How to use mindfulness and self compassion to make healthy changes

My journey to sea swimming, eating more mindfully and giving up alcohol…

When we’re considering a change, it’s often helpful to hear others’ stories and experiences. So today I thought I’d share my story of learning how to use mindfulness and self compassion to make healthy changes in my life – including sea swimming, transforming how and what I eat, and quitting drinking.

You might not want to change your diet or give up alcohol, but mindfulness and self compassion can help you to make powerful positive shifts in any area of your life. I’ve loved exploring how to use mindfulness and self compassion to make healthy changes, and empowering others to do the same. And I’m excited to share all that I learnt along the way.

Two weeks before the 2020 lockdown began, I took the next step in my journey towards being kinder to myself – not just speaking to myself with kindness, but feeding myself more compassionately too.

I had no idea that starting my first ever two week cleanse in February 2020 would change my life in so many ways, or that it would become one of my most valued tools with which to face the many challenges that coronavirus brought us all. All I knew then was that it was the next necessary step in my journey towards being kinder to my body – from the inside out – and that mindfulness and self compassion would help.

Using self compassion instead of criticism to motivate us forward

I’m someone who’s always had a loud inner critic. And for a long time, although I didn’t like that voice, I believed that this “mean girl” inside me also motivated me to achieve much of my success. When I first started exploring being kinder to myself, I wasn’t convinced that self compassion could be an effective motivator.

Surely telling ourselves we aren’t good enough encourages us to be better…? 

It turns out that it doesn’t.  I’ve discovered that I’m much more successful when I speak to myself with kindness. Instead of pushing, criticising, blaming or shaming, I’ve learnt to motivate myself (and others) to make changes solely with love and encouragement.

I’ve found that I move forward with steady momentum, and more grace and joy, when I speak to myself as I would speak to my children, to my clients, or to a dear friend. Forgiving missteps, pausing to acknowledge successes, and focusing mindfully on the next kind step forward.

As a result, mindfulness, self compassion – and the Sea Soul Blessings cards that embody both – are tools that I use regularly to support myself and others to make positive life changes.

How to use mindfulness and self compassion to make healthy changes – starting sea swimming

Before I decided to change my diet, my most significant practical experience of exploring how to use mindfulness and self compassion to make healthy changes in my life came when I started sea swimming.

I was already deep in exploring the practice of self compassion, so I decided to see what would happen if I approached this new adventure with kindness, using mindful compassion as my sole motivator. I wasn’t going to set myself any unrealistic expectations, or push on when I was low (and fear was high). Instead of making myself feel bad if I didn’t want to swim far out of my comfort zone, I was simply going to tune into how I was feeling each day – in each moment – and let that lead me.

From there, I’d see what happened if I ignored that inner critic entirely, and spoke to myself with deeply compassionate encouragement. I would sympathise if I found it hard, and remind myself that I wasn’t alone in that. I would remind myself of my courage, my capacity to try new things, and how far I’d already come.

And as I’ve written about before, time in and around the sea was the perfect mindfulness aid. Those morning swims created the mental space I needed to change the way I spoke to myself. Motivated by self compassion, I went from being someone who avoided a cold sea, (and panicked after a few strokes of front crawl) – to someone happy to swim half a kilometre or so on my own in the sea of a morning.

Like the most successful changes we make, that journey was slow and steady – there were no short cuts. But it was one that proved to be both lasting and transformative. And powerful evidence that I didn’t need that inner critic of mine after all. So much so, that it ensured that mindfulness and self compassion became my go-to tools whenever I had a new healthy challenge to undertake…

How to use mindfulness and self compassion to make healthy changes to our diet – listening to our bodies

Over the past couple of years, all that mindful time spent checking in with myself meant that I’d started to notice that my body was trying to tell me something…

My reaction to alcohol was changing – those weekend drinks just weren’t as fun as they used to be, and I found myself feeling more exhausted and blue afterwards.

On top of this, I’d been experiencing more low mood and anxiety – partly due to the state of the world, and partly as a result of the onset of peri-menopause. As I stopped to listen to my body more carefully, I began to gain a clearer awareness of my body’s current needs – and my true hungers.  

While I’d always focused on being generally healthy – getting regular exercise, eating organic food, and spending time in nature – I hadn’t ever paused to address my parallel loves of strong coffee and biscuits, red wine and Spanish beer, peanut butter on toast for breakfast, and chocolate as a handy afternoon pick-me-up…

Because life was busy, and up until now, ‘everything in moderation’ had served me just fine.

But here I was, in my late 40s, coming to understand how to use mindfulness and self compassion to make healthy changes in other areas of my life, and starting to learn about how the peri-menopause affects our physical and mental health… And I began to ask – was a trip to get coffee and cake in a crisis really the kindest thing I could do for myself right now?

