Health and wellness have become a large focus in recent years. And when it comes to addressing the health and wellness of women in business, Brigit Hegarty has been ahead of the curve.
A thriving yoga teacher and a global online wellness coach, Brigit’s approach is holistic. Her brainchild, Two Tone Yoga, was founded to empower the lives of mothers and women entrepreneurs through yoga, nutrition and therapy techniques. Brigit, being a mother herself understands how women go through a myriad of responsibilities and pressures and juggle countless priorities in a day. Her programs were launched as a solution and sustainable support framework for this!
She recently explained, “Women are often perfectionists. This can be a driver but can also become counter productive and be anxiety inducing. The most challenging aspect of being a female entrepreneur and a mother is achieving a healthy work life /family life balance and wellness balance.”
Currently, her Online Programme ‘Burnout Buster’ addresses all these challenges to enhance strength, resilience and energy both physically and mentally for women entrepreneurs.
We were interviewing successful coaches, and we recently caught up with her as a part of this series.
1) Thank you so much for doing this with us! We’d love to know a little about your background. What inspired you to become a wellness coach?
Thank you for inviting me. It’s an honour to be asked. The coaching evolved naturally through my own life experiences and challenges to be honest. I am a motivated and hard working career woman myself but found through my career life, previously as a Set Designer in the fashion and advertising industry, that I didn’t have a work/life balance and suffered greatly with perfectionism, anxiety, insomnia and fatigue. These combinations of external work pressures, unresolved personal trauma and relentless ambition and family life took its toll and I became very ill. I had to stop working and rethink. As hard as it was, this transformational experience has enabled me to evaluate what is important in life, how to actually heal (even within stressful environments), to recover and actually thrive. I’m now armed with an amazing tool box of skills that I teach to my clients and create big changes for these women and their families.
2) How would you define “wellness” for women entrepreneurs?
That is a great question. Women these days are faced with insurmountable pressures but it’s all just ‘normal’ everyday life. We are living in an age where we go to work and assume a very masculine energy to get the job done, and as an entrepreneur or business woman usually working under relatively high pressure. Whilst residing in this masculine energy a large part of our lives, which helps drive the success, the feminine more nurturing energy is being suppressed. We may be a partner, a mother, a sister, a daughter or granddaughter. With these roles we pull on the feminine energy often quite naturally and care for others. We often run the household, do the shopping, the cooking and co-parenting. Pressures of life start to build. The body and mind is adaptable and will endure stress & anxiety for quite an extended period of time. But if all of these stressors are chronic and especially if layered on top of unresolved trauma there comes a breaking point and usually a disease or breakdown is the result. So I would describe wellness in the context of a female entrepreneur to be someone who has allowed herself to dig deeper, become aware of her vulnerabilities and compassionate self and enables that to be directed inward to support her own true power. Tapping into this self awareness and system of self knowledge will support expansion, abundance and performance in life.
3) Let’s talk about the role of nutrition. How does your signature therapy program align with nutritional aspects in building a quality life?
Nutrition is a major player in the healing process and hugely important to sustainable wellbeing. The gut and the brain are greatly connected and our happy chemicals reside there (serotonin). So what I see very often is women who are burnt out also have gut issues and IBS which in turn creates subsidiary problems in the body. Also 80% of our immune system is in our gut so we want to be fully supporting and repairing our health by putting a great focus on when, what and how we eat. It’s anatomical, biochemical, physical. Creating that understanding with the client is vital so they are then empowered with this knowledge and know how to take the steps to heal because it’s clear & simple.
4) You are a person of great influence. If you had to define your aims behind your coaching sessions, what would they be?
The coaching sessions are the keystones to transformation. Working live we unveil the negative mindsets or limiting beliefs, create the breakthroughs and get the ‘aha’ moments that facilitate the changes needed to move forward.
5) If you had a chance to change one thing in your industry, what would that be? How are you planning to make that change happen?
Honestly, it’s this. I am speaking as a citizen of the UK here but if this could become a global initiative then this would be life changing for all women, rich and poor. I feel every woman should get a grant to help her maintain her mental and physical wellbeing once becoming a mother and also working. So there is an emphasis on supporting health. Having a child is massive, it’s totally life changing and it’s hugely draining on a woman’s energy too. This is the support the mother needs to help protect her mental and physical wellbeing. This would teach her this aspect of her life is 100% vital and should be valued and is important. It would be an acknowledgement of the adaptability and strength of the female. It would also cut down the pressures on doctors and in hospitals. Really prevention rather than cure, tapping into ancient Chinese philosophies, but it really makes logical and financial sense.
6) What are some pieces of advice that you’d want to give to women entrepreneurs out there?
1) Acknowledge how you feel and take time to honour those emotions
2) Self worth is a process that is internal, not derived from external validation
3) Value a life coach as much as a pair of Prada shoes both can change your life and lift you up. But be warned, one of them may give you bunions!
