Change Your Brain Every Day - Empowering Women By Building Positive Body Image

Episode Date: January 10, 2017

What would you do when someone tells you that you're fat? There's practically only two things you can do about this type of comment, you can either take it and respond gracefully or it can tear your confidence down and you go into a defensive mode, depression, and stress.  According to studies, 93% of women doesn't like their body. Well, that's a sad number and I think it's really worth talking about this issue and we can build a positive body image for everyone, no matter what their age is. Join us in this episode as we listen more from Kathy Smith and how she helps empower women and build a positive body image.   

Hi, I'm Donnie Osmond, and welcome to The Brain Warrior's Way, hosted by my friends Daniel and Tana Amon. Now, in this podcast, you're going to learn that the war for your health is one between your ears. That's right. If you're ready to be sharper and have better memory, mood, energy, and focus, well then stay with us. Here are Daniel and Tana Amon.

Welcome back. We are here with our friend Kathy Smith and having such a good time. But we're going to get really serious on an issue that devastates many, many people, especially women. Do you want to introduce us? I do.

Kathy, thank you so much for being here. And I know you have touched so many women's lives in a very personal way, millions of women, actually, me included. I mentioned when we first introduced you in our first podcast with you that you touched me at a very difficult time in my life. And something that I've just recently started sharing with people, it's not always easy to be vulnerable for us women. I used to have that, you know, the disease of perfectionism. I suffered severe depression. I grew up very poor,

learned how to use exercise as medicine. And you were one of the people that I used to exercise to, especially during very difficult times in my life. But I had this idea of what I should look like. And it wasn't being overly thin. For me, it was being muscular, but being perfect. And there was this body image and, you know, this idea of who I needed to be, that when I didn't measure up, I would beat myself up. And it was pretty toxic. And I ended up getting emotional because I have a 13 year old daughter now. And I am so cautious. You know, fortunately, I've done a lot of work. But I'm terrified sometimes that as she comes into her adolescence, you know, the world is not a

kinder place for girls and for women. And I just am working so hard to empower her. And I know that's a that is something near and dear to your heart as well. So I'd love for you to talk to us about your experience with body dysmorphia and body image issues and how you have helped women and maybe even yourself. I don't know what your story is with that, but would love to hear about it. Yeah, it's, it's been interesting through the years. I have to say personally, I'll get into personal story afterwards, but I want to start perhaps where you started with the children, because I have two daughters and they're older than yours. I have a 25 and a 28-year-old. And I remember through the course of their teenage years of, you know, every, you know, all the, all, everything that the media is, all the messages the media is sending out, but not dissing the media.

It's just what, you know, what they're hearing at school, how they're feeling about themselves. And so, yeah, it became very important to start using the right, the languaging and especially with the career I was in. And, and by the way, and I have no regrets about it, but I definitely did a lot of a lack of a better word, you know, hotty toddy type of poses and things. I always had my, like my, my, my pose that I could always get, you know, the, you know, the curve of the back and the curve or whatever. And, you know, it's marketing, you know, it's like, how does somebody look great? But I think my saving grace, and you've mentioned it, is that underneath that was the intention that I've had through the years.

And I started getting into exercise for mental reasons. I was a runner. I loved athletics. And I really got my daughters involved with the outdoors, which I think is really important to help kids connect with nature, have them connect with some kind of sport. I mean, get them out. I really believe that when you get girls into, and I'm speaking mainly to girls, I'm not saying that men don't have the same issues, but it's my experience is more with the women of the world, that if you get them involved with sports and they start to get a community of people that are doing things like

trying to win their volleyball game or their soccer game. And the girls are going together and they start to see different images of people that are succeeding in life with all different body images. So one of the great privileges I've had is I was one of the founding members of the Women's Sports Foundation. Billie Jean King is the founder of it. I was one of the founding members of the Women's Sports Foundation. Billie Jean King is the founder of it. I was one of the founding members. This was a whole thing about Title IX. We would go to Washington and meet with the president. I've got to meet with presidents.

