Inspire Calm

I was diagnosed with insomnia at 20 years old.
I tried everything to "fix" it

I went to therapy, I used lavender, I tried having a bedtime but I was at uni so that didn't happen!!
I tried all the tips and tricks but nothing worked!
It got worse and worse as all my other symptoms developed
I was sleeping 4 hours a week at one point!!

I was 35 when I started my healing journey with my bodymind coach
I learnt that I needed to love myself and my life, to give me purpose, a reason to wake up and therefore a reason to go to sleep!!

Within months I began sleeping better, waking up less often during the night and falling asleep faster.

I created morning and evening routines that energise and relax me, respectively.
I look forward to my mornings now and most importantly, I am grateful for each day!

My attitude, mindset and mental health changed so much as I was healing insomnia.

The better I slept the better my health!

It's hard to love your life when you're chronically sick
Find a way to heal, to live your purpose and be who you really want to be

Start to understand your body and your needs, release your emotions, be seen and heard and feel safe in your body again through my 3 month 1:1 coaching program
*ReCreate your Sparkle*

Heal through creative self Expression allowing emotions to be felt and heard and RELEASED!!
Learn who you are and who you want to be and feel safe in expressing yourself.
Build your self worth, love and accept yourself fully and
Create morning and evening routines that you love. Create a life that you love!!

For more information comment SPARKLE or click the link in my bio

Understanding why you have CFS and insomnia is the first step to healing it.

Self awareness is important here!

What were you taught about having "bad" emotions, which emotions are labelled as "bad"?

What did you learn about rest?

Journal on these questions to help you to get a better understanding of the limiting beliefs you have about releasing your emotions.

Once you have awareness of these beliefs you can start to take the necessary steps to challenge and change them.

Self Awareness is one of the main pillars in my program ReCreate your Sparkle. Which is why I created a digital planner with daily journal prompts.

I'm now accepting applications and I have an early bird discount for those who apply by 4th October - there a only 7 spots left!

In this 1:1 program you will learn to develop radical self acceptance too, feeling worthy and safe and loved no matter what!

You will also begin to heal through m creative self Expression allowing emotions to be felt and heard and RELEASED!! Which is what you need to heal!!

Comment SPARKLE below and i'll send you the details.

I talked about these different types of rest in my workshop The Fundamentals of Healing your Relationship with Rest

Most people said this was their biggest takeaway
We don't know about all these different ways to rest because we are never taught to rest (let alone how!)

Unsurprisingly, people who've seen the workshop said creative rest is missing from their lives. Being creative and playful and silly is apparently immature, it's frowned upon!
It is one of the best ways to connect with your inner child and healing through playfulness is so powerful!

It is easy to think Rest is doing nothing, sleeping, watching TV - simply not working. But there is so much more to it

Rest is self care
Rest is giving yourself - your body, mind and soul - what you need. Do you need to move, do you need to go out in nature, will meditation help you right now, maybe you need to vent and release your feelings!

I invite you to ask yourself which of these types of rest is missing from your life and comment below

How can you provide this for yourself?

PS the replay of the workshop is available for another week - link in bio

Looking after and reparenting yourself and your inner child helps you to connect with yourself, build self awareness.

You start to feel safe in expressing yourself, you allow more creativity and playtime in your life!

You begin deeply loving yourself and accepting yourself past and present!

Inner child work involves looking back at yourself through different times and showing that version of you love.

Acknowledging the hurtful, nasty things I used to say and telling that version of me that she isn't fat, she's gorgeous and I love her helps me to build up self trust and safety within myself.

When you have Chronic illnesses and depression you can feel unsafe in your body. This comes from trauma and past experiences in which you felt unsafe to be YOU!

I'm now accepting applications to ReCreate your Sparkle and I have an early bird discount for those who apply by 4th October

In this 1:1 program you will learn to develop radical self acceptance and start to feel worthy, loved and safe. You will also begin to heal through Self Awareness and creative self Expression allowing emotions to be felt and heard and released.
Find out who you want to be and start taking steps towards your goals.

