Coaching

Abandonment, Coaching, Personal Growth

Personal growth can be a rough go

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I want to have an awakening like they do in the movies.

You know, where the protagonist experiences their quantum shift with elegance and grace, leading us, the audience, into a wonderful montage (complete with awesome music) of all the ways their life will now improve.

They get an amazing new job after sending out a few résumés; a random run to the coffeehouse yields them a phone number from their dream partner; they ditch their sh*tty apartment and relocate to a house that they can now somehow afford very easily; they make up with their asshole father and go fishing. All in the span of mere weeks.

And, after the montage is over, we witness the protagonist looking back at the crossroads that brought them to this new, wonderful place in their life, all the while contemplatively smiling and drinking a margarita.

Reality check, please.

Real awakenings are not like this. Far from it. There is no montage, there is no music, there is no shortcut to the next scene in which we will somehow now be miraculously happy, at peace, or in love. We can’t fake it. We can’t skip the middle. We can’t yell, “Cut!”

With real-world awakenings, there is a lot of crying. There is a ton of confusion and doubt and questions and shock. There is deep-seated socialization and conditioning that gets unearthed, leaving us wondering what the hell we believe/want/know/feel now. There is the messy middle and feeling terrified in the middle of the night and that body issue that for sure got cleared up in therapy but is now rearing its ugly head…again. There is the wondering if anyone else ever feels like this, and, if they do, why aren’t they talking about it?

Awakenings feel like our heart is breaking and being pieced back together again at the same time. It feels like all the parts of ourselves are at war and they are inviting us to come along for the ride. It feels like we are caught between this person we say we want to be and the person we are right now (who is a complete mess!). It can feel wretched one minute and like we are on cloud nine the next. Sometimes, it just feels sloooooooow.

And then, in the middle of the awakening, something happens. A flash of a fresh perspective that shifts the entire world on its axis, a rush of love to the heart that makes us grab our chest and catch our breath, someone telling us that we matter, an old wound that finally, finally heals. Something releases. Something surrenders. There is a softening where there was once a hard place. There are moments that feel like we are being hit by a ton of bricks and knocked over by a feather at the same time.

Awakenings tear us open. They expose all the yucky stuff, the shameful stuff, the secrets, the dreams that were never given a voice, the relationships that imprison us, the words left unsaid. Awakenings are a mirror we can’t turn away from, even in our ugliest, most tattered gown. They force us to get real, to get honest, to get transparent. They ask us to up level.

Awakenings don’t just come for anyone. They seek out those who are strong enough to take a hit. Awakenings don’t f*ck around, because they have a mission: to help us arrive. To arrive at our deepest place of love and compassion. To arrive at our endless inner wisdom. To arrive at the tender crossroads of accepting ourselves and loving others. To arrive at the place in which we are in full trust of who and what we are. To arrive at our shattered places and pour some light over them.

Athlete, Coaching

How to start your “off season” well

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So you are done with your season …. NOW WHAT!?!?!?!?

🥳 CELEBRATE 🥳
<3 REFLECT <3

✅ Step 1 is to to WRITE UP and race report and a season report. I love love love doing this part in my Journal One app on my ipad. Love it! I add pictures. Take the time over a week or two to get pics together and put all my thought and emotions down.

  • What did you really enjoy!? KEEP DOING THAT SH$T!
  • What didn’t work so well? Objectively look at it. Think about it from a couple of different views if you can. Try not to judge yourself harshly. But it IS OK to re-experience the situation, work through the emotions a bit in order to process them. Write them down. This activity takes the power away from them. When you see it in black and white, you can look at it from a couple of different perspectives. Then decide if you need help with making changes. Or do you need help with figuring out what to do?

one side note … sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know. Thats why getting different eyes on the situation is a good one. For triathlon for example, maybe you feel like you just suck because your running at the end of a tri has always sucked. But … maybe you need to hear that if you were to do your electrolytes different, maybe that would totally change up that picture? Worth the ask right?!?

another side note … a LIFE TRUTH is that generally, in order to be different we need to do different. And in order to DO different, we need some different in our lives. Whatever that is. In my 15 years of coaching, I have seen over and over that until someone allows change to come, things never change. That means that you need to be teachable, coachable, open to change. Doesn’t mean that you need to be all NAMASTE about the change, but that you see it and are ok with it coming and deal (hopefully well) with the uncomfortableness of change.

