Honoring my Truth
By: Jaime Bosworth
Tags: Authenticity, Attract Your People, Be Who You Are, My Truth, Courage

I’ve written 3 or 4 blog posts out in the last couple weeks. Blogging is way harder than I expected it to be! But additionally, I’m finding myself nervous to publish them. I haven’t even finished editing them, because every time I start writing about a topic, I find myself talking about pretty deep, spiritual concepts and beliefs that I’m not sure will be understood by a lot of people who might be reading this. So I thought maybe I should start by clearing the air around the things I’ll be saying. This might be more for me than for you, but it’s something I feel I need to put out there.

First let me tell you about what I’m doing here. My training was from IIN, which is the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Their approach is holistic, meaning we take a look at the whole picture of you — not just one part, such as diet alone. There are two main concepts that they teach at IIN. The first is the concept of Primary and Secondary Foods. Primary foods are the things that make us whole — our fulfillment in all areas of our lives is taken into consideration. This includes your career, relationships, finances, and exercise, among others. Secondary foods are the foods you eat. These obviously play a role, but they’re not nearly as important to overall health as these other aspects of your life. This concept of food being secondary is also fascinating, because just about every ailment or complaint that we humans have about our physical bodies can be improved or cured by changing our diet!

The second concept is called bio-individuality. This just means that everyone is unique! There is absolutely no one way of doing things that will work for every human. This is especially true for diet, but it also applies to our belief system, the type of work we do and when, exercise preferences, etc. Honoring these differences is an important aspect of holistic health coaching.

Part of my training was getting clear on just who exactly I’m speaking to. I’m certainly not here to tell you what to believe or what works best for you, nor is this space going to be used to try to sway your opinion on anything spiritual, religious, dietary, or otherwise. But I do have strong spiritual beliefs myself, and those beliefs are going to come up often in my posts because I’ve found myself far more drawn to primary foods than secondary. So while health coaching as it’s more widely known has to do with getting your physical body healthier through diet and exercise, I also see myself taking things to a deeper level, which will include some personal development work, and spirituality just can’t be left out of that conversation. This doesn’t mean that every conversation with my clients will be heavy and deep — it just means that I’m not leaving it out if and when it comes up. Improved physical health will be an awesome outcome of that — but it won’t be the only one.

I also don’t believe that IIN is the end of my education. I see myself getting into life coaching, maybe even soul or spiritual coaching, energy work, or who knows what else is even out there that I haven’t discovered yet. What I do knows is that there are plenty of people out there telling you why you should eat more vegetables or exercise regularly. I’m not interested in regurgitating health information that you can google. I’m here to dive deeper with you to find the heart of the issue — and to discover how your health and your life can be improved as a result of that work.

Part of me has been so nervous to really put myself out there regarding my beliefs — I didn’t want to offend anyone, or scare you off. But what I’ve learned is that I’m looking for the people who are looking for me. I want to use authenticity to attract people who want to work with me. I want to be proud of what I believe in so that I can be an example for others to do the same. Some people will think I’m weird, that I’m too out there, that I’m too “woo-woo” for them. And if they think that, it’s probably true. I’ve come to the understanding that those are not my people. And it’s okay. There are plenty of people just waiting for me to be my true self so that they can have the courage to be theirs.