Transform The Way You Experience Bad Body Image Moments

Welcome to the Satiated Podcast, where we explore physical and emotional hunger, satiation and healing your relationship with your food and body. I'm your host, Stephanie Mara Fox, your Somatic Nutritional Counselor.

As many of you know, I take a very different approach to body image healing. I apply the same explorations I do with food from a somatic perspective to body image. I started to wonder why is it that you can look in the mirror and love what you see one day and then later that day or the next day look in the mirror and feel like everything needs to change. Your body did not change within 24 hours. The answer is your nervous system. You will perceive your body differently based on your nervous system state. When you see body image challenges through the lens of your nervous system, you get to take the pressure off yourself to try to change your body because the body image concern isn't about your body. Often body image worries increase when you don't feel safe. Even if you lose weight, you will still have days where you don't feel safe in your body and that won't mean that you have to lose even more weight.

I haven't seen a lot of other practitioners approaching body image healing in the same way I have until Deb Schachter reached out. Deb is recognized as one of Boston’s leading clinicians in the areas of body image and eating disorder recovery and the co-author of Body Image Inside Out. She has spent her 30-year career helping people unpack their body’s story and all of the wisdom it has to offer. She brings authenticity, curiosity, and compassion to her work and emphasizes the profound power that connection has in the healing process. She integrates humor and mindfulness into her workshops, individual and group work and is inspired by how unique the growth process is for each of us. She believes wholeheartedly that we all have great wisdom inside and has seen how her confidence in her clients translates into change. Deb also trains other therapists and health professionals on how best to approach body image with their clients and staff. We discuss navigating bad body image moments, the role of relationships in body image, what your body is trying to tell you through body image concerns, an internal family systems perspective on body image, and the importance of connection and community on this healing path. I loved this conversation!

A few reminders before we dive in, if the podcast has supported you in any way consider joining Satiated+ and offering a few dollars every month to the show. This year, I have started to email Satiated+ members every first week of the month offering them the opportunity to ask me anything as a thank you for supporting the podcast. If you'd like to join and be able to ask me anything each month, click on the link in the show notes. Next, you can check out my self-paced Somatic Eating® courses at stephaniemara.com/learn or join the waitlist for the next Somatic Eating® Program that will start in May at somaticeating.com. Now, welcome Deb!

I am so very excited to have you on the podcast today. We were just saying before we started recording how we feel like this is the first person either of us have found that has a very similar approach to body image healing. So I'm really excited to get into all things body image with you today. And as my listeners know, I always love to start out with hearing more about you and your journey and how you got into this work, and even what led you to the work that you're doing now.

Deb Schachter 04:08

Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm super nerding out on you too. So this feels really, really exciting for me. I've been a clinician for about 30 years, and I've been doing some version of this work for about 30 years. I ended up in my own therapy, I think, right after college, and I just fell in love with therapy. I had no idea what I was missing, so I fell in love with the idea of creating space for people and really helping them understand themselves in ways that they don't. And from the get go, I was always really drawn, I'm a really somatic person, I live in a very communicative body, even before I developed my own eating disorder, I think I was someone who had a really sensitive body, and then I developed an eating disorder in response to that, and ways to try and manage that. And then really my healing journey led me to getting into my own therapy, as I said, and really figuring out how much is being said through our body image and through our eating disorders. There's so much that we're trying to say. So that's really one of my biggest passions.

Stephanie Mara 05:04

Yeah, I really hear that on your journey, there was kind of this thread of also, like your own struggles in your relationship with your food and your body, and I feel like a lot of compassion for practitioners that I know that a lot of practitioners also listen to this, that you don't have to be completely healed on your own food and body healing journey to like be such an amazing support to other people, because a lot of individuals are drawn to this path of being a support to others, because they are going through something themselves. And I find that more and more people, when they're considering even working with me, have asked me, have I struggled in my relationship with my food and my body? And you know, when I say yes, they're like, oh, okay, great. Like you're gonna get it. You're gonna understand where I'm at right now. And I find that that's so important. I think a word I saw even on your website is connection, like, how important connection is, is to also, like, work with people you feel like, are going to get you. So I just hear in your journey, like, also being able to step into this space of saying, like, I get you, I understand what you're going through. Like, I've been there myself.

Deb Schachter 06:20

Totally. 1,000%. I mean, it's part of what I love most about the body image work. Is one of our editors, when we were picking the subtitle, which is now a revolutionary approach to body image healing, they wanted to do a revolutionary approach to healing body image. And we were like, dude, you don't heal body image. Like, that's just you don't land somewhere and it's done, and you're like, in Maui with your, you know, Zen vibe. So, you know, that's sort of another piece of this, right? Is like, there's my recovery journey, and then, you know, which I'm sure we'll get into, there's the body image journey, which is, we all live in bodies. We all have feelings about them. There's nothing pathological about that. And how we learn how to be in relationship with our body image and a lot of what you've brought into this space around our nervous system, which is constantly changing. I mean, we have to be continuing to learn. So part of what drives my curiosity is, how can I teach what I'm learning as I go, which isn't always pretty at all.

Stephanie Mara 07:21

Yeah, absolutely. I love that reframe of and I've been talking about this a lot more as well, that let's stop seeing it as I'm going to get to this quintessential place with my body image, where I'm going to always love the way that I look, and I'm never going to compare my body to anybody else's body, and I'm gonna love myself in pictures all the time, and I haven't seen it look like that for literally, a single person I've worked with, or even practitioner I've talked to.

