What does self-worth mean to you? How do you interact with people? How do you nurture yourself? How do you meet your beauty? These are the kind of questions Sarina Zoe asks her clients when she’s teaching them how to practice self-worth.

They’re the same questions she asked herself when she began her own self-worth journey a few years ago. For Sarina, her own journey ended in the creation of a business dedicated to helping other women find self-worth.

As someone who has always been dedicated to health and wellbeing, we did a deep dive with her to find out more about her universe (and of course, get all her wellbeing tips including what goes into her morning green smoothie).

What does self-worth mean to you?

There are so many ways I can encapsulate it, but one way, is that self-worth is basically saying to myself, I deserve to feel good in my body and I deserve to feel excited about my life. As you know, I've always been very health conscious and I've always endeavoured to feel great in my body. I've done lots of yoga and I've eaten well. The part that was missing for me was really feeling excited about my life. Essentially, self-worth feeling good in your body and feeling excited about your life.

What set you down the path of transforming your own self-worth and helping other women do the same?

The biggest catalyst for me was probably coming out of an extremely toxic relationship. Coming out of that relationship, four or so years ago, had me in such a spin. The only choice I had, was to go inward and to ask myself, what was I thinking? I had to take responsibility for all the choices that I made and realise that it's only me who made them. I went on a huge inward journey – it was the catalyst for me to really shake things up and make some big, big changes.

I started to unpack all the ways I had felt small. I looked at where I'd been wounded. Where I’d felt neglected, abandoned, not good enough. I came face to face with the moments I had acted unworthy. Literally, that exercise of looking at where I'd acted as if I was unworthy, was enough for me to go, aha, this is a big problem. Now that I'm aware of my choices which led me to those places, I get to make new choices.

Tell us about "Allow It In".

Allow It In is a free download I've created. The phrase, ‘allow it in’, was my mantra. I created a method, ‘the allow method’, it's a freebie on my website. Once you download that, there's an opportunity to purchase a workbook which costs $22 – it’s a step by step process to upgrade self-worth.

I also work with clients one on one. We do a huge deep dive. My key message with self-worth, is that worthiness is innate, self-worth is a practice. I say that because I believe that we are all born infinitely worthy. We are unquestionably worthy. But here we are, in a human body, and we doubt it somehow. The practice is to keep remembering and to keep practicing self-worth.

We create a plan for them to have a tailor-made practice of self-worth in their life. How do I show up? How do I interact with people? How do I nurture myself? How do I nourish myself? How do I meet my beauty? How do I fit more into my power? I provide the how, in the step by step, to make it a very, very simple, practical approach, to what otherwise is a very lonely and dark way of operating self-worth.

What's a ritual you can't live without?

Journaling. I've been journaling for many, many years but my journaling got much more specific in recent years. I started to write as if I was writing a program for other people, because what I was discovering along the way, made me realise that if somebody offered me this insight many, many years ago and this opportunity to look at how powerful I am in making choices and choosing the best for myself, I would say, “Sign me up now. I'll pay you every cent I've got in the bank.”

Something in me knew that I was about to pivot and offer my transformation to other people. I realised that I've gone about things in a very long and hard way. Once I started to unpack all these things and unveil all of the monsters, the demons and the things like that, I realised that actually, you know what? It's simple. It doesn't mean it's not challenging, but it's simple. I don't want it to feel this hard and this long for others, because it doesn't have to, so that's essentially my journey.  

What does wellbeing on a daily basis look like for you?

My non-negotiables are meditation. I am still waking five or six times a night, so meditation restores restfulness, in a way that naps don’t. Even if I have a snooze during the day while Gia's sleeping, I feel worse. But with meditation, I always feel better afterwards. I don’t have as much space anymore for my yoga practice so it’s quite disjointed. I'll put Gia in a highchair, and I'll do 10 minutes. Food wise, I eat so much. Breastfeeding, I'm hungry all the time. I am still super healthy, but I'm not so kind of strict with myself about what I eat. I've always enjoyed eating healthily. I've always enjoyed nourishing my body. Good food always makes me feel good.

What's always in your smoothie?

It's always banana and coconut water. I love putting baby spinach in and then greens powder, some mango. I always feel like a green smoothie has to have a little bit of sweetness to it, otherwise it's just boring. So, I’ll add dates. And collagen powder in because I feel like having a baby is so aging! (Ora tip: try Ora Organic Greens Superpowder+ in your morning smoothie. It’s packed with over 25 nutritionally-dense greens, native Australian superfoods, herbs and mushrooms).

How has becoming a mother transformed your life?

In so many ways! Somebody asked me the other day, “Do you feel more confident since you've become a mother?” And I was like, “Absolutely. I do.” First of all, being pregnant and giving birth, you're like, “Holy shit.” If there's ever the epitome of embodying your power, it's pregnancy and birth. It was just so absurd to me afterwards, to think that I could ever doubt my power. Or as a woman, doubt my power. So that really set in motion, this ease and this flow and this knowing of that power.  I always had this sense that having a child, and pregnancy and birth, would do that for me. But obviously I hadn't experienced it yet, so it always felt like there was this sort of opportunity or experience that would allow me to feel more of that. And of course, it did.

Your top three tips for improving self-worth?

Firstly, I'd say practices that still the mind. That's usually meditation, but it can be other things that you find still the mind. Next, practices that move the body. The body benefits from movement, the mind benefits from stillness. Again, they're very simple, but that means they're very easy to overlook. We need to get ourselves into a really aligned, energetic state. For me, it requires stillness of the mind and the movement of the body.

Another thing which is key and a good gauge of our self-worth, is looking at the quality of our receivership. By that I mean, how do we receive, say a compliment? How do we receive a beautiful meal that's in front of us? How do we eat it? How do we receive that nourishment? How do we receive the amazing gifts that we already have in our life? How do we receive the love from our partner? Do we push it away?

We're constantly in receivership every single day, and the way in which we receive or reject, tells us a lot about our self-worth. So, there's always an opportunity to receive more and to open more, and to allow in more beauty, more pleasure. Keep that in check. We're very quick to dismiss a compliment or play down something that someone recognises in us, or to kind of turn away from a hug when we've had a disagreement with our partner. But that's all of us, saying no to receiving.

Go to www.sarinazoe.com