Bringing compassion to the self-talk about your body

Fiona: 00:02

We often think of wellbeing as one-dimensional. What if we look at it from a different perspective?

Josephine: 00:08

The possibilities are endless. All we have to do is step outside the square.

Let's walk this walk together and hold on tight for the ride.

Fiona: 00:16

My name is Fiona. I'm a corporate wellness facilitator, body image and eating psychology coach and a lover of joyful experiences.

Josephine: 00:24

And I'm Josephine, a dietitian, somatic release therapist and a recovering people pleaser and perfectionist.

Fiona and Josephine: 00:30

Welcome to Outside the Square.

Fiona: 00:35

Hello hello

Josephine: 00:38

Today we are talking about kindly bringing compassion to our self-talk, whether it be food or body, let's see when we go.

Fiona: 00:48

Self-talk is such an interesting topic, isn't it? I think it really underpinned everything. It's how we are in relationship with ourselves, it’s all about the messages that we are giving back to ourselves and for many of us there is a self-talk that is not being as supportive and encouraging as it could be.

So, yeah, excited to dive into how we can have self-talk with ourselves in the same way that we talk with others, you know, thinking about how you talk to your best friend, you always have compassion for your best friend. Gift that self-talk to have compassion for ourselves

Josephine: 01:36

Yeah, and you can catch it at that point before you start going down that negative spiral you know, it's so quick for that to happen and I had that happen really recently, last month. I started to go on that negative spiral of my body again, I haven't done it for many years. I've had about, well since about the age of 13 of having negative body thoughts, but I've healed it quite a few times over my lifetime and then it's like it’s ugly head popped up again because I had to try a bridesmaid dress on where I'd be standing next my sisters and you know, your sisters, I'm so lucky to have them. I've experienced unconditional love from other women and they are there for me no matter what, like, that makes me emotional to think about it.

Yet, when you are there, pimply awkward, teenager whose body is changing really fast and you have siblings with the same age to compare to, especially beautiful sisters… that just came back to the surface, I felt like an embarrassed teenage again, having put on this dress that may not fit, it was… but yet the spiral started so quick and it really had to catch myself.

Fiona: 02:55

Yeah, it's easy to go down there, isn't it? It's easy to blame yourself around that as well, but that blame kind of piece comes in and that comparison piece. I would say I've had the same with, I'm the middle child of two sisters, I've got two other sisters and older one and the younger one and yeah, there's always that sense of, well, you know, why do they look different to the way that I do?

And yet they don't care what I look like, they just lost me for me. So how can I shift that for myself?

Josephine: 03:30

And whether you have sisters or not, we know this sister wound. We know what it feels like to walk into a room full of women feeling uncertain, less than, self-conscious and yet those judgments towards us, being so hyper-focused on ourselves I guess, in that situation. It's like you’ve got your heart armour on, and it's really hard to dissolve that and actually be present with the other woman in the room and connect.

This is a big thing this negative self talk, it will stop you from being open and connecting with the people that you feel their jealousy towards or that comparison towards.

Fiona: 04:12

I think you tap onto a really important point there because it's about what that underlying feeling is when we're in that negative self-talk space and it's that comparison, as you say it might be jealousy, it might be that sort of spite feeling, and so it's sort of understanding that that might be what's going on there.

And actually what's happening is a reflection into the way you're talking about yourself. So you might actually have exactly what that other person has or that other woman has, but you're not able to see it because you're sitting in that self-talk. You have the control to be able to move past that and make that connection.

Josephine: 05:03

Yeah, the emotion that's coming out for me is shame. Like so many of us have shame around parts of our body. Disgust, embarrassment can sort of describe a too, but shame is such a shut down emotion and when we feel that we do close everyone else out and we do contract and go inwards.

And... Yeah, it's really like you don't want to be seen and you're hiding yourself and I know for me when I was growing up, what that shame felt like is ‘if I don't look the same as my sisters or my mother did when she was younger, then I don't belong and I'm never going to belong, I’m never going to be enough if I can't do this’, as if it was within my control and, yeah, that shame is something that persists into adulthood that we do, we learn how to feel shame when we're in childhood and it does come up in certain situations whether you're still that teenager or not.

