This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - How To Feel Good Naked with Chardét Ryel | 212

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Do you feel good… naked? Serious question. When you’re in the shower, getting ready, standing in front of a mirror, laying in front of, or on top of someone – do you feel good? Our guest is Chardét Ryel, a wellness entrepreneur and behavior change specialist who helps women celebrate their bodies, magnify their voices and live life boldly. After 10 years as a certified Personal Trainer and nutritionist, Chardét is now the host of The Feel Good Nakd podcast, where she shares a path to well-being that goes well beyond the scale. It has been reported that over 90% of women feel dissatisfied with their bodies so I think it’s pretty clear it’s time for a revolution that ends with us feeling good naked. And even more importantly, this revolution will require risk, courage, vision, integrity, a willingness to do hard things, and strong relationships – how do I know that? Well, because it’s what all revolutions require.  Connect with Chardét: Website: www.feelgoodnakd.com  For women leaders and entrepreneurs looking for support and unfiltered information, visit: https://herfirst3years.com/  Like what you heard? Please rate and review  Thanks to our This Is Woman’s Work Sponsor: Breathe better with AirDoctor, the air purifier that filters out 99.99% of dangerous contaminants (allergens, pollen, pet dander, dust mites, mold spores and even bacteria and viruses) so your lungs don’t have to. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use my promo code: TIWW to get up to $300 OFF air purifiers and a free 3 year warranty (and additional $84 value).

Do you feel good naked? Serious question, friend. When you're in the shower, getting ready, standing in front of a mirror, laying in front of or on top of someone, do you feel good? Can you appreciate, be grateful for, and enjoy the moment without letting that little voice in your head that I like to call head trash, noticing or worrying something that's, and I put in air quotes, wrong? Or can you only see that extra role, that thing you wish that wasn't there or something that you feel is missing? Do you feel like you have too much of one thing that you feel is missing? Do you feel like you have too much of one thing or not enough of another? Do you feel pressure to highlight,

lift, shape, emphasize, hide, reveal, confine, squeeze, consume, or starve any part of you? Does concern about what other people think and feel about your body determine how you feel about it? I am Nicole Kalil, your host of the This Is Woman's Work podcast, and I am working on being able to answer the question, do you feel good naked, with a firm yes. But I'm not there yet, not even close. I've made progress from my 20s when I genuinely thought my body's purpose was to be attractive to others so sexy and perfection were my standards, to today where I'm grateful for all my body does and can do, and health is my standard, and I don't give a rat's ass about perfect or skinny or even sexy outside of one very specific relationship. My answer to the question is yes and no. It's still situational. And I've noticed

that when some other area of my life gets hard, it's only a matter of time before my relationship with my body gets involved. And I know it's not just me because it's been reported that over 90% of women feel dissatisfied with their bodies. And that breaks my heart for you, for me, for our daughters and our sons, because we're passing this down to them. Yes, to our girls, and we have for many, many decades, but also to our boys. Because friend, the research is clear. More and more men are reporting feeling dissatisfied with their bodies, and it's getting worse the younger they are. We can't fuck around with this anymore. It's time for a revolution that ends with us feeling good naked. Here to help light the spark is Shardé Rael, a wellness entrepreneur,

a behavior change specialist who helps women celebrate their bodies, magnify their voices, and live life boldly. After 10 years as a certified personal trainer and nutritionist, Sade is now the host of the Feel Good Naked podcast, where she shares a path to well-being that goes well beyond the scale. Sade, I'm more than a little passionate about this topic, as you could probably tell, both personally and globally. So let me start by asking what it feels and looks like for those less than 10% of women who actually do feel good naked. Like, what does that even look like?

