t make sense to you initially.

Self care to me, is just putting a stop to the bullshit, intrusive thoughts that I’m not good enough. That’s it. I start by taking a deep breath. I tell myself none of it matters. I remind myself that my kids health and happiness is what matters. That my family and friends are well and thriving. That people who don’t rate me as worth more than the shit on their shoes, really don’t matter. Because they don’t.

A hot shower, a new lipstick or hand cream, and an early night does the trick here, too.

TikTok

My glorious Tiktok algorithm - she and I are becoming fast friends. She’s been delivering the goods lately, and a vid that’s been doing the rounds has been so great for my self care. The upshot is:

“If you have a problem with me, call me. If you don’t have my number you don’t know me well enough to have a problem”

And given that we communicate with people mostly not via text, but by any number of messaging apps, it rings true. Only my close mates (and my wonderful clients) have my number and feel empowered to use it.

Fitspo people

Fitspo people utterly hate me and what I’m trying to do with “taking the trash out”.

And honestly, if an unhinged and sometimes hysterical woman was trying to bring my business down, I’d probably not love them either. But I actually love business. I will help anyone stuck in a terrible job to create a life of their own with a business that can support them and their families. And without getting all braggy on it, I’m quite good at businesses, starting, developing etc. Lord knows I’ve had a whole bunch of my own and have failed hard enough to have some good lessons.

Anyway, given I spend an unhealthy amount of time scrolling TikTok, I have come across so many fitspo people positively frothing at the mouth over the size of people’s bodies. And it got me thinking.

What if we were able to help these coaches turn their businesses around, from being obsessed with chicken and air fryers and the size of people’s bodies, to self care agents. Ones who can gently help people into exercise that works for them. Can give gentle ideas on things to eat that will help people feel better. Things like that.

Would you pay a coach who just had nice things to say to you?

I would.

Polls

I have about 17 draft articles that I haven’t posted because I’m not wholly certain they are topics you would find interesting or welcoming. Can you please vote for the ones you are interested in so I know to release them, or send them to the trash?

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Thanks for reading this newsy. I really appreciate the time you give to me for this and I hope you get some value from it. If you have any questions you can reply directly to this email or if you’ve landed here from a link, email lou@sweatypals.nz. You can also follow me on Twitter here, and instagram here.

Please remember while I am a qualified fitness trainer, and I’ve done a couple of nutrition papers, I am not a registered dietitian or nutritionist. Information shared here is through my own lived experience, personal study or a peer reviewed study I have nerded out on reading and sharing with you.

Lou xx

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash