How Your Relationship with Food is a Window into the Wisdom of your Body

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.

Over the summer, I was interviewed by Raakhee Natha, who has her MS in journalism, over a decade of experience in behavior change, has certificates in Brain-based Coaching (ICF Accredited), NeuroLeadership, Mind Body Eating Coaching, and is writing a book. She wanted to hear my thoughts on Somatic Nutrition and my creation of Somatic Eating.

I loved this interview so much I wanted to share it so what follows is that interview with her. Hope you enjoy it!

Raakhee Natha 00:00

I know the work you do is in the sort of somatic nutrition field. And it's so interesting and dynamic. And what is it? What is somatic nutrition?

Stephanie Mara 00:08

Yeah, so you will find a lot of different individuals out there describing this in different ways. So I just want to be clear on. So what I've created is called something called Somatic Eating. And I'm also in the process of writing my book on it, hoping that that comes out in the next couple of years. But basically, what Somatic Eating specifically is, is it's a body oriented, sensation focused, therapeutic approach to eating. And what that basically means is that we're so disconnected from our body and that has made us very disconnected to food. So to be able to find a unique way for you to eat it means coming back into the body and learning how to communicate with the body. And also this sensation focus, how is your body communicating to you through the sensations that you're noticing when you eat different foods, and why the layers of what needs to occur for that to be able to happen is often trauma work needs to happen. Often nervous system regulation needs to occur, because if it never felt safe to be in the body to begin with, and this is where I find Intuitive Eating kind of misses the mark, where a lot of individuals are like intuitively eat like, what does that even mean? I don't even know what intuition means. Because their sense of connection with themselves potentially got broken at such a young age. And so to even feel a sense of intuition, you have to first feel safe back in the body. There's a quote that I usually like to offer that on a lot of my websites is the safer you feel, the more you can heal. So, you know, it's we have to first facilitate a safe place in our body, a safe relationship with our body, and then we can more hear how does that food feel in my body. And oftentimes, it can come up of this process that I like to go through with those that I work with is first, okay, well, what's happening right now, we can't change what we're not aware of. So, okay, do you feel anxiety after you ate that. That's a sensation. Let's get curious about that. So I think it's even starting small. And food really gets to be the doorway, we can start with someone's relationship with food. But what I have found in my merging of somatic work and nutrition, is that it lends itself to so many other places, because the way that we're showing up with food is often the way that we're showing up everywhere else. So if we're fearful of receiving this nourishment, where else are we fearful of receiving some sense of satiation or regulation elsewhere in our life as well. So I really see that the the platform of exploring our relationship with food, it can start there, and then it just like, it branches out to like almost every other area of our life.

Raakhee Natha 03:05

Yeah, I love that. I mean, I, it's the most obvious thing I think about is, you know, how often, so many of us often just overeat, and you know, your body is full. But it's the ability to override that. And you know, so often wondered that, like, how, how is the mind so powerful, that it overrides what your body's feeling? What is it, right? What are you, what are you trying to compensate for or to cover up or hide from it or run away from it? It's, it's so common, it's who isn't doing it at some level, at some point.

Stephanie Mara 03:41

I believe it's about 80% of communication actually comes from our body up to our brain. And so I would even say that in regards of like, ooh, our mind over, you know, reacting or overcharging or whatever it is, I would even say, it's actually that what is happening in our mind is information from our body. And that's where we get to bring in a lot of curiosity. This brings in a little bit of like polyvagal theory work of, okay, so if we are thinking I have to eat this right now, I have no other option. Okay, that's this like a little bit of freeze response, or a fight or flight response. Like we get to be curious about what other sensations or reactions are present, but it's actually information from your body that by the time you go into like a binge eating experience, you are so outside your window of tolerance, there is no other option like there is no other choice but to binge and then the binge potentially brings you back into your window of tolerance to then be like, Wait, what just happened? And that's where I find that even supporting individuals in healing their relationship with food, sometimes it actually starts with beginning to show up for yourself differently afterwards. Ya know, so if you overeat, emotionally eat, binge eat, it's how are you showing up for yourself after that eating experience. So that that's where little shifts get to start to occur where you kind of experience I've never, ever been doing anything wrong or bad. I've always been doing the best that I can to show up for myself with the bodily state that I'm in. Because sometimes it's actually with what is showing up in your body, it's not possible to choose something else, until you start feeling safer in your body. And then it starts to feel easier to make other options happen.

Raakhee Natha 05:41

Yeah. And kind of the other thing that that leads me to is sort of this concept of a psychosomatic. And with my little understanding of it, I think I experienced some of that there was a lot of psychosomatic stuff that happened, is that common? What is the psychosomatic? How does that impact us?