Deb Schachter 07:54

Totally. How could you, our bodies are always changing? I mean, that's, you know, that's the premise of the whole book is like, we got to listen to our bodies because it has a body image, because it's got stuff to teach us, and so it's going to communicate the quicker we learn how to listen to it. Hopefully it will shift and it won't weigh us down in the same ways. But that's an opportunity for a dialogue with information that's going to be precious.

Stephanie Mara 08:17

Yeah, so you've already started talking about the book, and I'd love to go in that direction of so you just came out with this new book. I'd love you to share the title, the premise and kind of the main concepts of your approach to body image.

Deb Schachter 08:31

Sure, sure. So it's called body image inside out, a revolutionary approach to body image healing, the ongoing process. The story of the book, Whitney and I met over 20 years ago. Whitney was a recent graduate of a counseling program. She came to meet with me as an informational interview, because I had been in the field, maybe at that point for maybe eight, nine years, and she did an informational interview, and we just became fast friends. And very quickly, we started talking about body image in ways that neither of us ever had before, honestly, just out of a sort of safety with one another. And what came with that, which is really the groundwork for the book itself, is this idea of curiosity, compassion, connection, and also humor and sort of like even creativity, like the ways that we learned how to share what was happening for each other, and then to be able to have a big giggle about it, was just so life altering for us at the time. At that time, I was in my mid 30s, she was in her late 20s. We'd both been through so much relationally and then our own journeys, and it gave us a way to get some levity in there, but also to start to learn and actually discover ways that what was happening with our body image was reflecting what was happening in our lives. And that was really the big aha. Was like, oh, body image is so many things. It's our traumas, it's our history, it's our joys, it's our challenges, it's our job, it's our all these things. Things that happen every day, that get expressed through how we see ourselves. And that really was the premise. So we started running workshops, and we've been doing that for over 20 years. And right before the pandemic, actually, end of 2019 I said, let's write a book. We've got this all. It's a structured book. It was a structured workshop. We can make it into a book. And we had this idea was going to be this self published thing on Amazon end of day, and then we just have got some really a lot of grace and luck, and found a wonderful coach. And here we are.

Stephanie Mara 10:30

That's amazing. I really hear that on both of your journeys that it was starting to bring in a lot of curiosity around why is this body image concern coming up right now in this moment, which is something that I've started to share even more here on the podcast, that it's like, why is it that one day we can look in the mirror and say, I look fantastic. I love the way I am. Nothing needs to change, and then, literally, 24 hours later, be like, it's all horrible. Everything needs to change. I should go on a diet, and it's like your body has not changed in 24 hours. And so it has to be indicative of something else that bringing in that curiosity of like, okay, what is this change in how I'm viewing my body trying to tell me.

Deb Schachter 11:20

Exactly, exactly. So we call those BIMS, bad body image moments. And it can be anything. It could be, you know, we describe it as a spike. So it could be 20 minutes, 24 hours. It could be a longer period of time that, you know, that we end up really in some sort of a body image. We call it a kerfuffle, you know, just a way of really being in some really critical thinking around ourselves and our bodies and so, yes, I mean, the curiosity is what really creates some of the space in there so that we can start to learn more about what's happened. And it, again, it invites such different questions. It invites an opportunity to really figure out what's happening inside of us, which is why we talk so much about how it really gets us to actually more alignment when we do couples therapy, which is what we say. We do couples therapy with you and your body image. The reason that we do that is so you guys can communicate better, and then you're getting more information, because your body is carrying so much information, if you can learn how to listen.

Stephanie Mara 12:19

Yeah. So I'm wondering if we can go a little bit deeper into what you have found is, what is the body trying to tell us here when it has these bad body image moments, or, you know, when you get a spike in being like, oh, I'm really judging my body right now. Like, what is that trying to tell us?

Deb Schachter 12:39

Oh, boy, I can answer...

Stephanie Mara 12:41

And there's many layers!

Deb Schachter 12:42

I know there's so many layers, but I guess two things come to mind. I mean, one is, which is actually probably they're two favorite chapters of mine, but one of them is the decoding chapter, and in that chapter, I love looking at language and the language that people are using, and where it might actually apply to other parts of their lives. So it's like I'm sort of holding the second microphone in my brain where I'm picking up what people are saying and starting to see if there are some parallels, and then reflecting back to them. That's really interesting you're using the language, I wish my thighs were firmer when we just spent the last 20 minutes talking about how hard it is to set boundaries in your family. And you wish that you could have more courage. So I'm hearing maybe some connection there, that there might be ways that our desires for our body be different, are ways that we might desire for our life to be different, or us to be different. And that segues to the second piece, which is I was going to say our relationships to be different. That really the biggest aha in the book, by far for both of us was the chapter we didn't know was going to be a chapter which is chapter five. So we have chapter four, which is this beautiful chapter all about all how we carry things in our body and all this psychosomatic stuff. And it was so overwhelming to write, and towards the end of it, we were like, oh my god, chapter four is going to have a baby, and it's going to be a chapter on relationships. How have we not done a whole section in our workshops about relationships, because ultimately, every bad body image moment is in some way related to relationships, even if it's I want to look this way at my college reunion, or I wish I could look more like this when I go on this job interview, even if it's not a close relationship. But you know, 99 times out of 100 it's going to be because there's something relational that we are having a lot of feelings about, and it gets expressed through how we want to be seen and how we look. So that's really the biggest opportunity, is to get really curious by looking at what we imagine if our body looked a certain way, what it might then experience in life and in our relationships.

