Full Transcript for You're Missing Your Life While Worrying About Your Body

becoming weaker over time and she isn't really able to have much of a life as a result of that. And so it was this weird contrast of I have this body that's healthy and capable of doing the things that I wanted to do, and yet I'm so fixated on wanting it to look a certain way, and in the pursuit of that ideal body, I'm completely disconnected from the body I already have. And here's a very clear example of someone close to me that I love who would give anything to have a body that could take her around the block or take her for run. So, yeah, I just realized what was happening. I'm a very I think very deeply, and I'm all about working on myself and changing things that I need to change, and so I kind of embarked on a journey to completely change how I viewed my body and how I related to it. And it took a really long time. I have successfully reached a point where I'm in a much healthier place with it and much more accepting of it. And I see I look out in the world and I see how many women are affected by this, and I'm deeply concerned by what's happening now with the trends kind of veering back towards thinness again and just like the complete switch up that the beauty trends have made in that regard. So that's what got me into coaching. I was like, I need to help women who are struggling with this reclaim their energy. 00:04:51 Speaker 2: And you touch on so many things there, and we're going to get into all of it, but I do want to draw attention to that fact that you talk about your experience with it. I think you could talk to any woman in the world and she has experienced some form of body image issue or any number of the complications that come with that. Right there's on the more intense spectrum of the eating disorders and things on that, but there's also just the every day of comparing our bodies to other people. And I really believe that there's not a single woman in the world who has not had this experience, unfortunately, But talk about that experience a little bit more of like you were feeling that and you were going through that experience while also watching somebody that you really love go through really just a completely opposite experience where they were frustrated with their body on a different level. And I think that can give an important perspective to this conversation because a lot of what we have to remember is that a healthy body is so much more valuable than anything else we could ever do. 00:06:02 Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally agree. I think it's unfortunate that so much of the messaging that women receive and that I received was that you need to look a certain way and if you don't look that way, you're not enough, and you should be determined to do what you can. Buy this weight loss drug, buy this workout plan, buy the shape, where like there's countless things that are sold to women to make them look better. We're taught that that should be one of our main goals, and so a lot of us really start believing that. And I think, of course, there are so many downsides to my mom's disability, and I'm so sad that she has to go through that, But it has given me a really special perspective on what really matters in life and what really matters when it comes to our bodies. And it's shown me that's not true what we're told about our physical appearance mattering so much, It's just not true. And that belief that it does matter that much completely disconnects us from ourselves. 00:07:03 Speaker 2: Oh that's so good to hear. I love that perspective because I really don't think, unfortunately and fortunately that a lot of people don't get to have that opportunity to see what is important. I talk about this a little bit that I'm engaged and I'm going through what is the happiest moment of my life, right, But when I try on wedding dresses, all I could do was think about all the things that were wrong about me. I lighted all of the things that I didn't like about myself. Instead of highlighting the happiness that I was feeling, I loved that I was feeling the excitement. It was all about, Well, my belly looks too big here, I'm going to show my very big arms in every picture in this one. Oh, I have backfat in that one. Okay, what am I going to do about this? Am I going to cover my whole body? I need to make sure I have a tan? 00:07:51 Speaker 1: Like all of. 00:07:51 Speaker 2: Those thought processes are going through my head when I'm trying on a single wedding dress. I had an entire breakdown of things that I had experienced over the course of my life, right, but in this one moment, it was all bundled up to show me how much it was impacting every piece of my life. Have you experienced those moments too? I imagine that at moments in your life where you're like, I shouldn't be focused on this, but I am absolutely. 00:08:21 Speaker 1: I love that you brought up that example, because it really shows how much this affects our lives and affects our experience of moments that You're right, they should be moments that were fully enjoying and present for and we're completely taken out of them. The one that comes to mind for me is I have a boyfriend who's wonderful and I love him, and when I met him eight years ago, through that process of falling in love and getting to know each other, which again I think is one of the most special things that we can experience as humans. I was so distracted by wondering if I looked good enough in that time period my life, and looking back on it, it's kind of sad to me that that experience of falling in love with someone is something that I won't experience again, hopefully, And I was so distracted by it that I was kind of like not fully there for it. 00:09:20 Speaker 2: And it's sad to think about because we can't rewrite it. We can't do anything differently than what we had done, and all you can do is hope to do better. I think that was such a reason why I loved connecting with your content, because there are so many young women online, and I just