Stephanie Mara 05:58

Yeah, absolutely. So let's normalize that your bodily symptoms are real, you know, when you are processing something mentally, it shows up in your body. And so if we think of nervous are processing something mentally, it shows up in your body. And so if we think of nervous system dysregulation, okay, digestion shuts down. When we're in a fight or flight response, it's a lot harder to digest any food coming in, even if you're doing the best you can through a grief process of like eating foods that really resonate with your body, whatever that may be for a person. And your body's having a hard time functioning optimally. And the longer that you stay in more of a sympathetic nervous system response, the more things start to shut down. Because it's basically when you think about it, it's like constantly running away from a tiger. Like, at some point, your body's going to get exhausted. And like that experience of, oh, now I need to yield. A high level of cortisol in the body constantly, is going to eventually disrupt your hormones, shut down your digestion. What's happening in your body is real. And, both addressing the physical healing and the emotional healing at the same time are so important. So many individuals say, Oh, I'm going through this grief process, but my body's starting to shut down, I'll just focus and attend to the body, like, Oh, my digestion is off, I'm just gonna focus on like getting my digestion back online, they're missing a huge component of that, actually, the emotional healing needs to come first, or in conjunction with the physical healing that you're doing. I mean, so many, I've seen so many naturopaths and functional medicine doctors and healers start to come out and say, Look, you can come to me and we can do the work and you can take the supplements, and we can do the tests, but if you're actually not doing your trauma work, like not much is actually going to heal.

Raakhee Natha 07:59

Totally. And I mean, how do you do trauma work? Yeah, I know, that's a big question.

Stephanie Mara 08:05

It's a big question! I think that there's there's a lot of different approaches, obviously, somatic work is one of them, because we can't think our way out of feeling unsafe, you can't logic your way out of that. So it has to actually start with experiencing in the here and now how is your body safe now, because the body doesn't know the difference between a real or perceived threat or a real or perceived experience. So let's say your mom wore a certain perfume all the time, and you are walking through a store, and you smell that smell. And suddenly you are in a tailspin over the grief of losing your mom and you're like, why am I even thinking about my mom right now? I'm just going shopping. And it's because your body suddenly it doesn't know the difference. It suddenly is like, where's my mom, my mom is not here. And so I think that's one piece that a lot of, I mean, whether it be EMDR, somatic work, there's so many different types of healing modalities, somatic experiencing, that it starts with coming into the body now and experiencing what is happening in the here and now. It's a lot of the work that I even do with my clients of if we're talking about something and I'm noticing their words start to get really fast or their breath really start to change, I will just pause and be like, Okay, can we feel our feet on the ground? Like can we take a few deep breaths together right now? What do your socks feel like on your feet right now? You know and really get them to come into they aren't living in that moment anymore. They are in this moment and they are safe in this environment. I think that's a huge piece is just starting with feeling a sense of safety here and now and that's going to look really different to a lot of people because for some individuals, let's say for example, we live in a very fatphobic society, someone who lives in a different body shape might never feel safe to be in this world. And so it would even be going even a bite size smaller than that of this second, like this second, you are sitting in a chair, and this second you are in your home, and this second, you are looking out a window and you're watching the leaves blow in the wind, like sometimes you have to just come into what is really tangible. Because if you go any larger than that, that sense of lack of safety starts to grow. So I think that there's there's a lot of different, you know, trauma modalities and ways of healing. But I think starting with that sense of safety, also, trauma can take away your sense of choice. There was something in that environment that felt too much too fast, and there wasn't enough resources there to be able to regulate. And so we're also bringing on someone sense of choice is also I think those would be the two like things that I often come to mind when we're starting to explore trauma work.

Raakhee Natha 11:14

Yeah, it leads me then into the next sort of concept which we hear about, you know, when it comes to the body, and that's embodiment. What is embodiment? How would you define it?

Stephanie Mara 11:26

A lot of people have a lot of different definitions for embodiment. I would say that the work that I do, embodiment is coming into the body here, and now with no striving with no expectation of trying to find something or trying to make something better. So often, I find that we get into the body, and we're like, this is uncomfortable, how do I make it better. And so if we can just say, this is uncomfortable period, that is getting into your body, and actually being with what is real. So what is happening in my body, and what even is discomfort, it's a sensation, I feel tightness in my chest, and then you can reference, what's the story I'm making about that. I'm making a story that the tightness in my chest is something bad is about to happen and I need to fix this, I need to run away, I need to do something about this. When you pair that of like, this is the story I have about this sensation, it's like, what if that wasn't didn't have to be the meaning that you're making out of that sensation? Just you have tightness in your chest. Let's check that out. Does it dissipate over time? Does it change based off of different thoughts that you're thinking? Or if you move your body in different ways, does it change? You know, so I think being with what is and getting into the body and just noticing what's there. And so embodiment is saying, okay, maybe some part of your body feels comfortable, another part feels uncomfortable, another part feels neutral. And even like scanning your body of like, let me just bring in curiosity of how each part of me feels because each part of you might feel really different. I know that's complex but I think that embodiment is complex. We really try to simplify it. And it can be very simple of just like, okay, embodiment, is being in the body. And when we get into the layers of it, it's actually can be quite complicated and nuanced.

