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Let's Talk Body Image!
148 Plays1 year ago
Piggybacking on the last 3 episodes on weight loss and mental health, today we are talking about tips for working towards a more positive body image. A love letter to your body.
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Transcript
Introduction to Julie Hilton and Podcast Themes
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to outside of session. I'm your host, licensed clinical social worker and therapist BFF, Julie Hilton. We're going to cover all the things here, whether it's mental health, entrepreneurship, relationships, trauma, or just life. Nothing is off limits. Hopefully you'll laugh a little and learn a lot, but most importantly, feel encouraged on your journey to live empowered.
Weight Loss and Mental Health Discussion
00:00:32
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Outside of Session. Today I want to start a conversation that I think is really, really important and it's kind of piggybacking off of the last three episodes that I did about weight loss and mental health. And if you didn't get a chance to listen to those, I highly encourage you to go back and listen to episodes 11, 12, and 13 of this season.
Body Image: Diet Culture vs. Anti-Diet Culture
00:00:56
Speaker
where I talk about, you know, can being on a weight loss journey ever be okay and not detrimental to your mental health? I shared a little bit about what I think sabotages our weight loss journey.
00:01:08
Speaker
And then also some of my thoughts about like diet culture versus anti-diet culture. So if you didn't get a chance to listen to those, would love it if you would. But today I wanted to piggyback off of that a little bit and start the conversation about body image issues. And the reason I wanted to
00:01:29
Speaker
Um, well, actually I have a couple of thoughts that I wanted to wrap up, like the, the weight loss and mental health. And I wanted to have a moment of being able to share that I by no means think that I have this all figured out. Like I do not want to come off as like I'm an expert in this because I truly believe that for the majority of women, it's a journey.
00:01:50
Speaker
It is something that comes in different phases and we need different things at different times of our life. And what works for one person will not work for the next, but also what works for you in one period of your life may not work for you at a different phase of your life. And so it's okay to have to adjust and to say, okay, that doesn't benefit me anymore. So I wanted to just throw that out there because I didn't want it to be discouraging
00:02:16
Speaker
to think that some people have this thing like quote unquote figured out because really and truly we are all on our
Neutral Perspective on Body Image
00:02:23
Speaker
separate journey. So wherever you are, it's okay. It is okay to be wherever you are. So this conversation that ties in with weight loss, mental health, all of that stuff is just how we feel about our bodies. Our body image is like the emotions and the thoughts that we have towards obviously like our physical self.
00:02:46
Speaker
And it can be, it can be very emotional. Like we can have a lot of emotions tied up in this, which is what I wanted to talk about today. But side note, there is a part of me that has just really realized that we put way too much emphasis on it. Like there is a pressure for our body image to be great.
00:03:10
Speaker
and I almost feel like again that's swinging the pendulum too far opposite direction like if you have a really negative view of self then it seems like the goal would to be have this like amazing view of self and sometimes I wish it could just be
00:03:25
Speaker
The goal could just be to have like a neutral view of self like sometimes I almost feel like there's this pressure of I have to learn to love every inch of my body and we almost like romanticize it and it needs to be Like overly loving and sometimes I feel like why can't we just get to a place of not having any feelings about it at all? Like for example, I do not have an opinion about my elbow
00:03:54
Speaker
It's just an elbow. I don't love it. I don't hate it. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Until I sat down to make some notes about my show notes for this podcast, and I was trying to think of an example, I don't know that I had ever really thought much about my elbow before, other than whether or not it needs lotion.
00:04:16
Speaker
I don't have an opinion about my elbow. And I feel like that's such a place of being neutral with it that I don't care, right? And there are some times that I just wish that I could get to a place of having that same feeling or lack of feeling, like neutral feeling towards all areas of my body, whether it's my stomach or my thighs or whatever. Like I kind of wish I didn't have an opinion about any of it.
00:04:40
Speaker
Because then it takes up so much less like mental space. Like in my lifetime, I have not wasted any time having an opinion or a thought about my elbow. And there are times when I wish I just felt that way about the rest of my body where I saw it as something that my elbow works great.
