Heart to Heart with Hads

Your Body Needs Safety, Not Another Diet

• Hadlea Shaw

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Healing isn't sexy or glamorous, but it's absolutely essential for genuine transformation of both mind and body.

• True healing requires facing traumas head-on through practices like meditation
• Constant stimulation (texting, scrolling, music) prevents us from processing thoughts
• Most women need to "chill out" and let their bodies feel safe before attempting weight loss
• Sitting with your thoughts daily is non-negotiable for mental health
• Your brain connects to every organ - when it's stressed, your whole body suffers
• Don't negotiate with yourself - keep the promises you make to yourself
• The body and life you want don't come from comfort
• Adding nutrients, not just calories, is crucial for healing
• Prioritize real foods: fruits, vegetables, quality proteins, and healthy fats
• Make space for fun and freedom while still moving forward with goals
• Setting boundaries with work, phone use, and training is necessary

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Speaker 1:

Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of Hearts Heart with Hads. Today is a Monday. I'm on my shit. Like I said, I've been on it, so go me.

Speaker 1:

Anyways, I wanted to give a little recap of last week because I wanted to start out with cool things I did over the last week. First things first is I hit my non-negotiable of finishing my book, and I finished Onyx Storm. If you've read any of the books in the Empyrean series, the, let me see I'm trying to look at my bookshelf over here Iron Flame wait, what's the first one? Fourth Wing, iron Flame, and then Onyx Storm. And I just finished Onyyx Storm and I'm sad because it's like I don't know what to read now. That was my holy grail and I felt like I was actually inside of the book. So I don't know what to read now.

Speaker 1:

I have A Court of Thorns and Roses. I have another book called Hooked and that's like a series. And then when I went to Barnes Noble this was a long time ago, I got these books a long time ago she was like, oh, if you like these, you'll like this, and so it's called Dating and Dragons. So I just need to pick up one and start reading it and I'm excited because I'm really loving reading books right now, because it's really disconnecting me from my phone and I'm obsessed with it. I'm obsessed with it and that can kind of lead us into our topic of today is healing is not sexy. Doing anything healing related to working on your either your mind or your body is not sexy, it's not cute, it's not even fun. It's literally boring, it's literally monotonous. But it's needed, it's so needed and people don't realize how down bad they are until they're down bad, down bad. So I'm just going to explain, kind of like, the importance of healing. What does healing even mean when it comes to your body, your mind, etc.

Speaker 1:

So I guess we can start with mind, and I think mind comes down to facing your traumas head on, and this can be done through a meditation practice, which that's another thing. That's hard and nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to sit there and be still with no distractions no, nothing. They don't want to think about what's currently going on in their life and how it sucks the life out of them, or what's happened to them and how they can cope and move past that and forgive themselves or the people that were involved in whatever happened, nobody wants to sit and do that work because it's not cute, it's, it's not fun and it's actually really hard to do, because you don't want to sit there and face those demons. And, I kid you not, this has been probably the hardest thing ever. But I'm not against talk therapy. I'm not against that.

Speaker 1:

I do think, though, there comes to a point in time where you have to sit with it, you have to lay there. I'm not. I'm not talking about before bed, before you're about to go to sleep. I'm talking about in the middle of the day, whenever you are are overstimulated, whenever you get home from work and you just want to watch TV. Where is the time in your day that you're literally sitting with your own thoughts? Because if you are not doing this ever, if you're texting and driving, if you're scrolling, if you're listening to music, a podcast, at all times, if you're constantly stimulated, not only is that going to affect your ability to fully sit with your thoughts and process things you know, your traumas, whatever that's going on in your life, it's going to affect your ability to feel good, because you are constantly overstimulated by everything that's going on in your life, except for what's within.

Speaker 1:

So I highly recommend taking time out of your day, and before you tell me you don't have time, I'd like to counter that because you do have time. You just won't prioritize it because you don't feel like it's necessary or it's like a big deal. And I'm here to tell you that it is a big deal. It is something that you need to be doing on a day-to-day basis. If you're not allowing yourself to sit with your thoughts or you're not allowing yourself to sit down and tell yourself affirmations and manifest shit that you want into your future, then you're literally not going to get out of the spot that you're in. And it's changed my life, and I know it'll change your life, because we are constantly taught to hustle, go harder, faster, and obviously, if that worked, you wouldn't be in the situation that you're in now. You wouldn't be feeling like crap, you wouldn't be feeling like you're getting chased by a bear all the time, you wouldn't be bloated all the time, you wouldn't not be able to lose the weight because you're actually in tune and regulated with your body. The list goes on and on and on and on.

