Speaker 1: Maybe that's Lisa, and we're just two girls that want
Speaker 1: to have a conversation with you. Dear sixteen year old Andrea,
Speaker 1: Hey gorgeous, Dear younger Lauren. Each episode is stories from people.
Speaker 1: I would deprive myself by myself obsessively because I was
Speaker 1: eating healthy. I couldn't understand that I had a problem
Speaker 1: with food. Losing my period scared me the most. My
Speaker 1: story starts when I was around seven. That's when I
Speaker 1: started to hate my body. Body image is like our
Speaker 1: inner picture of our outer self. Healthy behaviors play a
Speaker 1: much bigger role at all health than the actual number
Speaker 1: on the scales. Internal dialogue could be so powerful, and
Speaker 1: often it's super negative and critical in a way that
Speaker 1: we wouldn't talk to other people that we care about.
Speaker 1: When you start to share your story, that gives other
Speaker 1: people the courage to share theirs. I know you would
Speaker 1: be proud now of how far you have come in
Speaker 1: your relationship to food, exercise, and to yourself. I felt freedom,
Speaker 1: I've gained relationships. I've found my true sense of self worth.
Speaker 1: There's one thing I need you to take away. You're
Speaker 1: going to be okay, all right. It's the day after Christmas.
Speaker 1: And uh, for some people, you might be waking up
Speaker 1: to a cozy cup of coffee, hanging out with your family.
Speaker 1: But for some people, the reality is you might be
Speaker 1: waking up alone because Christmas looks a lot different this year,
Speaker 1: and maybe you had to self quarantine, or you weren't
Speaker 1: able to travel, or you weren't able to be with
Speaker 1: your family. And I want to recognize too that we
Speaker 1: keep talking about how is different, but also there's the
Speaker 1: reality that some years holidays are just never awesome for
Speaker 1: some people, depending on their family circumstances or their family dynamic.
Speaker 1: So that's not lost on us either. It's just sometimes
Speaker 1: we speak to what we're in and has been weird
Speaker 1: because maybe normally, yeah, you would be with family, but
Speaker 1: you're not today, or again maybe you are. But our
Speaker 1: hope is that wherever you are, that this holiday season
Speaker 1: and it will continue because we got new year, or
Speaker 1: on the corner around the horizon, different things going on.
Speaker 1: There might be leftovers from yesterday in the fridge, pie
Speaker 1: calling your name, whatever, And I hope that this year
Speaker 1: for you looks so different because for me, I think
Speaker 1: of Christmas pasts where I would have eaten everything that
Speaker 1: was prepared by all the amazing people in my family
Speaker 1: that can cook so well. And then the day after
Speaker 1: I was like at the gym, juicing, doing all the
Speaker 1: things to undo the damage I had done. So I
Speaker 1: just hope that you've joined us in outweigh the last
Speaker 1: several months, and maybe you've learned some stuff and you've
Speaker 1: been given the tools to give yourself that permission to
Speaker 1: no matter what you ate yesterday on Christmas Day, and
Speaker 1: no matter how you're waking up today, you can eat
Speaker 1: breakfast however much you want, whatever you want. You don't
Speaker 1: have to go to the gym. You can go get
Speaker 1: the pie out, it doesn't matter. I mean, Leasa, you
Speaker 1: might be able to speak to this more because I
Speaker 1: thank Lisa lot for my growth in this area. There
Speaker 1: was several different things that contributed to me finding this
Speaker 1: piece that I now have with food, but Lesa is
Speaker 1: a huge reason for that. Thank you, And I mean
Speaker 1: they're I've been there too, So I'm not just speaking
Speaker 1: as you know, the the expert. I'm speaking right now
Speaker 1: from the person that also has been there, whether it
Speaker 1: was Thanksgiving or even just you know, a Sunday night
Speaker 1: or whatever it was, when we put these days on
Speaker 1: pedestals for whatever reasons, that the shift really happens when
Speaker 1: you recognize the noise. You know, I call my courses
Speaker 1: forth the noise, but you don't need to take my
Speaker 1: courses to understand the concept. The concept is when you
Speaker 1: were caught up in either inner noise, which can be worry, guilt, shame,
Speaker 1: feeling like you need to compensate, you can notice what
Speaker 1: that feels like in your body and recognize you're not
Speaker 1: your best self right now, and in order to be
Speaker 1: your best self, you need to calm down and give
Speaker 1: your body what it needs. And as long as we
Speaker 1: continue to you know, do the juice cleanses or you know,
Speaker 1: make up for a Christmas Day, the more we stay
Speaker 1: stuck in this this really bad cycle that isn't the
Speaker 1: true us. So again, you know, we've done so much
Speaker 1: this year on that way, and thank you for everybody
Speaker 1: who made that way possible. So feel free to also
Speaker 1: just revisit any episodes because these shifts in our mindset
Speaker 1: and our behavior take time, So really listen to whatever
Speaker 1: feels good for you. And we kind of picked out
Speaker 1: some of the best of of this year to try
Speaker 1: and help you kind of get there today or whatever
Speaker 1: day you're listening to this, if it's not the day
Speaker 1: after Christmas. And we've had so many experts and guests
Speaker 1: just hopefully just reminding you that you're not alone, your
Speaker 1: body is not broken, but it is definitely time to
Speaker 1: change the way we think so that we can really
Speaker 1: live our fullest lives. I love that I want to
Speaker 1: share a small joy from my recovery, and at least
Speaker 1: so while I'm sharing it, you can be thinking of
Speaker 1: one because we didn't discuss this before. But a small
Speaker 1: joy for me was that I got to make a
Speaker 1: brownie recipe that Mary and I include it in our
Speaker 1: Four Things Gratitude journal. It's it's a journal that you
Speaker 1: write down what you're thankful for, but we both included
Speaker 1: family recipes inside, and mine was a macaroni and cheese dish,
Speaker 1: and then hers was this amazing brownie dish from her grandma,
Speaker 1: and nothing was gluten free and was like all these
Speaker 1: food rules I used to have around, Okay, if I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have a brownie, it needs to be X y
Speaker 1: Z for me to eat it. And it was all
Speaker 1: kinds of ingredients I would have never allowed myself, and
Speaker 1: I whipped it up, made it with my daughter, which
Speaker 1: was super fun and she thought they were so tasty.
Speaker 1: And then earlier this week, I ate a brownie for
Speaker 1: breakfast and I even just felt like that was a
Speaker 1: small joy for me. I made a cup of coffee,
Speaker 1: I sat down to work on my puzzle. I ate
Speaker 1: the brownie, and that, to me was a moment that
Speaker 1: I don't think I would have had, and it was
Speaker 1: just me by myself, like nothing around. But I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: diet culture says no to this all day long, and
Speaker 1: that's how we learned stuff like that. Society tells us
Speaker 1: you're gonna eat that brownie and you're gonna eat it
Speaker 1: for breakfast, and you're gonna like insert whatever. And so
Speaker 1: for me that was a small joy in my recovery.
Speaker 1: And just pay even that noise. You know, Okay, you're
Speaker 1: gonna eat that brownie. You're gonna eat you know it
Speaker 1: for breakfast, and oh look at you, you're still going
Speaker 1: you know, all those noises are clues that you're entering
Speaker 1: disconnection and you're going to then, you know, partaking the
Speaker 1: last chance mentality where okay, well I might as well
Speaker 1: keep eating all of the brownie. And what a beautiful
Speaker 1: moment that you had with yourself, Amy, like, those are
Speaker 1: the seeds of planting a really radically different relationship to
Speaker 1: yourself than the one that you know, we've been taught
Speaker 1: to kind of have. Okay, my joys have been not
Speaker 1: so much in the actual foods that I'm eating, because
Speaker 1: i feel like I've gotten some good, you know, freedoms
Speaker 1: around that. But one of the things that really like
Speaker 1: lights my heart on fire and makes me feel really
Speaker 1: proud of me and so grateful that I did this
Speaker 1: work or I do this work every day is really like,
Speaker 1: my husband has been working crazy hours and I normly
Speaker 1: really try and wait for him for dinner, but lately
Speaker 1: it's just been too much to wait for him. I
Speaker 1: can't eat at ten thirty at night multiple times a night,
Speaker 1: so I've been eating my dinner alone, which can be
Speaker 1: a little bit lonely, and then when he comes home, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I could have have different options there. I
Speaker 1: could just put food in front of him, I could
Speaker 1: have it waiting for him and be in bed, But
Speaker 1: I've actually been partaking and also eating with him simply
Speaker 1: because sometimes sharing sharing a meal for me is just
Speaker 1: a really powerful way to stay connected and even if
Speaker 1: I'm not you know, hungry or in the mood for
Speaker 1: that food or any of that. Having a few bites
Speaker 1: and just sharing those moments together they make such a
Speaker 1: big difference in our relationship, and I value that relationship
Speaker 1: so much, and I recognize that that's not something that
Speaker 1: I would have ever, you know, done five six, seven
Speaker 1: years ago. Yes, being able to put I feel like
Speaker 1: I can speak for you here on this, Lisa, But
Speaker 1: for a lot of years, both of us probably spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time and energy putting food and working
Speaker 1: out above relationships for sure. And then even if I
Speaker 1: were to eat with him, you know, it wouldn't be
Speaker 1: because I wanted to spend time with him. It would
Speaker 1: be because like this whole other mindset in my mind
Speaker 1: was really dragging me away from the moment. I might
Speaker 1: be eating with him, but I'm thinking about, you know,
Speaker 1: what I have to do because I ate this food.
Speaker 1: And it's nice that food can just be a vehicle
Speaker 1: to connect period. It just is so different. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: your brain is there with him and with five different
Speaker 1: places on how you're gonna And I know months ago,
Speaker 1: this may even have been last year. We probably was
Speaker 1: last year, and weird, but you were talking about, or
Speaker 1: maybe you were just sharing an experience from early on
Speaker 1: in your recovery, like you were at a bachelorette party
Speaker 1: or traveling with girlfriends, and normally you would have not
Speaker 1: been able to order things off room service and you
Speaker 1: would have woken up first thing and went to the gym.