00:04:56
Speaker
and it's not causing me any pain, therefore I love it and I can move on. So that's just like a little side note, a random thought that I have of as we're talking about body image and even as I use the language of learning to love yourself, I feel like the ultimate goal is to not have much feeling about it at all.
00:05:17
Speaker
to have an appreciation maybe for the way it functions and the way it carries you for sure, but to not really have much of like a judgment of it. And that to me is, is almost better than saying, Oh my gosh, I love my stomach. I love my arms just to kind of be like their arms. End of story.
00:05:38
Speaker
I don't know. That's just a little side note that I wanted to throw out there.
Transparency and Honesty about Body Image
00:05:42
Speaker
But one of the things that got me thinking about body image and wanting to have this conversation is a few weeks ago, I went to dinner with a group of my girlfriends and one of them had listened to one of the
00:05:57
Speaker
She had listened to my podcast, like one of the episodes about weight loss on her way to dinner. So when we got there and everybody was asking, like we were catching up and everybody was asking, how's the podcast going? How are you enjoying it? All that. She made a comment of, yeah, I was listening to the one about weight loss on the way over here. Did you let your audience know that you're thin?
00:06:19
Speaker
And I pause and I don't think she meant that as a jab necessarily, but I think she was kind of saying like, are you being transparent that like that you're thin? And I gave that a lot of thought on the way home because two things came to mind. Number one, I paused and said, Oh, like I do always want to be authentic and transparent. Um,
00:06:46
Speaker
And so I want to make sure that I'm being honest, right? That I'm not someone who's been on a weight loss journey that has had to lose like 50, 75, 100 pounds. That has not been my experience. And so I don't know from personal experience
Self-Perception over Weight
00:07:01
Speaker
what that feels like.
00:07:04
Speaker
I only know what my experience has been. I also want to examine and always be mindful and aware of any bias that I have, which everybody has bias. If you think that you don't need to examine yours, then you're not admitting that you have them, which we all do.
00:07:24
Speaker
I'm bringing all of this up because number one, I do want to be transparent. Number two, I do want to explore my own bias, which I think everybody should do. But the third reason is because this is a really good example of how weight does not determine your confidence or your struggle or how you see yourself or your body image. Because when she said that there was genuine surprise on my part of
00:07:54
Speaker
that's not necessarily how I see myself. So again, like the twofold that I took away from that was, oh, I do want to make sure that I'm transparent and be honest that I haven't been on a significant weight loss journey like that. But on the other hand, I would not have thought to share like I'm a thin woman because I don't necessarily see myself that way.
00:08:19
Speaker
So this is how the whole topic of body image ties in because it really has nothing to do with what your size is and what your weight are. It has to do with how you feel towards yourself, whatever size you are. And so just because she sees me as a thin woman, that does not equal good body image on my part all the time. And I think that that's the conversation that we need to have today.
00:08:46
Speaker
So in the first episode, episode 11 that I did about weight loss and mental health, I talked about how having a strong sense of self and self worth before you start any kind of weight loss journey is key. Otherwise, you probably will tank yourself on this journey and with your mental health, like it probably can go to a very dark place very fast. But I also talked about how there are
00:09:15
Speaker
A lot of people who have a pretty grounded sense of self and self worth, but they still can have some moments where if they're not really, really careful and really, really protective of themselves, they can start to have some, some of these tendencies of negative body image coming up, right?
00:09:38
Speaker
And I wanna share something pretty personal that happened to me lately that I realized that even I was starting to drift into some of that, which I've had to have a lot of conversations with myself since then about how that's normal. It happens, no big deal. It doesn't mean that I've lost any of the progress that I've made on healing parts of myself to accept and love who I am. It doesn't mean I've backtracked, I hate that
Commitment to Self-Kindness
00:10:01
Speaker
word in therapy. Like at no point do we go back because we never unlearn the lessons that we have learned.
00:10:06
Speaker
But we're human and so things do like their peaks and valleys to any journey, right? So I wanted to share this experience with you. So my husband and I were going for a walk the other night, which we do a lot in the evenings.
00:10:23
Speaker
And we go on these walks to talk about not only our day, but we talk about our dreams for the future and stuff coming up like goals that we want to achieve. Just like really good, keeping each other accountable, keeping each other motivated on projects that we're working on, stuff like that.