Fiona: 06:06

If we think about the way bodies change over time as well, that can be a huge thing that brings some of those feelings back again and that comparison ‘well, why has my body changed in this way?’ when it doesn't seem like other people are, or ‘why can't I do this, you know, thing that I might be’, I find this certainly when I go to my aerial classes, is that there are some people who can just get a move really quickly, and I'm like, ‘why can't I do that?’ and it's because just our bodies are different, and I had the experience just last night actually, we got taught a new move, and no one could do it, and I just did it, and everyone was like, ‘oh my gosh, you did it’ but it just highlights how we are in fact all so different, and in our abilities, and in the way our bodies are and the gifts that they bring forward, that rather than staying in that place of deficiency where we're saying, ‘why can't I do that?’ or ‘why can't I look like that?’ or ‘I don't like this about myself, I don't like that about myself’ can we shift into that space of just understanding that that's different for different people and being… Having that sense of gratitude and that sense of celebration for the things that you can do while still working on the things you may be struggling with.

Rather than saying, ‘oh, I can't do that move’ in the aerial classes that I do, I try and start to add the word ‘yet’ at the end of that. ‘I'm not able to do that yet’ and maybe it's a move that I'll never master, but that opening or that possibility of saying yet allows us to open rather than constrict and shut downa nd I think that a really valuable part of this is how do we open and leaving that possibility there for maybe ‘I don't like everything right now… yet’.

Josephine: 08:24

Yeah, you make a really good point. This is not about trying to be perfect or feeling good about ourselves all the time, by no means, but yeah that word ‘yet’… Like I’ve started to… like when I was working through this body wound that came up I started to think ‘what would it feel like to walk into that wedding wearing this bridesmaids dress with so much love for all the women in that room with?’ It wasn't even about me walking taller or me feeling better in my body but with just being totally present and in the love of that moment and in doing so, I think when you do that, then that helps your confidence too because you are showing up as a whole person. You're not showing up as the person that's worried about whether you can breathe in the dress. Yeah, it just shifts that focus to ‘what would this lovingness feel like to everyone in the room’ and in doing so coming back to myself to dissolve this heart armour that have put around myself to protect me.

Yeah, ‘can I let those walls down and let the good things my life back in?’ To be able to enjoy the mundane things, being present and every day without letting this hang up, get to me.

Fiona: 09:49

And that can be a really hard thing to do. When we don't feel safe in our bodies, when we might have experienced chronic pain, we might struggle to be in our bodies. It can be hard to have that space and have that opening and have that sense of love that comes towards us, but I love the reflection that you had there, Josephine in saying actually, what if I felt that towards everybody else and then bring myself into that as well?

Josephine: 10:28

Yeah, and you're right. These emotions are there as a protection mechanism. They might be old and outdated, but if I got into a conversation with my shame about how my body looked, it was trying to protect me. It was trying to make me, I guess, walk out of a situation which felt overwhelming and just spend some time with me to get away from the comparison, which felt so detrimental to me, but now, you know, now I'm ready to dissolve that again.

Fiona: 10:58

It's so true, it’s about I guess that understanding of ‘what is the that I'm not going be trying to protect myself from?’

Josephine: 11:05

Yeah

Fiona: 11:06

That's really going to be a really valuable space to work and that might not be easy to see or to understand, but to ask that question, ‘what is it that I'm trying to protect myself from?’

Josephine: 11:27

Yeah, because if we push that shame away or the embarrassment or the disgust, we're just going to be saying the same place, like it is about bringing it in and starting to, yes, see it and understand why it’s there. Try and get into a dialogue with it, I know you and I both teach our clients this is actually how to have a conversation where we start to dig deeper into why this was there and in my instance, I didn't want to be rejected. I don't want to be alone. I wanted to belong. And as soon as you have that aha moment, it’s like, right, this is about belonging. How do I foster that belonging within myself first? and that does come from changing our talk, changing the language, as you were saying Fiona.