GOD / Universe / Life / Karma are all very faithful in giving you the next lesson. The next thing you need in order to get to that NEXT BEST VERSION of yourself. For me … these lessons are coming from Coach John and Coach D, and my kids!! <3

So … WRITE UP your race season. Your life season. From here back to the last time you did the write up or … you’ll know when. REFLECT.

…. this is part of the activity of our health/performance assessments. This is how you set up for doing the next step well.



💥💥 SET NEW GOALS 💥 💥
CHALLENGE YOUR COMFORT ZONE

✅ Step 2 is about committing to doing something different. About working towards that NEXT BEST VERSION of yourself. After having spent some time in step 1 …

(and this is why goals and such don’t work all that well sometimes, you skipped step 1, the connecting with your heart and soul <3 <3 <3)

You will be crystal clear on what you want to keep and what you want different. Will you know how to get there. Sometimes not. Thats why we have coaches, teachers, mentors, strangers, etc. While I think books are ok … they don’t have a lot of ENERGY and JUJU in them. People do. So if you are particularly stubborn and think you can do all this yourself … well, I’d challenge you to look back historically and see how well you do change and personal evolution by yourself. You are biased. 😉 hehehe.

Seriously though. We need each other. Our tribe.

The things you want different …. less sucky runs, drop some belly weight, faster on the bike, take on a LONG race … it’s time to set the goals. High level goals. Then start to break it down. And if you aren’t sure how to get there. Don’t lower the goal. Go get help.

✅ NUTRITION
EVERYONE can stand to look at nutrition and work to make changes. If you are considering a long distance race season, it’s stupid smart to work on nutrition, body systems (example – hormonal balance), etc. Things to work on in the off season …

Sleep better (hormonal)
Gut health
belly fat / brain fog (hormonal)
Drop stubborn weight (hormonal)
Do better at fat burning
Decrease anxiety/depression (hormonal)

✅ STRENGTH
WE MUST DO THIS. If you want to be injury free.

(as most of us aren’t spring chickens 🐥🐥 🐥 and already have out of whack things going on…)

Strength training is key for being a well rounded and injury free athlete. It’s a great time in the “off season” to learn some of the basics of smart and balanced strength training for runners and triathletes. If you consider the motions of running and triathlon, you can see the common sense need for good/smart strength training. To be faster. and to remain injury free. Or get there. Admittedly it is not the easiest thing to do to balance strength training with endurance. It’s a skill and hard to do during the season. Our athletes spend the off season cultivating change, balance, strength and skill so when they get to the big season and sneaking up on their A RACE, they are in a great spot to be more aggressive, know what they are doing and change navigate it all. Plus … they are learning that they can focus more on strength work at the expense of all the time for endurance. With the same or better results in performance and happiness. IT WORKS!

✅SPEED / TECHNIQUE
WHO doesn’t what to be faster?! You have to really get outside the comfort zone to accomplish this. (though strength training is probably the quickest way to get faster once you’ve reached a certain level of technique).

INTERVALS (with good fueling and hydration practices)
Drills to change the way you do things.

Sometimes you don’t need to work harder, you need to be more efficient. Doing this work in the off season is S M A R T!! Say you decided you want to take on IM Wisconsin! OK!! Cool. Now you need hill climbing legs! How do you get those? You start in the off season because doing both speed / technique work and endurance is a lot to ask. If you spend the off season cultivating change you get to the A RACE season more prepared to KICK TAIL.

You know what this buys you? LESS ANXIETY about your race, your training, yourself and what not. So that means a happier experience. For you. (and those around you).

