Well with Arielle Lorre - 233: Mental Health Q&A: The Comparison Trap, Body Image, Self Esteem, Children vs. No Children and more with Shrink Chicks

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Emmalee and Jen, licensed marriage and family therapists and hosts of the Shrink Chicks podcast, join the show today to answer your burning mental health questions. We discuss being child free by choice, dealing with infertility grief, how to stop comparing ourselves to others, how to tap into our most authentic self, how to build self esteem, inner child wrk, body image and beauty standards, tips for binge eating and so much more.     For a limited time, Alo Moves is offering my listeners, a free 30-day trial PLUS –get this -50% off an annual membership. But you can only get it by going to ALOMOVES.com and use code BLONDE in all caps.   Visit athleticgreens.com/blondefiles for a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D and 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase.   House of Macadamias is generously giving my listeners an exclusive code to get 20% off your first purchase, so take advantage and visit houseofmacadamias.com/blonde and use code 'blonde'.     Produced by Dear Media.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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would auto-huees-on-sor-sonder-zor Go to your re-sadviseur or sunnycars. The following podcast is a dear media production. Welcome to the Blond Files I'm your host, Ariel Lori, and I'm here to talk all things wellness. From how to achieve optimal

health and well-being to the best beauty tips and everything in between, no topic is off limits. I know there's so much information out there, so I'm bringing on expert guests and sharing my own experiences to help you sift through all the wellness stuff without the BS. Enjoy the show. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. So I do a lot of Instagram, Q&A, whether it's just for Instagram or if it's for topics or questions to answer here on the podcast. And I see a lot of the same themes come up. So usually they revolve around being child free by choice. This is something that I've talked about before and I think a lot of women are considering right now. So that conversely, dealing with the grief or the difficulty of going through infertility,

trying to get pregnant and not being able to or having a lot of challenges in that area, a lot about the comparison trap, a lot about how to have self-esteem, and then of course a lot about like diet culture, body image, beauty standards, binge eating. So I wanted to talk to mental health professionals and have them weigh in on these topics. And I thought that the shrink chicks would be the perfect duo for this because they kind of cut through a lot of psychobabble. And they're also really fun. So I'm talking to Emily Beirley and Jennifer Chakin. They're both licensed marriage and family therapists.

Emily is a marriage and family therapist who specializes in Impartagnation. empowering and healing women. She started going to therapy when she was 12 years old when her eating disorder and self-harm began. And through the next 10 years, she had experiences with amazing therapists and not so amazing therapists, which is a huge part of why she became a therapist in the first place. And she's also an owner and co-founder of the therapy group. And she's very outspoken. She loves to talk everything from sex to parenthood. And then Jennifer is also a marriage and family therapist. She loves helping her clients understand, connect with, and accept their inner experience. We talk a lot about inner child today as well. She became a therapist after years of being told that

her own inner experience and sensitivity was something to be ashamed of. And becoming a therapist helped her to embrace her empathetic nature and channel it towards her passion for helping others. She is also one of the owners and co-founders of the therapy group. And she's really open about her own journey through life, including her choice to be child-free in her marriage. And like I said, we cover that today. So they host a podcast as well called shrink chicks. It's really good. So you guys can check that out. And I already listed all the topics that we get into today. So I will jump into it. And I hope you guys enjoy the shrink chicks. I thought it would be good to do a listener Q&A just because there's so many topics that we could talk about and like hone

in on, but I wanted to get a feel from my audience, like what they're dealing with. And of course, there are a lot of similar themes coming up. So I thought we would kind of break it down and talk about these different themes that are really common among my demographic. And those were eating issues, body image. I also had one around children, fertility, being child free by choice, which I know you are as well. Me too. Comparison. And then I wanted to talk about like inner child work as well. So that was kind of how I wanted to break it down. And then of course, just see where it goes. But to start, can you both just introduce yourselves briefly? Yeah. My name is Emily Beerley. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and a sex therapist. I'm a co-host to the Strictics podcast. And we co-owned

the therapy group, which has locations in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia and Westchester. And then we have amazing virtual clinicians all over the United States. It's been really happy to be here today. So happy to have you. I'm Jennifer Bacon. I'm also a licensed marriage and family therapist and everything that Emily said. We do everything together. And so our introductions are usually the exact same.

Well, I'm really excited to talk to you guys and just delve into these topics. And Jennifer, when I heard you say that you were child free by choice, you've talked about this on your podcast. That was something that I really wanted to talk about because I am as well. And I don't know if you get this, but people seem to look at me different as though there's something wrong with me for not wanting kids, as though I'm missing out on this essential human experience. But I think that it's something that a lot of people are starting to consider for different reasons. So why don't we start by talking about that if you can share your stance a little bit? Absolutely. I completely agree with you that I think it's a hard concept.

for others to wrap their mind around. I think when you're doing anything that feels almost counterculture, that there's this idea that, okay, when you grow up, you get married and you have kids, and this is the exact path that you have to be on. And when you make a choice to do something different, I think that it really can be very uncomfortable for other people. So that's when you get some of the comments like, oh, you'll change your mind. or, oh, but you're missing out, it's a love that you'll never experience and who's going to take care of you when you're older.

