401: This Book Was Written for You — Let’s Begin

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Courtney Townley 0:00
Welcome to the Grace and Grit podcast made for women who want their healthiest years to be ahead of them, not behind them. Join your host Courtney Townley right now as she breaks down the fairy tale health story you have been chasing all of your life into sensible action steps and lasting change.

Courtney Townley 0:29
Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Grace and Grit podcast.

Courtney Townley 0:31
Now, I don’t normally drop a podcast episode on a Wednesday, but this is not just any ordinary Wednesday. This, my friends, is book launch day, that’s right, The Consistency Code: A Midlife Woman’s Guide to Deep Health and Happiness, is finally out in the world.

Courtney Townley 0:48
Oh my gosh, this book is just my heart and soul. I have put so much into this book, and I am so proud of it, and I really hope more than anything, that it will help a whole lot of women in the world to pursue health and happiness with a lot more grace and ease. Please go out and buy this book. In fact, do more than that. Buy a couple copies for women in your life who you know could benefit from hearing the message.

Courtney Townley 1:12
If you’ve been a longtime listener of the show, the messaging and the mission of this show permeates these pages. In fact, this book would not have been possible without this podcast, because on this podcast, this is the place where I was able to share my voice, be curious about health and well being, refine my messaging, and really curate the content that you’re going to find in this book.

Courtney Townley 1:38
So what I thought would be fun today on the podcast, would be to read you in to your experience of the book. What does that mean? It means I want to read you the introduction, so when you finally get the book in your hot little hands, you have even more excitement for what is in the rest of the pages.

Courtney Townley 1:57
I will say that if you like hearing me read you the introduction. There is an audible version of this book. So if you are someone who likes to listen to books on the go, or listen to books as you’re doing other things in your life, or you just really like someone reading you a book, check out the audible version. We got that done about six weeks ago, and it is finally out in the world as well.

Courtney Townley 2:20
So thank you, from the bottom my heart, for being a podcast listener, for being a supporter of my work and for the cheerleading a lot of the podcast listeners have been reaching out to me over the past several years, asking for this book, encouraging me to write the book, cheerleading this book across the finish line. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And without further ado, let me read you the introduction to The Consistency Code: A Midlife Woman’s Guide to Deep Health and Happiness.

Courtney Townley 2:56
Introduction, navigating tsunamis, some women float gracefully into motherhood, I entered more like a tsunami. It was one of the most challenging transitions in my life. Well, until I hit perimenopause, that is. But you know what people said when they saw me after I gave birth? Wow, you lost the baby wait so fast. Courtney, you look great. The magic words we all want to hear, right? Except those words completely disregarded the fact that I was struggling in every possible way, mentally, emotionally and physically.

Courtney Townley 3:36
My identity as I knew it felt like it had been obliterated overnight. I had hemorrhaged after giving birth, but thanks to three units of a stranger’s blood, I survived and now had this adorable yet highly demanding seven pound gelatinous blob governing every ounce of my existence. And the most popular topic of discussion was my weight. WTF, though my journey as a wellness professional had been slowly reshaping my view of health for years, my wildly disorienting entry into motherhood and people’s response to it made it impossible for me to ignore the absurdity of how we think about health in the Western world and how misguided we have been about what it takes to truly restore and amplify it.

Courtney Townley 4:32
By the time I gave birth to my son, I had worked successfully as a personal trainer and fat loss coach for well over a decade, I had helped a lot of people lose a lot of weight, and I had arrived at a point in my career where I could no longer deny a curious pattern I was seeing in the population I worked with, mostly women navigating the tsunami of midlife.

Courtney Townley 5:01
They were hyper focusing on their bodies as the problem, rather than doing the work of solving the actual problems of their life, problems like never questioning what health and happiness meant to them at this age and stage of life, a self narrative that made them want to hide from their life rather than step into the possibility of it, coping mechanisms that robbed them of their well being rather than nourished it, and schedules so full of things that weren’t important that they never had time for the things that Were, and so many more, let’s be honest, no amount of kale or deadlifts is going to resolve these kinds of problems.

Courtney Townley 5:50
If you’ve picked up this book with the hopes that it can help you to be more consistent with eating kale or doing deadlifts. It will help you do that, but ultimately it will help you do much more important work. The unfortunate reality of midlife for most women is that they have more opportunity than ever to introduce stress into their lives while simultaneously losing the very hormones that allow them to tolerate stress. Hello, menopause and this dynamic duo, more total stress combined with less of the chemistry on board to tolerate it can be a recipe for disease, cell to soul. In fact, I have lovingly come to refer to mid life as the renovation years, because to travel into the second half of life with health and happiness intact, you will need to do some serious renovation work, and that work needs to be tackled on two fronts.

Courtney Townley 7:02
One, reduce unnecessary stressors, things that rob you of your personal power and shrink your life. And two, introduce intentional stressors, things that restore your personal power and help you expand your life. In my era of personal training and fat loss coaching, my clients would often vent to me about the things in their life that were causing them massive amounts of stress, which was way more than poor nutrition and lack of exercise.

