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Is This You? [[Last Call!]]

Is This You? [[Last Call!]]

Stephanie Ondrusek
body image, Bold Body Initiative, coaching, offers, mindset

So, you’re sitting there, half-drunk smoothie at the corner of your desk, zoned out on a Thursday with the trillion things you have to do before you bring work home for the weekend running through your mind. You’re wondering why this smoothie doesn’t just taste better and why exercising feels like such a chore and why you never follow through on anything, and this ever-growing to-do list gumming up the works like the smoothie that won’t come through the straw is proof.

When you think about the person you want to be—that you swear you could be, if you just got it “right”—instead of feeling inspired, you mostly want to take a nap. Having enough time to do that, though, is laughable, so you grit your teeth and think, “just one more day/week/month.” You know you’re juggling too much, but you’re not sure how to stop. It all feels so urgent, so important, so much like no one else will do it if you don’t (and it needs to get done, so guess what!). What you really want is someone to take a good look at it all and help you see what you can put down so you feel like you again.

→ Hi, hello, this is what I do. ←

If You're Tired of Feeling Confused, Beaten Down, Powerless, and Stressed About Fitness...

If You're Tired of Feeling Confused, Beaten Down, Powerless, and Stressed About Fitness...

Stephanie Ondrusek
body image, Bold Body Initiative, coaching, FAQs + hacks, offers

Body image work is life-changing, truly transformative work.

But why is a positive body image so important, though?

Staying preoccupied with thoughts about your body is a distraction. 

It keeps you from showing up in the world, constantly telling you you’re not enough, at least not until you lose that weight or fit back into that old pair of jeans.

It’s keeping you from sharing YOUR unique magic with the world, and that’s something we’d all be lucky to see.

It's also creating a world that further marginalizes those in larger bodies, or disabled bodies, or bodies that don't conform to an ever-shrinking standard. It's confining to all of us, keeping all of us from being fully ourselves without apology (and without the room to even exhale fully, letting our hair down and our bodies loose).

Having a positive body image is about SO much more than thinking your body looks good.

It's Early on a Tuesday Morning in January: Are You Telling Yourself You "Should" Be at the Gym?

It's Early on a Tuesday Morning in January: Are You Telling Yourself You "Should" Be at the Gym?

Stephanie Ondrusek
body image, Bold Body Initiative, coaching, FAQs + hacks, offers, mindset

It's early on a Tuesday morning in January: are you telling yourself you "should" be at the gym?

Time, even if we have an excess, can feel squished and squeezed like every minute is promised to someone/thing. It's common for the womxn with whom I work to schedule themselves last, if at all.

Like many others, time is not only a static thing, but also a thing with which we are in relationship. What I mean:

When you think about how much time you have, do you consider how you'd like to fill it before you do so? Do you consider if some things will take a disproportionate amount of time up front, knowing they will take less time as you gain experience and efficacy? Does that prospect make you feel daunted, or do you feel excited by the idea? Do you feel like everything will be okay if you're "off schedule," or does that make your palms sweat thinking about "making up" "lost" time? Is time ever really lost at all?

Put another way:

Is discipline, a hallmark of #dietculture/#hustle culture, holding you back?
-
[possibly. probably.]

Tired of Not Following Through on Your Goals? Make 2020 the Year You Trust Yourself Again.

Tired of Not Following Through on Your Goals? Make 2020 the Year You Trust Yourself Again.

Stephanie Ondrusek
Bold Body Initiative, coaching, FAQs + hacks, mindset, offers

“I don’t ever follow through.”

A phrase I hear a lot, most often from womxn I coach, and here is (some of) what’s often beneath it:

“I’m struggling with this goal I’ve had (and not yet met) 1573x. I am smart, I care a lot, and I’ve done a lot. Like, A LOT. I’m crushing my career, my kids are alive, and I make time to get coffee with another adult regularly. But when it comes to [fitness/food/self-care/rest], I don’t do it regularly. It seems really simple [go on a walk/eat a vegetable/read a book for fun/take a nap], but I just can’t do it. How have I figured out so many challenging and complicated things, but I can’t remember to go on a walk?

:insert self-deprecating laughter here:

I guess when it comes to myself, I don’t ever follow through.”

Rough, for sure, and not exactly a feel-good start to the new year (or a new week, or any day).

One of the things most illuminating in coaching is these stories, for so many reasons, not the least of which is most of our, “issues,” aren’t really about what we say they’re about at all, but the body story (in which it is your body that needs, “fixing”) is easier to tell (+ have a solution for) than the story underneath.

So, if in this brand-new year you’re, “already,” (👀) struggling with a, “lack of follow through,” that’s starting your day and year off with the same old story about how you’re not good enough and you can’t trust yourself to make the changes you want, let’s practice together how to unpack that so you can make changes you ACTUALLY want to make (+ feel good doing it).

You Have More to Do with Your Life Than Change Your Body.

You Have More to Do with Your Life Than Change Your Body.

Stephanie Ondrusek
body image, coaching, Bold Body Initiative, mindset, offers

We often do not separate our beliefs about our physical bodies from the rest of us, in our current culture.

We try to pretend like we can/do, or like this programming doesn't run deep snaking its tentacles into every crevice of our lives, but it always catches up to us. We believe certain things about certain bodies (+ certain habits, + certain ways of showing up in our lives), and, for most of us for quite some time, we do our best to distance ourselves from the shame spiral created by a world profiting from as many people feeling as bad as possible about themselves (so we can be sold a solution). The process of shifting all these beliefs—of seeing them for what they are and how they've impacted you + those around you—is often lengthy, imperfect, uncertain.

It's also freedom and truth.