First, I want to say for everything you just said in the intro, I got shivers because I would say I'm in that 10% now, but I felt every single thing that you said. And I felt it for a long time. I would venture to say since puberty. And I think that that's the case with most of us. And it's so ingrained as a natural thing in our lives that we don't actually know what it feels like. What does it feel like to feel good naked? Because that's a reality that's so disjointed from what we know. And we've normalized behaviors and thoughts that are so toxic, that are against getting that direction, but we don't know how to get out. So it's such a complicated question because how do you explain this if people have never felt that? It feels like a totally different reality, like speaking a different language. And I think the easiest way to communicate it

for someone that's feeling completely uncomfortable is imagine if you got out of the shower and you didn't start judging your body. Imagine if you put on the clothes and you didn't think about how they didn't fit. Or imagine if you walked into the boardroom or to colleagues and you didn't think for a second that they were judging how you look. You walk on the beach and you don't wonder who's judging you. It's just this complete absence of judgment. And I think that's where it's really confusing for people because they often think it's this elation of, oh, I wake up every day and I feel like a goddess. And yeah, like that would be great, right? And you've got days like that for sure. But most of the time, it's absence of

all the self-hatred and shame that we have come to just feel like as part of us. It's feeling lighter. It's very similar to meditation in the sense of when you get really good at meditating, you have this absence of these negative thoughts and you can just operate freely. And I think that that's kind of the clearest way I can explain it. A beautiful way to explain it and also very different because I do think I had it in my head. It's like this, you always feel good or you're always positive about what you're seeing or feeling or, you know, but that actually, I mean, so deeply, like it brought tears to my eyes, the absence of judgment. And it was an instant like, oh my God,

what that would feel like to have that weight lifted because that judgment is fucking heavy. The ones we put on ourselves and the ones we perceive we're getting from others. So to be able to not have that, very interesting. So let's talk a little bit about how we might be able to get there because I'm guessing there might be some simple parts, but it's not easy or else we'd all be doing it. I kind of feel like there's this

internal component to it and an external component. I'd like to start with the internal because it's what we have the most power over. What are the most toxic, I don't know, thought loops or feelings or internal dialogue or whatever it is that are affecting how we see ourselves? Yeah. Every single person is going to have probably a mix of the ones that I say now. And some days you'll have them more and some days you'll have them less. Also, it can be influenced by who you're around. We'll talk more about that later, the external side, I guess, but it will be things like, I'm not XYZ enough. I'm too much ABC. I'm not going to be taken seriously because of this way that I look. I'm never going to feel good in my body because of this. Also things that are more subtle that you don't think about. I have

no control over this, especially related to food. And the intersection of body and food is so, so intertwined that the thoughts we have around food are often driving the way that we feel about our body and vice versa. So that's where it's interesting because it's not just the case of, oh, let me correct the way I think about my body. It's also I need to change my relationship with food and also my external relationship. So it's huge work. I'm not going to pretend that it's tiny and that there's something you can do in 10 seconds. It's not like that. But internal thoughts, the biggest thing is just being aware of them. I think most people listening, maybe now you're thinking about them, but you probably don't notice when you wake up. You

probably don't notice these thoughts. You probably don't even notice the stuff you say to partners, to children, to colleagues that are all reinforcing these thoughts. And that's actually the worst is when you verbalize them. As you were talking, I couldn't agree more. My thoughts about food and body are wildly connected, which as I said in my intro, when things get hard in my life, that becomes super obvious, whether it's a lean towards emotional eating or just being like, this is wrong. So then I'm going to focus on everything that's wrong with my body. And all of the things you mentioned, yes, I've experienced. I also think there is a

pretty strong connection between how we feel about our body and how we feel about our ability or our value in receiving love. Yeah. I think it's a huge part of how you treat your body and how you, how you choose to work around food is intimately connected to how you see your worth and how you relate that with other people. And if you think about it, if your self-worth was not dependent on the outside world and someone else's gaze, you probably wouldn't have so much of a hangup about the way you look or the way you eat. So it's so interconnected. And it's usually the initial driver, especially for women, we start in puberty, hearing those messages of in order to be desired, aka loved, in order to have power, you need to look this way. In order to look this way, you need to eat this way.

