Speaker 1: I won't let my body out, be out everything that
Speaker 1: I'm made do. Won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 1: I'm learning a love who I am, I get I'm strong,
Speaker 1: I feel free, I know who everybody me. It's beautiful
Speaker 1: and then will always out with if you feel it
Speaker 1: with you is in there. She's some love to the
Speaker 1: boy there. Let's say good day and did you and
Speaker 1: die out? Hey? Amy and Lisa here, welcome back to
Speaker 1: another episode aboutweigh Our guest today is Lauren Larkin, and
Speaker 1: we're excited to have Lauren on because she's going to
Speaker 1: share her personal recovery story and what that looked like
Speaker 1: for her. But also we're in for a treat because
Speaker 1: Lauren is a mental health counselor, so yes, eating disorder survivor,
Speaker 1: but also a mental health counselor, so win win here
Speaker 1: and you know, I have a shan out of the
Speaker 1: gate for you, Lauren, and we're just going to get
Speaker 1: right in because I did some therapy late last year
Speaker 1: with a therapist was superintense, and I've done therapy for
Speaker 1: years since I was a teenager regarding my eating disorder,
Speaker 1: but at thirty nine years old, was the first time
Speaker 1: a therapist has said to me, oh, well, yeah, that
Speaker 1: was your underlying depression, And I said, but what what?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, what because if you were to ever say
Speaker 1: to me that I had any type of depression or
Speaker 1: asked me, I guess not say. If you were to
Speaker 1: ever asked me if I had any experience with depression,
Speaker 1: my answer would be no. But then how hearing him
Speaker 1: phrase it that way, it was a moment where I
Speaker 1: stepped back and thought, oh my goodness. When I really
Speaker 1: dig into it, I saw what he was saying, and
Speaker 1: it was definitely an AHA moment for me. So, you,
Speaker 1: being a mental health counselor and maybe even tying it
Speaker 1: in with some of your journey, when you hear me
Speaker 1: say that, what comes to mind for you? So it
Speaker 1: comes to mind for me is that that was the
Speaker 1: exact lens that I was planning on telling my story
Speaker 1: through because of my clinical experience as mental health counselor,
Speaker 1: and because I've heard the other guests on your podcast
Speaker 1: and I've related to so many of the counting and
Speaker 1: the feeling like you're never going to have the perfect
Speaker 1: body kind of image. But what came up for me
Speaker 1: when I was reflecting on my story most recently was
Speaker 1: the idea that there was this internal turmoil that I
Speaker 1: was struggling with since I was in high school, right
Speaker 1: and I was constantly trying to express this turmoil in
Speaker 1: different ways. And I think the first time I tried
Speaker 1: eating disorder behaviors was actually depression and anxiety trying to
Speaker 1: come out. And it was only later when I started
Speaker 1: getting really good at those behaviors and I said good,
Speaker 1: but I don't mean good any bad. Was when it
Speaker 1: started to feed one another, almost like a triangle. So anxiety,
Speaker 1: eating disorder and depression were going back and forth with
Speaker 1: one another, and one was always the fueler of the other.
Speaker 1: At some point I was diagnosed with O c D
Speaker 1: because my counting with calories and things like that, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't O c D. I was depressed and anxious,
Speaker 1: and my eating disorder was the only way I knew
Speaker 1: how to express my pain, not for anyone else to
Speaker 1: see it, but so that I could feel it because
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to work through what was going
Speaker 1: on inside of me. And when you said before, I
Speaker 1: would have never told like anyone I was depressed because
Speaker 1: of a happy life, right like I'm a happy person.
Speaker 1: I have so much of my life. I never want
Speaker 1: to come across as ungrateful. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: depression and anxiety they don't discriminate against people who are
Speaker 1: outwardly happy. So that was a huge part of my story. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and I'll explain to why I would answer out of
Speaker 1: the gate because in my mind I had such a
Speaker 1: narrow view of depression and that I'm like, well, wait,
Speaker 1: I wake up, I get out of bed every day,
Speaker 1: I go do my job. I have friendships, and I
Speaker 1: have a family, and I'm a good mom. And that's
Speaker 1: how I was defining not being depressed, right, But there
Speaker 1: it's almost like you, I don't know, for lack of
Speaker 1: a better description, I'm just thinking like a functioning alcohol
Speaker 1: like like they wake up, they do their job, they
Speaker 1: go do their thing, but they got to have their whatever,
Speaker 1: you know. I think sometimes we're just functioning in our depression,
Speaker 1: are underlying we don't know that it's even really there.
