What even is WELLNESS?

This is a question I’ve been pondering for a while. What is your perception of wellness?

For a while, I really put it down to a physicality, i.e. you are perceived to be healthy in the absence of any physical symptoms. This is not true. What I soon realised was that in the absence of any physical symptoms for myself and a family in seemingly great health….something felt missing at a deep level and really struggled to put my finger on it. So my quest began to fully understand what it meant to be truly well and happy.

 In 2004, psychologist Judd Allen, PH.D., a board member of the National Wellness Institute surveyed a number of experts in the wellness field and the consensus and general agreement was that:

-          Wellness is a conscious, self-directed and evolving process of achieving full potential

-          Wellness is  multi-dimensional and holistic (encompassing factors such as lifestyle. Mental and spiritual wellbeing and the environment)

-          Wellness is positive and affirming

@clearsky

To put this into context for everyday practical living. The term wellness includes these factors:

• CHOICE – the way we choose to live life and integrating the mind, body, soul and spirit. In today’s climate there is very little focus if any on the mind, soul and spirit and ALL on the body.

• HOLISTIC in nature – that is taking a multi-dimensional approach. Once again this is lacking in today’s modern fast paced lifestyle. Living appears to be very reactive rather than proactive

• A POSITIVE approach that directs self motivated action. This does not mean we put a cherry on top of a pile of crap and pretend everything is awesome. Quite the contrary, we recognise it for what it is and then take positive motivated action

• SELF ACTUALISATION – in essense this means showing up as the best version of yourself and realising your full potential.

• CONSCIOUS AWARENESS – showing up present and fully aware realising that this moment is perfect rather than with blinkers on wondering what happened at the end of the day, otherwise known as asleep.

As a Nutrition and Wellness Coach, the role is to facilitate POSITIVE behaviour change and to remind clients that they have a CHOICE in the actions all the time.

How well are you really?

Taking the factors above, where or what are you lacking? What are the actions that you need to incorporate to achieve TRUE wellness?

The concept of total wellness recognises that our every thought, word and behaviour affects out greater health and wellbeing. And we in turn are affected not only emotionally but also physically and spiritually – Greg Anderson.

Whilst these are pretty simple questions, the answers can literally change your life! Dramatic I know, but true. This life we have is not a dress rehearsal and we do not get time back – start taking imperfect action now.

Here is the honest confronting truth – if you think you can do this alone, you are sorely mistaken. You’ve tried this and how is that working out for you? Personally, I know I tried the sole journey for a while with temporary results. If it was that easy, we would all be bouncing off the walls with boundless energy and vitality. The truth is we require community, immersion, support and accountability.

I have a number of services that will meet you where you are at now. Check out my work with me page and see which one best serves you now. If you want to have a 20 min to see whether any of my programs are fit, then email me at info@chantalkhoury.com.au

 Chantal is an Accredited and Certified Nutrition & Wellness Coach with a very special interest helping busy and overwhelmed mums transform the health of their family using gut healing nutrition and transformational mindset practices.

- Accredited Certificate of Nutrition & Super Nutrition, special focus on Childhood Nutrition - Cadence Health

- Certified Level 1 & 2 Wellness Coaching - Wellness Coaching Australia

- MINDD Forum Health Coach - Mindd Foundation

- Accredited Real Healthy Kids Facilitator having personally trained with Sally Gray ND

- Clinical Evidence Based EFT Practitioner - Evidence Based EFT

Are you ready to be IGNITED?

Is life feeling a little off and you are just not sure what to do next?

You have ALL of the outside STUFF, but somehow your INSIDE feeling is not lining up?

Your INNER critic voice is so loud, you forgot WHO you really are?

You are carrying so much BAGGAGE from the past, the SHACKLES are heavy on your back, you just cannot move FORWARD

You feel a strong passion and desire burning inside of you to live the life you heart desires, however you are crippled by fear and instead do what you think you SHOULD BE to make everyone else happy?

You are constantly beating yourself (that inner critic voice again) up and wondering whether you are being a good enough mother, wife, sister, friend and any other title you hold?

Any of that sound familiar to you??

It’s a bit of grim outlook isn’t it?