A recovery not just of your full humanity but all of ours.

You are (and we all are) so much more than a body.

You Don't Have to Go All-Out All the Time (How to Adapt Your Fitness for the Holiday Season)

You Don't Have to Go All-Out All the Time (How to Adapt Your Fitness for the Holiday Season)

Stephanie Ondrusek
coaching, FAQs + hacks, mindset, offers

Ah, the holiday season is almost upon us. Can you feel it in the air?

Of course you can, because you're up to your eyeballs in the work you've been bringing home for three days, accomplished from your phone while you put Paw Patrol on (again) and throw your kid some Goldfish to have 23 minutes to yourself. You need to get ahead so you have the chance to breathe once or twice on your impending days off. You're sitting there, knowing ~self-care~ is important, and also that it feels about sixty trillion light years away, considering all the demands you've got on your plate. Your kids, your job, your partner, your babysitter, your hairstylist... they're all depending on you to hit the deadlines and make the appointments and feed everyone (including yourself). Have you gotten ahead yet? ;)

Oh yeah, and you skipped the gym (again, again).

I'm a Personal Trainer, and I Don't Care How Many Squats You Did.

I'm a Personal Trainer, and I Don't Care How Many Squats You Did.

Stephanie Ondrusek
coaching, mindset, offers

What frustrates me about fitness is its pull to be reductive, to erase nuance, to make everything a 1-2-3, a tempo, a 12-step program, into which, “anyone,” can plug in and be healed/”fixed”/”better.”

But I don’t think anything in my life has worked in that cookie-cutter way, and I’d guess that’s at least as true if not more so for you, too, if you’ve found yourself in this space (thank you, and welcome, again or for the first time). That thought carries a lot of unwieldy energy, though, and it’s not very fun to think about what we don’t like or what doesn’t work for months (years) on end.

I Have an Important Question for You...

I Have an Important Question for You...

Stephanie Ondrusek
coaching, offers

How often do you take a look at your progress?

As a coach, this is a practice in which I engage clients (and myself!) regularly. Motivation, as we tend to think of it, is fleeting; the get-up-and-go feeling doesn’t last forever. Taking stock of where you’ve been, and where you’re going, is a reliable tool to use when you’re wondering why you keep putting one foot in front of the other day in and day out.

That being said, I am a Health at Every Size-aligned coach who does not coach intentional weight loss, so my progress-tracking methods are a bit unconventional, as far as fitness goes. Rather than lining up numbers to compare and contrast, I prefer to ask more open-ended questions, leaving space for each client to discuss what they see with the goals that matter to them.

Back to School Season and the Return of Routine

Back to School Season and the Return of Routine

Stephanie Ondrusek
coaching, mindset, offers

I work with a lot of moms (and quite a few teachers), in my coaching adventures. As a result, even though I only have four-legged children at the moment, this time of year is fraught with, "back to school," the hustle and bustle of getting everything ready for the change of seasons.

Even if you aren't getting little ones ready for the bus (or writing lessons in your not-really-spare time), I'm sure you can feel the shift in the air, yes? September is a mini-new year, in many ways; fall is one of my favorite times to take stock of where we've been, where we're going, and what we need to let go in order to get there. It's a time of evaluation, of harvest, of moving to prepare for cooler weather and more time inside learning new things (at any age, in any context). You might be looking forward to fresh-picked apples, for example, or you might be finding it easier to make time to get movement that makes you feel like yourself again, now that your kids are on a more reliable schedule.

(Or maybe you're not, because as soon as one routine gets set, it seems like things get shifted yet again, and we're standing there re-learning how to fit ourselves into our own lives. It happens.)

Either way, we're standing on the edge of a season asking us to come home, get grounded, and build a foundation that will sustain us into our next season.

Why the Words We Choose to Describe Our Bodies Matter

Why the Words We Choose to Describe Our Bodies Matter

Stephanie Ondrusek
body image, coaching, mindset, offers

I know many people who wake up every morning, and right before they look in the mirror to greet themselves for the day, they feel pure terror. Dread. Fear. We steel ourselves up to brace for the, "flaws," someone else has told us will be there, and we wonder how, "bad," they look that day, and the chorus starts:

"Ugh, gross."
"I can't wear that. Do I have any clean, flowy tops?"
"I'm giving a presentation today; will this hold across my chest?"
"I shouldn't have eaten ____ last night. I never get this right."

The language you’re using has a profound impact on your perspective.

Many clients come to me unhappy with their bodies, desperately hoping the fitness program I write will hold all the secrets to body change, and, as a result, happiness. They're disappointed to find out that it doesn't always work that way, and, in fact, countless repeated incidents of this led me to examine my coaching philosophy, such that I no longer coach with a focus on intentional fat loss.

One Self-Care Tip for Your Weekend (and Every Day, to Nurture Your Inner Boss)

One Self-Care Tip for Your Weekend (and Every Day, to Nurture Your Inner Boss)

Stephanie Ondrusek
coaching, FAQs + hacks, mindset, offers

Sometimes the best I've got is doing a #Friday morning face mask, putting laundry in, and deciding⁠—mid-Marco-Polo-client-checkin as I'm trying to escape my super loud washer/dryer, no less (I didn't exactly think that timing through)⁠—working from bed is the move for the day.

We've been conditioned to believe we must follow the rules: sit up straight, be here at this time, wear this, do that, be quiet, look like this, eat that. Our worth is often measured by our productivity: we believe we're only worthy of rest, reflection, of any kind of space after we've gotten things ticked off our to-do lists, submitted our reports, proven our value.

You can break the rules, of course, and I'm assuming if you're here reading my work, you already know that. You may just need a reminder, so let this serve as one.

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