- Speaker #0
Hello, my sweet creative cutie. Welcome to Unleash Your Inner Creative with Lauren LaGrasso. I'm Lauren LaGrasso, and today I am resharing with you an episode that changed my life. It is the one that we did about body neutrality with Jesse Nealon. They are a body image coach, and this was one of the first episodes we did that really started an unraveling in me. of everything I ever thought about my body and my relationship with my body. A bunch of other things happened over the course of the next year that kept evolving that I finally realized that working out actually isn't something to exclusively make yourself smaller. It's a way to care for your body and to have a relationship with your body. I realized how much of my worth I had tied to my body and how it was perceived in the world or even perceived by me. I took a class on healing my relationship with my body, so much happened. But this episode really began this evolution of having a relationship with my body instead of seeing it as this separate entity and seeing it as only good when it is in a certain form, which for me over the course of my life and the culture I grew up in was a smaller form. I really believe this episode is particularly important to listen to during the holidays because For anybody who grew up with a fraught relationship with their body or poor body image, or even for people like me who struggled with eating disorders, the holidays can uptick a lot of those feelings. Whether it's because you're with people in your family who may have commented on you in the past or even in the present, or you're eating different foods than you're normally eating and putting some morality into the things you're eating or not eating. It's just a time that can be super loaded. And I think... understanding this idea of body neutrality and having a relationship with your body is powerful and helpful right now and in the months to come. So I wanted to reshare this episode with you. I hope you love it. It's something that I was excited to listen to again and has been super helpful to me. And yeah, I just think it's so important. Everything is connected. It may not seem like, how is creativity connected to our bodies? Everything is connected to everything. when you are taking a holistic approach to creativity, which I think is the only one that there really is to take. So anyway, if you're someone out there who has ever struggled with body image, with just growing up in a culture that constantly told you to get smaller, or for men, or people socialize as men, to be big and strong, and that anytime you fell short of those body images, you were somehow a failure, this episode will debunk that idea and teach you how to have body neutrality. So check it out. See what you think. I hope it helps. And I'm wishing you a peaceful and creative holiday. We'll be back next week with a great episode. We're going to be talking about self-empathy. Interesting. I've never, ever heard of this idea before I had this guest on the show.
- Speaker #1
Can't wait to share that one with you. Have a great holiday. We'll talk soon.
- Speaker #0
could you do me a favor? Would you share it with somebody that you care about? Your friend, your mom, your lover, whoever it is, because podcasts really are spread person to person. And I don't know about you, but the ultimate influencers in my life are my friends and family. So if all of you could share the podcast with just one person, it would make a massive difference in our creative community, grow it, and we can all help. support and lift each other up and get toward our dreams even faster. So please, if you have time today and you feel so compelled, share the show with a friend. Oh, also, if you have time, feel free to like pop on over to Apple and leave it a rating and review and a rating on Spotify. Okay. Love you. Are you someone who struggles with body image issues? I am. If you have a body, the sad truth is you're likely struggling now or have at some point had struggles with body image. It's hard to fully understand what body image issues are even about. They're so multi-layered. They're tied to our childhood, past relationships, trauma, society, the media, et cetera, et cetera. There's a lot to unpack. Today's guest is a body image coach who can help you move toward body neutrality, embodiment, and stepping into your most authentic self. Welcome to Unleash Your Inner Creative with Lauren LaGrasso. I'm Lauren LaGrasso. I'm an award-winning podcast host and producer, singer-songwriter, and multi-passionate creative, and this show is meant to give you tools to love, trust, and know yourself enough to claim your right to creativity and pursue whatever it is that's on your heart. As you know, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Throughout this time, I'm bringing you people and topics on the subject of mental health. Today is no exception and a quick content warning that today we're going to be talking about eating disorders, body image, and more. So for anyone who's struggled with this, I honestly highly recommend you give the show a listen. For me, this conversation was life-changing, but if it's too hard, skip this one and take care of yourself. That said, today's guest is Jesse Neland. They are a queer and non-binary writer, speaker, podcaster, and body image coach. Jesse started off as a physical trainer, working with everyone from celebrities to supermodels, and they found something interesting. No matter the body type, their clients always felt that their bodies were not enough. This led them to dig into their own body image, traumas, and past to finally discover what helped them start their healing journey. That's something they call body neutrality. I am someone who has long suffered with a bevy of body image issues, including eating disorders, disordered eating, and just generally never feeling like I have or have had, quote unquote, the right body. I can honestly say that I find Jesse's work to be revolutionary and healing in such a deep way. It's hard for me to really even put into words. Between their book, Body Neutral, which comes out this June, and I highly recommend you pre-order now, and this conversation, I feel like I'm finally on a path to do some deep healing and rewiring in this area. I really hope this chat, and I do feel this chat will do the same for you. So from today's episode, you'll learn what body neutrality is, how self-objectifying can relate to body image issues, how to find your body image avatar, how to get to the bottom of your body story, how to distinguish body positivity from body neutrality, and a lot more. Now here they are,
- Speaker #1
Jesse Nealon. Jesse, I'm so excited to have you on. Thank you for joining Unleash and especially during Mental Health Awareness Month.
- Speaker #0
It means so much because there's a lot tied up in what you talk about. I'm just grateful for the work you do. So thank you for being here.
- Speaker #1
Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
- Speaker #0
So I'm kind of worried I'm going to cry the whole interview because reading your book, I want to be fully transparent. I'm in the book, but I'm not through it because... I got it like a week ago and I realized very quickly, like I couldn't just like jam through this like I do with other books I read. So I've been stalking you on socials, listening to podcast clips, reading excerpts of the book, just taking in as much information about you and what you do as I can. And it's so much to deconstruct. So I'm excited and I'm scared. And I actually, I'm happy to be in that place because it feels appropriate. So can we start out by defining what is body neutrality.
- Speaker #1
Body neutrality is an approach or practice where you decentralize your body and appearance rather than trying to like love it the way a lot of people do, you know, like from body positivity and all that. It's just about basically stripping away all of the added meaning and significance and interpretation and judgment and stories and all these things that we have attached to our bodies so that we can just see them for what they are, which is morally neutral and honestly not that important, not that interesting in terms of who we are as people being so much more interesting compared to just the emphasis that's been placed on how we look. So body neutrality is about practicing access to the ability to just see your body as morally neutral and honestly, not that big of a part of who you are, definitely not a part of your worth.
- Speaker #0
And when you say morally neutral, is that what it means? It's like it doesn't have anything to do with your worth or anyone else's worth.