Do you now where you are? Do you know where you want to be? Do you know how to get there? If you want help, we do free athlete health/performance assessments. It’s an online form you complete and a phone call with a follow up email with recommendations and resources, and coaching options if you’d like. Easy Peasy. No Strings. Our gift to the community.

What is your off season going to look like?
Free Athlete Health/Performance Assessment
🌟👉🏻 www.bonniekissinger.com/aha

Coaching, Personal Growth

When dogs help to heal your soul

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❤️❤️❤️

SOULS CAN HEAL

HEARTS CAN HEAL

EVERYTHING

❤️❤️❤️

I use to believe that I was unworthy.

I use to believe I wasn’t good enough.

I use to think I was broken.

I use to believe that I would always have a dark space in my soul.

I use to think the fighter in me was a bad part and needed to go away.

Triathon. And Ironman specifically. And that damn non-existence mass start very especially. And dogs. And my D.

Have taught me that EVERYTHING can heal. I’ve learned that I can heal from a near drowning as a child, spritzed up w a crappy childhood. D and these dogs and a couple other GEMS of people are helping me to heal some other parts. Freaking badassery is happening. Does it feel good. Nope. But I’m happy and doing it.

My dog Julie Rogue Boxer is leading the way. D helps her a lot too. She loves the heck out of him. She was a disaster tho. When I first got her. Anger. Abused. Hurt. Broken jaw. She would attack everything. And she continues her journey w letting go of her severe dog aggression. She follows my lead anymore. Her and I are bonded. So if I keep my shit together. She does too. And visa Versa.

This moment meant the world to me today. ❤️🐺👊🏻

#graceandgrit #wolfpackstrong #nevergiveup #handleyourshit #gysd #nmf #havefaithinhealing

Athlete, Coaching, Diet, Eating, Fueling

Food prep for the busy triathlete

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No one is going to argue that eating well is super important. Now what to eat … thats a different blog for a different time. 😎🥳

We aren’t going to argue that food is fuel. And a lot of us understand that food is so much more than fuel. And one of the biggest things that we ARE NOT is CONSISTENT. So enter the habit of food prepping.

  • Carbs, proteins and fats provide the energy to burn
  • Micronutrients like vitamin c and magnesium support a plethora (PLETHORA) of processes that go on in the body. Like magnesium so you don’t cramp and have restless legs at night.
  • Phyto-chemicals or plant substrates do a ton of stuff like protect your DNA, protect against cancer, decrease the risk of heart disease and on and on.
  • Zoo-chemicals or animal provided substrates reduce inflammation and blood clotting, suppress cancer cell development and inhibit complications from diabetes to hit some big ones.
  • You also get some organic molecules form your food that help, such as bacteria that helps your body to produce B12.

So in order for the triathlete to achieve the following, we need to do our best to eat right. In my experience and training, the majority (75 to 90% of women triathletes aren’t eating enough calories, a different blog for a different time, and certainly not getting all the “stuff” from food that they need.

  • Fuel your body for activity
  • Provide the basic building blocks, like sodium, in order to support the activity AND do vital jobs like keep your brain cool so you don’t melt your brain and die (thats how the body thinks of it).
  • Provide the building blocks like amino acids to aide in recovery and repair. Why do a hard work out if in 10 days you aren’t going to see the results because you didn’t eat good enough to give the body what it needs?
  • Support all the hormonal functions like sleeping well, regulating metabolism, keeping that sex drive UP, supporting bone health and the list goes on and on and on …
  • Keeping you from getting sick. Let’s be real … who wants to get sick when the training gets really real? How does it feel to miss that LONG brick?
  • Keeps your brain happy
  • Which keeps the house happy
  • Insert beautiful orchestra chord.

So here are some simple ideas on how to look at food prep. WHICH STARTS AT THE STORE!

Admittedly, this one is for those that are ok with the Zoo-chemicals.

