Erin: Welcome to Hotter Than Ever, where we uncover the unconscious rules we've been following. We break those rules and we find a new path to being freer, happier, sexier, and more satisfied in the second half of our lives.
Thanks for joining us today, everyone. As the end of the year approaches, I am in a reflective mood and I have been thinking a lot about what this year has meant to me, what I have focused on and what I have not, what parts of myself I have worked on the most, what kind of inquiries I have been in. And this year I have really taken on my relationship with my body. I've taken on my relationship with beauty and attractiveness and related to that. I've obviously been doing a lot of focusing on men for better, for worse.
It is the big  theme in my life. Love, lovability, and what the role of body and body image and attraction plays in those dynamics this year. I have exercised more consistently than any year in the past that I can remember. I started weight loss drugs in March and I have lost 30 pounds so far, which feels amazing and has done wonders for my health, my confidence, and how I walk through the world.
I've done some laser treatments on my face, on my skin, which has been rejuvenating. I've done some Botox and injectables. That's not new, but I'm very happy with how it's looking. Overall, I have prioritized an area of my life that has been fraught for me since childhood, beauty, weight, body. And I've taken it on finally from a point of view of self love, rather than discipline and self criticism and punishment. And I will say, it took until my fifties to be able to change this conversation and the way my brain works around it. So it is a big deal for me, and I suspect it is a big deal for some or many, or maybe even all of the women who are listening to this podcast today.
There's not a woman I know who doesn't do battle in some form with these conversations about beauty and weight and self love and body image and aging on a regular basis.
So that's why this conversation with Deb Schachter today is so meaningful to me. And I think, I hope that it will be meaningful to you too. Deb is a leading clinician in the areas of body image and eating disorder recovery. Over her 30 year career, she has helped people unpack their body's story and all of the wisdom it has to offer.
She trains other therapists and health professionals on how to best approach body image with their clients and staff. And she has written a new book with her co-writer, Whitney Otto called "Body Image Inside Out", a revolutionary approach to body image healing. I loved this conversation. Deb is super down to earth, compassionate, and so knowledgeable about the ways we can take on and heal from body image issues. And she really unlocked some profound insights for me about what's going on underneath when a body image thought comes into my mind. This episode is basically a therapy session, so be warned, but I hope you get as much out of it as I did. All right, let's get hot.
Deb Schachter, welcome to Hotter Than Ever.
Deb: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.
Erin: I am so happy to have you here. This is a subject that is incredibly near and dear to my heart, and I think it is a subject that is relevant to every single woman listening to this podcast. We all have bodies. We all have perceptions about them. We live in a culture that doesn't seem to like us very much or at least somehow gives us the message that whatever body we came in is not right or good enough or how it's supposed to be. And maybe we just start with, like, why do so many women struggle with body image? Why do we have this internalized, negative dialogue going on?
Deb: It's a great question, and there are lots of ways to answer it, but the first one that always comes to mind for me is that there's this sort of macro experience of what we hear day in and day out, what we take in day in and day out, and then what's happening inside us, and that's really where that interaction happens, is really where I think the money is. Because, yes, we all take in those messages, and we all take in those images all the time, but really how that interacts with what's happening inside our own hearts and bodies and systems and everything that we're moving through day in and day out is really where the action is. Because if we're being told that there's something that could be different and there's things inside of us that we wish were different aside from our bodies, our body gives us a chance to try and right that wrong. So while everybody takes that stuff in, if we're in a more vulnerable place and in a more vulnerable body, based on what might be happening for us, based on what we might be navigating in our lives, body image, the way that Whitney and I describe it, is almost a hero or a heroine. It's trying to help us and offer us some sense that if we change it, something will be different.
Erin: So it's almost like a false indicator. It's like, stuff's going on, but we translate it as my body's not right.
Deb: Exactly that. Literally. That's the language that's one of my favorite metaphors we use. It's almost like an indicator light coming on in your car, and it's telling you that something's awry. But so often what we take from that is what's wrong with us, when in fact, there's nothing wrong with us, but there's something Awry around us, there's something that isn't feeling right around us, something inside us that isn't feeling right. And the body image steps in to help us try and navigate that, to give us a path to try and find our way. I mean, we literally say it's a bridge towards hope. Even though again, it may not feel hope, it may not feel good, but it might make us feel hopeful that something could be different.
Erin: So if you're having like a bad body image day, if you--
Deb: We call them BIMs, bad body image moments. So it's moments when our body image spikes.
Erin: Right. So I look in the mirror and I go, yeah, stomach is so disgusting. And that's where it lands for me always is like, why is my stomach always like this? How come I can't be normal? How come I can't be beautiful? How come I can't be acceptable? And so your interpretation is that conversation that comes up so hard and so strong is like maybe there's something else going on.
Deb: Exactly, exactly. It's a flag that there's something deeper happening that's hooking in to the body image and that, that then it becomes the leader of the conversation because it's so tempting. Then we have a way to try and tend to whatever is beneath it. So that's what we so often talk about body image being multidimensional. It's not just a two dimensional image of the camera or the mirror. It's all these other layers that are happening underneath, but those images sort of capture it and then they take it and run and then we're off, we're off to the races and we're below it.