Stephanie Mara 14:39

That's awesome, and something that that brings up in me is that when these body image concerns arise, sometimes it feels like our body is the thing that we can try to change, rather than okay, even as you were describing, like your relationship to an event. But like, I can't change that I'm going to this event. I've committed. I want to go. I'm going. So it feels like there's not a lot of room or spaciousness for choice in that. So sometimes when things feel really overwhelming, looking for that experience of choice feels like it gets put on our body. Well, maybe I have a choice in how my body looks. What I hear you saying, and what I also often teach is like, yeah, we kind of need to address what's coming up of what this is mirroring back to you, what are you expecting to receive from the body change? And that kind of tells us how you might be feeling now. Like, if you're expecting to feel more confident that means there's a lot of insecurities here that we may need to kind of be with and check out and make space for. There's so many layers that it's like when we start seeing body image, actually, as I like to call it, body communication, it just opens up this whole other world that even having the body image, like you were saying the bad body image moment, isn't a bad thing.

Deb Schachter 16:04

Exactly, and that's such a big reframe. So we always start by helping people just start to notice that it's happening. So even getting them, we have three muscles we talk about. So the first one is mindful awareness, which is just like, wow, my body image is getting so loud, or I'm saying such mean things to myself right now, how different that is from I look like crap today. I shouldn't leave the house. Those are so, so different. So the first muscle is mindful awareness, the second muscle is curiosity, and then the third muscle is compassion. And we break those down and really talk about each of them. But I wanted to circle back to what you were asking, which is, you know, what happens in these moments where stuff gets loud and there's so much important information that's coming through there, and really learning how to see that as an opportunity to get more connected to yourself. And I was thinking, particularly, we talk a lot about getting ready for things, getting dressed, and why? So often, then that becomes the, oh my god, I have 10 pairs of jeans on the floor, or I can't figure out a shirt to wear, and I feel so overwhelmed is sort of perceiving that if we dress a certain way, then we'll feel better. And so it's both the body and, I think an expression, it's what we're wearing. Somehow, is that going to tend to what you mentioned? Is that going to tend to the parts of us that are really feeling whatever we're feeling vulnerability, you know, fear, overwhelm. So really, we actually have a chapter specifically on clothing, and not to move it entirely into the clothing area, but more that in the end of that chapter, we call it big steak events. And we talk about like, how weddings are like body image Super Bowls. So we talk about art. So what do you do when you are going to the wedding you just got divorced, or, you know, you know your ex, somebody is going to be there. Or you're afraid your you know, mom, who's sober, is going to lose her sobriety, or whatever it is. So what is it you really need going into it? What are you going to need when you're there? And what can you set up to have afterwards? And sure, some of that might be very body based. It might be I'm gonna get a massage before and after. I'm going to, you know, make sure to find a time to go for a walk during. How do we take care of the parts of us that our nervous system and our, you know, bodies are letting us know, are activated, and then, how do we tend to those so that the body image doesn't take the hit and then get stuck?

Stephanie Mara 18:20

Yeah, I find that this has to be a multi layered approach. And I love those three pillars that you're talking about of, just like mindfulness, compassion, curiosity, we talk a lot about all of those here, because it has to first start with becoming aware, of being mindful, of I'm having a difficult body image moment. We aren't even coming into contact with that. It's really hard to be in connection with my body right now. Like then all of the steps that you just talked about are really, really difficult, because then the body image concern is driving the car instead of like you feeling like you're behind the driver's wheel, like you have choice, and how you respond to the body image concern that's coming up.

Deb Schachter 19:08

That's exactly right. And that's why we love, you know, we integrate in a fair amount of internal family systems, which is one of the approaches we really love. And that's really this idea that it's this other part of us that most, for many of us has been had a megaphone and their hands been screaming in our ear. We don't even know that we're not our body image, that there are two separate things. And the more that we can again, start to create a dialogue there, and start to see it as a part of us, but something that maybe has its own agenda is trying to protect us in some way, even if it's to be really loud and really mean, then we can start to really figure out what's happening. But that's a practice, right? And people are really used to moving right into that cycle. And we actually have a model that we call the Rotary, which really looks at like, what's the trigger point? And then how quickly do we start to move around what we describe as like, almost like a rotary in a car, where there all these different stops and really quickly now we're just in this loop, and it's covered with all kinds of body changes and body fantasies, and you've really lost sight of whatever the trigger was. So it really helped people start to what we call body self, the Rotary, and actually start to notice like, oh, I'm getting into my pattern. Now, can I start to bring in these muscles? Can I start to look at oh, wow, this got so much louder after I signed up for that grad school orientation or something like, there are reasons that this is getting louder and trying to somehow maybe move me away from something or move me towards something.

Stephanie Mara 20:34

Yeah, I guess I'm curious, what have you found support to create, I like to call it like becoming the witness, like when you talk about creating space between you are not your body image, which, like so well said, I completely agree with that. I'm so glad you're bringing that in. What have you found be supportive to start to become that witness to your body image concerns, rather than feel like you're a little bit enmeshed with them?

Deb Schachter 21:01

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I think again, for most people, they didn't even know that they're separate. So starting to think of it. I mean, you know, quite early on, we talked about how our body image can almost be like the heroine to the story or the hero. It's a real reframe to think this is actually in this before I even started IFS I really believe this to be true. Same with eating disorders, that these aspects of ourselves stepped up their game because they were trying to help, even if they're doing it in a really critical way. So starting to see it both with curiosity and compassion, and really seeing that its intentions are good, even getting really loud and really mean you just need to sort of think of yourself as separate. And, you know, this is just a critical voice, and you got to override it. I think that's a great place to start to kind of notice it. But I think you lose some of the value of really what the body image, as you said so beautifully, the body's communicating that you're really going to miss out on that if you just kind of try and do the override. So we really want people to see it as speaking for parts of them that maybe don't know how else to speak. And I think that that can help people kind of get a little bit more curious then instead of feeling like they need to just protect themselves.