I've got to meet with senators and congressmen about equal opportunity for girls in sports. Part of the process is we would have this parade of champions every year. We had it. I was involved this year with my daughter. A hundred top athletes from soccer to basketball to hammer throwers to martial arts people to billiard players would walk on stage. And as they would walk on stage, you would see a hundred different women. And each of them has a unique body type.

The basketball players were tall, but they were strong. The judos had a different body type. The equestrian people had a different body type, but they were the best. Their faces showed how much they loved their sports. And when you can get people and women into understanding what the body can do, as opposed to just how it can look. Now, I know that's sometimes easier said than done. So what are some of the techniques that I've used through the years? Some of them, I mean, part of it is just language. I'm a big believer in

language. And I'm sure you guys know with the brain, how you phrase something like you need to eat your vegetables is a much different direction than, you know, we're, you know, Cece's coming over, we're making Mexican food tonight, and she's got this great dish that has such and such. And by the, or depending on the age of the child, obviously, I mean, I would use things when they were younger. I would say, you know, this is going to make you, there's probably a lie, but this is going to make you run faster.

This is probably not a lie, but, you know, you'd use things that will, you know, in that soccer, you're going to be, you know, tomorrow you're going to feel better. We'll say it again. It's about the benefits. What I'm hearing you say is it's about that. Exactly. Yes, exactly. So talking about benefits and not just the end result. Now, having said that both of them have gone through different stages and my athlete, my Olympic athlete, which I, you know, I mentioned that I had one daughter that went to the Olympics this year, but she definitely, when she, she went, she went to Yale. And then after college, she became, you know, she was a hotshot, became a

professional athlete. And she's, but I don't know if you've seen what track athletes run around in, they have these little bitty shorts that are about this big, and they have these little tops that are about this big. And, you know, I noticed that, you know, when you're on the center stage and people are going to be looking at your body, whether it's in a bathing suit, whether it's in shorts, whether you're going to have your sleeves exposed, you know, your arms exposed with short sleeves, you know, then you become self-conscious and then you start the comparison thing. Well, look at her arms. Oh, look at her arms. Oh, look at her legs. Look at my butt.

Look at Kim Kardashian's butt. And then, you know, all of the comparisons start. And I think, you know, you just have to monitor, especially at certain ages, the messaging and have discussions about it. So they're getting bombarded. Children are getting bombarded. I'm kind of flipping around here talking about children, but adults and adult women are going through the same thing.

And I do want to get into even aging adults because we might be talking about bodies and how skinny we are when we're younger, but then by the time you're in your mid thirties, you're going into Bloomingdale's or anywhere, not just Bloomingdale's, and some young girls coming up and saying, do you want to learn how to get rid of those wrinkles right here? I have cream for you. I wasn't even thinking about these wrinkles right here. Damn it. I was just going shopping. But you're being bombarded where now you're kind of going, oh, do I have wrinkles? I must have. I have to do something with those. And then the next day, just like, you know, there's a great book out there, Joan Didion, but it's like, you know, I hate my neck, but I know there's a time when all the women are, you know, it's like,

you know, the neck, and then you go into the other parts of the body and what, and here's the thing, good grooming, looking good, trying to look good is fine. And then there's a point and it's like, how do we walk that line of feeling confident? Like, yeah, I want shiny hair. I'm going to buy the product that's going to make my hair a little shinier or whatever, but how to not get sucked into. And I also need, you know, whatever, I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to go down that path, but yes. And, and so I do, I have found there's, there is a group of women that have come to me and said, listen, Kathy, why don't you represent the group of just let your hair go gray, do all the things and just be, I'm thinking, well, I'm not sure I'm ready for that.

I think there's a fine line. Yeah, there seems to be a fine line between being healthy, being confident and comfortable with who you are versus feeling like you need to be someone you're not. And I think that's a very different thing. I don't think there's, you know, if you are in the public eye, if you are on television and you are, and you need to wear something and you're comfortable with that and you are okay with who you are, your core values, you know, and, and you're not bothered by the message and feel you have to be someone you're not. That's very different.

