All in mindset

Why Don't We Have Both? (You Can Be Exactly as Soft and as Strong as You Decide to Be.)

Why Don't We Have Both? (You Can Be Exactly as Soft and as Strong as You Decide to Be.)

Stephanie Ondrusek
mindset

We’re allowed to hold an opinion and seek more information. We’re permitted to bury ourselves in books and scale mountains. We can be found making sandwiches in the kitchen and pumping iron in the gym.

Some would argue that toughness isn’t found in traditionally feminine spaces. I would counter that that’s exactly where it’s forged: in the fires of discovery. In the spaces where we get quiet and are introduced to ourselves, learning who we truly are despite competing messages telling us who to be.
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We can be both soft and strong. We can be #grittyAF, molding the strong woman inside as she comes out in layers, getting beaten back by the lessons on the path but showing up time and again.

On Trusting the Process

On Trusting the Process

Stephanie Ondrusek
coaching, mindset

I once had a client who had yo-yoed through a few different numbers (weights, sizes, however you like to measure your physical progress).

Before I continue, I’d like to point out that most of us have done this. It’s totally normal. Expected, even. Different seasons of our lives require different levels of commitment to our goals, or even different goals altogether. It’s all okay. You (and your body) are still deserving of love, care, and respect, no matter the size, shape, or degrees of bending to your will it is doing. Moving on.

She was going home to spend time with her high school friends, who had known her at her heaviest, and had also seen pictures of her at her leanest, and she was somewhere in between, at that moment. She was distraught at the prospect of being seen in a bathing suit around people who hadn’t seen her in years, for the first time without a shirt over her swimsuit.

When she got home from her trip and I asked how it went, she was still in mild shock to report that the only comments people had to make about her body were…positive.

Movement is a Method of Expression.

Movement is a Method of Expression.

Stephanie Ondrusek
coaching, mindset

My relationship with movement changed again when I was in my early 20s. I found lifting, and even the EXACT workouts from my swimming days took on a new life: I could feel how my workouts fit together. I began to decipher what my body was trying to tell me. I could challenge myself, having hard evidence that I had it in me to achieve difficult goals.

If I had continued to believe that movement was nothing more than a credit card, giving me a balance to have extra fries, I never would have learned how to express my deepest truths through the activities in which I engage.

My power would have stayed hidden in the cupboard under the stairs.

For me, it was lifting. For you, it might be walking in nature, competing with a Crossfit team, or taking a dance class.

Freedom: it’s yours.

You Deserve to Feel Powerful in Your Body.

You Deserve to Feel Powerful in Your Body.

Stephanie Ondrusek
mindset, general BAMFery

When we're sold an ideal based in the physical, we're never enough. We can always find a lump, a stretch mark, a muscle that's too big or too small (as the case may be), a too-long nose, or a rough patch of skin. We spend hours in the mirror or glancing at car windows on a walk, examining our angles and how our clothes lie on our bodies and, if a bra strap is pinching or a shirt isn't skimming lightly over a belly, we measure it against how we've eaten recently. Thoughts of failure come rushing in, and we rush out to buy into the next solution.

We deserve so much more.

We Can Take Our Power Back.

We Can Take Our Power Back.

Stephanie Ondrusek
offers, mindset

We can reject the voices dripping with condescension. We can abandon the 12-week plans in favor of finding ways to move, eat, and live that light us up, call us into our freedom, and remind us that we’re mystical, magical, fiery women worthy of our own time and attention. We can remind the world that one donut isn’t lazy and three stalks of celery aren’t virtuous.

We can take our power back, one rep, one good-enough meal, one rewritten story at a time.

Want to learn how?
 

Divorce Dogma. Cultivate Curiosity.

Divorce Dogma. Cultivate Curiosity.

Stephanie Ondrusek
mindset, coaching

If you've been around here for a while, you know I'm big into exploration.

Experimentation.