- Speaker #1
Right. So one of the things that we all learned is that you can tell something about a person's character, lifestyle, like health, personality, and definitely value and worth, like what they deserve in life just by looking at them. Those are the things you have to strip away to get to a place where. you can just see your body for being a body and not have it also be like, oh, my body is a signal to other people that I'm lazy, for example, or my body is, you know, a lot of the stuff that we end up believing about our bodies is that they're like the key to getting what we want in life. And that, again, is going to make it impossible to just see your body as neutral, because that makes it really, really important.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And why am I feeling the way I'm feeling right now? Like what?
- Speaker #1
Tell me how you're feeling.
- Speaker #0
I'm feeling... scared, uncomfortable. These concepts are really difficult. Anytime talk about this comes up, or even embodiment, which I want to get into and what the difference between embodiment and body neutrality are and how they can coexist. It's really hard for me to metabolize and sit with. So many emotions come up. Why so many emotions? What's happening to us when we start to learn this and then unlearn?
- Speaker #1
Well, I feel like the question I want to ask you in response to that is, what's your relationship to your body like?
- Speaker #0
I think it's pretty fraught.
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. I mean, like you were going through and I want to get into this of like understanding how your body image story started. And I was watching some of your Instagram reels and you were talking about how one of your clients, you know, they never had anything bad said to them by their mom. But their mom gave them a very specific story about why she was left by her husband. that her ex-husband liked skinny blondes and that's why the husband left and that's how she ended up having body image issues. I think a lot of mine come from areas like that. My grandma commented on how I looked a lot when I was little and it was humiliating and it was in front of other people. And I struggled with bulimia when I was younger. And I remember literally having my hand down my throat and being like, at least my grandma can never say anything to me again.
- Speaker #1
Oh, oh God.
- Speaker #0
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
That is heartbreaking.
- Speaker #0
And my mom, again, like kind of related to that person. My mom never said anything to me, but she commented on her own body a lot. So I think, I mean, if I had to break down why I'm feeling so many emotions, it's bringing all these things to the surface. And I'm trying to figure out what was actually true and rewrite my brain.
- Speaker #1
I would say that there is something about this work that causes like the very fabric of your reality to crumble because it's really about challenging experience. exploring, and then dismantling so many things we took to be true, really, really deep-seated beliefs, such as your body's an incredibly important piece of who you are. And if it's not right, that means you're bad.
- Speaker #0
Yes.
- Speaker #1
You know, something like that is going to live deep in your bones and trying to unpack the stuff that sits on top of it and move through it and let go of it. It really is like overhauling your entire experience of the world.
- Speaker #0
That feels true.
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
Okay, so we're going to get into how to start to do that. But I think before we dive into it, I would love to know a little bit about your journey. I know you started out as a personal fitness instructor, a personal trainer, and then transitioned into what you're doing today. So can you tell me how that personal training journey led you into starting to think, huh, there's something going on here?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, definitely. So I was a personal trainer in New York City. So I was working at this gym that was like a private gym, a lot of really high end clients. And I worked with some of just the most conventionally attractive humans in the world. So Victoria's Secret models are telling me the same kind of stories about how they feel about their bodies as everybody else. And I'm like, okay, well, clearly looking like a supermodel, which is what everybody thinks is going to like solve this problem for them. It obviously doesn't solve it because these are the same women having the same conversations. And honestly, I think I became obsessed with finding out what it was really about. Like, what the heck is going on here? Even just that is like an explosion to your reality to realize, okay, well, I've been taught that the key to feeling all the ways I want to feel and having the life I want to live is to look a different way. I just have to like fix a couple things, right? But yeah, that exploded that belief pretty quick. And so I went and learned everything I could. I became a life coach so that I could focus on transformational conversations. And then eventually I left the fitness industry completely. In part because even though I love fitness, I love strength training, I still like that. It just, it clearly wasn't the thing people were looking for. Like they didn't come to me necessarily wanting to get strong, even if they got strong and appreciated it, you know, which could be great. They usually came to me because they wanted to feel better in their bodies. They wanted to feel more confident, less anxiety, less obsession. Like they were looking for something that fitness can't give you.
- Speaker #0
So you decided to try to help people find their way to... what was underneath the desire to get fit, which was the body image issues. How did you realize you wanted to be a body image coach? Like how did that materialize?
- Speaker #1
I don't know how to put it really other than I just couldn't stop thinking about it. I was like genuinely obsessed. Also, this was in the era of body positivity had just kind of become really big in the mainstream. And I liked that a lot. I definitely was drawn to that because it seemed at least like a better option than hating your body. But it didn't really work for most people. It didn't come with instructions. There was no clear thing you were supposed to do to get there. You're just sort of vaguely supposed to love your body. And so... Yeah, I just could not stop thinking about it. Every client conversation, every time I would do like a workshop or any of these things, I would just get deeper into it. So I kind of started out as like self-worth and confidence and self-love and all that stuff. And then I just got more and more rabbit hole into what I do now, like body neutrality.
- Speaker #0
And what is the difference between body neutrality and body positivity for someone who's like, wait, they kind of sound similar. What is the actual difference?
- Speaker #1
It kind of depends on who you ask. Because body positivity was never really intended to be what it is now in the mainstream. It started as a social justice movement fighting for the rights and dignity and like privileges for people in fat bodies, marginalized bodies. And then it changed. It got to the mainstream and then it became this whole thing where like basically every individual should love themselves instead of we should change the systems and structures that are causing people to be harmed. And it turned into just like an individualistic body image journey. And at that point, the message kind of became like, you should reject everything that you've learned about beauty ideals and just reclaim it for yourself. Like love your curves, feel beautiful, just cast that stuff away. But again, the issue is like, okay, that sounds lovely. Nobody has an instruction manual. Everybody wants to get there. But like that didn't come with steps. Nobody knew how to tell anybody else how to do it. and And also what I was discovering as I did work, as I was sort of like moving forward with stuff, is it was actually making a lot of my clients feel worse about themselves. Like they wanted to look a certain way. They're like, okay, I'm finally going to try to give this up and love myself. But now I'm failing at that too. It was just like another unrealistic standard. If you've hated your body for years or decades, and then you set a new goal to love it, you just feel doubly bad.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, it feels like a different side of the same coin.
- Speaker #1
It is. It absolutely is. And it keeps the focus on beauty.
- Speaker #0
Yes.
- Speaker #1
It's like the idea that everyone is beautiful, but it still really centralizes the idea that how you look or how you feel in terms of beauty is super important. You have to feel beautiful. And yeah, none of that was really working out for my clients, basically. So body neutrality is just the idea that how you look is the least interesting and important thing about you. You don't have to love it. You don't have to hate it.
