The health and wellbeing industry is full of some pretty amazing people and we're excited to have had the opportunity to chat with the lovely Anna Squelch for our 'Talking Straight' series.
Anna is an NZ based certified holistic health coach at Conscious World Wellness helping women show up authentically in all areas of their life - health, business, love, friendships, finances, spiritually, mindset and femininity. Anna empowers women to develop radical authenticity, radical self-love and radical wholeness within themselves with a no-fluff approach to personal development. Here's Anna.
SUPR: What does your morning routine look like?
AS: I've recently moved in with my boyfriend who lives right next to Mt Maunganui (3 hours from my hometown of Auckland) so I'm waking up between 5-5:30 am, walking around the Mount with the sunrise and then jumping in the ocean. Some days I'll meditate or do breathwork but I'm fairly unrigid about it. I have a cacao elixir almost every morning which I make with oat milk, raw cacao powder, collagen powder, tocos, cinnamon and a couple of drops of stevia. Once I've had that I'm good to go.
SUPR: What does ‘health’ mean to you?
AS: For me, it means total wellbeing. As a holistic health coach, I look at 'health' as a sum of greater parts - emotions, relationships, finances, career, purpose, spirituality and joy. Everything touches everything. It would be remiss to only look at food, exercise and (absence of) disease as the full picture of health. I hate the word 'balance' but I subscribe to reaching homeostasis in each of these areas as my personal definition of health.
SUPR: What are five things you’ll always have in your fridge / pantry?
AS: Ghee. Organic eggs. Raw cacao. Oat milk. Collagen protein.
SUPR: What’s your favourite form of movement?
AS: Reformer Pilates. It changes my body so quickly. I love feeling strong.
SUPR: If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
AS: New Zealand. Right now, Mt Maunganui, although Auckland is 'home'. I've lived in Gold Coast, Sydney and London, and I've travelled a lot, but at this point in my life - nothing beats home and having my friends and family nearby.
SUPR: What is one fun fact most people wouldn’t know about you?
AS: I can be quite socially awkward. It's something I've really had to work on.
SUPR: Why is it important to you to be Straight Up and authentic? Have you ever struggled in the past with being your true self?
AS: I've built a brand around being authentic and educating women on how to do the same. In fact, one of the modules in my online mastermind program is 'radical authenticity'. I'd picked up that one of the things my clients were struggling with the most was being wholly accepting and authentic of who they really were at their core--without the masks, without the people-pleasing, without pandering to parental or societal expectations. I think the Instagram culture has a lot to answer for when it comes to encouraging women to be anything but themselves. We've lost a sense of what that actually means. I spent 7 years of my life working in a corporate career, that I was really good at, but it wasn't what was in alignment with my true self. At the end of 2017, I completely burnt out, left that job, overhauled my life and started my coaching business. Now, authenticity comes so easily to me.
SUPR: The health industry isn’t perfect. If you had the power to change one thing about it, what would it be and why?
AS: The education and messaging around gym culture and high-intensity exercise for women. I recently spoke out about it at an event and I got a bit of backlash (from gym employees, no less). Some people aren't ready to hear that all of the hard work they've put into their HIIT workouts and WOD's is actually damaging their hormones, not to mention their relationship with their own bodies. Women weren't designed to work out like men--our physiological structure is completely different. It's a polarising convo for sure.
You can follow Georiga on Instagram at @annasquelch
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