Love Your Body Now
Love Your Body Now
How to Break Free from Negative Body Image
Last week, I was a part of a virtual Women's Wellness Summit where I got to speak on practical steps towards breaking free from negative body image and finding confidence beyond the mirror. I'm sharing with you the exclusive presentation with insights on building habits anchored in core beliefs, emphasizing the futility of adopting new routines without addressing the underlying mindset. Through practical advice on tracking behaviors without judgment and the transformative practice of journaling, it sheds light on how to achieve lasting change.
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Welcome to the Love your Body Now podcast, the podcast for women who are ready to feel confident in their body right now and redefine what health looks like for them. I'm Savannah, your host, and together we'll be having conversations about what it means to accept and love our bodies now, while simultaneously prioritizing our health journey. We'll be debunking beliefs that do not serve us and diving into misconceptions and unhealthy narratives in the fitness world, so that we can rebuild our foundation from a place of self-love.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited for Savannah to share about her journey today, to share about her big message of body positivity that she is just taking the world by storm with, with everything she's doing her podcast, with her apparel line, and half my closet is her apparel line, and and the half my closet is her apparel line, by the way. And yeah, she's just, she's one. If you are not connected with her, like everybody here, she's one of those women that afterwards you're gonna be in her dms, you're gonna be checking out what she's doing, because she is just, she's the real deal. So, without further ado, I introduce to you my sweet friend Savannah.
Speaker 1:Thank you for that, kelly, and like that's so true. Like you said, we it's crazy how connected you can get with someone virtually, since we don't live we don't live by each other but like you really have helped me through like really tough times so far and it's just I I mean that's the power of your community and like like who you are as a person. So I'm just like really grateful to be a part of this. And, um, I remember last year I told you I'm like I want to get more into speaking. And then, like two days later, you're like, guess what? I'm gonna have you speak at my virtual event and that was like a year ago and I'm like, oh my gosh, so this has been a long time coming and I'm just happy, happy to be a part of it. And I'm also wearing one of my other self-love shirts.
Speaker 1:But I want to get into really just like where you can start when it comes to healing your negative body image and finding self-worth beyond the mirror. And I I really like to tie in body image when it comes to talking about health and fitness because, like Kelly said, I love health and fitness. I've always been super active, but I've always struggled with my body image and that's not something that's talked about so much. When it comes to, you know, our weight loss journeys and just overall fitness, we don't really talk about like the behind the scenes of what's going on internally as we're struggling with our overall image. And I just want to share I know you shared a little bit about my background but, like Kelly said, I grew up playing sports, always have been involved in fitness, so I've always been active. I played a college sport. I did powerlifting in high school, so, like super big in the weight room, I ended up getting my degree in exercise science and then went on to get my health coaching certification and after college, I ended up working with women to work on their health and fitness and I ended up working with over 50 women, working with them while also working on myself at the same time. So I'm really really passionate about health and fitness, along with spreading the mission or the message that we can learn to heal our relationship with our bodies while still having a positive experience with fitness. And I think that that's the biggest thing is, you can want to heal your relationship with your body, you can want to love your body and still have a positive experience with fitness. It doesn't have to be this negative feelings about exercise or how we eat when it comes to those things. And the reason I'm so passionate about it and like really hone in on that message is because I had to go through that myself and I had to navigate and figure out how to rewrite my own narrative, and that's why it's so important to me to help other women navigate that too.
Speaker 1:And just a little bit further back of like my personal experience and maybe you share the same. Maybe it doesn't go that deep for you, but I remember, as young as 12 years old, like hating my body, like seriously, like 12 to 13 is the. But I remember as young as 12 years old, like hating my body, like seriously, like 12 to 13 is the age I remember feeling very uncomfortable, um, in my own skin and you know I I struggled with toxic eating behaviors. I struggled with, um, like a toxic relationship to exercise, even though I was again like super active and did sports and exercise and a lot of that. I feel like I poured into those things to kind of like get away from the mental aspect of it. But the reason I shared that specifically is because I never spoke about it or talked about it with anyone, and I think it's super important to spread this message, especially for us women you know the age that we are now trying to navigate this but, more importantly, to stop the cycle for our youth and like that's something. That is one of the things that I really want to start to step into as well as not only how can we help the women now, but how can we stop the cycle, and you know it's really hard sometimes to recognize people who are struggling with it. So that's why we need to talk about it more and that's why now I focus heavily on my podcast, which is called Love your Body. Now I do bi-weekly episodes and we have our Instagram page, which is we are Love your Body Now, and that's why I started my apparel line.
