Drive 1: Empowering others towards better health
“Don’t you ever run out of ideas of things to write about?” a friend recently asked me. Until then, it hadn’t occurred to me that I’ve never struggled to come up with ideas of things to share on my blog, Eat Pray Workout. There have always been at least 2-3 post ideas bouncing around in my head. Weird huh? I suppose it’s because I have a passion for communicating with people (particularly women) and seeing them find health and happiness. I find it easy to empathise with people’s struggles (particularly when it comes to health and emotional wellbeing) and I love talking through those challenges, empowering them to make positive change in their lives.
Drive 2: Helping others understanding health and wellbeing as it applies to them
Eat Pray Workout has become a platform to help expand the understanding of ‘health, emotional wholeness and wellbeing’ and how that differs in application for each person. These words need to become more than shallow ideals, but rather something that is achievable, particularly for women who are told constantly by media they ‘need’ so many things to achieve an often-fabricated idea of ‘health’. I’m fed up with the way the media (social and conventional) paints an unrealistic picture of what health is – it’s fake in it’s ideals and empty in it’s advice. I’m zealous about redefining health through a holistic lens that provides realistic advice that allows them to implement change. I try to pair this with sharing some of the real, raw and gritty details of my own stories to help others in their health journeys. Being vulnerable and honest in my writing is important to me because it offers readers the opportunity to feel they can trust me. I get a real buzz out of getting an email from a reader asking for further advice following a recent post or wanting to share their similar story with me.
To do this, I try to GET REAL with readers, stripping back the media’s idea of healthy ‘perfection’ (which we too often compare ourselves to), recreating a health perception and then addressing some of the obstacles that can prevent us from getting there.
Whilst this applies in many areas of health, an easy example is seen when we look at weight loss. There are very few women that have the ability to lose weight by simply being told to follow a calorie controlled diet and hit the gym for x amount of hours per week. I don’t know about you, but when I try this it rarely lasts more than a day before I’m swinging on the cupboard doors looking for a biscuit…then coming back 5 minutes later and being frustrated that there’s still no biscuit there! That simple approach to weight loss is ineffective because it’s a solution that is difficult to implement and the difficulties aren’t addressed. This is where the gap needs to be bridged and things like emotional support/thought awareness can address questions like ‘why do I feel the need to lose weight?’; ‘what is going to drive this change?’; ‘what other motivators will get me there?’; ‘why am I labeling some foods bad?’; and/or ‘what support will I need to be able to make this change? Addressing a health challenge with a holistic and individualised solution will empower a reader to take more effective action, that in turn improves one’s health, emotional wholeness and wellbeing – and that idea excites me!
Amy Darcy
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