#135 How to Turn Your Body Image Inside Out in Midlife with Deb Schachter & Whitney Otto

​​It’s December, which can often mean that the spiral begins: parties to attend, nothing in your closet feels right, and you’re stuck thinking, “I hate how I look, I don’t want to go.” Sound familiar?

In this episode, I’m joined by Deb Schachter and Whitney Otto, authors of Body Image Inside Out, for a compassionate conversation about breaking free from those “bad body image moments.” They share a refreshing way to see body image as a relationship—one that can be nurtured and transformed—so you can move past self-criticism and feel more confident this holiday season and all year round.

Deb and Whitney encourage a shift in focus from appearance to comfort, self-expression, and treating yourself with kindness. Midlife is a time of change, but also a chance for self-discovery and connection. If you’re ready to stop dreading the mirror and reclaim your confidence, this episode is for you.

Connect with Deb and Whitney:

The Website https://bodyimageinsideout.com/
📖 Grab your copy of Body Image Inside Out
Instagram @bodyimageinsideout

📚 I wrote a book! Eat To Thrive During Menopause is out now!  Order your copy today and start thriving in midlife.

Transcript

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Jenn Salib Huber 0:00

Hi and welcome to the Midlife Feast , the podcast for women who are hungry for more in this season of life . I'm your host , dr Jenn Salib-Huber . I'm an intuitive eating dietitian and naturopathic doctor and I help women manage menopause without dieting and food rules . Come to my table , listen and learn from me trusted guest experts in women's health and interviews with women just like you . Each episode brings to the table juicy conversations designed to help you feast on midlife . And if you're looking for more information about menopause , nutrition and intuitive eating , check out the Midlife Feast Community , my monthly membership that combines my no-nonsense approach that you all love to nutrition with community , so that you can learn from me and others who can relate to the cheers and challenges of midlife .

Jenn Salib Huber 0:50

So tell me if you recognize this familiar holiday situation it's December , you have a couple of parties to go to , you have a couple of family gatherings to go to , you open your closet and you have nothing to wear , or at least that's how it feels . You head to the store , maybe you spend some time browsing online and , no matter what , there's nothing you can find that you feel good in , and so you feel like you are stuck in the suck of . I hate how I look . I hate how I feel , I don't want to go . This is going to be terrible . This is going to be terrible , this is going to be awful , and maybe you even come home from that event feeling worse than before you left .

Jenn Salib Huber 1:31

If you recognize any of that , I really want you to pay attention to what my guests have to say about your body image and the relationship that you have with it . So my guests today are Deb Shatker and Whitney Otto , and they have written the book Body Image Inside Out , and they have an amazing framework for recognizing the patterns that we find ourselves in that allow these situations to play over and over in the same way , and some really great practical strategies for getting yourself out of the suck , including this holiday season . So have a listen . Welcome , whitney and Deb , to the midlife feast . Thank you so much for having us .

Jenn Salib Huber 2:16

So we talk a lot about body image , as regular listeners will know , because body image is relevant to midlife . It's relevant to any stage in life . Of course , there are some situations hormonal soup changes that maybe make us a little bit more vulnerable at certain times , but I would love to invite both of you to just chat a little bit about how you got to this place , about writing a book and working in this space . So , deb , how did this all happen ?

Deb Schachter 2:36

Many , many moons ago . Whitney actually was a recent graduate from counseling , from a counseling program , and came to look out for me as a body image and eating disorder specialist and wanted to do an informational interview , and so that is , I think , close to 25 years ago , and we became fast friends and started really talking about body image in ways that we never had before , and in that process we really kind of developed our own language and our own way of thinking about body image and that led us ultimately to start running workshops together , which we've been doing now for about 20 years . Wow .

Whitney Otto 3:15

And I'll pick up on that .

Whitney Otto 3:16

I'll say you know it wasn't just like we're looking at our clients going Hmm , this is working , this isn't . It's like we were struck . We were trying to sort out our own negative body image . We were trying to figure out why we'd made all sorts of progress and then we sort of like hit a ceiling . So that's a lot of the origin of our conversations .

Whitney Otto 3:34

So I was in the field for a long time and then transitioned to executive coaching , where I am now . But I you know it's executive coaching is all about pattern changing and switching to more liberating patterns and more powerful ways of moving in the world . And there's a lot of similarities between an executive trying to figure out how to show up for a meeting and untraining our negative body image cycles . So we put together a book . Deb said about four years ago hey , I love this stuff so much , let's write it up . And we had this cute little vision of a simple little self-published thing that would live on a website . And it grew , and it grew and it grew , and it grew and it grew and now it's published by Sheldon Press and out in the world , which is amazing , amazing .

