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Mirror, Mirror: Creating a Healthy Body Image in Therapy
111 Plays10 months ago
How about we don’t start a crash diet this New Year- mmkay? Instead, let’s be a generation of women who value self-love and find peace with the incredible bodies we have!
Tune in for a candid and compassionate conversation as we delve into the complexities of body image. In this episode, Julie sat down with Chandler Dunham to discuss the impact of societal influences (looking at you, diet culture), personal narratives, and therapeutic strategies for cultivating a positive and healthy relationship with your body.
About today's guest:
Chandler Dunham is a LMSW practicing with Wholeheart Psychotherapy. She specializes in trauma, eating disorders, mindfulness, Brainspotting, and self compassion for adolescents and adults. She also recently self published a body image workbook, “Reclaiming Your Reflection” which can be found on Amazon.
Resources:
https://www.amazon.com/Reclaiming-Your-Reflection-Workbook-Relationship/dp/B0CJXGRW4Z/ref=sr_1_1?crid=33R6F5ML0WTJ1&keywords=reclaiming+your+reflection&qid=1695941374&sprefix=reclaiming+your+reflecti%2Caps%2C145&sr=8-1
Get in touch with Chandler:
713.502.4080
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Transcript
Introduction to Season 2 and Guest
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome back to season two of Outside of Session. I'm your host, licensed clinical social worker, and therapist BFF, Julie Hilton. This season, I'm interviewing some incredible guests who also happen to be experts in their fields. Mental health, motherhood, spirituality, and so much more, I can't wait for their stories to be told. These are all the conversations I'm having outside of session.
Chandler's Expertise and Book
00:00:48
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to outside of session. For this week's episode, I sat down with Chandler Dunham, who is a licensed master social worker here in the Atlanta area who works at whole heart psychotherapy group. And she specializes in eating disorders. So today we're going to have a conversation all about body love, your relationship with your body,
00:01:10
Speaker
She just specializes in working with people and helping heal their relationship with food and with their bodies. I'm really excited about today's episode. Chandler also specializes in trauma with eating disorders and also uses mindfulness brain spotting, which is a really interesting type of therapy. And she also helps develop self-compassion and cultivate self-compassion for adults and adolescents.
00:01:35
Speaker
She also recently, literally within the last couple of weeks, self published a body image workbook, which I will be linking in the show notes as well. Obviously ways to contact her, but make sure you check out her cell, her body image workbook, which is called reclaiming your reflection, which I just love so much. So I hope you enjoy today's episode. Let's dive into our conversation with Chandler.
Understanding Eating Disorders
00:02:05
Speaker
Good morning Chandler. Good morning. How are you? I'm good. I'm so excited to have you here today. Thank you so much for being here.
00:02:13
Speaker
Yeah, I'm excited too. I feel like this is a conversation that's so needed. And I was telling you just a minute ago before we started recording that I did a couple of episodes last season just on things like mental health. And if you're on a weight loss journey, we did some body image stuff like that. But you are an expert in this. Like this is what you really specialize in. So that's why I wanted to have you on the show today. I'm so excited to have you here.
00:02:42
Speaker
Yeah, I'm excited to be here. I think it'll be a good conversation. Yeah. So to start off, one of the things that I really wanted to focus on to start off with is something that even I can learn a lot from you, I feel like. And that is, there's this like,
00:03:00
Speaker
There's a lot of these conversations that I see going on now and the term disordered eating patterns is like everywhere. And I feel like people are becoming really confused on what the difference is between like what is a diagnosable eating disorder that you need to get specific kind of help for versus what are disordered eating patterns that potentially a lot of us have because we've been submerged in diet culture since we were probably like eight years old, you know?
00:03:29
Speaker
So, I was just wondering if you could help us have a better understanding of what those definitions are and what you see in your practice of how you define what is a disordered eating pattern and how it's not necessarily the same thing as having an eating disorder.
00:03:45
Speaker
Yeah, I always think of eating disorders as clinical diagnoses and disordered eating just isn't. Because when I think about eating, I think about it on this spectrum of we have, quote unquote, normal, intuitive eating, and then on the other end of the spectrum, eating disorder. And so disordered eating could kind of fall anywhere between the two.
00:04:07
Speaker
Whereas eating disorders, yeah. Eating disorders are like that extreme form of disordered eating. So the simple answer, I guess, is that eating disorders meet this critical clinical diagnosis perspective. When it comes to disordered eating, not everyone who engages in disordered eating would meet criteria for an eating disorder.
00:04:30
Speaker
But we see so often like disordered eating behaviors can be triggers for eating disorders. And so people who might have disordered body image or who have like a body shape or weight that's used as a primary measure of self worth or you have strict rules around food or exercise or they restrict a lot of foods or different food groups.
Impact of Diet Culture on Health
00:04:50
Speaker
or they use really unhealthy weight control behaviors like skipping meals or fasting or using laxative pills or diet pills, vomiting after eating. People who kind of engage in like extreme like Jim Bro culture, you know, like using steroids and all the things there. If we see a lot of fluctuations in weight, like that can even be signs of disorder needing potentially eating disorder.
00:05:17
Speaker
People who feel out of control when eating might be struggling with some kind of disordered eating, eating for comfort rather than for hunger, eating large quantities of food late at night. There's so many little things that could show up when we think of disordered eating. I always think it's curious to get mindful, how does this impact my social life? How does this impact my day?