Let me jump in. I know I don't have really anything to say here. So, I mean, obviously, I'm privileged because I'm with two, you know, incredibly beautiful women today. When Tana and I first started dating 11 years ago, I introduced her to a friend of mine, Byron Katie. I love her work. Do you know Byron Katie? Oh, I love her work. Yeah, I introduced her to a friend of mine, Byron Katie. I love her work. Do you know Byron Katie?

Oh, I love her work. Yeah, I love her work. So I was about to bring that up because I use that with this a lot. So go ahead. So I introduced her to her. And then we went to Big Sur at Esalen and went to a three-day seminar that she gave. And one of the exercises was she wanted us all to write down what our thoughts were about our bodies. What we don't like about our bodies. Can I tell the story? So I had my back, I was sitting in the front row. So my back was to the audience, to the rest of the people there. And Katie asked somebody to stand up and read their list. And I hear this woman reading her list and she's going on and on. Literally her list was virtually identical to mine. All the things about her body that she was like, you know, you're supposed to

like dig deep, right? So all the things that bothered her about her body. And I'm like, her list is like identical to mine. She sounded maybe a little older than I was. So I turned around and looked at her and she was very, very overweight. And I'm like, all right, that's really weird. We had the same list, right? So I'm thinking this is really odd. We have this exact same list. And this woman was like broken down and like crying about this. And I'm thinking, okay, we all have the same ideas to some degree. And it was, so now you can finish telling. I just wanted to make sure I sort of introduced that that way. I wrote a book once called Unleash the Power of the Female Brain because I have five sisters. So I think it's my therapy for getting over that.

Three daughters, 14 nieces. And there's one study that said 93% of women do not like their bodies, which I just thought was really important. But women also have significantly lower levels of serotonin, that one neurotransmitter that helps you be happy. According to a study from the University of McGill or McGill University, they have 52% less serotonin than men. And when they have less serotonin, their brain fires up and they notice. So the area of the brain that works too hard when you have low serotonin, it's called the anterior cingulate gyrus. And it's the area of your brain that helps

you shift your attention. So they get stuck on negative thoughts or negative behaviors, but it also sees errors. Which is part of what exercise is so great for. It sees what though? Errors. Errors. What's wrong? So you notice what's wrong in yourself, your husband, or your children more than what is right. So we can't leave that story where it was, but I have to finish that story because it sounds odd the way we left it. Well, what was going on? This woman, as she was reading her list, she went on to say that her husband left her because

she was very angry. Her husband left her for a thinner, more beautiful woman, all these things, and that it was because of how she looked. But I'm listening to her and I'm like, her list sounds exactly like mine, right? So it didn't make, it wasn't congruent. It wasn't making sense to me. And I never stand up at these things because this is at that time, not who I was. I never shared my story back then. I've only recently learned to become more vulnerable with some of the things that I've been through. And so I couldn't help myself. It was like someone literally picked me up and stood me up. I couldn't help but speak up. And I stood up and I turned around and I said, it was like

someone else was speaking through me. I said, you know, I'm listening to this and your list is identical to mine, almost virtually identical. If you're thinking that being thinner or being younger or having less wrinkles is going to fix everything. I hate to tell you, but my problems are also virtually identical to yours. My marriage still fell apart. And I started to go through some of the things that she was complaining about that had happened in her life. And her jaw like hit the floor. And I said, I'm not trying to minimize what you're going through. I'm just saying, I just wouldn't sort of rethink that because it's your list is causing me to rethink what I was thinking.