my hope, even though I know that that's not the direction that we're sadly heading, but my hope is that they see us talking about it, they see us trying to bring attention to say, hey, don't follow the path that we follow. Do something different and love your body and love who you are and show up in the world so confident in that. And it's funny because I don't think that that content didn't necessarily exist as we were growing up, but I think it was harder to believe in the things that we're sold. Is really hard on our image. And you talk about weight loss drugs. Any person can go online right now in any capacity and be online for a max of five minutes and have at least one or two posts that come across our feed talking about weight loss drugs. It's everywhere. So how do you escape something that's currently around. 00:10:21 Speaker 1: How do you, as a body. 00:10:23 Speaker 2: Image coach walk people through the experience of constantly be surrounded by things telling them that you don't look good enough, how you are. 00:10:34 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's a great question. It's true, it's everywhere, and with social media, it's like the ability to advertise these things to us is like it never has been before. They have us, They have our attention at all times, right through our phones. So yeah, it's a huge issue. I'm very adamant with my clients about the fact that this is something that you'll never be able to escape. It's always going to be all around us. If anything. Unfortunately, I feel like it's getting worse in a way with technology and with social media and with where that's headed. So I think it's so important to not necessarily try to run away from that or hide from that. I think that's unrealistic in a lot of ways. Instead, I really encourage my clients to use moments like that to really fuel their growth, and I teach them something that I think a lot of women don't see in themselves, which is that we are capable of responding differently to these sorts of things. We are capable of seeing a commercial for a weight loss drug and feeling what that brings up in us, and then choosing to respond differently, choosing to react differently, choosing to not buy into what we might have bought into in the past. So I'm really adamant about helping my clients get to that point where they feel confident in their ability to do that. And that really comes down to I mean, sometimes it is necessary that people take a break from social media because it's so pervasive. If it's so like we're not even really aware of the impact it's having on us a lot of the time, so sometimes it is necessary to take a little break from it, and then we kind of work together to get people to a point where they feel able to question the thoughts and kind of work with them and see through them in a lot of ways and see through the messaging as well. I mean, it revolves around taking women's power away from them and telling and convincing them what you look like matters and

this will help you solve that issue of not looking good enough and then you'll feel amazing. And in my opinion, that's a complete lie. So we really work to see through those lies, see through the thought patterns that have come to be within their own minds, and get them to a point where they can experience having something like that come up on their phone when they're scrolling and not go down the spiral that they might have gone down in the past. 00:12:54 Speaker 2: I think it's a really hard, complex situation. On the other side of that too, I know there's a lot of people in the world right now who are really trying to focus on health and being health conscious, and it's a really complex situation when you're trying to get out of the negative messaging that we're receiving while also saying, Okay, well, I want to be healthy and I want to feel good. How do you handle that because that dynamic is really dicey. 00:13:23 Speaker 1: That is a great question, and I agree that's a hard one. I personally, coming from a background of help and fitness and being really into it and still being someone who, hey, I love to take good care of my body, and I'm very passionate about that as well, I find that it's such a fine line between not really I don't want to say not caring, but maybe letting your help slide and not really putting a lot of intention into how you take care of your body, and then being very intentional about it to the point where it's unhealthy and it becomes kind of toxic, which I feel is where I was at with it in the past. So that is a hard one. I think it's more so about I really like to start not even talking much about help and fitness and start by just focusing on the mind and the patterns and the past that each woman has that has kind of caused her to think the way she does about her body and really work through that stuff so that we can get to a healthier mindset overall. And then I bring help and fitness in, but more so from a perspective of what do you enjoy, What did you enjoy doing for activity when you were a kid, before you even cared what your body looked like, what would actually bring you joy? There are so many people who myself included, who do certain forms of exercise or eat in a certain way solely for the purpose of looking better or changing their body. And I don't think that that has to be the reasoning behind it. I think that you can find a way to go about taking care of your body that comes from a place of simply wanting to enjoy yourself, wanting to connect with yourself, wanting to feel good. We all feel better when we're moving our bodies and eating healthier. So if we can find an underlying purpose for that that's not centered around physical appearance, I feel like that's a much stronger thing to kind of have backing your efforts in those in that realm. So that's a big That's how I address that. And along the way, there's a lot of unlearning what we've been taught about what health means and what a healthy body looks like, and what you should be doing or shouldn't be doing in the gym or in any other type of setting well. 00:15:34 Speaker 2: And it's so difficult too, because we talk about healthy food. We look at the idea of healthy food, and gosh, until I think this year, in the last literally in the last year, my idea of healthy food was not actually healthy food. I just had this such a difficult relationship with food that I've been a vegetarian since I was eight, So I was what you would call a crapputarian for twenty five years of my life. Horrible foods and you know, carbs and cheese, and I love them. They're my soul foods. That's what I go back to. But I was not eating vegetables, I was not getting protein. 