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Heal Your Body Image with Victoria Albina| 4.12.2023

In this episode, Kristen talks with returning guest, Victoria Albina, a holistic nurse practitioner, master-certified life coach, and breathwork facilitator, about some of the factors influencing body image, how trauma affects body image and some helpful tips if you're struggling with body image issues.

You'll Learn

  • How body image keeps you stuck in life
  • The root causes and impact of body image and how to cope with them
  • The relationship between body shaming and body image
  • The importance of being present in your body and changing the narratives you have about your body

Resources

For counseling services near Indianapolis, IN, visit www.pathwaystohealingcounseling.com.

Subscribe and Get a free 5-day journal at www.kristendboice.com/freeresources to begin closing the chapter on what doesn’t serve you and open the door to the real you.

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This information is being provided to you for educational and informational purposes only. It is being provided to you to educate you about ideas on stress management and as a self-help tool for your own use. It is not psychotherapy/counseling in any form.

Kristen

Welcome back to the Close the Chapter podcast. I am thrilled to have a repeat guests Victoria, welcome back to the show.

Victoria

Thank you so much for having me. It's so fun to be back.

Kristen

I'm so excited. Last time, we talked to all about codependency, it was a deep dive into codependency, which we'll probably tie in today to our conversation. But when we first got on, we were talking about kind of what to talk about. And the subject that came through to me that was so important that I'm hearing more and more about is not feeling confident with your body, whether it's your weight your face, there's this movement in society about being young looking facial fillers, I mean, we could talk about all the things that we are being exposed to. and body image seems to be a theme that I'm seeing that we just as women and men too. I don't want to throw men out with this too, because I see men also having body image, certainly not feeling enough, like not liking what we see. And that being something that can block us from feeling that spiritual divine leading or feeling the joy that we want in our life, feeling content, and calm. So I thought it'd be important just to kind of let's dive into this topic on body image and how it can be a block and a barrier to a kind of feeling stuck in life. What are your thoughts on the subject?

Victoria

First of all, I have like 12 million streams of thoughts. So I want to just start by acknowledging that there's so many influences, so many reasons. So many, this is multifactorial, it's layered, it's complex, it's easy to be like, Oh, it's just the patriarchy, it's just white settler colonialism. It's just late stage capitalism. It's just your mom gets so many layers upon layers. So if your listener struggling with this, my love, you are not alone. There's a lot of reasons why you're not defective, you're not broken, you're not effed up, there's nothing wrong with you. And I'm going to say this, and then I'm going to back myself up, I'm going to explain what I mean. So hold tight before you're like, Oh, if you're struggling with body issues, body image issues, it's not a problem. And what I mean by that is, it is evidence that you are a mammal living in the systems you're living in. And when we make it, oh, this is a problem, I have to fix this, it's a problem, we turn it into something even greater than what it is right? We create more sympathetic activation in our nervous system, and we start fighting against it versus understanding it, befriending it, sitting with it. And then integrating whatever it is that we are lacking or want or needed life that leads us to treat ourselves think about ourselves interact with ourselves in these ways. Does that last point, make sense? Christina makes

Kristen

sense. And I want to take a deeper dive into the route,

Victoria

we can unpack that for sure. Start with the roots

Kristen

of developing body image, a way of looking at yourself and perceiving yourself that may not be the truth of really what's there, we identify with our body, the way we feel about ourselves often as LinkedIn to what we see in the mirror, what we see on the scale,

Victoria

right? And it's linked really to some I'll use sort of a CBT cognitive behavioural theory framework for this right? Our thought that's it's also Buddhism to that it's not the number on the scale, or the pounds or the dress size. It's the story we tell about it, right? It's the narrative that we're assigning to those values. That means something or not, I do CrossFit now. So if I put on weight, I'm like, oh, yeah, look who's getting more muscle, right? Whereas in my 20s and early 30s, if I gained weight, oh, no, there's something wrong with me, there's something bad Oh, there's a problem. So it really comes down to the story and the narrative and the story and narrative is informed by the culture within which we live the society within which we live, the religious context, the community context, our family of origin, our ethnic narrative origins and narratives there. And I think you and I were talking about this, it's so much about worth and value and how much value or assigning to things outside of ourselves someone else's story about what makes a good body and a bad body, a lovable body and in the US culture historically, a fat body which fat was a bad word when we you and I were growing up right it was like a bad insult to call someone fat. I'm so glad that's been reclaimed. With lots of love all these fat activists on my team. I one of the coaches who works for me, Molly Goodman is a body love, fat activist coach who coaches in my programme. She's amazing. And I think it really does come down to what are the stories you tell about worth and size? Let's deep hurt embedded