Speaker 1: So I think it's important that we talk about this
Speaker 1: today because for me, it was a revelation that I
Speaker 1: feel like I should have known about years ago, but
Speaker 1: I don't know. Just having that perspective was super helpful
Speaker 1: for me and I think there's a lot of stigma
Speaker 1: when it comes to things like depression, anxiety, and even
Speaker 1: eating disorders, which is, you can only be depressed if
Speaker 1: you lost your job, or you're grieving, or you can't
Speaker 1: put food on the table, these major things. Right, Like, Lauren,
Speaker 1: I relate to you because for me, you know, being depressed,
Speaker 1: there was this well, I can't be depressed. I have
Speaker 1: so much to be grateful for it. Even though I
Speaker 1: am grateful, I'm still depressed, so I shouldn't be. And
Speaker 1: just to kind of widen that out to eating disorders,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of bigger bodies think that they
Speaker 1: can't have eating disorder is because they don't fit the
Speaker 1: idea of you know, being real thin or even remotely thin,
Speaker 1: thin bodied at all. So so much of this discussion
Speaker 1: needs to just be anybody can go through anything despite
Speaker 1: what you have or you look like, and that's the
Speaker 1: only way that you'll ever also get the help that
Speaker 1: you need. And Lauren, so when you started to do
Speaker 1: the work and give in your background, you know that
Speaker 1: you have the tools. What did you realize was the
Speaker 1: root of the depression anxiety, eating disorder triangle? Well, so
Speaker 1: it's really interesting because I'm a career changer, So this
Speaker 1: is my path that I chose after recovery. And I
Speaker 1: say recovery, but I don't know. We're all still struggling
Speaker 1: with everything all the time anyway, So I don't like
Speaker 1: to think of myself as like on the other side.
Speaker 1: But when I think about the route, I think it's
Speaker 1: a baseline. Everybody has a baseline. I think mine's just
Speaker 1: a little bit lower than other people's when it comes
Speaker 1: to depression. And when I started doing this work, it
Speaker 1: was there was a lot of self hatred underneath it.
Speaker 1: First I had to learn how to eat, how to
Speaker 1: nourish my body in order to do the work that
Speaker 1: was the depression and anxiety work afterwards. And it has
Speaker 1: happened as like a holistic kind of process, Like I
Speaker 1: ended up leaving New York going to an outpatient treatment
Speaker 1: or an inpatient treatment, then an outpatient treatment, really focusing
Speaker 1: on the food stuff first because for me, the depression
Speaker 1: got so bad and I thought it was because of
Speaker 1: the food, Like I had struggled with eating disordered behaviors
Speaker 1: on and off, on and off, and I was trying
Speaker 1: to fix it myself, and as we know, trying to
Speaker 1: fix it yourself if you have no education behind it,
Speaker 1: like Lisa does. Right, you just feel like you're out
Speaker 1: of control because after starving yourself for so many years
Speaker 1: and going back and forth with the binge purge cycle
Speaker 1: and they interacts the cycle, right, your body doesn't trust
Speaker 1: you to feed it anymore. So for me, I didn't
Speaker 1: get help when I was at my finnest. Actually, I
Speaker 1: thought I was doing great at my finnest. I was
Speaker 1: proud of myself and my thinness. I thought I had
Speaker 1: it together. It was when I realized, like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: isn't sustainable. The scales really low and I don't think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get any lower. And I'm really sad and
Speaker 1: I'm leaving Equinox feeling horrible and there's nothing. I don't
Speaker 1: know what I like, I don't know who I am.
Speaker 1: I feel like I need to fix this. That's when
Speaker 1: I started trying to eat. And then I hated the
Speaker 1: reaction that I would have because I would eat too much.
Speaker 1: And then I gained a bunch of weight, and then
Speaker 1: I was really depressed, and I was anxious about the
Speaker 1: food and the weight and depressed about the food and
Speaker 1: the weight, and it really like ended up being the
Speaker 1: psycle where I had to do food first, self love second,
Speaker 1: and just continue to work with the tools that I
Speaker 1: had learned and learned new tools and go back to
Speaker 1: school to be a therapist to help other people. And
Speaker 1: just as a sidebar, I think that even professionals need professionals.
Speaker 1: So you know, you said, even though Lisa, you have
Speaker 1: the tools when you are dealing with something like an
Speaker 1: eating disorder, it's your professional tools, whether you're a therapist
Speaker 1: or a site or a registered dietitian go out the window.