- Speaker #0
And so when I heard it, because, you know, there's been a lot of talk about embodiment and something I am in therapy. And one thing my therapist talks a lot about is like the wisdom of the body and like where we hold pain in the body and what the body's held on to for us. So how does body neutrality fit in with embodiment? Like, what are the differences? Because that feels a little nuanced to me and I want to understand it.
- Speaker #1
Totally. So what I would say is a lot of people who are struggling with body image are disconnected from their bodies. not Not everybody, but that's a huge pattern. And for a million reasons, in part because like, even if we just take dieting as an example, dieting is the literal process of trying to ignore your body's cues, right? So it's like you're actively trying to disconnect from the wisdom of your body, which says, hey, I'm hungry. It's time to eat. And you're like, no, no, no. Must run from you. Must push you down and ignore you and trick you, you know, and all these things that we learn. It's about disconnecting from those signals. And the more you do it, the more disconnected you become. So on the journey back to neutrality, the healing path often requires us to learn how to re-inhabit our bodies, learn how to listen to the cues and signals it sends us, learn how to honor and respect those cues and work with them rather than seeing them as the enemy like we do with hunger. So there's just so much. And embodiment work, I would say, is a huge category of healing practices about how to do those things.
- Speaker #0
So that's interesting. So body neutrality is... removing the judgment from how you look. And embodiment is actually like, don't walk around being a floating head like I did most of my life. Like remembering you have a body and that it has wisdom. And they're not actually even involved with each other, right?
- Speaker #1
Well, I just think they go hand in hand a lot. Okay. You know, a lot of my clients end up doing embodiment work because, for example, if you're trying to help someone who doesn't feel like they can disagree with the judgments of others, it's like other people's judgments of them feel like just factual. And I'm trying to encourage them to sort of recognize where they don't agree and let that be okay. You kind of got to tune into an inner self that a lot of people have never met. to do that. You have to know yourself and you have to be able to feel really strong in who you are, what you think and feel. And all that stuff is often not accessible to somebody who's been disconnected from their body for a long time because that's where we get that information.
- Speaker #0
So would you mind sharing? Because I mean, I think we always or often teach what we most need to know. Like I have a show called Unleash Your Inner Creative because I am seeking to Unleash My Inner Creative. I'm sure you have your own story of your journey to body neutrality and embodiment. Can you share a little bit of what that was like and how you've gone on that journey?
- Speaker #1
Yes. So I have a history of childhood sexual abuse, which was followed up with an enormous amount of sexual harassment in my teen years and all these things, sexual coercion, just a lot of baggage. And all of that taught me to disconnect from my body because I learned a few things from those experiences. One being that there's something wrong with me. There's something like bad in me that makes this happen. And so in order to sort of distance myself from whatever shamey thing that was, it was like, live in my head. It's as far as you get from those signals, right? From those feelings. It also is just one of the impacts that trauma often has on people is a dissociative or disconnected from the body feeling. I didn't even know it was trauma until later into adulthood. So I never dealt with that, never reconnected the sort of mind-body-spirit situation that had kind of gotten broken during trauma. And that's very common. So yeah, a big part of my body image was feeling like I had nothing of value to offer the world other than my appearance. That like I owed it to the world, especially to men, because I had been sexualized in all these ways that it was like... My job on earth, my entire worth comes down to making men approve of me or find me attractive. And at the same time, like I somehow learned that it would keep me safe, that it was like, I'm afraid of men's anger. So I have to give them what they want so they won't want to hurt me, which, you know, there's cognitive dissonance in all of this. It doesn't necessarily make logical sense. But those things meant that. every moment of my life, I was thinking about how I looked. I was obsessed with managing it. No matter what I was doing, I couldn't be present because I was imagining how I might look to someone from over there across the room or whatever. And so with all of that, it just felt true that if I didn't look good on a particular day, I was worthless. So that is where I started doing body image healing work. a lot of it did come through the physical, like reconnecting to my body, literally the sensations in my body, the cues, you know, that it gives you about what you need day to day and all those things, as well as really, really reconnecting with my emotions, which I had kind of had on lockdown and trying to avoid and my intuition and my own desires and thoughts and feelings to like that inner self. Like I was saying, I just I kind of set that aside. And I was like, that's not what I'm here for. I'm here to like, please and titillate. So nobody wants me to. be this whole three-dimensional person that would sort of go against the fantasy that men want from me. And all of that stuff kind of fell away. The more I got to know myself, the more I became embodied. I started to just be able to be like, you know what? No. Like, no way. That is not how I'm going to live my life. Yes, there are probably men out there who see me that way, but not all. So I started to be able to really heal the old stories and let them go.
- Speaker #0
And how long did that initial process take? Because I'm sure it's an ongoing thing. But how long did it take you from that realization that, oh my gosh, I've been walking around disconnected from my body and my emotions and my desires to I feel like I'm in a pretty good neutral place and if I keep working on it, I can stay there?
- Speaker #1
That's a great question. I don't really know. Maybe five years or something like that. I know that there are always little layers you bump into as you kind of go along. Like, for example, I'm queer and non-binary, but that's not something that I had, I would say, sort of acknowledged to myself, let alone to the world until like this last year. So again, that's an aspect of like a deeper truth that I have that I was not connected to until fairly recently. And part of that is sort of the same thing. It's like, well, that's not what's expected of me. And that's not, I don't know, all sorts of weird, shamey stuff comes up and you just kind of bump into new layers of it as you go along. But I would say I felt pretty body neutral maybe five-ish years after like... actively starting.
- Speaker #0
And I was so curious about that. How did the realization that you're queer and non-binary affect your journey? How was that another unwinding for you?
- Speaker #1
Oh my God. It has been a trip because, I mean, I really did feel body neutral. I don't want to say I never feel done, right? Like I know that's not a thing. You never arrive. You're never done. There's always more to look at. But I definitely did not see this part coming. I don't think that I ever sat around. Being like, this is some secret I have. But really, it's because there was no concepts or language in the mainstream. Like, we didn't literally even have the word non-binary until pretty recently, you know?
- Speaker #0
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
So, yeah, when you don't have concepts and language to understand yourself and your truth, sometimes it just can't materialize. So I can look back on my life now and be like, oh, this has always been there. But there weren't concepts and language to describe it and certainly no labels to attach to it. I remember telling one of my friends actually so long ago in my late 20s, I felt like I was secretly a boy and a girl. And this was like before we had any language. And I loved that felt good. You know, I was like, oh, it feels so nice that somebody knows this now. But it's been a wild ride, I think, to sort of bring all of those concepts into my brain and be like, oh, this is so interesting. And then be like, oh, this has to do with me. It's been a lot.
