The last two or three weeks have been a bit of a challenge for me and culminated in me spending two days in bed with no energy and a sense of feeling physically unwell. Looking back, I can see that I was feeling the effects of a combination of burnout and the season’s germs.

But if I’m being completely honest with myself, I believe that my physical weakness was my brain’s way of giving me a gentle nudge that it was exhausted from fighting my fears.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to ignore an overwhelming fear which had begun to set in of failing in my attempts to master my own body mindset and also my ability to help others to master theirs. Like a snowball rolling down a hill, this fear grew bigger and bigger until it took such a strong hold of me that I froze and felt as if I couldn’t do anything!

Hence feeling physically unwell and being stuck in bed. With each hour that went by laying in bed, the fear inside me grew stronger and stronger. You see, I believe that thoughts become things and so it was.  I noticed my old behaviours; the ones I have worked so hard to undo, slowly creeping back in. So I began turning to my old friend, food to help block out my fears. In the past, whenever I felt vulnerable, I’d turn to food. It felt like a warm blanket but in the long-run, it only served to strip me of my confidence.

Despite knowing this, my old habits of secret eating and bingeing were creeping back in, in a vain attempt to feel better and ignore my fears and inhibitions.

I was ignoring the negative emotions my behaviour was stirring up inside because I didn’t want to admit that the very thing I am so good at helping other women to overcome was taking a pretty tight grip of me. I didn’t want to admit that in fact, I was feeling extremely low about my own body. How could I admit that, when people see me as an expert in building a positive body image?

These thoughts started to spiral out of control until I ended up feeling hopeless. I questioned everything. I even had thoughts of throwing the towel in on my coaching business, canceling my book collaboration plans and admitting that I may as well surrender to the fact that I am never going to be able to feel good about my body!

I felt shame about myself and about the way I was treating my body by overeating.

Pretty extreme stuff right?! You’re probably wondering why I am sharing this with you.

I had learned a valuable lesson, which was going to make me an even better Body Image Transformation Coach. I knew that sharing my struggles and my experience of overcoming them would help my clients and anyone else suffering from their own self-doubts and anxiety issues.

I am not naive enough to think that old beliefs and habits won’t try and seep back in if you leave them unchecked.

I had taken my eye off the ball. I had become complacent that I was strong enough to sustain my confidence that I let my daily mindset regimes slip. I’d stopped spending time meditating and doing things to strengthen my confidence.

Then it got to a point where something inside me snapped and told me that I was not finished yet.

Even at the lowest point of my vulnerability during this episode, I was not prepared to let all that I had worked so hard for slip through my fingers.

I wanted those feelings of joy and happiness with my body to come back. I wanted to get my determination and self-belief back.

So here’s how I turned it around and kicked my fear in the butt;

1. Forgiveness – I forgave myself for letting my negative thoughts take over and I acknowledged that this wasn’t a weakness. It was natural. The relief I felt as soon as I allowed myself to feel at ease with my actions, was amazing. I drew a line under them and began to move forward.
   
   
2. I took out my journal and I wrote down all the things that I was grateful for about the experience I was having. Doing this helped me recognise that from every negative you can also find a positive. I was grateful for the time I had to rest and re-energise. I was grateful for the lessons it had taught me. I had learned so much about myself even though at the time I felt hopeless. Sometimes hindsight is a wonderful thing.
   
   
3. I meditated. I restarted my daily meditations. It helps me connect to the source within me, which makes me feel calm and joyous and clear. In this moment I feel empowered and strong. It allows me to quieten my mind and block out the constant tirade of thoughts which don’t always serve me and throw me off track.
   
   
4. I noticed all the beauty around me. I paid attention to the details of the wonderful things in my life, from the sounds of the birds to the love I have for my husband and children. This helped me realign with my goals and my purpose.
   
   
5. I visualised the goals I had been striving for. I’d been so focused on the mechanics of how I was going to make sure I was confident in my body no matter what, that it was getting in my head and I was questioning if it could ever happen. Imagining myself as an elderly woman at the end of my life looking back, knowing that everything I wanted had happened and I had been a confident, strong role model for women and girls was so powerful that it was all I needed to reconnect with the belief and conviction of its truth.
   
   
6. I started reminding myself of all the things I love about myself and my body again and I made a conscious effort to do this several times a day. Each morning, I look myself in the eye and I tell myself I love you with feeling. If I notice a negative thought rising to the surface, I’ll acknowledge it and then I’ll turn it on its head and find the positive in it. For example, the thought might be that my thighs are way too wobbly. I’ll then say thank you to the thought and replace it by saying, “you have beautiful thighs Suzanne because they are strong and feel soft and carry you around”.
   
   
7. I demonstrated love for myself. I’d gone back to indulging in food as a means to feel loved, to the point where I felt uncomfortable. My old beliefs that food was a treat and a reward had resurfaced. Now, even though I know that food is not supposed to be a treat, undoing that belief is always a challenge. So I am slowly replacing it with other demonstrations of love for myself such as giving myself permission to take a long, hot, bubble bath with candles and read a book.
   
   
8. I wrote a letter to myself full of praise for how far I have come over the past couple of years. I wrote as if I was writing to one of my closest friends who I love very much. I used endearing terms and I wrote from the heart when I said how proud I was of the woman I have become and how much of an impact I am having on other people’s lives by sharing my own journey.
   
   
9. I made time for myself so that I wouldn’t get to the point where I felt so incredibly worn out. I enforced this by blocking out time in my diary to focus on ‘me-time’.
   
   
10. I reset my intentions for the way I wanted to feel about my body. I wrote down the exact words I wanted to hear about my body and I said them daily. My staple affirmations are;

1. I am loving my body more and more each day
2. I am beautiful
3. I am so grateful for my healthy, strong, magnificent body
4. I am sexy, confident and attractive
5. I am enough

So as I write this I feel stronger and as confident in my body as I did before my self-doubt and limiting beliefs started to creep back in!

I am a huge believer in what you think and believe, you become, so why not focus on the things you want to be rather than the things you don’t? I want to feel sexy, confident and attractive so that’s what I choose to believe! And because I believe that with all my heart, I feel unstoppable.

I am fully open to the fact that my inhibitions and self-doubts might rear their ugly heads some time again in the future, but when they do, I’ll be ready for them!