EP 109
Body confidence
Alyssa, welcome fellow confidence crusaders, neuro nerds and success equalizers. This is your podcast, Real Confidence. I'm your host, Alyssa Dver, and I'll be sharing a bit of basic brain science, some surprising social secrets and a touch of tough love. Why? Because I believe confidence is everyone's fundamental right and choice. So let's get to it.
Alyssa Dver:
Body peace, just saying that word is it just kind of always gives me a little bit of peace. Just saying it so Nina Manelson is with me. We are going to talk about what body peace is, why it's needed. And if the two of us have a little Boston, kivid Singh, because we're about 45 minutes apart. So welcome to the show, Nina.
Nina Manelson:
Thank you so much. Alyssa, really a delight to be.
Alyssa Dver:
All right, body peace. What is it and why do we need it?
Nina Manelson:
Yeah, so the best way to understand body peace is to think about body hate. And I say that because most of us know what that is really well. When we're looking in the mirror and we don't like what we see when we eat something and we think, oh my gosh, what the heck was I thinking when we get on a scale and feel terrible about ourselves, when we walk into a room and compare ourselves to other people in the room, all of that is body hate, body shame, body comparison, and it makes us feel bad. Fundamentally, it makes us feel bad. And it actually, even though we think it might, it does nothing to motivate or better self care. In fact, it just sort of derails our train versus body peace, which is a connected relationship to one's body, where we're listening to what our body wants and needs, where we're responding to what makes us feel truly vibrant, truly alive, truly At home in our body, and that's what we want.
Alyssa Dver:
I love it, alright. So now that we kind of have this phrase that just like grabbed my attention when you wrote to me, how did you get into something like this? And what is that? What? What is it that you do? Is it counseling? It's therapy? Is it a diet like, what is it that you actually do for people so that you achieve body peace?
Nina Manelson:
Yeah, so how I ended up in this world is because I was in body hate for many years, body hate and then managing my Oh, my gosh, I gotta start again on Monday. Oh, blew that by Thursday. Let's start again on Monday. Oh, let's start that tomorrow. So I was in the cycle of dieting, the cycle of feeling bad about myself, and I slowly, slowly worked my way to a place of feeling at home with my body. And I was like, you know, I bet I could help people do this much faster than I did, because I through that process. That was a personal process. It also became a professional process. I was a therapist. I became a health coach. I dove into psychology of eating and intuitive eating and internal family systems therapy. And so when you ask, what does it do? I would say, I'm a body peace coach. I founded body peace but I really coach people on how to reclaim their relationship with our body, because fundamentally, what we're doing when we're hating our body, when we're feeling shame, is we're divorcing our body. We're like, I don't want to deal with you. You should go, I don't know, to the gym. You should go on a diet.
We're like, treating our most sacred partner like trash and bossing them and body peaces about reclaiming the relationship with self, it's coming into a conversation that's respectful and responsive. And so the work that I do, I do individually with people coaching, but I also work with groups of women, because I find that when women get together in group, the shame falls away. We're like, oh my gosh, you felt that too. Someone name called you, you went to the doctor and all they told you was just to lose weight with no recommendations for anything else, right?
Totally. So we want to be in connection and community in an environment that makes us feel like, Oh yeah, it's okay to be seeking a sense of real, authentic well being in my own skin.
Alyssa Dver:
Wonderful. Thank you for doing the work. Thank you for explaining it. Now, when you said body shaming is like feeling you said, when you were going through it, it was that feeling of, I shouldn't ate, that the whole that's my age showing with the opposite, but that it is that constant berating of I should right. I should exercise more. I shouldn't have eaten this. I should eat that. I should right. I think I had, and I say I had because I maybe found body peace on my own. I also lost a lot of weight in the last year. So, like, part of it was just like, shut up and do something. But my shaming, and I wonder if you had this, I have a feeling listeners do is whatever something wasn't right or good. My knees hurt. I was uncomfortable in my airline chair, whatever the jacket zipper broke, anything it was because you're fat, right? That was in my head. Yeah, I blamed the fat for all my ills, and I say it was like, well, you deserve that fat. And I wonder if you hear that a lot?
Nina Manelson:
I do. I do it becomes our default self blame, and it's really important to notice that it's a default self blame, because it doesn't just happen when we're feeling tight in clothes or tight in airline. It happens where you know you go on a job interview and you don't get the job. Oh, see, it's because I'm fat. Now, the truth is, we do have fat bias in our world, and we have a lot of fat phobia and and people do discriminate against fat people. But what happens? Suppose you're in a social situation, and people aren't being connected to you. Oh, it's because I'm fat versus maybe there's something going else going on, right? Maybe I'm not starting a conversation. Maybe I don't feel confident enough in my own skin to actually engage in somebody so what do you do? You know? What do you do for fun in life?
