The number one thing I teach my clients is that a strong, healthy mindset is the important piece to health.

We can get everything right- nutrition, fitness, eliminating toxicity, but if our mindset isn't healthy it will all eventually fall apart.

You need a strong foundation to hold up your lifestyle of healthy living because it isn't easy and it goes against what our natural desires are. We will eventually lose motivation because motivation is an emotion that comes and goes. Having a healthy mindset gives us the capability to push past " not feeling like it" and into determination and building sustainable habits.

One of the simplest ways to have a healthy mind is to empty it; especially as women we have 367,336,886 things rolling around in our head all the time. Often times feelings of anxiousness stem from having too much on our mind and not dealing with the root cause of what's bothering us. We tend to accept our thoughts as facts rather than processing through where they came from and what they actually mean.

I encourage my clients to journal because this is a practice that has helped my anxiety tremendously. When I feel anxious and I know something isn't right, instead of ignoring it and stuffing it like I did almost my entire life; I go sit down for five minutes and journal out my feelings and trace it to the issue causing me anxiety. Placing my emotions and thoughts onto paper in front of me is one of the healthy ways I tackle anxiety and stress. It seems like a simple practice, but often we don't think about what's actually causing us to feel a certain way. We tend to focus on the feeling of stress it causes instead of the root problem. This practice will help us find the root to what is bothering us. 

As a mom I have found this to be instrumental in helping me to maintain patience and work through parenting issues. It has also created an environment where my older children turn to writing out their thoughts and processing through them. 

Mindset is complex and the practice of managing it is something I believe we will always be learning more about.

Stay tuned for part 2 where I'll discuss more ways we can keep a healthy mind.

(Photo by Fuu J on Unsplash)