Kristen

messages that keep getting reinforced and then we don't think we're desirable. We don't think we're lovable and nobody would want us I'm not desirable enough. I mean, this is what clients will say, this is what we'll hear or be rejected, or I'm gonna be discarded or replaced for the next new model, so to speak better than me.

Victoria

And what's challenging here is that when we look at the social science research, that's not a wrong idea, meaning like people over who are assigned fat are hired less or discounted in interviews, there is actual fat phobia, there is actual stigma against people of I mean, I don't even know what like the size limit is like, where that starts being a thing, you know what I mean. But folks who would fit the plus size category, there's actual stigma, like it is actually real. So it's both about combating that on a social level, looking at the social determinants of health, the biological determinants of health, just articulating the like being fat means you aren't healthy narrative, because I think that really keeps people spinning and a bunch of garbage, and then really doing the work to support ourselves. And those we love to recognise that all bodies really, truly are amazing human bodies. And it's such a wild and unbelievable gift to be born a human. And that all bodies should be celebrated. Because they're humans, their bodies, their living, sentient creatures, who should be treated with love and caring kindness, and not judged because of the numbers on a scale. That's so silly.

Kristen

It's what is it is a deeper dive into this when I work with clients have gone to doctors, and the doctors, the client for oh, you're going to die because you're way overweight, or your health is in jeopardy and well, okay. But the approach is not of empathy, of not a compassion, not of understanding, not of acceptance. It's the antithesis of that. And that impacts how someone feels about themselves. And that can leave these permanent what feels like at the moment permanent scars.

Victoria

And I would posit that honestly, elevated cortisol and adrenaline and stress hormones from hating yourself. And the size and shape of your body is much worse overarching ly for your health than being I'm using air quotes here, folks, too fat or too thin your weight. I really think it's the stress and trauma is much worse for your health than anything associated with weight. And again, I'll also say this BMI is garbage. Right? We know that we know that it's based, it's a racist system. It is based on one Eurocentric body type and doesn't take into account things I don't know being athletic, I am at 43, the healthiest and most athletic I've been in my whole life. And I'm a pretty athletic little animal. I'm part rabbit on my mother's side and have cartoon character on my dad's. So I've always worked out but I can lift now girl, right? It's super dope and my weight keeps going up, my BMI keeps going up and up as my amount of fat, right lean muscle to fat ratio keeps going in the direction of muscle. And I'm just saying this to give a real life example of if I went to a primary care provider now, they'd probably lecture me about my weight, which is let's just some garbage. So we have to start looking beyond these old stories we hear having been a primary care provider for a decade as a nurse practitioner, I never weighed anybody, if somebody wanted to get weighed like, okay, whatever, I made sure to let folks know that it was the least important measurement we were taking in any given visit.

Kristen

I've had clients say I don't want to be weighed in like you have to be weighed. I don't want to be weighed.

Victoria

No one can force you. So yeah, I think it's a really important and I'm UCSF trained family nurse practitioner, you do not have to be weighed, your provider wants you to be weighed because God forbid you have cancer and you dropped 30 pounds and they didn't chart it, then your mom could sue them. They're trying to cover their butt. And I get that if you're trying to watch out for your health meeting. Like if there is a huge swing, you do want someone to know about that. But like the average human who doesn't want to be weighed will notice if they gain 20 or 30 pounds in a month. So like you can decline to be weighed. And you might if you get attitude about it, you can let them know that they're insisting that you have a medical procedure is against your rights.

