This week I told you I was working on not complaining and as I've been monitoring what is coming out of my mouth, I've also been noticing my complaining thoughts.
I am on fire with passion for helping woman find freedom in their lives! My true desire is to help them see their worth and beauty and to be filled with excitement for their lives! And then, in weak moments, in the privacy of my thoughts, I can be such a hypocrite. I can pick myself apart, I can focus on my flaws, or how I'm aging, or all the ways I fail each day. I can't change the corrupt system if I don't set my mind free. I can't change my behavior if my mind isn't free. The hard work we do as women isn't lifting weights, or controlling our nutrition, or challenging the world view, it's choosing to LIVE in freedom! It's work! HOWEVER, if we want change, that's where it starts! People aren't inspired or persuaded into change with words, it's the internal transformation that makes others pause and take note! It's the desire to be part of what they see taking place in us! I want my daughters to value themselves! I want them to require others to respect them. I want them to be so confident in who they are as human beings that they aren't intimidated by marketing ploys or tempted to use their beauty as power. I want them to love their bodies, to be good stewards of them but not be distracted how they look. I want them to be free! Because when they are they will walk away from jobs that don't pay them fairly, they will say goodbye to relationships that tear them down, they will be strong enough to fight for others without fearing loss of privilege, they will be the generation that brings equality because they refuse to be labeled or to label others. Friends, I say this with tears in my eyes, I want this for myself too. I'm fighting for it and it feels like an uphill battle some days, but I'm staying in this arena because nothing threatens a corrupt system like a free mind. This journey starts with self care and we don't get to pick and choose! It requires taking care of your whole self, mind, body, and soul! I used to be obsessed with a fit body and it consumed me, it was a sign that my mind wasn't healthy. I had to understand that I wasn't healthy before I desired to change. Whether your unhealthy is internal or external, our journey to healthy starts with freeing our minds. We start a new group on Monday and I invite you to join us! Come and experience grace and freedom and boundaries that help you push past the comfort zone that hold you captive. You CAN change and you can inspire others with your journey! Message me to take the first step! 💗
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Friends, I am SO sore! I am day 4 into my restart since our vacation and sickness and I can barely walk today! Even stretching after Pilates was painful!
It was a good reminder of how my challengers feel when they first get started. The first week of any exercise routine is HARD! And this moment I'm in right now, this is where a lot of people quit. It's not fun to be sore. The thought of doing a work out when you can barely sit to use the toilet sounds insane! But you know what? By week 2 the soreness is replaced by strength and you don't feel THAT sore again unless you stop and start over. My first week using three pound weights was worse than when I upgraded to 12 pound weights! So often, people dread exercise because they do week one over and over. They quit and start again and they dread it! I worked out today because I KNOW I'm going to feel great in a few days and the hard part of this will be a distant memory in a week. Consistency is what makes this FUN! It's where you feel good, where you see growth, and get those endorphins kicking! Don't give up! In ten days we start our next group! This is the time of year to get ahead of the game! The holidays are coming and with them some pretty powerful temptations. Come join our Freedom Focused challenge group! We are going to enjoy the holiday treats while still making progress through using the freedom we have to choose health and indulgence in according to our personal goals! This is doable, my friends! You don't have to deprived yourself to make progress! You simply need wisdom and direction! I have a fun gift for those that sign up by October 29th! Message me to get more info! 💗 "Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance."
Brené Brown, This is part of a mural at our church. It's made up of photographs of the church members tattoos. It speaks to me. I don't personally have a tattoo but I love to hear about other people's because,more often than not, they are portal into that person's deepest joy or pain or a window into what's important to them. They have taken an integral part of their life and shared it publicly. They have taken the time to count their blessings and remember the lessons. They have invited us to share in it! I think that's what speaks to me about the mural. It's an invitation to be who I am, to bring my victories, my failures, my joy, my pain, and be met with love, forgiveness, and acceptance. It's says I'm not judged by what I've done but instead I belong because what's been done for me. I don't have a tattoo but I bring my scars. When I gaze at this mural it's a reminder that there is no shame in them. They are part of my story, they are meant to be shared, and they make me stronger. I'm done trying to be anything other than my authentic imperfect self. Self acceptance has been a hard road for me but, seeing true belonging on the other side, that inspires me to fight for it! Come as you are, friends! Don't wait on the outskirts of belonging waiting to be worthy enough to enter. Your story adds to the beauty like one of these tattoo images, healing as you tell it, and creating an invitation for others to belong! #tellyourstory #tattoos #flatiron #comeasyouare #metoo Today, as I was reading post after post of #metoo stories, it was easy to get overwhelmed by the pain of so many incredible people. For a moment, I got swallowed up in the darkness. My focus settled on all the evil and pain and then I remembered something important. I remembered the good!