And so it's just this loop that you keep hearing. And it is all very much driven by how can I make myself worthy and desirable because we equate desire with worth and power. And it's not actually the case. And that's a very hard thing to unlearn. Yes, because it's been ingrained, I think, directly and indirectly for a very long time. I think sometimes we think these negative feelings about our body, they certainly impact us, but I think sometimes we think they only impact us. And what ways is our negative body image or self-image impacting our relationships and our connections? In every way, because it's, for example, let's say I'm having a conversation with a colleague

or a friend and I comment on, I'm struggling with these XYZ pounds and I want to lose them before my vacation or the dress I need to wear to the wedding, whatever the circumstance is. And it seems relatively harmless to say that. But what you're saying to that person is this is what I value. And if they're also struggling with their body image, then they're going to hear, okay, again, this is what is valued and it's reinforced to them as well. And that makes it really difficult because how can you tell people that a mindset is toxic or that it needs to be changed when so many people think it? It's so much harder because you are now the minority. And that impacts the relationships in a lot of ways. We relate,

especially between women, talking about this stuff, about desire, about the way that we look, the clothes we're going to wear, all of this stuff. We connect over that and it's very difficult to move past it into other topics. And someone said it amazingly on my show ages ago about, think of how much time you dedicate speaking to others or yourself about your body and food. Imagine how much space you would free up for other greater brander things if you didn't do that. Well, and it's interesting too because some of what you mentioned feels, and I'm going to put in air quotes, innocent, right, or, because we've talked about it so much. But the people around us, people we love, friends, family members, but also our children are picking up on this and then just repeating that same pattern. Now, you mentioned this a couple times, and I find it fascinating because it's true for me, but I don't think we ever talk about it,

how our body image is impacting our professional lives and opportunities and growth. In full transparency, as a public speaker, I definitely have times where I don't want to do the speaking event or I worry about the speaking event or I think it didn't go as well because I'm worried about what people think about my body very specifically when I'm standing up there talking about confidence. And I have a lot of stuff about that. So I know it's probably not just me, but when you said that, I was like, oh, it's probably not just me. How is how we see our body impacting our professional growth opportunities and all of that? It's first, there's the subtle way, which and then I'll talk about the more explicit way that you've already mentioned, which is huge. But the subtle way is that when you're continually, I don't know how

many thoughts we have a day, thousands, right? If so many of them are focused on bringing down your self-worth, on bringing down your competence, on undermining the control you have on all of this, there's no way that that doesn't translate into your psyche and impact other ways that you see yourselves. It's not just siloed into, oh, this is just the way I feel about my body. You might disassociate from your body, and a lot of people do, where they just feel so uncomfortable in it that they just kind of separate. Most people do that. But it doesn't mean those feelings aren't still there.

And you hold it in the way you walk. It comes through in your voice. It comes through in the way that you gaze, all of this. And so that's the more subtle way that it's kind of like every day we're programming ourselves to come across as less. And we don't even realize it. And then the more explicit way is what you're talking about is if you're going on stage and you're actively thinking this, that body language shows. And the irony is, is that if you came onto the stage and you

pretended or really like fed yourself, and I'm sure you do this. I know I've done this. Like, I'm just, you know, I'm amazing. I'm here. I'm here to shine. People would not focus on the way you look. That just would not be the main thing that they see. People are drawn to whatever is, and this is a psychological thing, whatever is shining brightest. And so that can either be you being insecure or that can be you showing this confidence. And I realize it's not an easy shift, but that's kind of the two explicit and subtle ways that it shows up. When I moved from California to Massachusetts, I had never experienced allergies before. And while the springs in New England are gorgeous, they also come with itchy eyes, scratchy throat, and a lingering headache, at least for me. And after seven years, I finally got serious about it. And one of the things that I know has helped me a ton this spring is my Air Doctor air purifier, because the indoor air that we breathe can be up to a hundred times more polluted than the

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And I know you're a self-love expert and it gets talked about a lot. I'll be upfront that I have a little bit of a beef with how self-love is being tossed around and represented in the same way I do a lot of things. So how do we stop the spin and is self-love really the answer? Yeah. So stopping the spin, I have a really different approach and I think it's because I have this fitness background. But I fully believe that, as I said before, we disassociate from our bodies. So the first step is reconnecting with them. Because how can you change what you're not aware of or what you choose not to see?