Speaker 1: But you were able to just order whatever with your girlfriends,
Speaker 1: have a good night at the hotel, and then not
Speaker 1: wake up and rush off to the gym totally, which
Speaker 1: is again about relationships, and I've been there. It makes
Speaker 1: me think too. Before we get into this best of episode.
Speaker 1: General for Rolin is someone that we both admire a
Speaker 1: lot and follow on Instagram, and she actually posted the
Speaker 1: other day a small joy of her recovery, and she said,
Speaker 1: choosing to sleep in with your partner instead of feeling
Speaker 1: like you have to rush off to the gym. I
Speaker 1: think that applies even if you don't have a partner,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, your moment today eating your brownie, like
Speaker 1: the fact that it was alone is so much bigger
Speaker 1: than I think we even realize, because having these intimate
Speaker 1: moments with ourself are really important. So choosing to lay
Speaker 1: in bed with yourself on the day after Christmas if
Speaker 1: you're not working, because that just feels good to just like,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of self cherished. For lack of a
Speaker 1: better word, I don't know if that's kind of the
Speaker 1: word I want to go for. It is just a
Speaker 1: beautiful moment, like to hold yourself and not rush off
Speaker 1: into this defined version of health, Like health is calmness,
Speaker 1: it's inner peace. Those are the mindset that change your
Speaker 1: chemistry to actually support things like your cardiac health and
Speaker 1: inflammation more than the food or the exercise itself. If
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Does that makes sense? Absolutely? Our hope
Speaker 1: is that you guys close out the end of this
Speaker 1: year a little bit more self aware of where you
Speaker 1: are with food and and body image stuff and then
Speaker 1: give yourself grace. This kind of thing does not happen overnight.
Speaker 1: Lisa and I both put in a lot of work,
Speaker 1: and so I don't want you to beat yourself up
Speaker 1: if you hear us telling a story and you're not
Speaker 1: quite there yet, because everybody's journey is different and how
Speaker 1: you get there may be different. We just want outweigh
Speaker 1: to be a tool that you have in your toolbox
Speaker 1: to help you get there. So we hope you enjoy
Speaker 1: Today's best of episode and then we will see you
Speaker 1: in one Who who we are so excited to welcome
Speaker 1: Jennifer Rowlin. She is in eating disorder therapist and founder
Speaker 1: of the Eating Disorder Center in Maryland. Welcome Jennifer. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be here. Yeah, we're excited to
Speaker 1: have you on, especially since you can talk with us
Speaker 1: about eating disorder issues and topics and your therapist, you're
Speaker 1: the expert. And the first thing we'd love to touch
Speaker 1: on with you is orthorexia because I think for a
Speaker 1: long time this didn't have a name. I know I
Speaker 1: personally had it, but I didn't realize that's what I
Speaker 1: was doing and to myself and to my family and
Speaker 1: friends that I was hanging out with. Can you talk
Speaker 1: to us about what it is? Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: it's so common for people to not know that they
Speaker 1: have it. And basically orthorexia is an unhealthy obsession was
Speaker 1: so called healthy eating, So what it can look like.
Speaker 1: Just some of the main symptoms would be rigid food rule,
Speaker 1: so saying things like I don't eat white bread, cutting
Speaker 1: out whole food groups for non medical reasons. We also
Speaker 1: see social isolation, so starting to avoid events, where the
Speaker 1: person can't get their like quote unquote healthy food, spending
Speaker 1: hours thinking about food, googling recipes, and then this idea
Speaker 1: of purity and morality. So if I eat a certain
Speaker 1: way that I'm a good person, but if I eat
Speaker 1: a different way that I'm bad. Yes, And I, as
Speaker 1: someone who also experience a version of orthorexia, you know
Speaker 1: it didn't start like that. How does it start for
Speaker 1: most people in your practice or your experience. Sure, so
Speaker 1: I'm also recovered myself, and I first experienced orthorexic symptoms
Speaker 1: might eating to put are emerged, and I see this
Speaker 1: with clients as well. How it usually starts as this
Speaker 1: idea of I want to be healthier. That's how it
Speaker 1: presents the outside world. So typically people to orthorexia, unlike anorexia,
Speaker 1: they're usually very open about what they're eating, kind of
Speaker 1: posting the Instagram images it's beautiful, like healthyfied foods, promoting
Speaker 1: this idea of health and wellness. But underneath that is
Speaker 1: an obsession and high levels of anxiety as well as
Speaker 1: like this need for control. So I just want to
Speaker 1: be clear too, because there is a difference in wanting
Speaker 1: to put nourishing foods into your body and caring about that,
Speaker 1: but then being obsessive about it. I mean, how do
Speaker 1: how do you tell the difference? Like if someone's listening
Speaker 1: at that, they're like, oh, shoot, I do care about
Speaker 1: like nutrients and food, and my outer wisdom is telling
Speaker 1: me like, this food is something that's going to provide
Speaker 1: a lot of healthy vitamins and minerals for my body
Speaker 1: and what it needs. But there's a difference. That's not
Speaker 1: what we're saying. Absolutely yeah. So it comes down to
Speaker 1: this idea of preference versus a rigid rule. So what
Speaker 1: I al would say is there's nothing wrong with really
Speaker 1: liking kale, right, that's not unhealthy. But for somebody with orthorexia,
Speaker 1: it's this idea of I cannot break my food rules,
Speaker 1: and if I do, there's extreme anxiety. So it's a
Speaker 1: difference between I have a preference for eating this food
Speaker 1: this I know it's going to give me nutrients. I've
Speaker 1: decided to have this meal because it looks good, versus
Speaker 1: I'm eating this meal because these are my safe foods
Speaker 1: and anything else is bad. And if I eat anything else,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to feel terrible about myself or
Speaker 1: have to compensate or think about it all day and
Speaker 1: anecdotally for myself. You know, it started off of I
Speaker 1: love healthy food. I love healthy food, but it was
Speaker 1: also really just a vice to control my food in
Speaker 1: a new way, in a way where other people wouldn't
Speaker 1: question it that you know, I was eating, but I
Speaker 1: was eating specific foods, so nobody would ever say, Okay,
Speaker 1: she hasn't eating disorder, she doesn't eat. If anything, everybody
Speaker 1: would say she eats a lot, because I was always eating,
Speaker 1: but always eating safe foods personally for me, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's so typical. And we might see things and something
Speaker 1: I did and my eating disorder, for instance, was I
Speaker 1: would bring my own food to cook outs in like
Speaker 1: a tepperware and I'd be eating and it would appear
Speaker 1: quote unquote healthy, but it wasn't enough calories for my
Speaker 1: energy needs and it was very rigid. Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: say I could speak to that too. For my family,
Speaker 1: my dad, food is his love language and he would
Speaker 1: love to cook for us. And I think back on
Speaker 1: all the times where I used to just show up
Speaker 1: and not eat what he prepared because it wasn't on
Speaker 1: my list, and I could get away with it because
Speaker 1: I was like, well, Dad, I'm a vegan, gluten free,
Speaker 1: you know person now, But I don't even really know
Speaker 1: why I put myself into that category. I think some
Speaker 1: of it did start because I was trying to get
Speaker 1: pregnant and I read a book that was all about
Speaker 1: detoxing and how you what certain foods you could put
Speaker 1: into your body. But for me, it took it to
Speaker 1: the next level. But I had that as my excuse
Speaker 1: of Why'm meeting this way because I'm trying to get pregnant.
Speaker 1: But I really I liked the results I was seeing
Speaker 1: from it, and it snowballed and snowballed to where I
Speaker 1: was no longer a We began to fear the things
Speaker 1: that you cut out exactly couldn't be flexible. And then
Speaker 1: if I let myself have whatever said food that I feared,
Speaker 1: then it was like, Okay, I've gone and done this,
Speaker 1: so I better eat this food that is on my
Speaker 1: fear list for the rest of today and as much
Speaker 1: as I can because tomorrow I'm never going to have
Speaker 1: it again. Yeah, and that's so common that, like in
Speaker 1: compulsive eating restricts cycle, it's incredibly common. And I think
Speaker 1: one thing you both pointed out was also how this
Speaker 1: eating disorder. I like to call it like the eating
Speaker 1: disorder that hides in plain sight, because it's often not
Speaker 1: visible to the outside. I people think, oh, that person
Speaker 1: is just being healthy, and there's a lot of justifications,
Speaker 1: like you said, then you're gluten freeze, then you're dairy freeze.
Speaker 1: But secretly, it's that obsession and that desire for control
Speaker 1: and not to mention the applaud that comes with oh
Speaker 1: I wish I could be healthy like you, or I
Speaker 1: should have the discipline like you, where you're being applauded
Speaker 1: for this behavior that becomes your identity. So yes, I'm
Speaker 1: going to touch on that, because you say your identity.
Speaker 1: Somehow I became this person without even really trying to
Speaker 1: be that person that people would come to for advice
Speaker 1: on what is the next thing I should be doing
Speaker 1: or how can I de TALX like a S A P.
Speaker 1: And I was like, how did I become this person?
