Meghan Makena

What is your “puddle” that you have amnesia about?

You don’t need a gym to get strong and lean. I craft at-home, minimal-equipment progressive overload workout programs for clients that are just as challenging and satisfying as a gym equipment workout. Some of my favorite workouts are home workouts because of the privacy and ability to create a more natural, less over-stimulating environment. When our bodies are more relaxed, we can breathe fuller breaths and breathe increase our capacity because our bodies aren’t overloaded by the excessive sensory stimuli.

It really works you guys

I don’t know about you, but obsessing over tracking my steps kinda take the joy out of movement.

And movement is supposed to be joyful. Just look at kids and puppies.

I don’t care if you’re 4 or 44 or 74, play is our natural state, and when we reclaim a playful spirit, movement is inevitable. We no longer have to put it on our to do list. It gets seamlessly woven into our day:

😊 we chase after our kids at the park instead of scrolling our phone

😊 we play tug with our dog in the yard (hello bonus strength training !)

😊 we go for a walk at sunset because it’s gorgeous out instead of putting on a show

Getting in NEAT (non exercise activity thermogenesis) can be natural and fun! I never track my steps but on the occasional moment when I open my health app, it always shows 12k-20k daily consistently. It’s about how we live, and being available to experience joy through our body.

I picked up my puppy from nine weeks at obedience school. Six to eight hours a day of training. Discipline poured into her tiny body, day after day, by people who love dogs.

And when we reunited, full transparency, I was initially concerned that the training might dim her spirit. But if anything, she was more herself. More playful and affectionate than ever. And now she’s able to sit and walk by my side, calm, confident, and centered in herself.

Isn’t calm and confident what we are all wanting in our relationship with food?

That’s what discipline (the kind that doesn’t come from a critical, harsh, or extreme place) does.

I’ve seen at least 1,000 social media posts from coaches in my industry saying the same thing: you don’t need more discipline.

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

You absolutely need discipline. What you don’t need is the version of discipline that’s been sold to you. The kind that came from whatever current cleanse, diet, or supplement they’re trying to sell you. The kind that came from restriction, punishment, or trying to whip yourself into shape because you weren’t enough as you were. That kind of discipline disconnects you from your body, and it doesn’t work long-term, so of course you’ve come to believe you don’t need it.

But there’s a different kind of discipline. The kind that comes from love. The kind I gave my puppy by sending her to a place where she’d be cared for and trained, because I want a lifetime of relaxed adventures with her. I want her to feel safe in any environment. I want her to be able to come everywhere with me. That investment in discipline is going to pay us back in years of ease and play and trust.

That’s what I teach inside the Embodied Woman.

A different kind of discipline. A healthy relationship with structure that creates ease in your body. It’s this kind of discipline that allows you to live at peace with food, without the constant negotiation, self-hatred, and shame spirals.

When discipline comes from love, it creates ease, and the safety and containment that we all need. It gives you your confidence back.

If you want ease and peace with food that’s lasting,

Like most things, the shortcut ends up taking us longer in the end. Thoughts?

When we have anything going on with our body, whether that’s fatigue or an ache or a craving, we tend to skip over the very first step and head straight into problem solving mode. That first step is presence, attunement, slowing down, dropping in, refined listening.

And the irony of the wellness movement is that it tends to be modality-first. Whether the modality is a supplement, an acupuncture treatment, a juice cleanse, or a GLP….it tends to be where we go first. But when you become embodied, you learn that YOU are the medicine. Your deep, undistracted, warm, loving presence infused into your tissues. And when we stop making wellness hacks into saviors, they can be excellent supports but never take the place of living relationship and intimate connection at the foundation.