Raakhee Natha 13:33

And that's exactly why I cannot because what does that mean? You know, sometimes it's what does it mean to be my body? I am in my body. So how do we step into this thing that's already there that I'm here. It is complex, it is very complex. And given understand, like using understanding for every different individual and what that's going to mean for you at a different points in your journey. Why? Why is it even a thing? Why, why is this not a natural thing? Why do we not exist in harmony? And then there's another loaded question. Yeah, why is disembodiment even exist? Why is it there?

Stephanie Mara 14:10

Let's connect this back to food for a second of all of the messages you receive around food as a kid. Finish your food on your plate. You can't eat that until you eat this. Like just one more bite. So all of the things that automatically the messages we receive when we're super young, disconnect us from our body. So but I don't want one more bite. And but this external authority, my parent is telling me, I need to eat one more bite and then but what if I don't eat one more bite? Something bad's gonna happen. Like it starts so young of that lack of trust within oneself and one's bodily cues and parents are doing the best they can. Like I always say that to all the parents I work with like don't put this on yourself like you weren't taught, your parent wasn't taught like this gets passed down from generation to generation, like, Please meet yourself with so much compassion. You know, if a child, if we view it from the child's perspective, doesn't have that really safe held environment of I can explore my body, I can tell you I don't want to eat right now. And you can say, okay, don't eat right now. And then when you're super hungry later, and you're like, Okay, let's learn from this. So like, we went a little bit too long there. Yes, absolutely, you can eat now, you know, if there's that ongoing, securely attached parent, that's like, I'm going to give you space to be your own person and explore your body and your world and discover these things for yourself, while being the safe container for you. A lot of individuals don't have that. And so I think that that sense of embodiment, it starts really young and even start preverbal, based off of what someone's birth was like. So if someone's birth was really traumatic, they come out already feeling unsafe in their body and in the world. And so this is where a lot of individuals judge themselves so much over, like, why can't I do this? And it's like, could could we bring in a little bit of compassion that you didn't have control over what your birth was like. You didn't have control over the home that you grew up in. You didn't have control over the type of parents that you had. So it's okay, going back to how do we do trauma work? Like, alright, these things happen. How do we bring in safety and sense of choice now. So you know, I think that it starts so young in breaking that sense of I can be in my body, it feels safe to be in my body, I feel safe to be here in this world. And it can also happen through our life experience as well. So someone will be like, I had all those things, I had a great home environment, my mom told me I had like the smoothest birth, and then they get into maybe like a really traumatic relationship later in their life, or they were bullied in school, or, you know, something happened in their world. And suddenly, their sense of their world changes, where something that felt safe to do suddenly doesn't, because it rewires our nervous system, and it rewires our body. So I think that it's again, it really depends upon someone's life experiences and what they've been through throughout their life that makes it sometimes really hard to be in their body.

Raakhee Natha 17:33

Yeah. And, and I think, gosh, the importance of trauma work, I mean, even as you're speaking to all of this kind of just reiterating that, because, you know, often we, we think of trauma in a very dramatic terms, like, okay, something bad, really bad has to happen, and then you're gonna address it, but we kind of learn to live every day with a with a little trauma as we all have. And just kind of, you know, push through it and, and work through it in smaller, less processed reasons, you know, less deeply processed ways, like very simple ways of, okay, let me just cope kind of I think we cope rather than address. Unless something really big happens that forces us to so I mean, the importance of trauma work, totally given that I'm sitting here like, oh, wow, like, so much to you know, peel back there.

Stephanie Mara 18:20

So many individuals think trauma is like PTSD from war or something like that, which obviously, it can be. And so let's say two kids get bit by a dog when they're a kid. One kid, their parents are right there. They scoop in, they're like, Okay, let's look at this alright, you know, okay, you know, let's let's, we need to clean this, you're going to be okay, immediately starts regulating that kid's nervous system, the parent is calm. The kid doesn't necessarily process that as trauma. They'll go on later in their life. And they're like, oh, yeah, I got bit by a dog when I was younger, it was fine though. I was fine. The other kid, totally alone. No parent is there. No one is there to regulate them. So they just got bit by a dog and they go into complete shutdown. I don't know what to do. Am I okay? I don't know how to respond here. I don't know what to do next. The same situation. That kid will process it as a trauma because it was too much too fast. And there was no regulation there. So I think that just the pieces of trauma are a lot of individuals talk about it's something that happened that was too much too fast, so that just totally dysregulates ourselves. And it's also that there was no support system there to help us regulate and know that we were going to be okay. Because we can go through really hard things like you were just talking about and that's what sparked wanting to give that example of we can go through hard things and move on if we have a really solid support system in our life. And I think that that's often under talked about or not put into a lot of people's like care, like healing prescription, just like building up their support network is going to be actually a really important part of healing.