  • Hard Boiled Eggs: Cook a dozen or more and have sitting in your frig. Adding sirachi mayo or something to spice it up is a wonderful snack. And salt. ADD THE SALT.
  • NUTS: Brazil nuts for the guys which provides selenium for better testosterone levels. Ladies too. You need this. Salted almonds. Cashews. Nut butters.
  • AVOCADOS: Great source of fat and protein. Be mindful that there are some carbs in them. OH THE SALT!!! 😉
  • Cook up hamburger patties and store in the frig. Like 10 of them. Then you can add a bit of a dressing or tear up into a quick salad or mix with some sautéed veggies that you prepped.
  • Sautéed Veggies: chop up some veggies, add the garlic and onions (stupid good for female health and heart health). Add to meals when you are rolling through your day.
  • Breakfast burritos: Cook up veggies, scrambled eggs (like 12 of them), and make a whole pan of yumminess. Then package in a torilla wrap. You can add flaxseed and other goodness to kick it up a notch.
  • Cook beets like eggs and have them in the frig to eat ala cart or add to your smoothies.
  • Breakfast: handful of nuts, a bit of oatmeal, a bit of berries and add extras. Put in food prep containers and BOOM! Add hot water to eat. On the GO GO GO nutrition.
  • Purchase clean family serving dishes of meat. BOOM!
  • Get containers to put in breakfast, salads, dinner, etc.

There are so many things that you can do if you practice and get into the habit of prep prep. Plus if you are just a bit more mindful, you can involve your kids and teach them vital and precious skills for cooking and the LOVE for good food. TO LOVE THEIR BODIES. To nurture themselves. This is one of the biggest things we need to be role modeling to our little people. You can get your spouses involved. If you are a lady ironman in training, this is one great way of involving that husband that might get to feeling left out. I’m not saying give him the task of meal food prepping and all that, just a little bit of involvement will go a long way to not leaving him on the side of the street.

CONSISTENCY!!!! Being consistent and having the attitude that we need to take care of our bodies, not keep pushing pushing pushing, we will get way better results and in general be more content and happy. And everyone around you will benefit. 🙂

Plus this is more time efficient so you will rock out mid and later in the week when training and life has got you pressed. You can throw together a wonderful meal and then someone will probably rub your feet because your a super mom or dad or whatever. 🙂 <3

Coaching, Swimming

Change up Your Swim Pace

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We can get pretty lazy when it comes to swimming. We show up to the pool, maybe after a struggle to find our stuff, get there, deal with traffic, deal with the pool schedule, deal with the other exercisers that you need to share the pool with …

And then some of us aren’t really paying attention when we swim. We don’t want to. We don’t like swimming. Swimming makes us feel slow, dumb, not good, inept.

So sometimes our mindfulness and effort aren’t in it all the way. We lose focus. We aren’t paying attention to our form. We aren’t giving it a good effort, or our best effort.

Here is a good workout to help with changing that up.

This workout helps build top-end speed and helps you improve your ability to change pace, which is a vital skill all triathlon swimmers need to learn.

✅ Staying in the game. Paying attention.

✅ Learning to work with your breath, have control of it

✅ Learning to pick up the effort without the heart rate and breathing becoming too labors. Calm and Strong. Not frantic.

🌟This workout helps build your race pace.

🌟This workout also helps you to control your breathing and effort.

🌟This workout will help you to learn to change up your pace, a vital skill needed for racing and dealing with the open water swimming.

On this workout, be mind full of the paddles. Reduce arm turnover and focus on good form. When using the pull buoy, this is your opportunity to focus on rotation.

Warm-Up: 200 your choice
Main Set: Changing it up-16 x 25 yards, every 4th fast-300 yards, steady swim-12 x 25 yards, every 3rd fast-300 yards, paddles-8 x 25 yards, every 2nd fast-300 yards, pull buoy-4 x 25 yards, all fast-300 yards, paddles and pull buoy
Cool-Down: 100 choice

Coaching, Personal Growth

BEING A MOM IS A BRAVE JOB FOR WARRIORS OF LOVE

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Being a mom is one of the bravest jobs. You start out pregnant (or adopting) and … you kind of can be in denial for a bit until your belly grows and you have to start buying stuff you don’t know how to put together.

