Reconnecting with Your Body and the Role of Embodiment in Eating Recovery
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.
Throughout my early twenties, yoga was the only place that felt safe to be in my body. I was hooked the moment I took my first yoga class. On particularly hard days, I would even find myself taking a class in the morning, and a restorative class at night. I participated in entire weekend yoga retreats, became certified as a yoga teacher, and for a period of time taught yoga and meditation classes. Sometimes, I feel as though I can mark time by the yoga classes I've taken, the yoga mats I've practiced on, and the yoga communities I have been a part of. After I initially started recovering from getting covid and was struggling to breathe, all I wanted to do was be on my yoga mat. It is this practice that first taught me about embodiment. There was no other time in my day or with another person that I felt as though my mind became quieter, slower, and easier to be with. My yoga practice has offered me that and taught me about how to look out for the environments, people, and foods that provide my body with the same experience.
I chat about embodiment today with Ann Saffi Biasetti. Ann has her PhD and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Certified Yoga Teacher, and a practicing clinician for over 34 years. She is a Transpersonal Psychologist, specializing in the treatment of eating disorders and trauma through somatic self-compassion. She is the originator of the Befriending Your Body Program, a program of somatic self-compassion for disordered eating recovery. She consults and lectures extensively on the topics of somatic psychotherapy, embodiment, polyvagal theory in recovery, interoceptive awareness in eating disorder recovery and is an instructor at the Center for Mindful Body Awareness. She has featured CE webinars and workshops through PESI and trains professionals in the Befriending Your Body (BFYB) certification program for eating disorder recovery. She is the author of Befriending Your Body: A Self-Compassionate Approach to Freeing Yourself from Disordered Eating and The Awakening Self-Compassion Card Deck: 52 Practices for Self-Care, Healing and Growth. She maintains a private practice in Saratoga Springs, NY. We chat about what embodiment is, the importance of creating safe and comfortable embodying experiences, the process of embodiment, creating a language for describing body sensations and emotions, how embodiment can impact food behaviors, and what the ongoing journey of embodiment looks like.
As a reminder, the next Somatic Eating® Program starts on May 22nd. If you're inspired by this conversation and want to learn the language of your body and how it speaks to you through your food behaviors, go to somaticeating.com to join the waitlist and receive a waitlist only special offer. Now, welcome Ann!
I am thrilled that you are here. I feel like I've been following your work for a while now, and I'm always loved just connecting with you know, like minded individuals who are kind of exploring a very similar approach to eating disorder recovery and disordered eating recovery in bringing in the lens of somatics. And so I would first just love to get started of how all of this work found you and your journey, a little bit of coming upon this importance of embodiments.
Ann Saffi Biasetti 04:07
Sure, Stephanie. Thank you for having me here. It's a subject I've had a long history with myself and really passionate about. So I would say that on my own personal journey, I'll start there, because I was trained, traditionally, like most people in the field, started out as a clinical social worker in very psychodynamic training and what have you. And along that path, I had already gone through, like my own behavioral recovery from an eating disorder as a teen, and so when I was in my 20s and a clinician, I started working with those in recovery, and really found a passion for it, but I was noticing that I was on this journey of wanting to get to know not just how I behaviorally, got to a place of steady recovery with food and and treating my body differently, but I wanted to know kind of what was happening inside my body, like what was really going on and getting to know it. And I would say the first place that I started to make those kinds of connections was really on my yoga mat. And at that point I was going to yoga and experiencing really nice moments of, oh, slowing down and tuning in different than I would ever experience in exercise, you know, not having that kind of connection. And through the years, I was like, oh, okay, I saw that as my place to just drop in and have that calm moment. But then, you know, as the years went on, and I was pregnant with twins, and I had those babies, and unfortunately, I got ill after that. I had, I was ill with an autoimmune disease. It really, like, flooded me, you know, really took me down and said, you know, oh, my goodness. How do I handle these two babies being sick and what have you. And at that point, immediately, what I remembered was the only place that I had found a sense of peace before, and that wasn't in exercise, it wasn't in any other place, but that hour I had found on the mat years ago. So I returned to my mat, only this time, I returned several times a week, and what I noticed was something really interesting happening that I didn't understand at the time. Again, as a clinician, I was so focused on my cognition and what was happening on the mat was I was able to suspend what I was thinking about, and instead, I was able to actually be completely in the moment to what