00:05:41
Speaker
day. Because I think that kind of gives off like warning signs like maybe something is not quote unquote normal intuitive here. Yeah, I love that. I talk a lot about how so many things are a spectrum. Anxiety is a spectrum. Even things like OCD can be in a spectrum. You know, it's not a thing that you either have or don't have. Yeah.
00:06:06
Speaker
And I like what you're saying because on one extreme end, you have people that have an eating disorder that require not just like therapy and psychological interventions, but also medical interventions as well, right? Like you start to see how it affects your, I don't know, you can speak to this more than I can, but like blood work and things like that, right? Cardiovascular health, GI, all the things. And then on the other end of the spectrum, you probably have people that yo-yo diet a lot. Yeah.
00:06:37
Speaker
which like to the yo-yo dieting, like we can even look at that through like a disordered eating lens because essentially that's a binge restrict cycle, right? Like we're restricting foods, we're cutting food groups out and then all of a sudden it's like, I'm just going to eat it all. Like diet starts again Monday, like, and we get stuck in this cycle, which like can also have negative psychological implications. Like both of those things can be really harmful to self-worth and to like our physical wellbeing.
00:07:07
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So we hadn't really talked about this question before. So I hope it's okay to ask it kind of like off the cuff. But what are your thoughts on someone who wants to lose some weight?
00:07:26
Speaker
Maybe for maybe for health reasons. Like, do you think that the the motivation behind it makes a difference? Like, what would you say to someone that says, I want to love myself really, really well, but I also want to lose 10 pounds, 20 pounds, something like that? How do you approach that?
00:07:43
Speaker
I think like I always get really curious, like the intention, like, like, why do you need to lose 10, 20 pounds? Like what's going on here that like where we lost feels really important. How is like the weight that you have right now, like negatively impacting you? I think what is so hard is like society speaking, like we experienced so much fat phobia in our society. We are swimming in diet culture constantly. And so there can be,
00:08:09
Speaker
a lot of just harsh feedback, whether it's direct feedback or just things that we experience in a passive level about body. So I always get really, really curious the why there. I don't inherently think that all weight loss is terrible, but I do think if that is something that people are pursuing, being able to do it in a safe way, in a way that's still honoring all of your body's needs, and in a way that's lifestyle,
00:08:39
Speaker
appropriate question mark. Like it's just like, I don't think it has to be like all weight loss is bad. Just like all eating disorders are bad. You know, like I think again, there's a spectrum there of like some people do want to lose weight, but how can we do it in a way that's like safe? That can be long-term and that's honoring your body. And that's not rooted in shame. Yeah. I feel like that is, that's such a hard question to answer. Yeah.
00:09:08
Speaker
It really, really is because there's so many different factors. There's motivation. There's mindset that goes into it. There's, um, it had, how do you even recognize if it's coming from a place
Medical and Social Perspectives on Body Image
00:09:18
Speaker
of shame or not? You know, because I think a lot of us, um, like shame can also be almost like sugar-coated as self-love, right? Um, like especially diet culture now has been rebranded to wellness culture. Yeah.
00:09:39
Speaker
Yasha's ears, she's nodding her head. It's about making sure we use food for fuel and things that sound so much more healthy, but it's just like, no, at the end of the day, you're trying to be skinny. You're trying to be thin. Thin is still the goal, right?
00:09:56
Speaker
which is like its own eating disorder like orthorexia like the overall health like is an eating disorder and so like is food and body taking up so much brain space that like like other areas of our life are missing like
00:10:13
Speaker
then that's no longer healthy, right? I think even with health and wellness, diet culture does not often mention what all encompasses health. Is health only food and body? No. We have relational health. We have financial health. We have all these different spectrums of health. How are we also honoring those things and how does our relationship with our body show up there?
00:10:37
Speaker
Yeah, I have to tell you a couple of weeks ago, I went to get just like a physical done and blood work and stuff like that. And I had gained six pounds. So, well, first of all, I get there and the nurse is like taking my vitals and I step on the scale and she said, everybody's least favorite part.
00:11:02
Speaker
And she said it kind of like joking, but I immediately was like, okay, so you're reinforcing that this should be a like painful part of the visit that that nobody likes. And it was just kind of like a punch in the gut to me because I was like, stop saying things like that, you know. And so I told her, actually, I don't mind it.
00:11:22
Speaker
you know what I mean? Like trying to bring in a positive life of like not all women have a bad relationship with the scale. And so she was like, Oh, okay. And so then I go into my doctor, um, the actual visit and the doctor comes in and when she kind of sat down and she was like, how's everything going? And I don't have like a really good relationship with her or anything like that. But her immediate thing was, Oh, I see you've gained, gained weight and we're talking six pounds. Yeah. Like nothing.
00:11:49
Speaker
And her response literally was to say, what happened?
00:11:55
Speaker
No ma'am. And I was just like, what do you mean? And she was like, well, what's going on? And she was like, you've gained weight. And I was like, but I don't see that as a bad thing. Is that a bad thing? And she like chuckled a little bit because she could see that I was someone that was kind of like pushing back a little bit. And she said, well, your BMI is officially, and like went into the whole BMI conversation, right? She's like sticking her finger in her mouth, like gagging herself, you know?
