jo hodson 10/11/2017 jo hodson 10/11/2017

Why I made a mountain of falafel... and the 'Small Adjustments Challenge'

I made this huge pile of baked falafel this morning (and I had even more leftover chickpeas!) ...it's ALL for me and there is a good reason for it!

I'll fill you in below and link to the recipe (cos it's awesome) but first I want to give you some context and the birth of an idea.

A few weeks ago I went on a coaching retreat hosted by the Extraordinary Coach. It was an incredibly powerful and intense experience in which we shared our truths and vulnerability on video camera in front of the whole room (I'll share more on that once my video has been published). As part of that process one of the ladies shared a powerful insight about 'small adjustments' and what impact that could have in her life. It has stuck with me ever since.

We typically spend so much time focusing on the big goals and life events and in doing so we overlook the significance that small, sometimes tiny shifts can make in our lives, especially when repeated over time. I'll hold my hand up and be the first to admit that I struggle with doing things consistently (oooh look shiny new thing to distract me!) but equally I know the power it holds when I do and so I am committing to finding ways to create more consistency that doesn't overwhelm me and lead to sabotage.

Once I'm overwhelmed I'm done for... can you relate? ;-)

Consistent action can be supported by accountability, particularly in the first few weeks before it becomes a habit. So, whilst out for a walk yesterday I came up with an idea for a 30 day challenge to serve both you and me... I think it's a win-win!

The key thing here (and I believe in life I general) is to have a mindset of curiosity... that is so often the key to overcoming overwhelm. This challenge should be fun, there will be a sense of accountability and opportunities to check in with yourself and me throughout the process.

So quite simply here it is:

1- Pick a small adjustment that you feel could make a signficant difference to your life. It must be SMALL and only ONE thing!

Notes: I've given a few examples below to get your mind moving and also filled you in on what mine is going to be. You can pick what ever you like purely on the basis that you feel it will have a significant positive impact for you personally. Just pick one thing, I know how easy it can be to get excited at the start and pick multiple things only to find the novelty wears off after a few days and you fall off the wagon and beat yourself up- yep I hear ya, I do it too! This is a personal challenge with no public declaration or Facebook group (yup, those not on social media can rejoice!) although of course please keep in touch with me via email as we progress. ;-)

2- Commit to making that one 'small adjustment' everyday for 30 days: November 20th - December 20th.

3- Pop your details in the box below to confirm you are up for the challenge so that you get further weekly challenge specific emails from me.

Note: All this does is add a tag in my mailing list to let me know you'd like to receive the extra special emails so that I don't send them to the rest of my community who have chosen not to get involved. If you do not pop your details in the link you won't hear from me about this again. Simple!

4- Send me an email before 20th November to let me know that you are in and what your 'small adjustment' will be.

5- Mark the date in your diary and get ready to kick off on November 20th with a mindset of curiosity to see what unfolds over the 30 days...

Some examples and my commitment...

I have noticed recently that when I snack between meals it is typically on sweeter higher carb things e.g granola, energy balls, fruit etc which triggers my sweet tooth more and I'm more likely to overeat.

One choice could be to cut out snacking altogether but I know that would likely lead me to overwhelm and sabotage and does not feel sustainable for me long term (a vision of long term is not a necessity but something I personally want to feel a possibility), so my 'small adjustment' will be to swap all my snacks throughout the day to healthy savoury options (see, now you'll undertand my pile of falafel! - I'll follow up with more details in a separate blog post shortly.) I can still have sweet things as dessert... just not as snacks!

How about you? Whether you decide to take the challenge or not I'd love to hear what ideas you come up with. This is about a focus on creativity and habit shifting NOT restriction and overwhem. A great approach to life in general!

Some other ideas could be...

Drink a big mug of lemon water every morning (you know how much I love this!)
Exercise for 10 minute each day ( or even 5 minutes!)
Walk or cycle any journey that is less than 10 minutes by foot instead of using the car
Wake up 20 minutes early each morning and use that time to read or meditate
Have one less coffee/can of coke per day
Swap the biscuits at break time for a healthy snack
Have one les sugar in your mug of tea, or swap your regular tea to herbal varieties.
Tell your loved ones that you love them every single day

This list could be virtually limitless, right? So less keep it going...