I was sensing and feeling and connected to that over what I was thinking. And I thought that was a very interesting piece, because I said, well, this autoimmune disease is still here. I still don't feel well overall, but in this moment, I have found another space, and I was very curious about that space. I was like, I have to learn more about this. This was before mindfulness was even really talked about much. I mean, we're talking almost 30 years ago now, and it was, you know, it was around, but we didn't know much about it, and I would walk out of the studio and and the more I practiced, the more I recognized that it was sustaining in my life. So it wasn't just a somatic practice in the moment, something was shifting from an intervention to living differently. So I would walk off, you know, out of that studio, off the mat, and I would remember the felt sense of being able to drop into a safe space within my body, even though my mind may have been someplace else, even though I didn't have a name for it then that was my first touching of embodiment. It was I am living differently through this body. I am living and staying connected to what I'm sensing and feeling. I'm no longer running away in thought and when I have a sensation that's scary or frightening or what have you, I was able to stay with it. I was able to experience it without it flooding, without it being taken away by past associations or flooding into what I was afraid was going to then happen. So I noticed that something very different was taking place, and I had to learn more about it. So through that personal journey that took me into then becoming a yoga teacher, and then immediately going on to become a certified yoga therapist in mind, body integration and somatics, and then that led me to then go back to school for my PhD in Psychology with a transpersonal focus, which really allowed me to meld my two worlds together, which was, and that was my intention through all my yoga therapy training as well, was, how will I bring these two worlds together that seemed so divided, and that was very upsetting to me, because I said, clinically trained, how do we leave the body out of this when it is an enormous, enormous teacher and an enormous regulation process as well? So that's where in my PhD studies, where I was able to bring everything together, and then my research, and then here we are so, so I certainly started working very differently with my clients very early on, really, even through my own personal journey, even before I had gotten all my training, I started seeing them differently too. I started seeing that they too, were longing for a way in and a different experience just didn't know how to get there.
Stephanie Mara 10:25
Oh my gosh. I hear so many overlaps in our journeys, in that yoga was also one of the first safest places to enter into my body. And so I just really resonated with everything that you just relayed of the mat being like, I always kind of felt like it was the protection of these four walls of my mat, and I could step on my mat, and I was just in an entirely different space with myself that I really struggled creating for myself anywhere else.
Ann Saffi Biasetti 10:59
Absolutely, yeah, and that's really what it can end up being. As we know, there's so many different forms of yoga, you know, some that don't bring us towards sensory awareness as much as others. But you know, as a teacher, I say to people too, please, just come. Just come. You know, just come on in no matter what class you go to, just start. Just start. Because everyone will find their way deeper in as long as they keep coming to the practice, you know, so it does and it can certainly end up being that safe space, that boundary that they enter into, where they're able to suspend other things that are happening. And in my first research with those who had sustained recovery from an eating disorder, the to qualify for the research study, they had to be women who sustained recovery for at least three years, sustained behavioral recovery. I would say there was a good, oh boy, it had to be about 50% of the people reported that their way in was also on the mat, was also through yoga. But it was interesting things. It wasn't just being in the practice itself. It was actually the environment, hearing the teacher's voice, hearing what the teacher had to say, watching how the teacher could forgive themselves if they made a mistake, if they shared something about their own human life. So they really were talking about so many other things that they were gathering while they were there in that hour, hour and a half, it wasn't just being in their body. Was actually being in the setting itself and really listening and being with someone who was showing their human qualities.
Stephanie Mara 12:53
Yeah, I hear a lot of attunement in that which there is a decent amount of research that shows that one of the core reasons of why eating disorders get cultivated is because of attachment and a lack of attunement. And so I guess I'm curious through your research and those that you've worked with, of how you've seen why is embodiment so important, like, how has it moved the needle more than maybe how you were even practicing previously, because I found I worked at an outpatient eating disorder clinic that wasn't really grounded necessarily in somatics or embodiment. I think there was, like some awareness of it, and this was many, many years ago at this point, so maybe more now, but I also found that the somatic piece was so crucially important of how do we teach how to get back into the body, and how much that kind of shifts things?