00:12:21
Speaker
But even I as someone who has worked really, really hard to try to like get away from that and heal that part of myself, because I've definitely like shared a lot about my story and my history with that. But even I was just like, Oh my gosh, it's a doctor telling me that though. And so it really messes when your head with it when it's like it's not society saying something, it's a medical doctor telling you this is a concern. But I even asked her, I was like, So what's your concern about my health?
00:12:48
Speaker
And she couldn't answer the question other than your BMI is now a number that we don't recommend. Which is BS because the BMI is based on white men in the 1800s, right? Not even developed by a physician. Yeah. Like, so why are we using that as an indicator of health? A lot of Western medicine is rooted in fat phobia.
00:13:13
Speaker
folks and bigger bodies will go to the doctor for strep throat and be told to lose weight. And that's not why they're there. And so then it also actually creates more problems because then people are avoided at the doctor. So then they can't actually get their health because they don't want to be ashamed for their body.
00:13:30
Speaker
like the medical fat phobia is so harmful there. And what is double BS, just to rant a little, like most of our body is like our ideal body weight exists on a spectrum. Like we hang out in a five to 10 pound range. Who's to say that you actually gained six pounds or that like one day your weight was just slightly lower. Like that's not a huge gap.
00:13:53
Speaker
right? Yeah, I saw this. Um, I can even remember who it was. It was somebody on Instagram. And she promotes a lot of light body positivity.
00:14:03
Speaker
And I really related with her because she was like, y'all I'm, I can't remember what height she was, but I like related to it cause I'm five nine. I'm built a little bit more athletic. And so she was saying, I think she was like six feet tall. She was like, if we look at dogs, she was like a German shepherd trying to get down to a Chihuahua's weight is so ridiculous because she was like, they're two different body types. And so like, there is no room for individuality. Yeah.
00:14:32
Speaker
and diet culture, like there's just like numbers. There's numbers and there's like very specific like ideals. Like I with a lot of my clients talk about cake flavors and everyone always looks really confused when I say this, but I'm like, what's your favorite kind of cake? Like for you, like what's your favorite kind of cake? I think I'm going to go with like a fun fatty.
00:14:53
Speaker
Okay. If someone told you like, like, I don't really like like fun, buddy. Like my favorite is carrot cake. Would you start like adding carrots to your recipe whenever you made fun of any cake for your birthday? No. Yeah. But like we see in diet culture, like this body is the right body. And we're so quick to try to change ourselves, like to try to change our recipe to like,
00:15:14
Speaker
get to be the right thing, to be more palatable for others. And that just leaves us feeling inauthentic, leaves us feeling horrible because we're no longer ourselves and we're neglecting our own needs and adding things to ourselves that just don't feel right. Yeah, I love that. I love the cake metaphor. Yeah.
00:15:37
Speaker
So at this point, like working with your clients, what do you think is the biggest negative influence on body image? Like what do you see come up a lot with your clients?
00:15:50
Speaker
I think just like broadly comparison, like comparison on social media, in real life, siblings to friends, influence or diet culture, fat phobia, like, I think there's just like this deep seated need to compare.
00:16:07
Speaker
Because like we we find safety and it's like oh like well if I'm smaller than her like then like maybe I'm okay or like I'm attracted or like there's there's so much comparison that negatively impacts our body image and like I always come into this like affirmation of like the presence of someone else's beauty doesn't mean the absence of mine, right? Like this doesn't have to be like slices of pie like we can I get thinking We can still like we can still
00:16:35
Speaker
Be worthy like this doesn't have to be a competition like Dye culture capitalism like they create so much competition For us and it doesn't have to be there god. That's so true you know, one of the things that i've noticed about comparison is um, not only is it a lack of knowing yourself because you're having to look externally to like you said figure out whether or not this is Like whether or not i'm good enough. Um but I also feel like
00:17:06
Speaker
People in general are so black and white thinking. That's something that a lot of people struggle with, right? And one of the reasons why I think that is is because when you try to learn to live in this gray area, you have to stop comparing yourself.
00:17:23
Speaker
because there isn't a good or a bad, a right or a wrong, a black or a white, it's very much just like being and existing in that space. And we don't do well with that. And I think that like, even as kids, like we're set up to fail with that because I am very much against grades.
00:17:42
Speaker
Okay. Because I feel like that's our first taste of comparison and measuring yourself and measuring your worth and you're good enough, right? Like you either get an A, a B, or a C, and then you look at all your friends to say, is that normal to have gotten a C on this test? Well, if everybody else got an A, then I must be the problem.
Diet Culture and Morality of Food
00:18:01
Speaker
And the same thing like with attendance, like taking attendance as a kid, like you're rewarded for perfect attendance, you know, like we're given all these messages at a very young age of what makes us good and what makes us bad. And especially for women, like I think we start to blend those message ends like
00:18:22
Speaker
I think I read one time and maybe you know more about this, but that girl's self-esteem start to drop at age eight. Have you ever heard that before? Is that what it is? It is. Yeah. You got it. No, no, no. Go ahead. Go ahead.
00:18:40
Speaker
with like the guilt and shame components like we see it come up even with like food because like someone will get lunch with a friend and like we'll order a sandwich they'll order a salad and all of a sudden like we feel guilty because like we ordered the quote unquote bad food because we have all these food rules caused by diet culture and it's like you know what I mean like we then even spiral there and it's like well of course she's like
00:19:03
Speaker
happier or prettier or whenever she got the salad. It's like, whoa, where did all that morality come from? A sandwich is just a sandwich, which could be a balanced meal. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. So you think social media, obviously, I think this is a no-brainer.