Erin: Yeah and the culture 100% capitalizes on and reinforces this notion that like, no, if you have a bad body image, it's because you have a bad body. And so here are all these things we can sell you to fix it.
Deb: Exactly. And yet they don't tend to any of the things that are actually fueling it. And that's really what our whole book is about is that idea of, is learning how to decode what our body image is saying so we can actually figure out what we're feeling inside and what we actually need.
Erin: So how do we---so I look in the mirror, I have a bad body image moment and I go like, how am I going to, you know, how am I going to find my way? What am I going to wear? How am I going to camouflage this? How am I going to pretend that my body is better than it is. How am I going to walk into this meeting and feel okay? How am I going to feel like I deserve to show up in the world in this body? I mean, I have some heavy duty shit around this stuff, and I've been working on it my whole life in a thousand different ways. And I can talk about what those ways have been.
Some have been effective, some have not. As I get older and I get under the psychological stuff that I've always carried around, I care less about the body image stuff and I care more about how I feel emotionally. But for many, many years, especially when it came to, like, love and dating and relationships, my body was like a place to put my feelings of not being lovable. It was always to me, because my body sucked. That was why I couldn't have the love, the relationship, the life that I wanted. And as I get older and spent decades in therapy, you know, it becomes clearer to me what that shit is that's under there. But that doesn't mean the body stuff doesn't come up.
Deb: Absolutely. And that's one of the things that we talk about, is there's no way that we're not going to. It's not. Body image isn't something that you fix. It's something to be in relationship with because our bodies are constantly changing and our lives are constantly changing. So learning how to be in relationship with your body image and learning how to dialogue with your body image is the only way that we can be on this path and find some steadiness, I believe, because otherwise, like you said, it does a really good job of hijacking you. And it's really hard to be in an argument with your body image. It's like having a megaphone in your ear.
Deb: Right. Just telling you what you should be.
Erin: Yeah. Or shouldn't be. And like, do you know any woman who doesn't struggle with this stuff?
Deb: You know, it's a great question. I mean, I'm going to say I do know a few. But, you know, as you, as you pointed out, I think the way that I describe it is that we all have bodies, we all have feelings about them, and there's nothing pathological about that. So I think part of the challenge is moving away from kind of the. A little bit of the blame game and the externalizing about. I mean, all the systemic stuff is so true. And there's so much work to do there. And the work that we can do with our own relationship, with our own body image and understanding how and why it Showed up for us in our lives at what time and when. And really bringing curiosity to that is where we're going to get more freedom and more space.
Erin: I mean, and you're an expert in body image and disordered eating. I learned in Overeaters Anonymous, where I spent seven years. And nobody goes there because they want to. So the least sexy title. It's like the program with the most opportunity to rebrand. Can we rebrand so it doesn't feel so gross to walk in that door? But that program really changed my brain and my mind and my heart and my life around really understanding. Like, wow, when I was a kid, I really needed sugar. Like, I really needed something to make me feel better. And what I found was once I stuck my finger in the sugar bowl, which my mother will laugh about to this day, she's like, and then you used to stick, lick your finger, and stick it in the sugar bowl.
And I was like, yeah, I would have mainlined it. Like, I would have shot it into my veins if I had known totally as a child that's how much pain I was in. I'm really grateful, I learned in 12 steps to be grateful that I found that, because even though it caused problems in terms of making me overweight, it at least provided some kind of relief. And that was my child's solution. And so thank you to the cookies and thank you to the sugar and I don't have to do that today in quite the same way.
I don't have to use food in quite the same way, but I'm also on weight loss drugs, so I don't have to eat at all, which is a whole other thing, which I'm sure is coming up for you in your practice.
Deb: For sure. Yeah. I mean, when I hear a story like the sugar story, I think about. I would say to people, I think a lot about volume, meaning loudness, and I think about if you need to push. And I've had other clients who've eating sugar straight from the candy, you know, cookie jar or whatever. And the way that I think about it is something else. Must be really loud for you to need a food that's so loud. Right?
Erin: Like, because sugar is like hardcore food.
Deb: Exactly. It's so stimulating. So there's something that it's offsetting before you even know what it is. You're trying to match that energy. Right. You're trying to, you know, cancel out whatever else frequency.
Erin: That's so interesting, that's such a great way of thinking about it. I met a lot of people in 12 steps who have been sexually abused as children. And they were using food and they were extremely overweight. And you could see that the volume of the abuse was very, to use your model---
Deb: Yes, absolutely.
Erin: The volume, the frequency of it was so high that they needed a lot of food to cancel that out. Yeah. And then they're coming to solve the food problem when what they need is to get underneath the food problem to solve the trauma.
