Ep 70: Your Body: Loving What Is

On this episode of Real, Brave, & Unstoppable, I'm talking about body image.  Specifically how to love what you've got.

One key thing to note is that sometimes it's hard to love our bodies.  I get it! If you don't feel great about your body, it can help to shoot for getting to a place of feeling NEUTRAL about it. Meaning, you're not attached to it being any one way or another.

The statistics of how many women don't like their bodies is staggering - over 90%! The amazing thing is that the ideal body that so many women use as their "measuring stick" is what we see on the cover of magazines. Did you know that only 5% of the entire population even has the same measurements/weight as those cover models?

In this episode, I cover some tips that you can use to shift your mindset to get to a place where you feel neutral about your body. I talk about treating yourself with kindness, as well as digging into the approach of Byron Katie's "The Work".

It's a great episode and I hope you get something you can use to help you get to a place of feeling neutral (and eventually loving) about your body.

=== Resources ===

I help women learn to love all of who they are. Even their bodies.  I believe that when you love all of who you are, anything is possible!

If you'd like to learn more about how I can help you create a life you're excited about, let's chat. 

Schedule a Breakthrough Call by clicking HERE!

Transcript

Ep 69: Loving What Is - your body

[00:00:00] Hello? Hello? Hello. And welcome back to Real, Brave, & Unstoppable.

[00:00:04] Today I'm going to talk about loving your body I know. For a lot of us, it's hard to love her body. So sometimes it's easier to think about it as accepting your body or getting to neutral with your body. 

[00:00:18] Being neutral is totally great. And actually, that's really kind of where we should be anyway, because I always talk about not getting attached to things, not getting attached to the way things are. So, if you can learn to be neutral with your body, you'll be fine if it's thinner or heavier or if it's rounder or softer or harder - you'll be able to roll with the punches in that way. 

[00:00:46] So getting to neutral is a really good thing. And we're going to talk about that today. A lot of us women, I think I'm actually according to statistics, and also according to just chatting with people I know, most of us women have body image issues. And it's so sad really, because it's like one of the most insignificant things that we can really be worried about. 

[00:01:10] Body image is the way that someone perceives their body and also assumes that's the way that other people perceive them. And body image can be affected by family, friends, social pressures, social media, just generally the media. I have some fun statistics about women who don't like their bodies. Well they're not really fun, but

[00:01:35] I took some time to dig around on the Google and I don't have the name of the study, but the study says that 91% of women are unhappy with their bodies and resort to dieting to achieve what they think is their ideal body shape. And I saw a couple of other numbers too like somewhere said 95% and others said 97%. So

[00:01:58] the general message there is most of us don't like our bodies! Another little tidbit that I found is that only 5% of women actually have the body type that is portrayed as the ideal body in the American media. 

[00:02:17] More than a third of people who admit to “normal” dieting will merge that into pathological dieting and roughly a quarter of those people will develop an eating disorder. 

[00:02:32] And another one about eating disorders is that only 10% of people with an eating disorder will actually seek professional help. That's kind of a scary statistic and I get it because I was one of those people. I was afraid to ask for help. 

[00:02:48] The diet industry or the weight loss industry is an over $70 billion industry. And it was higher but when the pandemic hit, it took a little bit of a hit.

[00:03:02] That actually surprises me, but the thing to take away from that is that $70 billion is a lot of money. What would they do if we all loved our bodies and didn't need to worry about diets and weight loss products? 

[00:03:20] Also. Diets don't work for 95% of the people who try them. And you might be saying, well, I've done a diet before, and I've lost weight. Yeah, you might've lost weight, but only 5% of people who do lose weight, keep it off for more than five years. 

[00:03:38] So as I was looking at these statistics, I was like, wouldn't it be a hell of a lot easier if we just felt fine about our bodies? Like just neutral. They're fine. It's just the container we walk around in that our soul, like, you know, hitches a ride in. Wouldn't it be easier?

[00:03:57] We all have our own body image story. For me, I remember when I was a kid. I was probably in third grade or maybe even as early as first grade, but I was always taller than everyone else until the boys went through their growth spurts in junior high. So I always felt really awkward and big. 