00:19:21
Speaker
But diet culture, even in like the 90s, before social media was a thing, it was the magazines at the rack of the grocery store, right? Telling our moms how to lose 10 pounds before the holidays, you know. So there's always been an image that's projected. And I always say, diet culture does not make money if you are happy with yourself. So they are not trying to make you be happy with yourself because they don't make any money then. They are feeding off of you. They need you.
00:19:50
Speaker
to be unhappy with your body. So, which is such as like a, you know what I mean? Like they're packaging it as we can help you love yourself, but they are counting on you not being happy. Well, and they're counting on their diets failing because of how that works. You wouldn't keep coming back to it, right? Like, but the product doesn't work. So you have to keep coming back to diet culture. So you have to keep eating yourself. It's like this cyclical cycle, so rooted in capitalism.
00:20:21
Speaker
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So what do we do about it? What do we as women especially, like, how do we fight against this and work to heal ourselves? Like, what do we do about it Chandler?
Intuitive Eating and Body Trust
00:20:42
Speaker
There's kind of a couple different spaces to explore there. If we are looking purely at food, I really love concepts of intuitive eating. Intuitive eating is so rooted in eating what you need and what you want. It's so rooted in building body trust.
00:21:02
Speaker
And I think building body trust is so scary. Like back to like that comparison idea of like, we have to trust ourselves. Like we like can't use other people as a barometer because
00:21:13
Speaker
now we're going to listen to our body and honor our body's cues. And this always feels so daunting to people when I'm talking to them about it. And I always like to point out, we do that a lot of the time. Whenever you have to go to the bathroom, you go. Your body tells you when you go. For the most part, I'm sure. I like that. Sometimes maybe people don't, but sometimes we try to hold it. But for the most part, we go to the bathroom. We're listening to our body.
00:21:40
Speaker
I think when it comes to food, we then start to get a little bit scared because it's like, well, what's going to happen if I don't control what I'm eating? Am I only going to eat the chips? But that often doesn't happen. At the beginning of intuitive eating, you might find yourself reaching for the fun foods that had been restricted before, which is super normal. But then it levels out. Chips just become another food.
00:22:04
Speaker
Chips are equal to carrots. It doesn't matter. Whichever one sounds good in the moment you can have. And so there's so much more freedom with food and body there. Yeah. I want to hear so much more about that. So what I'm hearing you say is that especially in your work with your clients, building trust with yourself is probably like one of the foundations that you work on. Yeah. Can you speak a little bit more about that, about what that looks like in therapy? Yeah.
00:22:32
Speaker
it kind of depends on where a client is coming to me from. Because if I'm working with someone with a diagnosed eating disorder, we typically have some medical components going on that we also have to address. If someone is in recovery from an eating disorder, weight restoration might be a part of that journey. And so working with a dietician, working with a physician to make sure we're getting weight back up to a healthy spot.
00:22:59
Speaker
you know, to where then we can really start doing some more of that like body trust work. I think what's so hard too is so many women have trained their body to like need less fuel. So hunger cues are actually quite off. Whenever like weight restoration has happened, like we have to make sure we're eating enough food because like I said, like so many women like are under eating
00:23:26
Speaker
often. I don't know about like people in your parents' generation. My mom often describes herself as like, I just eat like a bird. And it's like, no, you've trained yourself to under eat. Like you actually need to eat more. Call my mom. Yeah.
00:23:43
Speaker
Um, and so we have done such a disservice to women because that under eating does have other health impacts. Like actually under eating has so much more negative health implications and overeating. And we hear from a medical perspective, how much people need to lose weight when in reality, like the under eating is so harmful. And so I think I always start with eating enough. Like, can we make sure we're eating enough in a day?
00:24:10
Speaker
And then from there, like, can we make sure we're getting enough of each food group? I always recommend working with a dietitian here. I think that they are so great at providing this education, especially one who is certified in intuitive eating, someone who has health at every size aligned. I just think that those two aspects make working with a dietitian so much safer. Can you explain really quickly what health at every size is? Because I think a lot of people have never heard of that.
00:24:36
Speaker
Yes, health at every size or haze is something that like you might see as you're starting an intuitive eating journey, starting looking at like disordered eating things. It's a newer movement. I want to say it popped up in like the 2010s, but I could be totally making that up. But it's really this idea that people and all bodies deserve healthcare and deserve to be treated with respect and healthcare settings.
00:25:01
Speaker
And so we are acknowledging ways that bodies are healthy, ways that we can provide quality care, and ways that we can take care of our health from multiple sizes. It's not just one definition of health. Yeah. And I think there's not that I know of, there's no certification to show. It's kind of like if you are for a therapist, if you're queer affirming, you don't have to do anything. You just have to make sure.
00:25:31
Speaker
That's just a platform that you stand on that if you're, if your career, you're safe with me. And I think it's the same thing with Hayes. Like if you're, um, if you're in, especially a bigger body and you have faced discrimination from a medical provider, um, even like my doctor last week, um, you can kind of, you can ask and screen for, are you,
00:25:53
Speaker
How would you phrase it? Like a haze-affirming. Yeah, he's aligned. That's a good word for it. And if doctors say, I don't know what that means, that means they're not. They probably haven't done that kind of research, but it's a way of letting people know that I'm not going to assume that you're unhealthy if you come to me for care in a bigger body.