Stephanie Mara 22:14

I 1,000% agree with you. I feel like this is why we haven't kind of move the needle, so to speak, in the body image healing approaches or world, because the conversation is still on, how do I fix this? How do I make this moment better? And it often leads to more struggle, because we do just live in a world that is so focused on our external appearance and that hasn't changed. And like, there's more, even we don't have to go there today, there's so much more, like societal like changes that need to occur before maybe we can get to the point of, like, body image not being as much of a conversation, but just even saying, like, this isn't gonna go away. This is not something that's meant to go away. Like I even find that if body image has become the way your body has learned to talk to you, that that's its only language, it's not gonna just give up that language just because you wanna feel better about your body from a more mental space. It's like, okay, what is my body trying to tell me here? And I've seen a lot more change and feeling like more internal peace around body image when you start to approach it as something that is going to be part of your life adventure, rather than it's keeping you from your life.

Deb Schachter 23:41

Totally, I think that's so beautifully put. And I think it is really challenging. I mean, Whitney and I talk about, you know, when we first started doing these workshops, it was because we saw, in that time, Whitney was working in the eating disorder field too, and we saw people who would get through recovery, per se, right? Like they wouldn't be in struggling as much with behaviors, but they would kind of hit this glass ceiling. And I saw that in my practice. And even now, talking to my friends who are clinicians, we're gonna actually do a training for clinicians, I think, in the fall, which I'm super excited about. We're all terrified to do this work, because there hasn't been a straightforward way to understand it. And I think we're all kind of winging it as we go, and learning and seeing what lands. But I think that that's right. I think people have really good intentions and wanting to think of it almost like, you know, just negative thoughts that need to be separated out. And we live in bodies that are so sensitive, and I think especially at this time, when we, you know, we're taking in so much every day. We've all been through so much. It's so important. And I was thinking, sometimes I'm so grateful for where I am in recovery, because I think now my body just gets really loud in other ways. It doesn't show up in my body image as much, I mean I have my moments, but it's more just like I have a lot of somatic signs, a lot of ways that my body speaks. And I think, wow, that used to all go into how I saw my body. So I think we do get to really start to develop more of a way to track when this stuff changes. Just, just like, oh, wow. You know, I'm getting all these pimples, you know, whatever is going on for me, or eczema, or whatever it is, right? You know, the things that our bodies are trying to move through us and discharge, you know, ways that body image is just another way, and in some ways a really powerful one for thinking that we can somehow manage what we're feeling through managing our body.

Stephanie Mara 25:21

Yeah, I completely agree with that as well, that it's more never ending, kind of like a meditation practice, you're never going to get to the point where you shut off your brain, like that's just never going to happen. And I see, like, even a lot of meditation teachers of like, stop making the goal to quiet your brain like the goal is, how do you witness your brain and let the thoughts kind of pass on by that if we see it more as this ongoing practice of, I'm going to continue to have moments where I struggle with my body and its appearance, and when those peak, like you were talking about those, you know, moments of activation around it, that, how do I show up for that? What resources do I need to move through that? And how could I support myself in that experience? That brings us to my next question of like, what have you found on even a BIM of like, you know, a bad body image moment of like, what have you found resources that people have played with, or even that you teach in your programs has supported someone, and maybe moving through that with more ease, rather than viewing it as, oh, I have to fix this.

Deb Schachter 26:34

Yep. I think such a great question. I mean, I think a sort of discovering like, oh, if I come towards this with curiosity, I'm going to learn more about myself, really starting to understand and we break up curiosity into two pieces, what we call inside curiosity and outside curiosity. So the inside curiosity is like, what do I hope I will feel if I have this butt or are these arms? What are we coveting? So that moves, you know, sort of into the jealousy plane. We have a whole chapter, have a whole chapter on jealousy, like, really moving us into, like, what I think of as really a creative practice around discovery about ourselves and really what makes us us. Because when we really break down what we're jealous of, it's at its core, it's really what we imagine their life to be. It's really cultivating that coveting and getting curious about what those longings are actually about. And there really are longings, right, even if it's something very standard, like, oh, they seem really content, or they seem really at peace with themselves, all right? Well, that's really good information. And then outside curiosity, which what's happening on the outside that we might be trying to manage with our body. But either way, it's really this opportunity to really start to figure out what is being said, and then to use your word, which is one of our favorites, is to resource. Like, how do we start to resource? And the first one is always compassion, because, again, at its core, Whitney and I, the way we got to the giggles, was through the tears. You know, when we would talk about, you know, there's this anecdote that I talk about when I, when we were starting doing the workshops, I was very single and had like, six weddings one spring, and the dress that I wore and being, you know, on the floor sobbing about the same goddamn black dress that I had to wear to the all these events, and feeling so just tired and old and so sad that those are the moments that when we can be like, oh my god, I've gone to six weddings. This has been so hard. When am I gonna find my person? You know? Like, those are the kinds of things when we can start to be like, oh, that's what's happening. I'm thinking, if I nail the dress, somehow, maybe that guy will be at the wedding, or whatever it is, right? Really thinking about having compassion for when we're in the struggle. So when we're sitting on top of, you know, the 20 pairs of jeans, or whatever it is, or at the bathing suit store or whatever, losing our marbles, oh, there's something happening here. It's really hard if someone else I loved were going through this, you know, it's that usual practice of like, oh my god, like, whenever I talk about this in podcasts, people are like, that's it. That's that feeling. It's so hard. So if we can start to develop compassion for those moments, it's so powerful. And then we, towards the end of the book, we really dive into Whitney's a coach, an executive coach. So she really does a beautiful job. She works with much more executive coach clients in that corporate space. So they do a lot of self care, boundaries, values, a lot of that kind of stuff. So really helping people think about and using some different tools we have created in there to think about, you know, when do I know when I'm feeling resonance? When do I know something's feeling right? When do I know something's feeling wrong? How our No's can actually be deeper Yes's, you know, when does something actually really not feel okay? And what does it mean when we actually listen to ourselves around that, even when it's hard? You know, a lot of that kind of stuff, really learning more about what our true nature is telling us, and then how do we resource ourselves? Which might be, we still need to go to the reunion, or we still need to go to the wedding with the crappy dad, or whatever it is. But again, we have this anecdote about going to a wedding with your crappy dad and like something like, where do we go shopping for shitty dads or something, you know, like, how do we have a giggle? How do we recognize this is going to be hard? What do I need? So at its core, I guess a big piece of it is the connection to, you know, whether it's hopefully, in reading the book and just hearing other people's stories, hearing podcasts like yours, where people start to feel like, oh, this is a way of moving through the world that makes me feel more connected and more compassionate towards myself in this process.