00:16:08 Speaker 1: I was not doing anything. 00:16:09 Speaker 2: That was good for my body. And I look back on that now and like, I fell for so many diet crazes. I felt for the protein tea drinks that were diet crazes. I felt for the drink your greens. I fell for the protein and everything. As long as there's protein and everything, it doesn't matter. I fell for everything because I didn't understand, genuinely what a healthy relationship with actual and when I say healthy foods, I mean whole foods. I mean foods that come from nature and you're supposed to be consuming and you can consume so many and it doesn't matter that those type of foods. I didn't even have a relationship with them because of how distorted my view was of diet and healthy foods. And I think that's also a conversation around a lot of this is the imagen that we're receiving around what actually is healthy? Are you seeing that a lot? 00:17:06 Speaker 1: Absolutely? I think it's overwhelming. I talk to so many people who are like, I can't keep up. One day, I think this is healthy, the next day it's not. It leaves people feeling really defeated and like they don't have a lot of power or control in their relationship with their body and with food. I've done a lot of different diets as well, and I've gone through my own journey with food, and I too, am a huge fan of whole foods, But ultimately I'm of the mindset of really just tapping into what feels right for you and what feels doable for you. If it's the most overwhelming thing ever to try to eat whole foods, all the time, which for a lot of people it is because that's so foreign to them. I really like to limit stress. I think stress is worse for us than bad food. 00:17:51 Speaker 2: So true stress is bad for us, worse than I think like alcohol, sugar and everything else. Oh my gosh. 00:17:57 Speaker 1: I think it's up there with some of the worst things. And this has from someone who has a tendency to stress and get really anxious about things and overthinks. So I'm very adamant about doing what we can to avoid that, and of course factoring in what does healthy eating look like for you? What are things you could do to make it easier for yourself. I think one issue with the body neutrality body acceptance movement is that there

can be a little bit of too much lenience around things that are bad for you, in my opinion, and I don't think that's necessarily good either. But I think that taking care of yourself and eating healthy should always come from a place of love and from a place of wanting to connect with your body and doing what's best for it. And so it's really important to me to work with my clients to find what that looks like for them specifically, not what all these other sources are telling them that should look like and how we can make that something fairly simple, something that doesn't feel like it's adding on to all the other things they already have to worry about in life. Life. Yeah, you talk. 00:19:04 Speaker 2: About that bottom layer of what your clients can have as their reasoning behind why they do it, and maybe this is an example that people could use that would help them. I really had to change my thought process around it. In my latest way of doing that has been, like, I just really want to be healthy when I'm older. I want to feel good in my body. I don't want my bone steak, and I want to be able to walk around and hang out with my friends and travel and see the world, and I don't have limitations that I see a lot of people have. I've tried really hard to set my mindset on I want to live a long, good life and I don't want to be stuck paying the price for things that I did. And that's helped me refrain reframe a lot of what I've been doing, because, as you heard in the beginning of this when I went wedding dress shopping, I do have so much negative self talk that happens that I've really had to, like when I go to the gym or like a walk, so I do the things that are fun to me. I'm like, Okay, we're doing this for old Morgan. Old Morgan's gonna appreciate me one day. And that's my mindset that I keep trying to train myself to go into. And maybe that's one that will help other people too. 00:20:20 Speaker 1: Yeah. I love that. I think everyone has different things that work for them. For some people that wouldn't work for others it would And that's why so much of what I do is about really finding what works for the individual person. But I agree we need to find what that is for us. And I think in the process we need to be kind with ourselves, because when it comes to fitness and eating healthy, we're so hard on ourselves. We can make them very intense and be really mean to ourselves when we feel like we're falling short. So I always want to bring that kindness into the process as well. When you're working with clients, how are you walking them through that kind of kindness, that less negative self talk. How are you getting them on a path that they can start to recorrect that, because that's a lot of gosh, young versions of ourselves that we're trying to kind of get out of us. And it's huge habits that I've built up over years, sometimes decades. Yeah, oh my gosh, it's intense work. It's not these aren't easy things to change, for sure, it's a lot of

