Ep 28 Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to The Be About Being Better podcast, where we help people make evidence based sustainable. Small changes for their health that compounded the huge shifts towards a better, more vibrant life. I'm your host Abbie Stasior, a health and life coach, future registered dietician, a master's graduate from Columbia University, and a certified intuitive eating counselor.
And I believe that we can't make lasting or meaningful change single handedly. So I'm so happy that you're here so that together you can see that a diet free, sustainable lifestyle is possible, and you can leverage that to live a better life. And remember my disclaimer, This podcast is meant to give you general information.
And it's not meant to substitute or replace medical advice, a diagnosis or serve as treatment.
Abbie: Y'all. I understand eating vegetables is what we recommend. It's important moving your body. This is important. Hitting your water goal. This is also important. Managing your stress. Also important. However, what is essential is that you go read the book, Verity, V E R I T Y, by Colleen Hoover right now. If you have not, this is what is essential.
I was at Barnes and Noble yesterday. I already have a copy of the book. I already read it. It's one of those books that I read in less than 24 hours. Literally had to stay up until 2:00 AM to read this book. It was so good. I literally could not put it down, and I don't say that about most books. It was so well written, so many twists and turns.
It's, I, I have no. So Colleen Hoover, the author recently came out with an extended chapter and I'm like, yes. Need to know, like what happens next because it leaves you, I don't wanna say on a cliffhanger, but like, like you're just like, and let me know, send me a DM if you are team manuscript or team letter.
Team manuscript or team letter. Let me know what team you're on. I am personally team manuscript all the way. All the way. So, , let me know what you are in the dms and if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you need to read the book, this is what's most important right now is to go get this book and read the extended chapter.
Now I went to Barnes Noble to read it because I didn't wanna buy another copy. I already spend way too much money on books. Like I literally, I need to get a library card now that I actually have some mail in Nashville and Tennessee. Cause I think you need to show like proof of residents to get a library card somewhere.
So now that I have that and I'm more established here, I really should just get a library card anyway, so I got Starbucks. Sat in Barnes and Noble. I read the extended chapter and then I got up and left and I did not feel guilty about it, and it was. Perfect, perfect Saturday. Oh, it was so good.
And I'm sitting there and I'm in head to toe pink as I am now. As, as I am every day. And I love the color light blue too, so I feel like I'm just a, a walking gender reveal every day of my life. But , it's what it is. Just, it's what it is. And this guy comes up to me and he's. Oh, I'm so sorry. I don't mean to bug you.
Um, at this point, I had just finished the extended chapter, so I am like too stunned to speak this extended chapter just sent me, so I can't even process that. There's a man in front of me. I'm so socially awkward. Plus I haven't been in the dating pool for about two years, so I'm just like, what?
and sky's like, I'm so sorry to bug you, but have you ever seen the movie Legally Blonde? And I'm like, sir, have I seen the movie Legally Blonde? Like, yes, of course. And he's like, you're like a living and breathing ELL Woods. And I'm like, that might just be the best compliment I've ever received. Thank you very much.
I'm a Gemini vegetarian, so that, that's great. If Legally Blonde is one of my favorite movies. I actually had to watch it last night in this man's honor, and I got up. Fast as I could after that conversation, cuz I was like, is this guy gonna ask for my number? Are we about to kiss right now? Like, didn't really know what was gonna happen after that.
And I was really scared because like I said, I haven't been single in two years, so I'm just like an awkward chicken like . I literally sp sprinted out of that Barnes Noble as fast I could. Um, so clearly need to, uh, work on how to talk to people now. And just cuz somebody talks to you in Barnes Noble doesn't mean that they're interested in you anyway.
But it's always a really nice compliment. But I watched League Label Blonde last night. It's one of my favorite movies. And y'all know that I really struggle to watch new TV shows and new movies and I just watched the same ones over and over again. And if you don't know that, then you need to head to episode 22, where I go through.
My top five favorite movies that I just keep recycling through, over and over again. So tune in to to episode 22 and you'll also hear My Beef with Beachbody, but you'll also hear my Beef with the movie Burlesque with Cher and Cine Aguilera. Ah. Speaking of legally blonde though, um, I've been getting so much feedback on my bouncing back from a breakup episode, and I just love y'all so much.
Thank you. Thank you for the feedback. I'm happy that it's been helpful. I appreciate the shares and the subscribes, um, and the dms on Instagram and, and over text too. With y'all's takeaways and it just, it, it, it really means a lot to me. And I wanna let you know that I had my, like, legally blonde, um, taken the damn dog moment in my relationship.