Stephanie Mara 30:27

Oh, like my brain's going in so many different directions.

Deb Schachter 30:30

Sorry. That was a big answer.

Stephanie Mara 30:31

No, I like, loved everything you just said, starting with just the first piece that you were naming around, bringing in compassion of I call it like, just, of course, just meeting it with, of course. Of course, I'm worried about my body image right now. It makes so much sense, like, of course, I'm in the dressing room right now on the floor crying. Of course, I'm having this experience, because it does bring in so much compassion, and it takes it away from something's wrong with me, which I share openly, like, I started my first diet when I was 13 years old, and it was so much of like, there's something wrong with me. And I feel like, as much as we can, kind of, as you were talking about, like, create that space of like, this is not about you. It is what you've been taught. It is like a reaction that you're having for a reason that is information from what is happening internally, or your perception of something, or the meaning that's being made, or the beliefs that are showing up. Like you said, there's so many layers and so kind of saying, hey, of course, I'm having this reaction. This isn't about me or my character, and nothing needs to change about me. How can I show up for myself in this hard moment?

Deb Schachter 31:44

Totally and we talk a lot about shame, because so often, and I imagine this is true for you too, people have so much shame about how they're talking to themselves, even though we're all taught to talk to ourselves this way. So it's so important to help people sort of de-vilify their feelings about the fact that they have bad body image because they say things like, you know, these aren't my values. I would never think this way about people I love. All of that stuff. So really helping them see that it is, again, this hero trying to help you manage something that feels unmanageable, I think can really help people. And again, that idea that the shame, what was Whitney's line? Body image is an individual sport. You know, body image inside out is really about being in a group and being on a team and team sport together. And we talk a lot about building your dream team with the people around you that you know that are going to mirror a lot of this stuff and be like, oh, tell me about it. So that happened, and then what happened? You know, like that feels so much better.

Stephanie Mara 32:38

Yeah. And the other thing that I'm hearing in even everything that you've described today, is this experience of humor that I find is also really missing when we're trying to talk about body image, because it again, there is so much shame that it is a fine line to walk. And of course, like we want to meet people with compassion, with where we're at and where they're at, and we get that it's so difficult to be in a relationship with your body image at times, and laughter is healing. Laughter stimulates our parasympathetic nervous system, like laughter is so important to also sometimes like laugh at ourselves in these moments that we have. And I hear you tell just a lot of stories, even in the book you wrote of how to like laugh a little bit at all of this.

Deb Schachter 33:26

Totally, totally, and that's one of the pieces of the connection that I think is so helpful, is there is something, I mean, so much of the premise, right, of doing this work as a clinician is what it's like to tell your story, what it's like to feel heard and understood. And there is something, I
think in the telling that often, that's why we love the workshops and the personal ones the most is, I mean, people will say that, you know, time and time again, the feedback we get more than anything else about the workshops is, I feel less alone. I mean, so much of this is so lonely, so to hear, I mean, in our last workshop, one woman talked about going to fat camp, and she's like, I'm not kidding. And the young women in the room had never heard of that, but she had gone, you know, to a fat camp. Literally. It was amazing, because the way she told the story was so different, right? She was like, it was bonkers. They made us get in line to get weighed. It was this wild experience to watch these young women listen to this 50, whatever year old woman. It was so profound. But if she just lived in the story of, like, my parents made me go to fat camp inside, how painful that was. So I think they're being able to find places to tell our story and to again, it helps us get more space. It gets us really seeing it from another perspective, instead of just that kind of compressed space. I often say it's almost like you have to get the jaws of life in there to kind of get some air in there.

Stephanie Mara 34:37

Yeah, that's such a great description. Because additionally, with all of the people that I've worked with one on one, like we're talking about that shame piece, there is so much secrecy in what happens in our relationship with our body and how we talk to ourselves, and it's not shared openly. But I've talked about plenty, even on social media, about how shame grows in the darkness. Like, the more we keep these things a secret and we don't share them with other people, the more they get bigger and even the greater the body image concern is going to get, because it is trying to support you to connect with, sometimes, maybe something like, if you're not going to connect with anything external to you, like, can you connect with me some way? Can you like, help me feel a little less alone? And sometimes, how I like to describe it is like, if you think about how many times, every time you had a body image concern, did you listen to that? And so it kind of becomes this habitual pattern, or even this body association that occurs that the body learns well, if I want some kind of attention and I'm not getting it, I might get it if I make them worry about our appearance, because we've given our body attention every time we've had a body image concern, and so, like you even said a little bit earlier of sometimes we just have to build on our body's language, like, I've noticed that my body talks to me also significantly much less through food or body image concerns, because I built on to its language and said, hey, I'll talk to you when you send me this worry, or I'll listen to you when you give me this like, I don't know, anxiety, sadness, like I'm going to meet you with where you're at. And so it's like, oh, I don't need to talk to you in this way as much anymore.

