Your identity emerges out of your habits.

You are not born with your current beliefs.

I never looked after myself before cancer and thought I needed to do everything to everybody else because that is what I saw my mum doing.

This is not a blaming exercise by the way.

But it took me some serious rewiring of my behavioural patterns to change this habit. 

“What do you mean Angelica?” That inner voice would say to me.

“Are you going to say “no” to playing with your child when you are tired?”

I am not claiming to be perfect here at all by the way.

But learning to say no to playing with my children on my free time was hard for me.

“What do you mean you are not going to put the washing away Angelica?”

“You still have a bit of energy left?” – that inner voice would say to me.

Saying no to ‘everything” I “could” do every day instead of squeezing that last bit of energy I had for the sake of

“keeping on top of everything” was a hard habit to change.

I believe my worth was attached to what I did not who I was.

I developed this incessant habit of doing more and being always busy because deep down I didn’t think I was worthy

This belief came from being raised in chauvinist society and in a chauvinist house.

This belief was created by myself as a coping mechanism to “fight” against an imaginary “fight” that only existed in my head.

So when I was old enough

I drank alcohol to numb my feelings until drinking become a habit.

I didn’t connect the dots at the time and thought I would be ok…

In my 20s I thought I was invincible.

I kept practicing harmful habits

👉🏽Binge drinking

👉🏽Cheating my eating habits

👉🏽Sleeping when I could

👉🏽Working myself to the ground

👉🏽Being stressed all the time

It wasn’t until in my 30s and cancer that I thought

I needed to change my habits because I no longer want to be identify with these harmful habits

These habits had a hold on me and it drove me almost to the ground

Literally

Changing your habits is a journey to changing how you feel about yourself

About the world around you

Changing your habits is about changing your perspective on things

Changing your habits is a lot more than eating more vegetables and exercising.

When you change your habits, you start changing who you are.

Little by little is no longer hard to reach out to healthy food because you developed a habit of liking yourself.

Maybe you can even develop a habit of loving yourself for real.

Before you know exercising everyday is no longer a chore,

It is what you do because choosing you first is just your new habit

Cooking from scratch is not hard but an opportunity for you to zoom out and do something mindfulness in your day. 

When people talk about rewiring your brain

Creating new patterns 

It is very powerful but it only happens when you actual practice something different with your body and mind

When you actually do something different.

You can’t loose weight consistently and for good if you have never connected to your body, 

You can’t loose weight and create health if you have never build a relationship with your body

By connecting to how you feel when you eat

When you drink water

When you have a good night sleep.

It is about practicing different habits and feeling into it.

Once you start doing that, you start creating a new identity.

Change your habits to change your identity.

Never underestimate the power of what you do, eat, think, feel every single day.

It is creating your future self now.

If you look at the habits you practiced today,

are they the habits of the person you want to be tomorrow?