I remembered my brothers coming to my defense when I was a teenager. I remembered my coworkers stepping in between me and customers that were treating me poorly. I remember men at church walking me to my car at night after meetings and waiting to make sure I was headed home before walking away. I remembered strangers, male and female, seeing me in bad circumstances and being a friend to me when they could have ignored my plight or abused it themselves. I remembered that I married a man that does all this and more for me and for any woman he sees in distress. I have experienced evil and been treated as less than human. We all have, men and women alike. There is evil and we do have to confront it, but let's not lose sight of the fact that there are people all around us fighting the good fight. It's easy to let our "me too's" be the sullen voice of a victim, but instead I hope that we take our power back and let "me too" be our war cry. May the sound of people rising strong and full of love be deafening! As we share our stories and allow healing to take place, let's be aware of those helping and let's BE those helping! “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” ― Fred Rogers I've been getting a ton of emails asking whether or not Shakeology is safe to drink while pregnant or breastfeeding, so I took a few minutes to answer. You can watch here! Post any questions in the comments! I shared this with my challenge group today. We are all chasing joy and so often we are looking in all the wrong places! Joy follows gratitude and contentment. Joy is created when we accept love and reject fear. It isn't found in circumstances, its something that comes from within! If you have believed the lie that you will be joyful when you lose the weight, or fit into a certain dress, or alter your appearance in some way, I want to challenge you today! Joy is an indicator of deep wellness! Wellness is an internal state of being. If you are lacking joy, it's time to delve into self discovery and self CARE! It's time to align your behavior with your true priorities and BE a person that you deeply respect. Our health journey is deeply personal and unique to each one of us, but you can gauge your progress on whether you are looking outward and comparing yourself to others or looking inward and learning what it is you truly want out of life and what makes you excited to be YOU! Joy is an indicator of deep wellness! Let's stop chasing a feeling and learn to live steadfastly within it! Here are my thoughts in group today:
"Health is a confusing topic in todays society. You can google healthy lifestyles and find a vast array of ideas and opinions and programs. There are fads to avoid but more than enough healthy ways to get started, but the problem is the focus. Right now in our society, the focus is on weight loss only. Yes, its obvious that obesity and illness are serious issues in our country, but they are only symptoms of a problem, not the problem itself. No matter where you find yourself on the scale today, your weight isn't the topic I want to talk about. The reason we turn to food for comfort or abstain from it for that feeling of control, the reason we have eating disorders is because we aren't WELL. We are stressed out, overwhelmed, unhappy, depressed, living our lives to please others, comparing ourselves to one another. The lie we believe is that a thin person is a healthy person. If someone is 120 pounds, they can eat all the junk food they want because being thin is our standard of health. I want that thought removed from all levels of your mind. I want you to stop measuring your health based off what size jeans you wear and instead check your joy meter! I used to hear people say that even though they hadn't lost all their weight or they weren't where they wanted to be they were full of joy and content with who they were while they worked towards what they wanted to achieve. I could never understand it. I was 116 pounds at 5'7" obsessed with staying under 1200 calories a day as if my life depended on it. I was miserable! But I AM there now. I can gain weight on vacation without wanting to berate and punish myself until I lose it. I watch women in this group everyday filled with joy in the journey because it is well with their soul! It's scary to lose the fear. I remember thinking that if I let the fear go then my life would get out of control. My fear was the tool I used to keep everything in check but it also made me deeply unhappy. Be willing to love who you are, mind, body, and soul! Dive into self discovery! Question your fears. Look for the good changes that you are seeing in your life, from making better food choices to shutting down the negative internal dialogue. Let this group be more than checking off workouts and avoiding junk food. Let it