Inuitive Eating is about more than just the food you put in  your mouth. Before you can begin to nourish yourself with intention, you first have to tune into your body, your desires, and your heart. Last week, I interviewed Anna Cole – a busy mom and life coach – to see how she juggles being a busy mom of three, a solopreneur, and still manages to prioritize her health. Check out her great advice below; I especially love the part about mindful intentions linking up with your heart and your intuition! You can read more about Anna here. Anna’s offering a free talk on how to deal with stress and drama in your relationships next week. Be sure to sign up for that, too! Click here to register for Anna’s free call.

Anna Cole, ACC, CPCC, is a Certified Life Coach trained at the premier coaching school, Coaches Training Institute. She coaches women struggling to balance work, family and self. She helps her clients to simplify their lives, let go of guilt, increase their self-confidence, strengthen their relationships, and create careers and lives they love.

Kellie Adkins: You are the founder of Be and Become Life Coaching, a coaching business that helps busy moms find time for themselves, improve their self-confidence, strengthen their inner voice, & simplify their lives. What prompted you to do this work?

Anna Cole: When my youngest child began kindergarten, I decided I wanted to go back to school and further my education. Although I had intentions of majoring in Biology, I fell in love with educational psychology and decided instead to major in psychology. I really hoped to work in clinical psychology but an advisor suggested my personality was more suited to positive psychology training or coaching. She said, ‘You know, Anna, Clinical Psychology is just too depressing for you! You’re too positive.’ So, I looked into both positive psychology and coaching and ultimately found coaching to be a perfect fit; I love asking questions! Life coaching is really about understanding yourself –by asking the right questions and discovering the answers. It’s about learning what you love and learning how to live that. It’s my passion to help other women do that for themselves.

KA: As a busy mom and a solopreneur, how do you manage to find time for yourself and your health?

AC: I run every morning to clear my head. Running helps me tune into my body and I often find the answers to whatever questions or issues I’m dealing with in my life.

KA: Tell us a little about your relationship with your body and food.

AC: At age 7, I was hit by a motorcycle and suffered epileptic seizures for much of my childhood. Because the seizures could come at any time, I became very sensitive to how I was feeling; I remember having this desire to keep myself controlled at all times, so I wouldn’t lose all control! That definitely played into my relationship with food. At age twenty, I really got into exercise and began watching my food intake, to the point of being restrictive. Overexercising and restricting my food intake became another way to exercise control over my body. And it really wasn’t until the life coaching training that I began to really love myself and trust myself to make the best nourishment choices for me. Although I haven’t suffered from seizures for over twenty-five years, they really had a huge impact on me and my relationship to my body. I’m still into exercising, but now it’s once a day –to clear my head—and it’s an enjoyable thing, not a punishment or a way to control my body.

KA: What advice –or favorite practices—would you give someone who is struggling to connect with their body’s wisdom, maintain a natural weight, and trust their health & wellness choices?

AC: Exercise is still my favorite way to clear my head. It seems I always ‘find the answer’ during my morning run –whatever the question is! And the second thing is really mindfulness and slowing down. As a busy mom, solopreneur, and a very task-oriented person, it’s been a crucial practice for me to just slow down. Trusting the physicality of my intuition is so important; I always check in with my gut feelings and if they line up with my heart and mindful intentions, then I move forward. Having all three of those connected –the head, the heart, and the gut –is the essential component to finding my way in the world. So there’s a lot of trust in the body’s innate wisdom in the mindfulness process. Also, just being right here, right now: mindfulness is about inhabiting the present without going back to the past or looking too far into the future.

KA: Do you have any wisdom to share with other busy moms out there that are trying to find time for themselves and learn how to connect their head, heart, and gut?

AC: Get in touch with what’s important to you and live by it! It really comes down to finding what connects everything for you: finding your calling then taking the small steps toward your goal. As a mom, you’ll be pulled in many different directions, but it’s so essential to carve out time for yourself so you find out what’s important for you. Then finding time to live that!

Anna’s offering a free live call on eliminating stress and drama in your relationships: tune in next Wednesday, May 3 at 10 a or 8 p EST. Register here: http://buildinglastingrelationships.eventbrite.com

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Be sure to stop by next week for the interview with Shelley Chapman, the Food Relationship Coach!…