Speaker 1: But I realized I became that person because it's all
Speaker 1: I talked about, which I probably would now find myself
Speaker 1: to be extremely annoying if but I mean, but it's
Speaker 1: it is something that a lot of people are interested in,
Speaker 1: and they're always trying to find that next thing. So
Speaker 1: if you're a person that's up to speed on the
Speaker 1: next super food, then you know, of course it's what
Speaker 1: you're gonna be talking about and people are gonna ask
Speaker 1: you about. And to me, there was nothing satisfying about
Speaker 1: being that person. I think at the time I thought
Speaker 1: maybe there was, but looking back, I'm like, oh, that
Speaker 1: was just so miserable to be fixated on certain foods
Speaker 1: that we're going to have all these magical powers because
Speaker 1: they were on my my list of approved things I
Speaker 1: could eat, And then so hard for people to let
Speaker 1: go of that identity too, for some people, because they
Speaker 1: do get so much praise from other people and it
Speaker 1: becomes part of who they are and they're like, without this,
Speaker 1: who am I. The thing about orthorexia was that this
Speaker 1: was not a word that was well known. Um I
Speaker 1: think it was officially created or termed coined in the nineties,
Speaker 1: but we didn't hear about it until really now. And
Speaker 1: it's one of those words that I wish I knew
Speaker 1: about or I learned about in school, because without it existing,
Speaker 1: I thought I was fine. I thought that, okay, I
Speaker 1: didn't have anorexia or believe me, a personally so therefore
Speaker 1: I was fine, and with the understanding that there's this
Speaker 1: gray area which is disordered eating, which orthorexia falls under,
Speaker 1: I felt like I could have raised my hand and say, okay,
Speaker 1: I see that symptom in me, but without it being there,
Speaker 1: without a place to land, I've I suffered for many years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because so tough and unfortunately so common. Again, it's just hard,
Speaker 1: I think, to identify that you have a problem when
Speaker 1: everyone around you is envious of what you're doing, and
Speaker 1: maybe you're surrounding yourself by other people in diet culture,
Speaker 1: so it seems very normative. Jennifer, Can you share with
Speaker 1: us the difference between eating disorder and disordered eating? Sure?
Speaker 1: So for me, the way that I designed disordered eating
Speaker 1: is that you don't have a good relationship with food.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're following like these external diet rules, You're not
Speaker 1: listening to your body, you're casting judgment around certain foods
Speaker 1: is good or bad. Perhaps you're not eating enough for
Speaker 1: your energy needs, and all of that can be really harmful.
Speaker 1: And I think people who struggle with disordered eating deserve
Speaker 1: to get care as much as people with eating disorders.
Speaker 1: For me, it crosses over into an eating disorder. When
Speaker 1: that becomes your whole life. There's a big distinction between dieting,
Speaker 1: where like that's one piece of your life, and maybe
Speaker 1: it's an unpleasant piece of your life, but it's a
Speaker 1: piece of your life. When it's an eating disorder, it
Speaker 1: starts to infiltrate every area of your life. And for
Speaker 1: many people, at the height of their eating disorder, it's
Speaker 1: like every waking thought is about food or when can
Speaker 1: I get my next meal? Or when can I use
Speaker 1: this behavior. Maybe there's a mom that's listening, or a
Speaker 1: family member or a best friend that's listening to this
Speaker 1: right now, and they don't necessarily struggle with some of this,
Speaker 1: but someone close to them does. What advice do you
Speaker 1: have for people in their life? Look for me, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of like if I had a friend listening to
Speaker 1: this back when I was really like hyper focused, like
Speaker 1: on every little thing that I was eating. To say,
Speaker 1: my best friend or my sister would be listening to
Speaker 1: us talk right now, and she might be like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, this is Amy, Like Amy needs to hear
Speaker 1: the us, Like, how how can I help any this
Speaker 1: is her? What is the best way to do it
Speaker 1: without you know, offending somebody or trying to make sure
Speaker 1: that you're there for them, you're giving them the best help,
Speaker 1: Like what what does that person need? What did I
Speaker 1: need from someone when I was during that time? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think there's a few things. I think the
Speaker 1: first step is to express your concerns to that person
Speaker 1: and to make sure that you're pointing out the concerns
Speaker 1: about their behaviors and not about weight, because talking about
Speaker 1: the person's weight can be really triggering. And then we
Speaker 1: also know that people can have an eating disorder in
Speaker 1: any sized body. They don't have to be sticked in
Speaker 1: in order to struggle. So saying I love you, I
Speaker 1: care about you, I've noticed that when we go out
Speaker 1: to eat, you're ordering in a very disordered way, or
Speaker 1: you're not wanting to go out to eat with me
Speaker 1: as much as you used to, or you're constantly talking
Speaker 1: about super foods. You know, And I wonder, you know,
Speaker 1: because I am so worried about you, would you be
Speaker 1: open to get in consultation with the therapist and then
Speaker 1: if it's not a problem, it's not a problem, but
Speaker 1: I would really urge you to get some professional help
Speaker 1: just to again see if there's something going on. To
Speaker 1: kind of get an assessment, and I would also add
Speaker 1: to be really careful not to make comments on that
Speaker 1: person's body, and to also educate yourself and to educate
Speaker 1: the person as much as possible, so you know, maybe
Speaker 1: sharing with them the link to our conversation or other
Speaker 1: books or podcasts talking about eating disordered behaviors as well.
Speaker 1: One of the hardest parts for me was when I
Speaker 1: noticed that my thoughts were all consuming and I went
Speaker 1: to see a therapist who was not an eating disorder therapist.
Speaker 1: She told me that I had anxiety, and that made
Speaker 1: so much sense to me, because of course I had anxiety,
Speaker 1: but because all I was eating healthy, I couldn't understand
Speaker 1: that I had a problem with food. And I almost
Speaker 1: wish that that therapists had said to me, you have
Speaker 1: anxiety because of your relationship to food, not you have
Speaker 1: anxiety period, because we danced around it. I danced around
Speaker 1: it for a long time and I was looking for
Speaker 1: professional help, for someone to tell me something was wrong,
Speaker 1: and she didn't. Yeah, And I think that's why, Like
Speaker 1: another caveat of that would be to ask when they
Speaker 1: do seek professional hope that they seek help from eating
Speaker 1: disorder specialists, not just somebody because I don't know if
Speaker 1: you guys are familiar with psychology today to find a therapist.
Speaker 1: But nowadays therapists can check a box and say they
Speaker 1: specialize in something on psychology today, so some have like
Speaker 1: thirty specialties listed, and you want to actually, like I
Speaker 1: encourage people to interview the therapists on the phone and
Speaker 1: say what percentage of your caseload was people with eating disorders,
Speaker 1: like what is your experience to really get an understanding,
Speaker 1: because unfortunately a lot of therapists say they do everything,
Speaker 1: and I'm somebody who doesn't believe that you can effectively
Speaker 1: have every specialization. You know, like, I know what areas
Speaker 1: am great at, and I know what I don't know.
Speaker 1: Would you say that orthorexia or disordered eating always comes
Speaker 1: down to the desire to be thin, Definitely, I don't
Speaker 1: think so. I think with orthorexia can have people who
Speaker 1: want to lose weight as part of that illness, but
Speaker 1: you also can have people who don't have body image issues,
Speaker 1: where for instance, I've had clients in the past who've
Speaker 1: lost family members to cancer, and so their fear around
Speaker 1: food is that, you know, this idea of mortality and
Speaker 1: if I eat in a certain way, then they believe
Speaker 1: I can protect myself from that. Right, So I think
Speaker 1: even though thinness can be the way that some of
Speaker 1: the symptoms sometimes manifest, but then even disorder usually there's
Speaker 1: a lot of underlying core issues, which can include past trauma,
Speaker 1: low self horrors, perfectionism, you know, anxiety, depression, a mood disorder.
Speaker 1: So the way I describe it to clients as if
Speaker 1: we think about an iceberg. Often the desire to be
Speaker 1: thin is the top of the iceberg that's peaking out,
Speaker 1: but underneath the surface is all of those other issues.
Speaker 1: I'm just talking about the play into that. And how
Speaker 1: do you ration though with somebody that says, my blah
Speaker 1: blah blah died of cancer and so I need to
Speaker 1: eat all these superfoods only and I can't have gluten
Speaker 1: and a can of this again of that, because those
Speaker 1: are all you know, because they read that they're inflammatory.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying these is factual information for our listeners,
Speaker 1: just things that I hear a lot as a dietitian, right,
Speaker 1: And I think, I mean, I have so many arguments
Speaker 1: around that I don't even know where to start. But
Speaker 1: I think the main two that I would say, are
Speaker 1: a like really looking at the conclusive research and be
Speaker 1: I mean, we know a lot of research has tainted
Speaker 1: or like facts on certain websites by guy culture. So
Speaker 1: looking at the impact of having anxiety around food und
Speaker 1: your health because that spikes corn solid can actually be
Speaker 1: very unhealthy. And then to Harvard died a study for
Speaker 1: a hundred years where they studied men and they looked
Speaker 1: at mortality rates and they found that people with the
Speaker 1: strongest social connections actually was the biggest predictor of longevity.
Speaker 1: And people who are obsessed with quote unquote health foods
Speaker 1: often that impacts their social relationships because in our culture, right,
Speaker 1: like we all want to go out and get ice
Speaker 1: food with friends. So I would actually argue that isolating
Speaker 1: sitting alone in your room eating your salad is far
Speaker 1: more unhealthy than going out to eat in a relaxed
Speaker 1: environment with friends. You know, we have real people sharing
Speaker 1: their stories as part of this series and also in
Speaker 1: that doing letters to themselves. And I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of people with this in their past, if they
Speaker 1: are writing back to the person they were, then so
Speaker 1: many letters would include like I'm sorry that you missed
Speaker 1: out on going to dinner with your friends. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: that you would make up an excuse to skip the
Speaker 1: party because you were scared of what food was going
Speaker 1: to be served or if there was going to be cake.
Speaker 1: I know that that's certainly the case for me. Like
Speaker 1: I think back over the years of college to adulthood,
Speaker 1: like pass that into my career where I legit skipped
Speaker 1: out on social functions because I couldn't control the food,
Speaker 1: and even if I was personally showing up to them, mentally,
Speaker 1: I was checked out because let's say eight before I
Speaker 1: got there to control the situation I was, my mind
Speaker 1: was still running rampant around, Oh my god, I want
Speaker 1: to eat this? Can I eat this? Can I eat this?