You know, we get all of those comments. So I think that there's a lot of discomfort when you do something or make a choice to do something that maybe others haven't allowed themselves to think about, that it just felt like they were on this very specific path. And so I think that's where a lot of the questions come in, a lot of the discomfort comes in. My choice came pretty gradually, I would say. I never had the sense of I can't wait to be a mother. I never. And so I was almost waiting until I got married to see if that would change, until my friends started having kids to see if that would change. And when I've gotten to this specific stage in life and realized that that didn't change, and I feel even stronger about my decision to be child free now, where I can really hold strong in

that stance, but it took, it was a really gradual process for me. I don't know if it was similar for you and your process with it. Yeah. For me, it wasn't something that I ever even thought about until I was about 30. So growing up, I just assumed that my life was going to be one way. I was going to go to college, graduate, get married, have kids, and that was that. And then my 20s were just a complete shit show. I got sober at 28. So everything before that was kind of, It doesn't really count. I did not have kids or marriage or my future on my mind at the time. And when I turned 30, I was a couple years sober and I remember having this existential crisis where I thought 30 was ancient, which I don't think anymore. But I felt like, okay, well, I'm not in a relationship. I'm turning 30. Everyone else is starting to have kids. Should I freeze my eggs? And I was talking to somebody and she said, well, do you eat? even want them. It had never even been something that I considered like that. And it really gave me pause. And I realized, wait a second, exactly like you, it's just not something that I want. And like

you, I kind of went back and forth a little bit on whether I should freeze my eggs just to have the insurance policy because people were telling me that I was going to change my mind. And the older I've gotten, the more confident in that choice I feel. I feel. I feel. And I've gotten, the more confident in that choice I feel. Yeah. But yeah, it is kind of, it is kind of counterculture, I guess. Maybe that I think you're onto something there. Yeah, I think and I think that it is, you know, my dad said the same thing to me. He was like, oh, what if you, you should freeze your eggs just in case, you know, like just in case you change your arms like that. Like, it's not happening. So I think that the pressure from family members, from friends is really real. And we talk about this on our own that, you know, it's, you almost

have to become comfortable kind of vetting those questions from other people because you will get them. I sat next to a very religious woman on the plane once. I ended up having a conversation with her. And she ended up asking me about my choice. She was like, oh, do you have any children? I was like, no, I'm not going to have any children. And her mouth just completely dropped. It was completely alien to her to even think about that. So I just think, I mean, that is a more extreme example. but I think that it just happened so often, and I think you get comfortable over time kind of vetting those questions or those ideas. And the more comfortable you become in your decision, the easier it is to be able to have those conversations with other people.

The funny thing is, is that all the reasons people always say to you, and I watch people have these interactions with a Jen, is that they're always really shitty reasons to have a child, right? Like, oh, well, who's going to take care of you? Like, let's actually really not afford to have a child is for someone to watch you. Save your money and go to a nice home. Right. Like or like, you know, well, what if you miss out of some experience? You know, like, they're just simply never actually good reasons of a point of becoming a parent. And people should like really think about like, why are you choosing to be a parent if you do this? Because there's a lot of reasons that we should do things in this life. A lot of them are very legitimate. But for so many of us, it's just that, well, because I was told I should.

That's not a great reason. Let's question all of the things. things that we were told that we should be doing. Yeah. I remember when I had my realization, I was actually talking to my cousin and I said, I guess I'm just selfish because I really enjoy my autonomy and I don't foresee any circumstances where I would want to give that up. And it's so much deeper than that. It's not just the autonomy. But she said, no, I think the selfish thing would be knowing that about yourself and doing it anyway. And that was kind of. And that was kind of my aha moment, like mic drop. But we love your cousin.

Yeah. I love your cousin. That's the cousin. We know who's your cousin? Let's hang. We want people saying that to us in our life of like, no, actually like if you know certain things about yourself, like let's make decision. Lots of people would say, hey, probably my parent shouldn't have become parents.

Yes. If enough people in our generation knows that, we should probably take a look at why we choose to become a parent. This is something that we talk about with everything we talk about in terms of What's the point of having sex, sexual scripting, parental scripting? What's the point? Why do we do things that we do? And is there with good reason?

Think about the choices you make. Why do we have sex? Yeah. Why do we have sex? It's a good question, right? What is the point of sex? All good questions. Besides enjoyment, I mean, but, you know, that wanes,

abs and flows. That it does. And there's enough people having really bad sex that they actually are just doing it because they think that they should because I owe it to my partner, right? So the same thing. If you're going to say someone who drinks or, you know, uses alcohol, uses and what's the point? Why are we doing these things that we're doing?

Let's start being more intentional and conscious about everything. And I think with that ability to ask ourselves those questions, we get to a point where we can say, am I doing this because society has told me that I should do it? Or am I doing this because I actually want to do this? Am I doing this because of something that it's coming from me? And as therapists, we really help clients and we help our listeners really think about be able to live a very intentional life based on their own choices, not necessarily. Someone else has told you you should live.

Yeah, I think there's so much power in peeling back those layers and the, I don't know, just those, I think we accumulate those throughout our lives, these things that we do because we think we should, because other people are doing them. I know for me, like, getting sober really unraveled all of that for me. And that's why I always say it's kind of my superpower. And I know not everybody needs to get sober or anything like that. But it really enabled me to be my authentic self. And that, I think, is the most empowering thing.

And to your point, therapy, which I've been in therapy the entire time, I've been sober. And prior really helped me to learn who I really am and unpack all of that. So, yeah, I just, I love that. One more piece on the child thing. So kind of on the other end of the spectrum, I did get a few questions from women who have tried to get pregnant, done IVF and all of the things, and have not had any success and are grieving that. Have you run into that with your clients? And do you have any advice? You're sure you didn't do recon about both Jen Nights story. So I have someone who took many, many years to get pregnant. I have a beautiful four-year-old daughter. And I, my four-year-old daughter, I've had three miscarriages. So I have gone through a ton of loss.

I have done fertility treatment. Here's what I would say to so many people, grieve, grieve, cry through pity parties, feel every single thing that you're feeling and take time. The pressure you start to feel when you have this is that I have to figure it out right away. And that was my experience before that I was like, okay, so I have to do every treatment. I have to do every single thing to have this baby girl. It's never going to happen. Life is longer than we think it is. Give yourself time to reflect on what's working for you. If the treatment, right, when you're injecting hormones to yourself, when you are, you know what I mean? Scheduling sex, first of all, kills your sex life with your partner. Absolutely kills your sex life. That shit's horrible.