Kristen

Yeah, there you go. That brought up another point that I was thinking about, how much do you think medical trauma early on? So if you've had a difficult birth, or let's say you had something happen in childhood, you had a surgery, it was necessary for survival? How much of that do you think impacts body image? Because to the body?

Victoria

Yeah, so this is the one of the things I think people don't realise because I've got clients all the time who say I had a really nice childhood. I don't understand how I'm walking around and what feels like a trauma response. And so exactly to your point, early childhood surgery, even IVs trips to the ER things that like think Reagan goodness, you had access to that. Yay and can be trauma that's written into the body. And there before becomes the neural map that the neural grooves in your mind run on meaning it becomes the default programming in your mind and your body to say, there's something wrong with this body, I don't trust this body in the world, and to create that sort of little bit of sympathetic activation around the body, because it has been the site of trauma. That's a whole thing. And so when we're working to heal the autonomic nervous system, and to do trauma healing work, one of the questions I always ask is about early childhood procedures. I mean, there's all sorts of layers right in there, we can also talk about toxins in utero, we can go down sort of quite a long pathway. But what I think is really important is to talk about how we heal this. Exactly. So You're so brilliant and amazing. And I know you do incredible work with your clients, what do you say to someone who comes to you with body dysmorphia, or who comes to you with body issues and wants to help on such hand,

Kristen

we start with the trauma history, really, we start with family of origin, we start with medical procedures, we start with unhealthy relationships, whether it's with a parent or with a partner of any court, because I find that messages that if they've been commented their bodies, but in their face, whether it's like, Oh, your acne, or your lips, or you name it, whatever body part there is, there's then body shame, then you have a distorted view of your own body face self. So we take a holistic look at let's break this down cultural views. I mean, you kind of named some of the pieces and parts that are so important. So we start with kind of a trauma, history around body image, body associations, anything about how you see yourself. So those messages really embedded into the narrative into the stories we find ourselves.

Victoria

Yeah, I know it was for me, I'm Argentine. And we, I mean, not to brag, but we are the couple of the country with last I checked. And if some wants to fact check me on this welcome, the country with the highest number of psychoanalysts and psychotherapist per capita reorge, I didn't know that. We're so self absorbed. But we are just culture that we love psychology. We just love it and like Freudian analysis in particular. I feel like that's been shifting in the last decade. But Argentine is love real Freudian analysis. It's fascinating. We are also one of the countries with the most eating disorders per capita. And they're like some really complex socio political embrace base, like we could go down that rabbit hole. But what's really interesting is just the obsession of the deep cult of fineness. It is while so I grew up with constant body shaming constantly that do you need to eat that need to? And I'm like, Dude, I'm six, and it's a cookie. So yes, I think yes, is the only possible answer because I have a children. Right. And so it led to a pretty intense Body Dysmorphia of just not really understanding my body as a thing and time and space. For so many reasons. The weight thing being a big part of it became so disconnected from it felt so unsafe to be in my body because it was so constantly criticised. And right so constantly watched guy can like feel my mom looking me up, looking me up and down to see if I was acceptable today. And generally, I was not because I was actually wasn't by American standards, even like a chubby kid. But but by her Argentine standards, it was a real prom, my body was a problem to her

Kristen

and the by her standards of what was acceptable, and what was it?

Victoria

Absolutely. And I feel like it's really only maybe in the last decade or so as I've done all this work to a number one, really reclaim presence, be number twos do somatic practices, and we can come back to what that means, but really regulate my nervous system and understand my nervous system. Those things together with parts work has really been the things that have helped me to understand my body and come back into my body and really inhabit my body and deep present in my body, which has been just life changing in every way. Because to your point, when you were talking earlier about living with intention, I now can hear my intuition, I can hear my discernment. I know what my discernment feels like in my body because I'm in my body. Whereas before I made decisions for my brain, which as you and I, you talked about this before, that's a terrible place to make decisions.

Kristen

When we're cutting off parts of ourselves that are so key, what depth of information that helped us navigate your intuition in your guide and your self

Victoria

want to make decisions from my brain? No, I am a very smart smarty pants and I am not interested in the decisions that my brain makes. Thank you very much. I want my gut to make it.