Speaker 1: And then I eat it, and then I'd go into
Speaker 1: the guilt cycle. So it's like you're just can't be
Speaker 1: pleasant even if you're showing up. I love that you
Speaker 1: touched on that, Jennifer, the study of the social aspect
Speaker 1: and how that can be so good for us, and
Speaker 1: probably the anxiety that I caused around. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: that person with the cancer thing too. Yes, I had
Speaker 1: the healthy eating because I was trying to get pregnant,
Speaker 1: but my mom also died of cancer in two thousand fourteen.
Speaker 1: My dad is in remission right now, So I feel
Speaker 1: like I also had that to latch onto to use
Speaker 1: and as an excuse of why I was eating a
Speaker 1: certain way. But again it created so much anxiety and
Speaker 1: stress for me that stress caused more damage than than
Speaker 1: the food, right, And I think that's so common in it. Again,
Speaker 1: eating disorder into eating are super complex. I don't want
Speaker 1: to say it boiled down to one thing. But when
Speaker 1: we have the loss of a loved one, you know,
Speaker 1: from an illness that feels incredibly out of control and
Speaker 1: uncertain and scary. And if I'm sold this idea and
Speaker 1: this lie to diet cultures that these huge will protect me,
Speaker 1: it makes perfect sense why I would latch onto that
Speaker 1: as the means of control. But again we know it
Speaker 1: just serves to create more problems, and that you know,
Speaker 1: no matter how much kale we'll eat, we're all gonna
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, we're all not going
Speaker 1: to live forever. So I think diet culture really praised
Speaker 1: on all of our fears about mortality and again latching
Speaker 1: onto something to try to control after going through situations
Speaker 1: that feel very scary and out of control. But the
Speaker 1: problem is the more we buy into the behaviors, the
Speaker 1: more we're controlled side them. Yeah, and diet culture latches
Speaker 1: onto this. Whatever we've been told is what our bodies
Speaker 1: are supposed to look like. Any generationally it changes, but
Speaker 1: there's like, okay, we're told from magazine covers to all
Speaker 1: kinds of things, to celebrities. They feel this certain pressure
Speaker 1: to look a certain way, and then that's what we
Speaker 1: see and I feel like then we're all struggling and
Speaker 1: it's like a rat race trying to what can we
Speaker 1: do and trying to keep up and figure out how
Speaker 1: how is our body is supposed to look like that?
Speaker 1: Or how do we get our body that way? But
Speaker 1: why has that been decided? Like who decided that's how
Speaker 1: bodies look? Our bodies should look how we were born
Speaker 1: to look, and we're all different shapes and sizes and
Speaker 1: we're all beautiful. Like that's just so I'm sure it's
Speaker 1: frustrating for you of people that come in and are
Speaker 1: talking to you about. Is that a topic that comes
Speaker 1: up of like the standards that we have to live
Speaker 1: up too and what's out there and what's your response
Speaker 1: to that? It comes up all the time with clients
Speaker 1: and I think it's far worse now because of Instagram
Speaker 1: and face too than all these options that are out there.
Speaker 1: But I think at the end of the day, we
Speaker 1: all want to be loved and we all want to
Speaker 1: be accepted, and I think that diet culture is I
Speaker 1: think now it's that the sev dollar industry, and they
Speaker 1: wouldn't make any money if we all woke up and
Speaker 1: said I like myself, I love myself, right, So we
Speaker 1: have these big companies that prey on our insecurities in
Speaker 1: order to sell products because that's how they make their money.
Speaker 1: And then I also think there's a big element of
Speaker 1: patriarchy and all of this, because if women are sitting
Speaker 1: around counting calories trying to shrink our bodies, then we're
Speaker 1: not enacting world change that we could be enacting. Like
Speaker 1: I feel like that could be an entirely separate episode,
Speaker 1: so I don't even want to dive into that too far. Well,
Speaker 1: so you mentioned waking up and loving your body. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about self talk and negative self talk in particular,
Speaker 1: and I feel we'll just use since you brought up
Speaker 1: social media and Instagram, like it gets hard, like you
Speaker 1: can be scrolling through and like see a picture of
Speaker 1: someone and then just be like, oh wow, dang, look
Speaker 1: at them, like why am I so fat? Or however
Speaker 1: you whatever that negative thought is that instantly comes in
Speaker 1: because you saw something, or you walk by and you
Speaker 1: look in the mirror and you just instantly say something
Speaker 1: negative about yourself. How are you seeing? How we talk
Speaker 1: to ourselves affect people. I mean a singer, internal dialogue
Speaker 1: can be so power full and often it's super negative
Speaker 1: and critical in a way that we wouldn't talk to
Speaker 1: other people that we care about. And so I start
Speaker 1: by having people be mindful of their thoughts, because I
Speaker 1: think we go about our day and we have something
Speaker 1: like seventy thousand thoughts today and many of them are
Speaker 1: similar thoughts that we've had before. They're on loop, and
Speaker 1: so I think the first step is just being mindful
Speaker 1: and aware of what we're telling ourselves and that we're
Speaker 1: not our thoughts right, those are stories that our mind
Speaker 1: makes up. And then the second step is thinking rather
Speaker 1: than asking yourself is that thought true or not? I
Speaker 1: have clients asked is this thought helpful in terms of
Speaker 1: getting me in the direction of a full and meaningful life?
Speaker 1: And if the answer is it's not, helpful. What I
Speaker 1: like to have people do is practice either coming up
Speaker 1: with a mantra positive self statement that they say back
Speaker 1: to themselves repeatedly, or really practicing that like self compassionate voice,
Speaker 1: So thinking about what you would tell a child, your
Speaker 1: best friend, somebody that you loved she said that statement.
Speaker 1: And then more you practice the positive self talk, the
Speaker 1: more automatic and naturalist you to come over time. Thank
Speaker 1: you for that, Jennifer. We really appreciate you coming on. Actually,
Speaker 1: the next couple of stories that we're going to share
Speaker 1: in this episode are girls that got vulnerable and negative
Speaker 1: self talk plays a role in in their story, So
Speaker 1: I think we'll dive into their stories. But appreciate you
Speaker 1: coming on so much. And if people want to follow
Speaker 1: you on Instagram, you are at Jennifer Underscore. Rowlin and
Speaker 1: I have started following you, I don't know, in the
Speaker 1: last month or two, and I just want to tell
Speaker 1: you I've so enjoyed your posts. They've been a huge
Speaker 1: encouragement to me, and I know that they will be
Speaker 1: to a lot of other people if they aren't already
Speaker 1: following you. And I'm just pulling up one that you
Speaker 1: put up. Actually it's like three days ago when we're
Speaker 1: recording this, but this is gonna air in April. But
Speaker 1: you put your mom had slim vest, you have keto.
Speaker 1: Your daughter deserves freedom, ditch the diet life. And as
Speaker 1: a mom of a twelve year old girl who all
Speaker 1: I want her to know is that she is beautiful
Speaker 1: no matter what, like yes, I want her to have
Speaker 1: that freedom. And thankfully she is showing no signs of anything.
Speaker 1: But I just have to pray that that continues. But
Speaker 1: I liked that post because yeah, every generation is going
Speaker 1: to have their thing. But I think if we continue
Speaker 1: this fight and you keep doing what you're doing, Jennifer,
Speaker 1: because it's important work, our daughters can have freedom. Absolutely. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me on in for
Speaker 1: spotlighting this issue because I think it's so important. Thank you, Thanks, Jennifer.
Speaker 1: So we've got Katherine de Fata in the studio with us,
Speaker 1: so you're a guest. It's actually here in person. A
Speaker 1: lot of our interviews have been over the phone just
Speaker 1: because of where people are in the country, but you're
Speaker 1: right here in Nashville with us, which is super cool,
Speaker 1: and your therapist here in town. But you specialize in
Speaker 1: eating disorders, and so I talked about it on the
Speaker 1: podcast and you listen to Four Things with Amy Brown,
Speaker 1: and you sent me a note and said that if
Speaker 1: you could be a part of it, just like you know,
Speaker 1: and we started emailing back and forth, and I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: can you come to the studio and and let's record
Speaker 1: some stuff. So just before we hit record, we were
Speaker 1: having an off air conversation about eating disorder being an
Speaker 1: addiction and when I'm trying to talk to my husband
Speaker 1: about it, or when I was eating a lot and
Speaker 1: I just felt like I couldn't stop, and he didn't understand.
Speaker 1: I would say, and I don't know if I was
Speaker 1: right and how I was saying it at all, but
Speaker 1: to me it felt like I was like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's like an alcoholic can't stop drinking. I was like,
Speaker 1: but you can take alcohol out of your life and survive,
Speaker 1: like with food. I can't eliminate food from my life
Speaker 1: because you need food to survive. I just remember that
Speaker 1: being like some language out thrown out. I'm sure I
Speaker 1: heard it somewhere, but that's I mean, that's comparing alcoholism
Speaker 1: is seen as as an addiction. So one of the
Speaker 1: things that you asked me was what's difference between self
Speaker 1: work and therapy with an actual therapist? And I thought
Speaker 1: about it and actually, like I had a different answer,
Speaker 1: and then I was like, that's not right. The difference
Speaker 1: is the relationship, and the relationship between a therapist and
Speaker 1: a client is like the number one predictor of if
Speaker 1: it's going to be successful. Like if you hate your therapist,
Speaker 1: you probably won't get a lot done. So that goes
Speaker 1: into just attachment theory and what that means, and do
Speaker 1: you guys know what that is. Attachment theory comes from
Speaker 1: this guy. His name is John Bowlby, and he was
Speaker 1: doing research in orphanages and he was noticing that, like
Speaker 1: these babies that were getting everything that they needed like shelter, food, water,
Speaker 1: they were dying where they were getting really really sick.
Speaker 1: But there's no reason for it except they weren't being touched.
