This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Raising Kids To Have A Healthy Body Image with Lauren Magers | 209

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

What we need to know about raising our children to have a HEALTHY body image – because the more women who are out there with body confidence, the better.  Our guest, Lauren Magers, is a 5-foot-tall firecracker, who believes a life of happiness starts with mastery of yourself and having a system in place that guides you every day with the skills, habits, and responsibilities to be a successful human. A mother of 4 and a leader of a blended family by the age of 27, she went on a quest to uncover the wisdom to raise extraordinary humans who can thrive and be happy adults in today’s world. Creator of The Happy LifeSystem; the world’s first comprehensive parenting system built on the fundamentals of empowerment and self-mastery in a gamified way, Lauren teaches parents and children how to find joy in all they do, and love the bodies they do it in. Here’s what I know for sure: The answer does not lie in focusing on how our body looks to others.  What if we taught our kids (and also ourselves) to focus on how our body feels, what it allows and affords us to do, its health, strength and longevity. What if we practiced treating our bodies the way we want to be treated – prioritized, accepted, listened to, appreciated, and valued at the highest level. Change always begins with us. It can be no other way. Connect with Lauren: Website: www.LaurenMagers.com IG: https://www.instagram.com/thelaurenmagers/  To get 20% off Lauren’s Crack The Parenting Code Course use the promo code: TIWW  Free ebook: 8 secrets to being a happy parent Like what you heard? Please rate and review  Thanks to our This Is Woman’s Work Sponsor: Go to AquaTru.com and enter code TIWW at checkout for 20% off any AquaTru purifier to get yourself, and someone you love, purified water!

I am Nicole Kalil, and I am the Confidence Sherpa. That's literally my title. It's on my website, my email signature, and it would be on my business cards if I ever used business cards anymore. As you know, if you've been listening in, confidence is my passion, but I don't call myself an expert because frankly, that's far too much pressure.

I call myself a Sherpa because I wanna make it really clear that I'm doing the climb with you. I haven't arrived at confidence. I haven't planted a flag or taken my summit picture. So when I talk about confidence, please know that I'm on the journey too. I do know an awful lot about confidence at this point, and I define it as firm and bold trust in self. And it's something that you build from the inside. And I do feel confidence more often than not. It's also much easier to choose and

experience confidence in some aspects of my life than it is in others. And one of those areas where I still struggle the most is in my own body confidence. And I bring this up for two reasons. First, because it's true and also because it's relatable. 84% of women struggle with body confidence. And I'm hyper aware that I do not want to pass this down to my daughter. I want to see the statistics change, and I don't want any of our children to struggle with this. Whenever I speak to a group that includes women, it is almost inevitable that someone will ask how to raise confident kids. And my answer is always to build our own confidence first, because kids, and really everyone,

learn best by experience and observation. But that answer scares the shit out of me when it comes to body confidence, personally, because I am doing the work, but I am not there yet. And also globally, because it doesn't appear that many of us are demonstrating body confidence if most of us aren't feeling it. So how will our children ever learn? So on this episode of This Is Woman's Work, we're going to talk about how we can raise our children to have a healthy body image. I imagine those of us who are moms are wildly interested, but even if you don't have kids yourself, I hope you continue to listen because the more women who are out there with body

confidence, the better, period. I'm joined by Lauren Majors, a five-foot-tall firecracker who believes a life of happiness starts with mastery of yourself and having a system in place that guides you every day with the skills, habits, and responsibilities to be a successful human. Her whole life has been a continual series of courageous leaps, but her boldest move and invention was inspired through motherhood. A mother of four and a leader of a blended family by the age of 27, she went on a quest to uncover the wisdom to raise extraordinary humans who can thrive and be happy adults in today's world. The creator of the Happy Life System, the world's first comprehensive