Jenn Salib Huber 4:26

And we'll talk about the book , obviously , and we'll have links to the book in the show notes , but why don't we just start by talking about your approach , because your approach is . I think one of the things that I've read that really resonated was that it's like couples therapy for your body , right ? Tell me more about that , because that really grabbed my attention in terms of thinking about body image differently , because we are in a relationship with our body , right .

Deb Schachter 4:54

And with our body image . Yeah , and we often don't know that's true . The way that we often say it is that it feels like our body image has a megaphone and it's screaming in our ear . And this idea that really we often think we are our body image , that they are one and the same and I think for part of why we chose the word revolutionary in our subtitle was this idea that it's really pretty revolutionary to think that there actually is a relationship there that can be worked on and developed and cultivated just like any other relationship , and that it's ongoing right , that it's something that's going to ebb and flow , just like we and our bodies do , and there's just so much potential there to work on in so many different ways . Whit , do you want to add on to that ?

Whitney Otto 5:43

Yeah , I was just going to say you know many different ways . Wait , do you want to add on to that ? Yeah , I was just gonna say you know , we we've been handed by our culture a change it , fix it , hate it strategy , and we all know where that leads . And it's very similar to sort of being in a stuck pattern in a relationship which most of us haven't have had an experience with . So how do you take ownership that you are in a relationship and you are in patterns and that those patterns can change ?

Jenn Salib Huber 6:11

Can we bring this into the present moment and talk about the holidays ? So we're recording this early December . It's going to be coming out mid-December . I've been having a lot of conversations about people getting just a little nervous about getting dressed up , and so you know this pattern of getting dressed up and going to a holiday party and being in holiday photos , and you know there tends to be this rhythm that we fall into around . How do I talk to myself about how I look and how I feel ? So how do I ? I'd love to just kind of hear your thoughts on that . That pattern recognition Cause I'm a big believer in , in recognizing patterns is really the first step . I don't care what the other steps are . You have to see it before you even think about changing it 100% .

Whitney Otto 6:59

And I'm . We're going to answer this part , this question , in two parts , and I'm going to let Deb take the first part , because we've got a workshop coming up where we talk about this very thing , about how our relationships are so tied to our body image , and holidays are so tied to relationships . So that's one of the many reasons why it's particularly challenging time of year . So take it away , deb , and then I'll take it away .

Deb Schachter 7:22

Okay , well , I love your cue up , jen , too , because you know you mentioned something about getting ready for holiday parties and events , and we talk a lot about that in the book , about how often when we are moving into seeing someone or being in relationship in one way or another , I mean there's so much that comes up in there that often gets played out in our feelings about either how we look or what we're wearing , or what we can't figure out what to wear .

Deb Schachter 7:47

And so you know , really the biggest aha that we had in the book was this idea that you know there's this huge interplay between relationships and body image , and so the holidays are a time , obviously , where there's often lots more relating , lots more being in the world , and particularly there may be old patterns that we have either with family or even what we believe should be happening during the holidays , who we think we should be around or not be around , and what our holidays should look like . There are a lot of shoulds , so with that , I think , come a lot of feelings about how we are going to be seen and what that means about us . So often those are so interwoven , and so we really believe that so much of the work is in really bringing more awareness to that experience and learning how to be in relationship with it . And , whitney , why don't you say a little bit more about kind of how we do that ?

Whitney Otto 8:45

Yeah , before we do that , I'd love for you to maybe give a case example , because day in and day out you're having these conversations with folks who are getting ready for their holidays with your clients with their body images , so maybe you could share an example .

Deb Schachter 8:57

Sure sure .

Whitney Otto 8:58

I'd be happy to .

Deb Schachter 9:07

Oh , you need more depth .

Jenn Salib Huber 9:08

No well , both of you , let's do both of you like jump in here . Oh , do it ? Jen , take it away . So I'm gonna go back to one of the questions that actually came up in the midlife feast community last week . Um , somebody was talking about , you know , getting having to go dress shopping and really getting , um , I guess kind of just emotionally , you know , not worked up . I guess worked up , but not in a negative way .

Jenn Salib Huber 9:27

But just yeah , was it feeling vulnerable before even stepping into the store ? And you know , I've been in that place in the past where you're playing it forward and you put so much pressure on yourself to find the perfect dress or whatever outfit that you want to wear .