You're like, oh, I'm ovulated. Let's have the world's worse sex. It's not, it's not a great situation does not help your relationship. It makes you mad at people around you. It makes you very resentful. You do. You become and you really can get into very much a victim mindset with it because it's true. You are having something taken away from you that you want and desire and it truly isn't fair. There's no rhyme or reason of why something happens for someone else and not for us. Then we do get to be incredibly sad about that. But what do we want to do with it? So this is checking with myself for me and my partner on the same stage. Where am I doing the solo? And do I feel like I'm on the same page about that?

Do I feel like I have doctors that I'm working with that I am comfortable with, that I trust, that I feel care for me in this process? Do I need to take breaks with any type of treatment I would say this, right? If you are working on your mental health, take breaks. We are big fans of learning to rest, not to quit. So give yourself time to rest when you are going through something as difficult as fertility issues. and that means I can't attend my friend's baby showers. I don't go to my friend's baby showers, right? Like that might be upsetting.

They might be hurt by that, but your job is to take care of you first. And if you can fit other stuff in, that's really great too. But you to make space for yourself to be in tune with yourself and to realize some of this stuff I'm feeling does have to, especially if I'm taking hormones, all the stuff that affects me. We're so hyper aware of what's going on in other people's lives. And so I would imagine that not being able to get. pregnant, losing a child, anything like that, you feel like you're probably just seeing everybody else's success everywhere that you look.

Well, there's a, and it goes into the conversation about choosing to be child-free because we have been told for a long time that our worth as women matters if you become a mother more. You get more valued in this world if you're a mother. Ironically, only if you're pregnant as you should become mother of the world, kind of scary about you. But, you know, but these two conversations actually go together about. like what how does this like connect with my femininity has this connect with me being a woman do i have to

be a mom to this does it mean that i'm broken if i can't or i choose not to and so we really have to start like taking a look at what those narratives are that we tell ourselves about who we are as women in this world whether it's i'm struggling and i'd like to be a mother or i'm choosing to not be a mother totally intentionally by choice all of this goes into how i feel about myself yeah and i feel like even if somebody does have a baby, there are so many other elements of that, like if they can't breastfeed, you know, I have friends who have not been able to do that. And they feel less than or like something is wrong. So I think that that narrative continues, but in different ways, you know, it manifests in different ways. You're 100% right. I mean, that's what it is, right? All the stuff that we have been told

makes us a woman or makes us successful or makes us, you know, any fill in the black, A, B, or C, we have to de-attach from this idea. What the hell makes you a woman? What the hell makes you right for you, right? We have to start creating those rules for ourselves as opposed to all of the scripts that have been given to us. People ask me all the time what online workout platform or app I like. There are so many to choose from.

But I think there's one that really takes the cake. It's just so comprehensive and obviously this is something that Harley turned me on to. And that is Allo Moves. So Allo Moves is a streaming on-demand wellness platform that features yoga practices, fitness routines, meditation sessions and so much more from one of my favorite brands, Allo Yoga. All of their quality studio style classes inspire me to not only work out but take care of my whole being. So it's really like mind, body, spirit.

And I feel like that enables me to then go out into the world and do what I do best. And they really have something for everybody. So whether you are beginner or you're advanced or if you want yoga or bar, Pilates, cardio, hit classes, there's something for you. They also have relaxing guided meditations. They have sound baths, which I love. They have breathwork, which I've been getting really into lately. And I feel is making a huge difference with my overall anxiety and stress and just keeping my nervous

system more calm. So there's really more than just fitness to Allo Move. So you have to check out their quasha. They have dry brushing face yoga, nutrition classes and so much more. And the best part is you need little to no equipment for all of this. They have tons of fresh content. They have over 100 new classes added every month. Plus they have over 3,000 classes for. for every level beginning to advanced. The best part is you can totally fit it into your schedule. All the classes are on demand. So when I'm short on time, they have meditation and fitness classes

for when I need to squeeze in a workout. And you guys know my breakdown right now is about two to three days of Pilates a day with Harley. And then I'll do something on alo moves. And I like that I can choose something from yoga if I want really low impact to high intensity if I have tons of energy or anything in between and it's hardly approved. So it's not just me that's loving Allo Moves. It was voted Best Wellness App of 2022 by InStyle Magazine and Best Yoga app of 2023 by Women's Health.

So for a limited time, Allo Moves is offering my listeners a free 30 day trial plus, get this, 50% off an annual membership. But you can only get it right now by going to Allo Moves. moves.com and use the code blonde in all caps. So that's a l-o-moves.com and all caps code blonde, B-L-O-N-D-E, to get a free 30-day trial plus 50% off an annual membership. This is a great offer. So definitely stop what you're doing and go to alomoves.com and use the code blonde in all cups. So last night I made chicken thighs in my instant pot. I did Cabotcha squash, roasted in the oven, and I did like sauteed crispy kale. And it was out of this world good. And let me tell you why.

So instead of using olive oil, which doesn't have the highest smoke point or coconut oil that can taste kind of sweet, I used macadamia oil, my latest obsession. Oh my God, you guys, if you are not using macadamia oil for your cooking for your dressing you are seriously missing out so a recent study showed macadamia oil actually has more beneficial effects to overall human health than olive oil or coconut oil its omega-7s have been linked to natural collagen production hello i'm going to drink this stuff increased skin elasticity anti-inflammatory properties and fat loss and like i said It has a high smoke temperature, so it reduces the risk of free radicals, which cause aging that most other oils create when heated during cooking.

