Exploring Body Positivity and Intuitive Eating with Dr. Jo

Hi everyone. My name is Wendy Manganero and I am the host of the Wellness and Wealth podcast. I'm so happy to have you find us and if you could take a moment and hit that subscribe button, I'd really appreciate it. This is the podcast where we believe when you show up better for yourself as a woman business owner, you show up better for your business. So sit back, relax and learn from the practical to the woo-woo. How did best take care of you? Have a great day, stay blessed and leave a review when you're done listening to the show. Thanks so much, hi everyone. Today's topic is love your body now and lose body. Shame, not weight. We're with special guest Dr Jo. I'm going to read her bio and then we'll get right into it. Dr Jo is a woman's holistic coach and yoga bodies, meditation and mindfulness teacher. She has a doctorate in clinical psychology and has over 20 years of experience working in the wellness field. She has run two businesses, the first a private practice in psychology and currently her coaching in yoga business called Tula Soul. In her spare time, dr Jo is a social activist, writer, speaker and volunteer. She loves reading, traveling, zip lining, laughing, learning and being with friends and family. Welcome to the show. Dr Jo, thanks for being with us today.

Thanks so much.

Wendy, I'm thrilled to be here, thank you, and I often say that I meet with my guest prior to, and we hit it off right away. So I'm really grateful that you're on the show today and we're talking about body shaming, which I think is a really important topic, and I had shared with you that song. I forgot the Victoria. I call it the Victoria Secret Song. It's because it's all about this idea of body shaming and what we think we have to be like, so I'd love for you to share with us. What does it mean to fully accept your body as you are?

Yeah, for me it means accepting your body size, shape, everything about your body as it is right now, so replacing negative body self-talk with positive or neutral body talk. It means getting off the diet train and learning how to eat intuitively, which means listening to body cues and eating what your body is hungry for, not reading labels, getting rid of food rules, which means this food is good, this food is bad, because all of that is nonsense, essentially. And also the BMI charts we now know essentially was written to for insurance companies so that they could charge higher rates for people with a certain level of BMI. They were originally developed by a mathematician, not a physician, some 100 or 200 years ago, so they're not an accurate measure for determining health and also recognizing that much of the ideal body image that we have is set up by patriarchy and things like. One story I like to tell is, if you look at the history of the ideal body image a long time ago, if you look at paintings, it was the very curvy Rubinesque look that was very popular and if you follow the trend in the 1960s when Twiggy became the popular model, that's when women's ideal shape really shrank, and it's not a coincidence that it was the same time that women started gaining independence in the workforce and working more. Because the man corporate America, whatever you want to say did not want women to gain that much power. So instead, the cosmetic and diet industry boomed and women spent their energy and time focused on dieting and being beautiful rather than working. So that's just a generalization. But look at the media, look at all of the images that we get. So, as women, we have to make a decision not to buy into that myth anymore, and there's a lot of ways to go about doing that. But it starts with looking at our own image, our own self-talk about ourselves and deciding no, I'm not going to shame myself anymore, I'm not going to hide my body, I'm not going to punish myself, I'm not going to go on another diet. And making the choice to just love who you are and recognize that body size and shape is irrelevant. Our bodies are what carry our personality, our soul, and being grateful for what our bodies do for us not focusing on the looks, and I love that you talk about this.

And I wanna go back to something you said about the history, because, if I remember correctly growing up, I'm a child of the 70s, early 80s, and so growing up there was that time that suddenly it felt like everybody was taking this diet pill which really, when I think back to that, like it caused addictions. It caused so many different issues because essentially, if I recall, women were just taking speed, they were just speeding up their bodies, and I'm always amazed at what we do to ourselves in the name of feeling like we're worthy to somebody else's expectations.

Yeah, it's really sad. And 81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat. And then 46% of nine to 11 year olds are on diets. And in terms of eating disorders right now, 9% of the US population has a diagnosed eating disorder. That's just the people that are seeking help. And then there's the range of eating disorder behaviors, which includes crash dieting or just going on a diet or restricting food or having food rules or just even obsessing about food. I think about it. When is the last time you sat down to a meal and really just enjoyed the food and were aware of your fullness or satiety cues and didn't think about oh I wonder how many calories are in this, or do I have enough calories left to have dessert? Or just those kind of preoccupying thoughts? I think for women, it's just pretty ingrained to us and the shame that we have. And also I think about at a restaurant, a man can order a steak or whatever, but a woman might feel more comfortable ordering a salad. There's all these stereotypes about what women can and can't have. And I also think about when I was 12, I was hospitalized for anorexia and I didn't know what it was. I just thought that I was crazy. But there's something about puberty that is hard for girls and in fact the level of depression and anxiety for girls and boys is about steady about the same until puberty. At that point the rate of depression anxiety for girls increases dramatically and for boys it decreases. Because for girls, they become aware of the changing body and they also become aware of the fact that they are an object for men to look at. And boys they become stronger, their voice lowers, so they feel some power. So I always find that interesting, because at a time when girls should feel excited about getting older, the shame starts to come in.

