How’s Your Relationship with Your Body Going? (Season 7, Episode 17)

My own relationship with my body is probably best represented by a shrug emoji right now. How about you?

In today’s episode I wanted to check in with you about this. I do that by discussing two recent questions that listeners sent in and asked me to talk more about:

1. Many times I talk myself out of doing a yoga video because the practice is too short or it is a meditative practice. I think it stems from the fact that my brain is wired to equate exercise with fitness, thinness and calories.

2. Loving our bodies even when we’re stress eating and holed up inside

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Transcript

(00:02):
Welcome to Love, Curvy Yoga, the podcast where we believe yoga can support you right now — if you find it useful. Now let’s get into it.

(00:13):
[MUSIC]

(00:19):
Hi Anna here. So to me it feels right to do our same check-in from last week to get started. So this is just an opportunity to see what arises when I ask these two questions. So number one, how are you feeling. And two, what do you need in your body? I am feeling a little more steady this week and I’m finding that I need a lot of movement. So really it just felt like I had a lot of stuck energy and I was kind of trying to think my way out of it. And I dunno, justify to myself, I’m not entirely sure what I was doing, but moving physically has helped me to feel like there’s some movement in every area of my life. So I have instituted a post lunch dance break with Hazel, so we dance to about three songs and it’s perfect. It feels good to move and she already finds my dance moves hilarious and lacking. I can tell that she already knows I have no moves, but that’s fine. It’s just for fun.

(01:45):
And so my kind of how I’m feeling and what I need in my body are pretty related. So in addition to dancing, I’ve been out for walks most days. Everybody in my neighborhood is very good about social distancing. And I have also been practicing yoga. And I’m a finding all of this essential to maintaining any semblance of a relationship with my body. Because otherwise I have honestly been really numb. That has, that is my kind of traditional go-to. And I don’t think I’m the only one who’s falling back on old patterns in a time of challenge. And to be honest, I still do feel numb a lot of the times or I make myself really busy so I don’t really notice what’s going on, which is another form of numbing. But I am considering any of these small moments when I’m tuning into my body. Uh, I don’t even know I was going to say a success, but I’m not really sure that that is the realm that we’re operating in right now. So I’m just grateful for it is maybe the best way to say it. So up next in our main segment, I’m going to answer a couple of listener questions about relating to your body during this time.

(03:07):
[MUSIC]

(03:13):
So our first question comes from Vivian and she writes “many times I talk myself out of doing a video.” So she’s referring here to our Curvy Yoga studio, online yoga studio. So she says, “I talked myself out of doing a video because the practice is too short or it’s a meditative practice. I think it stems from the fact that my brain is wired to equate exercise with fitness, thinness, and calories. So she was asking me to kind of comment on this because she guessed that this is pretty common and yes, it definitely is. And I chose to discuss this question today when thinking about how you’re relating to your body right now, because I think it’s particularly relevant as many of us are home more than usual and out of our usual routines and just all of this can very easily become, just kind of a unpleasant mishmash of things that we have, you know, encountered in our childhoods, our families, society.

(04:26):
So I think a place to start with this is the question is yoga exercise. And I would say yes and no to that. So to kind of drill underneath even that, the question is what is exercise? So I think we generally think about it like Vivian said as some kind of movement that’s often oriented around a goal such as fitness, losing weight, or looking a certain way. Now of course that does not have to be the focus. It’s not everyone’s focus. But I would say that most of us have probably received this message in one way or the other.

(05:07):
Now people certainly can and do use yoga in this way. So I would say the majority of people come to yoga for some sort of physical reason, myself included. So rehabbing an injury, working on flexibility, stress relief, helping with pain or illness, strength building, et cetera. For me it was migraines and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Yoga does indeed help us with many of those things. I think the issue comes up as Vivian points out when we conflate yoga and the form of exercise that Western culture has given us, which is often a stand in for losing weight or quote unquote getting fit. So when we collapse those things together, it’s easy to feel like lots of things like the length of the practice or if it’s quote too slow or too gentle or meditative, that it doesn’t count that it’s not really worth your time or worth doing. So this brings us to kind of the other way to think about and practice yoga and they’re not mutually exclusive, right? Like I think your practice ebbs and flows with these things depending on where you are in your life, what season you’re in, how you’re feeling in your body and on and on.

(06:37):
So while yoga definitely can be a form of exercise and it can be a form of exercise that’s not oriented around particular fitness goals too. So it can be oriented around things like you just want to move your body because it feels good versus trying to make yourself look a certain way. So it’s can be a form of exercise, but it’s not only a form of exercise. So yoga often can and does have a meditative quality to it. And that can happen in a practice that is slower. It can happen in a practice that’s faster. It can happen in a practice that is more traditionally focused on meditation. So maybe you’re sitting and meditating and in terms of length of the practice that is adaptable. So we have some shorter practices in the online studio honestly, because those are the ones that people use most frequently and request most frequently. And I think it’s really nice. It can fit into different pockets in your day and you can also put them together. So if you try a 15 minute one and you’re wanting to do more, there’s nothing stopping you from doing a second one if that would feel good for your body.