[00:04:21] And I don't know when I first started feeling like my body wasn't thin enough. I, it wasn't probably that young. But I do remember always having a sense of wanting to be smaller and it was more not in the like fat way. It was more in the way of like, I'm just really tall and I feel big and awkward. 

[00:04:40] But I do remember feeling that like just wanting to be a little smaller to kind of fit in more. 

[00:04:45] And then as I got older, the body in terms of size or like weight that started to kind of come into play and by junior high, 

[00:04:57] I had developed a start of an eating disorder that continued on and off through my high school years. And then in college too. I never felt thin enough. I never felt pretty enough. And I was always looking for outside validation. Like whether guys would pay attention to me, or someone gave me a compliment. 

[00:05:16] When I was in high school and junior high, I never felt worthy of that. I didn't feel like I was good enough to have a guy like me or, you know, I wasn't small and cool and pretty like the other kids. I do remember feeling that about myself. 

[00:05:36] I don't honestly know where all that came from. I don't remember back to where that started coming into play, but I do know that we're all surrounded by it everywhere. 

[00:05:47] There's really never been a time in my life, I don't think, when I haven't been obsessed with calories and exercise. 

[00:05:55] And if you know me, you know that this year is my year that I really am working hard on that - on that body acceptance and not obsessing about calories. 

[00:06:08] So your journey is my journey as well. I might be a couple of steps ahead of you and maybe not, but your work is my work. One of the things that really clued me in to the fact that I needed to do this work was a few years ago. I was standing in front of my mirror and, you know, pinching the little fat rolls 

[00:06:27] on my side and going, oh my God, this is so gross. You're so fat and all these nasty, nasty things. I was saying to myself and it all of a sudden hit me. Just out of left field. 

[00:06:40] Kortney. You would never talk to Siena, that's my daughter, that way. And I just started crying. Can you imagine if I was talking to my daughter that way? Like how terrible was that? 

So why do we treat ourselves that way? So, at that moment. 

[00:07:03] I made a commitment to myself that I was going to work on that. And notice, I didn't say I was not going to ever do it again. Because I know that that wasn't completely realistic, so I committed to working on it and I have worked on it ever since then. So it's a process and I am so, so, so much better. And I also now have such awareness for

[00:07:23] when I start to go down that road. 

[00:07:26] I've also done a lot of work around exercise in the last year or so. I used to be an endurance athlete. I used to do half-Ironman triathlons, and I've done a marathon, lots of half marathons. And I love that, but like, if I'm being honest with myself, I probably got into those sorts of things because I didn't have to worry about food then, you know, I just, I worked out a lot, so I didn't really have to worry about. 

[00:07:53] eating too much or whatever it was, it just kind of took care of itself. 

[00:07:57] But since my divorce, I haven't done any more triathlons and I kind of got a little farther away from doing longer distance running races. I've also gained a little weight, so I'm not as fast at running. I just feel really, really clunky and slow. And it's a little bit hard to come to terms with that. 

[00:08:19] I've had to really learn how to meet myself where I'm at when I'm running and be okay with being a little slower just enjoying it for the joy of running. I have really learned to enjoy running, which I think I always did, but I'm enjoying it for a different reason now. I'm enjoying it because it feels good in my body. Not because I'm burning

[00:08:41] calories. And I mean, if I'm going to be really honest with myself, there's still a little bit of that left too, but I'm learning how to make it all about doing it because it feels good in my body and not because I'm burning something I ate off or trying to pre compensate for something I'm going to eat later. 

[00:09:02] A lot of people have this fear that if they accept their body or if they love their body, their body is going to “run away and get fat on them” or it's going to look like they've let themselves go. Or something like that. If they don't obsess about calories and exercise and stuff. 

[00:09:24] I've had this fear of not being hard on myself – like if I’m not hard on myself - if I don't work my body hard, if I don't treat it, like I'm a drill sergeant, like whipping it into shape, that it's gonna get soft and mushy and look terrible. 