You quickly learn that you really don’t have a clue what you are doing. So you need to get brave real quick. Learn. Ask questions and hopefully work to get some sort of footing under you.

Giving birth is … a challenge. It can be one of the most beautiful things but it can be the most scary as well.

You can experience losing babies, things going bad, loss, grief. And in the face of that, some try again and again. Being brave.

You might have had a great mom and childhood. Or you might have not. Not to make one worse than the other, but seriously, that book … what to expect when you are expecting … it’s about 30% of what you really need to know. When you’ve come from less, being handed that infant to love, take care of, not break or otherwise …. whatever … it’s a rather large tasks that is way FREAKING OVERWHELMING.

But as a mom … if you can get 3 moments or so of … beauty … it is all ok. The hours of crying melt away when you get that moment of peace with a cheek on your breast, or a naked foot peeking out from under the covers.

They grow up. You grow up. You learn. They learn. Hopefully things go well.

Some moms have to learn more and do more. They have been given the children that need more. The book gives zero help on this stuff. This is where you have to be brave brave. Especially if you don’t have help or feel like what is around you isn’t helping and doesn’t align with you as a parent. Like when your child has learning issues or other … specialness.

Momming is super hard.

Moms leave. Moms die. Moms aren’t there. And sometimes, the child is left to learn on their own. And to become a mom of their own design. Scary stuff.

It is a hard lesson to learn that their spiritual and personal growth isn’t always up to you.

Being a good mom is important to you. You are your own worst critic. As you want so much good for your babies. You want to do it “RIGHT”. Making mistakes is tough … as you wonder if it will mess up their leaves.

Sometimes it’s with your mistakes that they learn from. And it is super hard to watch your children makes mistakes. It’s hard to leave enough room to allow them to make mistakes.

So moms go into this thing with bravery. And the desire to do the best that they can. It is so tough to have part of your heart and soul out wandering around the world. The world that is a tough place and getting tougher.

Be brave. Do the best you can. LOVE HARD.

(people … tell your mom they are awesome!)

BEING A MOM IS A BRAVE JOB FOR WARRIORS OF LOVE

Adrenal Health, Coaching, Education

I can’t find any of my ducks

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I have a lot on my plate. Who doesn’t? At the beginning of this year I threw down some big personally goals, most of those dealing with more emotional intelligence sprinkled with a ton of soul healing sprinkles.

So I’m trying to get my ducks in a row enough to minimize the cray cray that my people around need need to deal with and helpfully for me to be able to have enough clear discernment to do this reasonable well. Not too much to ask right!?!?!

Well … I have some pretty decent sized soft spots that I’m wanting/asking/need to work on. Blah blah blah. You know the places in the soul that go with childhood trauma and drama, relationships that turned out to be like crashing airplanes and … blah blah blah. So I’m focusing on rounding up and herding these ducks.

I’m a good enough duck.

I’m a safe duck.

I can do EPCI SHIT duck.

Not all the ducks in my space are MY DUCKS and I don’t need to let them jerk my ducks around.

This duck herding business tho, it’s been pretty intense because what I’m finding out is that … I’m needing to learn how to deal with other peoples ducks. Like some people just let their darn ducks get into my pasture and mislead, confused and another wise brain wash my my ducks. And off they go. Or … I have these ducks in my pasture that aren’t my ducks and I adopt them. Like I have time and energy for that.

It just gets so confusing. Historically I have talking/vented/blah blah blah with my person on this stuff. And while that is good. I would like to develop a better habit of dealing with the duck cluster thing. Who’s ducks are whose. And which duck do I need to herd first.

Meditation. Yep. I haven’t been doing enough and I need to but honestly … I need something a little more concrete and tangible right now.