Kristen

People aren't taught that that's not what we know. We're conditioned out of our bodies because there's shame attached to the body. Oh, sure. So if I can just disconnect from the body I can disconnect. And sometimes there's survival reasons but just connect from the shame, then I feel safer. I mean, rather EMDR is what I like to use and brainspotting I know we've talked, and eye movement, desensitisation reprocessing, which does have Somatic Experiencing tied into it with the body. We're then taking those negative stories that we've had about how we perceive ourselves and that narrative and that association with shame in the body. And now we're reprocessing that to release it to free ourselves. It's not to say you'll never have another shameful thought you will. It's now you can return to truth and reconnect with the self and truth that lies within. So there's so much to unpack here of what

Victoria

you can I just pause, jump in, you have such a beautiful way of phrasing things that just gave me full shivers the way you just explained that process. It was just gorgeous.

Kristen

Thank you. When you're talking, there's this connection. There's this knowing we're like, soling together like Okay, here we are doing you think of the somatic CISM in the body? Because you said that's one way to kind of heal to find reconnection with your truth and your intuition and your gut. How do people begin that? How do you help guide people, because they might not see the correlation between the body Cymatics ism which is kind of self regulation with how they perceive their body image? How they look totally selves in the mirror?

Victoria

How does it link? Yeah, okay, so let's start there. How does it link? And then how do we get started? So how it linked is simply this if you are not present in your body? And so of course, you're in your brain, repeating other people's narratives about what is and isn't okay about your body?

Kristen

That's so good. You read, reading the narratives about what someone else has said, or you've heard it bought into, rather than being in your body, which is where the truth lies. Is that what you're saying?

Victoria

Your body will tell you if you're at the right weight for you. If you need to gain some weight or lose some weight, gain some muscle, I'm not gonna say lose some muscle, but you know what, I'm not trained so hard. Let's say that because that's a whole thing to female athlete triad. That is a whole other issue. Right? Your body will tell you Yeah, gluten is fine for me or actually,

Kristen

no pun intended,

Victoria

but all ponds always intended. But it's true. All right, excellent. Not a good choice. But when we disconnected from our bodies, all we know again, is okay, so I read this Instagram post that said gluten is terrible and no one should eat it or dairy is terrible, and no one should eat it. My partner is Swedish like for real Swedish. And she was like, I think I'm not supposed to eat dairy because I know it's bad. And I was like, Girl, you're the only person on the planet was the genome de dairy, eat some dairy, and she feels so much better when she does grass fed organic Meow, meow, meow, meow meow. But she was an eye for 30 years was going on someone else's story about what's right for me what's best for me what's good for me? How I should move how I should feel about my body the stories I should tell about my body. And now because I'm actually present in this animal. I know what feels good and what doesn't. And so when I say I'm not having dessert tonight, it's not because there's something wrong with me if I put on weight and sugar is like bad across the board decline myself pleasure because that's what being a worthy and good woman is because let's bring that narrative into Right. Good. Women don't have pleasure. They don't have the cookie. They don't have the brownie they don't have the ice cream or they do they feel guilty about it. Or like Oh, I get to have it because I earned it because I did extra peloton or there's all these narratives about depriving ourselves joy, pleasure, excitement. When I now say I'm skipping the ice cream. It's because I'm listening to my body. And my body's like, that's gonna make you kind of hyper and crazy, because remember, I'm half cartoon character, and you're gonna be really unfocused. Tomorrow could get like sugar hangovers, so don't eat it. But have more steak. Do you know what I'm saying?

Kristen

You're honouring what you know about yourself. It's self awareness about this, you know, and how you feel which analogy, it would hate my attention and being curious, because I'll have some clients that I'm not going to eat the ice cream. So I'll eat the whole gallon and then I'll eat another and then I'll eat another. Well,

Victoria

I'm no longer available for substances and dysregulate.

Kristen

No longer available for substances to dysregulate. You and tell me more about that.