Speaker 1: So there's no touch at all, which is crazy. And
Speaker 1: what he came up was that a relationship is necessary
Speaker 1: to survive. He did a lot of research, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that I won't go into because
Speaker 1: it might be a little bit boring, but he came
Speaker 1: up with these three attachment styles secure, anxious, avoidant, and
Speaker 1: we get those attachment styles based on the relationships we
Speaker 1: usually have with our prime very caregiver. So if I
Speaker 1: have a really great, loving environment and all my needs
Speaker 1: are met all the time, I'm going to have a
Speaker 1: secure attachment. But and that's the majority of people. But
Speaker 1: also I see it on a spectrum to the majority
Speaker 1: of people do have a relationship. Yeah, that's what they
Speaker 1: say in the research, but I'm doing air quotes and
Speaker 1: they can't see that's what they say. However, I think
Speaker 1: really people are on a spectrum with this, so and
Speaker 1: then anxious attachment would be when sometimes their needs are
Speaker 1: being met, sometimes they're not, and so you don't know
Speaker 1: whether to trust or not to trust. And then avoidant
Speaker 1: is when your needs aren't really being met. And so
Speaker 1: you kind of developed this idea of like I gotta
Speaker 1: go do everything on my own, Like I gotta go
Speaker 1: figure everything on on my own. Okay, I'm gonna interject
Speaker 1: just a second, because I do have two adopted children
Speaker 1: from Haiti, and some people may know that, some people
Speaker 1: may not depending on what they've listened to. And I
Speaker 1: had not heard and described as attachment theory. But I
Speaker 1: know that my kids and I've witnessed it. They have
Speaker 1: attachment disorder, yes, okay, and the lack of stimulation that
Speaker 1: my son had. I now see how it comes out
Speaker 1: in certain times, like how he responds and reacts, and
Speaker 1: then even my daughter, this is just is this even
Speaker 1: the same thing? Okay? So I'm just making sure on
Speaker 1: the same page because I also want to be aware of,
Speaker 1: like now that i'm their primary caregiver, that I'm focused
Speaker 1: on whatever they're going to need from me. But there's
Speaker 1: already walls built, there's already My daughter came here at ten,
Speaker 1: she's twelve now, but day one from her arrival was resistance.
Speaker 1: I can handle this on my own. I don't need you.
Speaker 1: She would basically give us the heisman anytime. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's been two years of breaking it down and we're
Speaker 1: finally getting there, but they're still testing, like I don't
Speaker 1: really trust you. Are you going to really love me?
Speaker 1: What about if I do this, You're still gonna love me?
Speaker 1: What if I Okay, I'm gonna try this out. And
Speaker 1: so my husband and I just have to remain consistent
Speaker 1: and so yes, at first, when you talked about attachment theory,
Speaker 1: was like, no, I don't know what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: but they're like, way does I get I do know this,
Speaker 1: but I'm also trying to think of my childhood and
Speaker 1: how it was with my So think about this. You've
Speaker 1: talked about your own like issues with food and disordered eating,
Speaker 1: all that I have that to think about as I
Speaker 1: explain this kind of where your story pops up. Also,
Speaker 1: this is going to be helpful because you're probably doing
Speaker 1: the things you need to do with your children without
Speaker 1: even knowing that you're doing them, just because you're a
Speaker 1: good caring person. So you can develop a certain attachment style.
Speaker 1: Good news is it's not static. It's fluid. So going
Speaker 1: back to just describing this and how it relates to
Speaker 1: what we were talking about in the beginning, is people
Speaker 1: develop these attachments and they're all based on feeling like loved,
Speaker 1: like you belong And so I have developed my own
Speaker 1: theory that we all are born with these two desires
Speaker 1: to be ourselves and then to have love and belonging,
Speaker 1: and throughout our lives, the desire for love and belonging
Speaker 1: becomes very very, very very strong, and so we drop
Speaker 1: parts of ourselves or pick parts of ourselves, or pick
Speaker 1: things up that aren't really parts of ourselves to get
Speaker 1: that love and belonging. And so that's when the addiction
Speaker 1: comes in. I'll use an example from my life to
Speaker 1: explain this. So I never felt like I like really
Speaker 1: really really fit into or had like a thing, or
Speaker 1: we're special in certain parts of my friend groups, in
Speaker 1: certain areas in my family, and so I started to
Speaker 1: do things to get me attention. I attributed that attention
Speaker 1: to love, right. I always say like any attention is
Speaker 1: good attention. So, going back to what you said, what's
Speaker 1: the difference between therapy and self work is a therapist
Speaker 1: is what we call a secure base, which helps somebody
Speaker 1: develop a secure attachment style. So somebody's going to come
Speaker 1: into my office, probably not knowing that they have any
Speaker 1: of this or any kind of drama. I'm going to
Speaker 1: be that person like you're explaining with your daughter, what
Speaker 1: if I do this, you still love me? What if
Speaker 1: I yell at you? Can I still come back? What
Speaker 1: if I miss a session? What if I tell you
Speaker 1: that you're wrong? What if I disagree with you? Um?
Speaker 1: What if I act out? What if I relapse in
Speaker 1: what you told me not to do? Are you still
Speaker 1: going to let me come back in? And the answer
Speaker 1: is always yes, yes, yes, with safe boundaries, and it
Speaker 1: helps them learn that like, hey, I don't have to
Speaker 1: be a certain way. I can show up as I
Speaker 1: am and like I can find love. So when you
Speaker 1: say you were doing things to get attention, what were
Speaker 1: those things? So it depends on which part of my life, Well,
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and talk about the eaty. So in college, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's easy for me to talk about this. Now, I
Speaker 1: didn't know that this was happening, no clue, which most
Speaker 1: people don't. But I started with a diet, counting calories.
Speaker 1: And again in my family, all my siblings went and
Speaker 1: played dan one sports and I just went to college.
Speaker 1: And so I felt like I was missing something because
Speaker 1: don't have anything that my parents would really brag that
Speaker 1: much about. No fault to them, My parents are great.
Speaker 1: And so I went on this diet, started losing all
Speaker 1: this weight. I was getting tons of attention, like tons,
Speaker 1: you look so good, this this whatever. Guys like started
Speaker 1: talking to me more. And so I attribute that to
Speaker 1: that of like now if it and now I belong
Speaker 1: belonging as love, I'm good. And then I became a
Speaker 1: shell of a human tap into that a little bit more,
Speaker 1: what were you feeling at that time? Like what I mean, first,
Speaker 1: you're on the high. What does it mean to be
Speaker 1: a shell because you're certainly not a shell today with
Speaker 1: vibrants and your radiant. Yeah, So just so that people,
Speaker 1: because really we're doing this so people don't feel alone,
Speaker 1: and I feel like with each person that's sharing part
Speaker 1: of their real story, which you just did, somebody's relating
Speaker 1: and they're like, wait, tell me more. I would say.
Speaker 1: People would always describe me as like loud and bubbly
Speaker 1: and like fun. I'm a seven on the Instagram so
Speaker 1: that which I didn't know what the Instagram was back then.
Speaker 1: So that's what I always was. So when I started
Speaker 1: restricting my food, I ended up restricting every single part
Speaker 1: of my life because I couldn't go to that party
Speaker 1: because what if I drank alcohol and there's scalaris and alcohol,
Speaker 1: and then what if I got drunk and then I
Speaker 1: wanted to eat something that I ate something I shouldn't
Speaker 1: eat that crippled me. Or I can't go to that
Speaker 1: that restaurant because I can't eat anything there. Then people
Speaker 1: are gonna ask me like why aren't you eating? And
Speaker 1: I don't have to come up with some excuse, or
Speaker 1: I can't go to that thing at night because I
Speaker 1: have to get up and work out at six am,
Speaker 1: and I need my energy. And so I started cutting
Speaker 1: things out of my life. I remember the start of
Speaker 1: my junior year of college. That summer junior to senior year,
Speaker 1: I like never left my parents house when I came home,
Speaker 1: and I never saw any of my friends from high school,
Speaker 1: which we were always very close. I remember I did
Speaker 1: one thing. I went to my best friend from high
Speaker 1: school's birthday party and then started at her house and
Speaker 1: they all went out. I think it might have been
Speaker 1: her twenty first birthday, and I went home after her
Speaker 1: house that everybody else went out, and I went home
Speaker 1: because I was like, I can't do that. So the
Speaker 1: thing that got me all this attention all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: then I was like, what's the point of the attention,
Speaker 1: because I'm not letting myself engage with anybody. And then
Speaker 1: I came back that next year, my senior year, and
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything. I didn't I was in a stority.
Speaker 1: I like would skip some of our date parties or
Speaker 1: I would go I remember one time I also was
Speaker 1: really into school. I like I went to a party.
Speaker 1: It was a swaps which one that you would like
Speaker 1: dress up like and where a costume And I like
Speaker 1: loved doing that and I like took my note cards
Speaker 1: to the bar and like study for my test. You
Speaker 1: just like withdrew and interest in all the things that
Speaker 1: you love to do. My friends did not love that.
Speaker 1: So that's a part where that's just part of your
Speaker 1: story of what you did to get attention to feel belonging.
Speaker 1: But then you realize, like it's kind of like it
Speaker 1: goes up up up, and it's like this is where
Speaker 1: I'm getting belonging love. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you just it's like we just I think it happened
Speaker 1: all of us, and you crash and burn because you
Speaker 1: realize you have nothing around you and what is this for?
Speaker 1: So then what do you do? Well? And I love
Speaker 1: looking back at this because I don't know y'all's experiences,
Speaker 1: but from my experience, I had no clue that I
Speaker 1: was struggling, So like not a clue. I thought I
Speaker 1: was like on top of the world, like this actually
Speaker 1: makes you want to cry. But my senior year, I
Speaker 1: thought that I was killing it, like I had gotten
Speaker 1: into all these graduate programs. I was like, gonna go
Speaker 1: do all these things, and looking back, like another thing
Speaker 1: I did that I have so much grief over it
Speaker 1: is I skipped my last date party ever to come
Speaker 1: back to Nashville and run the half marathon. I can
Speaker 1: run that marathon whenever I want. I can never go
Speaker 1: back and have my last party with my best friends.