Courtney Townley 7:42
While I knew that teaching them how to better fuel their bodies with proper nutrition, strength and cardiovascular training could help make them more resilient to stress, I also saw those who were taking radical responsibility outside the gym for mending the parts of their life that weren’t working were the clients who were thriving the most. They were doing deeper work than just focusing on managing calories and reps.

Courtney Townley 8:15
I started to see more and more clearly that it wasn’t so much the weight of the body that influenced the health of a human as it was the weight of their life to improve my own health story as a new mom 16 years ago, I had to expand the lens I was looking through to consider all The things that were impacting my well being. I’ve had to do so again as a woman now traveling through the renovation years myself, what you eat and how much you move are crucial parts of the health equation, of course, but deep health a phrase I first learned in my training with precision nutrition years ago, includes giving attention to mental health, emotional health, relationship health, environmental health and even spiritual health, vital areas of my life I had put on hold in my quest to appear healthy on the outside, and the cost was steep, trying to improve your health story by only addressing one dimension of health, like physical health, is a lot like trying To strengthen the entire body by only doing bicep exercises, health is a practice of integration, not isolation. It is deep work.

Courtney Townley 9:53
Deep health is about honoring the wholeness of your humanity. You. It is what allows you to put your head on the pillow at night, feeling at peace with how you’ve lived your day. As I started to release the idea that health is a look and started to address all the things that were negatively affecting my health, not just diet and exercise. Wouldn’t you know it, I started to feel happier and healthier.

Courtney Townley 10:23
I practiced building a partnership with my body, rather than acting like a dictator to it. I gave myself permission to rest, reset and refocus on what really mattered to me. I released The stories about who I should be and aligned my actions with who I wanted to be. I stopped trying to prove my worth, and I started owning it as I practiced these things and many others you will find in the pages of this book, there was a shift from pain struggle and imbalance toward greater well being and wholeness, which is what I’ve come to understand healing really is an act of reclaiming your whole self, teaching the same practices to my clients, I’ve watched them heal too for far too long, Women’s Health has been positioned as a physical outcome.

Courtney Townley 11:26
Worse yet, we’re sold one size fits all formulas that ask us to radically change our lives to try to achieve those physical outcomes at the expense of other dimensions of our well being, with the popularity of diet programs, supplements and other quick fixes. It’s easy to assert that women are interested only in fixing their bodies. They aren’t.

Courtney Townley 11:52
It’s just largely what’s being sold. And when someone is so desperate to feel better, they will buy into whatever’s available, focusing on your body as a problem feeds a superficial health mentality. And if you’re anything like my clients, you want more than that. Hell. You deserve more than that. You Deserve deep, delicious cell to soul health.

Courtney Townley 12:20
And this book was written to help you better understand what that really is and introduce you to a pathway that can help you to attain it. I wrote this book for you, the woman who knows she deserves more than the superficial health models that have been sold to her.

Courtney Townley 12:40
I wrote this book for you, the woman who feels overwhelmed by the endless stream of information about what you should or could be doing to improve your health, a list that can paralyze you with information overload and make you unsure of even where to start. I wrote this book for you, the woman who already knows so much about health and wellness yet finds it challenging to consistently apply even a small fraction of that knowledge in your everyday life.

Courtney Townley 13:13
I wrote this book for you, the woman who keeps starting a Hail Mary health plan on Monday morning, only to end up in a full face plant by Monday afternoon, I wrote this book for you, the woman who is tired of pouring her precious time, energy and resources into following someone else’s rules and regulations, rules that may have worked for their life but never quite fit yours.

Courtney Townley 13:44
Most importantly, I wrote this book for you because I believe you are here to live with power, purpose and impact, and at the end of the day, that is what deep health allows you to do more fully. If you’ve been nodding along, please hear this. You are not alone. These challenges are real, and if you’re struggling, or, as I like to say, rumbling with any or all of these things, that does not mean that deep health isn’t possible for you. These challenges are an invitation to approach your health and life differently.

Courtney Townley 14:24
I wrote this book to help you do just that. Here’s the deal, though, dear reader, to return to wholeness, you are going to have to commit to learning how to lead rather than follow. That’s right. Deep health is an exercise in self-leadership. Self-leadership demands that you ask yourself good questions on the regular, which is why I have strategically placed invitations for you to do just that at the end of every chapter.

Courtney Townley 14:56
After decades of working in the health and wellness space. I no longer want to be the coach who encourages people to chase my wisdom. I want to teach people how to chase their own because that is what meaningful transformation demands of us to turn inward from this headspace, the space of wanting to teach others how to become their own coach. The Consistency Code framework was born.

Courtney Townley 15:27
The Consistency Code is a set of four practices that I have used to help myself and other win live a life of deeper health and happiness. The four practices are one, the practice of awareness. Two, the practice of organization. Three, the practice of follow through. And four, the practice of realignment.

Courtney Townley 15:56
The Consistency Code is going to be very unlike anything you’ve done in the past to try to improve your health because rather than a list of rules and regulations to follow, The Consistency Code is a framework that you can implement throughout the rest of your life to reinvigorate your health and vitality. You won’t find meal plans or exercise programs within these pages. What you will find is permission and process for building a life that deeply nourishes you.