Using fitness as a means of empowerment: for getting honest about who you are, for getting clear on what you want, and, ultimately, for getting to know yourself.

We’re urged toward dogma. Ads and commercials and authority figures scream that there is one path to success and one best way to go about it, and theirs reigns supreme. We believe what we’re told, constructing a timeline, molding our lives around it, rubbing our noses raw on the grindstone.

When was the last time you looked up?

What Do Your Workouts Show You?

What Do Your Workouts Show You?

Stephanie Ondrusek
mindset, workouts

Exploring the limits of our physical bodies pushes them a bit further out every time, but, more than that, the act of discovering our edges introduces us to our deepest truths. Fitness has shown me that I'm more intelligent than I've been in the past, that I'm more durable than I've believed myself to be, and that I'm more powerful than I've thought myself.

There's nothing like looking at a workout and thinking, "dang, can I do that?" rather than, "oh, I could never do that." It's a subtle shift that oozes its way into our minds over time, and, once it takes place, there's no going back. It seeps through our lives, starting in the gym, and moving out until its grubby fingerprints are all over our walls.

When we're in a spot where all we can think about is what's directly in front of us, the stories we tell ourselves become irrelevant. We're focused on the task at hand and what parts of ourselves need to show up to get it done, excuses be damned.

And it's magic.

Give Yourself Permission to Run.

Give Yourself Permission to Run.

Stephanie Ondrusek
coaching, mindset

Embracing the idea that we will get it wrong comes with the freedom TO get it wrong. When we sit with the idea that we won't hit a home run on our first (or second, or even third) at-bat, we come to see that the attempt is where the magic is, and the results are nothing more than data.

We're encouraged to take a step forward on the scraggly, winding path to change, as opposed to lacing up our boots and consulting the map for the zillionth time at the outset (and never actually moving). We know it won't be perfect, but it will be motion that produces some sort of result. We know we will know more after an effort, even if we don't succeed, than we would if we stayed stuck. We learn to trust ourselves to course correct along the way.

You Can Put It All Down.

You Can Put It All Down.

Stephanie Ondrusek
fooooood, FAQs + hacks, mindset

The process by which each woman comes to a place of peace with food looks different for almost everyone, but it begins with knowing that we have so much more to do than worry about how many minutes of cardio we did, how many grams of fat, and how many rolls we let show this week.

Fitness and nutrition are important because they show us that we can do hard things: that we can work toward a goal, find a process that lights us up and makes us more alive, and discover layers of ourselves as yet unintroduced.

A lot of times, that looks like trying a few things out before we get there. The part we often forget to talk about, though, is that it often also looks like disconnecting, going inward, and trusting ourselves to figure the shit out. You don’t have to be (or have ever been) a bikini competitor or varsity letter athlete to get started; you can start right where you are. You’re the expert on you, and I’m here to guide you along the way.
 

Why Hide?

Why Hide?

Stephanie Ondrusek
coaching, mindset

What's so wrong with wanting to get big? Why can't we take care of ourselves because we're worth being loved on? Why can't we agree with a compliment? Are we not allowed to feel our damn selves?

We put in work. We show up. We come through. We do our best. We make magic.

Why hide it?

How Do We Become Empowered?

How Do We Become Empowered?

Stephanie Ondrusek
mindset

What if we remembered that each and every moment contains a choice:

one to play the victim, to give away our agency and be at the mercy of others, to be drained by our circumstances, and to stay stuck;

which stands right alongside the one to step into our role as a warrior, to hold ourselves responsible for our actions and reactions, to know that each moment is designed for our growth, to be compassionate, and to be the light, impenetrable by darkness?

We Get to Build What We Want.

We Get to Build What We Want.

Stephanie Ondrusek
mindset

We get to say what matters. We get to choose movements, careers, partners, and lives for ourselves, regardless of how others respond. We get to find those who resonate with us. We get to choose. We get to build what we want.

And it can all start with a pair of legs.

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