Speaker 1: I did not know that. I still was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd rather go run this marathon. This is my lifestyle.
Speaker 1: I'm healthy, I don't like to drink. Almost like this
Speaker 1: grandiose sense of self healthy sell us and I probably
Speaker 1: I was a brat, yes, like because yeah, because I
Speaker 1: wouldn't judge what people are eating. You're going to eat that,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, in my head, I wish I could
Speaker 1: eat that, Like I wish I could eat that, but
Speaker 1: I have eating distort. As we talk a lot about
Speaker 1: how you have so much control, I had no control,
Speaker 1: right well, it was like not like I could eat that, Like, wow,
Speaker 1: look at me, I have so much willpower for not eating.
Speaker 1: But I don't really think I did have willpower. Because
Speaker 1: I had willpower, I would eat a doughnut. But that's
Speaker 1: what people would say to me. I like I wish
Speaker 1: I could be like Catherine, and like, you don't want
Speaker 1: to be like me. I know, because they don't really
Speaker 1: know the struggle. That's why it's important, and we'll reiterate
Speaker 1: it now since it's kind of coming up. That's why
Speaker 1: it's important. You never know what's going on inside someone's body.
Speaker 1: You might think it's all they've got it all figured
Speaker 1: out and their life is together, and then you can
Speaker 1: reinforce their behavior by complimenting something about their body, and
Speaker 1: then that keeps them on that hamster wheel and really,
Speaker 1: you have no idea you contributed to the problem just
Speaker 1: by giving a compliment. We've been trying to just get
Speaker 1: it into people and even myself over and over, to
Speaker 1: stop complimenting on people's bodies. There's so many other things
Speaker 1: that we could probably compliment that like, that's not necessary.
Speaker 1: Kind of tell story. So this is why I started
Speaker 1: to look at before I really got into being like
Speaker 1: a seating disorder therapist. This is like, I have a
Speaker 1: shame about this now, but again I'm trying to not
Speaker 1: have that. I went to grad school, I went to
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt in Nashville, and thinking I was going to be
Speaker 1: eating disorder therapists, and guess what I wanted to specialize in.
Speaker 1: I wanted to work with specifically binge eating disorder and
Speaker 1: help them lose weight, which is not how you do
Speaker 1: That's not okay. I could understand, not understand, not understanding. Yes,
Speaker 1: now I'm like, oh my gosh, Maybe explain why though
Speaker 1: that that wouldn't don't hand Yeah, because I know more
Speaker 1: of that because I've been doing I've been working alongside people,
Speaker 1: like he said, where y'all understand why that would be bad,
Speaker 1: but someone else might not get why. That's probably not
Speaker 1: like the best thing. So it's not about the weight.
Speaker 1: And so with binge eating disorder, there's something else going on,
Speaker 1: and if I help them lose weight, their issues aren't
Speaker 1: going away, like the reason that they're binging, which would
Speaker 1: be the reason why any of us do behavior that
Speaker 1: we would classify as an addiction. It's not about the alcohol,
Speaker 1: it's not about the food, it's not about any of that.
Speaker 1: It's about what's underneath of it. And so yeah, it
Speaker 1: might be a side effect that if these people do
Speaker 1: the work and I help them through whatever it is
Speaker 1: that they're trying to work through, they might lose weight.
Speaker 1: But that's not the goal because if I just take
Speaker 1: the weight away, everything else still and most people that
Speaker 1: are in it don't see it as a underlying problem,
Speaker 1: like they see it as either a binge problem I
Speaker 1: can't stop when I eat, or they see it as
Speaker 1: a weight problem I'm overweight because I eat. Not going
Speaker 1: any deeper into why do you think that there's anything
Speaker 1: to the binging and it being like in the brain.
Speaker 1: We've touched on brain over binge, but there's there's obviously
Speaker 1: with what you're saying with the addiction at all coming
Speaker 1: back to attachment and love, right, so it's like all
Speaker 1: goes back to some of that in a way. But
Speaker 1: for me, I mean, I know that I had issues
Speaker 1: with my dad leaving when I was younger, um, but
Speaker 1: I know that I also was introduced to dieting at
Speaker 1: an extremely young age. And I know when I started
Speaker 1: dieting and then that led to restriction and binging. But
Speaker 1: I didn't really realize I was binging at the time
Speaker 1: because I didn't know really I was in high school.
Speaker 1: But then I knew I would over eat so that
Speaker 1: I would perche but it wasn't all of the time,
Speaker 1: but I knew that it was wrong even so that
Speaker 1: I went to my mom and said, I need help.
Speaker 1: I'm throwing up and I don't know where this came
Speaker 1: from or why, but I I need help with this.
Speaker 1: So then she got me into therapy, and then that
Speaker 1: led to therapy all through high school and college. But
Speaker 1: it was always just focused on my dad having left.
Speaker 1: Nothing ever resonated with me. And then I quit throwing
Speaker 1: up for years. But what I realized in there is
Speaker 1: I was still binging the whole time. But again I
Speaker 1: knew that it was not right because I was like
Speaker 1: I just went to literally like four different fast food
Speaker 1: restaurants in like one stop, Like that's not normal. So
Speaker 1: or if I was on a road trip somewhere, I
Speaker 1: would stop at like multiple gas stations and like just
Speaker 1: eat the entire two hours. That was my drive from
Speaker 1: Austin to College Station, which is where I went to
Speaker 1: Texas a m. So I remember a lot of those
Speaker 1: road trips. Was I ate the entire time, whether it
Speaker 1: was a gas station sonic, Like, I had different stops
Speaker 1: and I would go through and be like okay, and
Speaker 1: then next day I would just do slim fast or something.
Speaker 1: But it never I was still in therapy at that point,
Speaker 1: but it never was getting anywhere other than somehow I
Speaker 1: just stopped the throwing up and it was gone, but
Speaker 1: I kept the binging. And then when I read brain
Speaker 1: over Binge, I've been telling Lisa like, it just made
Speaker 1: sense to me. She talks about rewiring your brain and
Speaker 1: that you just go to a binge and you have
Speaker 1: to start denying the binges because I started restricting at
Speaker 1: such a young age to train my brain that I
Speaker 1: didn't know when I was going to get food again,
Speaker 1: so it kept forcing me to over eat and then
Speaker 1: I would binge. And so I started implementing that over
Speaker 1: a year ago and that worked for me, and that
Speaker 1: was the first thing where it really made Since now
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's underlying issues with what's going on, but
Speaker 1: I do want to talk to you about how that
Speaker 1: worked for me. But about five years ago, when my
Speaker 1: mom died, even though I had not purged in twelve years,
Speaker 1: I had binge but not purged. The day after my
Speaker 1: mom died, I ate dinner and then I had to
Speaker 1: go throw it up, and I literally and it was
Speaker 1: not an easy thing. It was my sister's birthday the
Speaker 1: day after my mom died, and her in laws decided
Speaker 1: to get a food truck and we have I mean otherwise,
Speaker 1: I mean there's food at the house everywhere, but we
Speaker 1: just were not eating. But then it was like my
Speaker 1: sister's birthday, so I felt like I had to eat
Speaker 1: from the food truck and I had to eat the cake.
Speaker 1: So I ate it, and then something about me literally
Speaker 1: and there were so many people at my sister's house.
Speaker 1: I went over to a neighbor's guest house and I
Speaker 1: threw up in their bathroom. Like it wasn't easy for
Speaker 1: me to like make this happen. That somehow I was
Speaker 1: desperate to get that food out of my body and
Speaker 1: I hadn't even over eaten. But and that started it again.
Speaker 1: Just like that, it was back, and I probably it
Speaker 1: was a daily thing. Then it was like every other day,
Speaker 1: and then it was like and now sound now that
Speaker 1: you know you brought up that it's eating disorders can
Speaker 1: be addictions. It sounds like an alcoholic returning to alcohol. Yes,
Speaker 1: where all of a sudden you need that whatever and
Speaker 1: you go and find it and then okay, I'll just
Speaker 1: do it this one time, and then you slowly kind
Speaker 1: of trickle back into the same thing. Okay, But I
Speaker 1: don't even know that. I was like, I felt like
Speaker 1: it was an out of body experience what I was doing.
Speaker 1: I don't think I had the rational rational to be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's just gonna be this one time. I was just
Speaker 1: like I did it, and then I was like, what
Speaker 1: was that? And I was so freaked out by it
Speaker 1: that just like I went to my mom in high school,
Speaker 1: I went to my husband almost immediately, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: here's the deal. You've been married to me and if
Speaker 1: I haven't thrown up our entire marriage, so you don't
Speaker 1: know this side of me. But now I'm terrified and
Speaker 1: it's here and I feel like an alcoholic that has
Speaker 1: just lost their chip. That's exactly what I said to him,
Speaker 1: and he was like, Okay, well we can do this,
Speaker 1: like whatever you need. And I would say there's a
Speaker 1: lot of times where after I mean, he would come
Speaker 1: home and he'd be like, how is your day? And
Speaker 1: I would be like, even a year after my mom
Speaker 1: died or two years, where would still be discussions how
Speaker 1: is your day? That's say, my day was fine except
Speaker 1: where I threw up, you know, and I would be able.
Speaker 1: I'm thankful for a relationship where I could be honest
Speaker 1: with him about that, but I still was so perplexed
Speaker 1: why it was happening. And now I've been over a
Speaker 1: year without anything binges or purges, so I feel that.
Speaker 1: But I have to share with you a revelation I
Speaker 1: had with Lisa, but I don't even know if it
Speaker 1: makes sense. And since you're a therapist, I'm gonna take advantage.
Speaker 1: I need to pay you for the hour I told Lisa,
Speaker 1: I said it, just did it. I went to therapy. Obviously.