I know I'm all over the place, but I know that it's true and as you're talking, I was thinking back. There was a period of time I think I was in. I want to say I was in my junior year sophomore to junior year and suddenly I had flu. That's really what the yeah and I realized that I wasn't hungry when I had the flu and I had pinned to weigh myself and I became obsessed. I would go to the nurse's office every day to weigh myself to make sure I wasn't gaining weight because I had lost and I was not somebody who was heavy at the time. I did not need to lose weight. So, whether it happens, by accident or but, I was like there was this feeling of power of oh, I can control my weight, my circumstances in my life don't really have to control. So that was one of the things that I could control. And, as we're talking about this is, I come from what people would consider as a family who is traditionally overweight and my mantra was that never going to be like this. Where they're struggling with these things and I think this is what happens is and I've seen it in other scenarios where people have their own weight issues and then their children have it because it's almost something that's passed on down the line for generations. We talk about passing on addictions, but we don't usually always talk about passing on food addictions and food issues.

Yes, and there is a heredity factor with eating disorders, and when I talk about eating disorders, I'm talking about anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorders, and they're all the same thing. They're just different manifestations. And there is a very real impact with not only the genetic factor but also the way that food is talked about in the house, whether or not mom is talking about her latest diet, whether or not mom or dad are telling the kids you have to finish your plate. I don't care if you're full or not, or if there's talk about honey. You should really join a sport because you're starting to gain some weight. When girls go through a period where they are have some extra body fat, that's normal. Or if there's talk about no dessert tonight, we don't have sweets in this house. All of those things make food a bad thing and make emphasize that looks and having a small body is a positive thing. So those are all things that we don't think about, and a lot I talk to mothers about really being careful and not talking about their own body in a negative way and being very body positive and talking to their daughters early and boys now too, always but talking to them early about how do you feel about your body and you have a wonderful body. You don't need to change your body and let's talk about if you ever feel insecure and just be very open about it, because kids need to talk about it and they do have insecurities, naturally everyone does and modeling behavior of feeling good about their bodies. It's so important because what do they get from the media?

Nothing positive, absolutely. So I want to learn a little bit more about your story and how your journey of body acceptance began. From somebody else who has gone through that and I've gone through weight watchers, I've done all of. I don't do any of that anymore, but for years I went through every single thing trying to control this whole weight thing and it's not a comfortable place to be in. If somebody's going through that is not a comfortable place to go in. But I'd love to learn more about your journey to body acceptance.

Sure, yeah Again. When I was 12, I had no idea what was wrong with me. I just thought I was crazy because I just couldn't eat. And it had nothing to do with wanting to be thin. It was simply, like you said, a control thing. My at home life was pretty chaotic and I just needed something to feel like I had some order in my life. And after seven weeks of being in the hospital I got out. But recovery it's a lifelong process. So I was throughout my teen years. It was back and forth with anorexia and I never really reached recovery until 2010. I was back and forth in recovery, but 2010 I spent a little over a year bouncing from inpatient to outpatient at a couple different treatment centers and I tell you it was a battle. But what made the difference, interestingly, was a yoga body image class, and what happened is oh, I need to get emotional maybe. I was in the class one day and I got into Warrior II and I had this very profound thought I don't have to load my body. And I was in my body for the first time in years. I felt my muscles, I felt my feet on the earth, I felt my fingers stretching and I realized that for so long I had been living from the neck up, I had no awareness of my body, I had completely detached from it because of shame, because of early abuse, because for so many reasons I wasn't even there. And to feel embodied, to feel in my body, like that was delicious oh, interesting word. And so the tears were falling and at that moment I decided, oh, I'm going to be a yoga teacher, which is interesting because when I was 12, in treatment, I decided I'm going to be a psychologist. And, of course, I became a psychologist and the day after I left treatment I started yoga teacher training. So there's definitely something about yoga. It's not just an exercise, it's. In fact, the asanas are only just one of eight limbs of yoga. So that's a big part of what I teach now, including in my coaching, because yoga heals.