And , I haven't told this story yet, haven't opened up to anyone about this, but here we are on, on my platform. Here we go. Um, so when I was in my relationship, I was obsessed with his socks. I don't know what it was, but I, um, have these like Puma white sneakers. Like I never got the Air Force ones. I always liked the like white Puma sneakers instead.
And it's really hard to find nohow socks that don't slip, that aren't too thin. And anyway, my ex literally just had the best white socks and I would always steal them from him. and he'd like always get mad at me cause he's like, bro, those are my socks. And I'm like, okay, but what's mine is yours, baby. And um, so when we broke up, I'm like, oh, I'm taking some of those socks.
I didn't take all of them. He obviously had several pairs and I searched high and low online. There's no brand. on the sock. And I remember we, we were even together. There were, he helped me search too because he was like, you need to get your own. And I'm like, I know, but we just like literally cannot find them and he didn't remember where he got them or if they were a gift, whatever.
I, I feel like that's also a common gift for guys. Why is every parent giving their son socks? W why are they so in need that they always need socks? I feel like this is always showing up every Christmas, and this isn't even like a stocking stuffer for my brother. This is like a normal, like a staple gift.
Every year he gets like a pack of socks. What? I'm sorry. Absolutely not. Anyway, so I don't know where he got these socks from. He didn't remember. So when we broke up, I'm like, I need these socks. So I took several pairs. So that was my, I'm taking the damn dog moment in my relationship. Just if y'all were wondering.
All right, so today we are gonna be talking about how to boost your body image. And I'm gonna be honest with y'all, I know we just had a recent episode about body image and how to feel good naked with Jordan Gomez had her on the show. If you haven't listened to that episode, please ahead.
um, after this though, and, but I need to talk about this topic again for selfish reasons really. I, um, I was in a ballet class yesterday and I've been classically trained in ballet for over 20 years now, about almost 25 years. I absolutely love ballet. It's my favorite form of movement and it's just so expressive and I just absolutely love it, and I feel so at home there, and it just gives me so much joy.
So I finally found my studio in Nashville. Haven't taken a ballet class in over six months, and the studio I was going to in Manhattan, It was this little dinky studio, and most of the time there were two or three people. And if there were two people, it was me and the instructor. Basically a private lesson.
Um, , which is cool, but also it's more fun when you have more people in there and, and if the combination's hard, you can just kind of blend in the back, you know? So I finally found my studio in Nashville, go to a ballet class yesterday, and I'm staring at myself in the mirror cuz I gotta put myself right front and center.
I feel I get distracted by the people and also I need to be the center of attention at all times. So I'm staring at myself in the mirror and I'm like, all of these thoughts are coming up in my. Why would you be wearing a Leo Tartan tights right now? How could you have let yourself go so much? Look at you like
you've gained so much weight. , all of these thoughts are going in my head and I'm like, oh my God, this is supposed to be a good thing. I'm supposed to be enjoying this type of movement and I'm supposed to be happy, and this is supposed to be a positive experience for me and my like intrusive thoughts.
My negative self-deprecating talk is, Just clouding my, my head right now. So I really wanted to make this episode to really to remind myself and also to remind y'all how, how are we gonna boost our body image? And I really had to fight those thoughts in my class. And I'm so happy that I have a couple phrases to, to calm myself down.
It's important to when those thoughts come up to. Take note of them and write them down. Obviously, I couldn't write them down in the middle of a ballet class, but if you can remember them, try and put them in a note on your phone and write them down so that you can journal on this later when you have time, space, and energy to go through this.
It's so important. I'm proud of myself for doing this. In the past, because I was able to use this in the moment, and it made it really helpful. So if you say to yourself like, Ugh, like I just hate my thighs, or, Ugh, like, you're just never good enough, like whatever you're saying in your head. , write that down on a piece of paper and now you're gonna come up with a balanced statement.
Doesn't necessarily have to be more positive, but a a different statement to replace it with, because when those negative thoughts come up, you don't have to go down that negative self-deprecating rabbit hole. You really don't.
You can nip it, and you can choose to nip it, and it helps to nip it if you have something to replace it with a more balanced thought. That is not coming from, you know, they, my therapist always says, not from coming from your critical parent, but coming from your nurturing parent, your nurturing self, something that's more balanced and that offers more grace and more understanding and more compassion and empathy towards yourself and not being so mean and critical and finite.
So if you say, oh, I'm never good enough, like you can know, like that's not. . And if you write that down on a piece of paper, I want you to write down all of the things that you do do, right? And you can start to almost be your own lawyer in this sense, and refute that claim that you've made to show yourself logically, this is not true.