Speaker 1: I did M d R after my mom died because
Speaker 1: it's very traumatic for me. She did not die. It
Speaker 1: was not easy. She had cancer. I saw a lot
Speaker 1: that I shouldn't see and laid with her in her
Speaker 1: final breath, me and my sister both and then it
Speaker 1: is healthy or not. We probably laid with her for
Speaker 1: about an hour. After that, the corner of people were like,
Speaker 1: we're here and to load her up, and we're like,
Speaker 1: we're not done yet. So you know, whatever that looks
Speaker 1: like for you, that's what we needed. But we definitely,
Speaker 1: my s I both saw a lot and it was traumatic.
Speaker 1: And then you know, here I am the next day
Speaker 1: throwing up the food and I'm not knowing why And
Speaker 1: I'm telling this to my therapist and she's like, well,
Speaker 1: that's trauma, and the last trauma you had in your
Speaker 1: life was when you're dad left, and that was when
Speaker 1: you're younger, eating disorder kind of started. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: not exactly, but I just couldn't wrap my head around
Speaker 1: the fact that like that would just make me do it.
Speaker 1: But then I had this thought because I think something
Speaker 1: Lisa talked about or somebody talked about that like I
Speaker 1: really felt because I was grieving, and this also could
Speaker 1: be related to attention since you said then. And this
Speaker 1: is just me having to get completely honest and almost
Speaker 1: like embarrassed that, like what, because it's not like it
Speaker 1: was a very conscious thought out decision like oh I
Speaker 1: need attention, so this is what I'm gonna do. This
Speaker 1: is almost like five years later and just having to
Speaker 1: look back and be like, oh, yuck, was that really
Speaker 1: what this was? Because what makes sense to me now
Speaker 1: is that I felt like I was grieving, and if
Speaker 1: you're grieving, you're supposed to lose weight. If you're grieving,
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to have food because you're sad, and
Speaker 1: sad people don't eat, and sad people get skinny, and
Speaker 1: if I get skinny, I get attention, which is exactly
Speaker 1: what happened. I mean, there was not a single person
Speaker 1: in my life that did not comment on my body.
Speaker 1: Like about a month after my mom died, because I
Speaker 1: did get very thin, and I would weigh myself every
Speaker 1: single day. I would drink juice in the morning, urge whatever.
Speaker 1: I would do yoga twice a day. Also, I was
Speaker 1: trying to keep busy to not think about my mom.
Speaker 1: I would do wine and xan X for bed, so
Speaker 1: would knock me out and I wouldn't think about food
Speaker 1: and I but nobody knew this was happening to me.
Speaker 1: But I would still come to work the next day
Speaker 1: and someone from would be visiting from you know, another
Speaker 1: city that hadn't seen me in awhile and be like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, Amy, it looks so good. And then
Speaker 1: I'd be like thank you. And then but I'd be like, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm grieving. I'm doing a good job grieving. I'm doing
Speaker 1: a good job grieving because I lost my mom and
Speaker 1: I needed to recognize that I'm sad. My skinny represents
Speaker 1: my sadness and that gives me attention. Yeah, it sounds
Speaker 1: very twisted and messed up to say out loud, I
Speaker 1: underveel that makes more sense to me than when the
Speaker 1: therapist told me she thought like a all my capsule
Speaker 1: open to my head. And because that's how I dealt
Speaker 1: with my dad leaving, that's immediately the route my my
Speaker 1: brain was going to go to deal with losing my mom.
Speaker 1: And I just don't know that that makes sense to me.
Speaker 1: Thank you for share that. I think your therapist could
Speaker 1: be right there. Part of it could be this is
Speaker 1: the thing with therapy, and like me, there's no just
Speaker 1: like one way. So that's why I mean eating disorders
Speaker 1: and addiction in general is hard because I can't just
Speaker 1: say it's every time because of this. A lot of
Speaker 1: times it's because of this. There could have been the
Speaker 1: trauma part, but I think what you're talking about it's
Speaker 1: probably attached to your trauma of not getting the attention
Speaker 1: to the love and the belonging from your dad. And
Speaker 1: then now this is like your mom, Like you're a
Speaker 1: secure base, right, your person, and then she's gone, and
Speaker 1: then like who's my person? And who's gonna recognize or
Speaker 1: who's gonna know what I need? Or who's gonna all
Speaker 1: of that comes up of like you lost your secure base,
Speaker 1: so what do I do? You're sad? Right? Part of
Speaker 1: it is I hear you saying like I want people
Speaker 1: to see my sadness. I think part of it also
Speaker 1: is like I don't want to feel sad either, and
Speaker 1: so what can I do to shove down all these feelings?
Speaker 1: Because it feels good when I'm doing this. It's twisted
Speaker 1: as it is, like it feels good to perch, it
Speaker 1: feels good to go on a run for two hours,
Speaker 1: it feels for a period of time it feels it
Speaker 1: doesn't yeah, yeah, until it doesn't. And at the beginning, yes,
Speaker 1: it was like this high and this ride, and until
Speaker 1: it got messy and it was just exhausting and it
Speaker 1: was like I can't keep up or if I would
Speaker 1: try to throw up and it didn't work, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my gosh, I just ate all that food,
Speaker 1: like and it's not coming up like it was. Just
Speaker 1: tell me about like the embarrassment of like this is
Speaker 1: so messed up. I feel embarrassed that this is what
Speaker 1: I did. I think because I could be wrong in this,
Speaker 1: but if we're for the sake of our conversation of
Speaker 1: viewing eating disorder as an addiction and alcoholism addiction. I
Speaker 1: feel like, for lack of a better word, being addicted
Speaker 1: to cocaine or alcohol is a little more sexy. I
Speaker 1: don't know it's the right word. First sake of this,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say, binging a bunch of food and
Speaker 1: then throwing it up for whatever the reason is is
Speaker 1: disgusting to me. I'm never I don't look at and
Speaker 1: it could just be me thinking that about myself. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that about anybody else and saying it literally
Speaker 1: about myself. I'm sure there's shame associated with anything that
Speaker 1: you're addicted to, but I feel like, gosh, if I
Speaker 1: was addicted to cocaine, nobody would be like, oh, you're disgusting.
Speaker 1: They'd be like, oh wow, she that's crazy. She needs
Speaker 1: to get some help. But I'm like, if they knew
Speaker 1: what I was addicted to and that I was doing this,
Speaker 1: they'd be like, she's so disgusting. So that's my own
Speaker 1: thought processes. It's not as you putting it out here
Speaker 1: right now. On this is breaking down that factor of shame.
Speaker 1: And I think like even on Instagram, like anxiety became
Speaker 1: so popular to talk about, but like depression was in
Speaker 1: the cloud of like this shift thing you can't talk about.
Speaker 1: And I recently talked about some that I never said either,
Speaker 1: which was laxative abuse, and flooded with messages, not comments
Speaker 1: on my private on my public Instagram page, private messages
Speaker 1: of me too. So there is something super secretive still
Speaker 1: about the purging, whether it is up or down, that
Speaker 1: people are still not acknowledging. But you right here saying
Speaker 1: it is showing that there is no disgust to it.
Speaker 1: There is no shame, especially you as Amy back right,
Speaker 1: because I wouldn't want anybody else sharing too. I would
Speaker 1: say that same thing to them. We're breaking it down.
Speaker 1: We're just broke it down for so many people. I'm
Speaker 1: becoming more vocal about my story. I think that on
Speaker 1: the radio years ago it maybe come up that I
Speaker 1: had dealt with a needing disorder in high school and college.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like I could relate on that level.
Speaker 1: Never would talk about the issues with food or binging
Speaker 1: or obsession food obsession for all these years. That just
Speaker 1: doesn't come up organically. Then and after the stuff with
Speaker 1: my mom, Oh my gosh, I kept I mean, I
Speaker 1: told my husband about it, but I was very private
Speaker 1: about it, like very until now recently, I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm in a better place and I don't want people
Speaker 1: to feel alone, and I need to start sharing that
Speaker 1: part of my story. So a lot of things I
Speaker 1: haven't said out loud yet, like what I just shared,
Speaker 1: I haven't fully said out loud in the whole, in
Speaker 1: its entirety, and so and I don't even I'm still
Speaker 1: probably not all giving it all. I feel good. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like I've been like there's a couple of
Speaker 1: times where I'm like, okay, smiling inside because it does
Speaker 1: feel good. There's a little bit of a high from it.
Speaker 1: But also I was at a low where I was
Speaker 1: taken back to it and I was very sad for
Speaker 1: myself and I was about to cry but trying to
Speaker 1: keep it together for the sake of the being one
Speaker 1: of the hosts here. But in crying is okay. I
Speaker 1: have no issue crying on air, done that plenty of times.
Speaker 1: So I'm sad for that that part of me. I
Speaker 1: want to tell you a story, Okay, one I have
Speaker 1: to say this because this is huge. This is a
Speaker 1: side note, But when people talk about this stuff, I mean,
Speaker 1: what you were saying, it is huge because yeah, people
Speaker 1: will talk about in rexia and restricting and my exercise addiction.
Speaker 1: They won't talk about the other stuff, and it's not
Speaker 1: any better at all. And what you're talking about is shame.
Speaker 1: I feel ashamed for what I did, And what shame
Speaker 1: feeds off of is your silence and secrets. And so
Speaker 1: when we talk about it more, this shame kind of
Speaker 1: gets you starved. The shame so the shame dies. And
Speaker 1: so that's a big deal because I'm sure there's one million,
Speaker 1: jillion trillion people that are going to hear that and
Speaker 1: be like, oh my gosh, I felt that way too.