Comment SPARKLE below and i'll send you the details.

In my workshop The Fundamentals of Healing your Relationship with Rest
We did a creative practice in self worth

Everyone made permission slips, there was doodling and lots of colours it was very fun!!
Our inner children were loving it

Then I asked everyone to think of reasons why they are worthy, not just of rest in general.
This bit was difficult
Understandably!

Learning that we are worthy takes time!

As a group we came up with these 5 reasons we are worthy. I think that they are so beautiful and true I wanted to share them

Now it's your turn "I am worthy because..."
Comment below

PS it's not too late to catch the replay of the workshop - link in bio

When triggered by anxiety, pain and other traumatic events our nervous system becomes dysregulated and overstimulated. This results in an inability to equilibrate our emotions, especially when in highly stressful situations.

Without releasing these emotions dis-eases such as chronic fatigue and insomnia develop.

Regulating our nervous system is key to healing and finding ways to deal with triggers, anxiety, stressors. It also stops our nervous system from recognising pain and fatigue all the time, effectively healing chronic illnesses.

Self soothing releases the happy hormones and allows our nervous system to recognise we are safe and allows us to get restorative rest.

Door to my program ARE OPEN!
Take a look at my free workshop on The Fundamentals of Healing your Relationship with Rest to learn more and from there you'll be able to apply to work with me 1:1.

When we repress our emotions we develop chronic illnesses
Until we learn how to express AND release them we won't be able to heal and come into our full expression!

It starts with recognising, identifying and naming your emotions
Allow yourself to feel the physical sensations of it
What's going on in your body?

Getting clear on this will help you to recognise that emotion again in the future.

Learn how to process and release it - physically, mentally, emotionally

Holding on to the emotions after we've identified them isn't going to help us to heal

In my free workshop on Sunday 24th -
The Fundamentals of Healing your Relationship with Rest
I go through The 4 Crucial Steps in Identifying, Processing and Voicing your Emotions

This practice allows you to visualise and physically feel the emotion and learn how to release it.

Comment REST for the link to join
(Link is also in my bio)

Reading before bed with a hot drink was something I did as a child, I loved it!

As I grew older and went to uni, it wasn't cool so I stopped! I also stopped sleeping. Uni life is meant to be like that though?!

It's not like this ever got better and when I became more and more chronically sick I would watch TV in bed, before bed, all day - thinking I was resting!!

Sorry, not sorry,
THIS ISN'T RESTORATIVE REST!

When I started to heal insomnia, CFS, fibromyalgia etc. I made a routine in the evening, part of that is reading with a hot drink

Isn't it nice how it comes full circle
Me and my inner child enjoying fantasy novels together ❤

If you'd like to learn more about restorative rest, join my free workshop
The Fundamentals of Healing your Relationship with Rest

Comment REST below for the link 😴

I'm leading a FREE workshop called
The Fundamentals of Healing your Relationship with Rest

In this you will learn
- The top 3 impacts of a toxic relationship with rest
- How to overcome The Cycle of CFS
- A beautiful practice in identifying and processing your feelings
- and so much more

Comment REST for the link to sign up for free!

Not getting your needs met leads to the development and continuation of chronic pain (and fatigue)

Understanding this and taking steps to change are what helps you to heal

Learning ways to express yourself without fear will help you to start asking for your needs

Realise how worthy you are!!

You are worthy of healing 💝

I'm leading a free workshop to help you to heal Chronic Pain, fatigue and other chronic symptoms through allowing yourself to rest.
If you're interested in learning the Fundamentals of Healing your Relationship with Rest drop a ❤ in the comments and I'll send you the info

Ooooh I needed to hear this today!!!

We don't need to rush and overwork!
Nature doesn't burn out!

Why are we always pushing and striving to do more, be better, be perfect, do everything ourselves?!