Deb: Right, right. Yeah, exactly right. And that's what's so, I think, important about understanding the function of the body image negativity. Because I think people then feel so much shame. Shame in their bodies, shame in the ways they've responded to your point to try and tend to them. And now they feel shame because their body isn't the right shape. And then we live in a culture that tells us none of us are in the right shape. So learning more about learning how to track our own internal sort of messaging belief system and the volume inside of us around what's happening in our body image.
And when we have these spikes, really bringing curiosity and curiosity and compassion and really starting to understand what creates these spikes, whether it's people, whether it's settings. I mean, you described getting ready, putting clothes on the book. We have so many anecdotes about people getting ready for, you know, the college reunion when they've gotten sober and all their friends are going to be drinking or meeting the in laws when, you know you're not the right religion. I mean, any different kind of circumstance where we feel vulnerable is going to be can be expressed through how we feel about our bodies. Because again, that gives us a tool that we think whether it's the outfit or the flat belly or whatever it is.
Erin: Yeah.
Deb: That we're going to, if we nail it, then we're going to nail it. So it's such a powerful thing to start to see how our body image is actually trying to help us feel more capable in whatever is happening that we're facing, that is creating fear or suffering or overwhelm.
Erin: I love that you talk about clothes in your book. I love that you talk about, you know, the mother being disapproving in the dressing room and telling the daughter to get a smaller size cheerleading costume when she had worked her whole middle school and high school to get to the finals of the cheerleading squad. And her mother goes, get a smaller size. You might fit. It might motivate you to fit into it. Like, oh, my God, this is what we're up against.
Deb: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the language that I use a lot is this idea of currency. You know, if that's the currency in your family, like in that family, you know, the mom's mom story, there's all this currency around size and, you know, and again, it's attached to all these other things. So when the mom says that, she's not actually saying you should be skinnier, even though she is, but she's saying you should. If you do this, you will be more well liked, more successful, you know, get yourself a man, whatever it is, that belief. So really learning more about the currency in our families and how it's been equated with whatever being in a particular kind of body means in our family.
Erin: I will tell you a story. My family, beauty, body, attractiveness, on my father's side and my mother's side, hugely important. These are beautiful people, and they have gotten a lot in their lives from being attractive. My aunt who passed away last year, was sort of the matriarch. She passed away at 93. She was very attractive, and her beauty and her vitality was her currency.
And as a woman who grew up in the 30s, 40s, found a mate at age 19, like, because she was the prettiest and whatever. I was visiting her last year with my children. She was 91, 92. She pulled me aside. I mean, I'm 50 years old. I'm 53 now. I was about 50, I'm just saying I'm fucking older than a person that you should do this to. But she pulled me aside and she said, Erin, I would like to get you some help. And I said, okay. And she said, I would like to pay for you to get surgery on your stomach.
Deb: Oh, my God.
Erin: And to her mind, because of her upbringing and her values and the currency that attractiveness had in her life, she was being both cruel and kind to me.
Deb: She thought she was helping.
Erin: She did. But because I've been in therapy my whole life, and because I am in an empowered place, and because I am who I am, I went home and cried. My children were like, why are you crying? And I told them. And they were like, what the fuck? We're never speaking to her again. And I was like, okay, she has problems. Obviously, if a person says this to you, they have problems. But also, I'm feeling really bad.
I called her on the phone and I said, what you said to me was not okay. Like, it was shaming. It was insulting and degrading and you can't talk to me like that. And she was like, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. That was mean and it's because I don't like myself very much.
Deb: Wow.
Erin: I was like, what? What? Like, here's this person who we all idolize, she's a huge inspiration to my whole family and so this is how insidious this stuff is. And the fact that she told me the truth in that moment, she never would have if I hadn't confronted her.
Deb: Well, that's what I was thinking, how cool that that's what came from it.
Erin: I know, I know. But I also didn't really want to talk to her very much for like six months after that.
Deb: Yeah.
Erin: She was like, I hope you can forgive me, please forgive me. I hope you can forgive me. And I was like, I can. She's like, I hope we can still have fun together. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna do my best. I'm gonna do my best. I'm gonna be the grown up here for my kids, for my mom who was on the trip with, like, it was sucked.
Deb: So imagine, right? Imagine when, if that happens when we're young, right? Oh, imagine.
Erin: Yeah. I mean, the story of my life.
Deb: Yeah, right. I mean, you know, if you had the courage at 50, whatever to say, that is yours, not mine, you know, when we're little and that becomes the recipe for connection and for love. And that's what we learn is the currency that is really hard to let go of. And so then when other things in our life happens, then it's kind of like, oh, well, here's the recipe. I got it.
Erin: Right, right. If I was thinner.
Deb: Exactly. If I was blank, whatever that is. Exactly, exactly. And so we do. One of the things we talk lot about is inside curiosity and outside curiosity. So we think about outside curious curiosity is what is happening around us that might be kicking this stuff up. So, you know, whatever it is, the reunion, the date, the, you know, anything that's happening in our lives that's activating us on the inside. So getting ready for the holiday dinner.
Erin: The whatever, totally going back to the scene of the crime.
