Anna Wootton

Supporting your health through every phase of life

It’s been a while since I have left an update here and that is mostly because life has been busy. But it got me thinking about different phases of life and how our needs – financial, social, health, all kinds of needs – shift and change as we go through life.

I recently got married, we bought a house (still in progress!), I got promoted at work – lots of exciting things but it meant that my day-to-day circumstances changed significantly. My free time got…well, less free!…and my work routine shifted from me sitting and knocking out work to managing a team of three and being required to attend many more meetings and be much more responsive than I was before. For introverted me that equals a lot of energy expenditure I wasn’t previously doing.

I also was formally diagnosed with CPTSD and have been going through significant healing from this, and that – let me tell you – is exhausting! Healing at any level takes a lot of work, behavioural changes take a LOT of time, and through all of this other elements of your life can suffer and pay the price.

I realized how much your focus on things that are important to you can shift as your life phases shift. While planning for a wedding (which we planned within 6 months of getting engaged!), working full time in a demanding role and making decisions on our home, which was in the process of being constructed, and working on my own self-healing, some days I had to remember to eat, to make conscious efforts to eat better rather than just graze on what was around, and I had to make a priority out of exercise, or it just wasn’t going to happen.

It is true that we cannot have 7 priorities – our brain just doesn’t compute that. Priority means ONE thing to put at the top of the pyramid, and there can be a hierarchy for the other things also, but one thing has to go first.

When I work with clients, I try to always consider the phase of life they are, in the other competing responsibilities (priorities!) that may vie for that top spot of the pyramid. And the good news? I don’t require clients to assure me that their health is the number one priority. There are often so many things happening that perhaps that’s just not feasible.

However – and this is a big however – it DOES have to be in the top 3. Real change just won’t happen otherwise. A lot of the work I do with clients is internal rather than external, but it is work and takes active and conscious effort. So let me ask you – can you make health one of your top 3 focuses? If so, jot me an email at reachyourhealthyplace@gmail.com and let’s talk about what it would look like to work together and get you to where you want to go.

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