Well, probably because our lives so far have taught us that if we aren't doing more and being perfect and hyper-independent then we aren't safe. We aren't good enough.

Let's try to take a leaf out of nature's book (see what I did there) and relax once in a while.

Learning how to rest effectively will help you to feel safe and secure and know you're worth

You are worthy of rest! Guilt free fu***ng rest!!

Love you ☘🌿

Can you relate?

Invisible illnesses develop because you don't feel seen or heard.
You feel like you might as well not exist.

You can heal by taking up space
Asking for your needs to be met by others AND yourself!
Do you See and Hear yourself? Do you hold space for yourself to process and release your emotions? Do you allow yourself to take up space?

It all starts with you
Follow me to learn more about healing fibromyalgia and CFS

Being organised without getting overwhelmed about it is so helpful for your mental health

You will start getting more done, be able to schedule breaks and creative time, time for healing

This will make you feel proud of yourself, build a better relationship with yourself and build self trust.

Like and share if you found it helpful

This praline doesn't look very well made!

As a recovering perfectionist and avid baker I am feeling disappointed with it.

I remind myself of a few things in order to regulate my emotions and not get anxious and caught up in perfectionism:

1. Perfect isn't attainable so it is okay
2. I've never made praline before so this is a good attempt
3. It will be blended and mixed with buttercream so it doesn't matter
4. I'm not a professional baker so I don't need to nitpick
5. Practice makes progress, I cannot be amazing at everything I do first time
6. I'm human, we make mistakes, we learn from them, we grow, we get better.

I feel better now, I'm proud of attempting it.
I can recognise this as an achievement
I can see it as a learning opportunity - NOT A FAILURE!

Try this process for yourself

There's no doubt that when you heal yourself you feel fu***ng invincible!! There's nothing you can't do!

And everything you do after healing is also healing because you know how to care for yourself

The confidence and joy and freedom that you feel when you start to see changes is indescribable

I am so proud of my growth sometimes it seems unreal, I look back at my life like it was a movie I saw.
So used to pushing through and pretending we're fine that we can't see for ourselves how far we've come until we stop and think about it.

To see the change in yourself journal on this:
A year ago if you did the exact same thing as you did today how would your body and mind have reacted?

Chronic pain is due to repressed trauma

You need to process this trauma and RELEASE it in order to heal

How?
1. Accepting support from a therapist, a coach a community or friend that feels safe. It is important that you are able to speak openly about your past and how it is affecting your present so that you can have a better future.

2. Connecting with other people outside of the support, go out with friends or family, try new hobbie, enjoy your life! This will regulate your nervous system and your body will release more serotonin, endorphins, dopamine and oxytocin.

3. Moving your body, even if this is slow and gentle or fast and vigorous.

4. Feel your feelings, name them, sit with them in your body, how does it feel in your body and mind? Journal on the sensations as well as the event that triggered these feelings past or present. Inner child work is very beneficial in resolving trauma.

5. Self care is much more than spa days and shopping, it involves true self acceptance and love. Organising yourself, reframing beliefs, reparenting yourself.

6. Numbing your feelings with recreational drugs, prescribed medication, alcohol, food, TV etc. is only going to further repress the trauma keeping you chronic

7. Taking breaks from the deep healing work is important, the practices are amazing and they can be taxing on your body and mind. Allow yourself to take breaks from it without feeling guilty about it.

8. Meditation and mindfulness are amazing!! A great way to start each day as it regulates the nervous system so you're starting in a much calmer state physically, emotionally and mentally. Connecting with your soul/spirit is so healing

9. Creative hobbies improve physiological and psychological assumptions of unresolved trauma. Creative Self Expression allows you to be in a meditative state or releasing the emotions that you've processed.

10. Self Awareness and Acceptance can help you to build a better, stronger, more loving relationship with yourself. When you love yourself and know your worth your behaviour changes. This is so important in healing work as it is the lack of self compassion that keeps you chronic- because you aren't choosing yourself.