Yeah, and it sounds to me like I would refer that to when somebody goes through something like that as a spiritual experience that actually changes your ideology a profound one, and it's. I don't think you can ever force that on somebody. You try to hope that everybody gets there, especially when they're suffering, but it usually takes what it takes for somebody to get there, for them to be open enough to even have that type of experience.

You're exactly right and I think I am grateful for all the trauma that I've been through because I've channeled it into being able to help others, and I also think in some way that people who are raw from trauma or from whatever are a little bit. There's a part in the soul then that is more open to reaching spiritual depth. That's been my experience and I think it's on a necessity if that makes sense.

Absolutely, absolutely. And I've had experiences like that. So I've understand that because and I also call moments of clarity where I'm like, oh, that's what that is, but any time I've had that, I've always looked and go. I've had to have every other experience to even get there, to even be open enough to see, see that there could be a change, or this spiritual awakening per se. I'd love to know. Obviously the show is about for female entrepreneurship, and so what are the warning signs that body shaming they carry is not their own? Because that's one of the things you talk about is this idea that we body shame from somebody else. So I'd love to know what those warning signs that people think that's their thoughts and it may not be.

Yeah, First of all, I want to distinguish between shame and guilt. So guilt is a helpful emotion, in that it would be. If I do something that goes against my values, then I'm going to have guilt, and that's helpful because then I'm not likely to repeat that behavior. Shame, on the other hand, is irrational and not useful and typically shame is starts in childhood and it's a message that a child receives from an event or a caregiver or some other outside force. When something happens to a child or in the environment let's say, parents divorce A child before like age six or so seven doesn't understand that it's not their fault, because think of, like how egocentric children are they don't understand that it's everything around them isn't because of them, so naturally it becomes their fault. So they have this idea, they internalize this idea I'm a bad kid than for the rest of their lives. Even though they know cognitively differently, they see everything through the lens of I am a bad person. And if you're thinking that way, it shifts everything. So when there is shame and shame is the core of all addictions, eating disorders, everything like that then it becomes very hard to fully love yourself, to accept yourself, and certainly women. A lot of the shame comes on our body for many reasons. One thing is like sexual harassment, sexual abuse. I think it's like one in five women are raped or attempted rape and that's just simply the people who report it. So there is naturally this body shame, just from society, and then if you look at if there's harassment or abuse on top of that, and then there's the food shame and the eating shame and the body shame of you must be a certain size. So I think it is a big task to try to let go of shame. Recognize first of all that it's not yours, it's something that you took on as a child, it's from society, it's from the patriarchy, and really challenge that. And I think some of the ways to maybe recognize it is being aware of your self-talk. One thing is simply body language. If you think about women at a meeting are they? There's a trauma stance where our shoulders are folded in and our head might be low in our neck. It's a very tense stance, but if you tend to do that, it's a protective stance. So practicing bringing your shoulders up, back and down and having your head with a way to your head back and just having a very proud stance and a proud chest, which is hard, because sometimes women don't want to look like they're exposing their breasts. That's not what it is, it's just being in a proud stance. And then there's always how you speak, being able to use voice. That's commanding rather than and also, I find women, we apologize way too much, especially when we say no, it's I'm sorry, but I can't, or no, but I'm really sorry. No, I don't like. No is a complete sentence. No justifying no, explaining no rational complete sentence. And that applies to work at home with kids, every situation. It's a hard lesson to learn, but, boy, it makes life easier.

Absolutely, and it's so funny that you say that. I share the story. Often I had a friend, we were doing something, and I was like can you do this? And he was like no. And I could not believe. He said no, I really couldn't. It was so funny. I was like really, You're saying no? And he said yeah, it's always easier to turn a no into a yes than a yes into a no, so I can just say no and change my mind and I was like that is so profound and it was I learned and you're right, and I was just talking about this in another realm about waiting till I respond, sometimes on emails, but when I have to write something difficult or change, I want to like make an excuse. I've had to learn to not do that and just be like this isn't going to work for me, Right, and it's so funny. But some days I'm just off and I'm like, yeah, no, I think I need to cancel things today, but like this innate thing of I have to explain the whole entire scenario and just say this isn't going to work, Especially and I'm sure you've experienced too if you have somebody who might not be a good fit as a client or good fit as whatever volunteer thing, and it's so funny how that you want to make excuses and it just no is okay.