Finding self compassion for our past decisions

As I sat with that question, I also had to find compassion for myself for all the choices I’d made that had got me to this point…

I accepted that in the past, all those things – the huge cafetiéres of coffee and slices of cake, a bottle of wine on a weekend, the quick carb-heavy breakfast and easy cheesy pasta tea – had often been intended as acts of kindness. They had helped me through those moments.

But I also recognised that sometimes those choices had been more about numbing difficult feelings.

Sometimes we don’t have the strength and resources to deal with challenging feelings or unmet desires when they surface. And so we don’t deal with them at all. Instead, we look for escape elsewhere – like a sugar fix, or a glass of wine, or scrolling through our phones.

So I reminded myself to be kind to myself about that too, (oh my, so many opportunities to practice self compassion…!). I told myself that I’d been using the tools I had at that point to tend to myself, as best I could, and I’d given myself pleasure in familiar ways when I needed it.

And that was then. Now, it was time to explore whether my current choice of ‘treats’ were doing me more harm than good.

How to use mindfulness and self compassion to make healthy changes to our diet – embarking on my first ever cleanse

In February 2020, I embarked on my first ever dietary ‘cleanse’. I’d never tried a cleanse before, but my friend and lovely health coach, Madeline Rains, launched a new group programme, and I decided to sign up. As a total cleanse beginner, I knew I’d need some expert input, and that I’d be much more motivated and likely to succeed in a group – that support would be another way of motivating myself with kindness.

I was both naively optimistic and apprehensive. I didn’t know if I’d be able to stay the distance. I worried that it would take me hours to invent and cook new dishes as a working mum – and it was hard to imagine what on earth I’d be able to eat other than squirrel food. I couldn’t imagine how cutting out wheat, dairy, alcohol, chocolate, even my beloved peanut butter on toast, would be possible. Let alone how I’d get anything done without caffeine.

I immediately cut out many of the things I’d usually turn to in a crisis, just as the Covid crisis hit…

The first two weeks of the cleanse were really hard. I kept expecting to feel better, and it just didn’t happen. I had lots of headaches. I felt exhausted. I got spots for the first time since my teens. I was grumpy at the kids, especially when I had to cook them all the things I missed and wanted to eat myself.

And doing the cleanse showed me how often I’d been using food as comfort. I was shocked. And I didn’t yet know how to easily find a similar source of comfort elsewhere. Finding self compassion for myself at this point seemed harder than ever, but I kept trying. If I couldn’t be kind to myself, I could at least be present with myself, acknowledging that this was hard.

In those moments when I felt lost or overwhelmed, the Sea Soul Blessings cards really came into their own. Every time I needed a reset, I’d stop and draw myself a card – their simple messages always brought me into the present moment, reminded me to step aside from the daily grind, to speak kindly to myself, and to listen to what I was really hungry for.  

Sometimes I’d find myself standing in front of the chocolate cupboard, or bitterly jealous of my husband’s cold glass of Spanish beer – but instead of reaching out on autopilot, I’d use that practice of mindful awareness to stop and notice what I was doing, bring my attention to how I was feeling, and ask what I really needed.

I’d ask myself – what’s the most compassionate thing I could do for myself right now?

Finding new ways to sate my ‘hungers’

Of course, it usually wasn’t food or alcohol I was hungry for. More often it was a sense of connection, of peace or freedom, or the sensation of being deeply cared for. Once I understood that, I could find other ways to connect to those feelings.

I turned to my old favourites – like spending time in and around the sea, or walking in nature. And after a lot of trial and error, I found a whole host of new ways to look after myself.

In place of coffee and cake, my go-to treats became a very hot bath with relaxing music, watching a cheesy movie with the kids, quietly reading a novel under freshly line-dried sheets in bed with the sun streaming in through the window, giving myself body scrubs with gorgeous oils and a wooden bath brush, or really pausing to appreciate the delicious sensation of applying an organic face cream.

And in moments when the world felt very scary, I found that heading to the kitchen to come up with tasty healthy meals and snacks gave me a simple focus that helped me to stay positive. With each healthy meal made for me, my family, or for friends experiencing Long Covid, I felt like I was making a difference – helping my loved ones to stay healthy and resilient, while contributing towards a brighter future for myself too. It gave me a sense of power when so much felt out of my control.

Adjusting my strategies as I learnt more

A few weeks in, I slowly started to reintroduce the foods I’d cut out one by one. That brought more headaches, indigestion, anxiety and overwhelm – but it was also really fascinating to see each food type’s impact. I was finally able to mindfully choose what I was putting into my body, with an awareness of the potential impact of that choice.

I discovered that wheat made me feel bloated and sluggish, while corn, soy and processed foods often gave me headaches. Even a single decaf coffee could make me feel anxious again, while sugar would lead to a crash a few hours later – and usually, a short temper.