Speaker 1:So I kind of stopped doing the coaching and shifted more to this platform where I could just speak on all these different topics and anyone can come in and plug in, whether they're like I really need to heal my relationship with exercise, or I really need to heal my relationship with nutrition, or, you know, I really need to figure out what. What are my first steps? Like I don't even know where to begin and you can go in and find an episode and we have incredible speakers to that. Come on and talk about different areas of health and wellness. So that is something that I'm really focused on right now is the podcast and then the apparel line, which I'm always launching new things and it's just really centered around how can we feel worthy beyond the physical appearance and find self-love and treat our bodies with kindness. So I'll get a little bit more into that at the end, but let's talk about how and where we can start to heal our relationship with our body image and find self-worth beyond the mirror. And this is the first step that is so important that I hear a lot of people talk about in this community with whatever they're sharing.
Speaker 1:But awareness, awareness is so huge and you cannot make any changes with what's going on up here mentally or with your actions when you don't really have any awareness that maybe it's your autopilot or maybe your behaviors that are going on that you're not super aware of. And I always like to share this example and you may have heard me share it before but our brain does things on autopilot to preserve energy. It's a biological thing that our brain does because we are designed to preserve energy, because you never know when you're going to need that energy for survival. So naturally, survival so naturally, on a day to day basis, it is doing things that are on autopilot, driven by, you know, beliefs, driven by different thoughts and just what we're used to. So the example I like to give is when, maybe, you commute to work every day and you're driving home from work and you get home and you sit there and you're like how the heck did I just get home Like I didn't even think about that drive, like was that light red or was that light green? I don't even know? We've all had that happen before.
Speaker 1:And that's a great example of like that is how autopilot we live, when we are not continuously like checking in with ourselves of what's going on, like what am I? Why am I doing what I'm doing? You know, why does this even matter? To me Is it is super important to check in with yourself daily on where your thoughts are, because essentially, your beliefs are what drive your thoughts and your thoughts are what drive your actions every day and I do talk a lot about how we self-sabotage a lot and we don't really know why it's like, why do I say I'm going to work out, start working out this week, and then all of a sudden, like next week I haven't worked out at all. Like why do I do that? And it's like we say over and over again, but then we self-sabotage Well, it's derived from our beliefs. Because, again, our beliefs push our thoughts and then our thoughts push our behaviors and our actions, and then our thoughts push our behaviors and our actions. And if we're trying to go against a belief that is like subconsciously ingrained in us, it's gonna be really hard to go against that belief because naturally autopilot kicks in and it's trying to preserve energy. So I have plenty of episodes where I talk about, like how do we rewire this? Like how do we rewire this? Like how do we rewire the belief so that it's working for us and we're not trying to work against, like, all right, like you're committed, like let's do this, we're all in type of deal and I am, I'm not one to push that type of behavior change because of how, again, psychology, like understanding psychology of the brain, and it's like that does work for some people, and sometimes you can surround yourself with the right support system and have the accountability and you just push through it. It's great.
Speaker 1:But then a lot of times, even if you're successful with that method, a lot of the times when life gets hard, you revert back and it's because you didn't tap into the belief system of whatever core beliefs that you have. Going on, it was more like you adopted these new habits that weren't built. Who was it yesterday? I think it was JC yesterday talking about the house foundation. You like built it off of this like really weak foundation, which again go back to your beliefs, and it's like you're trying to establish all these new habits when deep down, you don't believe that you're that type of person.
Speaker 1:It's one thing to say out loud with, with truth and belief in yourself, that I am a person who works out regularly. It's like if you say that but you don't work out regularly, your brain's going that's a lie, like that's not true, no matter how many times you say it. You can't just pretend and that's why I like to teach people to really start small with your new habit changes, because your brain isn't like having this lit up like trigger oh my gosh, gosh. Like she's going against her core beliefs, like this isn't who we are and you're doing things very slowly to where the point your brain isn't like okay, like that's fine, like it's just something a little different. We're trying, and I always say like start small to where it barely feels like you're making any change. And I know that that's really hard for some people because when we get an idea we're like all right, let's do this. But slowing down can really be a very powerful thing.
Speaker 1:And when you are slowing down and continuously checking in with yourself again, having that awareness of what's going on in my head, like what am I thinking? Having that awareness of what's going on in my head, like what am I thinking? What does my natural, like, what do my natural behaviors want to fall into, you can start to meet them where they're at. And that's that's huge. If you can have enough awareness to know where you're at and then meet you where you're at, that is where you can really start to make big change. That is where you can really start to make big change. You just got to be patient with yourself. So that is where I start.