So to be in that conversation with ourselves that asks us, what is going on underneath the oh, it's because I'm fat. I feel fat because there's so many feelings underneath. I feel fat. There's disappointment, there's happiness, there's sadness, there's grief, there's frustration, but what is easier for many people who are living in larger bodies is to just go, I feel fat. It's shorthand for I'm not good enough. I'm not working. I am not okay. I don't deserve all the same wonderful things as everybody else deserves.
Alyssa Dver
Right. And I've talked to some friends and even some family members who share this, and you know, it's extensive, right? It's, oh, no wonder there's no size 14, 16,18, for that designer. They don't want to somebody like me wearing their clothes, right? Like all of that, or no wonder your husband left you, because you're fat, right?
Nina Manelson:
That's fat shaming. That is fat shaming well, and it's really important to know that that's real, yeah, well,
Alyssa Dver:
We fat shame ourselves, right? Like, yeah, well, all right, so good. We're all confessed. We're all good. I'm not saying that. I don't do it anymore, but I've certainly gotten a handle on it, granted, not just losing weight, but becoming 60 soon, has really done some good things for my body peace. Why do why? I mean, is it just media magazines, models and all that, or is it more than that?
Nina Manelson:
So it is all of those things- media, magazines, models, it absolutely is. It's also baked into the culture. It's baked into our medical system, where you go to the doctor and they prescribe weight loss. In fact, there's a study that that I read around two people that included two people, a daughter and a father, and they both went to the doctor with similar issues, and the daughter was said, here's PT, this might help. This might help. And the father, who lived in a larger body, they told him, just lose weight. So it's not just diet coming at us, which is a $72 billion industry. It's not just the influencers on social media. It's also in the healthcare system. It's in education. It's in every part of our culture. It's a little bit like that analogy of like fish don't know that they're in water because they're in water. We don't even realize that every ad that we're looking at has been airbrushed. Every food has some like, oh, this will help you wait, this has no this and know that. And there's so much. Much of our culture is telling us that we are not okay in our body as it is, and that is not true.
Alyssa Dver:
Now, you just gave an example of a man, but I know well, most of your work is with women. This is not gender specific.
Nina Manelson:
It is not a gender specific issue at all. I, however, have an expertise. I've been working with women for 30 years, so that's my wheelhouse. But this is absolutely not a gender specific issue. There are men who are at there. It's non stop. In our culture, this pressure to wage war against your body, as though your body was some project to be managed and that you are broken in you to be fixed. You do not, you are not broken. You do not need to be fixed. You may want to, you know, work towards whatever your definition of well being is, whether that's more energy, whether that's more flexibility, whether that's more agility, whatever that is, but to put all of our goals of feeling good in our body under the umbrella of lose weight is really too simplistic and misses the mark and only leaves us in a failing system.
Alyssa Dver
Now you've said our culture, are you speaking American US centric, or is because there's other cultures I've been that it seems that they're not nearly as ashamed of being bad or showing off even, you know, not perfect bodies. So what's your experience been cross ethnicities or cultures in that regard?
Nina Manelson:
Right? So my experience is that cultures all have, all cultures have some kind of body ideal. It may not be twiggy thin, but there is some kind of body ideal. Argentina has one of the highest rates of plastic surgery on women in the world. Brazil as well, right? There's countries that you wouldn't think, you'd think, oh, you know, they're a little more Latin. There's a little more space for curves, but they have their own body ideal, and people are changing their bodies to fit that ideal. So it isn't just American. We have exported our idea of, you know, tall, blonde and thin to a lot of places in the world, but it's all over. Yeah? It's tragic.
Alyssa Dver
Yeah, all right, so you know, psychological issues that you've brought up, you know what? How else does it manifest? Like, how do you know that you've got body shaming and what is really the effect of it?
Nina Manelson:
Yeah, so when we are feeling bad about ourselves, when we're walking into a room and we go, Hmm, I'm scanning, scanning, scanning, okay, I'm I'm bigger than her. Nope, she's bigger than me. When we're ranking ourselves in terms of size, and then we're deciding who's more valuable based on that size. We are in body hate. We are in body shame, right? That comparison is body hate and body shame, when we're also in that sense of body management, like, oh my gosh. Now, okay, now I'm going to do intermittent fasting, no. Now I'm going to do paleo, no. Now I'm going to do keto, no. Now I'm going to do okay, blew it. Now I'll start this new thing, right? That again, is a place of disordered eating.
