The moment I wake up…
For some reason my body is in a weird body clock routine now and no matter what time I go to bed I always wake up at 7:45am. The first thing I do is take my temperature using my Natural Cycles thermometer and log what’s going on with my wee body. I realised how little I knew about my cycle and fertility due to ignorance and lack of education and now that I’ve decided to love my body I’ve stopped ignoring it. I actually feel that any small act of acknowledging what’s going on with my mind and my body, no matter how tiny it is, is important and a gorgeous little act of self compassion and self care.
Time to get to work…
I work from home which has good aspects and bad. If I don’t have a meeting or an event or swimming (I meet my sister for a Monday morning swim at the Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh after she drops her sprogs at school) I generally just trundle over to my kitchen table after a quick shower (I wouldn’t dare wash this hair every day or that’s half my day gone) and start smacking the keyboard.
I’m a slave to emails and social media and I’m not very good at not responding to everything the second it comes in. I need to quieten the people pleaser in me and re-asses my priorities but it’s literal years of being uber efficient and I can’t seem to shake it. I think I was German in a past life.
For Lunch…
I’m just getting into Intuitive Eating. When I say that… I mean I’ve read about 70 blogs about it and follow loads of people on social media who talk about it, but I’m still on chapter 1 of the actual Intuitive Eating Bible (my priorities are screwed up!). I’m trying very hard to untrain my brain from years of equating food with a points value (thanks a lot Weight Watchers) and shaking off all the s**t diet culture we are force fed every day. That means every so often I will pull myself away from those emails and do a bit of a body scan to assess if I need a glass of water or a stretch or something to eat. I am getting very good at conjuring up exactly what my body or brain needs in that moment. Sometimes that means a plate of pea soup and sometimes that’s a chunk of Toblerone. I am so off with my thirst though. I am always dehydrated which I really need to get better at recognising (my poor kidney’s).
The peak…
The best part of my day is if I get to see someone. Ha! I am a complete extrovert which, for me, means that I get my energy from being around others. I have a habit of filling every moment of every day with social occasions or meetings which can sometimes hamper getting actual work done. That’s another thing I need to improve: getting a good balance of alone time so I can get my head down and be productive, and the social part of my job like meetings or running body positive events and workshops which I love because they give me a positive mental health boost which I feed off, for days.
The pit…
I am VERY bad at closing the laptop… The Chachi Power Project is just over a year old and it is the best thing I have ever created and that passion is there every single day but the problem with that is I really struggle with finding the ‘off’ switch. I preach self care from the hilltops and I am absolutely rubbish at practicing it (hey followers, please unread that last sentence).
If I’m not getting a room full of people together in the evening to talk about kids body image or post baby bodies then I can easily look up and realise it’s 11.30pm and I’m still in front of a glowing screen that’s probably frying my brain. Again, that’s ANOTHER thing I need to work on. The good thing is, what this self love and body positive project has taught me is how to stop beating myself up so hard over things I need to improve on. It’s a much nicer existence and now I just take things day by day and click ‘refresh’ every morning.
And to unwind…
Hopefully my boyfriend has prepared me a lovely dinner (that’s his passion, not mine) or we go grab something to eat somewhere we haven’t been before (that’s where ALL my money goes). The best and most powerful way I unwind is by watching a bit of RuPaul’s Drag Race on Netflix. There is simply nothing better on the tele-box. I never thought I’d be one of these people... but I don’t own an actual TV (I am that weirdo! Help!) I’m going to be very sad when I have worked through every season but I’ll probably just start from the beginning again. The boyfriend pretends he tolerates it but I know, deep down, that’s the main reason he comes over. (JOKING: of course he loves me for my amazing banter!)
Danni runs The Chachi Power Project and is a Body Positive Advocate based in Edinburgh. She runs workshops in schools and companies to tackle the issue of negative body image to boost self esteem and help promote a more positive mindset. She also holds her own events, dinners, meetups and body love retreats. You can check out her website at www.chachipowerproject.co.uk or follow her on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.