Speaker 1:Anytime we talk about like where do you even begin to heal your relationship with your body? Have that awareness with yourself, start to dive deep into what are my core beliefs, what are my regular habits, on a day toto-day basis and always reminding you that if you are in that stage and you're just trying to understand yourself better, have grace with yourself. Don't come at this with an approach of like frustration, where you're kicking yourself for not being where you're at, because I know it can be super easy to do that Like if you're someone who's like okay, I'm going to start tracking my nutrition for the week just to see you know what does this look like on a regular basis, because I just I'm on autopilot right now and then you look down and you see that like you're eating way more than you thought. It can be really easy to get upset with yourself or to get super in your head about it and feel really frustrated, but the less emotion that you can have with it and the more just looking at it as data, the easier it is going to feel to basically like analyze it and figure out where's my next step, like what do I need to do differently. That's not going to feel super overwhelming. Just somewhere to start and then next week I can reevaluate again. So awareness, always having those check-ins with yourself is where I recommend starting, and this next step is something that I went through this year. This year was a super impactful year for me so far. I really started to do the actual work it takes to really like rewire things, because it is one thing to consume so much education and knowledge and understand how this person did it and understand how this person does it and just like consume, consume, consume and you think you're making all this change, but it's another thing to go in and implement it and feel the emotions and have the hard conversations and it's like this is the part where things can really transform, and I say this from very fresh experience. So I highly, highly recommend journaling, and I talked about this at Crystal's event where I was like I used to think that journaling was just like kind of like writing down how my day went and like what all went down, and that's why I was always like journaling's not for me, like I just I can't get into it.
Speaker 1:I don't, you know, I don't remember to. But then I read this book. Oh my gosh, what was it called? Lady Balls. That was the catalyst of my freaking journey. Like I am not exaggerating like this book transformed my life, um, from the knowledge and just the tools that were in that book and how it taught me to journal. I got so many prompts from it, but it showed me a new way to journal where it was like asking yourself such powerful questions and really like digging deep. And that is the difference between what I thought was journaling before, which was just kind of like writing down what you felt like, versus figuring out. And what's really powerful is when you have a problem that arises and then all of a sudden you're reacting to the problem, having enough awareness to stop yourself in the midst of it and figure out how you're going to work through this problem internally, whether it's involving someone else or not. And that was where I was really starting to notice big changes.
Speaker 1:For myself was something would come up, something small, and I would notice I would be feeling triggered or feeling like frustrated or angry or whatever. And the easiest example I can give is something with my husband right, like he does something or he doesn't do something. And then all of a sudden, I'm mad, but I'm like really mad and I'm like why am I so mad about something so stupid? So then it was like I was really trying to stop myself from even saying anything to him, even reacting or bringing it up to him, and I'm like, let me work through this with me first and figure out why am I so triggered by this? And figuring that out and then realizing a lot of the times it was because of something that I wasn't doing for myself, and it's like that's how deep you can get with it.
Speaker 1:So, um, trying to think of an example and this doesn't even have to do with body image, but I think it was I was really frustrated that he wasn't like taking the dogs on the walk or something like that, without me asking, and I was like, okay, I'm going to use this as a time to learn deeper about myself. Like what's going on with me, why am I so angry about this? And I think I had like figured out that I was really upset because I wasn't managing my own time to where I was taking the dogs on a walk. So instead I was getting mad at him for not doing it, and that's like one of the reasons why I think a lot of people avoid journaling as well, because a lot of the times we're the problem and we don't want to admit it, and a lot of the times your relationships can get so much better when you work through those things that are going on internally. And it's super powerful when you're doing that in a space of body image healing, whether it's like maybe you saw someone on Instagram and instantly like it made you feel like crap, and it's like that's a perfect opportunity to start journaling and asking yourself, asking yourself an open-ended question and allowing yourself to go deep and deep and deep with it.
Speaker 1:You know, do certain memories come up?
Speaker 1:If a certain memory comes up as you're journaling, then that is an opportunity to work through maybe a triggering moment that you had in your life, that you've been holding on to, that you didn't realize you were holding on to and I didn't even realize this when I was journaling and working through these things.