[00:09:39] And a lot of people, I'm learning, have that. So it's this 

[00:09:43] two-sided thing where you're either eating and exercising and controlling that as a way to punish your body or because your body's not good enough or it's flawed or defective, versus I'm going to eat foods that are good for my body and do exercise that feels good in my body because I want to take care of this body and love this body. 

[00:10:06] There are those two parts and the love part is hard for people to get to because they're afraid that if they do that, that their body will just go to hell. 

[00:10:14] One thing that I realized several years ago when I was in therapy for my eating disorder was, one day I was in my closet - my walk-in closet… I don't know why I remember I was in there, but I remember thinking to myself, oh please God, let me just lose weight. Please help me lose weight. And then I had this moment of thinking:

[00:10:35] Ah, that's not what I'm supposed to pray for. I'm supposed to pray for the ability to love what I have or to accept this body. That's what I'm supposed to pray for. And I kind of forgot about that moment until recently. And that's really what it's about. It's about, you know, it's not about wishing and trying to get to something that you may never have 

[00:11:00] or that's really artificial for you. It's about accepting what you have and learning that that's enough. 

[00:11:08] I talk a lot about attachment to things. What you really want to aim for is to not be attached to something or to not be attached to the way you want something to be. And that's another thing that I think we all get tripped up with is we want our body to be different than it is, but it's not. And it might not even be meant to be that way, but yet we still want it. 

[00:11:36] So it's like, yeah, but I want it to be this way. It's not, and it's not enough to stick with what you've got. So, it's like an insanity thing, because somebody can say to me, yeah but you're never gonna look like that. That's just not your body type. And I can say, yeah, but I still want that. 

[00:11:54] It's kinda like a German shepherd saying, but I really want to be a Labrador. Well, you can't ever be a Labrador – sorry – but you're beautiful just like the Labrador. But you know, you're never going to be a Labrador. It's kind of the same thing, right? We get in this place where we know that's not what we were born with, but we still want it. And we think we should be able to have it because that's what we think is beautiful. 

[00:12:17] So we get stuck in that. 

[00:12:25] But where do we get these ideas that our bodies aren't good enough the way they are? That they need to be smaller or more muscular or, 

[00:12:34] we need to have bigger boobs or a smaller butt, smaller thighs, more toned arms. Like where do we get this idea? Who decided this? Of course, we've got, I mentioned earlier the 70-some billion dollar diet industry. The beauty industry is, I don't know the number on that, but of course it's, it's pretty large as well. So, we have these messages all around us where you have to look like the models to have a beautiful body.

[00:13:19] But we now have this environment in the world where women hate their bodies. 

[00:13:27] And it's really ridiculous and it really has to stop. 

[00:13:32] And what's interesting is it's not the body that's the problem. 

[00:13:37] A lot of times we tend to beat up our bodies when we're feeling bad or when we're feeling uncomfortable or when we're stressed or we have uncomfortable emotions. 

[00:13:49] Here's an example of that. 

[00:13:51] Say you're out with a group of people and you get in a discussion with someone about politics and you say something that feels embarrassing or you feel like it was stupid and you kind of go off and have this whole shame thing come up and you're super embarrassed and feel stupid. And you're making it mean all the stuff that it doesn't need to mean. And all of a sudden, maybe you go to the bathroom, and you're like, oh, look at my arms. They're so flabby. They’re so gross. 

[00:14:23] And what's interesting about that is that in that moment, you're complaining about your arms, but were you complaining about your arms earlier when everything was going fine? Hopefully that makes sense. But see if you can relate to that, is there a time where you realize, oh yeah, I do tend to pick apart my body when I feel stressed. 

[00:14:42] One thing I think is so interesting is that our bodies are really just a shell. Your body is just the container that your soul lives in when it's on this planet. It's like a flowerpot. 

[00:14:56] There are tons of different colors of flowerpots. You know, there are those big, huge ceramic ones that are really expensive or there are the ones that are really light because they're made out of synthetic material or whatever. And they look pretty because someone molded them to be that way. 

[00:15:13] You know, there are wood flowerpots that are long planters. There are round ones, there are square ones, And then there are just the plain old terracotta flowerpots. Right. But they all do the same thing. They all get the job done. But they're all different. One's not really better than the other. 