I'd love to hear your ideas too. Whether you decide to take the challenge or not ping me a reply with any ideas and I'll compile a big list!

P.s Yes I said I'd link to the recipe. I haven't written it up on the blog yet though I will do at some point, but in actual fact I followed this recipe by Mark Bittman pretty much exactly (rare for me as I nearly always change things!) so simple and so so good. Perfect healthy baked falafel which freezes well too... that's what i'll be doing with my mountain!

Featured

I am a designer, personal empowerment coach and writer from the UK. I work with health and wellness businesses to bring their mission and purpose to the world. I also help people become the best version of themselves in mind and body.

Sign up here for my content delivered to your inbox and get access to my free resources.

Day to day you can always find me hanging out here:

Instagram ✨ Facebook ✨ Pinterest

jo hodson 02/08/2016 jo hodson 02/08/2016

YOU are NOT your thoughts.... my journey with overwhelm

Over the last year, the 'mindset' side of Including Cake has really come into it's own as an equal to the recipe exploration that was once the only purpose and content of this blog a few years back. Including Cake is now about so much more then recipes and nutrition... it's a discussion and exploration about mind & body. Learning to become our best selves.

This shines a powerful light on my own journey, and is my space for journalling, often spontaneously, and more deeply understanding and accepting myself whatever I have to offer in that moment. It also comes from a place of pure love and vulnerability. I know there are many more people out there who connect with what I say and I want to share my thoughts not only for my own development but also to reach others and offer a space for love, support and exploration.

I watched this video amidst my morning Facebook scrolling and really connected with it and for so many of you here in my tribe, I know you will identify with the feelings in the video, like I did.

I'll openly admit that whilst I'm very grateful for having never had a full blown panic attack and don't give any specific label to the way I sometimes feel (I also note in writing these words a little voice inside tells me to be cautious not to be seen as a fraud without a 'real' mental illness), I do often wake up with feelings of anxiety bubbling away for absolutely no apparent reason- all the more so since I have been stepping outside of my comfort zone in big ways. At those times, the idea of a simple task like making a phone call or walking down road to post a letter seems irrationally huge and overwhelming.

I also have a tendency of riding adrenaline highs and lows... something I'm working to curb (and actually doing a pretty good job at these last few months) using my tools below. I'll often have a few days or even a number of weeks feeling totally 'high' on life, waking up in the morning with that Christmas Eve feeling of anticipation and having so much energy that I feel like I could run the world. The downside to that feeling is that somewhere along the line it will be followed by a 'crash', where the day is practically written off and my confidence levels drop through the floor.

These days thankfully, it usually only lasts a day before I'm back on a good even keel, whereas previously it dragged out a bit longer. But even just a day at such a confidence low is enough to make a significant impact on progressing my business ventures (cue inner critic 'fraud talk' again) and the extremes can be mentally exhausting and so finding a balance to bring the highs and lows in a notch either end is key for me. I'm on it!

I think the key for us all along this journey of exploring life to its fullest potential is of course creating a network of positivity and support but also building our own personal 'toolkit' for noticing, catching and dissipating these feelings as they arise. For me, this also now means they don't pop up so frequently in the first place. Some of my personal tools are practicing mindfulness, decluttering, deep belly breathing, writing (often turning into drafts of these posts), yoga, drumming, drinking tea slowly, running/walking outside.

Sometimes I have to force myself to do one of these things knowing that I'll feel better afterwards, because in the moment the overwhelm is trying to prevent me from taking action as if some kind of weird self-sabotage. Sometimes if these tools don't work so well, it's simply a case of sitting with the thought or feeling without trying to resist, question or understand it and knowing that it will pass all the more quickly if I practice self acceptance in that moment.

These feelings ALWAYS pass.

Remember YOU are NOT your thoughts.

Know that I am always HERE for you on your journey too.

Much Love. xx

Why not sign up for my newsletter in my sidebar where I feature roundups and special offers plus my FREE ebook. If you are new round here you might like to check out my 'About' tab up top. To buy healthy nibbles you can also find me over at my sister site Wholeplus.

Day to day you can always find me hanging out in these places:

jo hodson 14/10/2015 jo hodson 14/10/2015

Overwhelm... When you hit the wall

Why is it that when you've had a few amazing weeks, or a run of pretty productive days and you're feeling like things are finally beginning to fall into place on an upward trajectory… Then BAM!!