Raakhee Natha 20:16

And you know, even as an adult, and even as somebody who has resources, sometimes you look back and you realize I didn't even know what support I needed, like, I could have accessed something or gotten it, but I just didn't know any better. So I, whatever I had to use and it wasn't enough. You know, it's very interesting. It's even knowing what support you need for that regulation and to overcome what you need to.

Stephanie Mara 20:42

Yeah, that's really well put, yeah, because oftentimes, even it could be a support comes in, and if they missed the mark, then a kid is might interpret, oh, I shouldn't reach out for support, no one's going to be able to support me anyway. That's also a trauma response.

Raakhee Natha 20:59

Yeah, what do you do in that situation? You need somebody you love you care about, but somebody who's not even interested in the concept of healing or wanting to delve into the world? Because maybe it is too much. Yeah. Do you just let it be? Is that what everyone's journey is? Yeah.

Stephanie Mara 21:17

Absolutely. I think that this is, like everything, very nuanced. If this is someone very close to you, a parent, family member, significant other, a partner, someone can always speak with I you, amparent, family member, significant other, a partner, someone can always speak with I statements, that's the key, like sharing their experience, not like you should do this. But sharing their experience of I have noticed, and I have concern, and coming from an I statement, it's just like, this is my experience, this is how I'm interpreting what's happening. And even giving the person space to be like, take this or leave this, like this is totally up to you to receive this or not. And I think that a lot of individuals, they get to a place where they're so concerned that they force their opinion, like you have to do something about this right now. Where it's just coming from, I have concern, here's what I'm noticing, and being really descriptive about it of what they're noticing. Absolutely, you can share your concern, and still saying, and whatever you decide, I'm still going to be here for you. You know, so I think that's what real support looks like, is just like giving someone space to be on their journey. And I say this with the caveat of if this is like a life or death situation, sometimes someone needs to step in. So if it's like, you know, there's there's ranges of, you know, like, support that maybe someone might need. So if this comes to that, like a life or death kind of situation, like totally step in, completely step in, but we're talking about someone is somewhat functioning, but maybe their life isn't as fullest as it could be. I mean, the other thing is like, that person needs to want it for themselves. And I've worked with so many individuals over the years where we got to a certain place, and that was as far as they could go. And it's not my responsibility to like, no one's broken, no one needs to be fixed, and it's not my responsibility to like, get them to where I think that they should be, like, that's my perception, not what maybe they need or what they're ready for. And so I think it's also it's both you can share your concern with someone, but then also, it's a mirror back to self, of like, oh, this is where I feel like their life could be better. But if someone is at a place where it just feels safe to them to stay in that bubble, that is what's working for them. So I think that then we get to check out within ourselves. Ooh, what's coming up for me that like, I want their life to look better from how I'm defining what better is. So yeah, it's complex. And yeah, obviously, it's going to be really painful to see the people we love in pain. And but it's okay, like, how do I sit with this pain going back to embodiment of like, how do I sit with this pain and how I'm processing this pain to see someone I love in discomfort.

Raakhee Natha 24:18

Kind of shifting then back into sort of the Movement Science or movement, and the body and movement and movement science has become more and more common. Every year, there's a new exercise and a new method and a new way of breaking up how you're going to exercise every given day, which is fun and exciting, but also can be complicated and counter intuitive. It can be, yeah, it can be the opposite of what it's trying to do. And Movement Science has suddenly gotten much more complex. But in the core what yeah, what is the simplest truth? I think that's what I can have in the question what is the simplest truth?