Ann Saffi Biasetti 13:48
Yeah, absolutely. I always say it's really the most crucial end, because if you consider where everyone is beginning in the beginning of recovery, where they feel so internally fragmented and broken, right? That was a very popular word that was used in the research, really, from every participant, to indicate like, how they felt in the beginning of recovery. And that what that meant was, it meant a detachment from this body. It meant not knowing what they were sensing, feeling, and we know what happens in the beginning of recovery on a behavioral level, what happens in the body and brain, right? That they actually are not having clear communication happening. It's a misfiring of sensory information from body to brain, unfortunately. So that is real. That's a very real thing, and embodiment is so important, because if you have that detachment, then where am I going, you know, so if we are just trying to help people recover through cognition, right, through thoughts and through behavior, they don't know what's left for them at the end. Right? They don't know, like, okay, well, I still left here, and this is what I hear, because I usually work with a lot of folks that have been through recovery multiple times, and they come to me as like their third, fourth person, you know, and they still come and say, I may no longer be participating in behavior, but I feel no connection to this body, so there's no landing pad. In other words, there's no safe place to land. So we may get people to touch behavior, but then, unfortunately, then we hear things like, oh, and it morphed into this later on, or I relapsed into this later on, you know, and I don't believe in that. What I say to people when they come to me and tell me their history like that, I say, oh, I'm so sorry, because what I hear was missing was embodiment. What I hear was missing is that you never found a way back into relationship with your body. So it's you've been living fragmented from that you've been living, you know, really in this disconnected relationship all along and well, that doesn't last, as we know, I really tried to share embodiment with everyone, as I would having them think about it as any other relationship. How long will a love relationship last if you're feeling disconnected constantly? There's a bound to be another mishap. There's bound to be another misattunement. There's bound to be another disappointment, you know, so from the start, we really have to begin to center embodiment as the grounding of recovery. And that is really what I call it. I call it the grounding.
Stephanie Mara 16:55
I love that. And I even noticed like some opening in my own body just hearing you talk about how that when we focus on the food behaviors, that can only get someone so far to understand it and to look at the past and to maybe start to cultivate compassion for why these behaviors came in to begin with. But if it's lacking the embodiment piece of now, can we connect back with the body in the present to show it that it's safe to do that now, and that you can come into connection with your body? Very similarly, a lot of people come to me being like, I'm third, fourth, fifth person in to all the people that they've seen, and there's so much great awareness that they have cultivated around why they're doing what they're doing, but the connection back with themselves is still missing.
Ann Saffi Biasetti 17:46
That's right. And you know, in the beginning of recovery, I was just sharing this with my consultation group today, saying that one of the ways that we can begin to come in early on is because think of what's missing from someone's relationship with their body as a whole. When they're in the throes of an eating disorder, their body's in pain. You know, their body's in discomfort, whether that be from the starvation that's happening or the binging that's happening or the purging that's happening, their body is experiencing so much internal distress, and that is real, right? That's so real. And we have to name that in a different way, so we can name it on a medical level. But that stays up here, you know, that stays up in the mind. But I like to name it actually, I like to bring the body alive in the room through the language of the talking organs, I call it, where I will discuss with them things like, oh yes, of course. You know you're having that kind of pain in your stomach, because your stomach is actually trying to talk to you right now, and this is what it's probably trying to tell you, that it's been empty for a long time, that it's scared because it doesn't know when it's going to be fed next. You know that it's longing to be fed, and this is what will happen if, once it receives food, it's going to not trust it at first, we talk about the symptoms that they're actually feeling, but I want to weave that into a sensory experience, because that's exactly what they're sensing, and I love to offer them an ability to regain comfort in those areas. So this is where my yoga therapy training comes in a big way, because it's, I can't tell you how many times a week in my office, I'll say, you know, let's not just talk about this, but let's experience it. And in that moment of someone's having pain from gastroparesis, you know, if they haven't gone to the bathroom, if they're constipated, let's see if we can give your stomach and your whole digestive system and your, you know, intestines and your colon an ability to release right now and relax. And I will put them into a therapeutic, restorative pose. I'll give them some myofascial release experience, and all of a sudden, you know, they're like, everything shifts. And when I see that shift happen in that moment, when I see the softening in their body, I'll say, what is that? What do you notice having I just noticed your eyes got a little softer, or your breath got a little softer. And often, what I hear them say is, I haven't felt this way, you know, in so long, I haven't felt relaxed, I haven't felt like I can just let go. And often there's emotion and in that moment, as you know you and I understand this, in that moment, what are we really seeing? We're seeing their nervous system come back on board. Right? We're seeing them come to a more blended or ventral state where their emotions can flow freely, safely, and their body has neuromuscular release. So there they're experiencing something totally different than the heightened state of sympathetic arousal that's constant, or the complete state of dissociation, which is the end result, you know. So it's a really beautiful gift if we could consider, not just because the understanding is so important, as we know, but if we can start to consider that understanding and experience have to come together for people to really, really begin to understand this word embodiment.
