Kindful Body & Mind - Self Love. Self Acceptance. Self Worth.

Join me on Insta for your daily dose of body kindfulness!

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If you need to restrict, cut out food groups, monitor your calories in/out and deny your self pleasure and enjoyment of food to maintain your weight, you are not supposed to be that size.
My body has changed a lot of the last few years. Every time I look in the mirror, I see something different - a new stretch mark, a new dimple, extra softness.

Sometimes I catch myself grieving my ‘old’ body. I look back at photos and feel a sense of loss, almost like I’m missing an old friend. It might sound odd but I think it makes perfect sense.

We are brought up in a world that is obsessed with bodies and appearances. We are taught that some shapes and sizes are better than others. We have learnt the social consequences that come when we are perceived as “letting ourselves go”. Nobody praises us when we gain weight, even if it has helped us to survive. Instead we receive judgement and are questioned about our changing body.

Gaining weight (whatever the reason it might be, it doesn’t matter) can be one hell of an emotional roller coaster. Give yourself permission to feel a bit shitty, a bit lost and to grieve. It’s all part of the healing process 💜

Art by @immaeatthat 🌈

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There’s something that’s been playing on my mind a lot lately... and that’s where do I fit (and my work) in in the body liberation community.

Fat activism is incredibly important to me but I also understand that not everyone is at a place where they can feel comfortable and confident in their bodies, regardless of their size.

Feeling the way I do about my body and unlearning all the bullshit about body standards didn’t happen overnight. It started small. It started with me and my body. It started with things like “you aren’t fat, you have fat, you’re aren’t fingernails, you have fingernails..” It started with me exploring the body positive movement outside of the history and politics of it. It started with a lot of things many fat activists I admire would roll their eyes at. And I understand why. There is a hell of a lot that needs unpacking.

Sometimes I feel like I need to be more activist on here, worried that someone is rolling their eyes at me or won’t share/engage with my content because it doesn’t hit the hard/problematic stuff.

That’s my inner critic right there and I know it doesn’t matter what other people think of me and what I stand for.

I’m here for my clients, my community, for those who are quite a few steps behind me in their journey. I’m here for those people who are at the beginning of their journey so that they can go on to learn all this other amazing stuff. I’m here for anyone in between too but I realise that we all need to start somewhere. Baby steps. Progress. You don’t have to move mountains 💜

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So this week I discovered that my new favourite week of the year existed - Fat Bear Week 🐻

If you’ve never heard of it before, a National Park in Alaska runs a yearly competition where members of the public vote for the brown bear who has got the chonkiest while preparing themselves for winter hibernation.

This fabulous babe is Holly who was crowned the winner of Fat Bear Week 2019. You go girlfriend! Fat, fabulous and fuzzy 🥰

Now if only we could celebrate the diversity of human bodies as much as these chonky bears 🙌

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| My FIRST online workshop is HERE!

The Summer Body Freedom Workshop is a FREE, virtual workshop designed to help you shift your beliefs, thoughts and feelings about your body in the lead up to summer.

Join me as I share with you insights from my own journey to Summer Body Freedom as well as tips and tools for you to use to makeover your own summer body mindset

Head to the link in my bio to save your spot.

I cannot wait! 💜

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✨ MENTAL HEALTH + BODY IMAGE ✨

It’s World Mental Health Day today and I want to talk to you about body image and mental health because there are some huge misconceptions about them.

Eating disorders are a mental illness. They are not attention seeking behaviours. They run much deeper than being ‘self absorbed’ and only caring about appearances.

Body image affects your mental health. The affect of negative body image on your mental wellbeing goes beyond the occasional negative thought. It consumes you.
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In a world where you a taught where you body is undesirable, unloveable and disgusting, you start to believe that your worth is tied to your body.

You try to fix it, change it, make it smaller but still that nasty voice in your head tells you you’re not good enough. That you’ll never find someone to love you, that your friends don’t actually like you.. they just feel sorry for you, that your parents are ashamed of you.