- Speaker #0
I mean, it sounds amazing. I heard Jen Sincero one time say, new level, new devil.
- Speaker #1
Oh, yes.
- Speaker #0
You reached the body neutrality you needed to feel safe enough to have this huge second realization. Not that it's just the second realization you've had about yourself, but like this next level of, oh my gosh, wait, that's what has been happening? Oh, okay.
- Speaker #1
And even after I did most of the body image work. I still hadn't yet tackled like sex and pleasure. You know, that took its own like, it was huge. And especially for someone like me who had been self-objectifying my whole life, it was like all the same stuff that I had to do, but applied in this new context, like learning that, especially with men in that space, it was like, okay, I'm healed everywhere else. But as soon as I'm in that context with a man, like my old self-objectifier stuff would come up and I would sort of pay more attention to what he thought and felt and wanted and liked than myself. And so I had to do a whole bunch of work just to bring myself back to myself in that context, learn how to sink into pleasure, advocate for myself, even know what I liked and needed and feel safe feeling pleasure.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, that's so huge. I mean, something we talk about on the show a lot is that the sacral chakra is in charge of both. creativity and sexuality and life force energy. So if you're shutting down the one, and you don't have to believe in chakras to kind of know this is true. If you're shutting down the one, like if you're saying like, no, I don't deserve pleasure, whether it's sexual or just like enjoying a day or having a nice meal, whatever it is, you're also potentially and likely shutting down the other. I'm curious when you embraced your sexuality and that you deserved pleasure, that that was your birthright. What else? opened up for you in your life?
- Speaker #1
That's a great question. I don't know that I could like name specific things that changed externally, but it did bring me to a level of like just self-acceptance, I think, and strength and knowing myself that I didn't have before. Because I mean, even that's embodiment work, right? Like literally learning how to embody pleasure is huge. And so I think it was just kind of like a super deepening of the work I'd been doing before of like getting more clear on who I was, that I had worth, that I didn't owe things to people. And also, I think there's just something about pleasure that is like, just reclaims something so powerful to say, I deserve this. I mean, I can't tell you how many orgasms I had that I wept after, you know, just being like, I can't believe I'm allowed to have this or at first feeling like I didn't deserve it, you know?
- Speaker #0
And you have a partner who. Is your partner a male?
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
Okay. I know he's very supportive of you and like very emotionally attuned, but being in a relationship, okay, I'm in a good one now. All through my 20s, I was in one that was very treacherous, but I'm in a good relationship. But I've been shocked at how much it brings up. How do we do this work in the context of a relationship and bring our partner into it when we need to, but also do it individually? like It feels so messy to me and I'm really trying to figure it out. And I'm curious if you have any tips or wisdom on this.
- Speaker #1
Well, here's what I'll say. I started this relationship kicking and screaming. I was like, there's no way. I had just gotten so solid on who I was, so juicy, so accepting and embodied. And I was exploring being queer. And I was like, there's no way I end up in a relationship right now, particularly probably never again with a dude. And then I met Drew and then the pandemic it and I went with it. So It's hard, man. I think like the key for us has been that it's just constant communication, that we talk about everything. We're so transparent about all this stuff. But I think when I work with clients and they're dealing with like body image healing and relationships, it's super tricky because often their partner is the one triggering them. Often not because they're even doing anything wrong. And then for them to speak up about it might trigger their partner, right? Like these are the dynamics that just get so messy. I have to say, I think I don't know that I've ever really relationship with someone before. What I'm doing now is entirely different.
- Speaker #0
and feel sustainable but I know looking back it was like it just was not I would just stuff things down and be like well I'll hold on to this until it's over you know yeah I don't know where to even begin with that question well I think you said something really wise and that's just talking about it I mean there's so many times like you said in
- Speaker #1
my past relationships when I was younger I stuffed it down because I'm like well he can't hold this like there's nothing he can do I think it comes down to having someone who's safe enough to hold something, but then also realizing you are going to trigger each other. Like there's no getting around it, even with the best of intentions. I mean, something interesting that me and my boyfriend have been realizing lately is sometimes we have exactly opposite triggers. So like the exact thing I need is triggering to him and vice versa. And so realizing how to negotiate that and talk through it instead of being like, well, you're bad. No, you're bad because it's not true.
- Speaker #0
Can I tell you how annoying I find it that my partner has feelings and needs?
- Speaker #2
Oh,
- Speaker #1
it is so rude.
- Speaker #0
It is the worst. So rude.
- Speaker #2
There are times where I'm literally like, it is taking all of my willpower to care about this right now because I really just want us to focus on me.
- Speaker #1
No, 100%. I remember. So like the first few months, this relationship also took me by surprise. And the first few months I was like, wow, this is so beautiful. I can't believe it's happening. This is amazing. And then the first time one of these trigger fights happened. I was like, How dare you be a person? You were supposed to save me. So I think it's just, here's the thing. I think part of why my brain is exploding with this whole concept and conversation, because the thing that I'm realizing is everything is the same everywhere. Anytime we think something's going to save us, we're wrong. Like the only thing that can save us is just doing the work and trying our best and just putting one foot in front of the other. Like When you think like, oh, if I get this career milestone, then I will be saved. If I look a certain way, then I will be saved. If I'm finally loved, then I will be saved. None of it's true.
- Speaker #0
You're absolutely right. This is work I do with clients all the time. They're like, this isn't even about body image, but I'm like, oh, it's all the same. I assure you. But so the thing that I do with clients is trying to get clear on what saved means for them.
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
Like everybody has a different version of it, a different fantasy for what you get when You have the perfect body, you get the perfect job, you find the perfect partner, whatever it is that you're like. There's always an after that you kind of imagine and the details of that are specific to you. And in order to heal all of this stuff and take the inappropriate amount of meaning and power away from whatever it is you've been putting on a pedestal, you really have to figure out what that is and find ways of either going after it more directly in ways that like don't rely on your body, for example, or really like grieving the loss of the fantasy that you can get it. Because sometimes people have fantasies that are like, if I have the perfect body, nobody will ever be mean to me or reject me ever again. And there's grief there to be like, but if I give up this fantasy and I stop trying to change the way I look, then people are just going to be mean to me. And I'm like, your body never had the power to protect you from that anyway. But it feels like it did because that's what we learned.
- Speaker #1
So you're putting something into words that I've been dealing with for a while as I've been seeing these things coming out online and as people have been posting about it and forming opinions. I've been trying to put into words this grief. I'm not going to be eloquent in saying this, but I feel like the world has required me to undo an entire lifetime of what has been done to me in a matter of minutes. And I can't like I can't do it that fast. And I'm totally fine with not commenting on someone else's body. But I'm having a way harder time with people policing, like how I should feel about mine.
