Hi Jamie, can you tell us about the work you do?
I work as a holistic business coach. Which means essentially – I work together with entrepreneurs not just in a professional capacity, but in an all-encompassing capacity, where we look at things in their personal life as well as their professional life. It’s very much built on the principle that – how we show up in our personal life, reflects in our professional life. It can be very hard to solve a business problem when you’re looking at it purely through a business lens. The reality is, the problems we have in our personal lives are likely to impact our professional life. And if we want to make real, impactful change – the key is to look at all of these aspects. It’s work that I’m truly passionate about and I absolutely love.
What is the difference between business coaching and holistic coaching?
So, in ‘normal’ business coaching, coaches will work with people purely in a professional scope. And I think that can be a ‘comfort zone’ thing. Typically, a lot of business types only want to think in business terms – they don’t want to have someone venture into their private or personal life, which is understandable.
I pitch myself as a holistic business coach because I really believe that at the heart of it, how we are in our personal life is very much connected to how we are in our business life. And so if we want to change things in our professional life, we have to get stuck in and really work with things in our personal life. So when I say ‘all-encompassing,’ I mean the work touches all impacting areas of a person’s life, and is not just confined to the professional side.
How does naturism (or nude recreation, naked swimming or whatever other words around nakedness you prefer to use) fit into the holistic approach to life and business?
Interestingly the two are very interconnected. I work with people to help them authentically and lets say in this case nakedly be themselves. To own over whatever vulnerabilities they feel they might have and conquer these, turning them into strengths and milestones on their path to whatever their ultimate vision or goal for themselves might be.
Interesting point, so we met naked swimming at White Rock, what are your thoughts on naked swimming?
I think it makes more sense swimming nude than it does in a bathing suit. Who wants to carry wet swim shorts around with them after a swim? Now of course it goes that bit deeper than this and indeed I found it quite scary when I first thought of swimming in the nude. What might people think? What would they tell others? It brought up a lot of fear, anxiety and worry in me.
With this reaction I decided to work on myself as I do with clients. I thought deep into these fears and worries, were they serving me or were they actually doing more harm than good? Ultimately I saw that these thoughts were harmful and a breeding ground for future body complexities and issues. They were more confining than complimenting and turning them on their head would actually be a moment of self triumph. Now every time I swim naked it almost acts as a moment of self honouring and resilience against any future negative beliefs and trains of thought.
So do you feel nudity should be something that’s more a part of day to day life in Ireland and not something on its fringes?
Absolutely, if more people were openly naked for example say whilst swimming, sun bathing, in saunas, beaches etc. it would help people have more confidence in themselves and also less bodily anxieties. It would help lower the crazy bodily expectations that most have for each other and diffuse so many of the bodily related mental health conditions that come from this. The normalising of nakedness is something that has so many pros, it’s hard to understand why it just isn’t a given.
Website: https://jamiewhite.com/
