Building body confidence

I want to start the year with a poignant share dedicated to the clients I worked with in 2025.

All of last year I gently pushed them to step out of their comfort zones so that their light could shine brighter than ever.

And they all took on their respective challenges bravely, so it naturally falls on me to be transparent about how I live the principles I teach.

As a child, I experienced a lot of bodyshaming from the people around me, including family and friends.

Thanks in no small part to growing up in a culture messed up by colonialism and ideas around race, misogyny and internalised misogyny that all of us encounter as women, and because even the very women and girls who surround us in our homes, schools and playgrounds are capable of cruelty.

I myself was never conscious of what was wrong with my body until others pointed those things out.

So although I was lucky that their words didn’t cause me to hate or harm my body because it didn’t meet society’s ideals, I know that there must be some emotional scars that I hold from being treated this way.

Fast forward many years and I now live in a land with a communal sauna culture that highly places the health benefits of that practice over the discomfort around our bodies.

So when I heard the same cold bath house in a little town called Bjärred (at the end of the pier pictured above) mentioned to me twice in two weeks, I knew I had to brave a visit to that place as a key to rebuilding body confidence.

It turned out to be a wonderful first experience, and as always when you set a powerful intention to do something and follow through on it, many helpful people showed up at the right moment to guide and support me in my adventure.

When I was there I sensed the presence of a vulnerable child inside of me who was ready to lash out at anyone who so much as looked in my direction: the child who couldn’t speak out back then against the bullying, the teasing or the judgements.

But today she made a reappearance.

By putting myself out of my comfort zone I gave her a chance to find her inner strength: strength that she didn’t know she had or could use.

In choosing to take on this challenge, I could finally stand up for her in a way that no one did all those years ago.

So is my healing done with this experience? Probably not, because such things unravel in layers.

In any case from my experience I want my clients and all of you reading this to take away the courage to step out of your own comfort zones in 2026.

But to also recognise that sometimes you might manage to do it with the heroics of a knight in shining armour.

At other times you might be crawling on your knees, in a state of extreme tenderness and vulnerability.

It matters little how you do it, only that you do.

Happy new year!