Genevieve Mackenzie

What is getting in your way of where you want to be? Procrastination? Fear of commitment? Indecision?

Together we will work to establish an awareness of these patterns. I will lead you through an exercise to help you overcome these habits and begin taking steps toward what you actually want.

The session takes 45-60 minutes depending on your pace.

It's not all love all the time when it comes to my relationship with myself and my body and that’s okay. I now sort of giggle at myself for thinking I would reach this peak where I would suddenly stop having negative thoughts and doubting myself.

Fuck self-love.

No offense, but it’s not real. I appreciate and accept my body, but it is not some perfect blissed-out relationship. We have a long complicated history, and to expect perfection with a past like ours isn't realistic.

Our brain works in patterns. I like to think of them as streams of water. The water flows down the stream with the least resistance. I had 22 years of hard self-dislike. Those streams are deep. Of course, the water is going to flow down them sometimes and that is okay!

I have carved out new streams that include much more acceptance, which is where the water flows most of the time now, but it's not perfect and it's not supposed to be.

We will never reach a space in time where we stop having negative thoughts. The goal is not to eliminate negative thinking. The goal is to get to a place where you don’t believe the negative thoughts as deeply. A place where you can see it for what it is; a pattern.

Not believing your negative thoughts helps take their power away.

My brain will tell me my thighs are too big because of things she has been taught to believe about her body. It is not because my thighs are actually too big, and I don’t actually believe there is a “small enough” size for thighs.

The big difference is that I no longer feel like I have to do something about my negative thoughts. They don’t have control over me. Whereas before my brain would start running through all the spaces I could cut carbs to make my thighs smaller.

We don't just choose to be confident, and I would go as far as to guess that those who repost the “be confident” memes don't have very sustainable confidence.

My self-value has no stipulations. My value is the same no matter what this body looks like. I have the same value when I am lean and in really good shape versus when I am bloated after a weekend with friends.

I have just as much value when I am sobbing over a boy that doesn’t like me as I do when I am guiding women to build self-esteem.

It doesn’t need to be love. It just needs to be like.

I am always trying, and I really like that about myself.

So you want to be a super hot athletic chick. I don’t blame you, it’s pretty dope being one. Let’s begin with the super hot part. We can cultivate this in one simple step.

Decide to be hot.

Did you do it??? Did you decide?

HOW COOL – you are now officially hot to the only person that matters, YOU.

When writing this post, I was thinking to myself about my personal journey of becoming hot. And how truly one day I said: “fuck it”. If I think I’m hot, then I’m hot. The only thing stopping me from being hot, is me deciding to be hot.

‘Hot’ doesn’t have a size, a weight, or a look. And there is no ‘hot’ stamp coming for you after you lose that extra 10 pounds. So give that stamp to yourself now! That’s what I did, and it worked! Literally, everyone in this room right now thinks I’m hot (my two cats and me).

So what is preventing you from being hot?

Now that we’re hot, let’s get into the athletic part. The first rule of being a super hot athletic chick is to honor our body. You can not hate your body into a shape you love, but you can love it into a place of peace.

The thing is, extra stomach fat is not what is keeping you from being happy. What is keeping you from being happy is your relationship to it, resistance to it, and the stories you tell yourself about it.

I could not tell you how many times my mind tells me, “no one else has as much stomach fat as you”. She will tell me I am less than because I have some extra jelly. The thing is, my mind can do what she wants. She is an independent bitch, and has shown me many times over that I cannot control her thoughts.

Luckily, I don’t need to control her, I just need to recognize that she lies to me sometimes.

That is where I begin to prod her. Where do I get the evidence that I have more tummy fat than any other girl? Instagram? Come on brain, you’re not even trying!! We KNOW social media is not real.

Recognize the stories your brain tells you about how your body “should” be. Challenge that story like I just did there.

Challenge it again, and again, and again, and again, until your brain gets so bored that it just stops bringing around that same old story.