Deb Schachter 36:25

I don't need to up the ante.

Stephanie Mara 36:27

Yes.

Deb Schachter 36:28

No, that makes a lot of sense. And I do think if the body starts to trust that we are going to listen, that if we can really continue that practice of awareness, curiosity and compassion, I do think there can be some more flow there. And I was just thinking, when you were talking that Whitney and I joke all the time like, thank god we had this during for both of us, me being menopausal and her being perimenopausal, we joke so much that, thank god we had this before we went through that. You know that so many of the podcasts we've been on have actually been, you know, sort of menopause oriented podcast, nutrition podcasts, or menopause oriented nutrition and it's so profound how much we need at these different stages of our life, childbirth, marriage, job change, you know, pandemic, certainly menopause and beyond, ways to understand what's happening that can get housed in the body image story and how valuable it can be, especially as we move into these different stages of our lives, to get more skillful at being able to figure out what's happening and what's expressing especially when there are ways that our bodies are changing, there's things that we don't understand, there's things that we're sad about, you know, don't know what to do with and are trying to figure out how what it means to be a healthy human in a very fix it driven world.

Stephanie Mara 37:44

Yeah, you know, something else that you talk about on your websites and in your book is called the body self. And I'm wondering if you could, like, describe what that is, and how we start to, yeah, experience body image, more from this body self?

Deb Schachter 37:59

Yeah, great question. So originally, body image inside out, whatever, I guess we call it a phrase, and we were really what we called ourselves as the body self, because it's this idea that, you know, our body image is so many things that we grow up in a culture and really just in terms of the way we use language, that our reflection is a one dimensional or two dimensional experience. It's a mirror, it's a picture, it's a billboard, it's a TV, it's a phone screen. That body image is such a multi dimensional experience. So it's really capturing that idea that we are multi dimensional, and we have a multi dimensional experience of how we see ourselves. Like you said, it could be there's no mirror around, and all of a sudden, you know, I mean, I've had clients say, like, I literally think my thighs are growing as we're having this conversation, right? Like bodies are changing. And that really ties into a lot of the relational stuff, too, that when we're in a relationship where we don't feel understood, where we don't feel like we're seen, where we don't feel like we're heard, that often, then our body lets us know that. So what can start as, I feel so bad, very quickly morphs into I look so bad something's wrong with me because we haven't expressed what's inside us. So really looking at the ways that our body image, our body self, has all this truth in there, that when we can learn to unpack it, it's actually going to give us way more information about what we are experiencing in any given moment, both in terms of our past and our current moment. And that's actually our favorite pivot that that's come from writing the book, as I said, chapter five, kind of birthed itself. And then our workshops now have primarily been body image and relationships, looking at the foundational piece of that and what happens in our family of origins, and how we learn to kind of shape shift in our families, and how that can very much relate to what's happening in our nervous system and our sense of safety, and the ways that we kind of may shrink to fit kind of what's happening relationally, how that can sort of evolve into changing our bodies, and then thinking about even in the moment when we're adults and we're in a situation where we don't feel empowered, or we don't feel understood, our body image may step in to try and help manage what feels off in front of us sometimes starts to feel off inside us, and really cultivating that practice around figuring out the connection and the interplay between body image and our current relationships and learning more about that. So again, very long winded answer to your question, but that is the body self.

Stephanie Mara 40:22

Yeah, I love this concept, because what you were just describing is that it's taking body image into a kind of like self construct of I am a multi dimensional human being, and there is not ever one thing that describes me. I've even been kind of challenging this idea of, like, finding your purpose or your authentic self, and it's like...

Deb Schachter 40:47

That's a lot of pressure!

Stephanie Mara 40:49

Lot of pressure, absolutely. And these things are actively being like, co-created with yourself, moment by moment by moment. And so we can have, like, a salient sense of self, of like, I'm a kind person, an authentic expression of you is based off of, like, what's happening inside of you in the moment. And you don't always have to know what that is. Like, that is an ongoing kind of somatic embodiment practice of like, how can I connect with what is happening in my body? And so I hear just this body self is bringing in, like, okay, when I have anything come up around my body image, like, what are the many layers that I can start to get curious about, of what this is communicating to me about who I am, where I'm at, what I value, what internalized beliefs are coming up, what parts of me are trying to get my attention, that it's just so layered that it's never just about like the example you gave, like that it feels like your thighs are getting bigger.

Deb Schachter 41:47

Yes, yes. You know, I love how much you weave in the somatic experience. Because so often people have, you know, say, used their body image, but their body image has stepped in to help them regulate their nervous system. And they don't even know. I mean, I can say it for help them regulate their nervous system. And they don't even know. I mean, I can say it for myself. I didn't even know what a nervous system nervous system was, but was far before I understood any of that. And we often say that far before people even understand body image or thinking about themselves in a mirror, they're starting to shape shift. They're starting to adjust how they see themselves, how they're seen by their caregivers. All of these factors that lead us to then see how we present ourselves can be a way that we can maintain safety and feel belonging and all these other things that at our core are really our greatest drives. And the body image is kind of a way to get us there, a pathway or managing our bodies can be seen as a way to get there. And so it's really an opportunity to understand our nervous system so much better, too.