Stephanie Mara 24:55

I hear you. Like fitness culture, for example, has so taken the pure joy of movement in our body and then basically attached it to the only reason to do this is to change our physical appearance. Beyond giving just like, because I don't want to go into more of all of the the list of things that people say of the benefits of physical movement. You know, I think that it, it is a way to process our life. So, beyond the health benefits, you know, in regards to the somatic work, there's a lot of different, you know, somatic experiencing goes into this, authentic movement goes into this, of just, of the body holds every memory that we have. Moving in our body in ways that we're feeling called to move our body gives us an opportunity to feel in closer connection with ourselves and to process things through it in a nonverbal way. So if you, for example, just have an impulse to like, raise your right arm. Like do you have to understand why you feel the impulse to raise your right arm? Or do you have to understand that? Like, you don't have to understand that. But if you follow that impulse, and then you put your arm down, like even there that like I just randomly was like, What do I randomly want to do right now? Yeah, I was like, I think I would just randomly want to raise my arm. And like, I noticed, feeling really light in my chest after I did that. And I was like, Oh, that was satisfying. I don't have to know why, I don't have to know why I wanted to raise my right arm. And I don't have to know why that was satisfying. But my body wanted to do this. And I did it. And then I completed that through my body. And that felt good. There's actually a really cool example that one of my teachers in graduate school once gave of a client that she once worked with that was in a car accident and had like a shoulder injury that was just stuck and would not move. And she actually in a session was like, What did you want to do? And what she wanted to do was move her body and brace herself against the impact of the other car hitting her and it just hadn't been sequenced through her body. And so they did that in a session of just like, oh, this is what my body wanted to do. And then notice how that felt sequencing that through the body. Even the work that I did on, so I have a published thesis called cultivating a relationship with the gut brain. And so I did a lot of research on this enteric nervous system that we have, and one of the women that I wish she was still alive, so I could be like, I want to talk to you. Her name was Gerda Boyesen. And she created something called biodynamic massage. And she would actually through massage, and she would listen to people's guts with a stethoscope. And she would connect certain emotional releases with certain gurgles and bodily like stomach responses. There's a lot of like, even movement, like we so connect with like actually moving our body in these really big, like physical movement ways. But like, what is like my blood is moving right now. We are actually constantly humming and in movement, and bringing in like, that more connection of how does my body want to move if I was in deeper connection and communicating with it, you know, I think is really profound. Because a lot of the times we're moving in ways because we think we should. Like I can't tell you how many runners I have talked to who really hate running, they're just doing it because they think they should. And if they listened to, you know, I actually want to do this kind of physical movement and they enjoyed it more, sure, might their body change because they're not doing that kind of physical movement anymore? Yeah. But what if they felt better? And I know going back to the like, making it better, but what if they felt lighter in their system? Or they felt more vibrant, they felt more alive or resonant? Or, you know, in congruence with themselves? Could that be more health producing than a certain physical look? Ultimately answers your question. I know it's like so far off of what we think about like physical movement. But you know, I think we need to broaden the conversation and if we could make it physical movement more about how it supports us in feeling strong and healthy in our body for as long as possible. I will say though, that no one owes that to anyone, you know, that's why physical movement also gets to be a choice. No one owes someone their health, because not everyone like I have a personal goal to want to live over 100. Not everyone has that goal. That is a personal goal of mine. So you know, like, I'm really curious about like, you know, and of course, there's so many conflicting information around what would make that happen and a huge part of it's just genetics. And so you know, but it's just like not everyone has that. So if someone really loves sitting on the couch, diving into books and TV and whatever, like to each their own.

Raakhee Natha 30:18

Yeah, yeah.

Stephanie Mara 30:19

I'm such in love with physical movement, just me personally. It's it's been such a journey. It's why I was probably attracted to Somatics, when Somatics wasn't like when I got my master's degree, Somatics was not as popular as it is now. My whole family was like, Is that a real psychotherapy degree? Like, what are you going into? And I was like, yes. And like, this is the thing, like, after all the yoga I've been doing, and it's all I've wanted to do. Like, I haven't really been doing a lot of other physical movements at this point in time, because there's something just in my experience of yoga because I've been practicing it for such a long time, it reminds me of myself. Like, it just is Oh downward dog. I know myself in Downward Dog. And it may feel different because my body feels different. But I know this pose. And Oh, warrior two, I like I can remember how my hips want to move back and my feet want to align this way. And just like the memory of it feels so soothing, to just be in my body in this movement that provides some sense of safety of just like, I know what to do here. I may not know what to do next on my healing journey, but I know what to do here. And so, yeah, Yoga has also been like a really important part of my healing journey, as well. And I'm very grateful for the practice.

Raakhee Natha 31:51

Yeah, I love what you just said.