- Speaker #0
Like,
- Speaker #1
I feel like... if I still have this thought in my head, like I need to be thin because if I'm thin, then I'll be safe. Like if I still have that thought in my head, I feel like that's not okay now.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And I think that's the issue with the body positivity movement. It started to really demonize and almost make a character flaw out of the struggle. And my view is you're always going to have thoughts and opinions and preferences and all these things. And this journey is hard and scary and long. So where you are is perfect. And you are struggling for a reason. It is a valid reason to be struggling, to be suffering, to feel any number of ways. So I feel a lot of compassion for you personally, but also just in this work. I mean, to me, neutrality applies to every level of it, including the fact that you're struggling and suffering. I think it's really important to validate that you're not like crazy or stupid or weak or vain or superficial, any of these things, because your body image issues exist for a reason. They showed up to solve a problem. or try to get you a need met that wasn't getting met. They have been trying to help and protect you. They're here for a reason. And until that reason no longer exists, they're going to stick around. So like, of course you are feeling that way. And you are entitled to feel that way.
- Speaker #1
So I have a couple questions for you. So if there's someone out there like me, what do they do with this desire or drive? I still feel like I'm not letting it motivate me, but I still feel like in the back of my head, I should be smaller. What do you do with that? And how do you bring it to I am worthy regardless of my size?
- Speaker #0
Well, there are two things and nobody likes the first one, which is that you just accept and welcome the fact that that's in there. I honestly don't know. I feel like particularly for thoughts, I don't know that the thoughts ever go away. What we're looking to do is reduce their power because that's the thing that sucks, right? That's the thing that causes you suffering. So I wouldn't even worry that the thoughts are there. But if they still have emotional power, then the next step becomes exploring what is attached to it. What meaning have you assigned to a smaller body? What need do you imagine would be met if you were in a smaller body that isn't being met now that you need to go get met now? What beliefs or fantasies have you been clinging to? You know, basically, what purpose does this serve? And it can serve so many different purposes, but you basically just have to figure out what that is and deal with that thing directly in order for that just to lose power. Because telling yourself it shouldn't be powerful is the opposite of what's going to be helpful.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Well, I think that that has been my problem where I'm feeling like, OK, I get it. Like, it's not great that I'm thinking and feeling this way and then feeling bad about myself. But like, what the fuck? do I do about it? And I just felt like every time I wanted to express this, just the thought alone was shut down. I mean, it's kind of just like what our culture is doing right now, right? It's like, it's all extremes. It's either you have terrible body image or you're body positive. If we could all do what you're aiming to do with body neutrality, just with our whole lives, I think our world would be in a much healthier, much more loving place. But how do you do that then? Like, How do you find what's underneath? Is that where the body avatar quiz comes in? How do you start to figure out the underneath the body image issue?
- Speaker #0
I will explain that, but I wanted to go back for a second and just say, I think that neutrality, which does apply to everything in my view, you know, body neutrality being just one sort of offshoot or whatever of what neutrality that you're saying. It's sort of just like basically seeing the truth without the false and excess meaning and power being given to things. So Yeah, I think we all would. It would be like if everyone was being perfectly mindful all the time and not coming up with stories about stuff like that would be neutrality, right? I think the world would be way better. But how you get there is tricky because the stuff that's in the way is so powerful, like I said, so old, usually so embedded, and often so painful and scary. So the avatars quiz, it's like a self assessment for the four body image avatars that I created as categories for people to start to locate themselves on the map. because it is a big map. Why you're struggling with something this big is huge and people don't know where to begin. And so I created the four avatars just to help people start being like, oh, I think maybe my body image issues exist to sort of help me in this space or that space or they serve this function. Because the really important thing is figuring out what they're doing or trying to do and then making that no longer necessary. That's how you end up on the other side where it doesn't have that meaning anymore.
- Speaker #1
So there are four. I took the quiz, by the way. There are four, the self-objectifier, the high achiever, the outsider, and the runner. I got the high achiever as my number one, but then the self-objectifier and the outsider were also pretty high up there. So it was like I had seven points for the high achiever, I think five each for the self-objectifier and the outsider. Can you run through the runner? What those all mean? What are they?
- Speaker #0
So they're like sort of fleshed out, personified embodiments of the categories of what I was seeing. I was seeing there to be like four major categories for why or how rather a person's body image issues existed, how they functioned, what they were trying to do, you know, basically. So the self-objectifier is someone who has attached their worth to their attractiveness. and It's worth to their appearance, but it's very particularly focused on attractiveness and desirability. So as you can imagine, that is a lot of women, but it can be anybody, obviously, because when you have been sexualized or objectified or in a culture that sexualizes and objectifying people who look like you, then it just it's very easy to get the message that being attractive is like the key to being worthy. So that's the self-objectifier. The high achiever is focused on increasing their social status using their body. So this may or may not have to do with attractiveness. It often will be like, I just want to be thin, you know, that kind of thing where it's like, I don't even care how I look. I just want to get my body under control. That's something I hear from some high achievers because it's all about increasing their social status in order to earn like access and privilege and all the things that they've been taught live on the other side of social status. Respect, you know self-worth All these things, the ability to rest and just feel good enough. And a lot of times the high achiever comes down to something that's like very moral. It's about wanting to be good.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Well, and I see that one in me because with the judgment put on me by my grandma, I felt ostracized as a kid. So then I realized, okay, the way... to get approval and belonging is if I fit a certain body type.
- Speaker #0
Right. And that also sounds like the outsider because the outsider is focused on either earning secure connection and belonging in the world, which you could just imagine any middle schooler, that outsider feeling. Poor babies. Yeah. I just want to look good to fit in. And then the flip side of that is a lot of outsiders are seeking safety from the opposite. Being excluded, not being accepted, being rejected, being humiliated. Like everything that is the flip side of true belonging and connection is often what the outsider is trying to use their body to avoid. So it can be either. And then the runner is using their body to cope and survive. I will say very rarely do people immediately see themselves in the runner, but a lot of people will discover it as they move through the work. And the runner can be using their body. it can be just a place to control things because they feel out of control. They feel unsafe. They feel like they usually can't trust or tolerate their emotions. Being embodied would feel really scary. So it's like they're running. They're running from something, usually something inside them.
- Speaker #1
I feel like I'm all of these.
