Moms Without Capes

Confidence is an attitude, a way of feeling and our feelings are influenced by the thoughts we think and the beliefs we hold but can we just think “I want to feel confident” and wish it into existence? Even though it would be nice, the short answer is “no.”  

So how exactly do you feel more confident? How do you increase the belief you have in yourself? The answer is you take action. You take action against that which you feel unconfident.

When I was starting my business, I had no idea what I needed to do. I had the education, the experience, and the background that would support building a successful business but frankly, I was at a loss. It all seemed way too overwhelming and because of that, I had no idea where to even begin.

I started following coaches on YouTube and on social media and they made it look so easy yet the doubts were rampant in my mind. The inner mean girl was loving that I stayed inside my comfort zone. I yearned for the...

If I asked you what habits you currently have, you may say that you brush your teeth every day, you park in the same spot at the office, you take the same route to the bank, you always have a salad with your dinner. 

Habits are the things you do without thinking because the actions have become so much part of you, you no longer question whether they are serving you. They just happen on auto-pilot.

Have you heard of such a thing as decision fatigue? That’s when you have made so many decisions, that you are actually fatigued. I’m not referring to big, life changing decisions, but rather decisions like what you are going to wear, which bowl you will eat your oatmeal from, whether you should pull out of the driveway before or after that car coming down the street passes you. 

These little, minute decisions add up to a point where we are actually tired from thinking so much. It’s why at the end of the day, despite having committed (for the hundredth time) to...

Every February, my husband and I fly off together to escape the Montana winter and to spend some days in the Floridian sunshine. But this year, I am taking this vacation solo.

My family thinks I'm having a mid-life crisis since I've never taken a vacation all by myself, aside from traveling back to the Philly area to visit my parents. My sister-in-law asked me if I was cheating on her brother, because why else would I want to go alone?!

Everyone is wondering why I decided to take this trip by myself this year and so let me give a bit of an explanation.

First, I am totally landlocked in Montana and spent every summer of my youth at the Jersey shore. I love the salty air and the feel of my feet in the sand. Not having this in at least 6 months has been hard on my spirit. I've gone longer without it in the past, but with the restrictions of COVID and extra anxiety that arose this past year, I NEEDED it!

Second, Jason was totally against travelling since we had our house on the market...

Yesterday's coaching session had my crying, which was very unexpected. I was sharing with Teri (my wonderful coach and colleague) about what I've been gaining by listening to Amy Porterfield's new podcast, Talking Body. 

Not sure if I mentioned it before, but girl, if you haven't tuned in yet to her podcast, I suggest you do. It is amazing. I may be biased though since I am a student of hers and now belong to her membership, Momentum. But...I would like to say even if I didn't know the host, I would still be affected as I am by what she shares on her podcast

Anyways, Amy dives into her own relationship with her body and interviews women around the globe, experts and just normal people about how they view their body and the steps they've taken to accept what they look like, even when their bodies may not be what society deems as beautiful.

Her big question is very similar to mine...can I love my body and still want to change it? Are the two contradictory or is it indeed...

I am learning more and more about Intuitive Eating and I love it! There is just so much- I feel like this whole new world has been opened up to me.

Today,  I watched Beth Danowsky Basham who hosts a FB group that I belong to. She addressed some of the fears that I have about intuitive eating, including gaining a crazy amount of weight and not being able to trust my body.

When it comes down to it, I have a hard time buying into the whole concept because I haven't had success with knowing when I was full. I'm afraid that I won't be able to stop eating.

Beth talked about this and she made a valid point. Basically, we can only eat so much ice-cream. Eventually, we would get sick of it. 

And she talked about what I already know as far as our body would start craving food that would balance out the fat and sugar that the ice-cream provided. 

This is what I need to trust. I need to trust that my body will crave what it needs. That it will tell me what I need.

And the...

I had my second week of coaching this week and it only lasted half the time. I've been working my way through The Intuitive Eating Guide to Recovery and so I shared with Teri what I've been learning. 

This book makes sense, for real! It is exactly how I imagine that freedom from diets looks like, but more importantly what it will feel like. 

No calorie counting, no tracking, no pre-occupation with the nutritional level of foods. This is what I want. 

Every few months in my journal (not my food journal, but my "this is what's going on and what I need to work through" journal), I write out where I see my life going. I place myself ten years into the future and I write how old I'll be and how old my children will be. I then talk about how my life looks.

This is my vision, my dreams. My goals. This is where I see my future self. Someday I'll share it with you. But for now, I want you to know that it is freedom I desire. 

I sometimes feel that my desire to be thin or...

I want out! I want to escape the diet culture that I've been trapped in since as long as I can remember. It's suffocating and it definitely doesn't serve me. 

It's kept me hating my body and makes me cry when my clothes don't fit me or when I look in the mirror and see the flabs of skin flopping over my jeans. I see my thighs toughing or feel the skin of them go up and down when I'm jogging in the pool. I look in the sideview mirror and see the flab hanging from my upper arms. I really d hate my body even though I try to convince myself otherwise.

It's carried my six beautiful children and housed them until they entered the world. It supports me every day to do all the things I do. I've trained it and nourished it to get me through 3 1/2 half marathons, countless fun runs, and all the different sports I got into over the years.

In my rational mind, I know that it's a good body. But for some reason, I connect my worth to my appearance. I allow it to dictate how I feel each day...