I honestly think everyone can benefit from speaking about how they view themselves and how they talk to themselves in a safe setting with someone who was truly there to just listen and reflect back to them what they're hearing. Because so many times my clients will say something about themselves and I reflect it back to them and they're like, wow, I didn't even look at it like that. I didn't even really pay attention to the fact that I'm saying these sorts of things to myself. So that helps in and of itself. I also really like to, like you said, a lot of these patterns stem all the way back to when we were chilled, and I like to kind of encourage my clients to first of all, figure out with me where some of these ideas came from and who taught them when they were children, because it doesn't come from us, it's taught to us from outside forces. And then there's a lot of I feel understanding that comes with that because they're seeing this child version of themselves and they're seeing, Wow, she was just living her life in the world, and she was taught these messages and she started to really believe those And for whatever reason, when they think of themselves in that place when they were a child, there's so much more able to have understanding and love and acceptance for that version of themselves. But when it comes to their present adult self, they're not able to show up in that same way. So a lot of it is just talking through that and talking through why that is the case. And I'm also a really big fan of intentionally saying certain things day after day. So when it comes to the body, I feel like when our mind has been programmed to think about it so negatively, I love to encourage my clients to kind of flip the script, whether it resonates or not, a lot of the times it doesn't, but I still think it's so important to every day reflect on one thing that your body does for you, or one thing that you're grateful for, one positive thing, because our minds get so wired to think negatively of ourselves, and that's something that we have been programmed to do for so long, and we're still programmed to do every day, and I think we have to counteract to that. I'm very big on intentionally counteracting that with how even if it's just writing one thing in a notebook every night before bed, that's positive. 00:23:43 Speaker 2: Mm hmm. 00:23:44 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:23:44 Speaker 2: We need that more of that in general, but gosh, to do it with our bodies, and like you say, flip the script, I think is so necessary and helping kind of rewrite, like rewiring your brain to think just a little bit differently. I don't know if you ever do this, but I I have these photo albums on Facebook where I posted so much when I was a kid. I loved taking pictures with a digital camera. And I look at those pictures and you talk about the younger self, and I was so hard on her. I look at those pictures. I look at her in swimsuits, and I see her and her cheerleading outfits, and I'm like, I used to think that I was so fat. I literally did. That's what I thought, like, I was huge. There were so many things I wanted to fix about myself. And I look at those pictures now and I was so small. I was so little. I was just this little girl who didn't know anything, And if I could just take her and wrap her in a blanket and remind her of what's important. It's crazy, those feelings. And I wonder if all of us look back on our old photos, which I know can be hard for some people too, because it's such a negative time for a lot of people. But to look back on photos and remember the things that we used to say about ourselves and how how we did, and that perspective is also a crazy game changer. Do you ever do that with your old photos where you're just really hard and you're like, what was I even thinking? 00:25:10 Speaker 1: Absolutely, there was a trend recently that was like someone was talking about the first time that they saw a photo of themselves and thought something negative about their body. And I have a clear memory of it, and I pulled up the picture too, and it's just sad, but sad to think back on that, but I agree that it can also be healing. I think a lot of healing happens when we're willing to face the really hard experiences and hard thoughts. And I love what you said about how you wish you could go back and wrap her in a blanket. I mean, I've thought that many times about many things, wishing that I could go back and just comfort myself. But I honestly believe that we can still do that today. I'm a firm believer that we all have this inner child, that part of us that felt that way is still within us and still plays a role in how we view and act towards our body today. So I'm a huge advocate for when we're having a really hard day and our body image is horrible, treating ourselves how we would want to treat that younger, childlike version of ourselves, And maybe that is wrapping yourself up in a blanket and watching your favorite movie and anything that is comforting to you. I think it's so important that we treat our current selves the way that we would our child version of ourselves. 00:26:24 Speaker 2: Yeah, and when the child version of us comes out, I like to think that that's our soul moment. We need to connect back to our soul, because it's like something that's happening that our body's screaming at us that it needs us, it needs to be supported, And the soul is actually what needs to be supported, not our body. In that moment, not with whatever's happening in the outside world, but the inside of us, the literal internal moments are screaming for us to pay attention. And it's scary, honestly to feel those sometimes. And I think that's why it's so difficult, because, just as there is with anything, when we start to think about change, when we start to think about all that's going to have to happen to make that change necessary, is really overwhelming to think, Okay, well, every day, I'm going to have to wake up