00:10:39
Speaker
And one of the things that he said was, like I was asking him what he wanted the fall to look like as far as like work and some other stuff that he has going on. And he made the comment, he was like, to be honest, one of the things that I would really like to see happen in the fall is I would like for you to start speaking to yourself more kindly. And that is not something I wanted to hear.
00:11:09
Speaker
And my first reaction was to get a little bit defensive, but side note, if you are in a healthy relationship and someone says something to you that you don't want to hear and like you can feel your defensiveness rise, it probably is something that you need to hear. And so I know him and his intentions well enough at this point in our marriage to know that if he's bringing it up,
00:11:33
Speaker
But I need to listen, and I need to pay attention to what he's saying, and I know that it's said with love, and so there's no reason for me to get defensive. And managing that part of myself that felt the need to come in and either shut down or defend myself, being able to manage that to say, hang on a second, let me just trust him and hear what he has to say, that's a huge thing in relationships to have that level of trust.
00:11:59
Speaker
So that is something that should be part of a healthy relationship and you should be able to receive it knowing that it was said with good intention. So when he said it, it definitely got my intention because I was like, okay, I need to hear this. And what he ended up explaining is that he's noticed over the past couple of months that I've gotten really hard on myself and he hears me do it.
00:12:24
Speaker
And a lot of times that happens with me in a way of like self-deprecating humor because I use humor a lot. And so what was happening is that
00:12:37
Speaker
he'll make a comment about my big butt. And in my house, that is a good thing. That is meant very affectionately, like that's a good thing. And I know it and I like it. But he's noticed that lately I've had a hard time taking it as a compliment. And instead I say something, again, I'm trying to say it with humor, but I'll say something like,
00:13:00
Speaker
it's a good thing that's what you like because it just it seems to just be getting bigger or it seems like it's not going anywhere anytime soon. So it's been like a instead of accepting it as a compliment and seeing it as a good thing I've like deflected in a way of like bringing attention to the fact that I feel like I'm like I'm not happy with myself right. And when it is said with humor it's really hard
00:13:28
Speaker
sometimes can be hard to be honest with yourself about that, that it's still mean. Like I still was putting myself down even if I was saying it with humor. And to him, like he picked up on that and he was just like, you're being really hard on yourself. Like those words you were saying are pretty harsh. And so I had to like have an honest moment with myself and pause and ask myself, like, is it okay to even be doing that like in self deprecating humor kind of way, right?
00:13:59
Speaker
And again, on my end, I wasn't even realizing I was doing it, but on his end, he was like, you literally are the only person that I would let get away with saying something about my wife like that. Like anybody else, I would deck them if they said anything about you like that. And so he was like, it bothers me. It bothers me to hear you say those kind of things about yourself.
00:14:22
Speaker
And so I had to like take a step back and really like put some thought into, okay, well, I don't feel like I'm hating myself right now. I don't feel like I'm incredibly unhappy with myself right now. And a lot of that comes from the fact that I do have that solid sense of like self worth.
Starting with Self-Compassion on Tough Days
00:14:43
Speaker
So I don't think the way that I'm feeling about my body right now is necessarily shaking my self-worth, but I do realize that I'm being really hard on myself and I'm not speaking very kindly to myself.
00:14:57
Speaker
So I kind of like after taking all of that in and doing my best not to shut down because I am definitely a shutter downer in our relationship, but after I let him know like yeah give me some time to think about that and we can talk about it again later, I really like I let it sink in and I decided like okay I'm like I made kind of a promise to myself in that moment of
00:15:19
Speaker
He's right and y'all I have to say he kind of went into therapist mode and it's so funny to hear him like say my words back to me but he even said while we were on this walk he said you always tell other people that we hear ourselves when we say things about ourselves. That means when you're making these jokes there's a younger part of you that is hearing you make fun of yourself.
00:15:41
Speaker
and there was a little bit was like who do you who is he to sit here and flip my words on me but he did and it was it was with good intention i needed to hear it so i kind of made a promise to myself on that day of like okay he's right um even if i don't feel like i was taking it as personally as he maybe thought i was i'm gonna do a better job of just being more kind to myself
00:16:05
Speaker
And so I wanted to share with you today what that looks like, what I do on a somewhat bad body image day to get myself out of that and how do I keep this promise of no, I'm gonna be more kind to myself. So the first thing that I do is that I search for compassion.