And of course, I used my House of Macadamia's macadamia oil. They have a special cold-pressed single-batch macadamia oil perfect for cooking or drizzling over salad. It has this buttery taste that is so delicious. Like, I can't even tell you. It's so good. And now more than ever, I really feel like beauty does begin within. Choosing the right snacks and preparing our food with nutritious ingredients is crucial to maintaining a healthy body and glowing skin.

Of course, I love all the topical things and the treatments and procedures, but those are really a cherry on top because you can do all of that and still not be nourishing yourself. And that's going to show externally. And conversely, if you are nourishing yourself, that is going to just give you that healthy glow that you really can't emulate with any kind of treatment. So you guys know that I also have macadamia nuts to start my day with my macha. I love them because they're the lowest carb nut. They have more healthy fat than even avocado. And they are rich in those rare omega-7s that I talked about before.

So the benefits are totally unique. And House of Macadamia's has the high. highest quality premium macadamias in a range of bars, purified oils and nuts. They are so fresh. They don't have that funky, plasticy aftertaste that a lot of macadamias have. And they are the absolute best quality. So if you're going to eat your macadamias, get your macadamia oils, definitely get it from house of macadamias. Their products don't ever go on sale, but they are very generously giving you guys a code to get 20% off all purchases. So this is exclusive just for you.

So for a really limited time, all first orders will receive a cold pressed extra virgin macadamia oil that's truly one of a kind, totally complimentary when you use the code blonde at checkout. So visit house of macadamias.com slash blonde to begin indulging in health. Again, that's house of macadamias.com slash blonde. I'm not going to lie, I have been feeling pretty chronically stressed lately. I feel like the content machine is never ending. I am constantly on my phone from usually 7 o'clock in the morning on, even when I do stay off for the first like hour or two of being awake. And that is the nature of my work. But I'm really leaning heavily into the habits that support my well-being and make me feel good. One of those habits is literally the first thing that I do when I wake up in the morning,

which is drinking my athletic greens, my AG1. So I have been drinking this for well over a year now. I have actually lost count. And I love it because it is a micro habit that has so many benefits. It eliminates the need to take a million different supplements. If you listen to my last solo episode, then you heard that there are a few things that I take in addition to this. And I do that as needed. So right now I'm experiencing some things that I need extra supplements.

for and so I take them but AG1 really covers so many of the bases that's because it is made with 75 super high quality vitamins minerals and whole food sourced ingredients that deliver benefits like mood immune system and sleep support sustained energy and so much more so by now I'm sure most of you can recite my routine with me but I wake up I go down I do a scoop of AG1 and and then about eight ounces of water. You can also put it in your smoothie or whatever works for you, but I really love the flavor. And I shake it up and I drink it before and sometimes during and after my meditation before I have my macha and I just love it. I feel like I'm giving my body so many good nutrients and vitamins and minerals and all of the things right off the bat. And I've talked about

this before, but it's such a great hack, too, for when I'm traveling. I bring the travel packs, and it's just a great way to nourish myself, especially when I don't really know, like, what I'm going to be eating, when I'm going to be eating, if I'm going to be eating anything really nutritious or not. So if you want to take ownership of your health, today is a good time to start. Athletic Greens is giving you a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. Go to athletic greens.com slash blonde files. That's athletic greens.com slash blonde files. Check it out. Yeah, another big question or a big topic that repeated itself in the Q&A was comparison. And kind of to that point and to what I was saying before, we're so aware of what is going on in

every other person's life. We know what they're eating. We know their second cousin's kids' names. We know about their promotions. How can we, detach from not only what we think we should be doing, what other people are doing, but how can we just stay in ourselves and in our own lives? We talk a lot about this in terms of social media and conscious consumption that typically when we're struggling with something within ourselves, right, when we feel less than in some way, we feel like we're lacking in some way. We might hop on social media and the things that we cling on to are the things that we don't feel like we have. The things that we remember are the things that we don't feel

like we have in our lives. And there's some sort of mechanism that happens that we feel like, okay, if I get on social media and I see these things, I see these beautiful homes when I'm trying to remodel my home, that maybe it will give me some sort of fulfillment or something. Or I hop on social media and I see that all my friends are having kids, that maybe it'll give me like some sort of like connection to this. But really what it does is it creates. creates this sense of comparison that makes us feel like shit about ourselves. And so to say the least. And so the thing that we love to talk about is be really aware in your, whether it's on

social media, whether you're with your friends, whether you're out in the world. Be really aware of how that consumption of these things is affecting you. Because we tend to hop on social media and we're doing it that we're mindlessly scrolling, right? We're just on there trying to fill some time, feel some time. feel some boredom, and we don't really give, we don't really take into consideration how that's following is effective. So being very intentional and conscious about what you are taking in is really important and recognize how is this affecting me? Is this serving me in some way? When I get on

social media, is this giving to me or is it taking from me? And if you can take that inventory of the things in your life that are taking from you, then you get to make a decision. Do I want to take time off social media. Do I want to create a new social media where I'm following different people? Do I want to stop following certain people? Do I want to not go to certain events that are affecting me? So being really conscious about what you're consuming is really, really important and making sure you're taking that inventory and then making adjustments accordingly. And you can say to yourself, I'm going to take 24 hours off and see how I feel. I'm going to take 48 hours off and see how I feel. I'm going to try to do this fake account and follow stuff and see how I

feel, right? Some of this is going to be trial and error, but we do not need to know the amount of shit that we know now. I don't need to know my second cousin's kid's name. I really truly don't. Lovely, great for them, cute pigtails. This doesn't matter to my life at all. And so if you're to actually take inventory about what matters to my life and what am I doing, if I made a list of all of my values and then I made a list of how much time I spent on each one. I have a feeling that social media does not come up at all in your values, but I have a feeling that relationships do. So do my relationships get better with that consumption, right? So like truly do this activity. What's my values? What's the time I spend on each thing? Because if I'm spending more time

on social media than in relationships in my life or I'm spending time on social media and then I fight with my partner when I get off because I saw so-and-so's partner bought them a new Jeep for Valentine's. This didn't fucking happen. But like, how nice would that be? Yeah. Doesn't everyone secretly? Actually. Okay. Okay. But also, did you ever see that skit where your husband came home with a new car without asking you? How pissed would you be? I'd be really pissed. I would be pissed. Pissed that they spent that much money. Pissed I didn't get a say on the interior in the next year. Right. Yes.