parenting system built on the fundamentals of empowerment and self-mastery in a gamified way, Lauren teaches parents and children how to find joy in all that they do and love the bodies they do it in. So Lauren, thank you for joining us. And before I ask about our kids, I want to start by asking how we as adults, as parents develop or choose a healthy body image so we can at some point begin to model it. Thank you so much for having me. You know, as I was listening to you, it's just so riveting your words because we're at such a critical mass in our world right now where we need to make decisions to be called forward to break generational cycles. And so a lot of my work was what did I need as

a little girl to thrive in today's world? So I just want to say thank you for holding space for this podcast and for all the women out there listening, because it takes a village and a community for all of us to rise together. So first and foremost, that was one of the most important things for me. In regards to body image and what this indoctrination, I believe there has been an indoctrination in our society that goes way back. And it's for us to raise our level of awareness to really understand what is the program that is running our lives that's inhibiting us from greatness. And a lot of that is based on perception. Well, if they have that, it's external happiness. And everyone always asks me, what is happiness to you? And I said, happiness is being alone

and being okay with yourself and being peaceful. And my number one thing is we are in this world where we are bogged down by so much information, the propaganda, the programming, all of this. And what it does is it creates the lens and the filter in which we see life. So we have to take control in a very systematic way, which is why I built the system for my kids to be like, this is your true north, right? Everyday loving and honoring your body are essential fundamentals that you need to learn that I was never taught as a little girl. Couldn't agree more. I wasn't taught that either. And I think that's been part of the struggle and the barrier to figuring out how to do that. It's like we've got to reteach ourselves something we never knew. So as you're going through this for yourself and for your children, what are some of the

things that you focus on instead of the external or the propaganda or the societal expectations? Where are you redirecting that energy? I believe life is mental. And if we have a mindset that's anchored in love, gratitude, appreciation, and self-worth and self-belief, then the rest of the stuff kind of just like trickles away. So if we build the infrastructure internally so strong and so powerful that we don't believe in those programs and those belief systems, then I don't believe that our energy will be hijacked by those external forces. So as a little girl myself, being a, you know, full ride scholarship athlete, it was all about playing soccer. No one ever taught me how to take care of my body, love my body, honor my body. I remember at the age of 26 years old, it was literally like the first time I looked myself in the mirror, like in my eyes, and I was like, I don't even know who I am. There were so many belief systems and everyone's

opinions running my life. So when I looked at having my own kids, four kids, three boys and one girl, and I do want to say to the listeners, I know we're women, but boys struggle with body image big time in the world that we're living in today. I have an 11-year-old son and he's doing sit-ups every day. He has this paranoia because he sees all of this. He's so impressionable. So my whole fundamental is practicing skills every day. This could be, you know, on the mind pillar, which is mastery of your thinking in my system. And it's something as simple as look yourself in the mirror every day and say three things you love about yourself. That's a skill and a habit and you earn celebration points for that, right? Or it could be something as simple as we sit at the table and say three things that you love about yourself right

now. So I am creating an expanded awareness for them to come back home to themselves and anchoring them in a way where they can, you know, because we all know our brains, you know, the neuroplasticity within our brains, it's the wiring, it's the programs, it's the belief systems. And it's very hard to reverse some of that old stuff that we've been taught. So teaching a child these fundamentals, self-worth, self-belief, and empowerment at the early stages is essential for them to live this happy life. Or you're like me where I'm trying to rewind still at 38 years old and break the old system, which is, you know, you're not pretty, you're not this, you're not whatever. I have to know I am, I'm worthy. So I agree completely. I think, you know, in my work in confidence, I talk a lot about how we've been

conditioned to believe that confidence is going to come to us from some external source when the reality is it's completely internal. It sounds like you feel the same about body confidence, right? What I heard you say is it's more about the love, appreciation, gratitude of our bodies, as opposed to worrying and thinking about what everybody else says about our bodies or thinks about our bodies or what we think people are thinking about our bodies. But you also mentioned, and thank you for saying that, I agree in today's day and age with social media and all that, I don in today's day and age with social media and all that, I don't think this is so much of a woman's problem or a young girl's problem anymore.