[00:15:31] Your body is unique. It's never going to look like anyone else's body. So, if you can accept that and make peace with that. Oh, your life will be so much more full of flow and ease and peace and joy, all the good things. Right. Just because you want your body to look different doesn't mean it's ever going to look different.

[00:15:51] I used the dog example earlier. So just because you want your body to look different doesn't mean that your body is going to look different. Going back to the German shepherd versus lab example - just because you want to be a lab doesn't mean you're ever going to be a lab. So, this is what you got. 

[00:16:11] And the key to this really is to work with that and be happy with it. Be fine with it. I’ve mentioned this before, but body neutral is really just where it's at. It's easier to get to neutral, than love for a lot of us. And actually, I personally think that's great. If you can become neutral with your body because you're not attached to one size or shape either way. 

[00:16:37] then you can handle whatever your body does. You're not attached to it. And that's a form of body love in and of itself that you can love it no matter what, and just let it do its thing. 

[00:16:49] So one really important thing to know about body image is that your body is not the problem. It's your mind. The work is really in your mind. I always say that awareness is half the battle. I think I say that on every podcast, but it really is. If you can slow down and start to notice your thinking,

[00:17:12] be aware of the inner critic, the critic voice that's saying Oh, your stomach is flabby. You're so fat. Oh my God. You're letting yourself go. You look so old. All of those things that are running through your head. I should work out more. I shouldn't eat ice cream. I need to stop drinking because my arms look flabby and all the things. 

[00:17:32] Start to notice that. Start to notice it and try not to do that. Like, remember when I talked about me being in front of the mirror and committing that I was going to work on this. What I'm talking about is becoming aware. So at the moment, you can notice that you're being really nasty to yourself and ask yourself that question. Would I talk to my daughter this way, or would I talk to someone I love this way? 

[00:17:57] And then commit again, recommit as much as you need to, to say, I'm going to talk to myself like I would talk to someone that I love. 

[00:18:06] You can also keep a journal of things that you like about yourself. 

[00:18:11] Or love about yourself too. And the more you do it the easier it will be to put things there. And, you know, it can be like today, (if you're not a runner say, and you want to start running) today, I ran a half-mile or today I lifted weights for the first time or I really liked my brown eyes.

[00:18:30] You get the idea. 

[00:18:32] And I talked about awareness, but 

[00:18:36] ask yourself if your thoughts are really about your body. 

[00:18:41] Are they really about your body or is that just the outlet? Because it can oftentimes be an outlet. It's almost like a coping mechanism. And this is kind of a little bit where eating disorders are born. They become coping mechanisms. It's like it's everything about the body, but yet it's nothing about the body. 

[00:18:59] But are those thoughts really about your body? And if you're not sure, start to get curious about that. What are they really about? What's going on in your life right now? Is it related at all? And that might take you some time to tease out. That's also a really good reason to talk to me because I can help you with that. 

[00:19:18] And that is really key to being able to get to that place of neutrality. And eventually, really self-love. 

[00:19:29] I also think that affirmations or in front of the mirror can be really helpful. 

[00:19:35] I love Louise Hay's book,

[00:19:37] You Can Heal Your Life. And she also has a book called Love Your Body.  But she has an exercise where you stand in front of the mirror and you just say, I approve of you. And you do that as many times a day is you think of for several, several days. 

[00:19:53] And eventually that gets so much easier and you don't feel as much resistance to that. Eventually you can look in the mirror and say, I love you. And you'll feel it. You'll really feel it. It doesn't happen right away. You'll might feel some resistance if you just jumped to I love you. You might not. If you don't, that is so awesome. But say it to yourself. 

[00:20:18] In her book, Love Your Body, she actually has a lot of affirmations there. Every chapter is for a different body part or a different aspect of yourself. And there's a little blurb to like, read and say in front of a mirror while you look at yourself. And I think that stuff is really, really, really useful. So, check that out. 

[00:20:40] But when we want to be a different shape or a different size, and we place our self-worth on that, we're telling our body that it's not good enough. And so we really need to get into the head space of I'm good with where I'm at. Neutrality. My body is a container and I'm this amazing being that's inside of it. 