You need a good evening routine to help you wind down for bed

To add to these I recommend having a shower/ bath around 2 hours before you plan to go to sleep, this will help your body to prepare for rest.

Allowing yourself to take the time to relax and be away from your phone allows your mind to calm down. Those anxious thoughts and ruminations will quieten down and eventually not be there at all.

It's also important to have a good morning routine, check out my post on the 3 M's of a morning routine.

What do you do before bed that helps you, comment below

Two years ago I wrote this
I was still in the "should have/do/be" phase

Needing to wrap my head around the fact that my life was different from other people's and I can't live to someone else's timeline I wrote this

I feel it was a turning point for me (poetry usually helps me to get to those)
I could validate my illness, my journey so far and my healing and journey to come all at the same time
By ACCEPTING that this is my truth, this is my life, my journey and there are no comparisons with others.

When we constantly compare with others we are in a lack mindset
I don't have this, I should be doing that

Getting to the reality of the situation and realising that I DO have x and I AM y allowed me to be grateful and excited about what's coming
(Listing x and y out really helps!!)

I also learnt to celebrate myself for all the big and little achievements.

I hope this helps you to see that you are on your path and your path is beautiful 😍

Do you think your body hates you?
I know I did, for years! I hated her and she hated me.
Somehow it was her fault that I was experiencing these symptoms, as of she was maliciously trying to cause me pain

Doesn't make sense to me now, why would the vessel that carries around my mind and soul maliciously want to hurt me?

Learning that these are messages to help me not to hurt me changed my mindset. I no longer hated my body and I understood she never hated me in the first place!!

Learning to listen to these messages, understand them and change your life is KEY to healing chronic illnesses.

Even depression and anxiety are messages, something is out of alignment. You aren't expressing your emotions so they bottle up and fester, turning into anxiety, depression or maybe you feel nothing at all!

All of these symptoms are presenting to help you to change your life!
Healing is possible 💜

Like and share this post if you agree

It took me years for me to look at the pretty girl in the mirror and see her beauty

I said mean things to myself and saw only ugliness and I hated her

When I began looking inwards at the root causes of fibromyalgia and I realised that I was making myself sicker everytime I said horrible things to myself
Everytime I judged and criticised myself
Everytime I wished for a new body or a new life

I couldn't see my worth
I couldn't see myself!

In becoming aware of how I treated myself and why I was saying and doing these things I was able to change
To really feel pretty
To know I am worthy no matter what!!
To get to know myself
And LOVE MYSELF!

Your internal world creates your outer world

When you're healing you change your mindset from worthlessness to abundance

When you get to understand and accept who you are you can love yourself deeply

Do you know who you are? Without the diagnoses. Underneath the perfectionism and people pleasing.

Who are you? What do you like? What makes you light up?

"You don't look sick"
How many times have you heard that?
Cuts deep like a dagger in your back
In your spinal cord, nerve damage
Scans are clear, I'm sure you'll manage
Take these pills and get in with life
Stop complaining, get out of sight
Out of mind, keeping small
Hidden away from it all
They can't see me, I'm invisible
I don't look sick I'm not even visible
Diagnoses and words
Not the cause
How to Heal if I keep myself small
Express yourself
I don't know how
I don't know who I am
Only who I pretend to be with you and you
And everybody
I don't look sick
You don't see me
I don't see myself
I am not authentic
I have no self love
You don't know me
Because I don't know myself
I identify with fibromyalgia and CFS
Underneath all that, who am I
Let's figure that out and heal
I'm willing to try

I'm not saying taking medication is bad
I'm saying choosing to heal root causes of your symptoms is better!!

You're constantly given medication and tools to manage and mask your symptoms and you stay sick, you stay chronic, it validates your belief (that you've been taught) that you cannot heal!!