Jenn Salib Huber 9:42

And there's so much pressure for it to be perfect and the focus is all on how it looks , not how you feel in it . So I mean , my response to this feaster was , you know , like my advice is always , you know , find something that you're comfortable in first . Don't look in the mirror before you decide . If you like it , ask yourself , like , is this comfortable , can I sit in this , can I eat in this , Can I dance in this ? And focusing on how you want to feel at the event , not necessarily how you want to look . So that's kind of my framework for helping people to shift it . So now that I've kind of shared mine , I definitely want to hear more .

Deb Schachter 10:21

I love that scenario and I think yeah , I think your response is fantastic and I think what we might add on there and Whitney's going to kind of break down the steps and how we think about really doing the body image inside out work .

Deb Schachter 10:34

But my first thought is who's going to see you ? Who are you thinking about when you are thinking about what you should wear or should look like or want to look like ? Who is in your mind when you're thinking about how you're going to be perceived ? And really getting a lot of curiosity , developing a lot of curiosity about what parts in you are really having feelings about seeing this person . So really moving it into more of a relational almost landscape , and I think for many people that that helps them start to tease out more of what's actually going on emotionally about . And it's not necessarily a negative thing , right , it might be like I want to seem like I have it together , because last year I was kind of depressed or you know . But but getting more curious about who , who's going to be taking us in and what do , what do they want us to see and and how do we want to feel . But why don't you maybe break it down a little bit in terms of kind of the steps that we help people kind of develop to get there .

Whitney Otto 11:35

Right . So if you're in a bad body image moment , which is what we call them ? We call them BIMS , right ? So instead of being like , oh , I'm the worst person in the world , oh , I'm having a bad body image moment , that's what's happening , and it starts with that starts to create that separation .

Whitney Otto 11:51

I am all bad , I am all ugly , I'm all fill in the blank to . I'm having a negative body image moment . So the next thing to do is to just take all that judgment out . Wow , I'm getting ready for the holidays . I cannot find anything to wear , I'm convinced nothing will look good on me and I am like overwhelmed with these thoughts . So it's not , I am bad or I am this , I am just in the midst of a bad body image moment .

Whitney Otto 12:17

And then the next thing Deb already talked about this is to bring curiosity , and we talk about inside-out curiosity . And the inside curiosity , as Deb said , is what do I think I get to feel if I nail the dress or the pantsuit ? How will I get to feel ? Will I get to feel safe ? Will I get to feel valuable ? Will I get to feel successful ? Like what is it that I want to feel more of that ? And then the other question , the outside in curiosity , is like what's happening in this environment ? What's particularly triggering about this environment ? Oh , my gosh , I'm going to be with my older brother and whenever he's around , like this is how I always feel . Or the comments he always makes , right , Like what is triggering in the environment that might make my body image feel like it has to work extra hard . And then , what in my greatest fantasy about the outfit do I get to feel ?

Whitney Otto 13:12

And the final piece , because , as we know , when we are so critical of ourselves , that's profoundly disconnecting , which is why your Facebook group is brilliant , because it gives people an opportunity to come out of that disconnection and back into connection by having other people step in . So this is a step where we can't always do it ourselves . We are probably really good at being like oh Jen , I'm so sorry . Like you're finishing a cookbook and that's so stressful . You know like I get that right , but you might not be able to do that for yourself . Similarly , when we have bad body image moments so to think of it like you would a friend oh my gosh , I'm going to be around a lot of people and some of them are really challenging for me to be around it makes sense that I'm having a lot of feelings and it makes sense that I might not know what to wear , that that might feel overwhelming and impossible to nail right . So that's a very , very different experience from I'm so blah , blah , blah and it's going to be a disaster .

Jenn Salib Huber 14:14

Yeah , oh my gosh , I love that , and it's very much like the diet cycle . It has these like series of predictable pit stops right Initially in the diet cycle it's like exciting , and then you're restricting for a while and it starts to feel , you know , you start to experience the cravings and then it gets harder and then you fall . But and it always surprises me after doing this work now for 10 years how it just takes one , one overview of that cycle for people to go oh my gosh , that's me , that's exactly it , that's what happens , but they've never seen it that way before . They've never seen that it's a pattern that they are in , and so I think it's so helpful for you to outline those steps of like okay , why am I feeling this ? Why did these people , this situation , this party , this whatever , why does this bring up the feelings ?

Whitney Otto 15:03

Yeah that we have choice , just like a really bad outfit that we try on , we can step out of it and we can step out of our patterns . It takes time , it takes intentionality and support , but we can do it .