and say nice things about myself and I have to understand that I need to love who I am, and that becomes very overwhelming, and the process of it becomes overwhelming, so much so that I think it goes back to what you're saying about stress. We end up looking at it and say, Okay, well, no, that's too stressful, I'm not going to do it. But then the latter option is to just keep living with it for the rest of your life. 00:27:35 Speaker 1: Absolutely. I think that's why this work is so important, and I think it's why it's so helpful to have someone kind of hold your hand through it and through those hard moments, because it can be lonely I mean personally, I changed my relationship with my body alone, and I mean there's good and bad that came with that, but ultimately it took a very long time and it was a very lonely experience. So I love that I can be that person for my clients who's there with them in those hard moments so they don't feel so alone when I. 00:28:05 Speaker 2: Want to talk about their relationships around us, because I also think that that's a huge factor, because we hear that we are who we surround ourselves with, and that's obviously true, but even more so when it comes to thinking about ourselves, I think there's a lot of people that have relationships in their life that are adding to their issues with how they see themselves. And I think that's a very key part to healing. So walk me through that kind of experience, because I'm imagining you've had a lot of experience in that. 00:28:37 Speaker 1: Absolutely, I think because a lot of times the negative things that we hear about bodies comes from people that we love and comes from people that we care about and we value their opinion on us, and so when they say certain things, I mean, I've had so many clients and in my own personal life where we have received comments from our moms, which is really hard because your mom is someone you look up to. Your mom is someone that in a lot of ways, your relationship with your body is determined by her relationship with her body. And it's not to put moms down. I think everyone does the best they can, but a lot of times this stuff is so ingrained in people that they end up pushing those beliefs onto others. And a lot of times there is this cycle of women learn this and then they teach it to their daughters and they're not even necessarily meaning to, but they just make comments because they've heard comments like that, and they believe things and they maybe think they're protecting their daughters, whatever the reasoning is. And that's a really hard experience. That's something that I've experienced in my own life. That's something a lot of my clients come to me about, and it is challenging, and it's one of those things where we can't control other people. We can't control what other people say to us. We can't control how willing they have been to do this work or to really look at themselves in their own relationship with their body. All we can

control is how much we take what they say to heart, and it's so much easier said than done. I think a lot of it is having someone that's a safe space that you can talk to about it and be like, my mom said this or my friend said this, and it affected me in this way and it was really hurtful. We just need to talk about it and let it out in order to kind of clear that energy. I'm a firm believer that everything is energy, and a lot of times energy needs to be cleared out. So sometimes just a matter of talking about it. Sometimes it's a matter of calming the nervous system. I'm really big on, Like there's this notion that all we have to do is just change our thoughts, think more positively, be stronger, be able to show up in life differently, and I think that's expecting too much of the mind. I think the mind is programmed to think in certain ways and to be really reactive and emotional. So I'm a big believer and teacher of calming the nervous system in moments too. And sometimes when someone close to you makes a comment about your body or about their body and they're not really able to see the impact of that, you have to go to your own space and calm your nervous system. You have to like tap on your body or do some deep breathing, or jump up and down and shake or dance. You have to do something with that energy that they have just unwillingly maybe pushed onto you. So yeah, I'm a big again. It comes back to kind of working with the moment and using the moment to kind of show up and react differently. And I also think that in doing this work ourselves, in changing our relationship with our own bodies, we inspire the people around us to do the same, and maybe the same people that once were a contributor to those comments and to that way of looking at ourselves will become inspired by what they see us doing and how they see us talking and showing up. It can come around like that, but ultimately it comes back to we can only control what we can control, and what other people say and what other people think is not in our control. 00:32:03 Speaker 2: Yeah. Gosh, those relationships with our family members is a really tough one because it's your people that you're surrounded with, you're born into, and you don't really have a choice. You're just kind of succumb to it. For at least eighteen years, if not more, and you don't realize it until later, and it's passed down generation to generation. I don't think our moms or our grandmas or they're you know, our great grandmas wanted that to be what they thought, but it was what got passed down to them, and it's what they continued on. And being a generational breaker of that habit is also a responsibility, but it's a hard one and it's more than just that. With you, you're just breaking so many decades of that experience. I read something the other day talking about a study of how there were enough people, even just with their partners, who would say something negative about themselves and over time, six months, a