Deb: Right, exactly. Either what is about to happen or what has happened and how is it turning the volume up on our body image? Why is our body image stepping in to try and be helpful? And then inside curiosity, which is getting really curious. If my blank were blank, then I would feel less of something or more of something. So if my stomach were flatter, then I'd be much more comfortable at this dinner and I would feel less fear or less doubt or whatever it is.
So sort of going with the body image belief and really getting at it. What it is trying to help manage and learning what we covet comes with a feeling and starting to decode that. So if we're longing for the bouncy butt or the toned arms, what life comes with that? What experience comes with that? What partner comes with that? What sex life comes with that? Whatever it is that we think when we're in that body, we're going to get and starting to really help people untangle that.
Erin: What if it's true?
Deb: Great. Then the question is what. What is actually going to get me those things? Because there may be some truth to that, but it's unlikely that it's just the toned arms, but it's the way we move through the world. It's the way we take care of ourselves. It's the way we listen to our intuition.
So one of the things that I do a lot, which I love, is when people--and we do this in chapter seven, which is what we call a pedestal person, it's the person that we idealize and really, rather than saying we shouldn't be jealous, saying, who are we jealous of and why? So really decoding, what is it like? I have a client I'm thinking of who always talked about wanting Michelle Obama arms.
Erin: Oh, she has great arms.
Deb: Okay, so of course we can say she has fabulous arms. But what that was actually related to was growing up in a family with two very bright and driven parents, but a dad who was really abusive to her mom and she had, had, had a professor who was in, you know, a body that had Michelle Obama body and Michelle Obama arms. So for her, it had much more to do with like having strength and power in your relationship and having balance in your life and not trying to do all the housework and be a professor.
So when you start to untangle this, yes, it does have to do with that superficial layer, but it's really about the life that comes with it. And people, I think, are really relieved to start to be able to be more creative that way rather than just think it's just the arms.
Erin: Right. Because it is never just the anything.
Deb: Exactly. So that's why I like that idea of decoding, because it's really taking your language, you know, or whoever we're jealous of. Whether it's someone at the gym or someone on the train, there's usually some really good information in there. If we can bring that pure curiosity and really start to think about what do we imagine their life is like? What are they? What are they? What's going to happen when they get off the train? What's their partner cooking for dinner? You know, what are their kids like? What kind of dog do they have? Or whatever it is. And it starts to be more fun, which is one of the things that we tried so hard in this book to really replicate from our workshops is people laugh.
It's so much more creative than this kind of like, pick your favorite body part and love it. Or, you know, dance like a leaf and feel free. It's like, let's talk about your real life and who do you envy and why? Let's talk about it. And people are like, whoa, I have permission to kind of break that down, that's cool.
Erin: Totally. And then the statistics are out there that, like, if you are thinner, you do better in the workplace. You know, if you. If you are X, then you get Y, like, this culture is so superficial.
Deb: So superficial. And one of the other big themes in the book that we talk so much about is this idea of alignment and resonance, because we're told what we're supposed to look like, and then we're told that's what is going to give us the X, the Y, the Z. So the more we can help, people really start to listen for their inner resonance. And that could be about movement, that could be about food, that could be about clothes, that can be about not related to the body, music, whatever. But the more we start to listen to our own inner alignment and our own resonance, then we are going to be more aligned and then we are going to feel better in our own bodies.
Erin: Right. And then are we are going to get the things that we want?
Deb: Exactly.
Erin: Coming from the inside out.
Deb: Exactly. Hence the title of the book. Really, no one has that information but you.
Erin: There's no way around the inner work, there's no way around it. We all want to skip it. It hurts. It's uncomfortable. It sucks. It makes you go back to the things that made you feel terrible when you were young, you know, to the behaviors that were enacted on you that you had not. You were so powerless over. We all have that stuff and it feels gross to go back into it.
Deb: It does feel gross. But what I will say, the three muscles that we talk about in book so that it doesn't have to just feel like, oh my God, I just have to like retell all of these stories is thinking about the three muscles that we talk about to do this work are mindful awareness, curiosity and compassion. So mindful awareness is just building a practice that's going from I look like a piece of shit to wow, I'm saying terrible things about how I look to myself today.
Erin: Oh, that's interesting. Say that again.
Deb: Okay, sure. So it's bringing an observing eye to the experience of negative body image. So rather than saying, my ass is so flat or my thighs are so flabby, it's saying, wow, I am saying really negative things about my thighs today. I am really focused on my thighs today. I keep trying on different clothes because my thighs feel really bad today. It's learning. We call it being a weather man or weather woman. It's a forecaster. You're just learning how to observe what's happening.
So those are really different. And most people, they don't even know that's an option to say, wow, I'm saying horrible things to myself today. Or even my body image is terrible today. It's very different than I look like a piece of shit. Those are very different. So that's mindful awareness. That's the first one is just noticing what you're doing and starting to build some space. And then after that we can start to then bring in some of that curiosity, like, whoa, you know, of course I have 20 pairs of jeans on the floor. I'm going to meet my potential new in laws and I'm terrified.
Erin: Right.