Speaker 1: So just as anybody listening here, all people need help.
Speaker 1: Do you mind if I asked what career you shifted from.
Speaker 1: Obviously probably what you went through motivated you to do this,
Speaker 1: but not a lot of people maybe go through something
Speaker 1: and there they have this moment of like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: this is what I'm passionate about. I want to do
Speaker 1: this for the rest of my life. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: really interesting. I think part of my story was like
Speaker 1: never feeling good enough. Obviously we've probably all felt like that,
Speaker 1: But for me, I always wanted to be in theater
Speaker 1: and like be a singer, and I went to school
Speaker 1: in Nashville and I didn't end up doing that. But
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I want to be like performance adjacent.
Speaker 1: So I went to school for PR and like wanted
Speaker 1: to do music PR like worked at Warners and internship
Speaker 1: there and all these things. And then I was like,
Speaker 1: I want to go to New York. I want to
Speaker 1: be a New York woman. Everything was like this idealized
Speaker 1: version of me. I wanted to go to Nashville because
Speaker 1: I wanted to be like a Southern Bell. I wanted
Speaker 1: to go to New York because I wanted to expand
Speaker 1: and like be like this businesswoman and be super successful
Speaker 1: and all these things. So I was trying to make
Speaker 1: it in a career in like marketing, in communications, and
Speaker 1: I just felt like I was never ever going to
Speaker 1: be what I thought I should be in the world.
Speaker 1: It was never going to be Carrie Bradshaw. Just like
Speaker 1: when I got to Nashville, I was never going to
Speaker 1: be the perfect Southern Bell because I'm from the North
Speaker 1: and I swear and I scared all the boys down
Speaker 1: there and it was not a good fit for me. Right.
Speaker 1: I still love Nashville and I love the South, but
Speaker 1: I just was trying to fit myself into molds that
Speaker 1: weren't working. And in New York. I mean it was
Speaker 1: like not fitting into a mold, but to a detriment
Speaker 1: for me. It really got to a point where I
Speaker 1: didn't enjoy what I was doing day to day. I
Speaker 1: remember crying on my first vacation, like on the way
Speaker 1: to the airport, because I was taking this vacation and
Speaker 1: I felt guilty about it, because if I was going
Speaker 1: to be successful, I shouldn't take a vacation. I you know,
Speaker 1: what was I going to eat when I got there?
Speaker 1: That also there? Right? Am I going to be able
Speaker 1: to enjoy this? I'm so miserable. I was just in
Speaker 1: this place where I couldn't be myself. I was constantly
Speaker 1: trying to mold myself into something else, and it took
Speaker 1: a really psychological toll. Like when I mentioned before, I
Speaker 1: didn't know what I liked. I had no idea. I
Speaker 1: remember trying to write it down one day, being like,
Speaker 1: what do you like? Who are you? And I had
Speaker 1: just lost all semblance of Lauren, like the person sitting
Speaker 1: here with you. My mom even said when she would
Speaker 1: see me um during those times, she like didn't know
Speaker 1: who I was anymore. Not that I was completely different,
Speaker 1: but she just felt like there was something hollow there.
Speaker 1: I don't know when I decided exactly to go back,
Speaker 1: but I came back to the city and I started
Speaker 1: naming because that's something I had done in college and
Speaker 1: it was something that I knew I could do to
Speaker 1: sustain myself after my treatment and focus on wellness. And
Speaker 1: when I was manning, I thought about, how can I use,
Speaker 1: you know, my story, how can I maybe I start
Speaker 1: writing more. I like dabbled in that for a little bit.
Speaker 1: Maybe I do this, I do that. And I kept
Speaker 1: going back to this moment when I was in a
Speaker 1: day program in Connecticut and a friend of mine, well
Speaker 1: she wasn't a friend at the time, but a new
Speaker 1: girl joined the program and she walked in and she
Speaker 1: was like, you're one of the therapists, right, And she
Speaker 1: didn't realize that I was like her, I was there
Speaker 1: for treatment. I was there for you know, the program.