Stephanie Mara 21:51
Yeah, thanks for naming that. Because I find that a lot of people ask, what even is embodiment? And what you were just pointing to also is that what I find gets a little bit confusing, especially because the trauma work healing world has gotten so popularized, is that people think they're supposed to go straight into the thing that feels the most intense to feel, and that's going to heal the thing, and not that really that can be very retraumatizing. And I love the example that you just gave of, we actually have to, kind of, like, create a new somatic memory that embodiment is actually safe to do, and that means actually first feeling relaxed. And sometimes I'll even go, well, what are your fingertips feel like right now? Like, are they warm? Are they cold? Like, what sensations do you feel there? Like, something that feels maybe so neutral, of like, okay, you just got into your body.
Ann Saffi Biasetti 22:48
That's right, exactly. That's why I have so many proppings in my office. Or if, even if I'm working virtually, I will come up with a list with my clients of what feels comforting to them, and I'll ask them to gather that if I'm working virtually. But in my office, I have things like weighted blankets. I have sandbags. I have little texture things that they can put on their hands, like weighted things that they can put on their hands and that are soft and warm and what have you. And I also have objects like stones that are rough and hard and sensory awareness. So embodiment is being connected to our sensory awareness, but also being able to have a felt sense remembrance of that. So it's not being connected to it just with what I'm, you know, seeing or hearing or whatever. But it's actually when you see that, how does it land inside? You know, when you look at this object, you know, when you look at this visual image, when you hear that sound, something has shifted internally. What is that? You know, where do you notice that. And so it's about bringing that in. And so when we can give our clients the felt sense of their internal experience, one way or the other, even with things that don't feel so good, we are having them come alive in that moment, in their awareness, but their awareness is very different. Like most clients will end up saying this, I will never forget, because we don't forget an embodied moment.
Stephanie Mara 24:30
Yeah, I completely agree with that. I'm curious what you've seen the process towards embodiment be like, because what I often find is that there's also a misconception that it's quote, unquote, supposed to feel good at first, and usually what most people witness or feel is that it actually intensifies at first, where whatever sensation you're attuning to, even especially when it's like doesn't feel safe, that it actually increases in intensity, and then there's a softening. And so I'm curious what you've seen, even just like the process of embodiment, and also, like even the long term process of embodiment.