I think everybody's experiencing this. What do you do? What do you say when you see your 11-year-old doing sit-ups or when any of your kids comes home with information that isn't their own, right? Somebody said this, or I saw this. How do you handle that? The number one thing that I love to say to everyone that I work with and in all of my work is your body is your life car. Your body gives you the capability to even live this life. So if you don't honor it with appreciation, if you don't honor it with water, if you don't honor it with love and beautiful thoughts, it will break down over time. So coming back home, I really teach about understanding the intricacies of the body, your brain, your heart, right? The blood, the oxygen. And this, what's so funny is like in schools, we're not

taught the functionality of our, like the makeup of what actually allows us to live this life. And so with my son, when he's working out, I'm like, that's one layer of muscle, right? Like that you're building. But when you're doing that, make sure you're honoring yourself with X amount of water, or you need to have this protein. Like we really get into the fundamentals and the practices. And that's a big piece to this is really for children to understand the why behind what their body does. And when people have access to the why, they have control of the experience. They have education and it expands the awareness, which then creates a reward loop in our lives for us to go back to that action. Oh, I drink water because now I visually have seen the benefits of what water actually does to my life, my body, my energy, my vibration. So that's a big piece to my system is getting into the why. Why are you eating a vegetable, right? Why are you doing this? Tell me why. Let's have a conversation about this. And, you know, we're so quick to eat and we're so quick to move on, but we're not really putting in the time and radical awareness to be intentional about our lives. And that's when

we could be hijacked. So for me, with my kids or, you know, kids and families I've worked with, it's really about getting down to the fundamentals of teaching. This is our body, right? Here's all the brilliant things that does. It heals it. Like showing that is a big thing. You know, children are audio or visual. So if we can paint a picture for them to see it, when we don't do these things, here are the outcomes we got to show them. And I need to be shown as a mother too. Like when I take this beautiful supplement, what are the outcomes of these things? So I think another thing too that I do want to bring up with social medias in the world that we're in is the overconsumption of supplements and this and that and everybody's theories. Like it's so overwhelming.

Like you're carnivore, you're vegan, you're this, you're that. You don't know what to trust. If you go to Europe, half of the stuff in the United States, they don't even have supplement stores. They don't have a gym on every single side of the street. Think about the consciousness that's constantly being programmed into our minds in America. And there might be listeners that are global, but that's where I'm very acute on, you know, I'm not going to pick up that vibration. I believe in my body. You know, I don't need to go into GNC and buy 500 supplements and we're bombarded with this. So that's a whole nother level that we have to have radical awareness around.

I cannot express how much I appreciate you saying that because I find it entirely overwhelming and almost as unhealthy to get caught up in all the different opinions and advice. is this inclination to look at working out or movement or water or supplements or what we put in our body from the lens of how it's going to make us look versus how it's going to make us feel and experience our life. That's so good. And I have to tell you the story because I know that I can cuss on this show. So I'm in Switzerland and I'm big Europe. Like I'm Argentinian, Italian. I love Europe. And I'm there and I'm sitting with the general manager of the hotel and we're having this beautiful conversation.

And he just flat out says to me, he's like, Lauren, you guys are paranoid. They've stole your happiness. He goes, my grandmother is 99 years old. She smokes two fucking packs of cigarettes a day. She drinks a bottle of Rose and she's in the garden and she's living her best life. And I was like, that's when I had this aha moment. I am obsessing over this because I'm letting this into my life and it's literally stealing my joy. And, and, and that's where I generationally, I realized like my mom didn't have the education and I need to break this cycle right now.

So what do I do? I need to come back to educating my kids that your body is the foundational element that you need to nurture and care for and love that gives you the opportunity to even live this life. But it's called balance. I always teach them. I'm like, have the amazing cookie. Enjoy it with so much joy and love and positive energy.