I am good enough. Look at all the amazing things that I've done. And then you can develop a statement that whenever that thought comes up again, you can replace it with this. And maybe instead you say, you know, I. I always do the best that I can in each moment. I'm always striving to be my best self. I'm gonna give myself, I'm not perfect, but I'm not meant to be perfect.
I'm meant to be me. I'm on my way to bettering myself every single day. I always meet myself where I am. You know, I'm in a really difficult season now. I need to give myself grace and I am enough so those are just a couple examples to try and refute. That claim doesn't necessarily have to be more positive.
Like if you say to yourself in your head, oh, I hate my thighs, it's probably not gonna work for you to then automatically say yourself, well, I love my thighs, and just switch it to the positive. I feel like there's a lot of that narrative going around like, oh, well just switch it to the positive. Well, that doesn't always work, but could you switch it to be more neutral?
It might not make sense to be more positive, so it doesn't mean we have to keep harping on the negative. So can we find somewhere in the middle that can just keep us neutral and this helps us to regulate our nervous system and regulate our emotions and just get more of a grip over ourselves.
So I hope that this exercise helps. So all of the negative thoughts that you have on repeat that you're saying to yourself, call those out. A lot of these are subconscious. So call them out. When you hear them clearly, write them down and start to think, okay, how can I refute this claim? Like, logically, this just isn't true.
And then if this thought comes up again? How can I flip this around? How can I reframe this to say something different to myself, to tell myself a different story? Something that might not be uber positive, but it's just more neutral and more loving and nurturing towards myself and less critical. So I hope that.
So I was able to flip a lot of that around, and honestly, I just kept saying to myself like, don't look at your body. Like look at, look at your face in the mirror and in ballet there's a lot of musicality and
like I, I'm looking at my hand with my eyes and my head, and you just kind of go with the flow of the music. And so, I started to do that and look at myself less in the mirror, and it actually helped me to be more present. And there were some times where I even just got so into the moment, or the combination I even closed my eyes and that helped too to recenter myself.
And I wasn't so focused on, ugh, like look at my arms right now. Oh my God. Like why are you wearing tights right now? Like instead, I was focused on the movement and why I was there. I was there because I love ballet and. It's just, it gives me so much joy and I found the joy in it again.
And I quieted down those thoughts and I gave myself some grace and I was proud of myself for showing up because I could have very easily not not done that and been critical towards myself. Oh, you know, I haven't really worked out like that and done a class in six months and I'm gonna be so outta shape and playing this comparison game and not gone.
But I had the courage to. So I hope that, that that's helpful. And coming off of our episode last week with Kay Hellman, y'all know that I've been diving so much more into my faith. I'm very involved in my church here at in Nashville. I go to Zeal Church for those that wanna know, and I'm just obsessed with it.
And I was reading in Matthew the other day and I'm like, oh, this is so good. I'm gonna read this to myself every time that I have a bad body image day. So I hope that this helps you too. And um, even if you're not a Bible person, I. Um, you can still still benefit from this as well. So I'm gonna read from Matthew.
It's in chapter six, verses 25 through 34. The Bible says, do not worry. Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink or about your body, what you will. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes. Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them.
Are you not much more valuable than they can any one of you by worrying at a single hour to your life. And why do you worry about. See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that even Solomon with all of his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God closed the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow was thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you?
You of little faith. So do not worry saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink? Or what shall we. For the Pagans run after all these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.
Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow. For tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its home. Ah, y'all like that is so good. And when I was having a bad body mache to go in and read that where he's literally speak word for. Do not worry about what to wear. Do not worry about your clothes.
And with nutrition, we worry so much about what to eat and you see this diet online or you see this, you know, recipe on Pinterest and is this the best for me? Should I be on this? Should am I, am I doing the right things? Should I cut this out? Should I add more? We worry so much. God says, do not worry about what to eat or what to drink or what to wear.
Don't worry about, your body. You are so much more than a. And I've talked about this in previous episodes, y'all, that we are more than a body. So as you are having bad Body image day, I want you to zoom out and think about, wow, I am so much more than a body and I have so many gifts and talents and I'm meant to do so many things on this earth.
And be grateful for your body. Think be grateful that you have an able. There was something I read on on Instagram that was like, if you could only have tomorrow what you were grateful for today, what would you be left with? And that hits me every single time. And that just gets me to be grateful, grateful, grateful, grateful for every little thing because we want that tomorrow.
And we take for granted all of the things that we have and all of our gifts and all of our talents and our able body. We have a million wishes when our health is. And when our health is perfect and whenever we're sick, whenever we're injured, we have one wish and that's our health.