Fibromyalgia (and all the other 100s of symptoms that come under the umbrella term) IS NOT CHRONIC!!

It is curable and you don't need prescription medication to heal, yes it can help you to manage symptoms throughout your healing, the side effects can be just as damaging to your health

I was prescribed opiates for over 9 years❗

They got stronger and stronger and I was so addicted to them
Coming off of them was the hardest thing I ever did and the best decision I've ever made!

Not only are they pain killers, they numb all your senses, they numb your feelings and emotions
And the fact that the root cause of fibromyalgia, CFS, depression etc is repressed emotions and unresolved trauma, taking medication that numbs all your emotions IS ONLY GOING TO MAKE YOU SICKER!!!

Because you're sick you keep yourself small and invisible and then wonder why you have invisible illnesses that no one can see so you feel further invalidation

It is a vicious cycle that you can break free from

Follow me if you want to heal the root causes of fibromyalgia and CFS

Repressed trauma and bottling up emotions causes chronic illness like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, insomnia, depression, anxiety, feeling worthless, self blame, becoming a perfectionist and people pleaser, over giving, burn out, costochondritis, chronic pain, attachment wounds etc.

Because you haven't addressed the trauma, you haven't released the emotions related to that trauma, your body stores up all of it!!

You need to feel it in your mind AND YOUR BODY!

Releasing it is more than talking about it, more than forgiveness and acceptance, you need to move it through your body
By shaking
Throwing tantrums
Dancing
Yoga
Boxing
Running
Whatever helps you to let those emotions move out of your body.

Tell me which sign is your favourite?

How many times have you been told that it is incurable, fibromyalgia is chronic, if only gets worse, there's nothing you can do, here take these pills!!

Well I call BS on that!

It is curable
Not with pills or surgery
Not with diets and physiotherapy
Not with yoga and meditation
It is with all of these and more importantly:

By dealing with the trauma in your life that caused this - the root cause of all your symptoms

Repressing traumatic events from your past and bottling up your feelings until you are numb is why you have fibromyalgia

Until you deal with that you can't fully heal

Double tap if you agree!

The impact you have on others when you heal yourself is huge!
Not only does your life change, the way you speak, the love you emanate, your outlook on life changes
And that is magnetic!!

People are drawn to that or repelled by it
It is inevitable to lose people along the way, albeit sad.
Remind yourself that people are in your life for a reason as you are in theirs
When you heal and you trigger the f**k out of someone, that's in them to heal, that's their lesson

Healing anxiety and dealing with rejection (especially if you have abandonment wounds) is not easy, remind yourself you are safe. Keep in touch with people who help you to feel loved and secure.
Don't self isolate and pull away from everyone because so many people will be drawn to you as you heal

Let the others go, with love

Morning routine can look different for everyone and varies each day

Theses three thinks are vital in some form of another
Moving your body and feeling into your body each morning. How are you feeling? What is coming up for you?
Meditating and clearingyour mind, what mood are you in?
Music to lift your soul! Sing out loud and express yourself!!

What is vital in your morning routine? Comment below

Healing perfectionism was the first step in healing depression and anxiety for me

I went from severe clinical depression to healed in 6 months!!

Sure, there are still times when I am a perfectionist it is an ongoing process.

Healing any chronic illness is ongoing

There is a lot of experimentation involved and it is important to be aware of how you're feeling in mind and body.
You can always change it back
You are always safe ❤

Would you try this process? Comment 👍🏽 below

When we have symptoms of pain, fatigue, anxiety or any of the other 100s of symptoms of fibromyalgia what does it lead back to?

What need is that symptom meeting?
Safety? Attention? Solitude? Being visible?

Why do you have this need?
You didn't receive it as a child and now unable to ask for it without the symptom

Once you get to this level of understanding and self awareness you can begin to give yourself what you need or ask for what you need.
You will still get symptoms and you'll be able to understand why you have them and what your body is trying to tell you
Healing at this deep level gives you back your power