And whatever that looks like. So like if, but like think about that. If I go and I look at all this stuff, and we always tell ourselves you're doing it for inspiration. This goes back to so many of us that grew up in the 90s that followed inspiration. So how many people put pictures, cut out from magazines of very, very skinny women on our fridge? And our moms did this shit too, right? This is a long thing.

So we keep thinking that if we shame ourselves, it'll make us change. That is not how emotions work. work. When know it makes change, motivation, and routines. And mastery, self-esteem. Self-esteem comes for mastery, learning something feeling proud about yourself. It has never once come from shame. It just doesn't. It might for a week. It might motivate me for a week to do something, but then that's going to fall apart. Yes. It's really true that people believe that, okay, if I beat myself up, then maybe it'll get me to do something different. That's like a huge, I think that's a huge misconception. and really what happened, it just makes us feel so bad about ourselves.

And which seeps into us and keeps us from actually feeling motivated to do those things. When you were starting to really do work on yourself, we can talk about this in terms of in their child work, you're doing a healing work. This is why we ask people to go three generations back. Because how my parents, parents, parents did me and how their parents' parents in them and how my grandparents were parents, this all affects us and matters. Somebody asked me, how much influence. our parents actually have on our lives and our lives as adults. And I mean, I would imagine that

it would kind of determine like everything. But I could be wrong. So I have so there's a few other things, right? So there's a biological component, which is actually, there's a lot of size that goes into this. But basically the egg that you came from was in your grandmother's body. So everything your grandmother went through, you actually went through as well. So there was a ton of of influence, but here's the coolest thing. You get to change it at any time. If we do not do the work to make it different, then yes, our parents have a massive amount of influence. If we decide to look at it, change it, and do the work around this, doesn't have to be. We get to control that, actually. Yeah. And what happens is that I think that when we're growing up and maybe we have a more

difficult childhood or we have a difficult relationship with our parents, you know, a coping mechanism can be, I'm going to push this down and not deal with this because I don't want them to have influence over my adult life, right? If I look at this, then it means I'm admitting that they have some sort of influence. And what happens is when we don't look at it, they actually have more influence over our decisions than the things that we're doing and our reactivity than if we were to acknowledge it and look at it and be able to work through it. That is when you actually gain more control over whatever is happening internally for you, the triggers that come up for you, when you're actually able to look at it and say, how did this affect me? And how is this affecting

me now in my relationships? And so we feel like we have this false sense of control. If we're like, I'm just going to push this down and pretend this didn't happen. But what happens when we do that is that it actually has more influence over our lives than if we were to actually look at it. I can understand that. It's like what you resist persists, like as cliche as it is. Something that I heard in therapy, though. But it kind of applies to, I feel like, any uncomfortable emotion, really. I think it's something that so many people deal with. And the instinct is to avoid it and resist it. And when you do that, it just snowballs, it seems like. And we always, we always talk about this because we have. clients come into our office and they say, can you just get rid of my anxiety, right? Like, can you just make me not feel this? And we get questions all the time on our podcast. How do I not feel this? And the fact of the matter is when you try to not feel something, it gets even stronger. And so it's not about not feeling it. It's about acknowledging it and finding ways to nurture yourself through those

feelings, right? Maybe you're giving to yourself in ways that you were never giving. before. Maybe your parents weren't able to give you these coping mechanisms. Maybe your parents weren't able to help you nurture yourself through these emotions. But you get to reparent yourself now as an adult. And so for you to be able to do that to acknowledge your emotions and say it's okay, it allows you to accept them and find that radical acceptance for them to actually be able to manage them as opposed to push them away. And is that like inner child work? In our child work, it's radical acceptance, it touches on everything. And so I think that inner child work is a huge, a huge thing that we discuss is that we take coping mechanisms from when

we were a child, things that were once survival for us. And we bring them into adulthood. And there are things that they were once so helpful for us in order to survive as children. But in adulthood, they're no longer serving us. So reparenting that inner child, child is being able to say, it is okay that you develop these coping mechanisms. They were once so helpful for you. And now let's look at them and see if they're still helpful. And if they're not, how can we implement different ways of coping? And how can we take care of you in ways that you weren't taking care of growing up? So here's an example of what that might look like. Let's say that I grew up in a home where my parents fought a lot. High conflict. Too high stress, wonderful

parents, but they had their shit, right? They fight a lot. They fight a lot. And one of the things that I am able to do is make everything better. So I make a lot of jokes. And I'm always the one to be like, oh, guys, it's fine. Or I make sure everything's washed. I try to take stress off their plates because I want this conflict to end. Now, I bring that same thing that was incredibly helpful in my childhood to keep everything moving and to make us all survive.

I bring that into my relationship. And all of a sudden, I'm mothering someone. All of a sudden, I'm married to someone. I resent the shit out of them. I'm the good person. I do everything for everyone. And then I actually want to kill that fucker. Because what you learned in childhood to keep the family system afloat is now impacting into adulthood of enabling other people.

This story is time and time and time. Right? We hear it specifically, you know, for people that grew up in houses where there was conflict, where there was addiction, whereas people that were working a lot, where there was divorce going on, all the stuff that we know is happening. For so many of us now, there were millennial adults, what am I doing now that looks similar to my childhood and how does it feel for me now? I feel like we all just probably reenact our childhoods in some way until we come face to face with it.

