In this episode, I speak with Hannah Husband, who started her career as a personal trainer. In the process of interviewing dozens of clients, she found that every single woman had the goal of losing weight. It didn’t matter if she was a size 0 or a size 20, there was this shared idea that the smallest body was the best body. Hannah decided to make it her mission to investigate what it meant to help her clients liberate their bodies— to move in the ways that felt good, to give attention to a body part that was asking for care, and to gain strength rather than only lose weight.

In Oakland, California, Hannah opened her studio, The Fitness Alchemists. Hannah was renting space from a Cross-Fit gym, which ceased to work when she realized she was giving 150% with a 45% efficacy for her clients. It was clear that the work Hannah was doing could not survive in its current environment. Even though Hannah felt like she was running on empty, she opened her own studio space. But then Covid hit, and Hannah surrendered. Her body said it was time to stop.

Hannah and her partner agreed that they could afford 1 month of Hannah allowing herself to be still, to exist with purposeful nothingness and allow for her body and her soul to heal. Becoming an “empty vessel” let Hannah decide what she wanted to place back into her body and what was vital to let go of. She says, “Just let the things go that aren't for you. Let the effort that you’ve been pouring yourself into that isn’t serving you go. Let it go up in flames and then you have that beautiful clean slate.”

Some highlights in this Episode from Hannah:

"There was this universal, "I should probably lose x pounds", or "I should probably slim down this part." And something in my brain was like, wait a minute, even people who look like the standard still feel like this. Maybe the system is rigged, like maybe we're all being sold a bad deal here. And I realized that there's no arriving."

"And there's righteous anger, which is generally something that was not allowed for me and my family of origin, but we need that actually. It's a really cleansing force in our beings."

"I call myself a recovering perfectionist. So there's this drive to get it right. I don't feel like I'm doing enough unless I'm working hard. There was a connection between effort and worthiness."

Don't Miss a Beat.
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Reach out to Hannah Husband, on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/hannahhusband/
Reach out to Hannah, via her Website:
http://www.hannahhusband.com/

Original Music for Let Perfect Burn by Eleri Ward
https://www.instagram.com/eleriward/