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Hello and welcome to the Own Your Health podcast, I'm Cyndi Lynne, and I can't wait to help you step into your health power. Today we're going to talk about bullying, something that we often think of as a schoolyard phenomenon or something that happens at work, something that happens to other people.
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But I'm going to tell you right now, it happens a lot to people who are willing to own their own health, people who are taking steps to get healthier on their own. There's a tremendous amount of judging and bullying.
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And as always, it's a client, client story from today that I want to share with you and just check in with you and make sure that you're not experiencing the same thing and if you are, that you're equipped to deal with it. So I talked to a client of mine this morning, briefly asked her how things were going.
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I know she had a, very busy weekend, and we had worked on some strategies for her to feel better, to feel more in control when she was with her family. So this weekend she had family visiting. And I said, how did it go?
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And she said, well, my sleep wasn't very good because, you know, I didn't take my magnesium before I go to bed like I usually do. And then I, you know, I ended up not taking any of my supplements at all. And I said, why? What happened? I said, you get so busy, you just forgot, which can happen to anyone.
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And she said, no, I just didn't want my kids to see what I was taking because they just jump on me all the time about it. And I felt really bad for her because here is a person who is very much trying to own their own health, very much doing practices and educating herself on what she needs to feel her best.
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But she gets bullied by her kids. And she has shared with me, which you, know is ironic, that all three of her kids that give her a lot of flack for taking things like turmeric for her inflammation or omega 3s or magnesium to help her sleep at night and to calm down her restless legs, that all three of those kids are on numerous prescription medications and that's okay for them, but they can't seem to get past her not going to the doctor for any of these things that we talk about in terms of health coaching and her feeling her best.
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So she simply didn't take her stuff. And so this morning her knees were aching already and she said she didn't sleep well. And I said to her, what is it that you think is happening and she said, well, my kids are really concerned about the safety of what I'm taking.
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I said, really? And I, said, you aren't taking anything even remotely controversial, and you aren't taking doses that are even remotely controversial. I mean, this is very, very basic stuff.
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I said, are you sure that they're worried about your safety, or are they just threatened because they don't have the desire, the knowledge, the confidence to work on their own health? They're willing to give it over to the rule of a physician, and they feel threatened because you're not, because you're taking ownership.
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And she thought about it for a little while, and she said, I'd hate to think that my kids would be feeling that way. And I said, well, what else do you think it could be? And we talked about it at length, and I shared with her some very similar situations, that I've been through, where I've sat down, I take.
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Excuse me, I take my supplements with food, typically. And so if I'm with somebody while I'm eating lunch or eating dinner, I pull up my little packet of pills and I take them. And there's two different kinds of people, actually, probably three.
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The first pay absolutely no attention. Maybe they have some medication they take themselves. The second open their eyes in aghast and ask, oh, my gosh, how many pills do you take?
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What do all those do? Are you sure that's safe? And just can't quite manage that. They don't know where in their brain to put someone who's managing their health actively.
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And then there's the third kind of person, the one who's genuinely curious, the one who says, oh, I keep wanting to take my vitamins and I forget them at home, or I don't get around to it, or I just haven't been able to make a habit out of it. I travel a lot and I'm away.
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And I think it's cool that you just sit here and take your vitamins out and eat them with your lunch. So you can ask yourself what kind of person you want to be of those three, what kind of person maybe you've been in the past, before you started to take control of your health, before you started to own your health, and then think about the motivations other people have for bullying, for sabotaging you.
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This is very, very common with people who are trying to lose weight as part of their health journey. The people around them like the same old habits. They like to have someone who eats unhealthily with them.
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They don't like it pointed out, when someone's making a positive change and they're either feeling left behind or they're feeling that the bad choices they're making are highlighted by comparison.
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And it took some time, but this client really came around and she started finding some other examples, some other times where her kids really haven't been accepting of changes she's wanted to make in her life, in her health. Right.
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They trust their doctors implicitly and that's absolutely their decision. And, as much as my client would like them to start owning their health a little bit more, maybe start making some positive changes of their own, even though when they're together for weekends, she cooks healthier meals, they still bring the junk.
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And you know what, they're adults and that's the choice they can make. But I think it helped my client a lot to feel strong in her convictions, to feel strong in owning her own health when she realized that the motivations others have, the times that others bully, is because of their insecurities, because of their not being sure.
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And I think it felt, it made her feel a lot more confident. It made her feel more like pressing forward with her changes. Because we all know you can't change anyone but yourself when you're in family or group situations.
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The most you can do is set a really good example for owning your health and moving forward on your health journey. So I encourage you, if you're being bullied at all, for the fantastic changes you're making, think about where it's coming from.
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And if you want some help sorting through that, I'm here for you. Pack up your supplements, take what you need to take, live the way that you want to live to really own your health and don't let anyone else's hang ups hold you back.
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So I'd love to talk to you about this. Go ahead and reach out. There's links below in the show notes. And until next week, let's go out and own it.