Victoria

Yeah, it's a phrase that came to me probably like a year ago, one of my mentors looked at me and was like, you're not allowed caffeine. And he was joking. But he was like, I've been watching you. And the way you are is when I meditation teachers, like facilitate these groups in the city in Brooklyn. And he was when you are hours away from caffeine. You're so calm, you're so grounded, you're so centred, and then you'd have that drink and all of a sudden your energy gets scattered and like little spider legs, and I started watching myself I started being my watcher. But even this right I started watching myself after caffeine that was not possible when I wasn't doing somatic practices and I wasn't embody. It's now possible what a gift. So watch myself after caffeine and I can feel the sympathetic activation, I can feel the adrenaline going up, I feel it behind my eyes. And then my jaw gets kind of like a little rowdy. I would see people come into the ER on like amphetamines right back in my NP days. And it was dysregulated. And I would get irritable, and I would get sad. Caffeine makes me sad. Who knew? It took a while. I gotta tell you, I fought it. But I liked being jacked up. I liked being racy, because it was a comfortable feeling, because I've known it my whole life. And so where I'm going is this whether it's caffeine, or sugar, gluten, or whatever the chemical is, that makes you takes you out of yourself and out of intentionality and hijacks your emotions and hijacks your mood, whether it's someone else's narrative that hijacks your mood, because we can extend it out to there, you get to decide what you're available to be dysregulated by powerful for people to really connect with that, for sure. And let's put the caveat before we both get hate mail. I am a trauma survivor, I have been triggered. I'm not talking about that my angels. I'm not saying you 100% of the time can choose when you get regulated dishrag Come on. Now, what I'm saying is within this context that we're talking about body image, what are you putting in your body? How do you feel about your body, the narrative around your body? What choices are you making? And how are they keeping you connected with self and not?

Kristen

I'm okay with it. What I love about these conversations is you don't have to agree with everything. I like expansion. I like about things in different ways that I haven't thought about it before. And one of the things with body image is how much are we in our ego? Really think about this? How much are we in our ego? And how much are we in our spirit self? I know this is taking it another level in a different way to think about it.

Victoria

I mean, so there's the healthy ego, which is the ways we identify like my healthy ego knows that I am loving and I am kind and I am generous. And I'm such a good friend and it's such a good partner and I'm first smart. My healthy ego is dope and keeps me from dissociating and becoming psychotic. And then the unhealthy ego of me like cares what other people think about right so yes, when that less healthy. I want to call it unhealthy. Maybe it's just survival ego. Yeah. Did we just coined a new phrase?

Kristen

I think we did. I think we did. You coined it. Survival ego. Okay. Let's take that concept survival ego.

Victoria

Yeah, like really like somebody write that down. Somebody write that down.

Kristen

See how, when we're talking about, we're letting ourselves go to new places.

Victoria

And when we're letting ourselves be vulnerable, and be real and just workshop it? You hold loving space for me, I hold loving space for you. Both of our audiences love us. And like, let's just work it Ah, I'm so happy. Survival ego, that ego that learned this crappy things we learned as kids that were brilliant, then it's like the adaptive ego, too. Right? It's adaptive at one point. Sure. It is maladaptive now. Yes. And it keeps us

Kristen

in the wounded less than not enough, not equipped law, seek outside validation, seeking outside affirmation, seeking outside people to tell us that we're lovable or not your rightful and your thing. Yeah. And

Victoria

probably keeps us from receiving that validation and affirmation, love and care when it comes our way.

Kristen

Because if we don't believe it, see, people will be like, how could we look so beautiful, and someone could go the same night? Yeah. You're just saying that to get something from me. You're just like, we think there's a manipulative and there could be I'm not saying there's not it's a hard for us to believe if I don't believe that in my spirit itself. I'm not going to believe I'm not going to let that land potentially or I'm going to think I'm going to second guess it. Because this Bible ego says danger, this is manipulation. This is

Victoria

so then the answer is to come back into presence with self and to come into your watcher. It's the same answer. It always comes back to intentionality, intuition, discernment, because when you are fully landed and present itself, you can feel when it's that cloying, like, Oh my God, you look so great. Listen, can I borrow and you're just like, really? You're greased me up like that? But you can see through it

Kristen

because your intuition and your gut the CERN's? It's a knowingness that's what I call it a knowingness within.