And it really doesn’t have to be. You see, you are living with a set of habits, thoughts and beliefs that are currently unconsciously shaping your current reality irrespective of what you are “trying” to do differently. None of it is your fault, you just were not provided the manual of how to live life on your terms.

Lets paint a better picture - WHAT IF:

• You can live a life free of SELF IMPOSED guilt

• You can 100% BE IN CHARGE of your emotions, thoughts, beliefs and actions and live the life you desire by creating your new reality, and teach your children in the process - PURE GOLD

• You no longer choose to be defined by your past and commit to achieving more of what you truly desire

• You could know yourself like no other and walk confidently EVERY SINGLE DAY being your true AUTHENTIC self

• You face the smaller everyday challenges (which are more disease causing by the way) and the bigger challenges of life with a sense of calm and ease with the ability to confidently navigate them with a KNOWING it WILL all work out the way it is suppose to.

All of this IS possible with the right teachings, like minded support community and a step by step plan to get you to where you want to be - This is called the IGNITE QUEST.

I’ve had the absolute pleasure of interviewing my mentor, coach, primary health care practitioner, guardian angel and loving friend Sally Gray, founder of Real Healthy Kids.

Sally is self confessed education & neuroscience nerd and possesses the most impressive credentials:

• Naturopath with over 25 year of clinical experience

• Herbalist

• Masters trained Nutritionist - in other words, food guru

• Functional Medical Specialist

• EFT & NLP Practitioner

• Master life Coach ( trained with the likes of Tony Robins, Bob Proctor, Lisa Nichols, Rob Sharman, just to name a few, there are MORE)

• Jack Canfield Success Principles Trainer

• Neuroscience Practitioner

• A Course in Miracles Minister in training

In our interview we cover:

1. What is IGNITE

2. Why IGNITE and why the shift from the physical to the mind to heal

3. The outcomes you can expect from doing this program

4. Sally’s message

5. My experience from IGNITE - after doing this 3 times and will keep doing as long as it is run.

IGNITE DETAILS:

The next IGNITE QUEST begins: - 14 September 2019

Go here for more inside details of the program and to secure your virtual seat.

By Joining Now, you will have access to the following BONUSES valued at over $1800, which are worth 5 X more than the investment of the IGNITE program:

1. 3 hour ONLINE Virtual retreat

2. 4 week goal manifestation goal

3. 12 day Nourishing Wellness Reset Program, reset your Mind, Body and Spirit

4. Access to previous LIVE Sessions to further deepen your level of understanding

Some of what you can expect to find inside the ONLINE LEARNING PORTAL:

• Step by Step training program with video & audio format

• Powerful meditations & Hypnosis Lounge

• Like-minded community support

• Expert guidance

As an affiliate of this program, if you join using my links above, I will gift you the following:

• 3 X 1:1 45 min coaching sessions, valued at $237.

  These sessions can be used any way you like to either further deepen your understanding of the IGNITE content, vision, goal setting, nutrition recommendations, meal planning, time management etc

I would love you to join an amazing community of kick ar$e women who are no longer willing to live life by circumstance, but by design instead. Don’t waste another minute of your life living in the past and start creating the life you desire instead now, from a physical and emotional point of view.

Chantal is an Internationally Accredited and Certified Nutrition & Wellness coach with a strong passion to empower busy overwhelmed mums through improving gut health and using transformational wellness practices.

Back to School: Emotional Wellness for our kids!

Man – it’s just about 3 weeks of being back into school and it feels like we’ve been there for weeks on end! Anyone else feeling the same?

So, in an earlier blog I spoke about the importance of nourishing their bodies with REAL food for fuel, well, we also need to nourish their souls and emotional well-being – equally as important.

In psychology it is believed that we have determined our identity and belief system by the age of 7! So as adults we are living with either empowering or self sabotaging belief systems that have been ingrained into our psyche before we are even able to understand what they mean – this is a huge concept so sit with this for a little and really grasp it.

When I first learned this – I panicked as I thought I’ve missed the boat on one kid and am just about to miss it with the other – talk about pressure like we don’t have enough of it today in the modern world.

Thankfully the boat is never missed when you are open to the evolution of learning and becoming your best self, and ultimately the best teacher to our kids. It’s about being self aware and course correcting CONSTANTLY.