- Speaker #0
And you can be. You can. I will always tell a client like the purpose of finding out is just to start the journey. There's no like, okay, now there's a separate rule book for you. it just gives you a place to start digging and if you genuinely had all four like really, really high scores there, you might just have four different powerful reasons for why your body image issues exist. I mean, it just might be a longer journey for you. It does happen.
- Speaker #1
I totally believe it. I mean, I feel like I'm all of these. I see myself in all these avatars. So, okay, you get your avatar or your primary one or your multiple ones. Where do you go from there?
- Speaker #0
So you use that information to do the next step. In my book, I call it the body neutrality blueprint. And the next step is to get super clear on the specific thing that your body image issues are existing for or trying to do. So the avatars give you a place to look, big categories for where to start digging. But wait, which one was your highest one?
- Speaker #1
It was the high achiever.
- Speaker #0
Okay. So we would probably start there and be like, okay, so specifically what do you imagine is on the other side of having this impressive high status body or a body that like proves to everybody how good you are. And then you would give me the details, like you would do that exploring to figure out it could be respect or opportunities or social privilege or one person's approval. Like there's so many things that could be right. So you would have to get clear on exactly what that is for you. And sometimes there's more than one. But you know, again, you're just trying to get to like the heart. of why your body image issues showed up in the first place and what they're still here for.
- Speaker #1
And then once you get to the heart, do you try to give that to yourself instead of going outside yourself looking for it? What do you do?
- Speaker #0
Well, it depends on what you discover. Do you happen to know? Do you want to go through it with me? Do you happen to know what the other side would be? Okay. So what do you imagine you would get in your fantasy? I call it the positive and negative body image fantasies. What do you imagine would be different in your life if you had this body that you're imagining? And what are you afraid of if it got, quote unquote, worse or you never got to that body?
- Speaker #1
I think it's so many things. I mean, when we were talking earlier, the word that kept coming to my head was safety. I kept hearing like, I'll be safe. I'll be saved. I'll be safe. I'll be saved. But when I think of it with the high achiever, I think it's acceptance, worthiness, opportunity. Being in the entertainment industry, there is so much put on how you look. I think acceptance, worthiness, and opportunity is what I'm seeing in my head. But I think it has to also be deeper than that because those are so surface.
- Speaker #0
Here's the next question, though. Yeah. Is what do you imagine would be different? What meaning do you attach to having more opportunities?
- Speaker #1
Financial security and then like safety. I think it does come back to safety.
- Speaker #0
Safety in what way?
- Speaker #1
I don't know.
- Speaker #0
Okay, so we wave a magic wand and now everybody accepts you. What's different? What do you get? What's the point?
- Speaker #1
Maybe I'll feel less pain.
- Speaker #0
Okay. And then what was the other one that we haven't done yet? Worthiness.
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
What does that mean, first of all?
- Speaker #1
That I'm okay. Like, I'm okay just to be myself and for who I am. And I don't need to change something about myself to belong and to take up space. Like, I can just be who I am.
- Speaker #2
So these all sound like safety.
- Speaker #0
And I would actually say that might point you in the direction of the runner.
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
Which is interesting. It's not how you scored. I mean, you know, the quiz is imperfect. But also, I think a lot of times we recognize ourselves in the superficial version of something that actually has a deeper root.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that the thing that happened with me where I went through. disordered eating and bulimia. It happened when I was pretty young. I was in middle school. And so I started getting all this approval from people around me. People started saying, oh, you look so great. You lost so much weight. You look amazing. But then to your point with body neutrality, I lost all this weight. And then people were like, oh, you're too thin. My sixth grade teacher came up to me and asked me, are you anorexic? I mean,
- Speaker #2
like
- Speaker #1
I did see that I couldn't win. It didn't matter what I looked like. Someone was going to have an opinion on it no matter what. But I still think the opinions of other people and feeling like some sense of belonging and like, how can I save myself from judgment because of the humiliation around? And the people that were supposed to protect me, like my grandma, and I love her, she survived abuse and she didn't continue that physical abuse, but the emotional abuse lived on through the bloodline. I love and appreciate what she did to stop a cycle of abuse. But it still continued because she didn't deal with it fully because no one in that generation did.
- Speaker #0
So the question then becomes safety. Like, what is the thing you're really seeking? What would have to be true for you to feel safe? Because I know having a thinner body is not going to accomplish that.
- Speaker #1
I don't know. Maybe that I could protect myself. Like, I think I just felt so powerless in that moment. Like, there's a very clear time. I remember my grandma commenting on my weight. We were with these cousins in Calgary. We had cousins in Canada that I'd never met. And she commented on how I needed to lose weight in front of all these cousins. And then the littlest one parroted what my grandma said and pointed at me and said, you need to lose weight. And my mom and dad were there. And I don't know if they didn't hear, but they didn't say anything. They didn't step in or interject. And I just felt like I am all alone here and there's nothing I can do to protect myself.
- Speaker #0
So. To me, that sounds like the need that would have to get filled for you to actually feel safe would be something in the space of like self-advocacy, really like trusting yourself to be able to handle hard things and speak up for yourself and be your own protector. And that if you were and you moved through the world that way, you might always prefer to look different, right? But you would no longer need your body to try to do that for you.
- Speaker #1
Oh, Jessie, you're good. That feels so true. Like when you said that you can be your own advocate.
- Speaker #0
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
I just feel like I spent so much time like waiting for someone to tell me it's okay to do the thing I know I need to do. And it just really resonated that I don't have to wait for someone to save me or stand up for me. I can do that for myself.
- Speaker #0
Well, that plays into what I was going to say, which is like, can we just take a moment and appreciate that? Of course you have because that is the mindset of a little girl. Of course, you're like looking to your caretakers and being like, can someone please protect me? You literally were powerless. And now that isn't the situation. You have a lot of power. You can advocate and protect yourself. But that mindset is still stuck in there looking for the whatever it is to step in and make sure you're okay. So of course, you would come up with this genius plan, I may add, to get that done. By being thin enough that like, again, it's sort of magical thinking because you could be the thinnest person in the world and you would still not feel protected. But there is magical thinking that is appealing because it gives you something that's outside of you. And it really speaks to the little girl in that.
- Speaker #1
So how do you close the loop? Like, do you ever talk to your inner child? And, you know, in those times when they felt powerless, do you have a conversation with them or is it just something you do? now as an adult? Is there any inner child work that goes into this?
- Speaker #0
I think there can be. It depends on the person, but I think that kind of work can be incredibly healing. I also think that we tend to focus too much in our culture on, I don't know how I want to put that. I'm not trying to like trash talk. No,
- Speaker #1
it's fine. Listen. Jesse has no ill will toward anything that actually helps. I want to just say that.
- Speaker #0
That's 100% true.