We want to feel like we can relax in our body. We want to feel like we can relax around food, enjoy our food, have pleasure in our life. So if it's no fun to be in your body, then it's time to actually do the work of repair. When most of us have had some kind of rupture in that relationship, in this most important relationship of our body. In fact, I think of this, the relationship with our body, as the most important relationship of our life. Because we're born in this body, we're going to die in this body. How we feel in this body impacts every other aspect of our life. It impacts how intimate we are with our partner. It impacts how confidently we walk into a room. It impacts how we show up with the people that we care about in our life. So when we focus on this relationship with our body, we are actually impacting all other aspects of our life. Can make a change. So if you're feeling like, oh, this is a client of mine said this. She said, oh my gosh. I when we were unpacking her relationship and what she was saying to her body, and what she was saying as she was getting dressed in the morning, and what she would say to herself as she was eating, she said, wow, when I think about it, I realize I have been in a uncivil relationship with myself. And it is she said, and I wouldn't treat anyone else this way, no, and that's true. We wouldn't. We would never, ever talk to other people in the way that we talk to ourselves.
Alyssa Dver:
That's profound. I would like to take. I should say would like to take. We need to take a break for our sponsor, but when we come back, I am absolutely on edge in my seat here to understand, Okay, now that we've admitted that we're aware that we're body shaming ourselves, how do we get out of the cycle? What do we do? So I'm going to ask you to get us back to safety. Okay, alright, we'll be right back.
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Alyssa Dver:
Back with Nina Manelson, who's teaching us about body peace, you just have to like, that's a beautiful phrase. How do we get to be body peaceful. Nina, please help us.
Nina Manelson:
So the first thing is really noticing what the current relationship is with your body, right? We just unpack that, right? If you're shaming yourself, if you're hating yourself, if you're trashing yourself, it's a little bit like, you know, a GPS. We're in Boston. We're trying to get to New York. We plug it into the GPS. The first thing it does is figure out where you are. So where are you? How is your relationship going? Right? What's going on? How do you talk to yourself? How long has this been going? Where did you learn to talk to yourself this way? All of these things are really important in looking at where are you currently in your relationship, because then you can decide, Hmm, do I want it to be different?
And there's a very simple exercise, Alyssa, if you're willing to do it with me, it's a way, it's, it's so simple, but it's a way to start the conversation, because what we're doing is we've stopped talking to our body. We've stopped having an actual conversation. We're just yelling at our body all the time, and then when our body needs our attention, it yells back at us. So we want to start a gentle conversation with our body. This is a way to start to repair the relationship. This is not going to do it all in one second, but it's a beginning. So if you would close your eyes, put your hand on your heart and feel the pressure of your hand, actually feel it against your body. You may feel warmth, you may feel a little pressure. You may feel a lot of pressure, and then in your mind's eye, as though you're whispering to somebody you truly cared about, say, Hello body, hello body. And take a breath and notice, what does it feel just to make contact, going, Hey, I see you. Alyssa, what do you notice?
Alyssa Dver:
Well, it was, it's very peaceful, like, right? I mean, all of a sudden it's like, you start feeling for your heartbeat, and you're kind of in touch with that rhythm. And it's like, okay, just focus and calm down a little, right? It just happened naturally.
Nina Manelson:
Well, there's a couple things, sorry, go ahead.
Alyssa Dver:
Oh, it was so simple. It was lovely. Yeah, it is so simple, but very profound, right? First thing we're doing is embodiment. Oh, I'm getting out of my head, which is like, I'm thinking about my body. I'm thinking about what someone else thinks about my body. Get out of our head, get into our body, right? And then start a gentle conversation. Instead of like, oh my gosh, you should go to the gym. You should stop eating, right? No, hello. It's the way, Alyssa, when you and I started talking, I was like. Hi, Alyssa, right. It's the way we start conversation. It's the way we engage. And it may seem very like, oh, this isn't going to make a big difference, but the more we practice. And that's the thing about body peace, it's not a destination. It's not like, woo hoo, I'm going to be positive about my body all the time, woo hoo. I'm going to love my body all the time. That's not, that's not how any relationship works in the world. We you know, we wake up and our pet is peed on the on the carpet, and you're not like, oh my gosh, I love you in this moment, right? You're like, that's kind of annoying. So that's real relationship with people, with pets is the up and downs. So what we want to do is practice body peace.