Fiona: 12:14

I love that for you it was around that belonging piece and that aspect I think for me, it was around not being good enough. I wasn't good enough for other people and that was the self-talk that I had. My body wasn't good enough, it didn't look good enough, it wasn't attractive enough, and that was then around that work around what, what is good around me and what do I like about myself and I quite often see other people and think, ‘oh my God, they look awesome’…

Someone is saying that about you. And we all say, oh no, I don't believe that, but I reckon it's true. I reckon you are always somebody else's, ‘oh my god, she's amazing’.

Josephine: 13:02

And when I say that, what I'm often saying that too is like this magnetism in someone who steps into her room feeling great in their zone, like you can feel the essence like radiating from them and I'm like, ‘I want some of what she's got’. It doesn't matter what size or shape or colour body she's in, I just want that, I want that magnetism and that essence and some of that fun. It's palpable, isn't it?

Fiona: 13:35

It is and it doesn't have to be out there and extroverted. If you're thinking this is all about enthusiasm and like showing up and being the loudest one at the party or in the space or when you're in those spaces. It's not. It is about being centred. It's just about the energy that you radiate out.

Josephine: 13:57

Yes.

Fiona: 13:58

And that is palpable whether you are being loud and enthusiastic or whether you are just, holding yourself and chatting with someone in the corner, maybe.

Josephine: 14:12

Yeah, or not saying anything, like this energy is felt without words. You're so right. It's a silent energy. The energy of confidence.

Fiona: 14:22

Yeah. One of the ways that we can start to build that is really just to begin that path of acceptance for where our body is at and that can be a really hard thing to do, but starting to think about expressing gratitude toward our body for all the things they do for us and being able to really sit with your body and yourself.

Josephine: 14:59

And what's some of the language that you've fostered, the positive language towards your body, Fiona?

Fiona: 15:07

Probably it is more of a gratitude. It's… Because I think sometimes when we think about that positivity or body love, we feel like it has to be overwhelmingly positive and for me, that is not always the way that it shows up.

It is more of an acceptance more than anything else, so it is a gratitude, is a thank you, you know, ‘thank you to my thighs for holding up my legs’. ‘Thank you to my tummy for, you know, protecting my inner organs’. For many women, it is ‘thank you to my belly for growing another human’ and the magic that comes for that.

So I think the specific act of being thankful and also the affirmation of ‘I accept’. It might be ‘I accept that this is how my arms look’, ‘I accept that my eyes are blue and my hair is blonde’, or whatever it might be, I think those two things are the things that I use in that space for kindness and acceptance. It’s ‘thank you’ and ‘I accept’.

Josephine: 16:36

Yeah, I love that, it doesn't have… Like the word body positive for me doesn’t quite fit. This is body acceptance and then watching how your mental clarity and focus shifts to something else because you have the space once that acceptance is fostered. And then often your brain then shifts to the sorts of things that can nurture your body and that was a big step for me is that I'm going to wear clothes that feel really nice. Like I like linen, I like cotton, I like silk and it feels luxurious for those things on my skin and linen is not always flattering but I love it apart from the crinkles.

So yeah, it’s how else can you feel good in your body once you've made that little bit of space, once the acceptance practice you've done it for the day then you can move on to feeling good in other ways.

Fiona: 17:33

Yeah, for me it was flowy clothes. I always wanted to… I love having the like the idea of a skirt that I can twirl in. That you know the fabric just twirls up and you know that was really around me sitting into my feminine and feeling like I could.

I always thought my body was too big for that and that there was too much jiggling underneath going on and I've come to go you know ‘I like the feeling of fabric whooshing around me’ so I am big in the I think the palazzo pants is what they're called at the moment the big sort of culotte almost skirt pants and just letting their fabric flow I love it, I love it.