Ann Saffi Biasetti 25:11
Yeah, sure. So I like to in the way I like to work with sensations like that, if, especially if they're intense, is I like to meet the sensation with a little more intensity. So in other words, if someone is feeling like that, stomach is hurting, you know, that's where I'll actually give them a sandbag and have them press into it. So we're sort of meeting the sensation with another external sensory awareness that's just as impactful, but in a different way. And so it's like impact meeting impact, and that actually starts to change the fear sense around it, you know, it starts to change the immediate fear reaction, because they have some agency over it. So that's a really important thing, because I hear that in the world of teaching somatics so much. I do hear people say that a lot, well, I asked my client to notice that sensation, and they ran away, you know? And yes, they will do that if we don't get them to come in. So we do have to bring a safety in, coming in to meet that sensation in a different way. Otherwise, the mind's going to take over. We have to go through a step by step process like in other words, our clients can't just become sensory aware. They're so completely disconnected from their bodies, and again, that sensory messaging, it's not their fault, is not on board. So we really have to start with very appropriate psycho education about their internal body so they at least have the language right. We call that in interoceptive work, body literacy. So they at least have the body literacy like exteroception, like, you know, everyone in somatics, I think, wants to run toward interoception. It's such a heavy duty concept to be aware of internal sensations. So let's start with the exteroception. That's where all those external sensory impacts are so important that's more that exteroception, meeting the internal sensory experience. So if we start with there and through that beginning of body literacy, then people start to become not as afraid to notice. Because really that's all we're asking them to do in the beginning is just notice what the sun feels like, you know, on your face when you walk outside. Notice what it's like to be with that group of people when you eat, as opposed to this group you know. Notice what it's like when you know you're alone with food, or when, you know, you just went on a run, and then you're trying to eat, as opposed to when you were listening to music, and then you tried to eat, you know. So we start to just ask them that those body literacy questions, and I make those they're little homework questions, just that kind of gentle awareness. And then they start to have a language, and when they come in with the language, that's when I know we're ready to go a little further in and start to do what we call the like second stage of interoception, which is to have a little bit more access to the sensory experience. I heard recently from someone that was in a higher level of care, and she said to me, you know, they immediately asked me, okay, where do you feel that inside your body? And she's like, what? I have no clue. So I'm like, oh yeah. In my head, I was like, oh boy, they're asking a very interoceptive question, which is lovely, but we've missed all the beginning stage of literacy, so we have to back it up so that people don't feel more afraid.
Stephanie Mara 29:12
Right, right. I also agree with that in we have to build the language, because it's not something that we're taught very young. I know I wasn't taught how to describe how I felt, and so usually I start with a list of sensations that I send to everyone of what's even the language that I use to how to describe how I feel. And yeah, we have to build that language, just like we learn any language, we're learning the language of the body, and we have to build that first to then, like you said, when we ask the question, where do you feel that it might be more available because there's been some practice in situations that I hear you also named that didn't feel too intense or too overwhelming. Sometimes when we're talking about the sensations, it's like the most, intense sensation that's coming up, and sometimes we have to first start with building that language. And like, how do you feel after you wake up in the morning? Like, something that's just like, how do you start to describe these moments where maybe there's the threat level isn't as high.
Ann Saffi Biasetti 30:16
That's right, exactly. And I actually highly encourage that, because, as we know, we're all programmed out of our own body safety and protection mechanisms, right? To be very, very aware of pain, to be very aware of what feels uncomfortable and unsafe, right? So we will always, our mind will always be directed there, and we will always misinterpret those kinds of sensations unless we know how to calm, soothe, relax, come in and reassess. So I highly recommend beginning with our clients and ourselves, right with sensations that feel good, like sensations that at least feel neutral, like you said, when you wake up in the morning, you know, what's it like to give a little stretch through, you know, your legs and your arms. You know, does it feel better to wake up this way, or does it feel better to wake up that way? You know, as a way to just start to build that awareness, to start with what's neutral or what feels pleasant, is a really great way to get the language on board. And everyone has their own words. So I encourage my clients uniquely to create a list of those words. We come up with them together, and then we have a shared language to use, and then they can use that on their own as well. I have a dear client who comes in and she had started saying constantly, I'm in pain. I'm in pain, pain, pain, pain. And she actually didn't even know what that meant on a sensory level in her body. So through time, as we started to create more of this internal awareness, now she comes in and says, well, my shoulder is very angry today. And I'm like, excellent tell me, you know? And she'd be like, well, I felt that crunchy feeling inside, but it's only here. It's not in my whole arm. So, you know, a year ago, she was saying, my whole arm, I can't stand, yeah, she was very angry with her body. My whole arm feels this way. And I'm like, well, actually, no, now you know, it's located there. So there's the proper assessment of the sensory experience. And we hear the language if we listen in to sensory awareness, if we start listening into the language that people are using, they are actually using embodied language, because they're starting to talk about knowing their body in a different way. So when clients start to then name it themselves, and I know you know this and hear this, what we are hearing in the background is embodiment forming, embodiment developing. They are moving from an objective experience of living outside their body to a subjective experience of actually being with, you know, beautiful Merleau-Ponty's words, you know being beside, you know, being beside their body. So there's the language. When I hear that start happening, I'm like, whoa. I'm jumping for joy, you know, because I'm like, oh, they don't even know they're shifting yet, but they're starting to care differently and be curious differently. And that's the sweet spot when we hear our clients starting to be curious about what's happening inside. That's when the tables turn, and that's when they go from just somatic understanding and experience to embodiment.