Stephanie Mara 42:39

Yeah, I'm kind of wondering, because this conversation has come up and a few of the other podcasts have done around body image, of what you view, the popular saying of I feel fat through your work that you do. What might that be trying to communicate? Because I find that it's a saying that we learn really young without even understanding the many layers of what saying something like, I feel fat, which fat is not a feeling, as we've talked about here. I'm curious what you've maybe explored in your book or in the work you've done around what maybe even that statement might be trying to communicate.

Deb Schachter 43:20

Oh, it's such a great question. Oh, my goodness. You know, we worked so hard to be thoughtful about the use of the word fat, because it's so complex and layered, and there's so many wonderful new ways that we're really starting to cultivate using it as an adjective, again, as opposed to sort of a definition of someone's character and how it's gotten so coupled with all these other meanings. So the language, it's interesting because, you know, we wanted to really honor that so often it's something we hear and we can't address something unless we name it. So we really wanted to strike that balance between honoring the way it shows up in our practices and in our workshops, but also being really mindful of the ways that it's, again, gotten sort of overused. So the way that we talk about it, that I talk with clients about all the time is fat isn't feeling, but it becomes representative of a feeling. And so one of the biggest tools that I adore, that you know, originally wasn't ours, but is a list of sensations that we always give at the beginning of our workshop. And most people have never seen a list like this. So it really captures the sensory experience in the body, and it gets people starting to think about what is happening in my body that might be making me feel full too big. It could be too anything. It doesn't have to be about getting bigger, but often full of another feeling. It could be buzzy, it could be tingly, it could be shooty, it could be whatever. I mean, we've added words that we've just heard over the years from different clients. It's so cool. But this idea that ultimately it means that we're carrying something that we feel full of, even if it's emptiness, it could be we're full of emptiness. But I'm thinking one of our first anecdotes is a client of mine who and the anecdote is titled Times Square makes me feel fat. It's all about being a young kid and being taken into New York City, often with her family, and how dysregulating she found the city to be, and that everyone thought she was so sensitive and she needed to just get it together. It's this amazing place we go to see shows every day. And she was so overwhelmed that she started to really think about her body and about ways to manage her body, to manage the sensory overwhelm that she was feeling. So I use that example a lot because I think it helps people think about like, oh, I was feeling in my body. Started to be how I felt about my body, and really helping people start to think about the sensory experience as really much more related than sort of the actual adjective itself.

Stephanie Mara 45:38

I also give out a list of sensations.

Deb Schachter 45:41

I'm not surprised.

Stephanie Mara 45:44

Right? As a somatic practitioner, you know, I find that, and I didn't learn this either how to describe what it is that we're feeling, and not even just an emotion. Because sometimes when we just say, I'm feeling sad, I know I have so many connotations, definitions, memories, around feeling sad that suddenly, if I say I'm feeling sad, it takes on a whole another layer of meaning of what it means to be a person who's feeling sad, rather than saying I'm a person who's experiencing heaviness in my chest and my shoulders want to slump forward, and I'm noticing that my eyelids feel like they want to shut, you know, something like that, that now that's an entirely different description that I don't have a lot of associations or memories around, but describing it also supports I've seen someone and really feeling seen by themselves, to say, oh, when I say something like, I'm feeling fat, and then first getting curious about, like, okay, that's what I've learned of how to describe what it is that I'm feeling. And I didn't have any other words for that. So how do I learn and bring in and enhance my language of how to describe how I'm feeling, so I can take that off the connotation of fat. Because, yes, I've seen that as well, that we are trying to shift the definition of fat as not meaning anything. It's like I have brown eyes. That's just like what I have.

Deb Schachter 47:20

Exactly, exactly. So that's really the coolest piece of it, I think, is, again, gets back to the where I started before, about the translation is, then we can start to translate. If you're all of a sudden, feels like your back is vibrating. Well, what's happening back there, you know? And it's so cool when you start to think about what's happening emotionally, and where is it getting expressed in people's bodies. There's so much more to learn, because, like you said, then it's their experience. They're in ground zero. They're in their experience of whatever's happening. And then you can access whether it's a part of them or an emotion in them. It really gets you right back to their body, as opposed to kind of a much more amorphous kind of belief system. So I totally agree.

Stephanie Mara 47:58

Yeah. I'm wondering if you could say more, just in reference of the part of you, how you've brought in IFS work, and how you've seen that be another resource. And like you said earlier on, of seeing it as like there is a part of you that worries about your body for a reason, and like, maybe getting to know that part of you, I'm curious if you could speak more to that.

Deb Schachter 48:19

Sure. I mean, IFS is just an extraordinary model. I mean, everyone I know who's tried it is fascinated by it. It's just so unique. And you know, one of the things that I have found to be the most profound in this work, particularly, is this idea of how non pathologizing it is. So again, rather than saying you shouldn't feel this way about yourself, or maybe you have an eating disorder if you're thinking that about yourself or body dysmorphia, is really saying, wow, this is a way you talk to yourself. There is a reason for that. That's a part of you. Every part of you has a good intention and is trying to be helpful. What if we learn more about how this part is trying to help and why? Obviously, if it doesn't do what it's trying to do, what's going to happen? So we really wrestled with how to sort of introduce IFS in the book, and ultimately we decided the whole book really was based on both of our journeys with if so we didn't do it as formally. And then at the end, we just do a short what do we call it an appendix, where we really honor kind of the IFS model, and we give some IFS examples. So if people are clinicians, but they haven't done a lot of IFS, but they know body image. They can look at it that way. Or people who maybe are new to the idea of doing body image work can also see what it can look like in practice by getting to know your parts. So it's really just such a different way of thinking about aspects of ourself, without any kind of judgment or, I mean, it's much of the same approaches that we weave and through the book in terms of compassion and curiosity, but it's really a lovely way of seeing even our meanest parts as having a really good intention. So it's just, I think, such a powerful reframe.