Speaker 1:

So I think everything, always, of course, always, will start in your mind and your brain. Literally, this is how it's connected. Your brain is connected to every other organ inside of your body, and if something is off with your brain emotionally, if there's stress going on, elevated cortisol, if your HPA axis is dysregulated, and so that is your hypothalamus, adrenal I think. I don't really know, I just know it's hypothalamus, I think it's adrenal axis. Now, if I'm wrong, I will call myself out. Anyways, if your brain is not fully signaling the right things to the rest of your body, you're going to feel like crap, and so this is where the healing part becomes so important, because you have to do the meditation and sit with yourself for however long a day.

Speaker 1:

You have to totally be present and not be stimulated by things. You have to get out of your eating low calorie eating, low carb. You have to get out of the endless rounds of hit. You have to get out of this working 60 hours a week. You have to get out of the endless rounds of hit. You have to get out of this working 60 hours a week. You have to do the thing that you don't want to do. You have to do the regulation stuff. I have to do my breath work three times a week. I have to read my books, like I say I'm going to, or else I am going to be mad at myself because I told myself this is what I was going to do. I have to keep the promises. I have to only go to the gym three times a week. I have to go into the sauna. I have to do all of these things because I know that's what's going to get me to feel good. I have to turn my phone off at 7pm, my screen off. I had to put my blue light glasses on.

Speaker 1:

Like it sounds like a lot, but it's not a lot. Whenever you start to feel better, when you start to become yourself again, when you can start to think clearly for yourself, everyone thinks that there's just there's some little simple, magic, quick fix for all their problems, but in the reality it comes down to about 50 different things and people get overwhelmed by those 50 different things and that's what causes them to stop. That's what causes them to not even start. That's what causes the decision fatigue. That's what causes them to negotiate with themselves, because they just don't think that it's worth it. I can tell you right now it is incredibly worth it to do the stuff that is so stupid, boring.

Speaker 1:

You think it's not doing anything, and I'm just going to compare this to religion. Like you probably don't see a lot of the things working in your life folding out in front of your life as soon. Probably don't see a lot of the things working in your life folding out in front of your life as soon as you say the prayer or as soon as you go to church or whatever it is like. It takes time, and then you start to see the miracles and the things unfold, but you keep showing up because, one, you have faith in God. Two, you have faith in yourself that you're going to do what he's telling you to do, or you're just putting your faith into something that you cannot see. And that's literally what having a relationship with God and Jesus is all about. And so if you're someone that's spiritual, transform that into your everyday life.

Speaker 1:

If you're not seeing it happen right here in before your eyes, then you think you should quit. And how is that any different from your faith? It's literally not. So once you can start to realize that and push past the mental barrier, because a lot of people know what they need to do and they just won't do it Because they are what's the word I'm looking for? They are oh, what's the word? I can't think of it. They're hardheaded that's not the word I'm thinking of, but they're hardheadedheaded and they think that they can do anything and achieve anything and that their body will be resilient and adapt. And, quite frankly, that's not the truth, or your body would not be in the spot that it's in now, where it's rejecting weight loss. You can't sleep, your stomach is bloated all the time. The list goes on and on. You have to be okay with just chilling the fudge out. Okay, that starts. That's kind of my tangent on how it goes with our mind and mindset, and mindset is something that you have to continuously shape and shape, and shape. And you know the way that your mind becomes stronger is by doing the things that you don't want to do. It's by doing those things that you promise yourself you would do every day.

Speaker 1:

Do not negotiate with yourself, do not let yourself down. I actually just made a post on this today on Instagram about negotiating with yourself, and I said if you find yourself negotiating with yourself, there's three things you can think of, and I don't even remember all the things that I said, but one of them was like my body and my. The body that I want in the life that I want don't come from comfortability, like. Think about anything in your life that you've ever wanted. Was it easy to get that? Probably not. You probably had to work for it and you probably had to do shit that you literally did not want to do Whether that be school, a relationship, I don't even know. The list goes on and on and on. But if you're wanting to work on yourself, then you have to apply that same thing no negotiating. I don't remember what the other two I said, or you have to go check out my Instagram to see what I said, but I know that one was huge.

Speaker 1:

So next comes to thinking about why healing is not cute. It comes to body and the things that you have to do, and people are so consumed with changing their physique and dieting and calorie deficit and training five times a week and doing all this cardio dieting and calorie deficit and training five times a week and doing all this cardio but nobody wants to sit and actually nourish their body. That's been in a state of fight or flight for years on end, and I have a couple of clients that come to mind right now that I'm working with them on. Okay, right now, our season is not focusing on body composition. I can I'm I'm a prime example of this. While, yes, I do want to change my physique, honestly, I think my physique has looked really good just from getting back to the gym the past four weeks. I'm not even kidding. I, like all of July, I'm like slay.