Stephanie Mara 33:53
Yeah, I'm curious to bring this around to how you've seen this start to shift someone's relationship with food. Now we're bringing this into the world of like, okay, we're starting to understand how our body feels, how we describe that, what's going on internally, it feels safer to show up for what's going on internally. And then how have you noticed this come into shifting food patterns?
Ann Saffi Biasetti 34:18
Yeah, it's in a huge way, because what ends up happening over time, just like they're able to describe their internal experience differently, they're able to then do that with food too. So food is, as we know, one of the best ways to really get in touch with interoception. So I have a question that I ask everyone I have an eight week somatic recovery program, and in week one, I challenge them, through the lens of interoception, to work with food in a different way. In other words, I ask them from now on when they say, oh, this food is good for me or this food is healthy for me, or this food is not healthy for me, this food is bad, you know this and that, I asked them to no longer use those words, but instead tell me the descriptive experience of that food inside. If they are going to say a food is unhealthy, quote, unquote, for my body, I need to know interoceptively, how that food was unhealthy. Did you have a allergic reaction to it? Did your stomach get sick? You know, did you feel nauseous, you know? Did you feel light headed? You know, so I need to know sort of what happened inside their body. How did your body respond internally to that? And the same thing with quote, unquote, healthy, well, I don't know. We can't use those words any longer without the verified experience, the verified knowledge. So from the very beginning, and this is folks who are just beginning this new language, this new sensory language, I mean that immediately, sort of blows things open. Immediately, they're leaving week one thinking like, wait a second. I do this every day, you know, every day I'm thinking, I want this food, I want that food because of this, because of that. And now we've turned the tables around and put the body first over the mind, and then they're like, I have no idea what my body experiences, so we start that process right away. So interoception, that's that deepened sensory awareness of what's happening on the inside is the perfect companion to use with food and having our clients begin to really see this relationship through a different lens.
Stephanie Mara 36:58
I love that you brought that in, because I find that a lot of people, even potentially listeners here, get confused around when to say yes and when to say no to a food. And I always like to come back to the felt sense of it's not about dieting and it's not about restriction, and it's not about then proving even your recovery because you're able to eat something, it's how does it feel in your body, so that you actually get the feedback of this food works for me based off of my body's feedback, and this food doesn't work for me based off of the actual felt sense of I got a headache, I got a tummy ache, I you know, actual symptoms from this food when I ate it.
Ann Saffi Biasetti 37:42
Absolutely, absolutely. It's a really crucial piece. I know we have our clients in the beginning of recovery that will say, well, I can't eat any food because my stomach hurts, you know? But now we have to go back to the organ talking, you know, that's very different than the food they put in. So that's an important piece, because we can't let the mind trick it, right. We can't let the mind take over the sensory experience the way we know that is by, once again, the body's verification. So if they haven't fed their body, then their body is going to feel unwell initially when food comes in. I always like to make sure my clients understand that piece, that we're really going very slow in assessing this and assessing what's right or wrong, because, as we know, so many clients will start to restrict and restrict more because they're in pain when they eat. And then they say, well, I'm allergic to this. I'm allergic to that. I'm allergic to that. And rather than understanding that, oh no, actually, it's their poor stomach that just doesn't know what to do with that food anymore, and their whole digestive system. So we work with both ends of it, both with that beginning sensory and and then, of course, we work with as they're beginning to eat, to change around that diet mentality that tells them what's good, what's not good.
Stephanie Mara 39:12
Yeah, I so appreciate you bringing that piece in as well. I like to say you have to put your scientist hat on and that we can't just take one data point, you know, we need multiple data points over and over and over again to be like, well, was it actually the food? Because, you know, wellness culture comes in, and then it's like, oh, I had a reaction so I must be like, you said, like, allergic or something to this food. And it's like, maybe, but maybe not. Maybe it's just that you haven't had that food in a long time, and like a muscle, your colon has gotten a little weak, and we need to get that peristalsis going again, and then maybe let's reassess if you're still having that kind of reaction. So I really appreciate that you bring that in, because I feel like it gets really confusing to people, and that's why recovery is a journey, and that it's not just going to be like, well, I started eating again, or I started, I stopped doing the behaviors, and, you know, everything's okie dokie now, and it's like, well, yes, and the body also might feel a little unsafe being in interaction with food because of everything that's been happening with food previously.