Speaker 1: We were going to go and we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: eat together, and we're gonna have to do all these
Speaker 1: things together. And I said no. But for some reason,
Speaker 1: that moment wouldn't get out of my head. I was like,
Speaker 1: what if I had been a therapist, What if I
Speaker 1: could be a therapist, and I was like, maybe I
Speaker 1: could actually do that, and I applied and I started
Speaker 1: doing it, and it's been super rewarding work. I haven't
Speaker 1: looked back a day where I thought, oh, this wasn't
Speaker 1: for me, this was the wrong decision. And when I
Speaker 1: finished days with clients. It's exhausting, and sometimes it's hard
Speaker 1: and you have to go take care of yourself and
Speaker 1: and set that boundary. But I don't regret it ever.
Speaker 1: I read a really beautiful blog post that you wrote
Speaker 1: about how recovery itself kind of the before stage of
Speaker 1: what you're talking about now is really isolating, and how
Speaker 1: you know this firsthand but kind of helped to heal
Speaker 1: that as second hand as a therapist, but just for
Speaker 1: the first hand component when you were looking for recovery,
Speaker 1: I know that you look to blogs and people who
Speaker 1: have gone through it, and for whatever reason, it felt
Speaker 1: like everybody else kind of figured it out with a
Speaker 1: snap of their fingers, but for you, it wasn't like that.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about that experience of kind of
Speaker 1: looking for someone else to understand. Yeah, I think I've
Speaker 1: been thinking about that a ton in the last few weeks,
Speaker 1: thinking about your podcast because I'm like, if this existed
Speaker 1: when I was absolutely desperate, I would have felt so
Speaker 1: much less alone. What happened for me was I went
Speaker 1: to a treatment program, literally in patient. I don't know
Speaker 1: if your listeners know what impatient is, but four weeks
Speaker 1: at a location where you have no phone, where you
Speaker 1: almost like feel like a prisoner. That also was very isolating,
Speaker 1: but it ended up helping me. But I relinquished all control.
Speaker 1: And then I got there and I saw women of
Speaker 1: all different sizes, women of all different ages, and in
Speaker 1: group therapy, they started saying things that were my deepest, deepest,
Speaker 1: darkest secrets I never thought I could ever admit to anyone.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of what you have people do on
Speaker 1: this podcast, right, like it just makes you feel like
Speaker 1: you're not alone. And I remember I had this distinct
Speaker 1: image of the isolation that you're talking about, laying in
Speaker 1: my bed at my old apartment midnight, scrolling through diet pages,
Speaker 1: scrolling through fitness people, macro people all were saying, you know,
Speaker 1: I used to have a little bit of a problem,
Speaker 1: but you shouldn't and I don't anymore. And I would like,
Speaker 1: I was like, where's the how, where's the step where what.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm very vocal about going to treatment and
Speaker 1: like absolutely like surrendering to the process, because for me
Speaker 1: that was absolutely necessary. Like I had tried to see
Speaker 1: a therapist, I tried to see a nutritionist, similarly like
Speaker 1: Amy and you said to the alcohol comparison, like it
Speaker 1: was like going to rehab. You know, it was like
Speaker 1: taking yourself out of that environment where all your triggers
Speaker 1: were in order to rebuild. And that was necess arry
Speaker 1: for me. I'm not saying it's necessary for everyone. I
Speaker 1: think it's totally doable if you have a great team,
Speaker 1: and you know, if it's more disordered eating rather than
Speaker 1: eating disorder, or if you don't have the depression and
Speaker 1: anxiety component to it, and it's really just like food based.
Speaker 1: But for me, the how wasn't there. It was like
Speaker 1: you guys all got to point B, and I don't
Speaker 1: know what's in between. Where's the bridge from point A?