00:16:34
Speaker
compassion for myself which might require with starting with like an apology to myself and I kind of had to do that like I had to have a moment of like Dang, maybe I have been mean to myself lately Maybe I was speaking to myself in a way that I would not speak to my friends or my daughter. Oh my gosh, right? Like I would never make these kind of jokes about her body and so that's a very sobering moment and so to
00:16:58
Speaker
to start with that compassion, I started with an apology to myself of like, I deserve better than that. I don't deserve to have these kind of jokes made about myself. And so when I'm having these kind of days, I start with compassion for myself to say, you know what? We're all human. Um,
00:17:18
Speaker
Maybe it wasn't the best the way I was talking to myself, but I'm kind of making a promise to myself to do better. And I'm doing that in a way that doesn't come from shame or guilt. I'm doing that from a place of compassion for myself.
00:17:31
Speaker
The second thing I do is I kind of make that commitment. I make that promise to myself to spend the rest of that day just for one day focusing on that compassion. So I tell myself like maybe later in the week, maybe another day this week, we can start to think about like if I want to start a weight loss journey or if I want to start changing
00:17:52
Speaker
Like if there's anything that I need to change. But I give myself permission to say, today that doesn't seem helpful to focus on that. Because that doesn't feel like it's necessarily coming from a place of love and acceptance right now. So we will think about that later on. But today's goal is only to be nice to myself. And then what I do is I work through the idea of being really, really mindful of how to reject any negative thoughts that come up that day.
Rejecting Negative Thoughts
00:18:22
Speaker
And that can also be kind of like a sobering moment if you haven't done a check in with yourself in a while because they'll
00:18:30
Speaker
how they possibly will be coming up more often if you haven't like kind of had them controlled for a while. So I work really hard to reject or release or let go of any of the negative thoughts that happen for the rest of the day. And I become insanely protective of myself. So if I have this random thought pop up in my head that sounds mean, whether it's a joke or not, I immediately say like, Oh no, we're not doing that today.
00:18:57
Speaker
And I immediately try to figure out what the opposite of that would be, which would be the more kind, compassionate thought, and I think that instead. And I also think that sometimes it's just a really good idea if a thought pops up just to let it ride the wave.
00:19:16
Speaker
And what that means is just like a wave at the beach, it's there and then it's gone. And I don't have to necessarily explore where did it come from? Why am I saying this right now? What do I do with it? How do I counteract it? Because that's a lot of like mental energy. And sometimes I think it's just a better idea to say to like watch it drive by and be like,
00:19:36
Speaker
Huh, that was a random thought that came through, but I don't believe it. And that's not really how I feel about myself. So I just kind of like let it go. I take note of like maybe how often it's happening or if it feels especially critical. Maybe I do need to sit down and say like, okay, what's going on? Why would that come up right now? But for the most part, I just make sure that I let it ride. I let it ride that wave. I don't pay it any attention.
00:20:00
Speaker
And I do something to like check in with maybe some of my younger parts to make sure that they're feeling okay. Because again, so much of the reasons why we're doing this is because our younger parts are always with us and they hear us when we're being self critical. And so if you check in with them and you say something like, I got you, you're okay, we're doing okay right now. It can be such like a self soothing exercise that it really does help you to feel more secure in your body.
00:20:29
Speaker
Another thing that I like to do when I'm having kind of like a rougher body image day is to find ways not just to speak to myself kindly, but to do like acts of kindness towards myself. And so on those days, I think it's really important to do even like small things that make a big difference. Like I want to make sure that I wear like really comfy clothes on that day.
00:20:55
Speaker
And I'll give my body the message of you deserve to be comfortable. So whatever that means, like there are days that I even come into the office and I'm wearing yoga pants because those are just so comfortable to me and they make me feel relaxed, right? Drinking plenty of water because that's giving my body the message of I want to take really good care of you. So I find small ways to take like really good care of myself. But to give my body the message of you deserve to be taken care of.
