What can I say? This is the first post in almost a year and much has occurred since then in the way of my professional and personal development. While I continued working with clients during this time, I was intentional with how much work I took on in relation to prioritizing my self-care, my studies, and my family. Because self-care is important in sustaining us day-to-day, yet it’s especially necessary when moving through a significant life change.

Two years ago, I made a decision to return to school to fulfill a long-time goal of becoming a social worker and therapist. I have been working in the space of body image, embodiment, disordered eating, and joyful movement for nearly a decade. But I recognized I needed to enhance my skills, grow as a professional (and get the credentials) to fully realize my purpose in thoroughly supporting those with eating disorders and other mental health illnesses.

This change brought some challenges… Hello to managing the family schedule, the kids’ extracurricular activities,  and being confronted with the troubling impact of my perfectionism!

Conversely, it brought some wonderful gifts as well. Most notably, my school-aged children got to see their mamma thriving in the school environment and going after her dreams.

But who I am is constant

However, throughout it all, I have realized:

• I am more malleable than I thought I was
• Who I am at my core will never change

In my last field placement at school, my supervisor had me take the VIA survey of character strengths. A tool developed by Positive Psychology researchers, this survey provides respondents with an itemized list of their most to least practiced character strengths. The idea being – if you know your strengths you can intentionally draw on them more regularly in life. And drawing on your strengths can help you better manage life’s inevitable changes and difficulties. For me, I discovered my top 5 are:

1. Industry, diligence, and perseverance
2. Gratitude
3. Modesty and humility
4. Caution, prudence, and discretion
5. Spirituality, sense of purpose, and faith

While my results were not a surprise to me, they were certainly reaffirming. These traits make up who I am. They are assets, not deficits. And I want to move forward in life acting from my strengths. I captured my top 5 in the above image and made it my phone’s screensaver. Anytime I glance at my phone (which is eh-hem, often), I will be reminded of my strengths. And I will need these reminders because…

I am still on the path

I am still on the path of learning, of growing, of changing. Very soon I will accept my Social Services Worker diploma and become a member of the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers (stay tuned for changes to the Define Me services as a result). But, this September, I will continue my formal education at Trent University in pursuing my Bachelors of Social Work.

Learning, growth, change is a lifelong endeavour for me. It is a lifelong reality for all of us. What will you do to leverage YOUR strengths and embrace change?

The post Leveraging Your Strengths and Embracing Change appeared first on Define Me Wellness.

Create a movement diary and take inventory on a typical workday of the total hours spent sitting, from the moment you get out of bed in the morning until you go to sleep.  This includes time spent at the dining table, watching tv, your commute, etc.

Remember to approach this self-assessment with honest and kind curiosity; no judgment or trying to fix anything.

Step 2: If possible, find a quiet place to reset

If you are at the workplace and are in a cubicle, see if a meeting room is available and setup for some Constructive Rest:

1. Lie down on the floor with knees bent, feet on the floor
2. Support your head and neck with a folded blanket, beach towel or pillow. The head and neck should be supported in such a way that the sides of the neck feel long, yet comfortable, and the chin is drawing down slightly towards the collar-bones
3. Walk your feet out to either side and bring the knees to touch
4. Place your hands on your belly and close down the eyes to help turn your attention inwards
5. Take 2 – 5 minutes to focus on your body’s natural inhale and exhale pattern
6. Play with equal ratio (1:1) breathing, where the inhale and exhale are of the same duration/count (this breath practice helps to balance the nervous system)

Step 3: Reclaim your seat

Once you have spent some time in Constructive Rest, you are ready to return to your desk with a calm mind and relaxed musculature.  Use that body awareness to reclaim your seat with intention:

1. Find your sitting bones, the two bony protrusions on either cheek just above the hamstrings
2. As you bend your knees, shift your hips back and sit on the edge of your chair, on your sitting bones as opposed to sitting on your sacrum
3. Rather than forcing your spine upright, wedge a pillow between the back of your chair and your spine for support or…
4. Shift your hips back until your spine is supported by the back of your chair (you should still be sitting on your sitting bones)

If you are looking for more strategies on creating optimal well-being in and out of the office for yourself, co-workers or staff, consider scheduling a Define Me Workplace Wellness workshop (such as this one) for your next company event or Lunch n Learn.

The post Reinventing the Afternoon Coffee-Break, Part II appeared first on Define Me Wellness.

In my last post, I talked about one of the most common New Year’s resolutions…The resolve to lose weight.  After re-reading that post, it got me thinking of an often overlooked part of the goal setting process: defining the goal.  I love the structure and process of using the SMART approach to setting goals.  I frequently turn to it when I am creating intentions for myself or coaching my clients in the goals they are setting for themselves.  I wrote about this concept a couple of years ago, in a bit more detail here.

But before you start creating (or possibly revising) those resolutions I’d like to ask you a couple of questions:

• When it comes to weight loss goals (yours or those that you are helping a family member/client/friend with), have you ever considered you might be focusing on the wrong Result?
• What is it you are looking to gain from losing weight?
• If you achieve that goal, does that mean you are healthier for it?

Through my years working with the Health At Every Size® paradigm, I have come to realize a shortfall within the SMART goal setting process and in the way that success is defined.  Particularly when it comes to weight-loss goals, we are focused so much so on the outcome that the actions we take or the behaviours that we may want to shift become secondary.

Searching for the definition of “outcome” I found the following from 3 online dictionaries:

• the way a thing turns out; a consequence.
• something that follows as a result or consequence
• something that follows from an action, dispute, situation, etc; result; consequence

That is all that weight loss is; a potential result from the steps we have taken, a drawn line in the sand that says our goal is complete and we have made it.  Is that all we are looking for in our measure of success? A criteria of pounds lost or body measurements decreased? I challenge the assumption that weight loss equals success, happiness, improved health or anything else that is promised when someone takes on the soul-sucking task of dieting.  And I caution folks on using pounds lost as a proxy for goal achievement.

What if instead you focused more on the Behaviour, rather than the result? Spending more time and energy on the ways you want to live a healthier lifestyle, while taking things slow and being kind to yourself.  That, to me, is more impactful than any weight loss goal (IMHO).  Ultimately, I think it is the behaviour we are looking to change and it is the outcome that is secondary.

How might you be able to reframe your intentions from an outcome-oriented endpoint to a behaviour-focused journey? Tell us in the comments below.

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