Speaker 1: I'm so type A. I'm like, where's the checklist? I
Speaker 1: can just tick off all the boxes and be cured
Speaker 1: and be fixed and be all of those things. And
Speaker 1: that's also why I said before, you know, it's been
Speaker 1: a holistic kind of mind, body, spirit process for me,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't like I just did both the programs
Speaker 1: that I did and left and it was a perfect
Speaker 1: healing process. It took a lot longer after that to
Speaker 1: really like love myself and get back to a place
Speaker 1: where I'm the person sitting in front of you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's important to definitely remind people, even for
Speaker 1: Lisa and myself hosting this, that it's not an overnight
Speaker 1: snap of the finger thing. And even when Lisa and
Speaker 1: I darted Outweigh last March, I was fresh out of
Speaker 1: a disordered behavior. I had dropped the eating disorder for
Speaker 1: so long, but I didn't realize all these little things
Speaker 1: that I was doing. We're also me just kind of
Speaker 1: holding on tight because it's like I didn't want to
Speaker 1: fully let go just yet. But thankfully Lisa was able
Speaker 1: to bring some stuff to my attention through fork the
Speaker 1: noise of like, oh shoot, yeah, that's still some noise
Speaker 1: that I'm dealing with. But I knew for me hosting
Speaker 1: out way with Lisa, I was like, I gotta get
Speaker 1: rid of this because I can't. I can't come speak
Speaker 1: to people. But had I had I not surrounded myself
Speaker 1: with people that are much wiser and ahead of me
Speaker 1: in this process. I don't know that I would have
Speaker 1: noticed that it was still a disordered behavior. And so
Speaker 1: I mentioned that just because sometimes people listening don't know
Speaker 1: that what they have going on makes them sick enough
Speaker 1: or disordered enough, or is this really that bad? So
Speaker 1: maybe I don't need help, or it'd be weird if
Speaker 1: I went to get help for this. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm just throwing out like different thoughts that might pop
Speaker 1: into people's head. I mean, talk about your experience and
Speaker 1: what you would say to someone that might have those thoughts,
Speaker 1: which I think ultimately we could conclude that they are
Speaker 1: lies in their heads. Right now, I mean, I absolutely
Speaker 1: thought that I had all these terrifying fears that I
Speaker 1: was going to go to treatment and I was going
Speaker 1: to be the biggest person there. I wasn't going to
Speaker 1: deserve to be there. I would be taking the spot
Speaker 1: of someone else who needed it more. That's absolutely not true, one,
Speaker 1: And it takes a long time to unlearn those thoughts.
Speaker 1: And I'll give you an example, right like us, you
Speaker 1: both hosting this podcast, us working with people. Lisa and
Speaker 1: I like working with people on this day to day,
Speaker 1: one on one I had a moment in my training
Speaker 1: where I was working with a woman with an eating disorder,
Speaker 1: and my supervisor said, you know, sometimes you can bring
Speaker 1: yourself into the room and ask, you know, what's it
Speaker 1: like for you to talk to me? He's like, because
Speaker 1: you look like a healthy person. I remember that being like,
Speaker 1: look like a healthy person, and that was that's a compliment, right,
Speaker 1: that's a compliment. That should be something that I you know,
Speaker 1: I'm able to be like, thank you. But for me
Speaker 1: with that eating disorder brain, it still came in and
Speaker 1: it was like, you look healthy. You probably don't look
Speaker 1: like you have an eating disorder. You probably you know,
Speaker 1: should start right. But I didn't act on that voice,
Speaker 1: but they still come up. Me being healthy in that
Speaker 1: moment was a bad thing all of a sudden, because
Speaker 1: I reverted back to who I was when I thought
Speaker 1: I was never going to be thin enough and definitely
Speaker 1: not thin enough to get help. Okay, so you're encouragement
Speaker 1: people is like, there's eating disorders, which we say here
Speaker 1: all the time, but I'll just say it again. They
Speaker 1: don't discriminate their little monsters, and they don't have the
Speaker 1: right to take over your true self. Don't let those
Speaker 1: voices tell you those lives and don't believe them, like
Speaker 1: believe what's really I think they'd call it your capital
Speaker 1: s self deep down if you push all of the
Speaker 1: parts of view away, the angry heart, the depressed part,
Speaker 1: of the anxious part, Like if you just have this
Speaker 1: one capitalist self, what would that tell you? And like
Speaker 1: mine would tell me in a moment like that you're healthy.
Speaker 1: Healthy is a compliment. You want to be healthy? Healthy
Speaker 1: is good? And kind of talk back to that voice,
Speaker 1: that inner critic that's telling you, you know, you're not
Speaker 1: good enough. You you don't deserve it, You don't deserve help,
Speaker 1: you don't deserve recovery, you don't deserve to live a
Speaker 1: life that's full. And I just want to say to
Speaker 1: just to remind people, wait has nothing to do with health.