So Becky and I were chatting, I need to write the ducks down. And this is the ONE time that auto correct gets it right. From fuck to duck. Prefect! Hahahahaha.

🤭🤗🤣🤣🤣👊🏻

So in my journal where I keep all things that I want to manifest the heck out of, aka the super women journal that enables me to do EPIC SHIT … I’m going to work on a section labeled “Ducks”. I am already in love with the idea, as me and my 5 other personalities can write stuff down, work through it and everyone can contribute words to help work through things. AND I can practice …

FAITH

PATIENCE

WISDOM

… In dealing with the duck that has gotten itself too far away from the herd. Or whatever a group of ducks is. I really love this idea as I struggle with not dealing with something, that makes me feel bad, not let a problem go. Like I’m not standing up for my feelings, values and what not. But also I like this idea because I LOVE LOVE LOVE when i manage to let magic come into the picture and take care of STUFF for me. BOOM. And this magic journal that I have. This is the place for it to happen.

🌸Personal growth. Being brave. Honest. Persistency moving forward. Adapting. 💫

🔥🔥🔥Adjusting Fire🔥🔥🔥

❤️Hopefully with less road rash for myself and those special people around me that matter most.❤️

Coaching, Ironman, Personal Growth, Triathlon

What Ironman Triathlon Did for my life

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I was chatting with a fellow Ironman Triathlete about coaching earlier this morning and we were having a little chuckle about how your perspective changes after a season or two of ironman. You get to a place where you have a ton of mental Grit to get done (and do it well) just about anything you set your mind to. And just a ton of other wonderful things that happen. Let’s looking at this awesome list.

Mental Grit: There is something that happens when you push yourself past self imposed limitations, over and over, and learn that yes there are limits, but usually we stop way before those. I was really gifted with this two times, once in my first IM in Wisconsin during the swim portion. I had almost drowned as a child so getting to the point of being able to do the swim well without freaking the heck out was a ton of mental grit, through the whole season and race day. It’s was one of my most beautiful life moments. The other was doing the very best that I could at IMTX in 2018, where during the run it was a full moon, I was praying, and running. Running when I didn’t want to. Running when everyone else was walking. Running to chase down a time that I knew I wouldn’t get, but doing the best I could anyway.

Heal your soul: When you allow yourself get stripped down during ironman season … you see things about yourself that don’t serve you anymore. Things that you know need to evolve in order to get the astronomical task done. If you’re brave enough to face your demons and help them to heal … your soul heals. You evolve into that next best version of yourself. And it’s so much quicker than a lot of personal growth challenges. The feedback is pretty immediate. Kinda like pixie dust if you go the chops to look at it like that.

A story from my life, I almost drowned when I was little. And that was surrounded by ample amounts of childhood trauma. So the swim anxiety that I experienced during swim was of the extreme nature. Through a series of hard experiences, many failures, techniques, not giving up and a whole bunch more … I managed to move past fake it until you make it, to healing my heart. It was such a wonderful experience to complete my first ironman swim, Wisconsin Mass Swim start, probably one of the best experiences to be had, with no anxiety. That is the first time that I really grasped that I could move past my childhood issues. That I didn’t have to live a life of dealing with my crazy. Some of it I could transform into a healed cornerstone of strength.

Strong Body: If you are doing the training right, your body goes through a series of evolutions where you heal through injuries. If you have the help that you need, you end up cultivating a body that is more sound and balanced. You are left with a body that is epically strong, the mind is a metric f ton stronger and you feel invincible. You might still be a little fluffy and imperfect, but that’s really not the point.

Confidence: You have achieved something most people wouldn’t do. You’ve done something that you thought you couldn’t. You know how to approach fear and challenges and come out on top.

AND …. sometimes those things roll downhill and affect your friends, family and maybe even the little people.