Body peace is a practice, not a destination, and it's not aspirational, like, Okay, now I'm going to lose seven pounds in seven days, and then I'm going to feel terrific every single day. It's a practice of engagement that is possible for us, especially for those of us who have disengaged, who have felt like, nope, I am a big problem. We need to re-engage in a way that is compassionate and caring and supportive.
Alyssa Dver:
And you know, of course, because of my confidence lens on everything, the reason I asked you to come on is because, if you are body, body shaming, body not happy, whatever you want to call us like you said, it's going to affect everything, the way you think, the way you walk, the way you dress, the everything. If you can fix that relationship and all of a sudden show up inside and out, it's going to be noticeable.
Nina Manelson:
It's huge what you're saying. Because when people have this thing of like, oh, I'll get on stage and be confident when I lose weight, when I'm in a smaller body, right? I will feel comfortable walking into a room and confident and talking to people when we're allowed to aim this body. We're allowed to be in this body and take care of her, him, when, when, when, now as we are now. That's so powerful to say, yes, I am in this relationship, and the more that I deepen into it and listen. And sometimes listening to our body is not so fun, right? Sometimes people say, Hello body, and their body's like, really now, you know, I've been trying to get your attention for over 50 years. Now you're going to be nice to me, right? Or sometimes we go, hello body, and the body goes, wow, I have a story to tell you. It's been hard. There's been trauma, there's been loss, there's been injury, there's been illness. It's like walking into working in body peace is like going into therapy as a couple and really repairing the ruptures that have happened.
Alyssa Dver:
Yeah, it sounds it, but it also sounds like the benefits are huge. Can you just give me an example or two of some people who've overcome their body issues and achieve peace, like, what? What kinds of results do you see?
Nina Manelson:
Yeah, they get on with their life. And of a story that I love. There was a woman that I worked with, and she was like, obsessed, right? And she was really into the, like, wellness culture, I'm going to eat this way and do it this way and and cut out this and cut out that. And she was like, literally, all my brain space is based on what I'm eating. And so we really did the work around her management style with her body to come place of compassion, of awareness, of listening, of being truly connected. And she was like, Yeah, I think I'm going to go back to school now. She went into a management program. She got a huge promotion because she freed up her mental space, her energy, her psychic space. Thing that I hear the most from people when they define I often ask my clients like so what is body peace to you? And the word that I hear the most is freedom. Because people feel shackled. They feel imprisoned. They feel oppressed by their relationship with their body, and what they're saying to their body is so painful.
Alyssa Dver
My friend, I hope I can call you that now, because you have been just such a delight to listen and learn from you. Continue to listen and learn. Reach you if they want to engage in some of the programs, and I believe you're going to give away some goodies too.
Nina Manelson:
Yes, I have two wonderful ways to start on the path of body peace. And one is a practicing body peace journal, and you can find it on my website, ninamanelson.com or body peace with Nina all one word takes you to the same place, and that journal has 20. Questions, 20 questions that I would ask you, if you were sitting in a session with me, that I would ask you so that you could figure out what's going on with my relationship with my body, what happened? Where did this rupture come from? And in it also are five of my body peace poems. I write poetry about women and their relationship with their body, because I feel like we don't have the language in our culture to talk about a supportive relationship with our body. All we know is how to hate our body, and so we need new vocabulary. We need new ways to think about and feel about our body. So that's one great way, and the other is I have a body peace master class also go to Nina manelson.com and the master class really gets into different kinds of relationships that we can have with our body that are not body hate and body management.
Alyssa Dver:
Wonderful. I again, thank you so much for sharing wisdom and insight and doing the great work to help people really feel better about themselves their bodies and certainly give them a tremendous amount of confidence. Thank you so much.
Nina Manelson:
Totally my delight. Alyssa, thank you for having me.
Alyssa Dver:
Before we totally wrap up. I want to let you know that full transcripts and show notes for this and other real confidence episodes can be found on www.AmericanConfidenceInstitute.com/podcast. I also want to remind you once again that the best way to get confidence is to give it to others, and you can do it just by liking and sharing this episode on your preferred podcast and social media channels. You can even give me some confidence by noting topics you'd like me to consider for the future. So for now, this is Alyssa Dver. Thank you for helping to bring more confidence to the world.
Master editing done by Ben Weinstein with original music performed and composed by Jeff Mitchell. Real confidence is a production of American Confidence Institute.