Deb: So bringing in the inside curiosity, the outside curiosity, and then the third one is the compassion. Because then if we're like, oh my God, of course I'm hating on myself. I'm so scared about tonight. I'm so worried that I'm going to be seen in X, Y and Z way or misunderstood or not, not approved of and my body is trying to save me. Oh my gosh. It doesn't mean all of a sudden the body hate is just going to go silent. But to understand why it's so loud, there's so much more of an opportunity to come back to yourself and have some more compassion and say, that makes so much sense. Of course it's really loud today, I'm scared.
Erin: Yeah, I'm poor, sweetie.
Deb: Right, exactly.
Erin: Someone told me they talk to themselves the way they talk to their dog. I talk to my dog, the most idiotic, like cutie pie, adoring.
Deb: Totally, totally.
Erin: Who's the best?
Deb: Who's the best? Who's the best? You're the best.
Erin: Yeah. You could not be more beautiful. I love you so much. Oh my God. How could you be more perfect? You're not. It's not possible. It's just not possible.
Deb: Exactly right.
Erin: I just love that I took that as like an inspiration where like you know, my self talk and again, like for years and years and years and years and years and years of work on myself, like it's not that bad these days, you know?
Deb: No, it's amazing. And we talk about that. It's a practice. It's just like yoga or meditation. We've been so well trained to hate ourselves and to think there's something wrong with our bodies. So the practice of doing what you're describing, of starting to get some space in there, starting to understand the reason that these beliefs are there and starting to really bring that daily curiosity to these ebbs and flows really gives us the opportunity to start to build a different practice.
Erin: Yeah, I mean I'm still having, you know, 53. We always think, oh, well, I'm, I'm old enough to know better or whatever. It, it starts when it starts. You heal when you heal. You have the revelations. When you have the revelations. You cannot time it. This week alone I was like, oh, instead of thinking about exercise as like discipline, which is a thing that was taught to me as a kid, I was told I didn't have discipline. I was like, no, it's just evidence that you hate me that I have to do all this exercise. You're telling me there's something wrong with me and that's why I have to do this.
So exercise has always been a thing where I'm like rebelling but it's not helpful to me. And this last couple of years since I've been in this hotter than ever transformation, I've fallen in love with pilates and fallen in love with my own strength. And I realized that exercise, I have a lot of like life force energy. And I realized that I manage it with sex definitely. I need to have a lot of sex so that I can like get it, get through that and then I can manage it with exercise too.
That's a way to like productively use my life force energy in a way that feeds me, that like fuels my body feeling strong and good. Like it's a new thesis, it's a brand new thesis, but I'm taking it on as a thing that I could, you know, so it's not only sex, because sex requires, you know, you do it by yourself. It's more fun with other people, and then that's complicated as shit, so, like, I would like to be.
Deb: It's good to have a lot in the toolbox.
Erin: Yeah, I would like to have this other tool in the toolbox.
Deb: Absolutely. And one of the things we talk about in the book, which I really, really believe is this idea that, you know, body image and focusing on changing our bodies can be a way we do try and manage our nervous system system and our life force. So learning about your own alignment, like you said, it might be that we, you know, so therefore we think we should, you know, and it's not that any of these things are good or bad, but more figuring out what feels aligned to you.
Erin: Right.
Deb: What feels good to your body, and then figuring out what are the things that you need in these different kinds of moment of moments of dis-regulation you may need. Different things you may need. Sometimes it may be the sex and the touch, and other times it might be a Pilates sesh, you know, just really learning what your body needs and when. And again, rather than getting on that train of the. Let me just think about what could be different about my body. That is a way to kind of direct that energy and it can keep you busy, as you know, so well. So this is about again, going inside and really trying to figure out what do, I actually need that my body image is trying to help me with.
Erin: Yeah, totally. Talk to me about storytelling because I feel like we tell ourselves so many stories about our bodies and what our bodies mean and what it means when we're, you know, a certain weight and. Yeah, I feel like so much, so many of us could just serve. Stand to be better writers of our own stories, you know, I love that.
Deb: It's a great way to put it.
Erin: Yeah.
Deb: I mean, obviously, as a therapist, you know, I hear stories all the time and I. And I love hearing people's stories and I love hearing them over time and how they evolve as people get more insight.
Erin: Oh, I sometimes feel like my therapist should pay me because my story's so interesting.
Deb: She's very lucky.
Erin: I will say that she's very lucky. I think I'm interesting. I don't know. Hopefully, podcast listeners think so, too.
Deb: Exactly. I mean, I think it's a great question. I mean, part of it is figuring out, is it our story? Whose story are we telling? Like when you described the discipline, that's not your story, right? No, it's not exactly. But it may be a story that we carry and that we have kind of laid down. I almost describe it sometimes like fossils that have gotten kind of laid into the ground. Right. And so learning that those stories may actually be kind of burdens that we're carrying from other people, other generations, other feedback, other mirrors, other trauma. Other trauma.
Deb: Exactly.
Erin: That's not ours.