So I hope that that connects with some of y'all and I hope that you go back and read it and, , see what. God speaks to you when, when you read that because we always get something different out of it. And something that came to me just as I was reading it now is the like blade of grass. Like if you've ever looked out on a field or if you've ever been camping, I hate camping, but, or hiking.
Oh, hate hiking too. But you know, a beautiful site maybe a beach, right? I love a beach. And you're looking out at the water and you're like, wow. So magnificent. Or a sunset? Sunrise. Wow. Look at that. Like God did that. God created that. And he even made this little piece of grass and he says like, this grass is just gonna be thrown away tomorrow.
It's probably gonna die in the sun cuz the heat, or it's gonna be mowed or it's gonna have fertilizer on it, or some football player's gonna run and squash it. It doesn't matter. But look what God did to provide for it and make it beautiful and have it be this awe striking sight. And that's a piece of grass.
so think about how beautiful you are as a human being, you know? Uh, so it just, that just gets. So good. So I hope that that resonated with y'all too, and reminds you that you are more than a body, and when you're starting to have , bad body image days, I want you to find other things, find other nonphysical things that you admire about yourself.
What makes you special, what do you love about yourself, that, that are nonphysical and for. I, I know that I talk a lot. This is why we have a podcast, but I am also a really good listener and it's something that people comment on with me when, you know, they're VEing to me about something and they're opening up like, wow, you're a really good listener.
And I reflect back to them when I hear, and they're like, yeah, you really got me. You saw me. Yes, it's exactly right. I get that from clients all the time. They're like, yes, you, you, you heard me. So I really pride myself on, on being a good. I also think if you're the journaling type, and I hope that you are, I think it's also important to journal on all things body positivity.
So I wanna give you a few journaling prompts. I just went over these with my clients and I think that they'll be helpful for you too. I think it's helpful to remember like where it started, where did your bad body image start and what, what led to that. So I want you to, you know, write down and journal.
What is the first memory of you disliking your body? Who was involved in that and how did you feel at the time? And start to think about some of these roots and spend a significant time on that journaling question and, and see what comes up for you. And then you can start to think about how has society, social media, beauty standards, how has that impacted.
Your view of yourself and, and be really specific, how do those beauty ideals make you feel? And where'd they originate from? What was of influence to you?
And then I want you to journal on how can you celebrate your body? So I want you to think of a time where you felt really proud of yourself and your body. What was happening? How did you. And spend a lot of time with that journaling question because you do have things that you can be proud of and things that you've accomplished in your life, things that your body has gotten you through.
So celebrate yourself. Think about how did you feel? And going off of that, I think you can start to make a whole body timeline. Like if you just take a piece of paper, add some printer paper right here, tip it to the side. and make a whole timeline across the top. You can just be writing down all of the different things that you've gone through and accomplished in your life that your body has gotten you through, and you can zoom out and be like, wow, I'm on the other side now.
Wow. Look what my body's gotten me through. I'm so strong. I'm so resilient. Wow. My body's. So spend time going through your whole timeline and with this lens of, wow, what has my body been through? What has my body weathered? And that can give you a lot of grace, for sure. And a lot of appreciation for yourself so you can start celebrating your body and being grateful for it, versus being negative toward.
and my therapist has given me a whole list of like body journaling stems, this is why I love the Five Minute Journal, and I've been using the Five Minute Journal for over five years now, pretty much every day. I'll link it up in the show notes.
I'm just absolutely obsessed with. It's great because it gives you a little quote or challenge at the top, a little bit of inspiration, and it gives you the prompts. What are you grateful for? What's gonna make today great? What's a daily affirmation? How can you affirm yourself today? What do you want to reinforce versus just thinking about the negative stuff that we don't want
our mind doesn't process the word don't, or not the negative. So when you say, oh, I don't wanna be frustrated today. I don't wanna have a bad day. Our mind doesn't process the word don't. So you're just, your body here is bad day. So it's going to have a bad day, it's going to be frustrated. So we have to flip that around and focus on, well, okay, that's what you don't want, but what do you want?
And reinforce that. So put that in the affirmations portion of the Five Minute Journal and. You know, I also like that it has an evening portion. What's going well? And then what's something that you learned today? How can you make tomorrow better? So I appreciate the five minute journal that it gives you those prompts because I think when you're starting a journaling practice, this is the biggest thing that I hear from clients say they don't know what to write.
They look at a blank page. They have no idea what to write. And it can be really intimidating and it can make it hard to journal and journal consistently. So that's why I wanna give you these prompts today. But I also recommend the Five Minute Journal. I'll link that up in the show notes.