[00:21:01] I'm more than a body. And people freak out about this. I mentioned that earlier that, you know, people are like, if I'm not hard on myself, I'm just going to go to hell and I'm going to get fat. And it'll be terrible. And that's not true. That does not have to be true. 

[00:21:18] It doesn't mean that you're a hundred percent in love with your body all the time. It just means that you're self-assured in the fact that you are not just a body. You're more than your body and your body is the thing that gets your amazing unique soul that has so much to offer around this planet. 

[00:21:38] So one thing I want to bring to this conversation today is the work of Byron Katie. She has a book called Loving What Is, and that's what really inspired my episode today. 

[00:21:50] Her work is based on basically four questions. 

[00:21:54] And I'm going to go through those with you. So, what I would love for you to start doing is, like I said, practice that awareness of your thoughts with your body image. And when you have thoughts about your body, like for example,

[00:22:09] Oh, my stomach is poochy. I don't like that. 

[00:22:12] So the thought is my stomach is poochy or flabby or whatever. And the first question you ask is, is that true? 

[00:22:21] You might feel like it is, but the key is then to go to the second question, if you say yes, I think it is true. Then you go to the second question, which is, is it really true? Like, can it be proven in a court of law beyond a reasonable doubt? Which means whatever would a jury of people unanimously say, yeah, your stomach is flabby. 

[00:22:46] No. They would not. They would not. 

[00:22:51] So the third question you go to then is, is there a stress-free reason that I should keep that thought? That my stomach is flabby. Is there a reason to keep that thought? You might say that if you don't keep the thought, you won't be hard on yourself and your stomach will just keep getting flabbier, but that's not a stress-free reason. 

[00:23:15] There's not a logical stress-free reason to keep that thought. There just isn't if you're being honest with yourself and you know that there's not. So, then you go to the fourth question and this is the question that I love the most: Who would you be without that thought? Or I like to sometimes say, what if you didn't have to worry about that anymore, what would be possible for you then? How would you be? What kind of person would you be? 

[00:23:43] Who would you be without that thought? Yes. I love that question. 

[00:23:48] If I didn't have to worry about how my body looked. When I go hiking, I wouldn't worry about looking cute like all the Athleta models or the REI models. I’d be able to just put on whatever I wanted and not give two shits about it. Right?

[00:24:03] Or for people who are dating, you could show up authentically and not worry about trying to impress some guy, you know, and then you're going to attract the best guys because you're being your authentic self. So true love is possible. 

[00:24:22] You're going to show up confidently everywhere. You're going to be able to just put on clothes in the morning and not sit there and obsess in the mirror over whether or not your jeans, make your stomach look fat. It's just going to make your life so much easier. You're going to be able to be more self-confident you're going to be able to get to that place of just really loving who you are. And when you can do that, there is nothing that is not possible for you. 

[00:24:49] So that work is amazing. Hat tip to Byron Katie, go check out her work. 

[00:24:55] So I wonder wrap up here by just talking about your inner critic, the one that gives you those bullshit thoughts. Don't let her off the hook. She just wants to keep you insecure. That's all she wants. Often these thought patterns that she's giving us these words, these nasty things. 

[00:25:12] We've had these for years and years and years. So, it's really tough to just let go of them. But there's some benefit that we've been getting from them. And that's why we hang on to them. So, we’ve got to practice that awareness and catch those thoughts and actions, and then really challenge them. 

[00:25:35] I also want you to know, and I want you to own this is that your inner critic is never, ever, ever right. 

[00:25:42] And here's why. First of all, you do not have to be a certain body size body shape to be worthy of love and belonging and everything else that you desire in life. Second, who even decided that there is one body that is more beautiful than another body or more desirable or better. Who even decided that?

[00:26:05] Who elected that person? Nobody. And third, you are more than a body. Your body is enough, just exactly the way you are, whether you're thin or overweight or whatever it is, your body's enough right now. It's enough exactly how it is. It doesn't mean you can't want to change it out of love to get healthy. 