What is your reasoning for wanting to be more fit? Does that motivation come from a place of love, or a place of not being good enough?

We often have this belief that we need self-hate and discontent to motivate us. If I love my body as it is, I will lose control and not reach my goals.

The thing is, you’ve never had control. You just have anxiety pretending to be control.

I resisted accepting my body because I feared if I did that, I would lose motivation. If I didn’t have this inner driver of not being good enough propelling me, then what would??

It turns out, love for myself and my body are actually pretty good motivators.

When we are motivating ourselves from a place of self-hate, nothing will ever be good enough. So even when you lose that belly flab, all of the sudden your quads aren’t quite toned enough. Tone your quads, now your arm is looking a little flabby.

If we come at it from a place of love, all of a sudden we can finally feel like we are doing enough, and we don’t need to have 0% arm fat to feel accomplished.

Honoring your body into health and fitness may make the process slower, but it is not meant to be fast. It is meant to be sustainable.

You have your whole life to work out. If you’re feeling really tired today, take the day off. You will get back at it tomorrow.

Here are some workout tips to motivate you from a place of love:

Find a why that has nothing to do with your appearance. Do you like the energy it gives you? Does it help you sleep better? Do you like being able to eat guilt-free?

Remind yourself, working out is typically not as miserable as we make it in our heads. Tell yourself you’ll start a workout video for 5 minutes. If it’s miserable after 5 minutes, you can turn it off. Chances are you’ll finish it.

Remind yourself, being tired does not equal death. You can do it tired, and that’s okay.

When I’m at a point in my workout that feels hard, I will repeat in my head, “this is hard, but I can do hard things”.

Remind yourself, working out today will make tomorrow’s work out a little easier.

Use thank you strides! When my run starts feeling difficult, I turn off my music and I say “Thank” then “You” with every step. I am typically giving gratitude for the fact I am lucky enough to have the time, space, and ability to workout.

Finally, this one is so powerful to me. When a workout starts to feel uncomfortable, our reaction is often to numb out and disconnect from our body. Take the time to intentionally drop back into your body. Your brain’s intention with the numbing is to stop the pain, but dropping into our body actually lessens the discomfort. It keeps us connected and helps keep your form to avoid injury.

Three years ago I moved to the city of Chicago without knowing anyone at all and single. I told myself when I moved there I would say yes to any date as long as they didn’t give me creep vibes. My intention wasn’t as much to find a relationship but to learn about myself and other people.

I absolutely love meeting new people, and dates were such a fun way to do that. If I actually liked the guy, I would let him pay. If I knew I wasn’t interested, I would ask to split. That way I wasn’t carrying the guilt of feeling like I was using people.

And If I wasn’t sure? I would just flow with it. I think a lot of us have a fear of using people when we’re single. As long as you are not intentionally using or deceiving, you TRULY do not have to worry about that. You are allowed to explore. You are SUPPOSED to explore.

But this isn’t a post about the surplus of weird situations this got me into, this is a post about how to cultivate confidence for yourself when you’re dating, or even just meeting new people.

Flip through the hot gym girls on IG and they will tell you their best first date tip is to go in with confidence. But like, how the fuck?

That is like writing someone a prescription and not telling them where the pharmacy is. You can’t do anything with it if you don’t know how to get there. If we could just choose to be confident, don’t you think you would be confident by now??

Confidence is far more complex than simply choosing it, and unwavering confidence takes time to cultivate. BUT there are some simple mindset tricks we can use to kind of fake it till we make it. An “act as if it were already true” kind of thing.

My first tip is to get out of that scarcity mindset. Going into a date with the mindset “this is the only chance I have to have a partner” is a lot of pressure! You’re going to be nervous with the weight of your entire love life on your shoulders.

So flip it. Before a date, I will literally picture the number of attractive people that are all around me. That apartment building down the street? Statistically, there have to be at least a few hot people (math G??). Multiply that by every apartment building in my area? That’s quite a few attractive people (more math G????).