(08:01):
So I definitely get caught in the trap of feeling like my yoga practice needs to be more of this or less of that to count. So I have a few go tos for this that I wanted to share. Number one is simply noticing that I’m thinking those kinds of things. That I find to be very powerful just on its own. So when I started thinking, Oh I all I did today was a 15 minute practice, or all I’ve been doing lately is this really gentle, like laying down on the ground practice. I should be pushing myself more. When I can catch those thoughts, then I can get curious about them. So I might notice I’m thinking, Oh, I should be doing more. And then I get to check in and see, Oh, where is this coming from? What’s behind it? What needs to be addressed? So sometimes it’s the thought itself that needs to be addressed. Sometimes I’m using it as a way to kind of bludgeon myself. And that comes from of course a lifetime of dieting and all of these kinds of messages that are negative about bodies that we were talking about earlier. But sometimes I am noticing that and it’s because, Oh I, I’m really benefiting from this more restorative practice, but I’m also noticing I might like to get a little bit more movement in. So then maybe I’ll do both or maybe I’ll do something else and we’ll get to that in just a second.

(09:37):
So number two is just checking in with my body to see what it wants. So we started to talk about this just a moment ago, but when these thoughts arise or when you’re just kind of trying to decide what to do in general, I think starting with your body is a great place. And I like to just kind of check in and notice how I’m feeling, what my body is needing or wanting. I mean honestly, the questions that we did at the beginning of this podcast I find very useful. But sometimes when I’m in that numb place, like I mentioned at the beginning too, I don’t really know. I’m pretty disconnected from my body. So in that case I tend to do things that I know I usually enjoy doing or find beneficial or just start anywhere and then see where things go.

(10:32):
The third thing that helps me when I’m caught in this trap is remembering that yoga is not the only way to move my body. So my body’s movement needs are not 100% met by yoga. And I think it’s pretty unusual for anyone’s movement needs to be entirely met by anything really. So I talked about earlier, I have been going for walks, doing some dancing and by that I mean just kind of, I don’t know, wildly waving my arms and moving around and yoga. Um, in the past I have really enjoyed swimming laps. I have obviously not been doing that recently, so I don’t, I could just get different things out of different forms of movement. And I think it’s kind of like anything, like variety is the spice of life. It’s nice to have some different options. So if you’re feeling more drawn to maybe the gentler, slower yoga practices, that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t do something that moves your body a little bit more if it, you find that it’s something your body is wanting.

(11:53):
So number four is trying something that I might not think counts and seeing how I feel during or after it. This kind of builds on what I was just talking about where maybe you’re thinking, Oh, you know, it’s, I wish this practice was longer, or I feel like I should be doing more. Just try it. Try one of the shorter practices, try a gentler practice, whatever it is. You know, we all have different things with those are pretty typical that you’re feeling doesn’t count. And rather than seeing if it fits into a particular idea that you have about what your yoga practice should be, notice how you feel. So how are you feeling during the practice? How are you feeling after the practice? And let that start to inform you. I think that can be a really nice way to kind of, I was going to say breakthrough, but it’s more like sidestep these ideas about yoga and exercise and what counts and what doesn’t and you know, that can be a very tangled web and just finding ways that work for you to get around it I think can be really useful. So hopefully that is helpful, Vivian and all.

(13:11):
Okay. So the second question comes to us from JPG on Instagram and they say loving our bodies even when we’re stress eating and holed up inside. So again, this was a request for me to just kind of discuss this topic. So there’s a lot from what I just talked about from the earlier question that is relevant here. So loving your body, or I mean just being in a neutral relationship with your body is often very difficult for many of us during regular circumstances. So first, let’s just acknowledge this and this being the pandemic is hard and it’s very much harder for some of us with histories of dieting, disordered eating, when we’re around people talking about their bodies or what they’re eating or not eating while they’re staying home, even if we’re just around those people on zoom or FaceTime or whatever, it’s just a lot. It really is. And this is a time when things are much less in our control than we usually like to think that they are. And it’s also a time for many people of deprivation. So at minimum in how much you can be out. But for some of us it’s also economic. You may not have as much access to food as usual, et cetera. So all that to say, if this is bringing up a variety of stuff for you, you are definitely not alone and it’s a great time to reach out for support. So whatever you have available to you, whether that’s a trusted friend, a medical professional, a therapist, someone in your family who gets it, it’s just a good time I think to be really shoring up the support that we have.