be a place you allow yourself to embrace deep wellness and experience joy! As we get started the fears will surface. Don't let them just be negative emotions, analyze them! Why do you feel uneasy or afraid or angry? It may not come to you right away but ask yourself anyway. Be willing to get to the root of it, so we can dig it out! I would love to hear your thoughts on this! Do you feel that you experience joy regularly? If not, what do you feel hinders you?" And I will ask you as well! What are the lies you are believing about yourself? What elusive "goal" or thing do you think will bring you joy? Do you see the pattern of acquiring things that bring only a fleeting moment of happiness? DO you feel exhausted from chasing one thing after another and yet never gaining the joy you crave? Do you find yourself rejecting the idea that you are worthy and beautiful? If so, it's time for a change! The first thing I would recommend is getting out of your own head! Stop letting marketers define your worth and beauty! One of the ways I did that was to read books that deposited truth that helped me reject the negative inner dialogue. Here are some of my suggestions: If you struggle with eating disorders, negative body image, self doubt= Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle ( If you aren't a reader this is a memoir and a fun read!) If you struggle with self limiting beliefs, fear, self doubt= You are a Badass by Jen Sincero If you struggle with consistency and long term vision= The Slight Edge by Jeff Olsen or The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy I want to hear from you! Share your story in the comments! What is your struggle? What would you like to accomplish in your life? Do you feel like you know what the next step is for you? On Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 8:26 AM, AubreyK <aubreyk916@gmail.com> wrote: Health is a confusing topic in todays society. You can google healthy lifestyles and find a vast array of ideas and opinions and programs. There are fads to avoid but more than enough healthy ways to get started, but the problem is the focus. Right now in our society, the focus is on weight loss only. Yes, its obvious that obesity and illness are serious issues in our country, but they are only symptoms of a problem, not the problem itself. No matter where you find yourself on the scale today, your weight isn't the topic I want to talk about. The reason we turn to food for comfort or abstain form it for that feeling of control, the reason we have eating disorders is because we aren't WELL. We are stressed out, overwhelmed, unhappy, depressed, living our lives to please others, comparing ourselves to one another. The lie we believe is that a thin person is a healthy person. If someone is 120 pounds, they can eat all the junk food they want because being thin is our standard of health. I want that thought removed from all levels of your mind. I want you to stop measuring your health based off what size jeans you wear and instead check your joy meter! I used to hear people say that even though they hadn't lost all their weight or they weren't where they wanted to be they were full of joy and content with who they were while they worked towards what they wanted to achieve. I could never understand it. I was 116 pounds at 5'7" obsessed with staying under 1200 calories a day as if my life depended on it. I was miserable! But I am there now. I can gain weight on vacation without wanting to berate and punish myself until I lose it. I watch women in this group everyday filled with joy in the journey because it is well with their soul! It's scary to lose the fear. I remember thinking that if I let the fear go then my life would get out of control. My fear was the tool I used to keep everything in check but it also made me deeply unhappy. Be willing to love who you are, mind, body, and soul! Dive into self discovery! Question your fears. Look for the good changes that you are seeing in your life, from making better food choices to shutting down the negative internal dialogue. Let this group be more than checking off workouts and avoiding junk food. Let it be a place you allow yourself to embrace deep wellness and experience joy! As we get started the fears will surface. Don't let them just be negative emotions, analyze them! Why do you feel uneasy or afraid or angry? It may not come to you right away but ask yourself anyway. Be willing to get to the root of it, so we can dig it out! I would love to hear your thoughts on this! Do you feel that you experience joy regularly? If not, what do you feel hinders you? ᐧ I hear the expression " I fell off the wagon" a lot in my profession. It's usually expressed with shame and discouragement, two things that I have to come to see as the true enemy on our journey.