And, you know, as I walked out of the tent, all these women came running over to me and I never do that. So it was really odd to sort of be in that place and hear someone with the same problems and the same list who is in a different place in life. Well, that's the point of Katie's work, I think. It's our thoughts are what makes us suffer. It's not actually what happens to you. It's how you interpret what happens to you that helps you feel awesome or makes you feel terrible. And one last thing, you brought up something important. You said if you're wearing sleeves and you have to show your arms or you're wearing whatever, you know, if you have to wear shorts, and this is so true. One little tip that I've learned, because this

happens to me a lot. I talk about fitness and I talk about health and I frequently have to wear, you know, short sleeves and be fit. And occasionally I'll feel the pressure from that. I mean, I do. I feel the pressure from that, even though my message is to empower women. I'm not going to lie. There are times that I feel like, okay, I don't feel like I'm really in my best shape at the moment if we've been traveling or whatever. And then what I do is I flip that around in my head. I use Katie's work. Is it true? Do I need to be perfect right now? Do I need to, you know, who said that I was supposed to, where did I ever get the idea that I'm supposed to look perfect on camera? Or who said I can't wear a sweater? Or who said, you know, so I'll start doing this sort of little flip around this turnaround.

My message isn't to be a beauty queen. It's to empower women to be healthy. Brilliant. Great messaging. Well, it's interesting. One of the books I'm reading right now, I got it for my birthday. It's called The Book of Joy. Dalai Lama meets Desmond Tutu and they, for three days when they both turned or Desmond turned 80 and the author who, it's just brilliant. But part of the thing, it's just what both of you are saying. It's like, where does joy and happiness come from? And it's again, it's not, it's not the events. It's not what happens. It's how you interpret. It's how you, and how you have tools in your toolkit to shift your thinking. And I think that getting back to our original message and the thing about me with exercise

and why it is so, the different forms are so important because that is that those are in my, the toolkit of saying, gosh, I am feeling a little insecure right now. I am feeling, you know what? I think I'm going to go for a run. And I know when I've done my job as a parent, when my daughters are calling me, one from New York. So my one daughter, you know, works in New York for a nonprofit called Every Mother Counts and it's Christy Turlington's nonprofit. And it's a great organization and they're very, very busy. And so she, you know, she'll be, have a long day or whatever. And she goes, mom, you know, whatever happened, you know, whether it's with a boyfriend or whatever, and she'll go, I'm not feeling great. I'm feeling really stressed out. I need to go to a yoga class. When I hear those two things in the

same sentence, I'm feeling stressed out. I need to go to a yoga class. It's not like we're not going to feel those feelings. It's like, what are we going to do? It's a healthy coping mechanism. The tool chest is fragile. I, you know, I feel that, that, you know, people are looking at me and I don't look so good or whatever that might be. I know that I have in my arsenal and it has to do with movement. A lot of times, sometimes with food, because we haven't talked much about food, but food can trigger feelings of insecurity. I mean, honestly, I will tell you back in the days when I was just starting my running, right after I dated the football player, I then started dating a doctor. And I noticed that if I sat down to dinner and I would have cheese, maybe follow that with some red wine, that there could be a sensation that came over my body.

And I would just feel a little like the world was kind of coming in a little bit. And it just, I felt uncomfortable. And I'm thinking, gosh, what is that? Because I started to notice these associations between certain foods. Sometimes it was sugar. And I would say, I don't feel, I was feeling great yesterday and I'm not feeling so great today it's so true and I put the association together with fitness I also put it together with food and I started and it wasn't you know probably as scientific as you would hope but it would it was more like cause and effect and I wouldn't just do it like if it was once or twice or three but if I started to see a pattern that I didn't feel good when I you know know, like, let's say the pattern was, oh, we're going out.