So my approach has always been very somatic, that you start with the activity and fitness. And I'm not saying going into a workout to change your body. I'm saying going into movement could be a workout in order to reconnect with your body, in order to feel it again, in order to feel powerful again, in order to feel this sense of progression that is not related to the numbers going down on the scale. And most of us don't come into fitness that way. So we don't see it that way. It's a big shift, right? Usually we see fitness as that's going to get me my quote unquote summer body. But if you see it instead of this is my tool to feel powerful again

and to regulate my emotions, all the benefits that come with it, and I'm only going to do the stuff that I really enjoy, then it's a totally different one. So I would say start there because it's also easiest. We can always act much easier than we can rethink. So I would start there as the first step, and then you can start to bring awareness to your thoughts and start to move through those stages of behavior change. Amazing. And is self-love really the answer? Yeah. I think, again, self-love, it's how you define it. So for me, it is not this thing of everyday feeling that I'm just the best person in the world and everyone should love me. That's not, I think it gets really inflated that way. It's more, I would translate it to self-worth.

So it's, and self-respect, which is the biggest thing. I respect my body and myself. Therefore, I choose to react this way. And that's something you can do even on days that you don't feel great. You don't have to say, I love myself today, but you can say, okay, I respect myself. Therefore, these are the ways that I'm going to speak. These are the things that I'm going to do. So I don't think self-love in the traditional way is the answer, no. But we do need to get away from self-hate. It's really important to get away from that. And I always compare it to an elevator in a building where the basement is self-hate. That's where we live. And you don't need to go to the penthouse self-love every day, but you want to stay in the middle floors.

It's an amazing analogy and everything you're saying is speaking directly to my soul. My inner knowing is very aware that it's hearing what it needs to hear right now. So thank you for that. I want to talk a little bit about some external things. I think one of the things that we're defaulting to, I see this a lot and maybe because I'm looking for it, I don't know. But in an effort to make people, and I put in air quotes, feel good about their bodies, we're running around telling everybody they're beautiful all the time. And we're telling our kids that they're beautiful. And we're telling, oh, you had a tough day. Well, you're beautiful. You see somebody, oh, you look beautiful. It's all like this sort of like, I don't know, it feels like hype to me. And I wonder, is this helpful or hurtful? Your thoughts. I would say it's situational. I highly see the

value in doing that to young kids, particularly young girls. I really do. But not just celebrating beauty, right? I think you have to do more than that. Otherwise, that becomes their sole source of self-worth and that creates all sorts of issues later on. I remember, for example, growing up, I never felt beautiful. I always looked different from everyone around me. I grew up in a very homogenous place. And I also grew up in a family that didn't look like me. And I remember almost every day my mom would say, you're beautiful. Look in the mirror, tell yourself you're beautiful. And finally, after probably, I don't know how many years, that finally stuck with me because of hearing that. And I know that if she had said the opposite, you need to do this to change,

et cetera, then I would probably also have internalized that. So I do think there's something to it for programming. However, it's not the thing of, okay, you've had a crappy day, therefore you're beautiful and everything's okay. I don't think that that works. That's not enough. That's not going to bring you forward. And realistically, I don't think that women want to be beautiful. I think that women want to feel good about themselves. And it's not the same thing, but we've been. It implies that it's the standard we should all be striving for above all other things. And it implies that that is a rather large component of our worth. And, you know, I don't want my daughter or any of our children to feel ugly or unworthy or made fun of or any of those things. And I look at my daughter and I do think she's beautiful. I don't know if she is or will be beautiful based on societal standards, nor do I really care. She might, I don't. But I look at her and I see so much more that is so much more important than anything

physical could ever be. And I try to focus on that. And I do worry that maybe I'm not. I mean, as a parent, you worry no matter what you're doing. But it just is, I see it all the time, or like this sort of, when you see somebody, you've lost weight, you look great. And I'm like, oh, there are some people who need to gain weight. And it's not the direct correlation to health or strength or any of those things like this. I don't know. There's something about the way, and you were talking about this earlier, but the way we communicate in default with each other that is very worrisome to me. Again, any thoughts or reactions to any of that?