Jenn Salib Huber 15:17

And it's a bit of a , I mean it's I always kind of talk about how the reason why we feel drawn to try and control what we look like is this false belief that we can control other people's opinions of us , right , like you were saying about . Like who is it that you're worried about seeing who is it that it's like you might have someone in mind that you want to think positively of you , or , and the thought of them thinking that you don't look put together is just crippling , right . But so how , how do we , how do we step out of that ? How can we be like there will be people there who will judge me , but I can't control what they think . I can only kind of control myself , right .

Deb Schachter 15:57

But that's hard to do Totally . Totally , I mean . It's interesting . I think you know part of why we have gotten so focused on the relational piece of this is that there are so many feelings every day that we have about the relationships in our lives . And so , you know , I would say , rather than I mean there absolutely is value in thinking about like self-empowerment and feeling really clear and maybe having a plan after the party to check in with someone who's a big fan of yours . All those things are true , and we really like to actually take people on a bit of a journey around exploring what relationships may actually parallel relationships in our family history or in our own experiences over the course of our lives that have really informed how we feel in relationships and maybe where some of that comes from , some of the patterns there .

Deb Schachter 16:54

So we actually help people break down what kinds of patterns they may have in their history and then where that may play out in their current relationships .

Deb Schachter 17:05

And we actually have a whole handout that we give people .

Deb Schachter 17:08

We have a workshop that we do that's primarily body image and relationships , and we have a whole handout that basically offers people the opportunity to really start to look at , okay , what just happened .

Deb Schachter 17:19

I'm now in a big body image moment Something isn't feeling right in me about me and really helping people start to break that down and really look at it . I mean , we ask really specific questions like what do you feel full of right now ? What was there not enough of in that conversation ? You know what are the different ways that actually the dynamics that we're in with someone might actually activate a lot of emotional and historical data . And then really helping people start to be able to separate that out and really see some of those patterns and I think that can be a really impactful way to help people feel more empowered is really understanding these patterns and really seeing how , when they get activated , our body image gets louder and it's an attempt in some ways , to manage it and to really see it as , in some ways , really a hero or a heroine that is trying to help us manage relational experience that feels really really out of control or overwhelming .

Whitney Otto 18:15

And if I could distill that to one exercise that folks can practice . It's one of the exercises that Deb mentioned and that we bring in our workshop , but it's called the relational mirror exercise . And just like when we try on an outfit and we look in the mirror and we go , eh , ooh , nah , blah , right , Like we have a very visceral reaction that think of the people in our lives as a mirror . And if so-and-so were standing there and there was no reflection , but we were just feeling what it felt like to be in their presence and how they see us , how would I feel , right ? Do I feel shiny and lovely ? Do I feel undervalued and not important ? And getting curious about the relational mirrors in our lives also helps us to anticipate how we might feel at the party , where maybe there's like five tough , negative relational mirrors , right . But it also gives us a chance to say I feel better with that person . I'm going to go hang out with Aunt Sally or I'm going to call my friend afterwards who's an ?

Whitney Otto 19:19

awesome relational mirror to sort of bring me back up . So I think that's a really concrete one that folks can take with them into their holiday parties .

Deb Schachter 19:27

And I love Jen . I just wanted to hook into what you said , which is , maybe what do they need to wear if they know they're going to be in those kind of relational mirrors ? Maybe it's like I'm going to wear a blazer because that makes me feel kind of professional and strong . If I'm going to be in an environment where I'm going to , I typically feel a little small and invisible , you know , and really getting people to think about . You know , it could be a favorite outfit , it could be a way a certain piece of clothing makes you feel in your body . Like you said , how might that match what they may be kind of anticipating they're going to experience in that environment ?

Whitney Otto 19:57

Yeah , if we say what are three ? Three ways you want to feel , and then go to your closet and try and find those three words in an outfit , I love it .

Jenn Salib Huber 20:05

I love it . I'd love to hear your opinions or your thoughts on . Well , I guess not necessarily opinions and thoughts , but just so often and I'm sure you've seen this in your practices people come to this place really believing that if they change their body , that they will feel better about it . Right , They've spent most of their life trying to do that in most cases , and one of the hardest things , I think , to get them to see or to just experience differently is when they look back in time they'll say but I felt better about my body when it was smaller . I know I did , and so it's very hard to kind of move past that . And so when I think about relationships and pictures and things like that , it's often experiences in the past , like long time ago , like 10 , 20 years ago . Maybe it was their last successful diet , Maybe it was their wedding , whatever it is . How do you approach that relationship to a former self ? So it's not relationship with others , it's really yourself , but at a different time in your life .

