Body Positive Coaching

Body Positive Coaching has been on my agenda for so long.  After having the privilege of attending the BWise - Body Image Leaders Programme where young people around the ages of 15 - 17 volunteer to be trained so that they can support other school children with developing confidence in who they are, fafacilitated by EDEN, Eating Disorder Education Network - Auckland, I have absolutely no doubt that we so need to get out there and support each other so that we can improve the future of everyone around this horrible distorted view of not feeling good enough for who you are and not what you look like and have what you have.  

These young people are taught body trust, how to develop body confidence, develop critical thinking and self esteem.  I asked a couple of them what motivated them do this, some have had disordered eating, or been caught up in the 'diet' mentality, at such an early age, others not.  What they all have in common is that they want to make a difference, they want to support peers and younger children to feel better about who they are, which I believe could also help these students to be more assertive in wanting to be treated better at school, ie not tolerating bullying etc.  I am so heartened by this programme and can see how over time it can raise so much awareness, education and support others by spreading. 

I then attended another workshop with EDEN by a Dr Anita Johnston from Hawaii, amazing woman, who has written a book called Eating by the Light of the Moon.  She talks about metaphors, stories and myths and how this can be used in recovery.  I will blog about this another time. 

What struck me was just how much this continues to be a problem and we so need to tackle it from so many different perspectives.  What seems fundamental is raising awareness, increasing confidence, self esteem and connection to our bodies, the valuable, trust worthy and the most honest resource that we will ever have in our lives is the way through and of course takes time. 

We really do need to support each other to 'get it', to see the truth.  It almost feels like that movie the Truman Show in which a guy is bought up on a TV set, believing it is real until he discovers it is not.  It is my intention now to do what ever I can as a coach as a person to support organisations like EDEN, anyone who can support others and to coach as many people as I can to gain insight into who they really are from the inside out. 

If you have any ideas or would like me to do a workshop, please, please let me know.  We are so good enough and deserve the best and I promise you it is so possible to get through all of this, I know I have done it.  :-)