Ann Saffi Biasetti 40:23
Absolutely, absolutely, it ties into, really, the biggest obstacle to embodiment, which, when we were saying before, sort of, what's the process? You know, the biggest obstacle is the messages of the external world. You know, is, is diet culture. Is body oppression, body marginalization. You know, as I always like to say, as sad of a truth that it is, but not every body has an equal ability to re embody. Some bodies are still going to have a very, very challenging path to re embody in this world if they don't fit into what's deemed as, you know, appropriate and safe in the world, right? And even more so now I think so, we always have this challenge at hand, and I always like to name that from the very start, from my clients in larger bodies, from my clients that have been marginalized and oppressed through any of their, you know, intersections and identities. So that's really important to name, because they want this experience of being connected, and they don't always fully understand all the linkages to what's blocking that. So we do have to kind of name that from the start, because that's not, unfortunately, going away anytime out in this world, it seems to be so.
Stephanie Mara 41:46
Yeah, being in the GLP1 era.
Ann Saffi Biasetti 41:49
Yes, that'll never stop, right? So we just when we think we have a road in, you know, I have dear clients who really are back to their embodied protective nature. And when we talk about sort of the end stage of embodiment, how do we really know when someone is there? Well, we really know when someone is saying, you know, I'm getting pulled out, but I'm not going to leave my body and I'm coming back. Because even though I was triggered by that or pulled out by this, you know, or pulled out by that image or that food or that new advertisement for the GLP1, I care more about my body's protection than I do about this. And this is a moment that will pass, you know, this is a moment I have to ground and center myself and soothe myself and come back in so we know that they're at that stage of really being with and beside their body, when what's of utmost importance is protection from anything out there that has used to lead them away.
Stephanie Mara 42:59
Yeah, thanks for naming just what to look out for of kind of like an end stage. Because again, I find there's this misconception that once you start embodiment, that you will be embodied forever. I love to normalize that it's like, yeah, you are going to get pulled out of your body because of the external world and all the stigmas and all the pressures that are put on bodies, and so I love that you're just naming it's also that when you do get pulled out, that the signifier of that embodiment is kind of your groundwork. As you come back and you check in with yourself, oh, look at my response to this. And I then I come back inside and I actually sit with that response.
Ann Saffi Biasetti 43:43
Yeah, absolutely. I completed in 2023 this is what my current manuscript that I'm writing is actually a journey of a process of embodiment. So I completed an independent research study on the role of forgiveness and embodiment, and which really led to the stages this unfolding process, and that's exactly, you know what the end is, right? The end is a never ending cycle. It's a never ending cycle. It's not about reaching any place within that you stay within, and you know, absolutely solid. And those thoughts never come back around and you know, and those emotions that trigger you never come back around, absolutely not. It's quite the opposite, right? It's about the ability to be with each moment, in presence, in a presence which is different than just being present, right? It's like really being in the felt sense of what's happening in the moment. It's about letting go in a way of release, feeling the felt release, so that you didn't just let go of that thought in mind, but you could feel the release in your body as well, you could feel your body re softening again and coming back, and it's about then having a chance to make a different choice. And that's really the cycle. That's really the cycle that is kind of never ending, because as embodied beings tell me a time that it's ever going to be easy to be in this body, if we're lucky, we age, and that's a real trip out in the world, right? We will get sick. We will get ill. The body's going to get ill. So there's every single moment is a moment and another chance at re embodiment. You know, re embodying, it doesn't end or get to a steady state, because our bodies are constantly in flux, as we know, so that's sort of the end piece to it all. Wish there was a nice, you know, with neat little package with a bow that we can tie up and say, here we are. We got it. But no.
Stephanie Mara 43:44
Yeah. So beautifully said. And I just love the way you frame that, of that like, yeah, it is ongoing. I find that it's also sometimes like updating the messages that we've received, or even what like a healing path, or a healing journey, that there's some destination we're gonna get to, that it's like, no, you're always going to live in a body that's going to feel all sorts of different ways. And so where the path goes to is just your next adventure of, okay, so all of the things that kept me from my body, I've maybe moved past, but now, as I look forward, it's just an ongoing process of, how do I continue to connect back with this body over and over and over again.