Victoria

Right? And you can trust it when your embodied roster was embodied. Because I remember so many times in my younger days, carrying the message feeling the message from my intuition and clocking it but discounting it or operating from my conditioning so I was in an abusive marriage and I broke up with my ex through dating for like a month. I just was like or last a couple of weeks I was like, Oh no, this isn't right. My intuition was like, no this is right. And they started sobbing and laid this whole manipulative story on me and I just from my like, good girl training you know, my good Catholic girl train and growing up your girl's name is Maria Victoria over here, from all my people pleasing training all my growing up at a codependent household. I just was okay. Sure, then, okay, I'll date you. Every bone in my body was like, no wrong. I just was like, okay, so I didn't trust me. I wasn't embodied in me, right? For all these really great reasons. I'd grown up hearing that there's my body was a problem. I was too loud. I was too much. I was too much of a smarty pants. I was a problem. Problem. Problem, problem problem. So like, of course, I didn't trust me. And so I didn't trust my intuition when it screamed at me, and I acted on it, but then got pushed back. I was like, I guess I must be wrong. I guess this must be the thing I should do. And so I just want to really named that part of that survival. Ego is the survival skills that led us to survive. I don't think there's anything wrong with me that I disavowed my own wisdom. I was doing exactly what I was trained to do. And it wasn't until like you're talking about that embodiment leads to that spiritual expansion and growth that allows us to be faster, no more. I won't put up with being treated like anything other than the absolute goddess I am. And then as part of that, I am no longer available to treat my body poorly.

Kristen

Because it's your navigational system. You need it. Okay, wait, you are

Victoria

dropping, little bombed in the other like, Oh, my God, say it again. When you come to be navigated by your body, and you truly trust it as your GPS, why would you treat it poorly? It's your lifeline. But like in a different way than just the machine I live in? Yes. Oh, that's so good.

Kristen

I think what we've done is we've not appreciated the value and the body's gift it gives us to literally have the joy and freedom that we want because we associate it with how it looks

Victoria

right? And not right versus Oh, my body is so brilliant because it knows what's right and wrong. For me, it knows when to turn left, it knows when someone's a good fit. It knows it's like air, what type skirt you are,

Kristen

and the thoughts are consumed. And then that rather than the embodiment of rest, and noticing the breath, noticing where there's tightness, noticing if someone says something, and your gut gets a

Victoria

little flippy you leave felt experience and you're just Okay, so that's the other thing, right? So in order for systems like the patriarchy cap, late stage capitalism, white settler colonialism to continue, we cannot be embodied. Because when we are fully embodied, we are out of the neocortex, the prefrontal cortex, the executive functioning part of the brain. And we are in the soma, in the body where deep wisdom lies. And we can see right through these Bs systems, and we know they're garbage, we're no, they're just keeping us in servitude to them, and not to our higher calling. It takes us out of one love and creates separation, which is always a false narrative. And that's what this whole thing about somebody's is good, somebody's as bad. That's also another form of creating separation. To keep us out of unity.

Kristen

There is much separation. And when we look at body image, and we say someone goes, Okay, this is great. This is a great conversation. But really, how do I feel it? What's mindfulness?

Victoria

I mean, where are your feet? Where are my feet all day? What does it feel like to be my feet? And I start there, because I have found over the 20 years of doing this, that it's rare that people are triggered by their feet.