Healthcare Advocacy and HaES
00:26:14
Speaker
Yeah. And it's, I'm going to listen to whatever concern you're bringing in and not automatically blame it on your weight. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's really important. I have a couple of clients that have other medical issues. Um, and they do every time they go to seek any kind of, it could be a cold, like you said, like it could be something completely unrelated. Um, you could go in with a fractured foot and they'd be like, yeah, he probably needs to lose the weight, get some weight off of that.
00:26:40
Speaker
You know what I mean? And it's just like, ah. When I was in grad school, my degree is also in social work. We had to like pair up for this like interdisciplinary day with the med students, nursing students, dental students, social work. And we're all at this table and they give us like this case presentation. It's like, this woman comes to the doctor because like, she heard tooth hurts and this is happening and la di da di da. Oh, like, and like, she's like slightly overweight.
00:27:06
Speaker
And immediately, every medical professional at the table is like, she just needs to lose weight. And I was like, no, absolutely. She's here for a toothache. Can we address her toothache? Can we hear what she's here for? It is wild how ingrained it is.
00:27:25
Speaker
Yes, I would encourage anybody if they have had an experience like that. Seek out a haze aligned physician or medical care provider because it really it makes a complete you'll have a completely different experience.
00:27:38
Speaker
And there are awesome cards. There's like, if you Google, like, don't weigh me cards, or don't talk to me about weight cards, there are these like little PDFs that you can print and give your doctor. And it's like, they say don't talk to me about weight unless medically necessary for the condition that you're for. And if you don't feel like you are able to say that to your doctor, you can give them this card, they can put it in your chart.
00:27:58
Speaker
I've emailed doctors and things for clients before being like, don't talk to my clients about this. This is something we're working on. And so we can even use like your treatment team, your support team to help advocate for you too. As you're learning to advocate for yourself. Yeah, for sure. Hey everyone. I just wanted to pause for a quick moment to say thank you so much for all the love and support that you're showing outside of session.
00:28:26
Speaker
If you haven't already, do me a huge favor and hit the subscribe button. Give me a five star review and share this podcast with all of your friends. Help me take this show to another level. Now back to today's episode.
00:28:41
Speaker
So going back to what you were saying before about building trust with yourself, and I know that intuitive eating is a big part of that, but can you speak a little bit more to the therapy side, the clinical piece of what does it even mean to trust yourself and trust your body?
00:28:59
Speaker
Yeah, I guess like I always think about like whenever you get like a hunger cue, a grieving cue, a movement cue, what is it like to honor that? Like if you are like at the grocery store and you're like, Oh, like Sour Patch Kids sound good. Is your immediate response like, Oh my gosh, I can't have candy in the house. Or is it like, Oh yeah, like I can throw those in my cart and we can have some later or like,
00:29:25
Speaker
whatever, like, I always think about like, what is impacting kind of like your thought process and decision making. And just like building that trust with self from a decision making perspective, whether it's purely with food and exercise, or in all aspects of life, like, how do you make decisions? You know, is it based on like your values, your strengths, your goals? Or is it based on like other messages that like you've been told to care about?
00:29:53
Speaker
Yeah, I like that a lot. I had this happen with a couple of different clients and we were actually doing some parts work and they were like constantly on a diet and they would beat themselves up and they were stuck in that cycle of
00:30:16
Speaker
like just beating themselves up about their weight. And so in parts work, you kind of look at that part and say, what are you afraid will happen if I don't constantly have that inner monologue? And they would always say, like it's happened a couple of different times where they would say, they would learn that if I don't beat myself up about it, then I think I won't care about this anymore. And so there was this fear of I'll just go off the rails and I won't take care of myself at all.
00:30:45
Speaker
And like you were saying before, like obviously that is so rooted in shame and fat phobia and all of those things. But we also got to a place of asking ourselves, do you think that being on a diet is the only thing that that causes you to care about your health? Is that the only reason
00:31:04
Speaker
that the only part of you that cares about your health is the one that wants you to be on a diet. So if you weren't on this diet and you didn't have this negative inner monologue all the time, do you think that you just all of a sudden would stop caring about your body? And it was a moment of a real realization if they were like, no, I wouldn't.
00:31:24
Speaker
I wouldn't care about my body any less and my health and taking care of it and good movement and listening to those cues like you're saying. I wouldn't all of a sudden throw all of that out of the window if I learned to be kind to myself. I would still very much want to take care of my body.
00:31:39
Speaker
probably for better reasons, like longevity and for like, just feeling good, but movement when we're 80 years old, you know what I mean? And that was a really big breakthrough for them to sit that for so long, they had convinced themselves that the only way that they would stay interested in caring about their health is if they came from a place of shame and beating themselves
Linking Intuitive Eating with Self-Compassion
00:32:03
Speaker
up. And once they were able to work through that to say, I don't have to do this anymore,
00:32:09
Speaker
to care for my body, that's a value of mine at my core. That's not gonna go away if I release this shame spiral.