Stephanie Mara 31:53

So when I'm working with someone, because meditation was a huge part of my process, as well. So I first got into yoga and meditation, I have my own history with trauma as well. And I was just like, so deeply depressed. And I had actually a therapist recommend to me I was in college, a yoga class, there were literally two of us there. This actually is a story I'm telling in my book. I think I've had a really long relationship with meditation, where what I've hit upon is that you have to find the kind of meditation that works for you. So I think a lot of individuals hear, you gotta sit down and meditate. And there's so many apps that make it very doable, like the Headspace app has made it like so approachable. And this is where I've really learned from Somatics that if I am so like, jittery and heightened, and in a fight or flight response in my body, that trying to get myself to sit down and meditate isn't really always the best strategy. And that's where getting up shaking, getting up and moving my body, putting on music, actually expressing what's showing up in my body has sometimes been more in alignment of how to process something through my body than forcing myself to be like, you just have to get down on this block. And you gotta meditate right now. And just like, get into your body. I think there's a time and a place to choose that, like even yoga, I've had to be like, right now it continues to resonate. And I continue to check in on that. And every time I'm like, do you want to do something more rigorous? My body's like, No. And there's been other times where I'm just like, oh, my gosh, I do not want to get on my mat right now. I do not want to be in slow movement. Even a power yoga class. No, I don't like I just don't want to do that today. Like I actually want to feel my muscles working by like putting a weight in my hand and like, feeling that strength in my body. And again, not for how it's going to change our body. But to feel this is the physical movement that would resonate with me right now. And so I just wanted to add that on. I think that yoga and meditation holds such a dear place in my heart. And a lot of individuals read that. And they're like, oh, yeah, the yoga and the meditation thing again. And they're like, Yeah, I tried that really didn't resonate with me. And it might have been it didn't resonate with you with where your nervous system was at and what what you were going through at that time of your life, and it might resonate with you at a different time of your life. But if you have this story on it of like, oh, that thing, like, you might never go and explore it again, where it could resonate with you at a later point in time.

Raakhee Natha 31:53

Yeah, yeah. I love that. And I think explorations become a big theme for me, because I'm like, hey, it's a journey. And so I never sound like I'll try it out. I'll try class. I'm open to it. And because you're right and like now that I am feeling strong, I'm like, Oh, I'd love to do something more vigorous or dance is really calling me back again. And I'm like, I can't predict my movement journey. And that's what's exciting about it. You know, I don't know what it was gonna look like the rest of our life but It's just incredible that I can move and I want to tap into it in ways that feel good, you know, in different ways throughout my life. Two sort of one that I do want to sort of talk about is, how can an understanding of somatic nutrition help us right, just with anybody having a basic understanding of it, help us in how we sort of nurture our relationship with food and how we develop that. And similarly, how can we actively embody and consciously use our bodies, once again, to develop, you know, a nurturing and a nourishing and a healthy relationship with food. So kind of from both perspectives, both an understanding of somatic nutrition, and then also just the concept of embodiment and working on that, or even joyful movement, whatever it may be, broadly, you know, working with our bodies, both of those concepts to to help us with our relationship with food and with eating.

Stephanie Mara 35:52

Yeah. So first off with Somatic Eating, I'm exploring a lot of first cultivating awareness around someone's current relationship with their food. Like I said, before, we cannot change what
we're not aware of. And so it kind of has to very simply start there, with just noticing what is my current relationship with food. And when we say relationship with food, what that really means is, how do I feel in my body, what sensations show up, when I'm in relationship with a particular food, when I'm eating this food, what shows up in my body, before, during, after, and also I, you know, I like to, I love to bring in parts work, you know, internal family systems, and bringing in a little bit of that of just also getting curious about the parts of you that have certain stories around food, and what food is going to do for you. So the more awareness we have around what is showing up when we are in relationship with certain foods, then that's something we can work with. So for example, let's say, Okay, I'll give you an example from my personal life. So when I was a little kid, my mom would always give me the same, and this is a story I've told like a million times on like social media, probably gonna end up in my book as well, that when I was a kid, my mom, every time I was sick, would feed me the same exact thing, toast, ginger ale, scrambled eggs. So there's something about the memory of that, that when I'm sick now, like I will crave scrambled eggs. I'm just like, eggs don't even at this point in my life, and how my digestion has changed isn't like the most like, it doesn't really digest that smoothly in my body anymore, unfortunately, but you know, it's also like, I can be like, Oh, I have this memory. And it really is that I really want to feel cared for when I'm sick. And a memory got attached through eating scrambled eggs. So I can have the Oh, my inner child really wants scrambled eggs right now out of the memory that my inner child has a feeling cared for by eating this food. So I can have that awareness, but also respect my current day body, that if I ate scrambled eggs today, it would not be good. My body has a very strong reaction to that. So the more awareness we cultivate around our relationship with certain foods, why we crave certain foods, which there's a lot of different reasons, both physical and emotional, like, I love to explore the emotional realm a little bit more just kind of the that I'm fascinated in. There's plenty of physical reasons, we have certain cravings as well. But you know, it's, I think that it starts there if we want, if we want to transform and change our relationship with food, it's first currently understanding why we have the relationship with food that we have now. Because often times so many individuals, and I don't know if you've experienced this, they attack it of like, okay, I'm gonna overhaul everything, like they do something like a cleanse or a Whole 30. Or they're like, Okay, let's just like throw everything out. And then a week, a month, a couple months, a year later, they're right back to the ways that they were eating. And they're like, how did I get back here? Well, because you never understood how eating that way was serving you to begin with. So it has to start with first being aware that the certain ways that you are relating with food, the certain ways the foods that you are choosing are actually all happening to support and protect you and regulate you in some way. And if we just throw it all out, you took away all of those regulatory acts, you took away all the ways that you are self soothing yourself, and if you aren't, if you don't know that that's happening and you don't have anything in place, all those behaviors at some point are just going to come back online because you will get more and more dysregulated over time. This is where what like what we were talking about before of, okay, you can do the physical healing, but if you're not doing also the emotional healing, those habits and patterns are probably going to come back at some point. So this is where you can be like, Okay, I'm never binge eating ever again. And like really like, you know, force all of yourself to like not do that behavior and put all of these things in place and close down the kitchen at a certain time of the day. And like all the things people do, but you're binge eating for reason. And if you're not putting other regulatory acts online, at some point, your body's going to take over and be like, I don't know what else to do to get the regulation I'm looking for, let's go eat food. That's where like, again, I think it starts with just becoming aware of how your current relationship is, and then it can grow and evolve from there, but we can't change what we're not aware of. And then we also can't change what we don't own, that you have to own your patterns for yourself and appreciate them that they have been supporting you in a lot of different ways. Like, if we go from, oh, I'm aware of that now let's go change it. You know, it's also you might be approaching change from a place of Well, that's bad. You know, I'm aware of the pattern now. And that's bad that I'm doing that. And then change is even coming from a place of self criticism or self judgment or shame. And at some point, that might become a vicious cycle where you're running away from the self criticism and the shame and the judgment, that that pattern might come back at some point to self soothe. So that would be like my simplest answer. But obviously, there are a lot of different layers to transforming our relationship with food.

