Sitting here at 9pm on a Tuesday trying to figure out the right combination of words to say to you to remind you that you’re worth taking really good care of.

I’m also aware at this moment, that there are probably a billion people out there thinking the very same thing about the thing they’re passionate about.

And just as soon as I write that, I’m also thinking to myself… how did I become so passionate about women’s self care??  Well, that’s been a long journey.

Here are a few of the things that fueled this passion.

For starters, I grew up with a mom who had to do it all.  Some of that was real and some of that was perceived.  The parts that were real?  Being a single mom to two kids, figuring out how to put food on the table and trying to make her kids’ world go round.  The parts that were perceived… uhhhh, where do I start… women are told that they need to have it all together, and look damn good doing it.  So that’s what she believed she had to do.  So I saw her get out of bed when it was still dark outside… at 4am or 5am to go running, then make breakfast for us, take us to school, then work her a$$ off, all while simultaneously hard core dieting and restricting calories.  I cannot tell you how much low calorie cottage cheese I saw consumed in my household.  A lot.  Sorry if that’s your thing, but.  Eck.

So, what do you think all that teaches a kid?  One possibility… That our job as women is to do ALL. THE. THINGS.  That we must sacrifice ourselves, for the good of the ALL.  That “ALL” could be the family and kids, or that “ALL” could be the world at large that expects you to be skinny.  Either way, your work is to do it.

I’m sure this looks different for every woman out there but what I know for sure after over a decade of doing this work, is that we each have a story of our own… a story that has different characters and events, but the same underlying message….

Your value as a woman is determined by your appearance.  Not just your static physical appearance… but how the world perceives how you appear to be doing.

And so it begins.  The quest to do ALL THE THINGS, at the expense of ourselves and our health and wellbeing.

And then, that becomes punctuated by all the messaging we receive from society as we grow up.  The sweet 16 magazines that showed us what we had to do to be “pretty”.  And the billions of marketing campaign dollars that get spent to make us feel like we need to keep up with their standards in order to feel okay.

What I’ve discovered is the irony in all of this, is that the more we try to keep up with what the world thinks we should be doing, the less we believe we are worthy of slowing down and living our own best life. And the less we believe we are worthy of our own acceptance and self care and choices that align with our heart’s desire… then the more we look to food to fill the void we feel.

I would propose that when we are fulfilled and happy in our lives, we don’t need to lean on food and consumption as a coping mechanism.  When we are fulfilled, food gets to be a substance that fuels our purposeful lives.  But when we are living someone else’s version of life and not our own we use food to entertain, to pass time, to avoid and distract from the inner knowing that we were meant for something else.

Healing our food issues and challenges starts with looking into our hearts to find what is really true and important to us, and doing more of that.  When we are fully expressing our highest version of ourselves in our lives, then food gets to just be a means for fueling that authentic life.

So, our work… is to reconnect to ourselves to re-member what lights us up, so that we can feel more joy in our lives and stop using food to fill us up.

Authentic Nourishment™ is about finding the things that truly and authentically nourish you and ignite you, so that food doesn’t have to.

Does this resonate with you?  Are you living YOUR version of a joyful life?

Message me… I’d love to know

You are worth taking really good care of.

XO,
Margaret