In the three years that I have been on my own health journey I have learned a few things that I am going to share with you today. I hope they set you free to leap off the wagon! 1. The wagon is not what we think it is! In our minds the wagon is some sort of direct route to success where the truly smart, dedicated, and self controlled seem to stay. Getting a seat on that wagon means we are doing well. Let me tell you, if such a vehicle existed, it would be empty! We are all a mess! What is actually happening is that we are souls on a mission of self discovery and through human connectedness we share and learn and grow. So your friend attends a seminar that changes her life, and she is so pumped about it that you decide THIS is it! This is what you need to make progress! You go, you learn some things, you attempt to do all the same things she did and for awhile there is progress. Then, the unthinkable happens, you fall off the wagon. You stop doing the behaviors that brought the success. You look over at your friend and she is happily still succeeding and the thoughts begin to set in. I'm a failure. I never finish anything. I didn't set out what I was supposed to do. I am a weak person. I am less than others. Now you may not have spoken things things allowed or even let the words form in your mind but your emotions are ALL IN. The shame takes over, the discouragement sets in and reach for your old comfortable bad habits and the tv remote to try and numb the pain of feeling worthless. 2. You are SO very worthy! That is the truth! There is not one human on the earth that is better than you, nor are you better than anyone else, but we are SO different. I wish I could tell you that you will find a life seminar or a wellness program that will be everything you need but you won't. You are so unique that it's going to take a unique series of life lessons and experiences to uncover the glories of being YOU. You are a great archeological exploration that only you can uncover. You may glean insight from some of the books your friends have found life changing, you may share in their experiences and connect but ultimately you have to forge your own path and THAT is why you " fall off the wagon". There is no group ride to success, it's a solitary walk through the wilderness. It doesn't have to be lonely though! Surrounding yourself with people that desire to grow is one of the best things you can do for yourself! Sharing resources, talking through obstacles, getting ideas, trying new things that you would never have tried on your own, sharing the journey will take you farther than you would have ever gotten on your own. BUT, in the end, you have to learn to sort through it all and choose what propels YOU forward. 3. You're going to get lost. You are out in the wildnerness with no path laid out in front of you. Each step is your choice and that's a scary responsibility. Often, we would rather follow someone else and have someone to blame when things don't pan out but we can't do that! We have to own our stories and take the risk! That means getting lost from time to time. That means trying things that we find out don't work for us. So we scratch things off the list and keep going! As an example, in my challenge groups, my challengers often want to know which work outs I prefer. They see my results and they want what I have. I ask a ton of questions and try to steer them in the right direction but often they choose to start with my favorite. A few days in, I will ask them how they are liking the workouts. If they are loving them, then great! But if not, I ask more questions! I generally find out that they aren't a fan of lifting weights or they don't like the personality of the trainer and we dig until we find something that they DO find joy in! They didn't fail, in fact it was a smashing success, because they know MORE about themselves than they did before they started. In the beginning they didn't know anything about their preferences and now they have a starting point to make changes that will help them enjoy a vital part of our journey: our health! Making sense? Getting lost isn't a terrible thing! It's part of self discovery! 4. Success is defined by YOU. Let's be honest. When we are trying to see how successful we are, we look around and start comparing right? We feel good when we see that we are doing "better" than someone else ( usually financially or relationally) and we feel badly when we look at someone else and they appear to be more successful than us. The comparison is a problem. The first Valentines Day after I got married was quiet. Gift giving is NOT my love language, I hate crowded restaurants, I think flowers are a waste of money, and I am health conscious so a big box of chocolate is not my idea of a great present! However, the recently married women in my circle were flashing their new jewelry and gushing about all the grand gestures their husbands made for them and then turned to me with expectation. I felt SO small. I walked away from that conversation feeling so icky ( though not mad at my husband! So there was a win! ;)) I felt like something was wrong with me. Fortunately I was self aware enough to walk myself through it. I KNEW I didn't want ANY of those things! I just had to accept that I was different and the fact that my hubby knew me well enough to buy me books and my favorite beverage was a HUGE win for our marriage! I had chosen a spouse wisely. ( Success defined by ME) I would have been annoyed and stressed out if my hubby came home with all that stuff, so to get into a funky mood about why he didn't wasn't true to myself and TOTALLY not fair to him! I am happy for all those women that married men that serve them but I will not compare my marriage to theirs. It's apples vs oranges! So, in terms of your health journey, keep some things in mind! Health is more than just your physical body, it starts with your thoughts and emotions. Start there! Ask yourself questions instead of giving into the waves of emotions that wash over you. Why are you feeling stressed? What about that social interaction made you feel icky, or unworthy, or unloved? Who are you comparing yourself to? Why are you running to food, sex, drugs, or even TV to numb the pain? What truths do you need to face in your life? What mess is in front of you that needs to be dealt with? What is one thing that you can do right now to get started? What is a book or podcast you can read to pour truth into that brain of yours that will address what you are walking though? Read or listen each day! Keep investing in materials that will guide you. Continue to do the work of evaluating which informations serves you and let the rest go. Then take a step into the wilderness. Even if its just a baby step! Can you feel the excitement building? Don't just fall off the wagon, leap! The wilderness is calling and you were born for this great adventure! <3 I bought myself a cutting board. A ridiculous announcement I know but hear me out! 😂 I'm learning to say yes to myself more often. As someone that grew up in poverty and as a passionate budgeter and crazy coupon lady, I often put things in the cart that I want or even need only to talk myself out of it because " the money could be used for something more important".