With this in mind, how can we as mum’s enable the emotional well-being of our kids?

On a practical level:

• Nutrition – this is key and essential to fuel the body with nutrients to give it any hope of functioning optimally, not to mention core functionality of the cells & the brain. Many mental ailments and conditions can be the symptom of nutritional deficiencies
• Sleep – This is when the body is performing it’s biggest role of repairing and healing. Therefore crucial that they get age appropriate volume of sleep. Sleep is also essential for the immune system and emotional resilience.
• Water – They need water and plenty of it. Not only is water essential for the brain and the nervous system (the brain is made of over 75% water), but just the smallest drop of hydration within the body can lead to a drop in energy & mood levels
• Exercise to release all the happy hormones

7 recommendations/suggestions to manage their emotional wellness:

1. Help them feel loved, secure and confident. Talk to them in THEIR love language. You read more about that here.
2. Help them to identify their feelings as best they can, if possible why they feel that way or what’s behind the feeling. Here is a great tool I found online to help you, help them identify their emotions. This truly is half the battle
3. Equip them with tools to help manage the emotions and feelings such as:
   • Deep breathes when in a heightened state of emotion – resets the nervous system
   • If they are old enough, I'd say from age 7 – get them to write on paper how they are feeling and why. In neuroscience this is believed to help relief the emotional charge on a situation
   • Use tools such as EFT, otherwise known as tapping. More info on this here.
4. Help them to recognise the power of the little voice in their heads, also known as self-talk and how this can either empower their world or could be the slowest form of torture
5. Teach them to show gratitude EVERY SINGLE day. This is non negotiable in my household. It’s amazing what they come up with when they are stuck for something. Some of the answers just melts my heart
6. Get them in a mindfulness practice daily. This does not mean that they are sitting and meditating in a corner saying “Om” for 20 minutes, but helping them become aware of the present moment. Examples are:
   • Using an app to do a guided breathing exercise for 3-5 minutes. I really like Smiling Mind or Headspace, easily downloaded from the App store.
   • Colouring in, even better you if do it with them - this has to be one of my favourites
   • Sitting quietly in a nature, feet on the grass and recognise the sounds and surroundings, again only needs to be a few minutes
   • Engage them in any activity they truly enjoy and help them recognise moments of joy during that activity
7. Lastly, but more importantly – this may sting a little, but YOU become emotionally resilient and learn the tools how to do this, then you can be an EFFECTIVE teacher. Our kids learn by what we DO, NOT by what we SAY. They will model what they see being practiced. So the key here is to become very self aware yourself. This is not easy, but so worth it!

The above list not exhaustive, but just a small snippet of some strategies to help build emotional resilience and wellness for our children, especially in the age we are currently in.

Adjuncts to promoting emotional wellness

The below list serves as examples of adjunct therapies that can assist the promotion of emotional wellness. I do not believe that any one of these should be used in isolation or be seen as the magic bullet to fixing a symptom, but rather as an addition to the fundamentals listed above in the practical section:

• Essential Oils
• Massage
• Chiropractic or Osteopathic treatment
• Bush Flower essence
• Homeopathics
• Kinesiology

If you are concerned for the emotional well-being for your child, then please seek additional help and guidance from a qualified practitioner.

Chantal is a Certified Nutrition & Wellness Coach with a special interest in helping families implement Gut Healing Nutritional Protocols using a proven step by step wholistic approach to improve the health of their family.

The Lessons I Learnt during 2017

As I start to wind down from what has been a challenging yet rewarding 2017, I wanted to reflect on the year that saw so much personal growth for me and the lessons I learnt along the way and how I want to enter 2018.

I've had my own coaches and mentors this year and they have been priceless as they've guided me through not only my professional journey, but that of self too.

Here are some the lessons that stood out for me and in no particular order:

1. Find the gold in EVERY challenging situation

Always find the rainbow...

I've come to know and understand that in EVERY challenging situation, there is a golden lesson and a rainbow. We just need to be present enough to see it. We need to keep the faith and belief that we are protected and everything will work out the way it should. This lesson was by no means easy, but this mindset is what kept me going plenty of times in the face of wanting to give up or succumb to a victim mentality.