#thelittlesarealwayswatching

Training for something very difficult can be very rewarding. It can be very hard and I have seen where people don’t make it. They turn and go another direction. And thats ok. You have to be READY to take on that challenge. Not feel like you are ready. Not think that you are ready. It’s a little secret that your soul shares with you, drives you forward. When you are doing something and you think to yourself … why the heck did I think this was a good idea, but somewhere in a secret place in your heart, a voice says to keep going. That READY. If you aren’t ready for the difficulties, that just means you have other work to do to get ready.

And that doesn’t mean that attempting an ironman isn’t where you do the “get ready” part. There is nothing that says that everyone will complete their mission the first time out. In fact, on paper that is just silliness. Most people that accomplish big A things fall on their face the first time.

GRACE AND GRIT: Thats what I think triathlon and ironman really gifts you with. Hopefully we all learn that we are all very capable. We are all enough. We are all FREAKING badassly awesome and we don’t have anything to prove. These hard things are just to help us learn and grow. Not prove a damn thing. Doesn’t matter if you are overweight and doing ironman. Or a pro athlete finishing first. We are all wonderful human beings that have a voice, have a story and need to SHINE our love and gifts out to the world. This is what I think ironman helps us learn how to do. At an Ironman. At life. As a parent. Spouse. Friend. This is why I tell my athletes …. train train train for the best damn finisher picture you can. This attitude is the sum total of this. To let your heart and soul shine when you FINISH your goal. When you ACCOMPLISH what you set out to do. You will look back and see that on the inside … you are soo beautiful and strong. You are enough. And you’re badass. 😉 <3

Adrenal Health, Coaching, Education

Stress and Your Gut Health

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The Anatomy of Stress

Psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, once said, “Between stimulus and thought, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.”

It has been shown that stress creates more wear and tear on the body when
associated with negative thoughts, or if we don’t think we’re coping well with it.
Reframing your stress can build your mental and physical resilience to the
challenges in your life.

STRESS DOES THE FOLLOWING!!!!

1. Stress results in less secretion of digestive enzymes, causing the pH of the stomach to not be as low as what is optimal for good digestion.

2. Stress causes oxygen and blood are diverted from digestion to the brain and muscles/etc instead.

3. Allostatic load: the wear and tear on the body due to the physiological responses that accumulate with chronic stress.

What is STRESS??? Stress is any type of physical, mental, or emotional factor that causes tension in the body. This tension causes chemical, physical or behavioral changes. Stress, or the fight or flight response, is an evolutionary mechanism for survival of the species. It is innate to us, usually on autopilot, and very much needed. However, our lifestyle and society, has caused this system to get overworked and undertaken care of.

  • WORK stress, meetings, unhappiness on the job, constant deadlines, conflict
  • Exercise is stress. Endurance training is a lot of physical stress.
  • Heat and dealing with heat is stress.
  • Mental Stress: relationship, trauma, responsibilities, conflict
  • Physical stress: Intense workouts, childbirth, illness, injury, lack of sleep, food intolerances, toxins, pollutants
  • Stress can be “real” or “perceived”
  • Stress is meant to be a short term solution to take care of an immediate need
  • Acute stress: short term stress. Normal. Perhaps what you feel right before a race. It gets you “READY”. Causes the body to preform on an elevated and focused level. Enhance performance by helping you to “keep your eye on the prize”.
  • Chronic stress: long term stress. Not normal or beneficial. Like caring for a dying parent.

Sympathetic Nervous System: Gas of the car

  • “fight or flight”
  • slows the movement of food, prepares for action
  • kick into gear, more energy

Parasympathetic Nervous System: Brakes of the car

  • “rest and digest”
  • controls digestion, sexual arousal, salivation, urination, and defecation
  • conserves energy for survival activities

Hypothalamus gland in the brain tells the pituitary to turn on certain hormones in the adrenal glands, such as cortisol. This activates the sympathetic nervous system. This increases your heart rate, increases the blood flow to muscles and the brain and affects your blood sugar. Blood sugar rises to provide fuel, providing glucose to be super available in the blood stream, via the liver breaking down sugar instead of sending bile to the gall bladder. Norepinephrine is also released. This hormone works to increase blood pressure, along with epinephrine. The adrenal glands make adrenaline. The body then prioritizes whats going on in the body. Smooth muscles contract, including the intestines. Blood is diverted from the blood vessels the the muscles and the brain. So you are able to have mental sharpness and do a quick escape. Not getting eaten by the tiger. Blood and digestive enzymes will decrease, as they aren’t a priority at the moment.