Raakhee Natha 41:40

Yeah, yeah. And how do we how do we use our bodies in that process? In a very practical, as practical as we could kind of speak about how, how can we use our bodies during because it's a journey, I think exactly what you're saying it's not an overnight change. It's not a diet change. It's not a cleanse, it certainly is a journey. And it's a lifelong journey. And you know, it ebbs and flows, right, it's, but how can we use our bodies to help us with awareness for the changes with the journey?

Stephanie Mara 42:12

Yeah, so this is where using our bodies of what I incorporate in Somatic Eating is relying more on our sensations. So I even like to explore with my clients to take away the label from the emotion that they think that they're feeling. Because even that is like a, there's a really great quote, by one of my, he was a psychologist, Fritz Perls is his name. And it's "Fear is excitement without the breath." And so I've always loved that quote, I, you know, I learned that over a decade ago, and you know, sometimes we misinterpret how we're feeling. And we put a label on something, because that's maybe what we were taught at a really young age that this feeling is this. And if we brought in a lot of curiosity around, I'm just having a sensation. And I don't actually know what that sensation is about, then we step into curiosity. There's a lot of research on how healing curiosity is and can be. And so curiosity is really important on a healing journey of now I have, like a choice of, okay, I'm having a sensation happen in my body. And I have choice of how I want to respond to it, how the meaning I want to make out of it, how I want to interact with it, how I want to play with it. And so to use our body as a resource in healing our relationship with food is coming into relationship with our sensations and emotions in a new way. For example, also with emotion, okay, so if we say, No, I really feel like I am, I have anxiety right now. Like, I'm feeling anxiety. Okay. So, we may have also labeled anxiety as a bad experience. This is bad for me to feel anxiety, I need to feel better. I think it's that emotions only actually last nine seconds. And that actually an emotion stays, the experience of it stays longer because of our memory of it. So if we aren't allowing ourselves to be like, Oh, it's anxiety. Okay. Yep. That's Oh, yeah, that's how anxiety feels in my body. And we describe it to ourselves. It can actually like move on its merry way a lot faster. I mean, kind of like what the, a lot of like meditation teachers talk about, of like, just, you know, viewing it like a cloud passing it might be a little bit more intense than a fluffy cloud passing in the sky, but that can be our experience of it of oh, if I, you know, notice that I'm feeling anxiety and just be with it and name it and it's okay to feel this anxiety and have this experience kind of just dissipates and goes on it's way a lot faster. Whereas if we're like, I'm feeling anxiety, I can't feel this, oh my gosh, this is so intense. Like, this is the most intense thing I've ever experienced, I cannot be in my body while I'm feeling this experience. And I'm going to go for a run, and I'm going to go do this, and I'm going to do suddenly, it's like a nine second experience of just saying, Oh, I'm feeling anxiety turns into running away from anxiety, and like, feeling the memory of it all day long. So that's where also food tries to maybe come in to regulate ourselves, where it's like, we could actually cultivate a new and different relationship with our emotions and our sensations, our relationship with food could also change, where food might not need to come in as much because we're like, it's okay to feel how we're feeling. So that's where we can use our body in this journey, I remember when. So I really got launched on this journey, because of my own gut healing and having like, a lot of digestive pain in my early 20s. And that, ultimately, I was very disconnected from my body. I didn't really for a lot of different reasons, didn't really know how to check in with myself that when I started to, it had to be like, and I had a therapist offer this to myself of okay, you have to check in with yourself now. And now. And now. And how are you feeling now? And what about now? Like, it's gonna be like overkill at first, when you are so disconnected from yourself, I would like to have to check in with us again. Yep, so let's just name that you don't want to check in with yourself right now. That's you checking in with yourself. And so it's a process. But it's, it's one that the more that you do it after now, a very long time of doing it, it's second nature, I know very well how to check in with myself, it doesn't have to take much time in my day. But at first, if you feel so disconnected from yourself, it's going to feel like a lot. And you're going to have to check in with yourself a lot. At first, to start to build that relationship with yourself. And then once you're in your body more, you can start being curious, and in relationship with food differently. But that's how I see like, we can use our body on this journey.