Speaker 1: So if someone even is regardless of what their intention
Speaker 1: is that when they tell they're telling you you look healthy,
Speaker 1: Like what are they basing that on? They have no
Speaker 1: statistics on what's really going on inside of you mind, body,
Speaker 1: and spirit. And I know that owning your story is
Speaker 1: a really powerful way for you personally to move away
Speaker 1: from living in shame. And it's one that you advocate
Speaker 1: for your clients as well, or your patients. Sometimes when
Speaker 1: we tell our stories to people, it lands on years
Speaker 1: that could say something back that's triggering. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've experienced that personally. I know that I've been
Speaker 1: in situations where people say the quote unquote wrong thing,
Speaker 1: and it has the potential to set you back if
Speaker 1: you're not in the right mindset. I feel like for
Speaker 1: you at you're a really good example of somebody who
Speaker 1: moves away from shame by owning your story. You're a clinician,
Speaker 1: but you're like, I get it because I've been there
Speaker 1: to the ugliest places of this disease, which I think
Speaker 1: is just refreshing from a mental health counselor point of view,
Speaker 1: where you oftentimes feel like you know they could talk
Speaker 1: down to you or they don't get it. But in
Speaker 1: your personal experience, how can we own our story, tell
Speaker 1: it without shame, but protect ourselves from what people may
Speaker 1: say back. This is a really good question, and I
Speaker 1: actually use this technique a lot with my sexual trauma
Speaker 1: survivor clients, because when you tell the story like that,
Speaker 1: it has the ability to really retrigger you based off
Speaker 1: what someone else is going to say. So I tell
Speaker 1: them to do a lot of work with language and
Speaker 1: coming up with what language is healing to them and
Speaker 1: helpful to them, and what language is not, And sometimes
Speaker 1: an activity or something you can practice doing when you
Speaker 1: tell someone. And I would always recommend telling your safest
Speaker 1: people first to get good practice so that you aren't
Speaker 1: retriggered and kind of go back into that shame bubble
Speaker 1: for eating disorders or for any kind of trauma or
Speaker 1: any story that's like shrouded in shame. Tell people what
Speaker 1: you need to hear afterwards, because the connection there and
Speaker 1: the moment between the two people who are sharing the story,
Speaker 1: that moment right after is so important. And so if
Speaker 1: you need someone to just say I'm so sorry that happened,
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of you something like that, that's just
Speaker 1: like really encouraging. Because people don't know how to respond
Speaker 1: to the taboo topics in the world. And it's not
Speaker 1: their fault, but they don't know how to respond, and
Speaker 1: their own response could completely send you in a spiral.
Speaker 1: So if you know that, think about language that would
Speaker 1: be healing, Think about language that you would want to hear,
Speaker 1: Like what would be the most comforting things for you
Speaker 1: after you tell your deepest, darkest secret, and you can
Speaker 1: ask for that back. You can say I have something
Speaker 1: to tell you, and all I need you to say
Speaker 1: back is this, because I know you're going to be
Speaker 1: at a loss for words, and it's really powerful, especially
Speaker 1: I know it's hard to be in person right now,
Speaker 1: but especially in person with the eye contact, with the
Speaker 1: like rewiring of the brain to go away from that
Speaker 1: shame because you have a connection with the person and
Speaker 1: it's a healing connection. Have you read Body Keeps the Score,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite trauma books. It's so good. I'll
Speaker 1: just throw that out there for anybody right now that
Speaker 1: if you have big teas or little tease. I know
Speaker 1: you're talking about the big s, but any types of trauma.
Speaker 1: I'm only about halfway through it while we're recording this
Speaker 1: right now, but it's been a very eye opening book
Speaker 1: for me, not only to have compassion for other people
Speaker 1: and what they've been through, but then compassion for myself
Speaker 1: and different behaviors and ways I react and maybe why
Speaker 1: my I do that because of whatever X y Z
Speaker 1: upen to me at at a at a point in
Speaker 1: my life, and when you mentioned big s, it made
Speaker 1: me think of you know you're reminding yourself what is
Speaker 1: your true self? What is true to you? And so
Speaker 1: I'll also take this moment just to remind people that
Speaker 1: when we do have those lies in our head, not
Speaker 1: to just shut down the lies of like, Okay, that's
Speaker 1: not true, I'm moving on. Recognize yes, that they're not true,
Speaker 1: but then stop and take the time to tell yourself
Speaker 1: what is true. And that could be your big s Right,
Speaker 1: it's like an in between step, right, Like, there's so
Speaker 1: much black and white thinking that I see with clients.
Speaker 1: There's so much negativity, and it's hard for clients to
Speaker 1: go or for people in general to go from these
Speaker 1: truly negative thoughts to just be positive. Just just go
Speaker 1: to the other side and tell yourself something super positive.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you have to get to a medium step. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you have to tell yourself something neutral in order to
Speaker 1: start to move towards the positive of as like a
Speaker 1: little small step. Yeah, I think that's so important. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you would agree, but I feel like
Speaker 1: the missing ingredient is that there is no negative and positive.
