In today's episode, I’m joined by former professional dancer and founder of Dance Box, Illana Gambrill for an inspiring discussion about moving our bodies with acceptance and joy!

Illana started Dance Box after experiencing the immense healing power of dance after a challenging childhood and wanting to change the narrative for herself and others.

Illana says “I grew up believing that I was nothing, that I wasn’t deserving of holding my own place in the room. I was very anxious and I just knew that I couldn't continue. I made the decision to heal it. And I chose to heal it with other people as well. It was difficult to rewire but knowing I could help others spurred me on.”

In our conversation today you’ll hear about:

Illana’s own journey of healing through dance and how the reality of the professional dance world didn’t bring the joy that she expected it to

Movement as a raw and natural expression and one of the most natural forms of medicine that can help us to ‘release the mask’ we wear in public and on social media

How Illana is teaching women to be unapologetic in their passion and truth and the authenticity and confidence that comes from releasing ourselves in dance

Dispelling the narrative ‘I can’t be sexy because I’m a Mom'

The habits that help Illana to maintain her own power and energy on a daily basis following a mental breakdown in 2020

Illana’s DanceBox App that allows anyone to join a dance class from anywhere in the world.

‌Now, while you're listening today, think about how you can take what you learn and put it into practice. Take action in any way that's meaningful for you.

And as always you’ll find the links and details of today’s show and all the other shows in this series at my new website michellereeveswrites.com/podcast

My guest on today’s episode is Marjorie Nass, who for two decades has helped thousands of women successfully navigate perimenopause and menopause and to feel healthy, vibrant, and energized.

In our conversation today you’ll discover:

How Marjorie’s own physical and mental health issues in her mid-late 30s as a feverishly busy corporate executive led her to discover the power that yoga and breathwork could have in healing her body and mind

The different branches of yoga often overlooked by Western practitioners that can have a profound impact on our health and well-being, particularly perimenopause symptoms

Why perimenopause is a stage rather than an age and why listening to our bodies is so important before we start making changes

A breath and body scan practice that you can do right along with us during the episode

Why lack of sleep causes a ripple effect that can impact all of our lives and how and why we need to be kinder to ourselves as we age and our body transitions into a new stage

The habits and non-negotiables that Marjorie has adopted in her routine to manage her own wellness - and not just what she does but how and when she does it which is really interesting.

Now, while you're listening today, think about how you can take what you learn and put it into practice. Take action in any way that's meaningful for you.

And as always you’ll find the links and details of today’s show and all the other shows in this series at my website http://michellereeveswrites.com/podcast

Hey there, friends, welcome back to The Happiness Habits Transformation podcast, the place to discover the happiness habits that inspiring women have used to transform their daily routines, bringing them clarity, peace and joy. 

Now, if you’re anything like me, or the thousands of women who struggle with managing their weight, and their relationship with food and nutrition, particularly during perimenopause, then I think you’re really going to enjoy today’s episode.

I’m joined by food and eating psychology coach Josie Jones, founder of The Mindful Cook and creator of The Non-Diet Method. She works with women to help them to break free from restrictive diets and discover how to use nutrition and mindset skills to feel more energised, stronger and body confident. This is such an important topic and I’m delighted to have Josie back on the show.

In our conversation today you’ll learn about

The journey that Josie herself took to overcome her own unhealthy relationship with food

The impact that our pervasive diet culture has had on generations of women and how restricting calories can actually slow down weight loss

The link between our psychological response to ageing and our relationship with our bodies

How we become more sensitive to cortisol during perimenopause and the impact this can have on our bodies including weight gain and cholesterol

How stress can impact our absorption of nutrients and have a huge impact on our emotional response to food, and tips from Josie to help regulate our nervous system in just 10 minutes a day

Now, while you're listening today, think about how you can take what you learn and put it into practice. Take action in any way that's meaningful for you.

And as always you’ll find the links and details of today’s show and all the other shows in this series at my new website http://michellereeveswrites.com/podcast

In today's episode I’m chatting with Lucy Wahl, a professional organiser from LMW Edits, who believes that being organised is a superpower which can help us to shape our environment to support the positive habits we already have and encourage the habits we want to adopt. As someone who is naturally quite organised (ok, I admit it, I’m obsessed with all things organisation and planning as my coaching clients would probably tell you!), this topic is a favourite of mine but I love the extra dimension that Lucy brings to it.

You’ll learn:

How our environment can raise our cortisol levels, increasing stress and overwhelm - particularly relevant during perimenopause and menopause

How an organised home can help to reduce friction in our daily life, relationships and mental health and make it easier to get positive habits in place

How to separate our work and home environments - even if they’re in the same house

The principles we can follow to start shaping our environment, whether we’re a naturally organised person or not

The habits that Lucy has cultivated to support herself after nearly fainting at a client appointment

Now, while you're listening today, think about how you can take what you learn and put it into practice. Take action in any way that's meaningful for you.

