Learning to Listen to Your Body

Listen to your body, right? It's a bit of a thing in the holistic health space to learn to listen to your body and follow that intuition and instinct to guide you in health choices that are right for YOU; because what's the perfect fit for you, isn't necessarily the perfect fit for the person sitting beside you! It's something I've always loved about the Healthstyle Emporium since I partnered with it 2.5years ago - the whole philosophy is that there's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to health! The whole basis of the platform is to educate and inform about different pillars of health in order to allow us to go out and apply what works best in our own lifestyle and situation. And so, over the last couple of years I've really been exploring that; finding ways of moving my body that I actually enjoy, not just because I 'have' to work out; investigating ways of nourishing my body that feels good for me - not just cutting out meat or dairy or whatever because some blog said it causes inflammation - but really exploring what foods make me feel good, or not; changing my routines and habits to things that are sustainable for me, and have a positive impact on my mental health... Etc! And through the whole process, just leaning into what I feel, and challenging what I thought I knew... Listening to my body, and, I thought, getting pretty good at it... And then... I got pregnant! I tell you what, if you think you're good at listening to your body, just throw pregnancy into the mix and see how that goes for you! But seriously, it's been a massive roller coaster, because the body I thought I was getting to know quite well, all of a sudden didn't even feel like my own! My sleep patterns changed, my eating patterns changed, and most of all, my mental health went haywire - and for a while there, I just didn't know how to cope! I've had to learn to listen to my body all over again. In those early weeks of pregnancy, my morning routine went out the window; I was sleeping 12hours of a night and still struggling to get out of bed the next morning - then crashing for a nanny nap in the afternoon too! As someone who'd been a solid-8-hours, wake-up-at-4:30am and thrive-through-the-day-without-a-nap kind of gal thanks to all the work I've done on myself through the HSE and my Juice Plus products, it was wild to all of a sudden need SO much sleep and literally have so many less hours in the day than I was used to. I had to learn to give myself so much grace; I'm growing an entire human, and apparently that's really tiring! As I entered second trimester I'm now sleeping more like 10hours a night, and not always needing an afternoon nap, but still - a lot more sleep than I used to need. And getting up later than I used to has affected my morning routine because I feel like I'm already running late and "don't have time" to journal, do yoga, or any of the things that used to really set me up for a great day. The whole mindset around that has been really interesting to explore, and I'm slowly getting myself back on track there and overcoming the guilt of "not doing enough."

Apart from my lack of structure and a morning routine, I think the hardest thing to deal with has been eating - or the lack thereof. I love food, right! So to all of a sudden have some of my favourite foods make me sick, or to not feel like eating because I feel so sick... That's as much of an impact on your mental health as it is on your physical! I'd have all this really great food in the fridge that I'd cooked, and then I couldn't stomach eating it; I couldn't even really plan meals ahead of time because as often as not, I'd go to make something and the smell would make me throw up. There was a couple of weeks there where I mostly ate peanut butter on crackers, as well as heaps of fruit (we had a hot couple of weeks here, so anything cold and sweet was good!) For the longest time I could hardly stomach any meat, which if you know me, you know how devastating that is, I love my meat! And I'm still avoiding pork, and sometimes chicken - strong, rich smells and flavours are highly triggering! And interestingly enough, I mostly had 'evening sickness' more than 'morning sickness' (except if someone cooked bacon and eggs within smell of me first thing in the morning - blehh), so I usually made up a big smoothie stuffed with goodness and fresh food, since it was about the most nourishing thing I would end up eating all day! Thank goodness for my Juice Plus Complete powders, I at least knew I was adding as much nutrition as possible into my smoothies, along with my wholefood capsules; I really hate to think how much I would have struggled with food if it wasn't for these products!

I've mostly found an equilibrium with food these days, after a whole two months of intense pregnancy sickness, in the last couple of weeks I'm finally starting to feel a bit more human and can eat mostly normally (just smaller portions! I get full really quickly, and then am hungry again half an hour later, haha). But it's the ultimate listening to your body as you juggle those awful sick days - am I hungry or am I going to be sick? If I eat this will it make me throw up?? If I eat something, will it make me feel better or worse!? It really takes conscious eating to a whole new level - I've had times where I started eating and felt good about it, but then ate too much in one sitting and made myself sick; like I have to literally be conscious of every mouthful I put in my body - not just mindlessly clear my plate because it's in front of me! As much as it's been a journey so far - and it's not over yet - I am truly grateful for the opportunity to get to know myself a little better, and I'm sure that will only continue through motherhood! There are times in life that test us, and make us question what we thought we knew, but taking it as a learning opportunity instead of letting it get you down is so powerful. Switch your mindset from a why me attitude, and instead be grateful because you get to learn a new strength you never knew you had! As much as this year so far has been a struggle in more ways than one, if it weren't for the struggles, I wouldn't have seen this resilience in me that I didn't know I had; I wouldn't have been able to come out the other side with new understanding and new strength; and I definitely wouldn't have uncovered this new layer of learning to listen to my body!