Speaker 1: There is only compassion if you want to see yourself out,
Speaker 1: and compassion is a foreign thing self compassion specifically, but
Speaker 1: also compassion to others. But self compassion is a foreign,
Speaker 1: unlearned thing, and I know that for a long time
Speaker 1: I saw things very differently than I do now. I
Speaker 1: saw that devil voice as the devil voice, and I
Speaker 1: need to speak back to it as the positive. So
Speaker 1: whatever the negative was, I'll just say the positive to
Speaker 1: chase it away, and it just needs to be gone.
Speaker 1: But what I've learned in the last three years of
Speaker 1: my own mindfulness work is what erupts in the middle
Speaker 1: there to really make a difference is compassion. And it's
Speaker 1: not chasing away the devil. It's the softness that we're
Speaker 1: afraid to be with ourselves, to hold ourselves and say
Speaker 1: this hurts. Hearing that from myself hurts, These deep fears
Speaker 1: about myself hurts, and and we're almost it's like we're
Speaker 1: afraid to be intimate with ourselves, and so we just
Speaker 1: ping pong from really negative to oh, I'll just be
Speaker 1: positive to that doesn't really work because we're not really
Speaker 1: dealing with the negative. So UM, I guess it's just
Speaker 1: something that I think about all the time, is the
Speaker 1: work that compassion can do to really shift those inner voices.
Speaker 1: It makes me think of Lauren, one of the things
Speaker 1: that you're all about, and you know a lot of
Speaker 1: people are, but just it's okay to not be okay, Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it's okay to be messy, it's okay to be struggling,
Speaker 1: even when you're helping other people. It's okay to be
Speaker 1: everything in between. But that self compassion is so important.
Speaker 1: And like when you're talking Amy about doing trauma work
Speaker 1: or going back in the past and being a compassionate
Speaker 1: witness to yourself and all the different versions of yourself,
Speaker 1: I think is really important as well, reliving certain things
Speaker 1: and hugging that version of yourself. For you know, I
Speaker 1: think about myself and the deepest, darkest throws of my
Speaker 1: eating disorder, and it's so easy to be critical of
Speaker 1: her and to wish that she just had more knowledge
Speaker 1: back then, but I just have to like hug her
Speaker 1: and love her and tell her it's okay. I'm going
Speaker 1: to make it out. I felt that for myself a
Speaker 1: couple of Saturdays ago. I think a thought came to
Speaker 1: me and I even put it in a post on
Speaker 1: Instagram or just thinking of how far I had come,
Speaker 1: and I was like, wow, I have compassion for who
Speaker 1: I was and gratitude for where I am now, and
Speaker 1: I meant that wholeheartedly. And you know what, it was
Speaker 1: all because I was able to drink a creamy latte
Speaker 1: that morning. That should win, because I mean I used
Speaker 1: to just drink black coffee, you know, Oh God, black
Speaker 1: coffee makes me so sad. I had a similar moment
Speaker 1: where I was on vacation recently and I thought about
Speaker 1: the time there and I was like, I think I
Speaker 1: ate French fries like every day And I was like,
Speaker 1: who am I what? And I didn't do anything to
Speaker 1: get rid of them, or I didn't, you know, go
Speaker 1: to the gym and eat green juice only or detox
Speaker 1: key or any of the things the next week because
Speaker 1: I was there. But a creamy lot or a French fry,
Speaker 1: or a pizza or a cupcake not a small wind.
