Being ‘fine’ is damaging your relationship with food

I started therapy again this week,
And truth be told,
I would rather peel my face off than dig into my feelings right now,
And feed that face to Jo Exotic’s finest.

I love being open and vulnerable and talking about my feelings when those feelings are cute and loving and oh so relatable,
But when I’m avoiding doing this very thing,
When I’m always ‘fine’,
I know I’m avoiding it,
And that there’s a reason why I’m eating just a few more cookies than I’d like,
Mindfully mindless is what we call it at ETPHD.

The thing with asking for help,
Is that we are programmed to see it as weak,
We’d rather feed our meticulously skin-cared glowing faces to the lions,
Or of course,
Overwork,
Martyr ourselves,
Put on our ‘fine’ game faces,
Than simply say,
‘I’m struggling to do this alone’.

Gosh we are such independent non-needy women,
Wouldn’t destiny’s child be so proud of us?

I see it with those of you who’d change your lives with our coaching,
You don’t want to work with me,
Because you know it means asking for help,
And talking about your feelings,
And you hate it.

I hear you,
Even thinking about my next therapy session has my toes curling,
And the fear of judgement I know she 100% doesn’t have,
It leaves me recoiling behind my coffee cup.

We see asking for help as self-indulgent,
We put ourselves last,
We are such excellent examples of selfless nice kind people pleasing women that patriarchy taught us to be,
We don’t have time because of our kids and our jobs and our friends and our partners,
We must be so hashtag selfless putting them first,
Go us.

I mean this in the nicest possible way,
Prepare yourself for a ‘no offence but here’s some offence’ situation,
These are just excuses,
You’re hiding behind being a martyr,
It’s literally helping no one,
And often,
It’s hindering everyone.

Let’s take me,
I am my business.
I choose to do everything I can to show up in the way that I want and need,
I choose to be 100%.

If I didn’t practice what I preach,
Show up and work on my own shit,
Make space and time to find my creativity and flow,
My business would be in the ground.

My clients would get no results,
My coaches would get no support,
My family would have me snapping at them instead of our usual funs,
And all the while I’d be saying,
Look at how strong I am I don’t need anyone look at me balancing everything like a pro.

Working on ourselves is filling up the cliché empty cup,
It says that a) I’m worth this,
But often more importantly for you,
It says that B) I want to be my strongest best self for other people.

I can’t avoid letting people down unless I am working towards 100%.
And the same goes for all of you,
Not taking time for yourself,
Making time to exercise or meditate or journal,
Not asking for help.

There is strength in all of this,
In vulnerability,
In giving your kids an example of what leaning on people looks like,
Because my word,
Imagine they stopped leaning on you.

Let’s stop being martyrs,
Hiding behind it as a reason not to show up for ourselves,
Feeling the need to say we’re always fine, fine fine,
Because even Alanis told us she wasn’t in the end.