Speaker 1:

This is what my body was needing was for me to chill the hell out, for me to set boundaries with my phone and work and for me to not over train, and for me to just boundaries with my phone and work and for me to not over train and for me to just have fun again, like have fun in life. I literally was going to I'm. I've been going to the pool doing things on my days off like I will make sure I will sit down and be like okay, mondays are my days, I'm gonna work so hard, I'm gonna get so much done and I'm not gonna go to the gym that day. And then I'm gonna go to the gym on the days where I don't do as much done and I'm not going to go to the gym that day. And then I'm going to go to the gym on the days where I don't do as much work, and so those are the days where I'll do minimal work and obviously, things I need to, obviously things I need to do to keep the needle moving forward, but still allowing time for fun and play. Because, at the end of the day, obviously, my mission and my goal is to help people improve their health, help them lose weight, help them fix their hormones, whatever it is. But at the end of the day also, this is a business and I cannot run myself into the ground because I have to continue to show up for them.

Speaker 1:

And the reason another reason that I left my nine to five job is because I wanted to pursue this full time, and pursuing this full time, I wanted to have freedom too. I didn't want to be working at a desk nine to five all day, and so I found myself working past that, like you know, past a 40 hour week, and I was like this is literally burning out. I'm not seeing any ROI on this, if anything. I'm just feeling like crap, my energy sucks, I can't show up fully, and I had to take a step back and be like okay, wait, where am I? What am I missing? I'm not having fun. I'm not doing the things that I once used to do, that I love, and so I've been going to coffee shops, I've been going into layout and read books and like, still, while I'm out, I'm learning and doing things that are still contributing to work, but it's in a different environment. It's having fun, it's surrounding myself with other people and things that I'm not used to being within a confined space, within my office.

Speaker 1:

So think about where you're at in your job or in your life. How can you add more fun, add more freedom? I don't know what your goals are. I don't know what your intentions are. This is where the meditations come into play is because, like, how do you know what you want in life if you don't ever totally sit in silence and be like okay, this is what I truly want? It's not because I saw someone on social media do it, it's not because influencer ABC is doing. It's because I genuinely want this. This is what I want for my life. Yeah, you can take inspiration from these people, but it comes down to, at the end of the day, what do I want for myself? Because if I'm trying to follow somebody else, it's not aligning with what you want internally. So that comes back down to sitting with yourself.

Speaker 1:

So, going back onto my tangent of myself and my clients of, like I'm sitting in this period, like I'm eating 22 2300 calories a day and I'm used to just being like, oh, like 2000, like I'll just chill, like I don't need to eat too much and I need to go to the gym, all these days and a lot of my clients are going through this same thing too. It's like, oh, I just want to like get to this physique goal and it's like, okay, but your body needs to maintain a level of homeostasis, of feeling safe and good inside of its body before you can go throw all these things in. And it's hard to realize that because, like I said, doing the healing and the calming and all those things is not hot, it's not healthy and everyone wants to just jump back into it, and not everybody's body and mind and Overall, what's the word I'm looking for? The stress load you have on your body cannot handle that, and so you have to be able to pluck and take things out of your stress bucket in order for you to feel good, like.

Speaker 1:

For me, one of those things was okay, I cannot work past this time. I cannot be on my phone past this time because my body is overstimulated, my stress bucket is high and I take on mental stress from my job. Like my clients, like I know this because I genuinely want what's best for them, and so their best interest is always at my heart. What am I trying to say? Their best? I always have their best interest at heart, and so that comes with me thinking about them a lot. Okay, how can I help them with this? How can I change this so that the whatever it is XYZ, because I want them to fully succeed, and so that takes a lot of mental stress, and I know a lot of people have jobs too that also take that load of mental stress, and you can only add so many things inside of your stress bucket before it starts to go crazy.

Speaker 1:

So for me, like I said, that was taking my phone out of the equation, going outside on a walk and not being inside all day, going and doing those fun things like I talked about, eating above a maintenance calorie range, putting on necessary body fat and, honestly, at first I was like, oh my gosh, I feel like I'm gaining so much weight. I look bad and, honestly, I'm loving the shape that I'm in right now, because for one, it's just healthy and for two, I'm so curvy and like I love the, the femininity of that, and that that also comes to like women in general want to just be so skinny. Not all women, but especially older women generation women, just want to be small, like my mom was like oh, my gosh, my gosh, my butt looks so big. I'm like, mom, your butt looks good. If I saw never another woman that had a butt like yours, I'd be like, damn, she's hot. And you know, like someone like oh, I just want to be fly when I have nothing going to be skinny.

