We’re super excited to introduce our guest, Helen Tovey, a body confidence coach in this month’s episode all about Confidence!
If you’ve ever thought of yourself as not a confident person or that you lack confidence in certain areas of your life, we think you’re going to love this episode because Helen drops some incredible tidbits throughout our chat.
Meet Helen
Helen Tovey specializes in body confidence coaching for people, mostly women, with visible differences. She has undergone life coach and NLP training to become a unique coach in this niche field. Helen noticed a lack of support for individuals, especially women, with physical disfigurements, which motivated her to become a confidence coach. She also offers body confidence coaching for size, shape and anything else that’s causing dissatisfaction or issues.
What we talk about
The importance of having a relationship with one’s body similar to that of a friend and nurturing it since we only get one. Internal dialogue and self-talk, and how critical this is to the process. Women and our systemic, generational conditioning to have body and confidence hang ups.
Helen’s journey from corporate world to confidence coaching, and her own experiences with scoliosis, writing her own story during coaching training, and how that helped her to find her niche in visible differences.
How to find a coach that’s right for you, and talking to your friends about it to see if they have recommendations.
There is no such thing as a confident person full stop. Confidence is about having faith or trust in something – and you might be confident at swimming in the sea, but not confident talking to a room full of people.
Helen Tovey
Seeing a confident person and asking yourself what is it that makes us think they’re confident? Confidence being related to being able to do something – more of a verb.
Confidence is innate and can absolutely be learned – and we’re so happy to hear this!
Different approaches to developing confidence – faking it till you make it, eavesdropping on your internal chatter, checking whether you’re being kind to yourself in your head. Starting to change that relationship and have more compassion for yourself. Focusing on things you do like about yourself, achievements and accomplishments and all the good things, which will help with the overall narrative and being kinder to ourselves.
Body confidence being a bit of a delicate subject – and being so subjective and personal, there’s no single common experience of it. It can be fragile – built up, then knocked down by a few words.
Fear and its physical effects, and how coaching can help with this. How fear and shame and embarrassment (or fear of shame and embarrassment) can have a physical hold over us and prevent us from progressing. Emotional pain can manifest quite dramatically as physical pain.
Remembering that you have a body attached to your head and not just living inside your head and your thoughts.
That our levels of confidence – body and otherwise – do shift and change as life goes on, and as life things happen.
Different types of confidence, and working with the whole person to develop and shift in all the areas that are concerning them. Belief changes and confidence.
Does confidence stay with you once you’ve found it and conquered a fear, or do you have to keep working on it? How coaching can give you tools and strategies to use throughout life when a situation is threatening to derail the confidence you’ve built up and worked on. Self awareness and how to harness this.
Stories of shifts from being terrified of somethin to actually loving it – we LOVE this because so often you hear people say they can do [the thing they were nervous about] but they still don’t like it.
The idea that you can build enough confidence in something – your body, your creative work, whatever it is you lack confidence in – to actively love it is a magical thing we would like to spread the word about!
Reassurance that finding a coach to help you with confidence can be a series of chats – it doesn’t have to be scary and they shouldn’t give you a hard sell. It’s important to find one that fits, and it’s ok to do several coaches’ free consultation calls to find the right one.
Increasing confidence in one area can have a huge impact on the whole of your life – it can make a massive difference. The coaching process is in many ways just the start – the magic happens in an ongoing way!
Not taking yourself or your body for granted – focusing more on what you can do rather than what you can’t.
Do men and women approach confidence differently, and do they have different struggles around it?
Another yay for accredited, qualified coaching – especially when it’s around such an important subject!
Internal vs external influences and factors on confidence (or lack of it). Working with you as an individual and your own reality and perception – because different people will have individual and different reactions to the same external prompt or trigger.
“Shoulds” as an indication of underlying beliefs that may need addressing. A reminder that just because your thoughts are telling you something, doesn’t mean that’s the truth.
Finding something you do feel confident about and sitting with that feeling and really experiencing what it feels like to be confident – letting that take over.
And then remembering and stepping into that feeling when you have a situation you’re nervous or anxious about – it can really help.
And finally
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you’re either a confident person or you’re not – confidence can be learned, and you can be confident in some areas and not others.
If you are struggling with confidence – body or otherwise – don’t be afraid to seek help. There are lots of options and resources and people out there who can help. Coaching may or may not be the right thing for you, but until you look for help, you won’t change anything. Make use of the free resources, the information and all the options out there – you don’t have to put up with struggling.
Get more Helen in your life
Find her at helentovey.co.uk
Connect on Linkedin, Facebook and Instagram
Get Helen’s free eight step body confidence workbook