We get to give ourselves permission to be. I mean, we can be who we are and we're not human doings for human beings. And just understanding that, letting that settle is so refreshing. And I just want to mention some things that women can do immediately to improve their body image. So, again, like being aware of the self-talk and starting to change that, not comparing to other women Comparison is the thief of joy and calling people out if your friends are saying, oh, I look so fat in this and that kind of talk, just saying you know what? I'm really uncomfortable with that kind of talk because it feeds into my insecurity. So can we just move on? Or something like that, starting to talk about how these discussions affect you. Also really appreciating what the body does and I have this mirror exercise, so you and that you might need to work up to this. But after you get out of shower, whatever, having some really good smelling lotion that you like and being naked in front of the mirror and starting with your toes and your feet, rubbing the lotion into them and saying thank you toes, thank you feet for helping me balance, for taking me all over the place, traveling with me, for grounding me on the earth. And then you move up to your legs. Thank you, legs, for being so strong, for being my support. And you move on up. And I always talk about the belly because women have trouble with this area. And I want to tell that I was in a Sufi dance class course and the beautiful teacher she said but you have it so wrong here in the West, you think that your belly is supposed to be hard and flat. You know, the belly is the source of life and the place where everything is digested, not just food. She said the material of life. It needs to be spacious, it needs to have room. And she said what's good about heart and flat? And I'm like you're right. So I like to tell that because we do have it all mixed up. The belly gets to be round, it gets to be curvy, it gets to have space. So I love that and spend time there with the belly, rubbing the lotion in and just thanking it for everything it does. It does a little good and all the organs around the belly, all the miracle that our body does for us. It's so loyal, right, because think about how much we've talked negatively about it, or all the diets, whatever we put it through. It's still here and it's going to be with us for the rest of our lives. The only good thing that we guarantee is going to be with us. So I just think those are some really important things.

Yeah, I love that you said that and that's like, oh, that's like a practicing gratitude with your own body, because I love gratitude practices but that's really what that is with your own body, that's beautiful. So I'm going to ask one follow up for somebody who's just beginning, who really feels incredibly like this is not comfortable or this is not who I want to be, or this is what's like if they had a really beginning step to loving their body. For me after I had my son, I will say I did. I was like I am going to be okay with getting heavy while I had my son. I didn't have any issues with that whatsoever. Afterwards I was like I have issues with it. So if there's women who are in that space of, okay, this is the heaviest I've been and I don't feel comfortable. But what is it? Because I know I needed to get comfortable with even to be able to do something. So what's that first step to being okay once we've gone off course for whatever reason, of not feeling like things are where they're supposed to be?

Sure, that's a great question, I think, starting out with positive affirmations or mantras. I know that before I this is a little different, but before I got married I was terrified. So I would walk around and I would inhale love, exhale fear. So something like for your body inhale love, exhale whatever it could even be, fear. Starting this body image journey, and I love writing positive affirmations on sticky notes. I remember when I was in treatment we would write things like I love my body. Body size does not equal worth, just all kinds of positive body affirmations. I have a whole sheets that I've made up with body affirmations and we would stick them on mirrors and so that every time you looked in the mirror you had to read them. And it was funny because the building people always tried to take them off but we put them back right back up. So I always tell my clients to do that. Who cares what your family thinks? This is about you and a lot of. I love myself. A wonderful yoga, and please everyone try this. One of my yoga teachers says starts a class with say hello to yourself by name, say I love you to yourself by name Gonna, feel weird at first, but after a while it feels lovely, and so it's all about starting with the working with positive and you. If you don't feel it, fake it. You just fake it. It's starting to talk to yourself lovingly and even if it's more like I'm going to get there, I'm going to learn to love you body. I'm going to start practicing nurturing you. I'm going to work towards this. I'm going to get there. I'm going to love you, I'm going to take care of you. That kind of thing that's beautiful.

So I can't believe we've already chatted for 30 minutes, but I know you have an offer for our audience and I'd love for you to share that now, and of course I'll have all the links in the show notes.

Yes, I would love to offer everyone a free hour long coaching session or a free hour long yoga session, or you can choose to have half and half, so 30 minutes of coaching and 30 minutes of yoga. So this offer will be good for 30 days and the code and when we'll post that is well 100. So I really hope you take me up on the software. Of course, the schedule permitting again is free 60 minute yoga for you, 60 minute coaching or half and half. So, thank you so much and, wendy, I really appreciate being on the program today. It's always a delight talking with you.

Thank you so much. This has been wonderful. I love the conversation we have. If you loved what you heard today, please leave a review, and if you want to have other self care tips, please subscribe so that you catch our next upcoming shows. In the meantime, have a beautiful and abundant day, and we'll see you at the next show.