Deb: Exactly. And that often leads to the family currency. So I see that very often, especially when families have had histories of trauma, that being in a body, the right body will somehow resolve some of these other traumas that protect ancestors. So I think, you know, I think it's really important to get that story down and understand more about it. And again, I love the decoding.
I love really looking at the words and really thinking about what if you've said, I always have focused on my blubbity blah, my jiggly arms or my, you know, too big, whatever. I really get people to actually look at the words and have us actually start to look at either. Are these words words that you might apply somewhere else in your life? Are there other aspects of your life? So if things are jiggly, if you're always talking about being jiggly, maybe things are feeling kind of jiggly in your life. Maybe things are feeling a little unstable, or maybe they're feeling stuck. And so really getting people to write down their language and then really start to explore what their language may actually be saying about the greater context of their life that they haven't been thinking about. And people are often really blown away because they're so relieved to think, why am I still thinking about the fact that I look like a potato in this dress? Well, let's think about what do potatoes look like and feel like? And, you know, how else. Where else in your life are you feeling like a potato?
Erin: No, I mean, this brings tears to my eyes, you know, because I have this story about my stomach that it's just too big, it's too much. It shouldn't be like that. There's something wrong with it. And, you know that it keeps me from being acceptable, whatever. Right. And extrapolate that to always feeling like in relationship, my needs are too much, my desires are too much. I'm too much. And I say this to, like, when I'm in a relationship with someone, I say, like, my biggest fear is that I'm too much. I have too many needs and it's because I was trained not to have needs.
Deb: Totally trained.
Erin: Shut up and deal.
Deb: Yep.
Erin: You know?
Deb: Yep. I was actually wondering when you were started talking just now about what you said before about your life force. I mean, when we're born with a lot of life force and we're in a family where that may not work for the other people in the family.
Erin: Yeah.
Deb: And. Or they may not know how to help you kind of manage your own life force.
Erin: Well. Or it's inconvenient.
Deb: Exactly. And, you know, so the seminal chapter of our book was one that we didn't even know existed when we wrote it, and that's chapter five, which is Body image and relationships. And in that chapter, we literally had this aha that we were like, oh, my God, what about body image isn't about relationships? And this whole idea that our early caregivers are our early relational mirrors, far before we know what body image is, we're taking in what they're telling us and telling us both about ourselves and also who we need to be to be in relationship with them successfully.
So we talk about this idea, sort of what you're describing, of like, if I'm not the right size for someone else, if my needs are too big for someone else, how can I shape shift to be more connected, accepted, welcome and loved. And really examining how we may have, you know, based on, again, their traumas, their own stories that they may not be aware of, of who they needed us to be and how that can become an embodied experience. And that then we use our bodies to try and manage those relationships.
Erin: 100%. So present for me.
Deb: Yeah, totally. As adults, how do we look? How do we discover where we may have cut and pasted some of that early patterning and early adapting? So for you, always worrying about being too much, you cut and paste from then to now. And one of the things that I love is one of my favorite exercises of art. It's called a bad body image debrief. And it's after you've left an interaction with someone and you all of a sudden feel like you gained 10 pounds or your pants are tighter or why did you wear what you were wearing?
There's usually something that happened in the interaction that left you feeling misaligned. So the challenge is not to think what's wrong with me? But what was wrong with that interaction? Where did I feel unseen or misunderstood? And how do I really decouple what I felt about in the. Or what I felt in the interaction with how I feel in my pants?
Erin: Yeah. I mean there's so much unpacking to do.
Deb: Exactly.
Erin: In Overeaters Anonymous they say fat is not a feeling. Like I feel fat today, it's actually not what you're feeling. You're actually feeling something else and it's manifesting as fat. I feel fat.
Deb: Exactly. And we, we actually have a section, I think it's in the first chapter called "Is Fat a Feeling?" Because we get that question all the time.
Erin: Yeah.
Deb: And it's not a feeling, but it might be the quality we feel of a feeling. So fat with feelings, full of feelings. We have an anecdote. I think it's one of the first anecdotes is one of my clients who used to get really overstimulated when she would be in New York City with her family and no one cared because they thought it was so cool to be in New York City. And so then the little anecdote, the title is Times Square makes me feel fat because she was so unregulated, but no one cared because they almost.
Erin: Going to help her.
Deb: Mecca, right? We're in New York City in the middle of Times Square. How can you not want to be here? And so in her body it she was fat with overstimulation, she was full of feelings.
Erin: It's so incredible. It's so incredible. What a metaphor it is. How symbolic these thoughts are, how the brain works to sort of that shape shifting idea. Like if my shape was different, if I was different, then I would get my needs met.
Deb: Here's how I'm going to shift. Yeah, exactly.
Erin: Yeah.
Deb: And it really honors when we talk about the shape shifting. We actually talk about puzzle pieces and how we, our unique puzzle piece shape may have changed to take care of either someone else in the family system, one person, or the family as a whole. So we actually take our authentic shape and we change it. So, you know, we get really creative, we get funny, we get good grades, we keep our voice down, we do whatever so that we can fit in the family puzzle. It's so compelling. So I think again people feel so relieved that there is something so non pathological about how their body image was trying to help them. And it may not need to be doing that anymore, but it doesn't know that.