And as always you’ll find the links and details of today’s show and all the other shows in this series at my new website http://michellereeveswrites.com/podcast

 

PERSONAL UPDATE

But before we get to today’s interview, in this episode’s personal update I’m working through the audio book version of The Happiness Habits Transformation which, if you listened to episode 91 you’ll know is being created using AI, specifically Google Books' ai reader Madison. When I was choosing the reader’s voice it was really important to me that I’d enjoy listening to the sound as well as the content. I love the timber of Madison’s American voice, it’s soft and slightly deeper than my own voice which I think makes it easier to listen to for a longer period of time. Like most people I really don’t like the sound of my own voice! Anyway, you can let me know what you think when it’s published later on this year.

In other news, I’ve started the cut phase of my weight training programme after a long gain phase. At the moment that means keeping the weights part of the programme the same, adding in 20 minutes more cardio and eating a few hundred calories less, which I’m very happy about, I didn’t enjoy how I felt eating the amount of calories I needed to for the last muscle building phase. I’m excited to see what shape my body is in when we finish this new phase, but it’s definitely part of a long-term muscle building programme for me helping to support my bone density, something we all need to think about during perimenopause and beyond.

I’m also really excited to have just finished my first virtual blog tour with Love Books Tours as a self-published author. I’ve worked with Kelly from Love Books Tours before and I’ve met some absolutely lovely bloggers who have been very kind in their reviews of my book. I’ll put a link to Kelly’s website in the show notes if you’re an author and are interested in finding out more.

And while we’re on the subject of reviews, just to say that they are probably the most important gift you can give an author, including me! The algorithms on online stores are biased towards books that have a larger number of reviews so if you enjoyed reading The Happiness Habits Transformation please do pop a quick review up on Amazon or Goodreads or wherever you found your copy. It would mean the world to me and help other readers find the book.

Enjoy the show!

We all have habits. Some help us achieve our goals, while others can hold us back. Since 2009 I’ve learned a lot about the activities that boost my everyday happiness and I’ve written about them in my book The Happiness Habits Transformation. But knowing the things we need to do to make us happier and actually DOING them are two very different things. After all, if we’re honest we all know that eating junk food, drinking too much alcohol and not exercising regularly doesn’t constitute a healthy, joy-inducing lifestyle.  In the past when I was working with a coaching client, they were often fully aware of what they needed to do to make a significant change in their lives, but for whatever reason (and there can be many) they weren’t doing those things. The knowing just isn’t enough.I’ve been fascinated with habits for some time - after all they’ve helped me and my readers to become happier people - but I’m also fascinated with technology. I do like to geek-out on the latest apps and tools! So I thought it might be fun in this episode to take a look at how technology can help us to build stronger habits.While you're listening today, think about how you can take what you learn and put it into practise. Take action in any way that's meaningful for you.

And as always you’ll find the links and tools I mention, details of today’s show and all the other shows in this series in the shownotes at michellereeveswrites.com/podcast

Today’s episode has a Hollywood gleam about it as I welcome the wonderful Andromeda Godfrey to the show!

Andromeda is an award-winning actor and producer who began forging a career in the entertainment industry in her 40s. Her most recent acting credits include Bridgerton, The Crown and Love At First Site. Her company Makelight Productions (founded with Juhr Debenedetti) aims to elevate women and other marginalised communities in front of and behind the camera and a brand new midlife comedy drama, ‘Jodie’ is in currently the works.

In our frank and honest conversation today, Andromeda shares:

Her journey to discover her dream career

The challenges she has faced (and continues to face) in an industry dominated by the cult of ‘youth’

The value-aligned habits that serve her every day

Her experience of perimenopause and how we need to reclaim the narrative around midlife

Tips for building resilience and adding new habits into your own life.

 

Now, while you're listening today, think about how you can take what you learn and put it into practise. Take action in any way that's meaningful for you.

And as always you’ll find the links and details of today’s show and all the other shows in this series at my website: michellereeveswrites.com/podcast

In today's episode I’m delighted to welcome Nadine Hill, body positive yoga teacher with a passion for joyful movement and cultivating everyday mindfulness. Nadine shares her personal journey of midlife reinvention, how she overcame a very negative self-image and how yoga opened her up to both an inner and outer transformation. It was really lovely to reconnect with Nadine again - we’ve been in the same blogging circles for over ten years! In our conversation today, you’ll learn so much including:

The moment that changed Nadine’s life and how she followed her gut to seize that moment for her future happiness

How Nadine eventually found the self-belief she needed to thrive after a very challenging childhood

The habits that Nadine practices daily that keep her moving forwards

Nadine’s tips for winding down to sleep and removing anxiety

How celebrating the strength in our bodies can empower us no matter our shape or size

The question that Nadine asks herself whenever she faces a new opportunity

While you're listening today, think about how you can take what you learn and put it into practise. Take action in any way that's meaningful for you.