You stop doing the things that once brought you joy. Like going for a swim on a hot summer’s day, avoiding social outings because you can’t find anything to wear, stop engaging in sports because you’re ashamed to put your body on show.

It’s not just the inner voice, it’s the outside voices too. The boys who called you Thunder Thighs in school, being called a ‘fat pig’ out the window of a car by a man old enough to be your grandfather and getting abused on the internet by people who are uncomfortable by your body.

There are the days that you just can’t get out of bed because fear and the loathing is just to real. Or when you get so anxious about going out and meeting new people because you think they’ll judge you on your body. It’s thinking that sometimes, it’s all just too bloody hard and you’d rather not exist at all than exist in your unworthy body.

I still have bad body image days and I still have poor mental health days but acknowledging that my body image was affecting my mental health and seeking treatment was one of the best things I’ve ever done.

You don’t deserve to suffer in silence. Help is out there and body image issues are serious mental health concerns.

Sarah 💜

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I received some incredibly touching feedback from one of my past clients today 💕

It came at the most perfect time because I’m really struggling with Chia being so unwell. It’s thrown a bit of a spanner in the works but hearing the impact that my coaching has had on my clients encourages me to keep going, even when I feel the world around me is crumbling (honestly, my furkids are like my actual children!). I can be my own worst critic sometimes (yep, even the gal that helps you with your own inner critic struggles with hers!).
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If you’d like to experience this kind of magic, let’s chat! I’m so grateful to be able to work from home and nurse my little bunny bubba and I would so love to work with you. My fabulous clients light up my life.

Head to the link in my bio for more details on my body image coaching series 💜

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FEELING LIKE THE PODCAST QUEEN 👑

A couple of months ago, I was super fortunate to catch up with the gorgeous Kasia of @the_cc_podcast to chat about my work and why it’s so important to me 💜

Listen via Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Let me know what you think x

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Self love is more than ‘loving’ yourself. In fact, you don’t even have to love your body to practice self love.

Self love is kindness, forgiveness and compassion. It’s respecting and appreciating yourself. It’s taking care of YOU and making sure your needs are met.

Art by @crazyheadcomics ❤️

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Are you so focused on creating the BODY you *think* you need, that you aren’t creating the LIFE that you truly want?

If you answered yes, what you need is BODY FREEDOM ✨

You weren’t put on this planet to count calories for the entirety of your life.

You weren’t put on this planet to use all of your precious energy to make yourself smaller.

You weren’t put on this planet to miss out on the foods that bring you pleasure and joy.

Striving for the ‘ideal’ body is tiring, exhausting and draining. You deserve more than that, you deserve to feel free and not held prisoner by diet culture.

I want you to know that I know what it’s like. I’ve lost so many of my years to dieting and body dissatisfaction. I also want you to know that I can help you.

I have a bit of a bad habit of underselling myself and the work that I do. I’m certainly not perfect and I’m still overcoming my own blocks and beliefs that I have about my self worth - but - I’ve seen the magic. I’ve experienced it myself and I’ve helped many others to find freedom and start creating the life they want.

I can’t promise that I can wave a magic wand and ✨BAM✨ years, sometimes even decades of body dissatisfaction disappears. What I can promise you is a safe space for you to talk about your challenges, fears and your dreams. I can help you to shift how you feel, think and live - and - I can provide you with life long tools that you can go on to use beyond our coaching series.

It’s almost the end of the year and I have limited 1:1 coaching spaces up until Christmas. You don’t have to wait to the new year to start focusing on yourself and building the life you want to live. The time is now, consider this your sign 🔮

If you’re ready for Body Freedom, let’s chat! Send me a DM or head to the link in my bio to schedule your complimentary 30-minute consult with me

Sarah 💜

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Another week, another podcast!

This week I had the absolute pleasure of chatting with Demi from @thenastywomanclub podcast about toxic diet culture, binge eating and body positivity. I’ll pop a link up in my bio if you’d like to have a listen 💜