Erin: That such a tender approach. I love that so much. I mean, I worked in the comedy world for a long time and there's this incredible--
Deb: That does not surprise me.
Erin: Yeah. There's this incredible British comic named Jimmy Carr, and he says, you know, when he meets a new comedian friend, I think I'm quoting him correctly, he says, 'which one of your parents was depressed?'
Deb: Oh, interesting.
Erin: Yeah. Who was unhappy in your household?
Deb: Totally.
Erin: Who did you learn to tell jokes for?
Deb: I think Ellen DeGeneres talks about that. I think her mom had really bad depression.
Erin: I mean, they all, they all have some parental trauma. Something that the comedy is compensating for.
Deb: Totally. And to think of it as survival. Right. Like as mammals, if we take care of them, we are safe. So it's hardwired in us. We don't think about it, we just do it.
Erin: Yeah. For me, it's very complicated because I wanted to adapt, to fit into the societal. The familial standards, but I didn't want the attention that would come from having the ideal body that I was told to have. And so my relationship with my body image stuff has been one of feeling like being fat was a rebellion. But really what I understand now is that I wanted to be from sexual attention.
Deb: Yeah.
Erin: And so, you know, that being fat, being unacceptable, was keeping me outside of the category of someone who would get sexual attention.
Deb: Yeah.
Erin: And so that's so interesting to me too. I was like, oh, good job, Erin. Like, totally brilliant strategy. Figured out a strategy somehow in your child brain, you know, that you didn't feel safe around certain things. And so, you know, this is how you were going to do it.
Deb: Totally. And if you think about it, when we're young, we have, our body is really the only thing that we have access to that's accessible to us that we can use as a tool. It's right here. It's right now. And the sensations of whatever it might have been that made you feel unsafe are in your body. So of course the body's going to be the place this starts. It's brilliant, it makes so much sense.
Erin: Yeah, totally. And then, like, the older I get, the safer I feel. The more I can take care of myself, the more I'm like, oh, well, maybe I would like to have a body like that.
Deb: Totally.
Erin: Maybe that would be nice for me, is totally to feel slim and fit and attractive and.
Deb: And figuring out exactly what feels right to you in your body back to, you know, whether it's the movement or the food or whatever it is, and really taking care of those younger parts of you, that. That was the greatest weapon you had.
Erin: The only weapon, the only night was so. We're so powerless as children.
Deb: Yeah.
Erin: We're so vulnerable as children. So let's talk about children and those of us who are mothers and listen to this podcast. How do we have kids who have good body image? Because I have twins. I have a boy and a girl, and my son really suffers with body image stuff. My daughter a little bit because she's a middle school girl, but even she will say, like, my body image is pretty good. I'm, like, bigger than other girls, but I don't care. I'm good with it. I'm good with myself. Like, where did you come from? But my son is really, like, really struggles because he lost his athleticism during COVID and then we also got divorced.
And, like, yeah, he's so tender and sensitive and ADHD and, like, you know, he's got stuff. And he has days where he's just hating himself.
Deb: Yeah. Yeah. It's such a great question. I mean, the first thing I always say is to do your own work. So you are doing that in spades. So it's very clear to me that while he's in his own process to be in a family situation where he can talk about that with you. Holy moly. If you think about we go back to the cheerleading lady and the size too small dress, I mean, that's so different, so in and of itself. Just creating a space where they can, rather than having to be alone with it, be able to share it is immense.
Erin: And then from there, some parenting.
Deb: Yes. Oh, my God, yes. I mean, imagine growing up and being able to say to your parent, I feel really bad about my body. And having them be like, tell me more. I really want to hear about it. I want to hear about what that's like for you. Totally.
Erin: I can say to him, I get it.
Deb: Totally.
Erin: I've been there.
Deb: Yeah, totally. So, you know, in some ways, it's the same tools that we talk about for our readers and our workshoppers is, you know, again, bringing in the mindful awareness. Wow, it sounds like you're really saying things to yourself that are really unkind. I really hear how critical you're being of blah, blah, blah. So even just mirroring it back without the language and really reflecting what you're hearing and having them start to hear, that I think is a really good model and then again, bringing in that curiosity. I. Introducing them to this idea that there are things that spike that. And it doesn't mean that it's.
You know, you just have these little spikes and the rest of your life is steady. But more like they're phases in our lives where body image may be louder. I wonder why. I wonder why the more you can bring that curiosity. And I. And I often say to people, it's so tempting to want to talk them out of it. And you really. That doesn't give them the chance to really feel seen.
So even naming that dilemma. God, there's a part of me that wants to say that you're so beautiful inside and out. I love you so much. But I also really want to hear what you're saying. I want you to feel heard and understood. So tell me more. What are you thinking about? What's. What goes on in your head when you're in this place?
Erin: And also, like, maybe I could say to him, you may pay attention to when this comes up for you.