Courtney Townley 16:28
The Consistency Code is not going to create a once in a lifetime transformation for you. It does better than that. It is going to teach you skill sets to help you navigate a lifetime of transformation with more grace and ease, because that’s what life is, a whole lot of transformation. Here’s the journey we’ll go on together in this book.

Courtney Townley 16:52
In part one, women’s health, 2.0 I will help you expand the way you think about health and the measures you use to improve it. In part two, we’ll do a deep dive into The Consistency Code framework. Though you might be tempted to jump straight to this part of the book, I strongly suggest you take the time to read the chapters leading up to it, because they are oh so important for understanding why The Consistency Code pathway is so powerful.

Courtney Townley 17:25
Finally, in part three, I will help you weave together everything you’ve learned so you’re inspired to practice what you’ve learned, because knowledge without action is absolutely mean meaningless.

Courtney Townley 17:41
Here’s a quick snapshot of the four practices of the framework to satisfy your appetite while you make time for those later chapters, the practice of awareness getting radically real. Many women are walking around in the world today awake but not aware, and quite frankly, I think a lot of women prefer to keep it that way, because looking at the reality of certain parts of their life feels daunting and overwhelming.

Courtney Townley 18:14
As you know by now, I operate from the perspective that improving your health or any area of your life, for that matter, is an exercise in self-leadership. You can’t lead yourself if you don’t know yourself well, and the only way to know yourself is to become wildly curious about what you do and why you do it.

Courtney Townley 18:35
So the purpose of this part of The Consistency Code framework is to introduce you to three layers of awareness that will help you get to know yourself better and allow you to make more conscious decisions. So you can stop living from a space of reactivity and start living from a space of proactive choice, the practice of organization, plan for sovereignty, a lot of advice you get from experts may not make any sense to the wholeness of your life. This is why I teach my clients to do a lot more in sourcing than outsourcing along the path to change most programs don’t want you to know this, but you do not need more information to start making progress.

Courtney Townley 19:24
In fact, this thinking is often just rationale for not starting at all. What you really need to start making progress is consistent application of just a few things you already know. That’s why we plan for sovereignty. I will show you how to create a daily plan that feels totally in line with who you are, where you are and where you want to go.

Courtney Townley 19:56
The practice of follow through, keep your promises. Most change doesn’t last because most programs don’t teach the real sets of sustainable behavior change. If you want to create sustainable change, you must learn to regulate the things that drive behavior, which boils down to respecting the capacity of your nervous system, which is hugely influenced by your ability to parent your brain and befriend your emotions. This is some of the most important work you will ever do, because your thoughts and emotions will either propel you into action or keep you in a spin cycle of stuckness.

Courtney Townley 20:40
There are two chapters in this section of the framework, because I find myself coaching on the practice of follow through more than any other. Here I will show you ways to elevate these skills in simple, practical and sustainable ways. The practice of realignment protect your power. Misalignment in life is certain, but realignment is not there will always be curve balls, and if you practice the right skill sets, you won’t let the unexpected deter you for very long. What’s awesome about The Consistency Code framework is that you can use it time and time again to easily realign yourself when life throws you for a loop. And this final piece of the framework will show you how to realign quickly and effectively.

Courtney Townley 21:35
The Consistency Code framework can be applied to quite literally any area of your life, but I always recommend that you apply it in the health arena first. Why? Because your health is what I call base camp for life. It is what allows you to summit the real mountains you’re here to climb without your health, you will eventually struggle to be consistent elsewhere.

Courtney Townley 22:05
By learning this framework, I’m in no way suggesting that you will never again. Need to hire people to help you along the path to healing. Self-leadership does not mean solo effort. In fact, almost every great leader will tell you they have an army of helpers supporting them. I will forever be a champion of trainers, coaches, teachers, doctors, therapists, nutritionists and the like, because I am a big believer that healing is a team sport. You aren’t meant to go it alone rather than seeing this book as a replacement to work you are currently doing with other health professionals or as a replacement to medical therapies and supports you may be using, I hope you will see it more as a companion to those things, I hope professionals in the health and wellness space, the helpers and healers, as I like to call them, will feel inspired to share this book with their clients and patients, to assist them in taking better care of themselves with more ease and grace.

Courtney Townley 23:21
That being said, you, dear reader, are meant to be the ultimate helper in and healer of your own life. The consistency code framework will allow you to assume those roles with more confidence. Ready? Let’s get to it.

Courtney Townley 23:46
All right, my friends, that is the introduction to The Consistency Code. I hope it got you excited. Please, please, please, go out and buy the book. Leave a review and share it with your family, your friends and your loved ones, I’ll see you again soon. Take care.

Courtney Townley 24:11
Thank you for listening to the Grace and Grit podcast. It is time to mend the fabric of the female health story, and it starts with you taking radical responsibility for your own self-care. You are worth the effort, and with a little grace and grit, anything is possible.