But that's about the feeling right it's not about what my body looks like and that's when we think about that self-talk, it is about coming to that space of ‘how do I feel? What do I want to feel?’ So moving it away from ‘what do I look like’ to ‘do I enjoy what I'm feeling?’

And I think that's what you were touching there on as well, Josephine, I like the feeling of linen, I like the feeling of cotton. It may not always look exactly the way I want it to, but I like the feeling of it. And I think when we think about that self-talk and the focus on how we look, it's about shifting that into ‘how do I want to feel?’

Josephine: 19:11

Yeah, so true. I don't know about you Fiona, but, well actually I do know. You use the practice called mirror work and so do I and different times I will be noticing different things about my body. I'm looking, I can feel more age and more wrinkles in my face. And so to actually spend some time looking at my face in the mirror, it's like almost seeing a stranger.

Not because I don't recognise myself, but just because how often do you actually look yourself in the mirror? And I always focus on my left eye cause to look at two eyes gets really confusing, but when I'm looking at my left eye, at first you know I do see the lines around my eyes or the puffiness of the early morning, hayfever, or whatever it may be.

But if you can keep doing it for another 30 seconds, another minute, like there's always that point where you're just looking at yourself in that left eye in awe of yourself like, I can see beauty, I just have compassion for this human who’s been through so much, I just have love, like I've got some love for you in this… Looking at myself in this left eye and starting to feel something for myself, which is beautiful. Yeah, it started with this negative self-talk, but I've shifted it and that's that new mental pathway we're creating, and it takes practicing that again and again and again. It’s slow, but it builds and then before you know it, you do have this whole new, neural pathway where you have that more compassion for yourself and the language has changed.

Fiona: 20:49

The idea of looking at yourself, I think for a lot of people is really scary, so for those of you who have just heard, there's a practice called mirror work, you may very well have just gone ‘well I'm never going to be doing that.’

You know, there are some people who avoid mirrors as much as possible. ‘I don't want to look at myself. I don't want to see myself.’ You might also be someone who checks yourself all the time. I used to do this, even when I was walking around out in the shops, anytime I passed a reflective window, I'd have a quick look, ‘am I still looking… do I still look put together? I still appropriate am I… is what I think sticking out, still sticking out’, but I never looked to really look.

So whether you avoid mirrors, whether you're always checking yourself in a mirror, I think what you've just spoken about there, Josephine and what we do in this mirror work practice is actually really sitting and focusing on what you look like and working on that acceptance and bringing in that love and that… and when I say love, again, it doesn't have to be positivity, and ‘oh, I feel great about it’, but can I… can I develop that if we think about how we love other people, we love them unconditionally and we love them, you know, on a day where you might have, you know, some wrinkles or some, you know, puffiness under your eyes, I don't love you any less when we chat.

So I deserve to love myself that way, that it doesn't mean I have to enjoy the fact that I've got some puffy eyes today, but can I still use that love language?

Josephine: 22:40

And in your practice, how long does it take? Like the first glance is like, ‘oh, early morning, what's happening there?’ How long does it take for you to turn that into ‘there’s that gratitude and compassion’ when you are using the work?

Fiona: 22:57

It takes, well, it depends. think it builds. So in the way that I facilitate the practice, I ask people, I ask my clients to set aside five or ten minutes to take the time. And often what happens over time once we've got been doing it for quite some time and we're feeling really comfortable, that can shorten, but I think in the beginning, you know, set yourself a timer 5-10 minutes, actually just look for that long. That can be really hard to start with.

Josephine: 23:35

Are we talking fully naked? Just the face? Working with a part of your body, an arm if arms are your thing?

Fiona: 23:45

Whatever you're comfortable with. For me, the full practice is being able to stand completely naked and actually then move, move in the mirror. So it might be putting on your favourite song and dancing, dancing to your favourite song naked in front of a mirror. But seeing your body parts move is ultimate, right?