I'm drinking too much. I'm having too much cheese and I made it too much sugar. I'm waking up the next morning and I don't look as good. But but I also, more importantly, don't feel as confident. I've lost that confidence gene or that confidence that I had. So I started linking and putting these two together. And I have certain things in my tool chest. And like, let's say with drinking, I know how much I can go out and still feel like next day, I'm going to be the Kathy Smith that I know and love. Or I know

that if I go, you know, that it's not going to be that. So I stopped doing that. So there's no margaritas, there's no this and that, because that doesn't make me feel the way that I want to feel. And let's just say that we're not all perfect, that you know, that you are going to have mama's chocolate cake with such as a, then the next morning you, it will be a cardio workout and it will be an hour cardio. That's going to clean out my system. And once you know, these things, life gets so easy. And that's why, because go ahead, have a chocolate, you know, you're going to pay a bit of a price for it, but I know how to deal with that the next day. And that's going into 2017. I mean, those are the things that I would just suggest to the audience. It's not like,

what is the new diet you're going to start? I mean, it, there is a process and the process is starting to accept yourself, love your body, find that joy in the day-to-day things and find something socially and physically that you like doing, start adding that in. And I mean, we can break this down more and more of like, I'm a big believer that, forget January 1, January 1 is, you know, is a waste because nobody keeps those. But think January, I would even think January, I would start my New Year's resolutions on January 15. And but think about it, what you're going to be doing September 15. Because that's what your resolution should be about. Like my resolution is about my bike ride on September 15. And what I'm going to need to do to get there.

It's not what I need to do to get to January 21st. What do you want to do? What 10K do you want to be running? What table tennis tournament do you want to be participating in? So be specific, yeah. I like to tell people to reverse engineer. Pick your goal and reverse engineer what you have to do to get to that point. So we have to stop.

This was such a joy. There's so many practical things you have to do to get to that point. So we have to stop. This was such a joy. There's so many practical things you have shared with us. So let's just give them a quick summary. I think having people focus on health rather than just on having a perfect image is really critical. Focusing on your goal for 2017 and having those tools in your tool chest, like you said, your diet and having that turnaround like a Byron Katie's, you know, and also having then what, you know, if I do this, then what, but having that turnaround of, do I really need to be perfect? Oh, who said I need to be perfect? Me, no one else, you know, having those little turnarounds and being connected to the real

reason you're doing things. So if people haven't heard it. Perfection is so overrated. I totally agree. And I'll make this quick, but I have one thing I write in my book is, you know, start shooting for sixes. We're all shooting for tens and tens. You're always going to disappoint yourself because you're not going to get 10 very often. If you start shooting for sixes, then six is good. Seven's good. Eight's great. Nine's amazing. I mean, your life just gets happier. And that's, I think that's what's happened in my life. I live, I have a very happy life, but you know, you know, just, it's not about lowering the bar in the sense that, you know, a sense of accomplishments, but just don't, I mean, sixes are good. And this is, and, and getting back to my last thing, New York times article, you know, just about a couple of months ago, they asked my daughter,

Kate, who was in the Olympics, who, you know, they said, what did what what's the biggest thing you've got from your mother? And I'm thinking she's talking about fitness and everything. She said, before every race, mom would walk me. We live in Santa Monica to the ocean, Pacific Ocean, had me look out. I could cry, had me look out over the ocean, said, you've done the work. Now go have fun. Yeah, I agree. Just go have fun. Go go on that track. Drop everything. Go have fun yeah i agree just go have fun go go on that track drop everything go have fun love that how can people learn more about your work and what you're up to i think the easiest way because i have a lot of different products i think the easiest way is just to go to my website which is kathy with a k so kathy smith.com so kathy with k smith.com and then books, videos, DVDs, you know, you know, my messaging blogs,

that sort of thing. But yeah, just that that would be the best way. Kathy, it's been such a joy. Kathy Smith.com. Thank you so much. I look forward to seeing you again soon. Thanks, you guys. Love you.

Bye bye. Thanks for listening to today's show. The Brain Warriors Way. Why don't you head over to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. That's brainwarriorswaypodcast.com, where Daniel and Tana have a gift for you just for subscribing to the show. And when you post your review on iTunes, you'll be entered into a drawing where you can win a VIP visit to one of the Amen Clinics.

I'm Donnie Osmond, and I invite you to step up your brain game by joining us in the next episode.