[00:26:31] Or stronger or have more energy. But it's enough. It does not define your self-worth. You have way more to offer the world than your body. And it's beautiful in its own right, but it is after all, like I said, just a shell to house your soul. Think about it, like a hermit crab. 

I tell this story all the time. My kids were so mad at me. A few years ago, we went to the beach. 

[00:26:56] One of the stores we were in had the little hermit crabs and I thought, oh, it'd be really a great idea to get hermit crabs. Well, we didn't just get like one or two, we got like five. And my kids thought it was the worst idea ever, but I, I don't know, somehow in my brain, I was so convinced that hermit crabs would be the best thing ever. 

[00:27:15] And then we got them, and we got the whole tank and researched all the things and did the special substrate for them to dig in and whatnot. And, you know, hermit, crabs, the change shells. So, the ones that we got them in, were these weird, funky painted shells. 

[00:27:34] They were very flashy. 

[00:27:37] But the hermit crabs actually leave the shells, and they would trade shells. So you couldn’t even tell them apart then. And then eventually they just leave that one and go to a different shell. And then they died and all the shells were just shells. Sad story.

[00:28:04] My point is. Your soul, your higher self, that being is what's important. Your body is great. And, you know, it's beautiful, but it's not what you're here for. It's not what you're here to share. You're here to share yourself. You're here to be who you're meant to be. You're here to experience

[00:28:25] everything that's here to be experienced on this planet. So remember that. 

Okay. That's all I have with this episode. I hope this was helpful. And, if you struggle with this, please reach out. Please reach out. Let's have a conversation. If you want to learn more about working with me in this and you know, having me help you get through all of these. 

[00:28:47] Nasty inner critic, voices, and trying to really, really get down to the heart of the matter. And like what's underneath all that I can help you do that. And I can help you get to a place where you're fine with your body. You're good. like I said, once you get there, there is nothing that you can't accomplish in your life. That's the foundation. 

[00:29:09] So go to my website, kortneyrivard.com/lets-talk and schedule a time to talk with me, and let's talk about changing your life and loving it. 

All right, friends. Thank you so much for tuning in and I will see you next time. 

[00:29:25] If you've been listening to all of this and are wondering how the heck am I going to do this? It seems so hard. Let's talk. 

[00:29:35] I want to tell you about a very cool program that I just started just in time for the holidays. It's called adventure to authenticity. And in this program, the intention is that you're going to go from feeling stuck. 

[00:29:48] And exhausted from the pressure of feeling like you need to measure up or have it all together. Going through the motions and maybe feeling like you're not living your best life to discovering what matters to you, to having self-confidence and belief in yourself and in your dreams and making happiness freedom,

[00:30:04]  purpose and passion, a natural way of your life. It's just who you are. So, the way it works, it's four weeks. in week one, we have a kickoff session where we do a deep dive into your authentic self and your values. And then we have in weeks, two and 3 45-minute coaching sessions where we really expand on that and work on integrating what you've learned into your life because sometimes that's the hardest part. And then week four is a celebration and wrap-up session where we also set intentions for you to move forward into your life. With this new shift in how you show up in the world, this new authentic

[00:30:41] Way of being. I have a limited number of these sessions available. And this is actually such a great time to get started with the holidays around the corner because having a coach during this time is going to help you learn what's important to you, which is so crucial this time of the year, it's going to help you learn to put yourself first. 

[00:31:00] So your cup is always full. We don't do that enough. We put everyone else first and then we end up exhausted and we don't have enough to give the other people in our lives. It's also going to help you manage your time in a way that's authentic to you. And it's going to help you show up for yourself. 

[00:31:18] And lots more huge benefits. So, what I want to do is chat with you about it. The call alone is going to give you so much insight. You're definitely not going to want to miss that call. So, we'll chat about the program. See if it's a good fit for you. And even if it's not, you're going to get so much value out of this one call and it's totally free. 

[00:31:38] So go to kortneyrivard.com/lets-talk and sign up for a time. And if you don't see one that works for you, just contact me through my website, kortneyrivard.com/contact. I'd love to talk with you about how I can help you live a happier life.