Stephanie Mara 49:48

Yeah, I completely agree with that. Rather than saying, Well, I have to stop comparing my body to other people's bodies, it's a very different question to ask, why would a part of me be comparing my body to another person's body? Like, what is that part of me trying to protect me from or support me with through doing this? So I completely agree with you of just like, the non pathologizing of it, of just saying, oh, what's the wisdom here.

Deb Schachter 50:14

Exactly. And you know, the great question around like, well, when did you notice this part starting to do its job? There may been a time, you know, we all have these sort of natural parts that live within us, but there are times where we start to over index them. So getting really curious, when did this stuff get loud? Or, similar to some of the BIM questions, right? When did this get louder? When did you start to really compare yourself? And you'll always get some great answer, oh, that was when my parents started moving towards divorce. That was when my sister got sick. You know, there's always a reason that these parts have moved into this more extreme role in an intention to try and help. So I think it really, again, helps people move some of the shame and really start to see, like, oh, there was a reason this part stepped up its game.

Stephanie Mara 50:52

Yeah, yeah. It's starting to kind of, again, view the body image concern as that communication of now, like, we've been talking about body communication, but if you bring in the parts work, it's also like, what is this part of me trying to communicate with me? That sometimes it's also because I find this gets confusing for some people, of like, well, it's not going on here and now. Whatever you know sparked this body image concern isn't happening here and now. And it's like, well, your body remembers, and so maybe there was a memory that was coming up present day around like, your example of going through a tough experience as a kid, or, you know, going through your parents divorce or something like that, and that, that part of you is now speaking up because they're feeling scared, or they're feeling like they're not getting enough attention, and they remember, oh, well, I got your attention through this body image concern. Maybe I can try that again.

Deb Schachter 51:47

Exactly, and that's why we really try and break down in the relationships chapter. How do we start to see when we're getting into an old pattern that kicks up our body image and invites it to really step in at that kind of higher level is usually that there may be some pattern that is mirroring an experience that we had growing up, even if it wasn't related to body image, but that sort of idea like, oh, this was another time where I really shut my needs down to kind of stay connected, or this was a time where I tried to be really easy, because that made everybody else calmer. So it really allows us to start to see ways that relationally we may adapt, and then our body image is letting us know that we're in that pattern. And how can we kind of notice that, rather than kind of leaning into the fix it again, the fix it mindset.

Stephanie Mara 52:29

Yeah, I have literally loved everything you have shared today, and I also like to offer listeners always a baby step, because I find that we have to break these journeys down into the most doable, manageable, tolerable baby step that we can take. And so you've offered a lot of suggestions today, but I'm also just curious about, like, what's maybe one baby step where someone is trying to even shift how they relate to their body image concerns? What's maybe a baby step they can start to play with?

Deb Schachter 53:00

Yeah, it's such a great question. I mean, you know, we felt, by the time we wrote the book, we were like, dear god, this, this has been our life's work to get this on paper. This is a lot of stages. You know, there's a reason we put the muscles so early on in the chapter. Is that those you know, particularly, I would say mindful awareness like that is a huge step to go from you may not even say to yourself, my body image is so loud, you may just be living in my body image is so loud to my body has gotten so much louder this morning since I got off the phone or my body image is screaming at me right now. My body image is really telling me that I'm terrible and I shouldn't wear this outfit ever again, or whatever it is, just that shift to what Whitney calls my newspaper reporter voice versus the you know, shame you voice. So just getting that separation and starting to track, just like the weather, starting to track, my body image got louder, my body image got meaner, my body image became more critical. I started comparing more any of the ways that you can track that are really the best place to start.

Stephanie Mara 53:59

I got this wonderful imagery of just like a newspaper headline, of like just in body image concerns increasing after phone call.

Deb Schachter 54:10

I love that. Oh, Whitney would love it, because she's so into we do a lot of slide decks and stuff. We'll have to do that. But that's exactly it. That's right, just information. Then we start to build some of that neutrality. So then we can start to move into some of that curiosity.

Stephanie Mara 54:22

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom today. And I'm wondering how listeners can keep in touch with you and your work.

Deb Schachter 54:29

Well, thank you for having me. This has been a total delight. It's so fun to talk to someone who is doing such important, interesting work. So the book itself, you can find on Amazon, Barnes and Noble the book is body image inside out, a revolutionary approach to body image healing. Any bookstore, any independent bookstore, can get it for you if they don't have it. And then you can find us on Instagram, @bodyimageinsideout. On our website, bodyimageinsideout.com. We have all of our events. We're based in Boston. We do do some virtual events. We're going to do a big one day event this summer and hopefully a clinician event sometime in the early fall. So we have all of our events online and are always updating it. So you can join our newsletter and we can keep you posted on all of our doings.

Stephanie Mara 55:14

Amazing. I will leave all of those links, including the book, in the show notes, so everyone can find those and just thank you so much again for being here and sharing the work that you're doing. It's really important.

Deb Schachter 55:25

It was so my pleasure, truly, it was had so much flow. It was a delight.

Stephanie Mara 55:30

To everyone listening as always. If you have any questions, I will leave our contact information in the show notes. Reach out anytime, and I hope you all have a safety producing and satiating rest of your day. Talk to you soon. Bye!

Keep in touch with Deb:

Website: https://debschachterlicsw.com/

https://bodyimageinsideout.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bodyimageinsideout/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deb-schachter-363b206

Book-Body Image Inside Out: https://amzn.to/4hQdLNa