00:32:18
Speaker
And I think that's where like intuitive eating meets self compassion, right? Because I think there's like this misunderstanding with intuitive eating. That's like, I'm just eating whatever I want, whatever I want. But it's like intuitive eating includes eating what you need, you know, like it honors all food groups. And it's honoring your hunger, fullness and satiety. And so it's saying like, Oh, like I'm actually full. I'm good here. Like I don't need to keep eating. I can have pizza later if I want to, but like I'm good right now. Or like,
00:32:46
Speaker
I don't know about you. I feel like after I travel every time I come home, I'm like, I just want a salad. Like I feel like I've been like eating all the fun foods. Like my body is craving like something like crispy. Um, you know what I mean? And so like that's intuitive, right? Like that's my body is saying like, we're having some mineral deficiencies here. Like give us what we want and need. And so like,
00:33:09
Speaker
That's so interesting to hear you say it that way because some people would say, I need to eat a salad because I've been so quote unquote, bad on vacation. But what you're saying is that when you actually know your body really, really well, you crave things that are really good for you. Yeah.
00:33:26
Speaker
Which is like, duh. Yeah. And I also crave things like pizza. I also crave things like pasta. But those things are equal to me for salad. Whatever sounds good, I just get to have it. And I get to eat until I'm satisfied, which is so nice.
00:33:44
Speaker
So what would you say some of like when you're working with a client that has probably maybe not the eating disorder that we were talking about where you're actually working on weight restoration and those kind of things but someone who's probably the typical yo-yo diet or been in diet culture for a really long time and they're working on healing that part of themselves. What do you feel like are some realistic goals would be to set with those clients?
00:34:19
Speaker
to start working on body tolerance, acceptance, or love, whatever the client's individual goal is. Do they just want to tolerate their body? Do they want to be able to accept it and feel super neutral about it? Or do they want to love it? Each person has their really own ideal relationship with body. And that may change over time, too. Whenever someone starts working with me, the idea of body love might be so out of depth. And that's totally OK. We can start wherever they feel is good. And then once we clarify that,
00:34:37
Speaker
I guess I kind of...
00:34:48
Speaker
that's when we can start doing more of that like deeper work. And there's this book called the gift of self love. Yeah, the gift of self love. And the author of her Instagram name is Marius Cup of Tea. She's super cute. She's in recovery from eating disorder. And there she has this
00:35:04
Speaker
exercise called a self-love vision statement, but you can do like a self-acceptance vision statement, whatever, but it goes through kind of six questions of like, what does self-love look like to you? What would you wear if you loved yourself? What would you do? What would be different? And so like once we can identify those things, how can we start moving towards those? I even think like from that same perspective, it's like what rules do I have in place right now that keep me from there? Like,
00:35:28
Speaker
do I have certain food rules that are causing shame? And like, what are those rules giving me like from that same IFS perspective of like, typically, a lot of these behaviors are protective, what do I need to let them go, you know, and so starting to do some of that work, and just like identifying like,
00:35:46
Speaker
what's keeping me from getting there and how do I let it go? I recently published a really fun body image workbook that I'm so excited about. Yes, tell us all about that.
00:36:00
Speaker
So I think it's really cute. It goes into every week. There's a weekly check-in where you identify three things about your body that you're grateful for. These could be aesthetic or function, but we see in the research how much body appreciation really boosts positive body image. We're able to acknowledge all the good that our body does for us.
00:36:20
Speaker
Um, in the weekly check-ins, like there's ask for like how you can celebrate your body this week, how you can be kind to your body this week. I lead a teen body image group and those are always two of our checkout questions are what's something you're grateful for about your body and how can you be kind to your body this week? And answers are always so vast. It's like,
00:36:37
Speaker
like the weather is so nice outside like I'm gonna like make sure like I spend some time outside this week or like I like really just like want to do a face mask and lay on the couch like that feels like very kind to my body this week and so it's giving these teens an opportunity to check in with themselves and say like what might my body need this week and so in this workbook we have similar questions and throughout this workbook there are questions about like childhood ideas about body and
00:37:04
Speaker
current ideas about body, we explore personal values, personal strengths, how we can use those to move forward in ways that feel good and authentic. And like, where do we want to go? You know, like, how can we show up for ourselves with more compassion? And how do we get there? Yeah. How do we get your workbook?
00:37:24
Speaker
It is on Amazon. It is called Reclaiming Your Reflection, a weekly workbook to heal relationship with self and body. If you search Reclaiming Your Reflection, it's the first one that will come up. I will also make sure that we put that in the show notes because I think that could be such a valuable tool. Because I think that for a lot of people, if they have been stuck in this cycle of telling themselves they need to be in a smaller body, they need to lose weight, they need to be thin, like that's been the goal for so long.
00:37:51
Speaker
They're so exhausted and especially by the time I'm 36, by the time you get into your 30s, you're just like, I'm ready to be done with this. I would love for this chatter in my head to finally go away.
00:38:07
Speaker
But the thought of sitting with someone and working on body acceptance of being able to say, I'm just going to learn to love my body where it is and stop trying to change it for those reasons, that actually can be really scary. That's a scary thought to shift your mindset from my body needs to change to, no, actually like my mindset needs to change towards my body, you know, but that can be really scary.