year, whatever, they would start to then see themselves that way if they never did before, because they're around it so much that they start to think the same way that you are thinking. And that also, like on the other side of relationships, made me realize the role and my responsibility that I have. I'm not only creating this environment and hardship for myself, but I'm also creating it for other people who are around me. And I hated that. I hated the way that that made me feel honestly, it made me sad to think, and which is so funny because of course, of course I'm sad to think about how it would make other people feel, not how I'm making myself feel every day. But it's a funny realization that maybe putting it on other people made me finally be like, oh, I shouldn't be saying those things about myself. And that's so unfortunate that it takes us realizing the impact we're having on other people to say, oh, we shouldn't be having that same impact on ourselves. 00:33:58 Speaker 1: Yeah. No, it's sad how easy it comes to us to show up in our relationship with ourselves in a certain way. There's so many things we say to ourselves that we would never say to someone else, and it's unfortunate. I really like to remind people of how much power they truly have, though And when it comes to thoughts are one thing. Thoughts are very hard to control, and that's a whole that's a complex thing to address. But when it comes to what we say out, there's more of an opportunity to stop ourselves in our tracks. When we have a thought and we think to ourselves, I'm going to say this out loud about my body. I'm going to say this negative thing about my body. We have the opportunity to not and I really like to remind people of that. I know it's hard. I know that when you are in a pattern of saying, of talking negatively about yourself, and maybe you're around people who do and it feels normal to you, it's not an easy thing to consider just not doing that. But we are all capable of that, and I really like to remind people of that, because at least if you make a commitment to yourself to not speak out loud these negat of thoughts that you have about your body and about yourself, you're taking a step towards completely changing your relationship with yourself overall. And I truly believe it's all about small steps that take you in that direction over time. 00:35:16 Speaker 2: And talking about a small step that we have to take, because obviously we're in a data with social media, everybody's on it, there's things with that, but you talking about that just reminded me. Obviously we all have to wear clothes, and putting on clothes and having that whole experience is an experience in itself, and going to a doctor's office and being weighed, and those everyday experiences of trying unclothes in a dressing room, of going to a doctor's office and getting weighed, or being around somebody where you're having to get measurements and it's deciding what your body looks like like.

Walk me through how we should handle those as we're trying to heal and talk to ourselves better and do the better steps, because those are everyday moments that are personal that we have to experience to just exist in life. 00:36:06 Speaker 1: They absolutely are. That is the things. This is something that's triggered in so many different moments throughout our lives and throughout our day that it makes it really hard to overcome these tendencies. I again, I'm all about starting to see these moments as opportunities versus horrible experiences, which, of course they are really hard and they are really challenging, and there's so much that comes with them. But I am all about the fact that in life the only way to grow is through discomfort, and so I really like to encourage a different way of viewing those moments and seeing them as opportunities and again applying that same approach of taking baby steps. The first thing I encourage people to do is just to bring more awareness into those moments in general, because so many of these things we're so used to feeling a certain type of way, we're so used to responding a certain type of way, We're so used to experiencing something like that, like trying on an outfit or getting weight at the doctor's office and then feeling horrible for the rest of the day or the rest of the week and just kind of sitting in that and not really acknowledging what's happening. And so I think bringing awareness into it is such an important first step just to kind of start to shift things into a position of reclaiming your power in those moments and in your life in general. And that can really just look like naming what's happening. Like if you are at let's say you're shopping for clothes and you're in the changing room trying some on. That can be a really triggering experience for women, and you notice yourself looking at your body and over analyzing and having all these negative thoughts come up. You name what's happening, and you say to yourself, I'm having a negative body image experience right now, and I am thinking all these things that I've been taught to think about myself, and that's what's happening, and that alone is bringing a little more awareness into the moment. And through doing that more and more over time and really almost coming back to the present more in those moments and not kind of letting yourself get carried away into the thoughts and go with what they're telling you, then you start to have more of an ability to bring in more tools grounding yourself in the present moment. I'm super passionate about people doing that, and that can be kind of through tapping into your senses. You know, what do you hear, what do you smell, what do you see? Really bringing yourself back into the present, out of your mind, because your mind is where this storm is brewing, and it's so important to kind of get some relief from that, even if it's for a short lived period of time, and after that you have more of an ability to