- Speaker #1
And you can't always talk for every single perspective and every single person. You're talking for your own and I think that's beautiful. So I just want to protect Jesse right now.
- Speaker #0
Love that. So what I will say is I think we focus too much on like feeling different first and then assuming that that will take us into our lives and make us prepared for it. I tend to find that it should at least be happening at the same time. And sometimes working on improving your skills first in the world, taking action to face your fears, release your shame and build up your skills is what allows you to do that inner work. It doesn't mean you couldn't do it at the same time. I think a lot of people would probably benefit from both like that inner healing where you're just sitting with that version of you and like stepping in and becoming your own advocate. And, you know, you could write a letter to your inner child that you're safe now and I'm going to be that person you needed. But I don't know that that then makes you ready to actually advocate for yourself in the world, right?
- Speaker #1
No, I think that that's so wise. I mean, I'm a huge fan of inner child work and anything that's like woo-woo or whatever. But I've never heard anyone put it that way. And I'm so glad you trusted yourself to say it. Because it's true. Like, how much better of an advocate could I be for my inner child if I actually have the tools as an adult? Which I can gain now because I am an adult and I can go out into the world. and Use my cool brain and research things and find people like you to work with. And there's so many things we can do to prepare ourselves to then go through and do the deeper work. But I think you're so right. Sometimes we do that deeper work when we don't feel as able in the moment we're in now.
- Speaker #0
And you know what happens? You have this beautiful moment, this breakthrough. And then two weeks later, you're like, what happened to my breakthrough? It's gone. Yeah. And you feel like you did something wrong, but you didn't. There is so much power in skill building and fear facing. I can't even tell you because like you now as an adult get to exercise your actual agency and power to go practice skills like speaking up when someone says something rude to you. And the better you get at that and the more you learn to trust that I'm a person who will advocate for myself, that means there is a person advocating for you in every single room you're in for the rest of your life.
- Speaker #1
Oh, put it on a t-shirt. I want to wear that every day.
- Speaker #0
And that changes your experience of the world. You start to just feel safer. And again, on the other side of that, you're not like, okay, how do I get rid of these body image issues? They just kind of fade in power. It's like, I guess it just doesn't seem quite as important anymore because the whole reason they existed was to make me feel safe.
- Speaker #1
So beautiful. I want to ask you something, though, because when we do start to accept ourselves and love ourselves, the problem is we're still living in a world that's really fucked up, right? So in a world where like the sizes and at large, but then there's people who are bigger than the large and now they're shut out of those stores. Like I think one of the things that's triggered me lately is now I'm wearing a size large in many cases. And I'm like, oh my God, if I get bigger, I will be shut out of the world. And what do we do with that? Like, do we just say the world is fucked up, but I'm not going to like acquiesce to what they're doing? Like, how do we deal with that?
- Speaker #2
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- Speaker #0
is the horrible part of body neutrality is that if you live in a marginalized body you can be body neutral all day long and you're still going to have suffering because you're still going to be discriminated against. You're still going to be marginalized. You're still going to be missing access and opportunities. Like that is a very real thing. So the only thing that body neutrality can step in and do is take the shame and blame away from you and move it where it belongs, which is the systems of oppression and the people who uphold them that are harming you. And there is something so liberating about seeing a client go from like, it's my fault. that people are mean to me about my size and I can't buy clothes that fit and all these things to it's society and the people who are upholding these systems fault. And I'm actually okay. Like they don't get less oppressed. But the internal feeling of moving through the world knowing that it's not your fault is life changing.
- Speaker #1
I know you talk a lot about how body neutrality is very intertwined with liberation work. Can you speak to that? I know you just gave some great answers, but... How are they intertwined?
- Speaker #0
So body neutrality, the way that I teach it, is all about stripping away false and excess meaning from the body and seeing the truth. And the truth is that there is no kind of worthy person based on race, based on ability, based on body size, based on everything. So once you start unpacking this stuff and really seeing, oh, wow, I learned a lot of stuff that is not true, it just automatically, I think, shifts you into the... collective liberation mindset. Everyone that I work with, I love the part where they're like, so I started challenging my mom about some stuff, you know, where it starts to be like, they're doing this work usually kind of not in secret exactly, but like just alone. And then they start to get confident enough in it that they start changing their social circle, influencing the people around them to challenge these same ideas. Because once you start asking questions like, but why does being fat? make a person bad. Well, what about these studies? Huh, but what about this fact? Like, it all falls apart. And doing that on every level that oppresses people because so much of oppression is based on your body or something about your body, I see it have a natural impact. Like, it's self-liberation, of course, but it just naturally brings you into a place where you are now unpacking collective liberation inside yourself and spreading that. Because once you see behind the veil... You know, you pull the curtain back and you're like, oh, Oz or whatever is like a bunch of BS. And you just see it. You can never unsee it. You want to tell people. And that is what collective liberation needs.
- Speaker #1
Who is this obsession with our bodies helping? Like what powers is us being wrapped up in the morality of our bodies helping? Who's it helping?
- Speaker #0
Every system of oppression, pretty much. It helps the people at the top. It helps the people who are most privileged. Great example, patriarchy, women hating their bodies, benefits, if you will. I don't mean it actually benefits them because the patriarchy harms everyone, but, you know, it gives them certain privileges. It allowed over history, it allowed them to stay on top because women were busy.
- Speaker #2
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
Like we could no longer be oppressed because we were like equal citizens, yay for us. But now you have to hate yourself. Like there's some really interesting like books and stuff written on how as women have gained more rights, there has been so much more body, like beauty ideals being forced upon them. And it's just like, oh, look what we did. You were controlled by the church before and by like the laws. And now that's not okay anymore. So boom, capitalism steps in and like makes this whole thing. I mean, it's the people with the most privilege that they don't want to lose. It benefits them for people to stay controlled and be busy. Can you imagine, by the way if all women just suddenly we're like body neutral tomorrow, what we would see if everyone felt worthy overnight and actually believed in themselves and was in tune with themselves and their bodies.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. I mean, I can imagine that it's similar. I was in an abusive job a few years back and I left and I cried every morning for a week straight because I'm like, I can't believe I got out. And then I'd gone these walks and I saw trees. Like I never noticed the trees in my neighborhood Because what really we're doing with... I think at least my relationship with myself has been abusive. And so it's like leaving that and saying, I deserve more. And I love this TikTok you did where, I mean, it directly relates to Unleash Your Inner Creative. Now that you're body neutral, you have all this time. You said, I used to paint my body. Now I paint pots.
- Speaker #0
Do you know how much time, money and energy I spent on makeup and hair and clothing and all these things? Like I still, I like to express myself. So it's not like that's gone.