Influence of External Voices on Body Image
00:38:31
Speaker
Yeah, I like love to use like kind of like acceptance and commitment therapy there from like this lens of even like thought diffusion and thought labeling. Like whenever that thought comes up of like, oh my gosh, I need to lose weight. Like is that you or is that diet culture? Like who's saying that? And like, cause so I am engaged in getting married next September. And thank you. I feel like my whole TikTok feed has been
00:38:58
Speaker
like overhauled by like bridal weight loss and like bridal Botox and all these things. I'm like, Oh my gosh, what do I need to do for my wedding? Like, I feel horrible because like, that's not who I am. Like, that's not who I want to be. Like, I have worked with so many brides and like we've talked about like body joy, like leading up to wedding and like wanting to be present and be able to eat the cake and all the things like
00:39:24
Speaker
I don't want to control my body on this journey. Like I just want to take care of my body and celebrate my body because it's allowing me to do this super exciting thing, you know? And so I think it's just like really getting curious about like, whose thoughts are these? Like, is this coming from me? And if so, like, how come? What does that mean? But if not, like, can I dismiss that as diet culture? Can I label it as diet culture and say, like,
00:39:48
Speaker
Oh, like, that's not me. That's a cloud passing by. I'm the sky. Like, we're just going to let it go.
00:39:55
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. To be able to ask yourself like, did that really come from me? Is that really my thought? Because a lot of times it's not just diet culture. A lot of times it's our mom's voice. It's our grandmother's voice. It's somebody in our family that made an impression on us when we were at a really, really young age. And maybe they didn't even say it to us. Maybe we heard them say it to themselves. Like if you had a mom that was constantly dieting, like you said.
00:40:22
Speaker
I used to work at an eating disorder treatment center and one of the program directors, I remember on my first day she and I were talking and we were talking about why eating disorder work.
00:40:34
Speaker
I was at a party with my daughter and I saw some woman dad pizza grease off and my daughter said, mom, like, why did she do that? And I was like, I can never be that person. Like that can't be the person that like, I don't want my daughter to fear pizza grease. And I was like, like, like we just learn all these things from people who are so unintending, but it is so harmful. It creates so much fear.
00:40:58
Speaker
That, this is another question that we didn't talk about before, but maybe you can speak on it. Um, how do we talk to our kids about this? Like what are some tips that you have about like body positivity around our children? I actually think with kids, like if we can just be super body neutral, like if you're
00:41:19
Speaker
kid comes home and is like someone told me I have big thighs on the playground being like, yeah, like big thighs are awesome. Like you play soccer like those like help you run like just like getting to be really like weight and size neutral. Because then like if this client or this kid like is that six foot girl on your Instagram feed like then she doesn't feel shame later about being in this larger body naturally, you know, like
00:41:45
Speaker
I think if we can be neutral about body and positive and complimentary as appropriate, but I think so often parents are well-intending. A kid comes home from school, they're like, someone call me fat, and immediate, it's like, no, you're not, you're so beautiful, la dee da dee da, but all that does is tell the kid that fat is not beautiful. That's exactly it, right?
00:42:06
Speaker
Yeah, so if that can be a neutral word, if that can just be a descriptor, it's the same as having brown hair or blonde hair, right? Then it's not scary anymore, then it's not bad, then it's not shameful. And with food stuff, can we talk about food in a way that food does really cool things for us? There's food that fills our soul, and there's food that fills our belly. There's fun foods. And can we create balance on plates? Can cookies be allowed any day?
00:42:33
Speaker
can we have treats at home, but can we also have like all the food groups, you know? Right. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.
00:42:41
Speaker
Because kids know when they eat too much sugar. Kids have had an experience on Halloween where they eat 1,000 pieces of candy and their tummy hurts. And that's where there's space for education around, let's just remember that for next time. This is a little bit too much. We don't want our stomachs to hurt. So we can pause after a couple of pieces. Because it's always going to be in the pantry. You can always have candy. It doesn't have to be this exciting
Aligning Personal Values with Body Acceptance
00:43:05
Speaker
thing. It's just candy.
00:43:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I love that. Yeah. So I guess to wrap up, I would just ask, like, what is a message that you would want to get to women who are kind of like existing in this space? Whether it's like some advice or tips, or just like, what would you what your message to be to women about this whole topic, this whole conversation?
00:43:36
Speaker
Oh, that's so broad. I know. So many thoughts just like went through my head because I think there's like a part of me that's like, can we as like a collective get curious about like quote unquote ideal body and beauty standards? Like, can we diversify what that means? And can we explore health on multiple facets? Because I think like,
00:44:03
Speaker
So often people will be like, well, like all bodies are beautiful, but like I need to be this size to be beautiful or like I need to be the size to be accepted, right? Like there's this exception to the rule. And so like, I guess like my message is like, can we develop curiosity as to like, where are these things we're coming from?
00:44:20
Speaker
and can we develop self-compassion to like challenge ourselves or hold ourselves in a way that like isn't shaming but just like really non-judgmental and curious to get us to a space like where we actually feel better. Like can we hold space for our grief about like lies that Diet Culture has told us, grief for our moms and grandmas and societal confidence. You know as like we work towards honoring our body and just allowing our body to be this like envelope for the soul
00:44:48
Speaker
you know, so we like we can live lives that feel aligned with our values that make us feel sparkly and excited.