As I experienced all of these things (including my own many imperfections and grumpiness…!), I kept coming back to being kind to myself. Sometimes that meant forgiving myself for a bad choice – or letting myself rest, reducing my expectations and taking more things off my list.

At other times, it meant encouraging myself to tackle a project that would feel good when it was done, or heading outside for some exercise to help shift my energy even when I really didn’t feel like it. I motivated myself by reminding myself of all the reasons I deserved and needed a break, and why that activity would make me feel better.

About a month in, I started to really feel the benefits of mindfully listening to my body, and continuing to avoid or limit those triggering foods. Even though the world was scary, and life had become much more stressful in many ways, I realised I hadn’t had a big emotional crash in a while – I felt steadier and more in tune with my needs than before. Lockdown meant less time in the sea than usual, but my arthritis wasn’t causing me much pain. I had more energy to do PE with Joe with the kids.

As a family, we even started to host a Saturday morning disco in our front garden to entertain our neighbours, dressing up in all the colours of the rainbow, and connecting by zoom with friends all over the world to dance together. That fulfilled my need for connection, laughter and exercise, and was definite proof that I had more energy!

One year on

Mindfulness and self compassion helped me to get started, and were brilliant tools to encourage myself forward in a way that felt positive and doable. They helped me to notice that something needed to change, and to keep taking action, even when that was hard.

I suspect it also helped that I had such a significant motivation and desire to make this particular change. I was worried enough about my mental and physical health; and there were clear messages from my body that now was the time. I wonder if the fact that we were all already going through so many other dramatic changes in 2020 helped too. Lockdown meant a lack of ‘temptations’ like coffee shops and nights out. And when I was already in the thick of huge changes, why not go ahead and make one more?

While I’ve reintroduced some foods that I cut out during that first cleanse (like pulses, beans and corn), I’m still not drinking, and my diet has completely transformed. Despite all the challenges of 2020, my low mood and anxiety still haven’t returned to the levels they’d reached before I decided to try making this change.

Mostly I now avoid dairy, wheat, caffeine, alcohol and sugar entirely. I eat less processed foods and a lot more green leafy veg. I’ve become slightly kale obsessed, (I’m currently wondering how I will survive the kale ‘hungry gap’ now that it’s about to go out of season…) and I eat more nuts than I ever thought possible. Those changes are all so much easier than they were in the beginning.

One excellent bit of news is that I’ve learnt that my body can manage a little bit of chocolate, so every couple of days, I’ll take a 15 minute break to have a single booja-booja truffle with a cup of rooibos tea, and to really mindfully appreciate that whole experience. And honestly, that compares pretty favourably to scoffing a whole rich chocolate mousse in a fancy restaurant – and feels like the most delicious way to be kind to myself.

What I’ve learnt about how to use mindfulness and self compassion to make healthy changes

Maybe most significantly, I learnt to see my desire to comfort eat – or to open a bottle of wine at the end of a hard day – differently.

These desires weren’t a call to stuff my face or drown my fears, they were a simple cue from my brain to check in with myself.

Instead of being the only possible solution to the problem – or a reason to criticise myself – those desires reminded me to listen to what I was feeling – and to find another way to make myself feel better. If, instead of acting on that desire, I simply witnessed my own suffering with compassion, took some deep breaths, and asked myself what else I really needed, I could move through it.

I’ve learnt the power of compassionately reflecting on a desire – whatever that may be – and asking whether that’s really going to bring me closer to what I need. I’ve also learnt the value of mindfully exploring what else might be going on underneath – identifying other kinds of hunger, and other ways to sate that.

There may be, there may not. But pausing to listen, and to ask the question, always takes us a step closer towards being able to treat ourselves with real kindness. And the more we do that, the more we develop our capacity to use mindfulness and self compassion to make healthy changes.

Best of all, since research proves that mindfulness and self compassion both have a positive impact on our physical and mental health, by pausing to be mindfully kind, we’re already on our way to better health…!

Big dietary changes like this aren’t for everyone, and of course there’s no one dietary approach that meets all of our needs. We’re all different, and we explore these things when we’re ready. I definitely won’t be judging anyone for their wine and cake intake!

But my experiences – changing my diet, giving up alcohol, starting wild swimming – have all taught me the value of coming into the present moment and asking the question – what do I really want and need? And how can I be kind to myself as I move towards that? And those questions are vital, whatever healthy change you want to make right now.

How can I help?

If you’d like some regular inspiration to be kinder to yourself as you make simple positive changes, you might appreciate our monthly subscription, A Year of Sea and Kindness, where I share regular encouragement, practical tools, and inspirational treats – along with lots of ocean inspiration.

The Sea Soul Blessings book and cards are also simple tools with which to practice mindful reflection and self compassion, inspired by nature. You can find out more about these over here.

And if you’re interested in one to one coaching, you can also find me over at Story of Mum.