I’m so delighted to introduce the new toolkit from ROOTED LIVING Founder, Pandora Paloma, Intuitive Living Coach, specialising in Intuitive eating & Living, Body Neutrality and Female Empowerment. I first met Pandora at a beautiful women’s circle event held by fertility and women’s health expert Emma Cannon at her Chelsea clinic. I love her energy and it’s been so amazing to see her star in the ascendant, with the growth of her business and launch of her book in May this year.
Tell me about yourself! Tell me more about your Rooted Living, how you came to do what you do
ROOTED was born with the philosophy: Listen to Your Body, Feed your Soul. I originally trained in Nutrition with a keen passion for Intuitive Eating after reading the original book when I had trouble with my own eating behaviours. I wanted to offer a platform that broke free from the noise of ‘wellness’ and instead a place where creating a positive mindset came before trends. I promote body positivity and neutrality, self-care and intuitive eating and living. I’d worked in the wellness industry as a PR before I re-trained and I felt whilst there are lots of great messages, there were also a lot of fads. When I started my nutrition practice I realised even more than the emotional connection to food was impacting how my clients ate. I really wanted to focus on how women were living – or not living – and how this impacted how they ate. I wanted to encourage them to seek a deeper mind and body connection and connect them to the GPS of their inner wisdom. I truly believe when we transform how we are living and feel more empowered and purposeful in what we do in life, our relationship with food transforms. I know this first hand and through the many women I work with all over the world. THIS IS #ROOTEDLIVING
I love your focus on intuitive eating, encouraging women to become more aware of their body and needs in a truly nourishing way, Tell me more about that.
What we eat is just a tiny part of ‘health’. Intuitive Eating is a non-diet diet, that allows us to become experts of ourselves. It sounds easy but with the modern world adding layers and layers of stress and imbalance, our intuition is fighting its way through the noise. Intuitive Eating rejects any diet mentalities you may be living with, for example restricting entire food groups because you think they make you fat, or having a strict set of rules around what you eat. Intuitive eating helps you make peace with food and really start to tune in to your own hunger and honour it. It takes away deprivation and negative thinking around food, as well as the endless control pattern we often find ourselves in. As soon as we start eating intuitively we free up that energy and time spent on food, and start bringing it into other areas of our lives. We learn to listen to what our body needs and feed it correctly. We learn to feel satisfied.
What are your personal mental health tools in your own toolkit? Have they changed much since becoming a mum?
Meditation and breathing are my go-tos. They take the least time and have the biggest impact. I meditate (Vedic Meditation) most days for 20 minutes. I also invest time in some visualisation work twice a week – it’s how I expand and attract what I’m manifesting. Last year my yoga practice (I used to teach!) took a tumble but of course, I gave birth and meditation felt like it had more impact. But now I have a childminder 3 days a week I use those days, along with nap time where I can, to get on the mat. I’ve noticed a difference in how connected I feel to my body and my flexibility and strength already and it’s only the start of February.
How do you balance work, mumming and life? Don’t hold back on this one!
Ok, in all honesty, I found the transition in being a mum really wonderful. It challenged me in ways that I really enjoyed and because I had a book to write, it meant I was forced to be really smart with my time. Of course, 3 months in when my daughter started a day a week at the childminder I thought, am I bad mother and I cried. But it passed. It always does. I work 3 days a week and in nap times on the other two days. Occasionally I pick up work on the weekend but I try to avoid that. I truly believe that by keeping that part of me, aka Pandora ROOTED, it has made me feel like a better mum. I didn’t want to try and do both every day and not feel like I was being fully present with either job. I created boundaries and it works for us as a family. The biggest challenge for me was the way it changed my relationship with my husband. Things like money worries (if you work for yourself, you’ll get this!) really had more of an impact than the new child bit. The government gave me what is essentially 3 months’ worth of what I need to live – but that was meant to last 9 months. Thankfully I saved enough to get me by. Like with everything you have to communicate and be honest, and set the boundaries that you need as a family unit. I don’t think we’ll ever have balance as a working mum but we can only do our best.
Pandora’s book Intuitive Living is available now