And maybe sometimes, like, if somebody has a super healthy environment, it doesn't become an issue. But I feel like we all have something. Like, I had a really good childhood. But I've been in therapy my whole life. dealing with things. You know what I mean? And there was nothing like my parents were together. My mom stayed at home. My dad is a doctor. So he worked a lot, but he wasn't like absentee. You know, I had a really good upbringing, like nothing. But there are dynamics there that I feel have carried over into adulthood and things that I've had to confront. I mean, does anybody like just skate through and they reach adulthood? And they're like, no issues here. Yes, and those people then end up having huge breakdowns in their own. So, yes.

So people exist. It's buried down very, very deep and it comes out at worst times. Got it. Got it. Now in your 20s and 30s, please, dude, I love a breakdown in your 20s. Do it then. Get sober in your 20s. Get you together in your 20s because then you could actually enjoy your 30s and 40s.

Yes. If you keep this shove down so far, it will come out later. That is simply how this works. And I think, I think, I think one of the reasons that people tend to do that is they feel like, okay, if I acknowledge that there were some struggles in my childhood, or maybe we had certain dynamics that weren't beneficial to me, that it somehow feels like they're betraying their parents to admit that. When you can acknowledge that your parents did the best that they could with what they had, and there were still certain dynamics that affected you.

Both things can be true. And to know that it's not a betrayal. of your parents to be able to say, hey, there were certain things that were done that maybe didn't benefit me in my childhood in the ways that I needed it to. And so that, that I think is a really important thing to bring up if someone's listening to this and saying like, oh, it's been hard for me to acknowledge it. That it doesn't mean your parents are bad of people. It doesn't mean that they did something wrong. It just means that maybe they weren't able to give you what needed because maybe their childhood was like that, right? They didn't have the tools to be able to give that to you. they don't have the tools to give that to themselves. And so they were unable to give it to you.

It does not mean that your parents were bad people. No, it's such a misconception about therapy. And it's just like going and blaming your parents for everything. Because also a lot of us have childhood wounds, not from our family of origins, but something that happened at school or something in society, right? You grew up in the 90s. Oh, you have some issues with food because everyone had 100 calorie packs and that was normal. Snack whales. Snack whales. Right. Because snack whales was the trade of choice, right? And so like everything's 100 calorie packs and everything was no fat anywhere, which actually fast that bad feet, right? All this stuff. So like it doesn't always have to do with what happened at home.

And so I think a lot of people are worried about going into therapy and is like, that's going to hurt my relationship with my parents or what if I realize something? It's not like that. We are not trying to bring up memories that you don't have. That's like that's, you know, that's a cult. That's not what therapy is. Therapy is who do you want to be now? How do we want to address these things. What goals are you working towards? Yes, there's probably some early childhood shit that we're going to come up with. That doesn't mean we have to blame and attack everyone. Most parents are doing their best. And a lot of times, their best wasn't enough for us. And that's not their fault. And it's not ours. It's just life. Yeah. I love that.

Who do you want to be now? Because I think there's another misconception about therapy that you go when your life is bad or when there are bad things happening. And I feel like I've gotten the most benefit out of therapy, actually, when things are going pretty well. And I can kind of focus on more of that, like, okay, what am I doing? Where do I want to be? And who do I want to be? And like, unpacking all of that rather than dealing with maybe some of the issues, you know, that have been more painful, although that's very helpful too. But, okay, so I did want to talk about the eating and body image component. Like you said, I think that it's so deeply ingrained in all of us just from the messaging that we've been getting our entire lives. I've talked about it on here

before. I remember the first time I was kind of aware of my body. I must have been like 10 or 11. I mean, so young. I'm sure you guys had a similar experience. But I remember maybe freshman year of high school, so 13, 14, going on the cabbage soup diet. This was really big when I was a teenager. And I was a twig to begin with. I mean, I only lasted like a day. It was terrible. But it's just so crazy to think about that. You know, I see people, I see girls that age now and I'm like, oh, and now I feel like

it's even worse because I didn't have social media back then. Thank God. But, you know, it seems to be an issue that women struggle with every time I do a Q&A. So many of the questions are body oriented, weight oriented, food oriented. So many people are struggling with emotional eating, binge eating. So let's just dive into that one. So most what we know is on average young girls start asking to go on diets around five, six years old, five, six years old. No five or six year old should be on a diet. Five or six is when children, when young girls specifically, I believe that young boys experience

the same thing. We just have research or data about girls, not boys. Unfortunately, that's always how it is. I'd like to save the record. I know plenty of men that have struggled with disorder eating and eating disorders. This is very prevalent with males as well. But the reality is that we live immersed in diet culture. Cabbage soup diet, the master cleanse, the freaking hot dog army diet. I mean like the amount of disgusting things that you're like, I did all this stuff because like what? I was obsessed with losing five pounds. Like how mean girl in the body? I just want to lose five pounds. Is butter or carb? And we keep having these same things because like it was it doesn't work. But one thing that diet culture has stolen from us is the ability to joyfully

eat and be able to stop eating and move our bodies. Because for so long, especially if you're someone who did like a ton of restricting your diet, you often then didn't have a healthy relationship with exercise. And exercise is one of the best things for us. But it gets taken away with diet culture. And so it's really hard to then be an adult and to be able to like actually have like focus on what we call like gentle nutrition. So the ability that like, yeah, you should eat some fruits and vegetables. You just should. They're good for your body. It makes sense. We should enjoy these things. But for so long, I didn't let myself have anything or I was told that fat is bad or sugar is bad or any of these things we keep going with. And it really makes it hard to live in the state of