Speaker 1: No matter how far you are out of recovery, sometimes
Speaker 1: it's still a really big win. I think it's good
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that. What would you tell your clients or
Speaker 1: other people that are having little small winds? Like, what
Speaker 1: would you advise them when it comes to spending time
Speaker 1: with those wins? Like not just brushing them off? Because
Speaker 1: I think sometimes you might be like, oh, well, okay, fine,
Speaker 1: I did that, But mentally, what do we need to
Speaker 1: be doing with those winds? I think you need to
Speaker 1: be sharing them with people. I think you need to
Speaker 1: be sharing them with a friend who's maybe struggled with
Speaker 1: something similar, or sharing them with the therapists, because when
Speaker 1: you speak about your wins out loud, because I have
Speaker 1: clients do this and they still don't even seem like
Speaker 1: they're that proud of themselves, but they know, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be like, you did what you had, even if
Speaker 1: it's vegan ice cream, you had ice cream of some kind,
Speaker 1: like that is huge. When is the last time you
Speaker 1: did that? How did it feel? Who were you enjoying
Speaker 1: it with? Right, you can ask yourself these questions, but
Speaker 1: I also think it's really powerful when you share it
Speaker 1: with someone else and they can be your cheerleader, because
Speaker 1: sometimes we're not at the point where we can be
Speaker 1: our own cheerleader yet. And even if you ask those
Speaker 1: questions to yourself, it might turn negative. But if you
Speaker 1: share it with someone someone you love or someone you
Speaker 1: know supports you in this journey, right, they're going to
Speaker 1: be ecstatic for you, and you might feel like it's
Speaker 1: just a couple of ice creamer, just a latte. Right,
Speaker 1: it's silly or it's not important, but it is so
Speaker 1: important and and sometimes we need external validation to like
Speaker 1: really drive that point home. Since you bring this up,
Speaker 1: and we'll kind of wrap with this, since you do
Speaker 1: work with trauma, I mean, and people, it's not just
Speaker 1: eating disorders. You know, you mentioned you have clients that
Speaker 1: have all kinds of things that have happened to them.
Speaker 1: For you, what's the power in speaking and being able
Speaker 1: to identify and say out loud what you're feeling and
Speaker 1: what emotions you have. Like some people were taught to
Speaker 1: never show emotion or not to acknowledge their feelings, and
Speaker 1: on a ste that's what leads to a numbing behavior
Speaker 1: like in eating disorder or alcohol or drugs or whatever.
Speaker 1: So just affirm people in the fact or talk about
Speaker 1: what happens when we say it out loud. And that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you take it to Facebook and Instagram. That's
Speaker 1: not what I'm implying here. I'm applying like a trusted friend,
Speaker 1: family member or therapists, Like, what does that do for
Speaker 1: someone when they talk about it the trauma or whatever
Speaker 1: they're they're feeling or the emotions. It does everything, honestly,
Speaker 1: And I'm not just saying that because I'm a therapist,
Speaker 1: and I'm not just saying that because my own experience
Speaker 1: with therapy has changed my life. But like I have
Speaker 1: seen healing from childhood trauma from talking about it with
Speaker 1: someone else, with a therapist or with someone else who understands,
Speaker 1: like in a group setting. I have seen people overcome
Speaker 1: social anxiety understand like oh, on this way because of that,
Speaker 1: because they have someone gently just guiding them through or
Speaker 1: ask seeking them, Hey, can you tell me more about
Speaker 1: that feeling? Where did you feel it in your body?
Speaker 1: What comes up for you? Like do you feel angry
Speaker 1: against that that side of yourself? Do you love that
Speaker 1: side of yourself? Like you said, They've never had anyone
Speaker 1: ask those things before. So it's almost like when you
Speaker 1: get in a room and you start talking and sometimes
Speaker 1: you don't have any rhyme or reason to where your
Speaker 1: your session is going. I love when clients say I
Speaker 1: don't have anything to talk about this week, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: let's roll up our sleeves because something's going to come
Speaker 1: out today. It's something big. Because when we're just sitting
Speaker 1: with ourselves all the time, we don't notice all the
Speaker 1: things that someone else will notice, and we don't dive
Speaker 1: deeper into things because maybe they're too painful or maybe
Speaker 1: we're not ready. So having that person and having that space,
Speaker 1: I think just having the container of forty five minutes
Speaker 1: every week can be really powerful to just know that
Speaker 1: you have that time to work on yourself when you
Speaker 1: might not get to do that anywhere else in your world.
Speaker 1: And just speaking your truth, whether it's small or big,
Speaker 1: whether it's a deep rooted issue or something that you're
Speaker 1: just struggling with on the surface, maybe it doesn't feel
Speaker 1: that heavy. Just having a witness to that and having
Speaker 1: someone can who can connect with you really empathetically and
Speaker 1: genuinely over it can change the way that you think
Speaker 1: about yourself. It can change the way that you interact
Speaker 1: with relationships in your life. It can change the way
Speaker 1: you eat, the way you move your body. It can
Speaker 1: change so much because you just have a better understanding
Speaker 1: of who you are at the core. Awesome love that
Speaker 1: we're gonna link your website in our show notes, but
Speaker 1: it's Lauren Elizabeth Larkin dot com and Lauren, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for sharing your story and your wisdom with
Speaker 1: us today. Thanks so much, Lauren, thank you so much.