Raakhee Natha 47:20

Thank you. That was That was amazing. And then just the one last thing. And that's just body wisdom. Just any any thoughts on the concept or anything to share around that?

Stephanie Mara 47:32

Yeah, so I'm going to share a quick story that I like to tell of how I've experienced body wisdom and how it even relates with food. This is kind of a piece around how even like Somatic Eating slowly got created in my world. I've always been super sensitive to coffee. And I until like cold brew started becoming a thing. And one day someone was like, Oh, you got to try cold brew totally processes in your body so differently. I was like, Okay, fine, I'll try it. And like, Yeah, I didn't feel as like jittery as I normally feel with like a hot cup of coffee. Like I again, was never really a big coffee drinker, because it always left me feeling really just awful in my body. And so I started like, when I would go out for you know, a drink with a friend or something, I would start to get cold brew. And then you know, they started selling those big bottles in the grocery store. And I started buying those and like bringing them home and suddenly I was drinking cold brew every day. You know how like it can evolve. So all of a sudden, I started getting pain in my right elbow. And I was like, this is so weird. And I did not want to look at the coffee. I was like nope, I was like, Oh, am I like am I straining in some way? Is it the placement of my hands on my keyboard? Okay, you know playing with that. Am I like because I do love lifting weights every now and then just to feel the power of that and I'm like, Oh, am I lifting weights wrong? So I'm like looking at all these other things. Okay, like oh, like maybe I need to get a massage something's stuck. Finally after like, maybe like a month of like not wanting to look at this, looking like at everything else, I was like okay, so really the only thing that's changed Stephanie is that you started drinking coffee. And okay, fine. So I do the experiment every time you know, in the kind of like food sensitivity world they talk about, okay, if you suspect a food sensitivity, you take it out for two weeks, you notice any bodily changes, and then you bring it back in and you notice any bodily changes again. So I took it out for two weeks, the elbow pain entirely went away. And I was like, Well, I don't even need to bring that back in. I was like that that's a pretty clear message. So that's how I like why my elbow? I don't know. I'm sure somebody could probably explain it in some other realm of like, why it would show up there. But yeah, You know, it's, I think that that's how body wisdom comes through is through communication through sensation. Like it, our body can't speak to us through words. So it speaks to us through changes in our body, through pain, through symptoms, through sensation. And so I find that I, you know, there's a lot of things in the world that like, if you don't listen to how the body whispers eventually its going to shout at you. So we have to learn how to listen to its whispers of like, oh, you know, even if your nose runs a lot after you eat. And they're like, oh, yeah, that just happens for me. Yeah. Like, no, that's your body talking to you. That is maybe something isn't resonating with you, whether it be the emotion, the bodily state you were in while you're eating or the food itself could be either or a lot of people blame the food itself. And that's not always the case. But I think that that's where body wisdom comes through, is through starting to listen to the whispers that our body gives us of something might be a little bit off here.

Raakhee Natha 51:11

Thank you so so much. This is so amazing. And yeah, I appreciate all your insight. I think what you're doing is phenomenal. It's so interesting.

Stephanie Mara 51:19

So glad we got to connect today.

Raakhee Natha 51:20

Thank you so much. And yeah, have an awesome it's Friday already. Gosh, have an awesome weekend.

Stephanie Mara 51:26

Yeah, you too. I will talk to you soon.

Raakhee Natha 51:30

Thanks so much. Bye.

Stephanie Mara 51:32

Bye.