But first, let me introduce myself.
I’m Erin Williams.
I’m a self-love and wellness coach. I’m a writer and a daydreamer. I’m based in Sydney, Australia. And I’m equally addicted to tea, coffee and salted chocolate.
I spent years trying to change myself. Trying to be someone I wasn’t. I wanted to weigh less, wear size 8 jeans and have skin fit for a Covergirl commercial.
But that just wasn’t me.
My hair’s always frizzy, my eyebrows cannot be tamed, I’ve got cellulite and acne scars.
But you know what? I’ve learnt to love myself. One hundred percent. Even on those days when nothing in my wardrobe looks good.
I’ve said ‘screw it’ to trying to be perfect.
I’ve stopped obsessing about what I eat. I’ve thrown away the diet books and the detoxes.
And when it comes to healthy living, I now march along my own path. A path it took me over 25 years to find.
Let’s rewind & look at my journey into the world of wellness:
At 14 || I would come home from school and watch tv while eating a full sized chocolate bar and packet of chips. Otherwise my diet wasn’t too bad and I was super active. I didn’t yet know that my body was something I could hate.
At 16 || I don’t remember why, but I decided that I needed to lose weight. I tracked what I ate and my dependence on the scales begun. I lost too much weight, far too quickly, and was the thinnest I’ve ever been. I was also deeply unhappy.
At 17 || I could no longer keep up with the self-imposed restrictions. I would eat barely anything all day, then “lose control” and binge for hours each evening. The weight soon piled back on. I was still miserable.
Over the next few years, I continued to weigh myself daily. I continued to struggle with restricting and binging, and I would lose weight only to put it back on again. The self-hatred continued too.
At 21 || I travelled around Europe for 6 months and included a set of scales in my suitcase. Because, totally necessary, right? I told myself I did it to avoid gaining any holiday weight, but really I didn’t know how to trust myself without the scales.
At 22 || I found the world of blogs and devoured so many healthy living posts. I read vegetarian blogs. The veggie women I admired were skinny and pretty, so I stopped eating meat hoping that it would help me lose weight.
I then moved on to running blogs and added ‘running a marathon’ to my bucket list. Even though I hate, hate, hate running. Again, I hoped running would be the secret tool I needed to finally get to my goal weight. Then I moved on to blogs about Bikram yoga. Then juice cleanses. Then clean eating.
I tried every new health trend. Not to be healthy, but to try and lose weight.
At 25 || Put simply, I’d had enough. A trip to Nepal with no internet, no scales and no showers for 2 weeks inspired me to stop weighing myself every day. A few months later I jetsetted off to Turkey where I gleefully indulged in the local food (all without any sense of guilt) and learnt that food wasn’t simply a matter of good vs bad or clean vs dirty.
When I landed back on Australian soil I dived head first into self-help books and learnt all I could about self-love. It took time and effort but I slowly learnt to find my self-worth in things other than my weight and how “well” I ate.
At 27 || I walked 100km (yup, in one go) and learnt to truly appreciate everything my body is capable of. Shortly after that I fell pregnant. As my body bloomed, so too did the love I had for it.
And now, I’m a new mum and my body doesn’t quite look the way it once did. But I’m ok with that. Truly. I’m humbled by my ability to birth and grow a beautiful boy and I hope to show my body respect and love, every single day.
It didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen.
I fell head first in love with myself. And life now looks and feels completely different.
Learning to love yourself is possible. No matter how deep in the well of self-hatred you’ve fallen, you can pick yourself out.
I want to share what I’ve learnt about self-love, self-care and inner confidence. I want to change the be-all and end-all views you have on healthy living and eating. I want to help you ditch the stress and diet confusion.
You don’t have to lose those last 5 kilos. You don’t have to fit into your skinny jeans. You don’t have to have the perfect diet, the perfect job, the perfect partner, the perfect house, the perfect anything…
You can love yourself now.
You absolutely deserve it. You are completely worthy of self-love.
What’s next?
You can join the tribe (it’s free and fun here) and you’ll receive a sample of my much-loved ebook ‘Devoted’. In this mini-ebook I’ll guide you through 7 days of devoting to self-care.
If you want one-on-one guidance and support, you can drop me an email to find out more.
And if you still want more you can dive into some of my favourite posts:
Why I Stopped Eating Clean
Devoting to Self-Care
Why You Shouldn’t Feel Guilty For Eating Chocolate
Living with Ease
Create & Live Your Own Wellness
Will Meditation Fix My Life?
Gabrielle Bernstein – Making Miracles and the Spirit Junkie Way of Life
Professional Bio
Erin Williams is a self-love advocate, writer, vlogger, wellness coach and new mama. She’s equally addicted to coffee and self-care. Her words have been featured on MindBodyGreen, the Huffington Post and Tiny Buddha. She encourages women to fall in self-love, find their own style of wellness and devote to self-care.
Connect further with Erin on YouTube, Facebook or Instagram @erinwilliamsblog.
