Are you hearing a lot about AI? I am. It seems every other story in the online business has to do with new AI tools. Either how this new tool will revolutionize your business or how it’s the beginning of the end of free thought and creativity. No matter what camp you fall into, AI technology is here to stay and you might want to set some intentional professional boundaries around how or why or if you are going to use it.

As fitness professionals and coaches we watch for the latest information and do our best to curate and explain it to our clients and students. As consumers of that information it can be so confusing to try to understand what the latest science actually means for our day to day lives. For a topic as complex as chronic pain that becomes even more challenging. On the one hand it’s great to get new science, new understanding about the body and nervous system so we can make the best choices in care. On the other hand, what does that mean for what we knew before? Does it all go out the window? How do we integrate new understanding of pain care science in meaningful ways and share it when it comes to posture, alignment and movement therapy?

My friend Colleen Jorgensen reached out to me a few weeks ago with this question as a topic for the podcast. And I thought it was a really great idea. I love bringing clarity to topics like this and I always learn so much from Colleen.

She’s been on the podcast before. We have talked about chronic pain, the nervous system, pain care aware language and the importance of professional communication skills. She is an osteopath, yoga & pilates instructor and a teacher trainer with a specialty in Pain Care Aware language.

She’s the one I trust to help translate some of this new information. I’m so happy to have Colleen back on the podcast to talk more about this topic and I think in the course of the conversation you find new ways to evaluate other areas of health and wellness science.

Let’s start our work IN with Colleen Jorgensen

The real magic, the secret to any business success actually comes behind the scenes through the work you do on yourself to set the stage for your business. Without it you and your message can get lost in confusion and overwhelm.

There’s only one skill you need to master if you’re going to succeed in the fitness industry (or any industry really) and it has nothing to do with sets and reps, macros and calorie balance, alignment or movement modifications. You can be an expert in all those things but it means nothing if you can’t safely self regulate your nervous system. Wellness work is based on relationships. Physical, mental and emotional dysregulation is the fastest way to kill personal and professional relationships and guarantees burnout. 

For many of us establishing strong boundaries is an ongoing evolutionary process. I have heard so many clients, mostly women, and colleagues, again mostly women, complain about a lack of boundaries and how they struggle to stick to them. There’s definitely a lot to unpack there for women. We could blame the patriarchy, “good girl” syndrome, people pleasing, codependency, imposter syndrome…really any and all the cultural things out there. But I believe a big part of our problem setting boundaries is actually in our understanding of what a boundary is. And what it should do for us.

This year is all about being more intentional on the work IN when it comes to health and that includes making conscious decisions around how and what we eat. If you’re a fit pro or in wellness at all you’ve probably gotten a lot of questions about what to eat from clients. And it’s difficult to answer those questions and stay within your scope. For myself and many of my colleagues it’s even harder when you also struggle with disordered eating. But I think that’s a beautiful thing about the fitness industry when you can share your own experience (which is always within your scope) and bring your people the latest nutrition information so they can make intentional informed choices for themselves. My guest today is author and health advocate Lynne Bowman.

Lynne is living proof that you can cook, eat, sleep, laugh, and walk your way out of type 2 diabetes, along with other chronic ailments, and her latest book, “Brownies for Breakfast, A Cookbook for Diabetics and the People Who Love Them," is a cool, fun, beautiful, guidebook for anybody who wants to reverse chronic disease, and eat healthy: vegan, vegetarian, plant-based, pescatarian, gluten-free, sugar-free. Plus, because she's a grandma, expect all kinds of advice along with the recipes from her lifetime of experiences.