When you hear ‘listen to your body—just trust yourself’ does it make you want to scream ‘HOW?!’
It’s maddening to know that ‘self trust’ is a thing but it doesn’t feel possible for you.
Are you clinging to exercise as the thing to help you trust yourself (and ultimately find freedom)? It’s the thing that’s holding you back.
More volume, harder workouts, more sweat, longer sessions, higher intensity, as a way to control your body surely means you’ll trust yourself—right?
Right?!
Nope.
More is not better—better is better.
As soon as you start to let go of striving for perfection, you make room to begin to listen to yourself. You can slowly started to break the rules of what you think you should be, should look like.
How to build self trust: a 4 step process
1. Start to let go of perfect.
Instead of ‘shoulds', shame or guilt be lead by curiosity:
‘What do I need right now?
'How do I feel?'
'Will this workout be self serving or self sabotaging?’
'Does this fit with my value system?'
'Does this fit with my goals?'
Trust that you know the answers or that you'll figure it out.
2. Now begin to auto regulate your workouts based on your current circumstance.
Are you modulating between hard, moderate and light days?
Are you distracted by what someone else is doing?
Are you doing intense exercise when you are exhausted?
How can you begin to ask questions and adapt your training depending on how you feel?
Trust that what you are doing is the right thing for you and things will not fall apart if you do less.
3. Now—this is the magic—when you are training in a way that is aligned with your goals, your values and that honours your life outside of the gym you develop body autonomy.
You are now the rule maker of your own body.
You now call the shots.
4. You have developed more self trust. The more you trust, the more you have the ability to hone your skills and abilities to auto regulate and develop a deeper relationship with yourself.
Do this:
Investing in a coach to teach you about sensible and smart training.
Slowly start to do the hard thing and not do MORE in the gym—but enough.
Let your body shift in shape and size while you continue to question your beliefs and challenge what You thought to be true about what shape you’re ‘supposed’ to be.
Let your body change. Every time it does you will survive. (You always survive)
Stop crushing yourself in the gym but move towards intentional intensity. Use the power of movement to enhance your life, not detract. Ask more of your program—why am I doing this?
Continue to unpack and challenge who you are in order to show up in the world rather than prove to the world.
You do not need to stop everything, do yoga and never lift a weight again to discover this for yourself.
But you do have to do the hard thing and do something different.
You CAN begin to trust yourself through purposeful training and being well fed.
To learn self trust
A client said to me this week on the topic of her body changing in quarantine: ‘I think the most important thing I realised is that I am able to be nice to myself and know that, yes, my weight can fluctuate and it’s okay.’
We didn’t start with trust. We got here through a process that started with letting go of ‘shoulds'.
If you are ready to let go of the 'shoulds' and finally learn to trust yourself around food and exercise, you need The Bold Collective. Find out more about it here.
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