“We don’t come into this world owing anybody attractiveness. You’re valuable because you’re here. That’s the only precedent.”
In a world that's obsessed with emboldening negative body image through diet culture and false media narratives, it’s an uphill battle to figure out how to have a healthy relationship with our bodies that don’t rely on those heavy burdens of guilt and shame. This week Lorena and Kelly discuss what their journeys to body love were like, touching on difficult and oftentimes triggering concepts around the topics of food restriction, disordered eating, body dysmorphia and eating disorders.
The dynamic duo kick off the episode by discussing the first time they remember feeling hatred for their own bodies and how this shaped their relationships to food. Kelly digs into how restrictive eating creates a self-perpetuating, psychological minefield that always kept them thinking about what they were eating and how they looked (with some extra patriarchal nonsense sprinkled on top, because of course). For Lorena this crept up in a framing of food scarcity, and how the idea of never being able to eat something again triggered in her a sense of not being good enough when compared to her “thinner” peers. Both contend with the insidious concept that food has a morality to it, and how that is reflected back to us from our immediate environments as children by the adults who care for us, all the way to mainstream movies and tv shows.
The conversation then moves on to a discussion of undoing these toxic mindsets and how the two reclaimed their bodies for themselves. For Lorena, who has a history of bulimia, her efforts were targeted at getting to know her body’s cues better and reframing exercise as empowering and joyful rather than something that had to be scheduled into her busy life. Kelly then speaks about their journey to food freedom (not being afraid of certain foods anymore and destroying the restrict-binge cycle) and how learning to love their body came with saturating themselves in a world full of fat folks who are happy and unafraid. The episode wraps with both agreeing that whatever practices you use to fill yourself up with, whether it’s perceiving your body with intention, spending time naked, or, as Lorena discloses, dancing her tits off in her living room, we all deserve to be seen and loved, no matter our size or shape.
// Contact us for questions on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mindlesspodcast // Contact us for questions on Instagram: @mindlesspodcast // Music: Bad Snacks - Summer in the Neighbourhood; Andrew Langdon - Keys // Tarot readings with Kelly: @pathostarot on Instagram & Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pathostarot // Coaching & Breathwork with Lorena: https://www.lorenaschuth.com