really come back into your body. I'm so into tapping or massaging or kind of like going against what your thoughts are telling you, right, because your thoughts are telling you that you're the worst, and you look horrible and no one's going to like you. And they can spiral so easily. I'm sure we all know what that's like. And so respondingly, when we. 00:38:58 Speaker 2: Have to cli on swimsuits, that's the first thing that comes to my mind. I think every woman has hated that experience at least once in her life. 00:39:06 Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, swimsuits are a big one. And again, you have to work with yourself. You can't you can't go Okay, Today, trying on a swimsuit is the hardest thing I could ever do. But tomorrow I'm going to make it be easy. I'm going to go in there and love the experience. Like that, you have to work with where you're at. And so that's why I love the idea of taking baby steps. But I accompanied with that, I'm very adamant about reminding women that you are capable of changing these patterns, and you have to believe that. You have to believe in yourself and your ability to change these things. And so through bringing more awareness into it, through responding by gently caressing yourself or being kind to your body in the midst of those thoughts, you open the door towards you being able to start to question those thoughts and get to a point where you can start to be like, Okay, I'm trying this on and I'm having these thoughts, but I don't have to actually believe them. I don't have to actually listen to them. I don't have to decide that I'm not worthy of wearing a bikini. And the step after that is getting to a point where you're like, I'm still going to buy this. I'm still going to buy this and wear it because I want to and I haven't worn a bikini for so long and I want that to be a part of my experience, and I'm going to push past whatever my mind is telling me I can't do or I'm not capable of. But that's like the ultimate, Like, I don't want women to go into this work with the idea that they will be able to get there in a second, because that's it takes time to get to that point, and you have to consistently practice these things to get to that point where you can do that. 00:40:40 Speaker 2: Yeah, and showing up for yourself and making that choice every day, that's so important. Yeah, Man, I feel for all the people out there who are listening to this and they're like, yes, yes, I relate. I want to get there. I want to do all these things, and I do want to talk about that. We mentioned it a little bit, the obsession currently with being very skinny, being so skinny that it's almost not okay in the way that it's not. I even have struggles with saying healthy and unhealthy. I don't know if you've noticed that over the course of this interview. It feels weird even to say healthy versus not healthy. But there is a moment when you are so skinny that you need to be taking care of yourself. And we're seeing a lot of images of that online, especially coming from our favorite actors and our favorite musicians and artists. And that is the world that we're currently in. 00:41:32 Speaker 1: Give me your. 00:41:33 Speaker 2: Thoughts on that, the obsession with way loss drugs, the obsession with being skinny, and the idea that I think there was a huge photo floating around. I think it was of Demi Moore, and it was like, she's so toned and muscular, and I was like, that is not the tone and muscular that I'm aware of. 00:41:52 Speaker 1: It's concerning, It's deeply concerning. I'm having so many conversations with women who have struggled with eating disorders in the past, or who who have really struggled with their weight and wanting to be skinnier, and seeing this in the media is so triggering for them, and I really feel for them. I'm fortunate in the sense that I haven't personally struggled with an eating disorder, but I can imagine how triggering this time period would be for someone like that. So yeah, it's concerning, and it is one of those things where everyone has such a different notion of women's bodies and what they should look like. And I mean, even the range of comments that I get on my posts is insane. It really shows me how varied people's opinions are on women's bodies and how much people feel like they deserve to comment on women's bodies. 00:42:40 Speaker 2: But it is. 00:42:42 Speaker 1: It is challenging though, because, like you said, we don't want to comment on women's bodies, we don't want to add to the problem. Yet at the same time, when we see women becoming so thin, and it's true, there is a certain level of thinness that is not healthy. Women need a certain amount of fat on their bodies to be healthy and to have a menstrual cycle, and so when we're seeing these sorts of things happen in the media. It is concerning and it does need to be talked about, and I think it's challenging to navigate how you talk about that so that you are helping the people who are being negatively affected by this, but you're not adding to the problem that we already have. 00:43:20 Speaker 2: Mm hmmm, gosh. Yeah, you're trying to find such a balance in a world where honestly, there's just not a lot of balance right now. It's like black or white, there's no in between, and that is the part that's really hard. But I want to bring it back to something you said at the very very beginning of all of this was that you are more interesting than what you look like. You are more than everything. 00:43:41 Speaker 1: That you look like. 00:43:42 Speaker 2: And we have become so accustomed because everybody is chronically online, myself included, that we feel comfortable to comment on people and who they are and what they look like. And I personally could never make a comment on somebody's body, knowing how much I personal they struggle, both my own thoughts and everything that I don't need to add to anybody else's. But you go to any comment section of anybody posting a picture of

