For years, I was a personal trainer, constantly looking at what my clients needed to “DO” in order to change their life or achieve their goals. It took a while, but I finally realized that everything I was being “taught” and therefore teaching my clients was wrong. I began to understand that the health & wellness industry is broken.
When we only focus on the external (like weight and exercise regimens,) we are really just putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. When I gave my clients a strict meal plan on the “right” foods to eat, I wasn’t addressing WHY they were overeating in the first place.
When I gave them a super detailed exercise plan to lose weight, they followed it from a place of fear. They stuck to this modified behavior because they were terrified of gaining weight, and even then, they’d usually only last a few weeks before “slipping up.”
The wellness industry is missing the point of all of these issues and why this merry-go-round of “quick fixes” do not work long-term. Emotions drive all of our decisions, and yet no one is talking about this fundamental, underlying truth.
This is why I became so obsessed with understanding emotionality behind behavior when it comes to health and fitness, because it’s the foundation on which all of our struggle is born, and yet NO ONE is addressing it.
So how do we fix this broken model? These are the changes I believe would cause a radical shift in the health & wellness industry:
We need to go deeper. We need to understand our emotions. Why are we using food as a drug? What underlying emotional pain are we trying to suppress or avoid? WHY are we turning to food to numb out from feeling? What BELIEFS and STORIES are driving our behaviors?
We need to pay more attention to the mind-body connection. In order to feel better, we need to be better feelers. This struggle isn’t about the food, it never has been. It’s about the underlying pain or trauma that is causing us to turn to food. We need to be inspired to empower OURSELVES by feeling into our bodies to learn what we really need, because it isn’t food or a fad diet.
We need to stop being so aesthetically driven. The whole industry perpetuates this narrative, which creates so much pressure. All bodies are different. We need to stop focusing on the external and go deeper. We need to learn to love ourselves, not in spite of our “flaws” but because of them. When we respond to our emotions effectively, our bodies will respond in the healthiest way.
We need more honesty. Rather than leading with GOALS, let’s lead with FEELING. What do you truly want? HOW DO YOU WANT TO FEEL? Where are you right now – and can you be honest with your current reality and accept it? True transformation happens at the intersection of honesty and intention.
At the end of the day, THE BODY IS THE HEALER. We all know what we want and what we need to do, we just need to listen to our bodies for the best way to do it.