(15:17):
So some things that I personally find helpful and have found helpful as we’ve been home these past few weeks is remembering that first of all, loving my body is not something that only happens under the best of circumstances. Because if that was the case, it would basically never happen. I mean, how often are you personally in your life in the best of circumstances? I mean, it’s pretty rare, right? Like there’s kind of always something. Now, sometimes that something is relatively minor compared to other times, but still. So what I like about remembering this is that in a lot of ways, whatever work you’ve done around improving your relationship with your body has been practice for the more challenging times in life of which this is certainly one.

(16:15):
Another thing I like to consider here is that loving your body inevitably means loving it through a lot of different changes because that is just how bodies are. And I mean, what is this time if not a big change? So if your body is changing during this time, I think just normalizing that is really helpful. Like it’s not weird, it’s not bad, it’s not wrong. It is a change and we can work on seeing change neutrally as a expected part of life.

(16:56):
I think another thing that’s important here is noticing what in particular is bringing up concerns for you. So is it stuff that you see on social media? If it is mute that person, unfollow that account, whatever you need to do. Is it somebody in your house, are they talking a lot about food or their body or their body changing? If so, I mean it depends on your relationship with this person of course. But you know, you could say, you know, I don’t, I’m not really wanting to talk about this right now or this is kind of a stressful topic for me. So let’s change the subject. Or if talking about it directly feels challenging, you could also just change the subject or find a way to leave the room or whatever is possible to kind of shift that. Is it that you’re wearing clothes that are uncomfortable? I know we’ve talked about this many times because it makes such a difference, so if you’re wearing clothes that are uncomfortable or if your body has had some changes and clothes that you usually find comfortable are less comfortable, change your pants! It really can make a big difference to how you’re feeling.

(18:21):
Now, something else I wanted to say here is that in general, I think that loving your body can be a little bit too high of a bar sometimes, and I think that’s especially true when things are hard. So if that feels true for you, I think that’s totally fine. I think a place to be in it is to see what it’s like to be in conversation with your body. So don’t worry about loving your body. Just work on checking in with your body in whatever way is possible. Be curious about what you’re noticing and feeling and see what unfolds from there.

(19:10):
You know, I mentioned earlier that I don’t find it particularly surprising that I am falling back on some old patterns and nor would I find that surprising if other people are. So one of the things that’s interesting about that is because it’s a pattern, so let’s just say you have a pattern of criticizing your body and that that voice inside has gotten louder lately. So because you know that this is something you’ve done in the past, maybe some of the phrasing of that voice is familiar, it’s a great opportunity to catch it and just be like, Oh, here’s this voice. You know what I’m noticing about this voice I’m noticing that has a tendency to pop up when I’m really stressed or when things are uncertain or when I don’t have any control over what’s happening and I don’t like that feeling or whatever. Fill in the blank. There could be so many different ones and so many just in general. So I think of this as kind of like an homage to the work that you’ve been doing as well as a way to strengthen it. Because you might find yourself back there and feel like, Oh, how am I back here again? You know, like I thought I had gotten past this or whatever. And how I really see that as like, Oh this came back up. That’s not surprising. That totally makes sense. And look at how you saw it and look at how you’re opening an opportunity into a conversation around how you might shift it or how you want to move forward or whatever the case may be.

(21:01):
So I am thinking about all of us and our relationships with our bodies and hoping that we take it as gently as possible. I’m working on it over here. It’s not easy. I know, definitely not for me. Um, but I think this is really, you know, I talk a lot about yoga and body acceptance, both being a practice and this is definitely quite apparent in these times. Okay, so up next a few reminders.

(21:49):
[MUSIC]

(21:49):
All right here are there reminders I really want you to hear, you’re doing great. Really honestly, I’m not just saying that. Your body is meant to change. It’s not weird or bad or wrong. If that’s happening right now, it is a lifelong process. If you’re not feeling particularly positive about your body right now, that doesn’t mean that you never will again or that you’re back at square one. Body acceptance, just like yoga is a practice, it will naturally ebb and flow. Also, if you’re feeling more positive about your body than usual right now, maybe you’re not around people who talk about diets or whatever that you find troubling, that’s also okay. We’re all having different experiences. You are doing great.

(22:48):
All right, so here are some logistical reminders. So in the studio we have daily practices for what you need right now. That’s our theme for April, so we’re doing a different type of movement every day of the week. So you can check that out at curvyyoga.studio. And if you’re not currently a member, you can use the code curvy C U R V Y to save 50% off your first month. If you have questions that you’d like me to answer on the podcast or off or comments or ideas for future episodes, please send that my way. I love hearing from you podcast@curvyyoga.com and let’s close here with one breath together. We’ll inhale and exhale. The light me honors the light in you. Namaste.

(23:49):
[MUSIC]

(23:56):
Stay tuned next week: I will probably be deciding what to talk about the day before because this pandemic is nothing if not a lesson in presence.