Ann Saffi Biasetti 46:44
That's right. And really, really developing, right? Because these are the stages we talked about, you know, boy, where do we start and, oh, how do we get here? You know, there's lots of stuff in between, you know, lots of stuff in between that we've, you know, weren't able to touch upon. So I want you know, sort of anyone listening to know that this takes time. It takes a journey to get there. But you know, really, at the end, a giant piece of this is knowing that your body is going to want different things along the way. So I like, and as I tell this to my yoga students all the time, if you've been doing the same practice for 20 years, oh, that's not an embodied practice, then, right? Because your body doesn't want that all the time. Your body's going to want something different. You know, I was noticing even in my work like I'm changing my work schedule come the summer, because my body doesn't like rushing out the door anymore to start at 8:30 in the morning now that I'm older. I was able to do that for all these years, and now it's like, nope, it's not happening anymore. So I'm going to make an adjustment. I have to attune in and make a different choice. That's what I mean about you have a chance and a different choice each time and when you can accept that this is a never ending process.
Stephanie Mara 48:10
So well said. You know, as we move towards wrapping up, I always like to leave listeners with like a baby step. You offered so many today, actually, but I'm curious for someone listening to this, if they were going to start with a baby step into embodiment, what might you offer them?
Ann Saffi Biasetti 48:25
There's a statement that I start in my program. We start week one, and I say it throughout all eight weeks, even when we get to more of an embodied place, which is: out of fairness, this is hard. And it's a compassionate statement that immediately can bring in some regulation. So when they consider the process, it's like, wait a minute. I want you to take a breath when you feel disconnected, when you feel like you'll never get there. It's a statement we never stop saying. We say it in the beginning, out of fairness, this is really hard. I don't even know what a sensation is. And we also say it at the end, right? I'm saying it in an aging body, man, out of fairness, this is hard. My body's requiring all this extra care now, you know, so we never stop saying that statement, and it means different things along the way, but I really encourage that, because it can bring in a moment at whatever stage you're at. It can immediately bring you back to take a breath, to ground and to not just blame your body immediately, like this is hard, there's many good reasons that this is hard. We were never meant to be disembodied. So to journey back is that's a tough journey when we've been pulled out, and all of us have been pulled out, unfortunately, but we weren't born that way, so we're just journeying back. Right? Good old Ram Dass statement, "We're walking each other home" aren't we? So and this is hard.
Stephanie Mara 50:03
Yeah, I absolutely love that, and it just brings in so much compassion and validation of this is hard. It is hard to be in connection with the body, and it is hard to feel how we feel sometimes. And it doesn't have to not be hard.
Ann Saffi Biasetti 50:18
That's right, exactly, and that's why I say that statement goes across the whole journey of embodiment, because it is and if we face that from the start, it's going to be hard in different ways, but if we face that from the start, we can hold a lot of compassion and softening around the experience.
Stephanie Mara 50:38
Yeah, well, oh my gosh, I just loved this conversation. Thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom today. And how can listeners keep in touch with you and your work?
Ann Saffi Biasetti 50:48
Sure, yeah, so you can go, I have two websites. One is befriendingyourbodyprogram.com and that's my virtual program for somatic recovery. And then anembodiedlife is my main website where I have my services that I offer, and both websites have free resources available to anyone, lots of practices and resources that they can use for their recovery. So I encourage you to go there. You can download those and use them along your own path of healing. And yes, and they can always email me too, at info@anembodiedlife.com.
Stephanie Mara 51:25
Wonderful. Well, I will leave those links in the show notes, and just thank you so much again for sharing your process and everything you've learned and even the work that you've created. It's so important.
Ann Saffi Biasetti 51:36
Thank you, Stephanie, thank you for having me on.
Stephanie Mara 51:39
Yeah. Well, to everyone listening, I hope you enjoyed this and if you have any questions, as always, reach out anytime at support@stephaniemara.com and I hope you all have a safety producing and satiating rest of your day. Bye!
Keep in touch with Ann:
Website: www.anembodiedlife.com
Ann's next Befriending Your Body Program starts in April: www.befriendingyourbodyprogram.com
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