00:44:55
Speaker
And even hearing you say like, make sure that we live lives aligned with our values. I think a lot of times we have forgotten what our values are because like you said, we have so many thoughts in our head that are not our own, that we have forgotten what is actually valuable to us. Um, and so maybe there's some room for that work too, to say if I'm telling myself I need to be smaller, what is it that I'm valuing? Yeah. If that's what I'm telling myself. Um,
00:45:26
Speaker
And how does worth interweave into that? Because I think that if you define your values outside of diet culture, there's a lot more value in things like self-acceptance, self-compassion, things like that. And you realize that that is all aligned. Yeah. Right? Yeah.
00:45:46
Speaker
even with like, so one of my top values is wonder. And so like for me, like that shows up with like food and like being willing to try new things like comfort zone or things like that. Or like with like body like can I get curious about fashion choices? Can I get like interested in new trends or like
00:46:04
Speaker
Even like being like creative there, you know, like can we find ways that like food and body and self-acceptance and self-love align with like even like I guess like values that like feel Different like because I don't know if very many people think like I like wonder I was like a food of body value, you know I had I would never have thought of that, but I love it. Yeah But how do you know that about yourself? Like how do you know that that's one of your values? Oh
00:46:29
Speaker
So I do a lot of acceptance and commitment therapy with clients and a big part of acceptance and commitment therapy is values exploration and identification. Um, there are like great value list on lines. Um, and so I always recommend, this is something I do with my clients that stemmed from like working with a teenage boy, really trying to get him bought into therapy. I have a list of like 300 values. I have clients go through and read out any and all that like feel like
00:46:59
Speaker
pretty important or significant to them. And I like write them down. And this is where my teenage boy client really helped me. We put it into a March Madness bracket. And so we had a basketball style bracket. Going like smaller and smaller until like we got to his like top eight, I think, but really just so he could have some more values clarity around like what is important to him? Like, what does he want his life to stand for? What principles really guide his life?
00:47:26
Speaker
But you could start with a broad list, write down ones that feel important to you, and then narrow it down and figure out where do these things show up for me?
00:47:37
Speaker
how do I even define these things? Because I think a value that can be like an asset and a liability is health. And so like, is health purely diet or is it so much more, you know? Yeah. And what feels even more like aligned with other values when I look at like, how do my values work together?
00:47:59
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. I love doing a values exercise with my clients too, because I think that so often when we just feel off in a certain area of life, if you go through a divine, define your values and you narrow it down, like you just said, you can ask yourself the question, are these different areas of life allowing me to live according to my values?
00:48:20
Speaker
And a lot of times if something feels off, whether it's your work environment, your relationship, your friendships, whatever it is, if it feels off, you'll realize what value is not aligned in that area. And then you can make like decisions about, okay, well then how would I live more aligned with my values and what changes do I need to make from that? So I love that.
00:48:44
Speaker
Wow. And even with like a food and body perspective, like sometimes diet culture gets sneaky on us and like we find ourselves like leaning into some diet culture values. And again, that's where that labeling becomes so helpful because like with ordering a salad or a sandwich, like that guilt comes from like, Oh, I'm doing something that's not value aligned. But again, who's value, right? Like diet culture is not mine because I love that value fun and sandwiches are fun. I don't know.
00:49:09
Speaker
whatever feels good there. Yeah. Or like experiences. Like that's, that's a big one for me is to have like really cool experiences. So I guess that's kind of like wonder how like that I've never seen that on a list before. Um, but I like that on like this massive list I found and I was like, that's it. That's my value. Yeah. I have to see how I can weave that into mine. Um, but yeah, like if your value is experienced and you're having to tell yourself no to experiences, whether it's avoiding going to dinner with your friends,
00:49:37
Speaker
Yeah. Or whether it's avoiding something on the menu because diet culture has told you that it's quote unquote bad. You're not living according to your value because what's at your core is wonder and experience. I love that. That's such a good note to end on. Yeah. Um, thank you so much for this conversation. This has been so good, but also refreshing.
Embracing Change and Closing Remarks
00:49:57
Speaker
Yeah. I'm so glad I could be here.
00:50:00
Speaker
One thing I do want to ask you before we jump off though is the question that I ask all of my guests, which is if you could go back and tell your younger self one thing, does it necessarily have to apply to the conversation that we've had today? Just in general, what's one thing you would want to tell her? I think to like, be okay with changing your opinion when given new information.
00:50:25
Speaker
I think like- Oh, I love that. For so long, I just was so healed again. This is just how it has to be. And whatever I gave myself freedom to be like, I'm allowed to change. That's okay. So much more felt right for me. I remember it being so hard to change my major in college because I was like, this is what I'm doing when I got there. And when I found social work, I was like,
00:50:51
Speaker
Like, I have to do that. It allowed me to start changing my mind. But I think that it also kind of forced me to dig deeper into myself. And I think that can feel so scary, but it was also so freeing. And so I think I just wanted to know that's going to be OK. You're allowed to change your mind, and you're allowed to learn and grow. And you're also going to say that's how we grow. Yeah. Yeah, I love that.
00:51:16
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for just the work that you do. I think it's so important. And I just have so many hopes, especially for the next generation, that this is something that we're doing a little bit better and we're finally getting it right. So just thank you for the work that you do and for being here today.
00:51:34
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you. I so appreciate it. I have such a good time. Yeah. So everyone, I will make sure to link her workbook in the show notes and make sure you go check that out as well as information on how to get in touch with her. That's all we have today. Hope everybody has a good week. We'll talk to you next time.
00:51:57
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.