Kristen

I think the feet is the grounding, what you're writing about is it's centering. It's coming back to the present moment when you are in your feet. Exactly. About what do I look like and I'm not thin enough, and I'm not pretty enough and I'm all the things I am now in my feet of coming back into my body,

Victoria

grounded and my body grounded in time and space opens up the potential for connection with nature. Pachamama, whatever you want to call it. Gaia Earth Mother, we're just dirt. If you're like, No, I'm very science than gravity is really dope. How about you contemplate that for a hot minute, and it takes us out of our spin. That's one of the main purposes of meditation, but also just simple mindfulness is it takes us out of our habitual spinning and gives us somewhere to land. Because when the brain is ruminating, it really is that the prefrontal cortex has gone offline. And so we can use a tool like where are my feet because it gives the prefrontal a job you don't want a prefrontal cortex that's unemployed. That thing is stirred up Trouble left and right is really what's your attention? And then the somatic or body based portion of the question Where am I? Feet brings us back into the body, you can feel your weight in different ways you can feel your lightness, you can feel different pressure. It's so simple, doesn't mean it's easy for a lot of people will be really, it will be very challenging to come into presence in your own feet. I want to honour that that's real.

Kristen

So you might want to post it note saying come into your feet. Where are your feet,

Victoria

there's an app called Mind jogger that I like that's free. Last I checked, Don't come at me if it's now 99 cents, like you set the intervals I have mine set to random. So it just randomly drops questions on my homescreen on my phone, looking to see if it dropped anything in the last hour. Not yet. But just have it set reminders were on my feet. And then I love to link these moments of mindfulness to things I'm doing anyway. So do you pee? Are you a human who pees if you are every time you pee, breathe to a little bathroom meditation, I love a bathroom meditation and PP meditation, oh, I'm peeing, I'm gonna breathe in. long slow out and feel into my body just get present. If your body is the site of trauma going present in the body can be very, very challenging, and not always the safest or best idea. And so you can orient the nervous system. So we orient the nervous system by looking around, wherever we are, and I have a recording, I'll share information about how you can get that recording in a minute, but just look around your environment and ground, the nervous system and the here and now. So when you look in the mirror and you think oh my god, look at my belly, that's not actually up here. And now thought that someone else some other industry, some magazine, right, that is a thought that was put into your head at some point in your life by someone or something in the past, you are not in the present truly present with your amazing human body. You know, the one who has a spleen, you have a greater omentum, you have mitochondria, you are amazing and miraculous. And when we're in that critic voice, that's the past. So we come back to the present back to this present moment. And in this present moment, there is nothing but acceptance and love when you're truly here when you're really in the now. And so orienting to the environment reminds the autonomic nervous system of the when and where you are. Because the autonomic nervous system forgets it's not that it forget it conscious, it actively takes you out of remembering because that's part of its job. So it's not like it forgets it's just as like, well, I want to keep you safe I want you to survive. And that may be easier if you're not right here right now. That's its job but you don't have to just like let it do it with no guidance. You get to step in and give some direction there.

Kristen

You know, it came to me while you're talking about the survival ego and that critical mind and is that it is that the survival ego in our mind. I kind of feel like that is as you were sharing. I was like you know what, I think the survival ego thinks it's trying to help us when we look in the mirror.

Victoria

Oh 100%

Kristen

It's trying to hey, let's go well, if you lose the weight, if you're J got a facelift, if you're dry or more Botox that they won't criticise you or criticise you you'll be more right people will totally beautiful on your scene and you are desirable absolutely survival ego trying to belong in absence

Victoria

yeah significance and belonging yeah bred in

Kristen

the survival ego in think the survival ego and say, Oh, honey, I know you're just trying to get love and belonging in your enough. I know it sounds simple and how I'm saying it, but I'm wondering if we could be that survivor. You go with love and understanding of what do you think you're trying to what are you needing? Because you think of my body looks a certain way? What am I trying to get? What need Am I trying to get filled? And it's probability acceptance or longing, these things that we're all longing for. And if we can't know what honey, you're now going to reparent that survival ego the way we wanted it done for us by saying honey, you are lovable just the way you are. You're survivable ego might not believe that. Sure. At the beginning, she was wondering, I feel like that's part of this journey with

Victoria

befriending is finding is always the place to go though, right? It is always the place to start with any emotion, every emotion because they all every emotion that arises is just the latest presentation of deep self love. You're like Wait, hold on. I was super angry at the supermarket because that guy was just a jerk and that self love. Yes, your body, your mind. Your ego is just trying to protect you care for you make you feel somewhat safer in the moment by sending you into anger, rage, frustration, disappointment, anger, happiness, all disgust with yourself gusto revulsion repulsion.