Yeah. It's interesting because I'm not a parent, so I always hesitate in giving any sort of insights or advice around this because fundamentally that's not my experience. I will say that it gets difficult because of the way that we interpret beautiful. Because for me, I don't think of it as, okay, you look so beautiful. I see it more as the, I don't know, the health and the power and the charisma from you shines out. Like the radiance. Yeah, the radiance. Exactly. I mean, maybe we should just say you look radiant. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I love that word. I'm all about it. Maybe we should just say that. Maybe beautiful has too many murky connotations now and we just can't use it. Because I've thought of many, many people, many women as beautiful that perhaps would not be socially, like according to mainstream society, seen that way.

So maybe there's that. Yeah. And I do think that you have to be careful because you don't want that to be the sole thing that they aspire to. And then that becomes the sense of, well, this is what makes me valuable. This is what allows me to go after the job or the person I want or anything because beauty in the traditional sense does not last forever. but I think we are often mindful of what other people think about our bodies, other people's opinions, beliefs, thoughts, the comparison game, social media. I mean, we are inundated with seeing other people's bodies, commentating about other people's bodies, and we worry about it with us. So my first question, are people thinking about our bodies as much as we think they are? I don't think they are as much, no. But I do see a correlation, and this is from people I've

worked with, I've seen it directly, that those people who judge themselves the most are also the ones that judge other people's bodies the most. And it doesn't necessarily mean that they are mainstream thin and tones, etc. They can be and still have those thoughts because they're still judging themselves and others. But there is definitely a correlation there. So if you're someone who strongly judges other people or you feel like you're being judged a lot, there's probably a lot of self-criticism going on there. And I feel, you know, one of the biggest things is that we were talking about what can you do to shift this. This kind of goes back to, if you feel like, I don't know how to manage my own thoughts, I don't know how to do the spiral thing, I'm not ready to go and do the movement stuff, the biggest thing that you can do around

this is stop commenting on other people's bodies. And not just verbally, like you think something about it, stop commenting on it. Because that is one of the quickest jumps and leaps to move forward in the way that you perceive health, the way that you perceive yourself image is to just stop commenting. Thank you for saying that. I think that is of vital importance, not just to be kind in the world, but also for our own. So that connection I think is really important. My last question, and I have so many more, I wish we had more time. What are your thoughts about this concept of feeling good naked and what I posed as a revolution?

Where does surgery, airbrushing, Botox, Ozempic, all the things that we're hearing about, where does that play in? And I want to be upfront that my philosophy is I don't get to have judgment on other people's bodies and their choices. So it's up to each individual person and it's contributing. It has to be in some way. So what are your thoughts? I, in your ballpark as well, I don't judge people who have done this stuff because it actually goes back to what we said before. If you're not judging someone on their size, you also cannot judge someone for getting a nose job or something, right?

Like you can't have one situation. It's OK. And another, it's not. I do think that we have to be so careful if you're someone who is in a really highly visible space, especially online, and you are promoting that kind of, you know, surgeries or treatments. Because there are people who are really vulnerable that are going to see that. And they may not be able to make that decision so much for themselves. So that's where it's kind of a difficult line. And I'm speaking specifically about younger girls, right? Seeing this stuff and thinking, oh, it's not a big deal for me to do this versus someone

who's in their thirties and 40s, you know, is a little bit different. Like we've lived with our bodies. We know a little bit more. So I would say I don't personally judge anyone who does any of that. I know many people who have, and I've seen for some people, it really helped them. And for others, it didn't. And the only thing that distinguished those two groups is that they had made peace with themselves first, even before going forward with it. Because if you're going for this treatment because you think it's going to solve whatever internal issue you have, it won't. But you can work on that internal healing. And then perhaps if you think, okay, well, I still want to do this.