themselves, and people have a whole lot to say about it. And I think that's also the other hard thing, because you have a whole bunch of people out there who feel comfortable to be posting themselves online and a whole bunch of people who don't feel comfortable, and it's like they're all clashing at the same time, and we're seeing that in real time in so many different ways. 00:44:27 Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, it is challenging, and everyone's so different and everyone navigates it differently. I have really gotten to a point where I'm able to take what people say with a grain of salt. I truly believe that anyone's opinion on someone else, specifically when it comes to a woman's body, is the result of what they have been taught throughout the course of their lifetime, what they've been exposed to, what they've heard people say, the type of media they watch, And so I don't take it very personally because I see through it in that sense. But it is hard to get to that point, and we're all human, we are all impacted by what people say about us to a certain degree, and so it's challenging to live in a world where never before people have opinions on you and they can share those opinions with you, and there's this disconnect because it's happening through a screen. 00:45:17 Speaker 2: But I feel like, right now what we all need is yes, mean in our heads, just constantly all the time, reminding. 00:45:23 Speaker 1: Us, Hey, this is the thought process we're trying to walk down. I'll work on figuring out how I can get broadcasted into everyone's mind. 00:45:32 Speaker 2: Right. Maybe that's where AI can be used for good. It's like you're in our head all the time being like, Hey, you're beautiful, you look awesome, this is great, You're doing good things. Yeah, I mean that like a little Polly Pocket in my life. 00:45:46 Speaker 1: I love that. That's definitely what I'm trying to do with my content. And I think it's great that although we're seeing this concerning trend happen with women's bodies in the media, there are so many women out there who are also making the opposite type of content and spreading this message to help women accept themselves more. And I definitely see so much more of that now than I did ten years ago when I was first getting on social media. So that gives me hope. That gives me hope that at least there's some balance there that maybe wasn't there as much in the past. 00:46:21 Speaker 2: Absolutely, which is how I found you in the first place, and why I loved your content was why I wanted to bring you on. So I end the podcast with it can be a piece of motivation, inspiration. It could be something that we haven't touched on that you feel really heavy on your heart to share. Let you end us on something that really matters to you, or a message you definitely want to make sure people get across by the end of this episode. 00:46:43 Speaker 1: Home, I'm really passionate about doing what you can to be present as much as you can. I think that life is something that flashes by. I mean, I'm still fairly young, but I've already experienced that in my own life, and everyone I talk to who is older says the same thing. They feel like life just flies by. They don't know where all the time goes. And I am a firm believer that being alive is one of the most precious gifts there is. It's such a blessing to be alive, to be in a body, to get to experience the good and the bad, and so whatever we can do to be present for that, we should do it. I truly believe it does come back to the mind. I have struggled so much in my life with anxiety, with overthinking, with my mind getting in the way of me just enjoying my life. And I think that our thoughts are our greatest enemy in so many ways. And so if you can find one thing that you can do daily that takes you out of your mind, even if it's just for five minutes, I think that that is one of the keys to life. And for me, it's being in nature. I love being in nature. I feel the most at peace when I'm just like walking amongst the trees. Different for everyone and sometimes you have to explore things to find what that is for you. But I think it's so important, and I think it helps with your relationship with your body as well. 00:48:09 Speaker 2: Yes, thoughts being our biggest to me, absolutely yes, and yes also to nature. I feel the smallest when I'm in nature, and something about that makes me feel like every problem that I have, that the negative thoughts that I have are really so insignificant compared to everything else. So I totally understand that feeling. But yes, I mean, thank you so much for joining and being here today and talking about all this and sharing your story and knowledge. I really believe everything that you're doing is so important, so please keep doing it. 00:48:43 Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you so much for reaching out and having me and I love this platform that you have and what you're doing with it. 00:48:49 Speaker 2: Oh, thank you. Well, it's great to meet you virtually, and I'm gonna be patiently waiting until you create the AI poly pocket version of yourself so I can have you along the ride with me. 00:49:01 Speaker 1: So until then, you'll be the first to know. You'll be the first to know when I figure it out. Deal. 00:49:07 Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I really do believe if we got poly pockets of the best versions of ourselves, we would all be doing so great right now. So if somebody could get on that little business side project, I personally don't have time, but it would be awesome if we could have those. I'm so happy that you're here. I hope you loved this week's episode in honestly all the episodes. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube if you want to watch these at web Girl Morgan. You can now watch some of them on iHeartRadio if you want to listen for free over there, or you can also just watch clips on social media at take This personally, all the things, all the content. If you want any of it, or if you want none of it, that's okay too. And you just like to play this podcast while you're on a walk or on a drive to soothe you and help understand you. That is the whole purpose. So thank you for being here. I love you guys. 00:49:55 Speaker 1: Bye.