But when you go home, maybe have a beautiful green smoothie, create a cancellation formula for yourself. But if I obsess over what they eat, I am going to create a mental disorder. We have to give them the freedom to make these choices, but we have to lay the foundation. And that was the most critical thing that I didn't have. So playing sports, right? I was anorexic. I was bulimic. I mean, I almost killed myself. I was in the hospital and it was all because I had so much unworthiness within me that everyone else's opinions mattered besides me. I didn't love myself. So my system is really about self-love coming back to the center of self-love. If we love ourselves, we see the world differently. It's not external love that we're looking for.

That's temporary happiness to me. If you know me, you know that I get more than a little frustrated about all the conflicting beliefs and advice among those in the health and wellness industry. But one thing I found that they can all agree on is the importance of drinking water. And having safe, clean water is the last thing we should have to worry about. And yet, according to extensive research, three out of four homes in America have harmful contaminants in their tap water. So here's why I personally use and endorse Aquatrue. First, their purifiers use a four-stage reverse osmosis purification process and remove 15 times more

contaminants than ordinary pitchers. And they fit every type of home, from installation-free countertop purifiers to higher-capacity under-sink options. And the filters are affordable and long-lasting. Just one set of filters from their classic purifier makes the equivalent of 4,500 water bottles, which is less than three cents a bottle. Plus, big bonus, you'll save the environment by using less plastic.

Listen, if I'm going to drink 80 ounces of water a day, I want it to be the very best water. AquaTrue comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, and my listeners receive 20% off any AquaTrue purifier. Go to AquaTrue.com, that's A-Q-U-A-T-R-U.com and enter code T-I-W-W at checkout. Again, 20% off any AquaTrue water purifier when you go to AquaTrue.com and use promo code T-I-W-W. And now we head back to the show. I also had an eating disorder for most of my 20s. I was bulimic. And when I think about what created that, there was so much, but the primary thing I think is that I thought that the primary purpose my body served was to be attractive to others.

And now as an adult, I'm like, oh my God, there's nothing even moderately healthy about that. Can I tell you this? Yeah. When I was anorexic and bulimic, I was playing soccer at the University of Arizona. I got injured. And remember, I had no intelligence around health, like zero. I am an athlete, right? They've got the gyms, they got the weights, no fundamentals, no practices, no mindset, no nothing. It's like workout and go play soccer. Like there was no consciousness, no education. I get injured and I'm still eating the same way. I'm starting to get like gaining big time and I freak out. I literally freak out and I'm like, I'm just going to stop eating. It was like that. It was, it was so polar, like the polarity was so real that I just stopped

eating. Like I was like, I'm going to have a diet Coke a day and I eat one wheat thin. And that's what I'm going to do. I had no help. I had no lifelines to help me like, no, when you're injured, you're going to rehabilitate this way. We're going to do this or you have this green juice or whatever. I was, I'm self-taught. And so it's really interesting where, where the pitfall is. It's in the education. We are not educating our culture, our society on the fundamentals of what our bodies do and how we are supposed to take care of them. It's all top line. And that's what I realized as an athlete. If you look at all these athletes, I mean, a woman on my soccer team, she had six ACL surgeries and she was still playing. I'm like, do you not realize that when you're 40 years old, you might not even be able to walk?

Right. Right. That grinder type of mentality. And then you look at body image for women as we get older, right? We're using these Botox and these fillers and we're doing all of these things, but it's like, we have not, we have not been able to feel what we feel and know what we know as human beings, because we've been indoctrinated into this consciousness that it is the way that we look. External happiness is everything in life. I also think this, you said education, and I agree that we are not being educated with neutral information or factual information that we can then decide, how does this apply to me? Because we each have different bodies and we respond differently to different things. I think so much of it, and I'm going to put in air quotes, the education that we're getting are people telling us what to do and how to do it.

