The Natural Life-stylist

At my moment of realisation, I was 38 years old and feeling the consequences of my own unnatural lifestyle. I owned a gym, yet my finances were in a mess. In recklessly striving to stay afloat and maintain the illusion of success, I barely saw my wife and two small daughters.
I was living the antithesis of everything I believed in, and worse still, I was misguidedly teaching others to do the same. I had let all of my needs slip aside in the pursuit of what I believed to be ‘success’.

There I was, in an artificially lit, underground room with poor air quality and filled with electromagnetic waves, espousing the pseudo virtues of well-being in a completely unnatural environment.

That day marked the beginning of my awakening. That train smashed through my fragile facade of success. It knocked my ego into humility.

It has been one hell of a process deconstructing my old self. Fortunately, I came to realise that I had to go through all of it to figure out who the universe had uniquely assigned me to be and how to be of service to others, as Tony 2.0.

My breakdown-breakthrough provided the spark of recognition that I needed to make serious changes in my belief systems and to simply start embodying my NatLife philosophy.

Then the realisation came crashing in and led me to imagine how others were feeling. Those who didn’t have the information or means of implementing it, those born into the compromised environment of the modern world with no way of knowing that natural health and happiness existed right there within their own being. Right there and then, those people – along with my two small daughters – became my ‘why’, the reason beyond myself to be the change.

And, that became the ‘WHY’ behind NatLifeCoach. It also awakened an overwhelmingly empowering sense of my own ability to change. There was no place to hide. I could no longer justify following the expected, ego-driven route through life; I just wanted to be happy. It was time to get authentic.
Be more human.
Be the change.
And so I did.

Good morning people. It’s time to rise and shine and be seen for the gorgeous being that you are….

Let’s Run 900 Miles Barefoot

30th of September marks the final day of my massive 900 mile Lands End To John O’ Groats barefoot running challenge.
On day 30 (the final day) I had an epic 56 miler to run to complete this barefoot challenge. I had to dig deeper than ever before to cover almost double the distance of any of the other days, but now with an upper ankle sprain.
I’d strapped my tibia and fibula together with K-tape and off the back of a 47 mile ultra on the penultimate day, went all out to complete what looked to many the impossible.

And I got to finish the last mile with my daughters Lola and Millie as wings.

It was spesh!

Anyhow...what’s a challenge without adversity.

In moments like these I get a little closer to understanding what I am truly capable of.

Roos - pronounced Rose - rose to the uncomfortable challenge of playing with the edges of metabolic, mechanical and thermal (MMT) stress.

Roos learned to silence the persuasiveness of the trickster mind - aka Lean-Out Loki, aka the limbic system (LS) - which was conjuring up weird and wonderful ways to minimise MMT stress and stop her in her tracks.

In this case, that (MMT) meant running switchbacks among the avenues of orange trees in the Portuguese heat, and the trickster that is ‘Lean Out Loki’ was getting louder and louder with each step.

Through breathwork, efficient running form, inner language work, support from the crew and a little prefrontal cortex (PFC) logic - “It’s only 1.2km to go, that’s just 3 laps of a running track Roos and then you can jump in the pool” -

Roos silenced Loki, broke through the perceived threat, took one switch back at a time to complete her uncomfortable challenge.

Roos than sobbed with joy as she shared with the group about the gift that keeps giving - her newfound belief in herself.

Oh, and then she said goodbye to her previously perceived comfortable, yet uncomfortably compromising shoes to make space for her toes to splay and her feet to say yay - let’s go play with Loki some more.

Human upgrade complete!

So, this begs the question: is running a cardiovascular exercise, or is it a physical, social, spiritual and emotional experience?

What do you think?

Our first ‘Run Wild’ experience landed here In Portugal, and having experienced it, we might need to switch the “run” to “play”.

Either way the transformations were wild.

In the opening we had alot of voicing “I don’t run” or “I don’t like running” or “I have this injury” or “that injury” but I flipped the script and changed the narrative from running as exercise to running as a form of play.

I covered a fair chunk of time on reframing language, mobility and running specific practices for form, breathing and efficiency and then 💥 the magic happened.

Many ran more than they’d run ever before. Some dismantled their belief system of running that they’d inherited from PE at school - you know the time when running went from a playful act of “your it” (that we all loved BTW) into something that made you a winner or a loser.

Those that had the “I can’t run” because of plantar-fasciitis or knee injuries found themselves injury free and smashing out half marathon switch backs in amongst the orange trees.

We blended the orange tree switch backs with mobility, breath, cold dips, dance and brought Flow Rope to the playful party, which went down an absolute storm - thank you Calvin.

Katarina held a circle for a really special family constellation, which I am always blown away by and in awe of the way she holds that space.

Katarina and the Riddlekids prepared all the organic food to fill our bellies. Thank you Fam - you’re all legends and I love you.

I knew this experience was going to be spesh, but I can see now that I need to upgrade my imagination, because this right here far exceeded what I’d envisioned it to be.

But with all that being said, do you know what makes all of this so special?

It’s the people that lean in, push the uncomfortable button and make it to the start line. So thank you legends for trusting the process!

Once we take care of lean out Loki, strip away the stresses of the digital world and saturate our minds and bodies with ancestral inputs, we all get to feel what it is to be fully alive, deeply connected and thoroughly human.

I’m popping off now to reimagine when the we land the