I mean, it's your decision. It's your choice, but please don't be 16. Yes. Okay. You said that beautifully. That's where I'm at too, is it's the public facing part that we have to be really careful about. I will also add, I have really worked. I don't find myself having a lot of judgment about other people's bodies or choices that they make with their bodies. But the one thing I have a really hard time letting go of is when people represent themselves publicly, but are not honest about. So for example, I've lost all this weight by doing cold plunges and red light therapy and movement and whatever, but not mentioning that they're also taking Ozempic. If you want

to take Ozempic, good for you. I mean, honestly, your body, your choice. I'm not the decider. I'm even considering it myself in full transparency. I don't have judgment about that. But if you do it, let's be honest about it so that 16-year-olds or really anybody aren't comparing our regular, aren't doing all the things trying to and not getting the same results and feeling that there's something freaking wrong. Like that's the part that I obviously have still some judgment about and I get to work through that myself.

But that part I think is dangerous than not being truthful about how we got to the place that we're promoting publicly. Yeah. how we got to the place that we're promoting publicly. Yeah, this I agree with you completely that if you are going to take a hard stand on something or really push something like weight loss or anti-aging, whatever it is, then you have an obligation to be transparent about things you're doing for it. And I don't mean to shove it in people's faces because I think you have to be careful not to try to push someone over that wouldn't normally do that. But yeah, of course, you know, if you're a facial yoga expert and you're getting Botox, that's not transparent.

Like you're lying about how you're doing this, but that's very different from, you know, the professional who's not pushing anything about aging. Maybe they're talking about, I don't know, like they design clothes. Fine. You know, they don't need to tell you their skin care secrets. Right. But it is for if you are pushing something, you have a moral obligation to share that. Yeah. Okay. Again, I could go for days. I'm sure if you're listening, you, like me, want more of Sade in your life. So go to feelgoodnaked.com. It's feelgoodnaked.com. We'll put it in show notes. And also for my many women leaders and entrepreneurs who are listening in, she also has a website called herfirst3years.com, which is all unfiltered information about being a leader and an entrepreneur. And we could

definitely certainly use more of that. Sade, thank you. It has been an absolute pleasure and honor to have you on the show. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. I'm going to close us out by saying this. For those of you like me who are tired of living in a world, being a person, or raising a person who doesn't feel good in their own skin, I'm going to make a few suggestions or possibly ground rules. First, stop following people who make you feel bad about your body on social media. And for the love of God, stop comparing your body to everyone else's. We each have our own and they all deserve to feel good. Especially, do not compare your real to somebody else's fake. If you or someone you know gets any

kind of cosmetic surgery or Botox or whatever, that's entirely up to you or them and nobody else's business. And it's ridiculous to compare natural with artificial. Which brings me to my next point. For the love of fucking everything, stop having judgment about what other people choose to do with their bodies. You don't like it? Don't do it. And move the fuck on. If you find yourself fat shaming or body shaming or age shaming anyone ever for any reason

at all, you are being an asshole. Seriously. Nobody else may have the guts to tell you to your face, but let me be clear. You are being an asshole. So you get to decide whether or not you want to become an asshole full time or whether or not you want to cut that shit out and apologize for being an asshole temporarily. And lastly, let's stop telling everybody they're beautiful because all we're doing is reinforcing the message that beauty is the standard and the most valuable thing any of us can be.

How about we be radiant? How about we be brave? Let's rather focus on health and strength if we must comment on the physical, but even better, stop being lazy and find something better to comment on. I'm saying this for you and for me, and the list is just a starting point. Focus on physical beauty if it's important to you, and remember it's subjective.

And confidence comes from within, without exception. This revolution will require risk, courage, vision, integrity, and willingness to do hard things and build strong relationships. How do I know that? Because it's what all revolutions require. All that and feeling good naked. That is woman's work.