Kristen

Yeah, like disgust when they look at them. Yeah.

Victoria

If I had continued to believe that my cultural stories, which became my familial stories about what like a good and worthy woman and a good and worthy body are, I would still hate myself and I would eat my body. And that wouldn't be because I'm an idiot, or because I'm dumb, or because I, you know what I mean? Yeah, it would really be from that survival ego saying, like, hey, these people, their love matters more than your own. And you're not going to get care unless you're slender in their way in their mind,

Kristen

or you're desperate for the love, you're desperate to feel that belonging and that accelerate the in the desire ability. Lots of people want to be desired that makes them feel loved,

Victoria

of course. And then there's a biological, we all have some oxytocin and some endorphins. And like, that makes science right procreation of the species, come on, it makes sense. And to your point that makes you feel loved, I think makes you feel safe, or leads you to tell the story that you're safer, and then takes you out of self love is right. But

Kristen

the next dose, it's like, I'm going to need the next that only last hit me again, another dose of it be a repetitive cycle, because it's not coming from within. And that healing of the body, the body image that we so struggle with is literally you're saying the answer comes from within.

Victoria

Yeah, and we do need to make societal change. And I think that's happening. I think we're seeing more diversity across race and gender and ability and weight and size in advertising in like what sizes available at Target, we're starting to see that we're starting to see I just can't stop thinking about Lizzo. But just like generally speaking, she's always top of mind, but the fact that she like as a show, it's all about besides dancers who are amazing, and do cardiovascular workouts for like eight hours a day with her. You see what I'm saying? Like that's we do need to heal this on a societal level. And within our own hearts. It's a both an

Kristen

agreed because social media, especially for young folks, we're seeing it really in teens, there is such a disparity in how they see themselves. I mean, when we talk about body dysmorphia, it's not seeing yourself the way you actually i It's like a distorted view of yourself that we're seeing, comparing themselves to others with the filters, the filter, all these unrealistic images aren't attainable, really, and the

Victoria

AI images to now, I mean, it's pretty wild. I think again, right? It comes back to rebuilding and remembering that discernment within that connection with truth that lives within us when we're present in our bodies. Because then, you know, the filters aren't real, you know, it doesn't really matter. And you get to decide what matters for you. I like wearing makeup. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I do it from Ooh, this is fun, and not from like, right. There's something wrong with me if I don't have makeup on. And I think that's important, too, is to remember that skill of discernment where we can I don't think it's antifeminist to wear heels or a push up bra or makeup or to put on a look, I think that is can be an incredibly empowering feminist act. It's really all about agency and agency comes from discernment and connection myself,

Kristen

period. So this has been such a great conversation. Where can people find your meditation? You had mentioned the meditation? Yeah. And I'd love to link it or send folks to that.

Victoria

Yeah, absolutely. Well, so if you head on over to Victoria, I'll be not.com/close the chapter. But it's a very special treat just for you. So you can download a suite of meditations, nervous system orienting exercises to help your nervous has to come back to the here and now and my inner child meditation, it's really just a delight. It's free. So you can't go wrong. The Price Is Right. And it's right there. Victoria buna.com/close The chapter just for your listeners, which is so much fun. You can also follow me on the gramme at Victoria lb not wellness. I give good gramme, and my podcast is called feminist wellness, and it's for humans of all genders. And I'd love to have you check it out.

Kristen

That's awesome. Thank you so much for your heart, your energy, your wisdom, I think to likewise close this chapter out and memorise what are the takeaways from me because I want to just kind of really, this is a deep subject. Yeah, it's big. It's big. And I think we've kind of run down the roots of body image issues where to begin, and some immediate steps you can take to really centre into the here and now and come back into your body. And we've identified this term and coined the term survival you coined the term survival ego is an important concept in identifying within yourself in order to begin To heal feeling better about yourself so there's so many more points but I think that kind of summarizes our conversation today and thank you so much for being with me again until next time thanks for having me I'll see ya