Remind yourself that it literally doesn’t matter if this one works out or not. If it doesn’t there are SO many other people out there. The chances of you never finding someone ever again aren’t very realistic. Keep that anxiety in check.

Don’t be so worried if the person across from you will like you, rather, is the person across from you even good enough for you? In my early 20’s there were so many men I clung to that I would have been embarrassed to bring around my friends. Where is my self-value in that?

My second tip is to trick them into thinking you’re a boss bitch by acting like you’re a boss bitch. The person you are meeting is a stranger to you just as much as you are to them. You could be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, they don’t know. So trick them. Come in with the energy that you are the baddest thing they have ever been on a date with, and they will believe you.

They don’t know any better. When you carry the energy of “I take nothing but the best” these strangers are going to believe you. Then all of a sudden the person across from you is the one who is nervous and awkward 😉

I tap into this energy by thinking about the things I have to offer that not everyone else does. I am rather proud of my maturity and emotional stability. So I lean into that before my dates. I tell myself “this person would be LUCKY to have someone as mature and stable as me”. This helps to flip the “am I good enough for them?” to “are they good enough for me?”

Third and final tip……..trust the process. There is nothing we can do to affect the timeline of when our soulmate, or the person we are meant to be with, will come into our lives so don’t take it so seriously. Approach it with some curiosity and playfulness.

Know that clinging to the best thing you can find right now is not the same as getting what you deserve. Forcing it, and ignoring red flags can only last so long. Red flags, in the beginning, are just going to be the same things that eventually lead to your break up.

I literally practiced these things before going on a date. Like I would literally write out a list of where I thought a lot of attractive people would be around me before I would order my Uber. The great thing about mindset practices is that they eventually stick. I don’t need to do them so intentionally now, they come a bit more naturally.

Psychologists agree, our thoughts control our actions. But what if we were able to observe and interact with our thoughts so we could then control them?

You may not be an ‘emotional person’ but, you still do have emotions, and those emotions affect the way you think, react, and make choices. If you don’t have awareness of your emotions, then they are in control.

By creating a relationship with our emotions, and interacting with them, we can then become the loving controller of our entire life.

We no longer allow fear to stop us, we no longer allow doubt to persuade us. Instead we interact with, and listen to our emotions, but we don’t allow them to take the wheel.

I like to think of myself in a little jeep, and I have all my emotions in there with me. Before I had awareness of my emotions, it was loud, the radio was blasting, and all of my emotions were begging for my attention, and trying to grab the wheel.

With awareness, I am in a much calmer car, all the emotions are still there, but they are sitting peacefully in their seats while I drive. They still get fussy, but I am able to see and understand them. I give them what they need, and they are no longer able to take the wheel from me.

What are areas in your life you want to be different or improve, but you just haven’t? Whether you recognize it or not, there are emotions there that are blocking you.

Our brain only wants us to feel safe, and our brain will sabotage every single last one of our dreams if it means he gets to stay in his comfort zone.

If we aren’t able to witness the brain doing this, we fall victim to it. If we aren’t questioning his actions, that means we are taking them as fact. Most of the time it is not fact at all, it is fear.

Having awareness of your emotions does mean you feel more emotions. But I absolutely believe that is a blessing. Because I am so attuned to my emotions do I feel sadness more than the average person? Yes, but because I am so attuned to my emotions, I also feel joy and happiness far more than the average person.

So while I feel negative emotions more easily, they actually affect me and control me far less.

I like to think of an emotional comfort zone. Sadness doesn’t feel so scary or intimidating anymore because I’ve been able to welcome it, and figure out what it’s all about. I have taken the time to learn about my own sadness.

If being in control of your own life isn’t enough to sell you on formulating a relationship with your emotions, I can also attest to the more physical benefits as well.

My skin is clearer, I get sick far less often, I have more energy, and my body has become far more resilient.