the world because it also makes hard to say like, okay, well, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do diets anymore. I'm going to focus my body. And then. you walk down an aisle in a supermarket and there's a million ads or there's now every weight loss of every celebrity is on a weight loss drug that nobody else really has an option to go towards because they're not meant for us and we're seeing some really unrealistic standards set for us here's the number one thing I can say if you find that you have a lot of food rules or you struggle with binge eating number one thing is but I want you to get a health at every size a haze aligned dietitian we need support with eating when it has been ripped

from us. There's nothing wrong with getting supports. Having an amazing dietitian that you work with, have someone who does a joyful movement work. And there's lots and lots of folks that do this, that you go to their workout class. And it's not talking about losing weight. It's talking about getting strong. Surround yourself by people that are doing that and interrupts diet culture for yourself and for other people all the time. If you were sitting at a table and people are talking about wanting to lose five pounds, hey, walk away, go to the bathroom. Hey, let's talk about something besides dieting, right? Interrupt that.

And for yourself, when you do it, call it out. If you notice that you're tearing yourself down for your part with your body, especially if you're on social media, take a break from social media, interrupt those destructive thoughts and say, what's this really doing for me? Am I drinking, feeding, I'm moving my body the way that is the healthiest thing and that's good for me? Let's take a look at that. And so I think the reason, but the reality is, is that we are, If you grew up in 80s, 90s, and the aughts, you were traumatized by diet culture.

Our moms were all of our moms. I mean, I had a mom that lived on freaking slim fast, Nutris system. You know, like my house was all slim fast on time. My grandmother. Nutri system, yeah. Nutris system, right? My grandmother had slim fast in her fridge for everything. Everyone's mom was on Weight Watchers.

So you're around this, it seeps into your soul. It normalizes it. It's not a problem. I feel like it's almost more. city as now, though, because you can say, okay, I'm not going to subscribe to the diet culture. I'm not going to follow the diet accounts and I'm not going to buy the diet food. But then you're still getting those kind of subtle inputs. I mean, if you go on TikTok and, you know, your TikTok, if you're on your 4U page, it's a crop shoot what you're going to get. Yeah.

You know, maybe you follow like a Kylie Jenner who, you know, says, oh, yeah, I'm like working out twice a day, but also has all of these other things going. on and you're seeing what people are eating. You're seeing people's day-to-day habits. And I feel like, even if you think that you are controlling those inputs, it's still seeping in to your, your consciousness in these other more subtle ways, maybe. So here's what I would say. I believe nothing. I believe nothing. I don't believe. And I say that in a way of like, I don't believe a single celebrity, do not tell me, like, don't sell people this idea, first of all. They're like, oh, if you just work out and eat healthy. First of all, majority of the shit's genetics. If you're in a large body, it's probably because you're genetically in a large body. And you can do the exact same.

Jen and I eat basically the same thing. We heard very, very different bodies. But Jen and I can eat the entire same thing every single day. It's just going to look different. That's it. And so when we start looking at these celebrities, first of all, if you have time to work out twice a day and you have someone cooking your food and you're on, and you're on diabetes medication, And you're getting plastic surgery, allegedly. Right. The shit is not accessible. And the reality is, and I do.

I have a lot of anger towards many of these celebrities who have sat here and been like, oh, body positivity. And now they're taking all of the diabetes medication that people actually need. This is a huge problem. So when I see this, believe nothing. I'm telling you the truth. Believe in the people in your team. Your doctor that you talk to, a dietitian, trainer, people that work with that see what you're doing.

you can't follow anyone else. We have all very, very different bodies. Do you have a care team that supports you in what's happening? And the reality is moving towards intentional weight loss, we do not have data the supports that it works. We have data that supports that working on strength, that eating well, taking care of yourself, helps your mental health,

that makes your body stronger and fitter. We don't have any data. 95% of diets fail, and you gain that weight back times two afterwards. Yeah, I feel like I've had a lot of experts from dietitians to doctors who are in this field who have said that the biggest predictor of weight gain is a diet. Well, we all grew up, it was so normalized. The thing is I think, though, is that we're just feeding ourselves up about it.

So for all those people that write in, I'm sure you get these questions time and time and time again. How you take care yourself, do you have a care team that takes care of you as well? Do you feel good in what you're doing? The habits that you want to change, where is that information coming from inside or outside? Because don't compare yourself to someone on the internet who actually is just taking diet pills behind the counter because no shit they look like that. They're on drugs. And the genetic component. I mean, I think that's so important. Most of it is genetics, you know, and I've always said that to people whenever they would ask, like, well, how did you? do this? How did you do that? I'm like, I don't know. It's just the way my body is. And some people

hate hearing that. But that is a really important component. And I think back to, you know, who we're following and conscious consumption, I think if you are feeling really bad about yourself and you're following people who are just one way and maybe unfollow, I cleanse my follows all the time. I follow like 400 people and I don't scroll or anything. So that is one habit that I have. have down that like really enhances my life though, you know. But I'm obsessed with something you just said, which is like when you know different, you do different. Like you don't know what you don't know.

Everyone was following everyone else. Everyone's try your best. It's one of the reasons why we like come from such a non-judgmental approach to your parents, to your rippers, to everyone around you. Like everyone was just trying to figure shit out. So at the time, that was something was also probably helpful for your sobriety. It was helpful for you. taking accountability.

Like those are all amazing things. And like once again, like we can sit here and say like, okay. But then I realized that some of it was disordered and it wasn't the healthiest thing to do. And we change it and we make it different. And we don't have to hate ourselves or take it out on ourselves. You get to change any single day you want. You get to make that the day you change your life. That's the coolest thing.