Speaker 1: Is it okay for me to talk about this? I
Speaker 1: think I'm gonna try it. The other part is this
Speaker 1: is the story I was gonna tell fifteen minutes ago,
Speaker 1: but I'm glad I'm telling it now because there's this
Speaker 1: doctor his name is Dr Gabor Mate, and he does
Speaker 1: a lot of research and stuff around addiction. He was
Speaker 1: working with heroin addicts and he was trying to figure
Speaker 1: out he's working in a center where harm reduction. So
Speaker 1: it's like, we're not gonna You're not gonna get sober,
Speaker 1: We're gonna teacher how to responsibly use. But he was
Speaker 1: going around and interviewing these men and women are like,
Speaker 1: why do you why do you use heroin? We know
Speaker 1: that's bad, we know that can kill you. And he
Speaker 1: went to this one guy and he described him the
Speaker 1: way I remember him describing him as this, like almost
Speaker 1: like he would look like a big bouncer at like
Speaker 1: a club with like bald head, big guy tattoos, like tough.
Speaker 1: And he said, can you tell me what heroin does
Speaker 1: for you? Like why do you use it? And he said,
Speaker 1: I don't really know how to describe it, but have
Speaker 1: you ever been sick and your mom puts you on
Speaker 1: her lap and she wraps you up in a blanket
Speaker 1: and she starts feeding you chicken noodle soup. He was like,
Speaker 1: that's what heroin feels like. So this guy concluded, oh, love,
Speaker 1: Like that's what heroin feels like. Love. It feels like
Speaker 1: a warm pug. And so I tell that story because
Speaker 1: like there is so much shame and like why do
Speaker 1: I do these things that are so bad? And I'm like,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with me? Is what I hear all the time,
Speaker 1: like Kavin, what is wrong with me? And I'm like
Speaker 1: nothing's wrong with you. There's actually something right with you,
Speaker 1: Like Amy, there is something right with you. The fact
Speaker 1: that you're like, there's something wrong with me. I want
Speaker 1: to feel better. I need to go do this thing
Speaker 1: that I know that used to help me feel better.
Speaker 1: That means that there's something right with you that you
Speaker 1: are trying to find. Like we all need attention, we
Speaker 1: all need love, we all need belonging. We are born
Speaker 1: attached to our mothers like we need attachment. We're born
Speaker 1: that way. And so I just say that because I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people think to themselves, like what
Speaker 1: is wrong with me? Like why can't I stop? It's like,
Speaker 1: because you're a healthy human that wants to get better,
Speaker 1: and thank God that you did that, rather than like
Speaker 1: just being like take me away life, Like when you
Speaker 1: turn to your husband too, which is like telling I think,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm not. That's your secure attachment, now, can
Speaker 1: you take you with? And it can't be any it
Speaker 1: can be anybody. That's your secure attachment. It's like help me, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you for letting me talk through that. That's actually
Speaker 1: we just made a lot of clarity that we needed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't know where where we would go with that
Speaker 1: for sure, But I think that this is how do
Speaker 1: you feel at lia to do you have anything you
Speaker 1: want to add from your think that the audience will
Speaker 1: feel like I did, where we might not have your
Speaker 1: exact story, or maybe you do. There's plenty of people
Speaker 1: who have purged for that exact reason. But I feel
Speaker 1: like I've made headway in my understanding of myself far
Speaker 1: beyond my even years and therapy, just by understanding the
Speaker 1: importance of secure attachment and personally not having that growing
Speaker 1: up either despite what it looked like. UM and how
Speaker 1: we go about seeking attention because we're scared not we
Speaker 1: don't feel safe, and there's a million ways to do that,
Speaker 1: but for a large majority of us, with the addition
Speaker 1: of the emphasis on thin equals loved equals health equals applause,
Speaker 1: it's an easy one kind of right next to it.
Speaker 1: So what do you do with your clients? What is
Speaker 1: something you can can leaves like is there like an
Speaker 1: activity or like affirmations or something you encourage them to
Speaker 1: do that those that are listening, that might be some
Speaker 1: of the stuff we've talked about today's resonating with them, Like,
Speaker 1: is there like some stuff they can like a piece
Speaker 1: of homework or something my gut says, if this is
Speaker 1: really resonating with somebody, I want them to reach out
Speaker 1: and go to therapy. That could be great advice. That
Speaker 1: might be because some people see that there's shame and
Speaker 1: therapy and we should make sure that we're here to
Speaker 1: say that there's not there's nothing wrong with that at
Speaker 1: all whatsoever. And something that you say on your Instagram
Speaker 1: all the time that I am not a therapist, but
Speaker 1: I've been in therapy my whole life is there doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be something wrong with you to go to therapy.
Speaker 1: So even if you don't identify with the purging or
Speaker 1: even an eating disorder and you're just listening to this,
Speaker 1: I mean I have found that my most profoundly huge
Speaker 1: steps forward in therapy have been on days where I
Speaker 1: didn't come discussing a trauma or anything relevant to my life.
Speaker 1: Think it's just a tool to better get to know
Speaker 1: your total being, and that is profoundly huge in how
Speaker 1: it will affect everything in your life. What about a
Speaker 1: piece of homework for people, um that you had said earlier,
Speaker 1: is you know which so second nature for us to
Speaker 1: comment on somebody's body. What are some things that people
Speaker 1: can maybe for the next week work on. I believe
Speaker 1: in like human connection. I think the more we talk
Speaker 1: to people and out loud, the more connected we feel.
Speaker 1: Like being in an uber even and it's so easy
Speaker 1: to just be on your phone the whole time, but
Speaker 1: even interacting with an uber driver or taxi driver I
Speaker 1: live in the city. What are ways that people can
Speaker 1: complement people this week that are non appearance based? He
Speaker 1: can we push them to talk to people and say
Speaker 1: things that they What are some some things we can
Speaker 1: say to start conversation with strangers or loved ones. You
Speaker 1: know what? I want to come back? This actually comes
Speaker 1: from your last week's episode. Um, what did Kelsey say
Speaker 1: about if you think and it's nice, say it? Oh,
Speaker 1: if it's kind, so it's kind say so. Just to
Speaker 1: clarify since this is a completely this is a different
Speaker 1: series but and it's airing in April, but I do
Speaker 1: have I had an interview back in March with Kelsey
Speaker 1: Ballerini on the Four Things podcasts. So you're referencing something
Speaker 1: that's who said it? Just so that we were just
Speaker 1: talking about empowering women and Kelsey was just saying, you know,
Speaker 1: one thing I've learned is if it's kind, say it,
Speaker 1: like who cares if you know the person or if
Speaker 1: you don't know him. If it's kind, if you think it.
Speaker 1: If you think it and it's kind, say it. That's
Speaker 1: exactly what she says. So I would say that with
Speaker 1: a caveat if it's about the shape of their body,
Speaker 1: so because again, you never know if that is a
Speaker 1: point of contention for somebody. But one of the things
Speaker 1: that I've worked on because I actually am like a
Speaker 1: introverted extrovert, which doesn't make a lot of sense. I
Speaker 1: think I am too okay, So okay, we all are,
Speaker 1: but like I sometimes don't I like go into a
Speaker 1: place and I like think all these things about I
Speaker 1: won't ever say anything because I just kind of keep
Speaker 1: to myself and waite for somebody approach me. But I
Speaker 1: think something that we can work on is like when
Speaker 1: we see somebody and if we're just happy to see somebody,
Speaker 1: say it's good to see you, like I've missed you
Speaker 1: means a lot to me, or rather than being like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, girl, you look so good, you look
Speaker 1: so happy. I think that a lot of the time
Speaker 1: when we do compliment somebody's weight or body change. It's
Speaker 1: because we've become So that's this is an okay thing
Speaker 1: to say to somebody that you might not even know.
Speaker 1: And so you might actually be thinking, this person looks happy.
Speaker 1: But it's a weird thing to say, hey girl, you
Speaker 1: look happy. So let me say, did you lose weight?
Speaker 1: Like I think that we actually are seeing again going
Speaker 1: back to the radiance in people, but it might feel
Speaker 1: strange to say you look radiant because it's not a
Speaker 1: normal exchange, like you look good, right, so I think
Speaker 1: diving into your psyche. Okay, maybe you think this person
Speaker 1: looks good. That's the first thing. Why do they look good?
Speaker 1: What are they giving their fitting the standards of what
Speaker 1: society tells us looks good. Because if society didn't say that, like,
Speaker 1: what would we think? Like I always say, we are
Speaker 1: the decider of our own opinions, so we get to
Speaker 1: actually decide that, like which a lot of people would
Speaker 1: be like yeah, dub. But then I'm like, well, do
Speaker 1: you think that because the person next to you thinks that?
Speaker 1: Or do you think that because you really think that
Speaker 1: about yourself or about other people? And I use the
Speaker 1: example of if I pulled out a peanut butter sandwich
Speaker 1: and started eating it and you're like you peanut butter,
Speaker 1: but I'm like, I don't like it anymore either. It's
Speaker 1: the same thing as like if somebody is like, I
Speaker 1: don't like your shirt, like, well, I you're allowed still
Speaker 1: like it. If somebody thinks that you look whatever, you
Speaker 1: can still think you look good if society says that
Speaker 1: you are not. But we need to stop questioning ourselves
Speaker 1: based off of others opinions, whether it's as profound as
Speaker 1: your body or insignificant as your shirt. Peanut Butter and
Speaker 1: Peanut Butter, Catherine, thank you for coming to tell if
Speaker 1: you think it. And it's kind to say it, which
Speaker 1: comes from both doesn't come for me. I can't take
Speaker 1: said it. But I don't know if she said it
Speaker 1: she got it from somewhere or I always say make
Speaker 1: it easy to be kind to yourself, so going along
Speaker 1: with that, it's like make it easy to be kind
Speaker 1: to other people too, Like all you have to do
Speaker 1: is go up to somebody and say, hi, how are you,
Speaker 1: and you can start a conversation that could make somebody's day,
Speaker 1: exchanging a smile every now and then. People may not
Speaker 1: remember what you say, but they remember how you make
Speaker 1: them feel, and then good one okay, and then my
Speaker 1: website is three Courts Therapy dot com. Too perfect. All right, well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking time to talk. Thank you.
Speaker 1: It's fun.