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
But. It was like survival mode makeuping. You know what I mean? Yes. Like it had so much of a hold on me. I would feel like I was going to die if someone saw my face, my natural face. I was so ashamed of what would somebody think of me if they found out that I don't naturally have sticky black lashes, you know? The whole thing, it's so ridiculous to look back on, but it was very real for me. And so, yeah, I now have all this brain space, time, energy, money, everything. to do whatever the heck I want with. And I make art.
- Speaker #1
And it's really, really cute. You should thank you. I like it a lot. I made me want to try painting. And I just want to finalize with like how you wrote this book and how powerful it is. And I'm going to continue reading it slowly because I need to so that I don't just combust because there's so much important information in it. But one thing you said too, that I thought was really powerful that you just spoke to is what body neutrality is not. It doesn't involve not being healthy. It doesn't involve having to look natural. It doesn't involve not appreciating or feeling gratitude for your body. And it doesn't involve not having preferences even about your body. It's just taking away the morality of those things.
- Speaker #0
And these are major misconceptions. I always say, I think that the one with natural, like, oh, it's better to look natural, that whole thing. I'm like, is this just because natural and neutral sound the same? I don't know. But there definitely is pushback. I see some people making content about like, screw body neutrality. Like, I want to look pretty. And like, Here's the deal. It's neutrality everything. Everything is morally neutral. There are no body neutral behaviors.
- Speaker #1
Right.
- Speaker #0
Or whatever. Or rather, they're all neutral. So there are no like good and bad behaviors that are more or less, right? It's about taking the power and meaning away from them so that like me, I could do a full face of makeup right now and it would not be coming from the same place it used to, which was like fear, shame, and obligation.
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
It would just be doing a thing now. It's totally neutral. So you want to have freedom to do it. do whatever you want. And that includes things like health choices. Like you can eat healthy, you can eat unhealthy. There's no morality here. You can do what you want, but I would definitely check in with yourself if you're doing one or the other for reasons that are like shame, fear, and obligation. You know what I mean?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, it's so powerful. So final question, this book of yours, Body Neutral, is so powerful. I want to know, how did you decide to finally take all these things you've learned and have been sharing and coaching people on? and put it into a book. And what is your hope that readers will get out of this book?
- Speaker #0
I had already created the Blueprint and the Avatars, and I was posting about them a lot. When I was offered, a publisher reached out and said, I can hook you up with an agent if you want. I think this could make a good book. So I was pushed into a place that I don't know what I would have done. I always wanted to write a book. I just figured, I'll self-publish. Who knows what the book industry is like? It just wasn't something I had any familiarity with. So really, it was getting that opportunity that made me sit myself down and be like, what do I want to make?
- Speaker #1
Oh, my God.
- Speaker #0
And I learned a lot during the writing process to like learning how to clarify different concepts that had only been in my head. Because it's like when I'm with clients, I don't have to label everything, you know. So I'm like, how do I label this for a person who's not in front of me, who is trying to apply this work, which feels very intuitive to me when coaching. And so I had to really make things clear. from that perspective, which was really fun, actually.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, it's so good, Jessie. I'm so grateful you exist in the world and are sharing these radical thoughts. I mean, this is radical stuff. And I just want anyone who's on this journey to know if it feels really hard and heavy and scary and like, I don't know, sometimes when I read it, I still want to escape my body. I'm like, I just wish I could like float up and like hover above myself. But I think that's correct. and think of how many years we've been sitting with these things and letting them press us down. The pressure has to go somewhere and it's okay if it feels like that.
- Speaker #0
And also,
- Speaker #1
I mean,
- Speaker #0
that kind of goes back to, like you said, what do I want people to get out of it? Nothing short of a cultural revolution would be great. But I think what I want people to see is that it's not what they think it is. Like people hear these things, especially after the mainstream body positivity stuff got so popular. They hear these things and it just sounds read. ridiculous to them. It sounds like science fiction or woo-woo magic or whatever. I want people to see that it's so much more. It's really intuitive. It's really straightforward. It's actually quite a simple concept. Your brain doesn't do anything for no reason. It's always doing something for a reason. It's always trying to help or protect you. So let's find the reason for this and then deal with it.
- Speaker #1
Deal with whatever the thing is, right?
- Speaker #0
It's actually pretty simple and it can apply to anybody and it is just about... Really, I think starting where you are and even accepting, like I said before, it's like you have permission to struggle and suffer. You have permission to hate your body because trying to reject that is not all that different from trying to reject your body. You know, it's all just part of the truth of right now. And so accepting first and foremost, like that I hate my body today is the work.
- Speaker #1
You are a gift to the world. Thank you so much for who you are and what you do and for bringing this to the consciousness. It is a revolution. And you say that in the book too, which I love, you know, just even doing it within yourself is a revolution, the way it will spread to your community and then those people will spread to another community. And I'm just really grateful because it's not just about the body. It's really about loving and accepting ourselves for who we are. So. Thank you so much. You've given me a lot to think about and a lot to work through. And I'm grateful.
- Speaker #0
Thank you for being so down to like be vulnerable and share. It was fun.
- Speaker #1
This was amazing for me and super helpful. I just can't believe how connected everything is. It's just all the same. It's like, it's amazing. And it's very upsetting.
- Speaker #0
Yes,
- Speaker #1
I agree. Jessie, thank you.
- Speaker #0
Thank you.
- Speaker #1
Thank you for listening and thanks to my guest, Jesse Nealon. For more info on Jesse, follow them at Jesse Nealon. And Jesse spells Jesse, J-E-S-S-I. And visit their website, jessenealon.com, where you can preorder their book, Body Neutral, as well as find more information on how you can book a coaching session with Jesse. Thanks to Rachel Fulton for helping edit this episode. Follow her at Rachel M. Fulton. Thanks to Liz Full for the show's theme music. Follow her at Liz Full. And again, thank you. If you like what you heard today, remember to rate, review, and follow Unleash on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share the show with a friend and post about it on social media. Tag me at Lauren LaGrasso and at Unleash Your Inner Creative, and I will repost to share my gratitude. Also tag the guests at Jessie Neeland so they can share as well. My wish for you this week is for you to practice self-advocacy. You are an incredibly strong, courageous, and beautiful person. We all have traumas and hard things from our past. So being able to speak up for yourself and be your own protector now is a huge step in your healing journey. It's not easy, but we'll work on this together. And remember, you are enough exactly as you are now. You do not have to earn worthiness. It's inherent because you're alive. Thank you for joining me today. I love you and I believe in you. Talk with you next week.