I send it to all my clients and I, um, my clients in the Be About Being Better Academy, and I use it myself. I, I swear by it and really should be called the Two Minute Journal because it takes literally two seconds. So I also think it's helpful that yes, you have these journaling prompts and it's also valuable to take a blank page and journal about some of these other things and other thoughts that are coming up, and give yourself more time to get stuff out of your head and, and onto the page.
Cause we don't , ruminate on it as much and it, it can be very cathartic for us to get this out of our heads and onto the. So if you don't know where to start, some of these prompts can help you. But I also think some of these body journaling stems that my old therapist gave me can be really helpful for you too.
So that can be the part of my body I'm the most proud of is.dot.in, write, and then talk about why. Why did you pick that? How does that make you feel? And just use that as a stem to prompt some journaling. Number two, I feel most beautiful. Hmm. So good. And then you can even look up a list of adjectives online, and that could be another stem for you.
I feel most alive when I feel most accomplished, when I feel most confident, when I feel most beautiful. When number three, I feel the most at home in my body when? Hmm. I love that one. Especially because we're talking about the divine feminine. And with the divine feminine, our home is in our bodies.
So what makes us feel more at home? And then how can we do more of that? I would like to explore, fill in the blank about my body and then why is that keep journaling. And the last one is what I appreciate more about my body with age. That's probably the most important one because we're getting older and y'all It is, it's hard, and I felt this in my ballet class this week.
It's hard to look at yourself and just think about wow, like , I weigh significantly more than when I was in high school dancing. Like 30, 40 hours a week. And that was my, like, high school body. And I wasn't satisfied then. And I like took that body for granted and I saw something on um, uh, let me look it up.
Oh, so I just saw a meme and I was like, oh, so true. It was like, I wish I was as fat as the first time I thought I was fat. And I'm like, that was literally my exact thought in that ballet class this week was like, oh, I wish I was that size. When I thought I was like, too, too, too big.
Because now I have this perspective, I, I wasn't, and I'm like, wishing for that body back. But, so we gotta let that go. We have to mourn that. So I'm like rewiring those thoughts and reframing those things cuz those thoughts aren't healthy, but they're, they're natural to come up, especially.
I was triggered in that scenario in a ballet class, in really tight clothes or minimal clothing, uh, taking me back to where, where I was in high school, I was dancing the most consistently. So it's, it's natural for these thoughts to come up, but we have to reframe them and we have to let that go because it's not healthy to be wishing to be your high school body.
So I want you all to journal on, on this. What I appreciate more about my body with age is, and that's so important to being body positive in this season right now, and this is why it's so important to have clothes that fit. This is something that J Go and I talked about in our How to Feel Great Naked episode is we both met with, uh, a stylist, Erica Taylor, and she talked about, okay.
And she also does color palette things. So if you're interested, I know that's a big thing on TikTok right now. So she does color palette, um, recommendations as well. Like what colors look good on you? Uh, but she also talks about, okay, this is stylistic wise, like what makes sense? How can we make more of a capsule wardrobe?
And she helped me discern like some of it was her recommendations, but some of it was mine. And she would have me put on different clothes and or hold things up. We just did it over Zoom. She's like, how does that make you feel? and I'm like, This just reminds me of an ex, or Hey, I'm gonna wear this. Um, if I'm in this very specific scenario on a day that I don't have my period and don't feel bloated and lose 10 pounds, and she's like, get rid of it.
So it was nice to have that external person being like, okay, this is what I'm hearing you say. This is not a healthy article of closing and be having around. We need to donate that. Okay, , we gotta, we gotta give that away. So I think that that is really, really helpful and it's important that in this season you have clothes that fit your body.
We're not meant to fit in the clothes, the clothes are meant to fit us so highly recommend Erica Taylor. I'll put her information in the show notes again cause I think she is super, super valuable and um, she's just such a sweetheart and I gained a lot from that. And now I feel like I have clothes that really fit me and she helped me develop a stronger sense of style just through our two Zoom.
absolutely incredible. Absolutely incredible. So I hope that this boosts your body image, and I hope that these journaling prompts give you a place to start to start working on this because our body image is an ever-evolving process. It's something we gotta keep. It's like whack-a-mole, you know? Whenever we grow we gotta, you know, squash another thought or grow in another way.
This is the process of being about being better, is once we get to that next stare, once we get to that next level, new levels, new devils, right? We. We gotta keep working at this. It's not something that's okay, I'm confident now. And then you just move on and you never address it again. It's like, no, we gotta keep addressing our, our confidence to get even more confident and more grateful and appreciative towards our bodies.
And it's very much okay y'all, to mute people on, on TikTok Instagram to avoid that comparison because that is the quickest thief, thief of your. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see y'all in the next episode. Bye.
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