And that feels opposite of what you're saying. And that's like, there's no one way. Like, we are evolving beings. Like, our bodies are changing moment to moment. So you watch like, you watch the carnivore guy and he's like, this is the only diet. And if you don't do it, you're going to die. It's like, okay, well, what if I'm not type O? You know what I mean? It's so crazy to me because everything in life comes back to the yin and the yang. And in Asia, they talk about this. There

has to be a balance and we're so extreme. And I think that's a lot of my own issue that I'm constantly bumping up against is if you told me to eat salmon for the rest of my life, I would eat it for the rest of my life. Like I'm that person. I'm like, just tell me what to do. Like what, what, what, what's going to keep me in a line? How are my hormones going to be aligned? How am I going to have good energy? Like, and we don't have that. Everyone has an opinion about the way to do it. And I think that's where the fragmentation and confusion comes in. But when we go back to center, a human being is developed, you know, born into this world with emotions, imagination, and feelings. Their bodies, intelligence is like the most, this is a miracle, this machine.

But we've lost connection with it. Yeah. And it's really creating that connection to say, we are in a partnership together, my mind and my body, and I am the driver of this life car. And when I love it, when I have positive thoughts, when I show it gratitude, when I show it love through nurturing it, that means taking a nap maybe or doing a meditation, my body can work at optimal peak performance. Tell me who's teaching us that and our kids. Right. Well, and if we think about teaching our kids that we have to remember

that they're kids, right? So we want to teach them to trust themselves and listen to their bodies and all of that. And you said earlier, you know, we can't obsess over all of their choices or they're going to have their own mental health struggles. And so how do we balance the guiding and the allowing them to have ownership over their bodies and their choices, the teaching with the trusting, right? Like it's the balance, the yin and the yang, because my kid might want to eat candy all day. I don't think she would tell you that that feels good, but she would do it. Yeah. And I always go back into like a human needs to know the why. So I remember when my kids were three years old, I would take them to the store. And there was this one time where my son picked up an Abba Zabba. And I said, okay, let's turn

it over now. And let's look at the back and all the ingredients. And he's like, okay, you know? And I'm like, this word, I don't even know what it means. Like I can't actually read it, but I'm going to go on. I'm going to do some research and I'm going to read to you what that actually is. I'm not joking you. It was like formaldehyde. It's what they put into bodies, like all this stuff.

And you could see that his awareness, like he started to like, go like, I'm not eating that. It was almost like he had the conscious liberation to be like, why would I choose to eat that? So it was really giving him the why. And I, I'm a, you know, previous media exec. I, I've created, you know, media companies and I've, I've sat in marketing media meetings. And unfortunately for all the listeners and Nicole in this conversation, the marketers don't care about our health. Right. They don't.

And the majority of things, again, in America are not legal in other countries. So it's up to us. If we look at Chipotle, I want to know what they're putting in their food. Subway. I was eating Subway every single day as a young entrepreneur. I found out they were using a chemical that they put in yoga mats. Like, what? How is this legal?

And so that's really like it piqued my curiosity that I need to educate myself first and then educate my kids. And I think that was the big thing. Like for candy, for example, going back to the candy is, you know, I teach anything alive. If something comes in a bag, if it comes in a box, if it comes in a can, like think about it, it's traveled from this point to this point. And then it's on a shelf, like, let's break that down. And then we're going to eat that. So I really tell the story through creating this idea and the freedom and the liberation for my kids to make the choice. So I'm like, would you rather have like the bagged candy that came from Minnesota or wherever, through creating this idea and the freedom and the liberation for my kids to make the choice.