00:21:22
Speaker
Um, another thing is like when you're having a bad body image day, there are a lot of people that default to really negative behaviors, right? Like there's really black and white, um, tendencies that I talked about in the previous episode. So some people, their reaction to feeling bad about themselves is to kind of go into like restriction mode and be like, Oh, I feel bad about myself. I'm going to eat 700 calories today or something like that. Right. And so I will make sure that I eat sufficient meals.
00:21:52
Speaker
meals that I enjoy and I will give my body the message of you deserve this, you deserve to be taken care of, you deserve to be fed, you deserve to be nourished, you don't deserve to be starved, right?
Zooming Out on Body Image Concerns
00:22:04
Speaker
And so I'll make sure that I'm eating what feels right on that day, what feels like it's doing a really good job of taking care of my body because again that's like an act of kindness towards myself. And finally the last tip that I have that I wanted to share that I do is a lot of times I zoom out
00:22:22
Speaker
And I think that that's one of the most helpful things is to just zoom out of that narrow lens that sometimes we get of everything is about how we look and zoom out and realize how insignificant it is.
00:22:38
Speaker
Um, even like the saying like your weight is the least most, it's the least interesting thing about yourself. Like I love that because it puts it into perspective of, of all the things that we could care about. Why do we care about size of all like the hard things that we go through and the problems that we have? Why is this even on the list? And one thing that really helps me to zoom out is to think about my 80 year old self.
00:23:06
Speaker
And I think about her and hopefully she is active and thriving and surrounded by grandchildren or great-grandchildren or family or dogs, whatever it is. Like when I think about her, I think about how disappointed she would probably be if she remembered that I wasted my 30s caring about my size.
00:23:29
Speaker
Because by then she will have way more gray hair, not that I don't already have enough, but she will have a ton of gray hair, she will have a ton of wrinkles. Things will be sagging, of course. And she will look back on me right now with a lot of affection in her eyes and she'll say, oh my gosh, are you really worried about these 10 pounds, 20 pounds, whatever it is.
00:23:54
Speaker
Um, like I think of the problems that I'll have at that time too, like my joints or my hips or, you know, whatever it is, um, she will long for the day where my body functions the way that it does right now. And so I think that that helps me to zoom out to think about like really and truly wire. Why are we so obsessed with this? Again, going back to that feeling of why can't we just be neutral about our bodies?
00:24:19
Speaker
When I'm asking myself to take care of my body, I'm not asking myself to fall in love with it because that doesn't feel authentic in the moment. But I do think I can get to a place of acceptance and just being neutral of saying it's fine the way that it is and it doesn't necessarily need to change.
Affirmations for Body Positivity
00:24:39
Speaker
So I hope all of this is helpful, all of these tips. But one thing that I wanted to leave you with today is just some affirmations that I have written down that I think would be really, really good for listen to them now. But maybe when you get home or you get in a place where you can have some quiet time, maybe replay these affirmations so that you can really sit with them, say them very slowly.
00:25:03
Speaker
repeat them as needed, like even with each individual affirmation saying it more than once to really let it sink in. But I wanted to leave you with some affirmations today that almost like a love letter that you can have for your body to help you if you're having a bad body image day today. My body carries me, supports me. She holds the ability to create and grow new life.
00:25:35
Speaker
She repairs and heals herself without instruction. She is an incredible vessel and because of her, I have life. This life. Thank you, body. My legs, my thighs. Oh, the miles they have walked to get me where I need to go.
00:26:01
Speaker
My arms, the ones that carry all of the things, the ones that hold my loved ones near and bring comfort with their embrace. My belly and the intuition it houses, steering me in the direction that I need to follow. The gut that tells me to trust myself. My value never changes.
00:26:31
Speaker
I refuse to wait until my body changes for me to love it. She deserves so much better. In fact, my body does not need to change to make me lovable. She is so lovable. Look at all she's done. My body, my only body, you are so much more than simply what you look like.
Conclusion and Therapy Disclaimer
00:27:06
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Outside of Session. Remember, while I am a licensed therapist, this podcast is not a substitute for individual therapy. The contents of this episode are for educational and entertainment purposes only. If you are having a mental health emergency, please dial 911 for immediate assistance or dial 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.