Over time, this frame of mind has damaged the way I think of myself. I am not even on the bottom of the list. I am not worthy enough to spend money on things I want or need. That's not an outside perspective. That's an inside one! So, I've committed to saying yes to myself more especially when it comes to things that make my life easier! I've been living life with one cutting board for years. I make every meal in our house! I deserve a couple extra cutting boards! Am I right? I want you to think about it. I know budgets can be tight and they are necessary but what is something you can say yes to that will bless you and reaffirm your worth as a human being? Ladies, this can be as simple as taking a night off to get out of the house! Give yourself the respect and thought that you give others! It will change your perspective and help you feel like the worthy gorgeous woman that you ARE! 💗 Yesterday I came down with a sore throat. It didn't surprise me. I've been on the move most of the past month, and I'm exhausted! It was an amazing month of adventures for which I'm grateful, and I ate as well as I could on the run, but it takes a toll on the body.
I talked to my challengers about it last night because I want them to understand, this process isn't about losing weight or gaining muscle, it's about SELF-CARE. This lifestyle has taught me to be in tune with my body. I'm now aware of when I need rest, when my body doesn't respond well to certain foods, even what time of day I should and shouldn't eat! I've learned how good I feel and how well I sleep when I've been exercising. I've learned that it doesn't matter what the scale says when I feel good in my own skin. I've learned to make my own well-being sacred instead of a punishment for not looking like a super model! As a coach, I'm going to tell you a truth you need to hear: Change doesn't come from a product. They are merely tools in our arsenal. Change comes when we make this promise to ourselves. An unbreakable promise to hold our own well being sacred even when we stumble our way through it! Exhaustion, illness, weight gain, bowel issues, skin issues, these are all ways our bodies communicate that something is off. Lean into the journey! Learn about nutrition. Find exercise you enjoy! Pay attention to what your body is telling you. Learn to be aware of what it needs from you and you will fall in love your body and the journey! We've been told as women that if we hit that goal weight, if we fit into that dress, if we looked more like the airbrushed model in the ad we would be happy. It's a lie!
It isn't about weight loss. The photo on the left I had lost all the baby weight from two pregnancies. I was down to my pre pregnancy goal weight and I was still unhappy with my body. I was nit picking and speaking negatively to the girl in the mirror. At that time, she was my success story. I had done it. I had lost the weight, but when I look at my journey two years later, I realize I had only just begun! Two years of filling my mind with personal development, with treating my body with respect, of learning to be in tune with what it needed from me and I learned to love it emotionally through practically loving it through my actions! I'm 38, I'm 8 pounds heavier than the goal weight I used to set for myself, I'm out of the underweight category that the world encouraged me to stay in. I'm free, mentally emotionally and physically, and I'm happy and I love my body. That is the true goal! Losing the shame, losing the unrealistic unattainable standards, and simply falling in love with respecting ourselves! We are under educated about nutrition, we are neck deep in fad diets, we are chasing ever moving target goals. It has to stop! Clean week starts in our Heart of a Warrior challenge group on October 15th. It's one week of true nutrition guidance, realistic 30 minute workouts that anyone can do, and a weeks worth of shakes full of nutritionally dense superfoods that will help heal your gut and reduce cravings through actually giving your body what it needs. It's a week to give you the tools you need, how to be consistent, how to eat well, and how to make it a sustainable lifestyle! I didn't tell anyone when I started because I was afraid I'd just fail again, but here I am almost three years later happier, healthier, and more consistently respecting myself in the decisions I make! It's a journey that I'm still on but I'm growing, changing, transforming from the inside out. You can do this! Its only $30 to get the tools! Come join me for clean week and see what's it's all about! Link to our free group below! |
Author"And Aubrey was her name. A not so very ordinary girl or name."(Or so says David Gates ;) I'm a wife to Phillip, a mother to Scarlett and Juliet. We live in the beautiful city of Thornton, Co. I'm a recovering red bull addict. I love to read. I hate to cook. I seek to be inspired and also to inspire others. I am a Beachbody Coach on a quest to be truly healthy mind, soul, and body and challenge others to do the same. Archives
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