Speaker 1:And you know, I started going to therapy to kind of like have someone else have an outside lens on the things that I was journaling about, realizing how releasing it is just to go through that once of like, recognizing the memory and working through that triggering moment, and then maybe having an outside person like a therapist say well, you know, maybe this is why you felt this way, or maybe this was going on and you didn't realize it and it's like, oh, I've been holding onto that for years, not really even realizing.
Speaker 1:I was holding onto it until a moment arise and I worked through it and then all of a sudden it's just like it's no longer really this issue, at least not to the heightened what it was. So that is really a powerful thing with journaling that I highly highly recommend doing with yourself. And the other thing is mirror work, and this is this can be super uncomfortable, this can be super uncomfortable. It's kind of like affirmations but a step further, where you are essentially staring at yourself in the mirror and if you want to get really uncomfortable, get naked while you do it.
Speaker 1:And literally, you are saying the kindest things that you need to hear to yourself, whether you believe them or not, saying you are beautiful like you. You are beautiful like you are worthy, like you are enough. Whatever you need to hear, and saying over and over again to yourself in the most vulnerable state and truly like internalizing it and feeling those emotions that you get from that, whether it makes you cry because you like have never, you haven't heard that in a long time, and you're finally giving it yourself. Um, those words that you need to hear that you haven't in a long time. And even if it's for five minutes or 10 minutes, whatever, or if you don't have time to like take off all your clothes, but you're like I need this work right now. Like just staring at yourself and telling you that now. Like just staring at yourself and telling you that and I know for me, a lot of the times, my natural autopilot was I would maybe go into the bathroom and see myself and instantly a thought would be like oh, you look like trash or whatever, you know, like saying something negative about myself and it's like how can we? You can't always stop the initial thought, but how can we stop it once we become aware of it and not allow it to continue? Instead, revert the thought, change it to a positive whether it's again something you need to hear in the moment and giving yourself that time to feel it. That's the biggest thing that I can say is the most impactful part of it is not just saying it to go through the motions, but saying it and literally like allowing yourself to feel what that feels like.
Speaker 1:Another example of mirror work that I again is super uncomfortable uncomfortable but I found to be super empowering is dancing in the mirror. And if I went to Crystal's event back in February and we did like a lot of dancing and I don't know if I shared this with anyone, but I actually used to dance in high school and for whatever reason, I got to a point where like dancing was like super uncomfortable for me. I remember I was in a wedding a couple of years ago and we were like out at the club and I sat, I did not dance, I was like I'm not doing that and I don't know, and it was kind of like interesting to me because I'm like that's so weird that and I don't know, and it was kind of like interesting to me. So I'm like that's so weird because, like, I used to love dancing but I became so disconnected with my body that I felt so uncomfortable in it and didn't feel like I could do that. And the power of like, doing mirror work and dancing in the mirror allows you to allow your body to express and get energy out and release energy that you didn't, may have not even realized that you were carrying within and holding onto and Ashley shared this at the event that the body has no language and if we don't give it freedom to express, it's kind of like it's just suppressing and holding on to things that it doesn't want to hold on to. It's the same as us venting about something. You know we're getting it out like get rid of it and be done with it. That's how movement or dancing or you know whatever else your body enjoys doing. It's the same type of expression, but for the body. So I would do those two things.
Speaker 1:And, lastly, as you are on that journey of healing your relationship with your body and working on your health and fitness and trying to just have an overall positive experience, I highly recommend focusing on goals and activities that excite you and that enhance your life and to not focus on goals or activities that maybe you've been told for a long time or maybe you see other people doing. I know my whole feed is a lot of people weightlifting in the gym. If that is not something that excites you at the moment, then don't do it. If something that excites you is dancing, whether it's by yourself and it is something that you look forward to, then do that instead, and I know a lot of like fitness advice that you see out there. They want to really give you a lot of structure with a workout plan and there's a time and a place for that and it is great. But again, meet yourself where you're at, figure out what excites you, what lights you up, what enhances your life, and put your efforts and your focus into that, because that is how you will continue to show up in a way that doesn't feel so hard and it doesn't feel like you're climbing this uphill battle.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. You have no idea how grateful I am to have you as one of the Love your Body Now listeners. If you are loving this podcast, it would mean the world to me if you subscribed and left a review. This helps me get the message out to more women just like you, who are also committed to their journey, and if you love this episode, please be sure to share it with someone who you know needs to hear today's message. Together, we can help more women recognize their self-worth and build their confidence from a much deeper place, just like you're doing right now. Let's help change the world, one woman at a time. All right, talk to you soon, friend.