So yeah, get as naked as you can. For some people, that will be, ‘nope, I can only look at my face right now.’ For some people, it might be, ‘OK, I can sit in my pyjamas, which is a sleeveless rather than having a top with a sleeve on.’ It might be starting with someone saying, ‘OK, I'm comfortable being in just my underwear’ or it might be, ‘I can be in my underwear, but I need something like a robe that's a little bit see through over the top.’ And it might be how you work your way down to less than less.

So for the first time, you might just be sitting fully clothed on the floor in front of a full length mirror and just looking at yourself. No movement, no nothing, just sitting there, fully clothed, initially. And it's then taking the time to build up on that.

Josephine: 25:07

Yeah, it's a practice done over months, for sure in my experience and the first time I did it just looking at myself in the eye, I cried. Like how often do you look at yourself and feel some love for yourself, like it's pretty overwhelming to really help yourself feel the judgment and then actually realised ‘no that that's not all there is here.’

There is something that's much deeper gratitude that I do have for myself. That I never really share with myself, you know, like you can hold yourself in resentment and blame and shame and that part of yourself is not as hidden and it’s overwhelming to come back to that sometimes.

Fiona: 25:48

Yeah, it can be a really hard practice to do. It’s so powerful in the way that it can allow you to let go of the judgment and the negativity that comes for many of us automatically when we look at or see our, our bodies.

Most people will be able to rattle off really quickly the things they don't like about their body. We’re often less fast at rattling off the things we like about our bodies. The power is not to get to a point where we can rattle off and say I like everything about myself’, but being able to appreciate and understand the journey that your body has gone on, the things that it does for you and being able to sit with that.

Josephine: 27:01

Yes, sitting and discomfort. It's like meeting the resistance that you've got to looking at your body, isn't it? Yeah, it's often a practice that you need to be guided through, which is why I'm really curious of you as our audience. Like, is this a practice you would want to try?

We are building our group program at the moment, and yeah, is this something that is calling you because this could be a part of our group program. We want to co-create it with you. We've come up with a name, Fiona, are we able to share that today?

Fiona: 27:40

Yes.

Josephine: 27:41

Great.

Fiona: 27:42

Go for it.

Josephine: 27:43

Yeah, so we're calling our group program Confidence, and what we do know of that program is that it's going to have an element of body, this body image, it's going to have an element of food, and it's going to have an element of emotion, confidence with your emotions, so that we can dive deeper in those three things together and guide you through some of these practices that we do need to stick with over months to see benefits and that you are going to feel resistance to but, that there will be the extra support to guide you through that.

What do you think, mirror work? Is that something that would be of value? Is that something, has today, piqued you’re interest in that?

Fiona: 28:26

What we'll do this week is we'll pop a little post up on our Instagram, so for those of you who have not been over to our Instagram page at, it's at Outside the Square Podcast, we will pop up a post that has mirror work written on it and we would love to hear, have you tried mirror work before?

What has your experience been? What do you feel like when you hear mirror work as a topic and what is your interest in, you know, us guiding you through that as part of this group program?

Slowly taking some time to change that negative self-talk, sit in that acceptance, feel what that deeper root is, ask yourself what is it that you're trying to protect yourself from’ and then work on just taking some time to sit with you and really, really look and really be with with your body.

Josephine: 29:34

Beautiful. Thanks Fiona.

Josephine: 29:37

Before we finish up for today, we would like to acknowledge the original custodians of the lands on which our podcast is created, the Ngāi Tahu people of Aotearoa New Zealand,

Fiona: 29:46

and the Cammeraygal people of the Eora Nation Australia. We pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging and to all our listeners who identify as Aboriginal, Torres Straight Islander, or Maori.

Josephine: 29:58

We love connecting with you, our listeners and talking about the topics that mean the most to you. Reach out to us on Instagram at Outside the Square Podcast and let us know what you want to hear more of.

Fiona: 30:10

Until next week, keep stepping outside your square.

Fiona: 30:14

There is so much power in being able to kindly be with yourself.

Josephine: 30:21

Mmm, totally.