After the initial “surge” from stress, if the stressor is still present the body then activates the HPA axis. Hypothalamus, Pituitary Adrenal axis. This hormonal system works to keep the body in a state to be able to continue to deal with the stressor by release other hormones, CRH, ACTH and cortisol.

These hormones, over time will ...

  • Increased belly fat: Cortisol. Visceral ab fat. Dangerous fat. Cytokyes, causes inflammation. Heart disease, vascular disease, depression, dementia and poor blood sugar management, low muscle tone, increased appetite.
  • Food intolerances/food allergies: Chemicals during stress the body releases chemicals such as Histamines which will intensify allergies.
  • Leaky gut: Mucosal barrier takes a hit during stress. Inflammation breaks down the barrier. Then a lot bunch of bad things happens. Absorption issues, blood flow is diverted away intestines . Allergies. Hormonal imbalances.
  • Elevated blood sugar: Cortisol prevents insulin, which puts glucose into cells. Too much sugar in the blood. Insulin resistance. Plus the sugar molecule is large. And hurts the endothelial lining.
  • Increased inflammation: anxiety, depression. This becomes a run away train.
  • An altered microbiome: Affects diversity of health bacteria. Diversity is part of health and wellness.
  • Increased risk for GERD, acid reflux, indigestion, and ulcers: Protective lipids affected, which protects the precious mucosal gut lining
  • Aggravated IBS symptoms: More sensitive to pain. In the gut.
  • Increased risk for SIBO: Movement affected out. So bad bacteria isn’t “swept out”.
  • Lowered immunity: Cortisol suppresses the immune function.

Also. New stress points are “recollaborated” or set. So … you’ve gotten use to being under chronic stress. So more hormones are needed to get that sharp response that is needed at times. This can lead to times when you notice you don’t “respond” quickly to things that you know you should. Like … an issue in traffic or when your kid runs out in traffic and you are “stuck in place”.

REFRAME STRESS ACTIVITY

  • Event: My top employee quit.
  • Stress Story: I may lose my job. He never liked me anyway. My numbers are going to go down, and it will take forever to find someone new. Emotion/Response: Fear New
  • New Stress Story: I’ll find another employee – one who’s a good fit and happy to fill the current role. Emotion/Response: Hopeful

Coaching, Personal Growth, Triathlon

Triathlon Life Balance Training Journal with Plum Paper

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Self – Family – Life – Work – Training

Ironman (aka LIFE!!!) Training Journal … because it’s a big darn deal and you need to have your mind right!!!!

PlumPaper.com really has it going on with creating a journal that is just perfect for you. Mainly because you can customize it to help you BALANCE your #trilife

You can add all these different aspects of life:

✅ Swim / Bike / Run
✅ Yoga / Strength / Chill
✅ Eating / Resting
✅ Priorities
✅ Focus
✅ Daily Gratitude List
✅ Habit tracker
✅ Focus areas
✅ Task List

It’s just freaking awesome. I created a mini video to show you how. Which is just the tip of the ice berg on what you can do!!!

If you want a DISCOUNT code … message below and I can email you and save you $10. Which is about 25%. COMMENT BELOW!!!!

This journal really is very useful … even if you’re not HIM or IM training. I just made one that is more … life balancing and such. The exercise portion was minimal in my 2nd one!

BALANCE

https://youtu.be/8ejiJQ86QSg

EMAIL ME if you’d like a discount code!  BraveSoulCoaching@gmail.com

ORRRR!!! If you’d like to do a free athlete health assessment, lets do that and I’ll email you the code along with all the recommendations.

www.bonniekissinger.com/aha

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