Switch Off and Find Calm, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 11 Setting up for success

Through my work as a mentor I have met many very intelligent, capable and resourceful people who for one reason or another were so overconnected, overwhelmed and overstimulated that it was getting in the way of their health. I have always found common threads in my clients’ stories: they all know what to do; they just need someone to remind them how to do it. Leanne was one of them.

A single woman in her late twenties, Leanne came to me looking for help to break through some of the barriers that were keeping her from switching off. She was sick of feeling tired and flat, lacking ‘get up and go’. She described to me what would typically happen to her each time she found the motivation to start a new ‘health kick’, as she called it.

Over the weekend she would decide that on Monday morning (it was always a Monday morning) she would focus on her health again. Her plan was to get up at six every morning to exercise — no program, she’d just do what she felt like doing. She always intended to eat better, give up takeaway food and prepare healthy snacks rather than buying her lunches. She was a bit of a night owl and knew she had to turn in earlier, so she resolved to be in bed by nine o’clock. She imagined reading a book for a while before falling into a deep sleep, then waking up refreshed and eager for her six o’clock exercise session.

It rarely worked out that way, she confessed. She shared with me her most recent attempt to reduce her work ...