You hit a wall.

A wall of overwhelm, or self sabotage, or feeling as though you're going back to square one.

Incredibly frustrating, but let that feeling be comforted knowing you are not alone. I am totally there with you!

This is what happened to me last weekend. I took part in an amazing two-day coaching intensive. I met incredibly inspiring people, got vulnerable, opened my mind, found my voice and really made a contribution. I felt buoyed up and full of life, ready to rock my dreams and begin building on all the things I'd crystallised and created deep clarity around over the previous two days.

This sense of vibrancy is how I went to sleep on Sunday night, yet Monday morning I woke up and hit the wall.

Why?

I have spent some time thinking about this over the last couple of days as I've begun to bring myself back in alignment. I reflected back on a talk I listened to by raw food coach Karen Knowler a few weeks back. She talked about vibrational energy and when you raise yourself up to a new energetic frequency, you need to upgrade your environment to match otherwise you will no longer sit comfortably within your environment and your mind will pull yourself back down to the old vibrational level.

I totally get that this idea is going to be too ‘woo woo’ for some, and i’ll freely admit that it's taken me a little while to get my head around but I think I'm beginning to understand what she was alluding to.

This is often what happens when we clean up our diets. It's not so much that we are too weak willed to maintain our new healthy habits, it could be simply that our vibrational energy no longer matches that of our surroundings and so therefore we longer comfortably fit on a cellular level.

So there are two potential outcomes- we upgrade our surroundings (by way of stimulus, friends, hobbies etc) to match our new frequency or sooner or later our mind will act to ’tip us off the wagon' to re-align ourselves with where you were before.

For me this wall of overwhelm touches the idea of higher energy or new vibrational frequency. It also draws a close relationship to the 'clutter' in my mind. The more intense the frequency the most energetic space I need to create for it to do it’s thing. I'm simply not allowing for that at the moment, I have so much going on in my mind and my life (the busy but not necessarily productive conundrum!) that it is too cluttered and I and can be quickly feel claustrophobic, cabin fevered, overwhelmed and not sure what to do in any given moment. So it shuts down to redress the balance. An innate self-preservation tactic I guess.

It's my mind's way of telling me to slow down and create space for more magic.

I had a conversation with a new client last night and we touched on a few of these things which is probably why it’s more present in my mind this morning. We talked about self-care in moments of life when there seems to be so much going on. What is the baseline level of self-care but you could seek to maintain? Wow, this question is powerful for me too. Self care creates space. I'm looking at my baseline level of self-care this morning.

How can you serve yourself most powerfully when you hit the wall? I’d love to have a conversation with you about it.

Curious to work together? Get in touch for a complimentary chat and we'll see where your are at and where you want to go!

Day to day you can always find me hanging out in these places:

jo hodson 26/07/2015 jo hodson 26/07/2015

Jump, Fly...

When I work with clients my only fundamental is we both show up from a space of deep honesty and vulnerability. 100%.

It’s where all the magic happens, it’s where all the deep shifts take place.

So right here, right now, I’m gonna get vulnerable with you.

My week long Wellness Retreat is happening in Lanzarote on 28th November. I’m incredibly excited as I know in my heart that it will be a truly transformational experience for the ten people who join me.

I am also terrified.

Creating this retreat is pushing me to the absolute limits of my comfort zone. I love helping and serving people, but I also play it safe and hide behind my computer screen all to often. I want to reach out to you all personally on a deep level, each an every one of you, but I don’t know where to start. I don’t know how to get across the passion that I have for this retreat and to help you see the power it could hold for you if you are at that point of questioning in your life journey.

As I sat in my overwhelm this morning (eating a tonne dark chocolate as it happened!), I reached out to a powerful coaching community and was encouraged to listen to the words of ‘Jump’ by Gary Barlow. Really listen. So I did. Twice.

It rang so true for me, BUT I also think it rings deeply true for you in your lives too.

Whether you are curious about my retreat or not… please take four minutes out of your day today (right now if you can) to listen to the words and make a little magic happen today.

I am also now asking you to HELP ME HELP YOU…

I would love to powerfully serve you through a coaching conversation. We don’t have to talk about my retreat unless of course you want to. This is about YOU and what could most deeply serve you at this very point in your life.