2. Great health is soooo much more than just the food we eat

I've said this numerous times that nutrition is pivitol and synergistic for good health, but this is only one piece of the puzzle. You are truly misguided if you think that there is NO impact for choosing to eat good food 80-90% of the time. There will be consequences, if not now, down the track, especially for our kids who are already in a health epidemic according to the World Health Organisation. Yours like mine, are already part of the statistic, however it CAN be turned around, IF you choose to. So there really is no argument whether we need to eat wholefood to experience good physical health. As Nike says - JUST DO IT! However, optimum health is truly a wholistic approach of mind & body and true health cannot be experienced without the balance of these 2. Our mental and emotional state matters just as much to our health as does our physical state. This has become abundantly clear to me this year and probably would not have believed it until I experienced it myself. I am grateful, that I am open and teachable

3. Be who you are unapologetically

I'm not going to lie to you, being in this space is incredibly difficult for me and not to mention so far out of my comfort zone, I cannot even begin to tell you. It has taken a while and much soul searching to understand who am I in this space. If I'm honest I was trying to be someone I'm not because I wanted to be liked, after all who doesn't want to be liked? But this has felt very much out of alignment and I've come to realise that it is OK to be me and that some people may not like that, and I'm OK with that too. I am pretty much a no nonsense, no BS, straight to the point type of person (with love and compassion) who is immensely passionate about empowering and supporting one family at a time to eat one HEALING wholefood at a time to break this vicious health epidemic we are in.

Be who you are and don't apologise for it. You are perfect just the way you are and rock it - there is no one like you and you are by no means flawed.

4. We are so much more in control of our destiny than we think we are

There is not much in this human experience that we can control, but what we can control is what matters the most and can determine our outcome:

• The food we choose to eat - ALL in our control

• The thoughts to we CHOOSE to think - ALL in our control

• The actions CHOOSE to do or not do - ALL in our control

Focus on what you CAN control and let the rest go. There is actually so much choice that we do have

5. The art of letting go and surrendering

This ties in with the above and lesson and was not an easy lesson for me to learn this year. As a recovering control freak, I was very much attached to an outcome and devastated when it was not achieved. This caused so much unnecessary angst. My own mentors kept telling me, to let it go, but I refused until I got smacked so many times, I finally decided to listen....what a concept! It has actually been so freeing to practise this mindset the second part of the year. I am now a firm believer of "What will be, will be"

6. The work is in the rest

My mentors told me. Yep, sure I know what you mean. Upon further thinking, I was like, no actually I don't know what you mean. Eventually I came to understand that we need to STOP from time to time and just be and become present, ideally daily and multiple times during the day. It is during these REST breaks that our best work is done, i.e. answers to life's questions (your subconscious is talking to you ALL of the time, but you need to be in state to hear it), your creativity flows and solutions to problems show up. Neuroscience tells us that the brain needs to reset often during the day, it likes specific tasks. This is how I decided take this information on board and rest everyday:

• I have a golden hour (ideal) or golden what ever time I get before the family wakes for the day. This has truly become non negotiable for me and has made a massive difference to my mindset for the rest of the day, not to mention the flow on effect for the rest of the family. I use this time to exercise, meditate, reflect, read etc. If for whatever reason I cannot get my full hour, I use the time I do have and do what I feel will best serve me that day. This is not easy or convenient, but then again, nothing worthwhile is. I am prepared to sacrifice some sleep for inner peace. It is so worth it!

• I have a timer set on my phone that rings every hour. I use this 30 seconds to one minute to regroup, refocus and make sure I'm on track to get done what needs to get done in a peaceful and calming manner for the rest of the day.

These small consistent tweaks have made a massive difference to my mindset, productivity and energy during the day, which has resulted in a much calmer household....most of the time! It has also meant that when I do slump, I bounce back that much quicker because of the new level of awareness of self.

Reflecting on all of the above lessons, I have so much gratitude for what I've learnt as I know I'm not the same person I was at the start of 2017. The words I choose for 2018 are flow and ease taking the above lessons into account and how I even further connect to self and do what makes my heart sing.

What lessons have showed up for you in 2017 and how have you decided to enter 2018? I'd love to know....

On that note, I will be taking a much needed rest break myself and spent quality present time with my family.

Lots of love Chantal XO