Speaker 1:

And it's like you want the wrong things. You want to be skinny, you want to be under muscled, and being under muscled is going to affect you later on in life. It's going to increase your risk of Alzheimer's, dementia, cancer, cardiovascular disease because your body's under-muscled metabolic disease. Because you don't have muscle, you can't burn fat as efficiently, you can't eat as much food, and so therefore you're surviving on little, small amounts of food, you're not getting enough nutrients, and then it's just a cascade of events, and so I cannot explain the importance of giving your body a time to just be healthy on a cellular level, hormonally, mentally, physically. If you cannot give your body time to breathe and not go 90 miles a minute, you will feel so much better.

Speaker 1:

Like give your body that time before you go into any sort of fat loss phase, especially if you're a woman who perceives herself as stressed and a high achiever and I know there's some women out there who are like, oh, I'm so chill. I have clients that are like that. They're very chill. Not many. I think like 10% of my clients are very much chill and go with the flow, and I wish that was me. But here nor there, you have to do these really mundane things to feel your best.

Speaker 1:

Later on, say you do want to lose weight. You have to give your body this chance to be nourished, to not constantly be going from deficit to binge. Deficit binge like giving your body safety. Whenever you're doing the low calorie to binge, your body does not feel safe because it's like what's going on? You're starving me and now you want to feed me all this food. Because it's like what's going on? You're starving me and now you want to feed me all this food. I hate you here. Gain weight like. You have to give your body this sense of normalcy and consistency. It loves that. It thrives on that. So my biggest takeaway for you here from this is stopping show, show. Stopping so ashamed of the healing and the healthiness because you just want to be disciplined and you want to eat low calorie and you want to go on runs because this is what you feel like is going to make you healthier, when, in reality, most women 90% of women need to chill the fuck out, like literally, they need to chill out so hard and they need their body to feel like they're on a vacation I'm not even kidding.

Speaker 1:

And this this starts with, for one, like I said, doing the daily non-negotiables, keeping the promises that you keep to yourself, but also incorporating fun without always having to do. This is something that I love my mom because she's very much a go-getter, always going but I'm like, mom, you need to sit and just like do nothing please. For one day, I would love for you to just do nothing. She's like, oh, there's always something that needs to be done. And it's like, if you're gonna live the rest of your life thinking like, oh, something else needs to be done, something else needs to be done, you're never going to feel at peace with the stillness. The stillness this is something that I'm continuously working on.

Speaker 1:

I think it's a trigger trauma response from just my mom being like that growing up love you, mom, if you listen. But that's what I feel and I think I've told her that, so it's not like any news to her, but this is just something that's like weighing on me, and I think all women need to hear this and need to know like you cannot keep digging yourself deeper into a hole. If you really really, really, really, really really want to make a difference in your health, if you do want to lose the weight, get fit, whatever it is, later on, need to do the the inner work that not many people are talking about, and if you don't do it, like I don't know what to tell you. I mean, that's like the most important thing, and a lot of people are not consciously aware of what's even going on to be able to do that. And so this is just my gentle nudge to you to make the time to do the healing stuff, because it's necessary, and healing, too, means eating enough nutrient dense foods. I'm not talking oh, I'm just going to eat in a surplus because you know that's what Hadley said to do. I just need to eat more. If you're going to eat more, it needs to be intentionally. You still need to go to the gym, you still need to walk, you still need to do all the things. You don't just get to have a free-for-all because I said you need to eat more. You need to eat more.

Speaker 1:

Nutrients is what I mean. Fruits, vegetables I can literally name off everything. I've literally said this so many different times. Cut out the processed shit different times. Cut out the process shit. Eat real foods.

Speaker 1:

Like this morning I had peaches, I had some mushrooms, eggs, some chicken sausage. I had some oats. Like really good fiber nutrients. For lunch I had zucchini, squash, sweet potato, rice, chicken and a little bit of olive oil and greek yogurt. Like there's so much nutrients packed into that meal. For dinner, I'm going to have fajita. I'm going to have rice bell pepper fajita. I'm going to have some Kiwi.

Speaker 1:

Like, listen to my diet in a day. Like listen to how many nutrients are in that. That's what I'm talking about. I took my omega-3s. Like these are the things we're not just filling in our macros or filling in our diet, just to say like, oh, like this is a healthy snack Like this is cool, like no, you should want to be fueling your body with as many nutrients in a day as you can. So that's my rant. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and kind of got some good takeaways from it. But just remember that the healing is boring. But the healing is what's hot, hot, healthy, hot healing. And we're not starving and we're not pushing ourselves to the ground. So love y'all.