Do you have a tip for anybody who is struggling with emotional eating or binge eating? because I think that it's such an easy thing to fall into. And I know that therapy, obviously, as a whole, is a great tool for this. And I love what you said about seeing a dietitian. I don't know if you guys know Vanessa Rosetta. She has the company, Kalina Health, and she's been on my show quite a few times. And her company is covered by insurance. And she was like, you go see a therapist for your mental health.

Like, why doesn't everybody go see a dietitian? And if you're struggling with your relationship with food, like there are people here to help you. So the number one tip is you're probably not eating enough, actually, the rest of the day. Usually it starts happening. You start having subject stressing emotion, but also your body typically starts having hunger cues around that time. So usually there's like a larger sense. It's one of the reasons why you do need to see a dietitian. We love clients that are also working with dietitians.

It makes our job easier. And we hate to say that, but it's really true. Because if they can sit there and track it, typically what we're to see is you didn't eat enough during the day, you had distressing emotions that you did not want to feel. And so you numb it out and you start eating because you're actually fucking hungry. You do want to eat, but then the difficulty of stopping. And so it's really hard because most of us, especially if you were someone who was a chronic dieter, you got rid of hunger cues and full cues. And so one of the reasons why you have to work with a dietitian to get that back is we want our bodies to give us hunger cues again and to tell us

when it's satisfied, not just full, but satisfied. I'm done eating. I love. it, and enjoyed it, it felt really good because food should be awesome and eating should be awesome. But for most of us, we very much damage that relationship. So check in with yourself before you're about to eat. Check in with what is my hunger level. Same thing, 15 minutes in, how do I feel? Where is my hunger level? Am I satisfied? Am I still hungry? Slowing down meal times to check in with yourself about how you're feeling. And then at the end, am I truly satisfied? There's a difference between satisfaction and fullness. And this is something dietitians work with you with. I cannot recommend starting with what enough. Okay. I'm curious if there is a theme or a topic that you see the most,

that maybe would be unexpected. Or is it just everything that we've been talking about? So a few things. It depends what age people are coming in. And I think we have really specific theme, right? So like a lot of times in your 20s, it's identity formation, boundaries, family, of origin. A lot of times in your 30s, it is relationship skills and communication, which also goes back into family of origin and boundaries. I think the things that people don't realize that we see so much of is grief and grief not just in death, but just the grief of my identity, especially friendship breakups. I cannot tell you the amount of time processing with friendship breakup more than romantic breakups. We need to give more space. We need to give more space.

for when our friendship ends and giving space because I can see that like right so ending so like grief not just about death I think is the one thing people don't realize is so formative grief of like even if I there's even a grief of choosing to be child free of like oh do I still fit into my friends that had kids or what if they stop hanging out with me as much because I don't have kids right so there's certain stuff that when someone else takes away that control I would think that's a big one jett what do you think is the theme that comes up that you're most surprised about The theme that I'm most surprised about, I think the thing that, I don't know if it's surprised, but the thing that I think is very consistent, but changes over time is life stage transitions,

like how we're constantly having to transition our roles as we get older and we get into different stages in our relationships. And I think that it's easy to believe that when we're in one stage that it's going to stick or it's going to stay. And then, and this touches on the grief example in a way because we also have to grieve when those stages end and then readjust when we're starting a different life stage. So I think that we are in this constant state of kind of grieving the end of something and starting something new. And I, you know, as we get older, if you have children, if you are entering into new relationships, that can happen very quickly. It can also happen very slowly. Sometimes it can

happen out of the blue. And so I think that this constant state of grieving and then readjusting to a new life stage happens so often, but we don't really think about it in that way. We tend to just react to the place that we're in and not be able to see it as this Evan flow. Yeah. And I feel like we're all so distracted, but so many of us probably aren't acknowledging any of that. Myself included, sometimes I go through phases where I'm like, whoa, how did I get here? Like what just happened the last six months, you know? It's so much easier to distract herself. Yeah.

It feels so much better to actually. It does until it all boils over. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. I like to ask my guests, one thing we should stop doing and one thing we should start doing today can be related to mental health or really anything. I would say the one thing that you should stop doing is,

being so hard on yourself. I think that we talked about this earlier in the episode that we are quick to be judgmental towards ourselves. We are quick to be hard on ourselves if we are not needing a standard or if we make a mistake. And I think that the one thing I think we should definitely stop doing is being so hard in judgmental towards ourselves. And that will in turn transition into you being less hard and judgmental towards other people as well. Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of the ire and vitriol that people encounter on the internet is a lot of people really hating themselves and judging themselves and taking it out on other people. Exactly. Okay, I have one for one thing that you just stopped doing is putting your head in the sand. If something's not working in your life, you can start changing that today. And I'm not meaning you have to change everything in one day, but you can start taking small steps. So take your head up. Look around. Whatever you want to change, start one thing today.

Amazing. Well, I had so much fun talking to you both. Thank you so much for coming on. Tell everybody about your podcast and where they can find you. You can find us. You can listen to us at shrink chicks, wherever you get your podcast. You can follow us to Shruchicks on Instagram. If you are looking to be a match with the clinician, we'd love to help you. We always want to help someone on the therapeutic journey. We own a wonderful practice called The Therapy Group. Check us out thetherapycom. The Therapy, G-RP on Instagram. you are local to Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, we have locations in written house in Westchester, Pennsylvania. And if you are in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Florida, at California, we'd love to match you with a clinician. If we're not in one of those states, still reach out. We have a list of amazing clinicians we refer to. We never want anyone to be turned away.

We'd love to help you on your journey no matter what. Thank you so much for having us on today. Thank you. We appreciate it so much. I hope you enjoyed that episode. And if you liked it, And if you like the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes a long way, and it's actually the best way to support the show. Also, if you want to see more about each episode, you can head over to The Blonde Files podcast on Instagram. You can go to Arialore.com. And I'm always posting about each episode over on my personal page at Arial Lori.

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