How do you want to be remembered? How do you like living your life in self-awareness, self-acceptance, freedom, and self-love?
When you are just obsessing about being thin and all you think about is getting that perfect body, that surely is not a good touchpoint to live a meaningful and enjoyable life. When you exist each day and are restricted from the rules you place around yourself and your food, then you can’t place your energy on something else that will allow you to have a significant contribution to other people. Happiness is never being hard on yourself. Permanent weight loss happens when there is a natural balance happening in your world because you get past putting morality on food and you allow openness to ride the waves of life.
Hanna Hermanson, by her admittance, is a lady who had a good life. She grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. She was Class President, she dated a football jock, got into a good college, did well there, got the cubicle job for retirement. She had a Toyota Corolla. She was doing all the right things and yet was empty inside. She never took a minute to think about who she wanted to be or what she wanted to achieve or where she was trying to go. She enrolled in a fitness regimen, she liked what it has done to her body but still, something was missing. As she would tell, it was always because she didn’t have a purpose. She thought to chase the scale, or the finish line or the number of calories on her fitness app was her only goal every day or every month. She didn’t have anything bigger to work towards.
In this episode, Hanna shares with us her journey of opening herself to the world and setting aside the thought that life is all about her and her daily routine. She imparts to us the many lessons she’s learned about food and the struggles that go with it. Not to be discounted are the tools that help her deal with occasional, what she termed as ED or eating disorder. Added to that are her travel stories, the things she did outside of her comfort zone, serving other people in other countries, starting a business, and other amazing life lessons she’s gained along her journey towards self-awareness and self-love.
“I want to come back to this idea that moving through this work and learning these things, it’s really about self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self-love so that I’m strong enough in my choices around food, but everything else, the noise outside matters so much less.”
– Hanna Hermanson
What you will learn from this episode:
- A backstory of her teenage years and starting a fitness regimen
- How do you want to be remembered?
- Openness to experience the world and not just obsessing in her world of being skinny
- Dreamlife is real life
- Food being your greatest teacher
- Befriending the voices inside your head
- Yoga – understanding what your body is for
- Nurturing a happy relationship with food and permitting yourself to enjoy it
- Overcoming that fear of food and taking out morality in food
- The power of self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self-love
- The challenge of other people’s judgment
- Self-esteem and Success
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