Deb: Absolutely.
Erin: Maybe some emotional thing going on that then you translate and you're not wrong to translate it. Just what you're doing.
Deb: Totally. And just to say, let's bring some curiosity that I have found. Or I heard this lady on my podcast tell me.
Erin: My whole parenting is, I heard this lady on my podcast.
Deb: You're not alone. You're not alone at all. Thank God. You know, I mean, it's a great way. We get to share information and learn about it. Learn about all these cool ways that we're all learning about in our own lives. So really giving them the opportunity to start to see that being modeled. Oh, there.
I wonder what else is going on this week. Is there anything else so that they start to build that own connection, like, oh, there are things that. That spike it up. There are things or people or environments that make it louder and starting to maybe build those connections and then ultimately saying to them, like, wow, so, you know, whatever that is. I mean, it could be wow is. Is dance the thing for you? It sounds like you get this feedback a lot from, you know, your teacher there or, you know, or other things that we can do to help you feel less of that. What, you know, really getting them curious about what they're actually holding again, what they're actually feeling that maybe the body image is trying to help with. So I think curiosity is totally the name of the game.
Erin: Yeah, I love that. And that's really practical.
Deb: Yeah. We actually have on our website a little, I think It's. I can't remember exactly what we call it, but something like "Eight or Nine Bullet Points for Parents." and we're about to post it because the book just came out last week. But I can send it to you. I'm happy to send it to you and if you want to put it on your notes or whatever. Yeah, I'm happy to do that.
Erin: Yeah, we can put that in the show notes. We'll put your how to get your book in the show notes, your website and how to engage more in this conversation with you because it's so big, it's so meaningful. I actually think it's one of the defining conversations for women. Yeah, I think for men too, but for women especially, I think right now.
Deb: Especially because I think I just had a client say this. I thought it was so great. You know, we're really the first generation of women that are really, you know, holding as much as we are in so many dimensions in our lives. And so I think, therefore, there is more, there's more overwhelmed, there's more. Too much. And again, you hear this all the time from C Suite executives and all these different people who have really full lives. It's too much. And my body is a way to try and manage that.
Erin: Yeah, for sure. And it's either, you know, managing it with diet and exercise or getting sick. And that is what we see when we're trying to have it all and it's too much and we're.
Deb: And things are out of balance.
Erin: Everything is out of balance. And all the labor is on us. Like, this is what is happening to this generation, this unprecedentedly successful, incredible generation of women that we are.
Deb: Yeah, totally incredible. So the more we can give them those tools to really learn how to unpack the ways that that self hate is in its own way trying to balance things out. It's really something we hope will help empower people.
Erin: Yeah. What do you want our listeners to take away from this conversation that will help them deal with their own body image issues in this next phase of their lives, especially as they age, especially over 40. And we're going to live for a really long time. We're going to have this conversation in our heads in different ways.
Deb: And it's like your poor auntie. Oh my.
Erin: I know, I know.
Deb: I'm not gonna forget her. And I had a grandmother like that. Oh, I look so terrible today. I wish I looked better for you. I'm like, grandma, you're my grandma. That's all that matters.
Erin: Like, if you saw this woman, you would be like, this is the most beautiful woman in her 90s I've ever seen in my life.
Deb: Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. So I would say. I mean, if there's any word I always lead with, it's the curiosity. Body image is an individual sport, and it's healed in connection. So whether you can connect with yourself or other people that are having these conversations and really learning about how to be in a different dialogue with our bodies or reading our book, any way that we can get some space in there and learn how to really understand what's happening in our body image. So I would say curiosity.
If I were to make a T-shirt, that's what it would say is, you know, is really getting curious. Why now? What's happening? What am I afraid of? I often say to my clients when they come in, they're like, oh, my God, why am I. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, all right, lose the attitude. Can you ask that same question without the tude? And then we can figure out what's going on. So lose the tude and get curious.
Erin: Yeah. I love that. Deb. I'm so grateful for the work that you do. It's so important. I love the insights you've shared. I feel like I got a free therapy session, so thanks so much for that.
Deb: It was so cool to meet you too. I feel really lucky.
Erin: Yeah. This is wonderful. Thank you so much.
Deb: Thank you so much.
Erin: Thanks for listening to Hotter Than Ever. I hope you enjoyed this conversation about body image and all the stories and underlying messages it's trying to communicate to us. Do you have anyone in your life who needs to hear Deb Schachter's message, your best friend or your sister, colleague, your daughter, your son? So many of us struggle in this area. Please share this conversation with someone you love whose life might be in danger. be changed for the better by these insights, we do not have to suffer. And if we are suffering, we do not have to suffer alone.
Hotter Than Ever is produced by Erica Gerard and Podkit productions. Our associate producer is Melody Carey music is by Chris Keating with vocals by Issa Fernandez.
By the way, have I told you how gorgeous you are? I think it every time I see you, but I don't always say it. You are looking hotter than ever. See what I did there? Yeah, it's embarrassing. Folded that right in. Okay, never mind. But you really do look fantastic.
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