So I'm like, would you rather have like the bagged candy that came from Minnesota or wherever, and we're living in California, which had to be on the truck and got heated and all of this. And I have a conversation about it or the raw chocolate, right? That has three ingredients, which is butter, milk, and whatever that they're eating in Europe. That's actually good for you. You know? So it's really giving the, I think the roadmap is so important for us to pique curiosity and expand their awareness through education for them to feel liberated to make their own conscious choice. And how do you feel about – I'm just going to call it a movement. It's probably not. But I think that there is this lean where we're telling kids they're beautiful. Like that's the way we're trying to combat us experiencing a negative body image or being told. And we have all these people running around telling their kids that they're

beautiful. Is that a good way to help encourage a healthy body image? Or are we potentially setting our kids up for failure in that we're reinforcing that the external matters? Here's the thing is I call that love with like, you're actually creating a love with condition type of modality in your kid's life. Because if you're telling them you are beautiful, then they want to get the approval of others. If my mom tells me I'm beautiful, then I'm beautiful. It's not coming from within, you see? So I want you to look in the mirror. And here's another thing is I don't ever tell my kids I'm proud of you. I say you inspire my life. And the reason being is because the language in which we use has a direct effect on their consciousness and how they view themselves. So if I'm running around

telling my daughter she's 13, you're beautiful. There's moments where I'll say like, God, your eyes, they're so radiant or whatever. I want her to discover her own beauty on her own. And I think that's a big problem too, is we overcompensate in the era that we're living in right now that it's actually damaging. Because if someone is constantly told that over and over, they're amazing. They're striving for perfection. Life isn't about perfection. It's about progress. And we have to teach our kids there's going to be some shitty days where you're going to look in the mirror and you're going to be like, you know what? I need to get out. I need to work out. I need to whatever. I'm like, that's the journey. If you think you're going to show up every day

and be beautiful, there's going to be days when you don't feel like doing shit. And that's okay. I couldn't agree more. We say to our daughter, we ask her, how did that make you feel? We want her to get connected to her own experiences and feelings versus us saying, you made me proud. I think that that's so, so, so important is that they get connected to their own experience versus, you know, living for our approval and validation.

And to that point, I just wanted to say something really quick is I was the child that was raised with love with condition. I was the child that always was validated through what I did, not who I was. And where did that leave me? That led me out in the world looking for ways to fulfill myself. And that was maybe through drinking. That was through nightclubs. That was through partying, all men, relationships. I didn't have a roadmap because I was never asked that question. Like, what do you think? How, you know, even in this is for the listeners, even if you want to say you're beautiful, tell me two things today when you looked at yourself in the mirror where you saw yourself like so beautiful. You share with me. The other day I had my kids, I said

three affirmations about your body. What are the three things that you love about your body? They had to write it to me and give it to me the end of the day. I have all these practices to where I'm having them come back home. And it was all that I wanted as a little girl, because you think I really wanted to damage myself and not eat and do all of that. That was a cry for attention. Hello? Like I need a lifeline. Like someone help me, you know? So that's where we get to pave a new way, me and you and the forward thinkers for, for the next generations, which is our children. Lauren, thank you. I feel like we could talk for days and unfortunately, we're out of time, but I want to make sure that our listeners know that if they want to learn

more about you, go to laurenmajors.com and you can find out more about that happy life system, as well as she's offering 20% off the crack the parenting code course, uh, with promo code T I W W. So go find and follow Lauren. We'll put all the information in show notes and definitely check out the happy life system and the crack the parenting code course that she has on our website. Lauren, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is a great conversation. Thank you so much for having me and all the listeners out there. You are worthy and you deserve to live happy. Don't ever forget that.

Amazing, thank you. Okay, I am no expert on having a healthy body image, but I am on the journey. I am practicing. And here's what I know for sure. The answer does not lie in focusing on how our body looks. It lies in how it feels. It lies in how we appreciate and express gratitude towards it.

What if we taught our kids and also ourselves to focus on how our body feels, what it allows us to do, and what it affords us, its health, its strength, and longevity? What if we practiced treating our bodies the way we want to be treated? Prioritize, accept it, listen to, appreciate it, and value it at the highest level. Change always begins with us. It can be no other way. And that is woman's work.