And as always you’ll find the links and details of today’s show and all the other shows in this series at my website michellereeveswrites.com/podcast

For today’s in-between interviews episode, I want to talk about radical self-care.

Often as women, mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, creators and business owners, so much of our daily routines revolve around everyone but ourselves. We pour our love and attention abundantly over others but leave only a few drops for ourselves. 

Just one more push, we tell ourselves. This is hard enough when we’re in our 20s and 30s but when we hit perimenopause the symptoms we can experience as estrogen and testosterone levels drop can make that extra push feel like shoving a boulder up a mountain with a 50-kilo pack on our backs.

It's absolutely crucial that we take the time to care for ourselves, replenishing our well of self-love regularly so that we don’t become exhausted, overwhelmed and even resentful, and run to the instant highs of Netflix sugar fixes and flexing our credit card muscles. 

I believe self-care isn't just a nice to have. It's a necessity for us all. Self-care isn't selfish. It's sustenance. 

But for me, radical self-care doesn’t just mean taking a bath with candles and a glass of wine to relax. This can be self-care as a band-aid, papering over our symptoms without solving the heart of the problem. We get out of the bath and dive straight back into the maelstrom of our lives.

So in today’s episode, I wanted to share ten strategies for practising radical self-care in our daily lives.

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Buy a copy of my book The Happiness Habits Transformation: 2nd Edition at michellereeveswrites.com/buy-my-book

In today's episode, I’m joined by journalist and visibility coach Julie Brown. Julie provided two brilliant case studies for the 2nd edition of my book The Happiness Habits Transformation and in conversation today, she shares more about the habits that help her to be more successful as an entrepreneur.

Listen in to discover:

How Julie went from full-time publisher to self-employed and her top tips for anyone else who’d like to make this transition

The habits that Julie put in place to make her more successful as an entrepreneur

How Julie uses the natural world to kick-start her inspiration when she struggles with creative blocks

A trick for feeling more confident in your life and work

The key habits that business owners need to boost their visibility

And while you're listening today, think about how you can take what you learn and put it into practice. Take action in any way that's meaningful for you.

And as always, you’ll find the links and details of today’s show and all the other shows in this series at my new website: michellereeveswrites.com/podcast

Let me ask you a question, are you a doodler? I have always loved being creative, whether that’s through painting, sketching, doodling or writing - I always joke that I was born with a notebook and pen in my hands and as a child I was obsessed with the TV art show Take Hart with Tony Hart - so chatting with today’s guest, Karen Light from HowDoodle was so fun for me!

Karen has been an artist her whole life, marking art with others, with over two decades of teaching, mentoring, and coaching thousands of people of all ages and all backgrounds, running two businesses, studying community arts, social justice activism, and connecting with ideas and people in the realm of empowerment and expanding consciousness. She is absolutely passionate about helping others to use art as a means of self-discovery.

But following a block with her own art, Karen upended her life to travel and rediscovered a love of simple doodling as a tool that reawakened her own creativity, leading her to create a children’s book and set up her coaching business, HowDoodle, where she coaches individuals and teams and runs fun doodle workshops to help others with their own creative, mental and emotional challenges.

In our conversation today you’ll learn:

How art and doodling used therapeutically can to help you overcome obstacles and understand yourself better

How to get started with doodling as a tool

Karen’s 5 amazing C’s for inspired action

How curiosity lights up certain parts of our brain and the implications of that for our creativity

How to overcome your inner perfectionist when you want to be creative

The steps to interpret your own doodles for personal discovery and understanding

The habits and practices that Karen uses on a daily basis to make her more successful in her life and work

Karen’s top tips for starting a creative practice in your own life

Now, if you’d like to join us in a short doodle practice during the podcast, be sure to have a pen or pencil and something to scribble on - it can be just the back of an envelope or a scrap of paper. No experience needed!

And while you're listening today, think about how you can take what you learn and put it into practice. Take action in any way that's meaningful for you.

And as always, you’ll find the links and details of today’s show and all the other shows in this series at my new website: michellereeveswrites.com/podcast

You can also buy a copy of my new book The Happiness Habits Transformation 2nd Edition using the links at michellereeveswrites.com