Deb Schachter 21:15

So what I might say , or what I am going to say , is that I might challenge that in that it is a relationship with yourself , but it's really a relationship with how you felt . And , again , so much of what the inside out approach is about is about making the experience of body image more dimensional . So it might be sure I looked like X at my wedding , but what was actually happening at your wedding , right Like what was happening in your life or what was happening in your relationships or you know , really getting people to get more dimensional when they think about those experiences . Because so often and we do this actually with jealousy too , when people talk about being jealous of people what's the experience that gets coupled with the body ?

Deb Schachter 21:58

And really helping people uncouple those and really developing more insight about what they again , what they feel when they're in a body that it's , it's gotten attached to maybe what we would call it , you know , a one or two dimensional body , but it's not really just that image or that reflection or that picture . It's a whole experience that's actually being held in that shape . So really helping people develop more curiosity about going back to what Whitney was talking about , same idea developing more curiosity about when they felt a certain way , what was actually informing that ? Were they more connected ? Did they have more free time ? Maybe they just met their partner so they were feeling really , you know , hopeful and excited or proud . Helping people really understand what experiences emotionally and internally get coupled with a certain body experience and helping them really have more awareness of what's kind of gotten interpreted to be about a body looking a certain way .

Whitney Otto 23:00

And I'll add on to that I think having , if we come back to the midlife piece that you know , our body image , if we think of what we're in relationship , is a part of us .

Whitney Otto 23:10

You know , again , it's not who we are , but a part of us and a part of us that has a job right . Basically it's it's like trying to get our bodies to look like whatever we decide it needs to look like , right . And so I think that very often in midlife we have our bodies are changed right . Our bodies are changing throughout our lives and I have worked with folks and helped them really realize and this has happened for me in my own body image that as my body changed , my body image part is like this is out of control . We got to double down , we got to get it back to look like it used to , versus saying , oh my gosh , my body has changed and there's some grief here and I need a new template , Like my body image needs an upgrade to a new template of what's possible for us at this stage of life , given the time , given the energy , given physics , gravity .

Deb Schachter 24:10

Biology .

Jenn Salib Huber 24:11

Yeah .

Whitney Otto 24:12

Yeah , and so I think we think so much about this striving and this fixing and this like size , and we don't think that body image has a lot to do with grief too , and that's that's tough . That's a tough field as well , and I find that folks have a lot more freedom when they pass through it .

Deb Schachter 24:31

And I would add on yeah totally , I was just going to say yeah , I was just going to add on that like when we can , you know , sort of allow some of that grief to come through again ? I think there's more spaciousness so then we can ask the questions . Okay , I used to be a marathon runner and that made me feel a certain way . Um , I was just thinking about , you know , when you talk to people now about what movement feels like as they move through the midlife experience and to say , like I'm thinking of a really good friend of mine who's just obsessed with her dance class and it's different than when she was a , you know cross country skier or what you know competitively or whatever but like , oh , how do I feel in my body when I'm in that dance class ?

Deb Schachter 25:12

Like helping people get closer to whatever alignment feels like , whatever joy feels like , rather than well , you can't do this thing anymore . That's what happens at midlife . That's the end of that story , instead of wow , and maybe it's not even movement but learning more about what actually feels good to our bodies . It's really there's an opening there and a possibility there , because it's more again about how we actually feel in relationship to these things than it is to like check the box . I am this person and I will always be this person in this way .

Whitney Otto 25:44

Yeah , so in my case , I'm not going to wear these kinds of bathing suits anymore , but I'm going to wear different kinds of bathing suits , so let's explore that .

Jenn Salib Huber 25:53

Yeah , and I think I love that you brought that up , because so often we're comparing it to like what I used to be able to wear or want to wear , or felt safe wearing and it you know , we feel like that's what we're we're holding as like the litmus test Well , if I can wear this out in the world and feel good , then I'm okay , instead of kind of looking at it in a different way . That , like , the purpose of clothing is to help us feel safe and comfortable to go out in the world , and so the clothing may need to change . We don't need to change , right ?

Deb Schachter 26:21

Yes , we in the world , and so the clothing may need to change . We don't need to change right ? Yes , we have a whole chapter in the book on clothing and that's one of the things we really talk about is , how do you body image inside out , your closet and your experience of getting dressed in ways that again , using this language around alignment resonance . So it might be something , may feel really good that in an , you know , 20 years ago maybe didn't necessarily wouldn't have been as cool , but right now feel so right and really allowing that , that rightness to , to really inform the choices that we make .

Whitney Otto 26:53

Yeah , that your closet can become a way to practice the body image . Inside out , it's a . It's a forum , yeah . Out it's a it's a forum , yeah .

Jenn Salib Huber 27:01

And also , like I , what I had shared in my community was that , you know , I have three or four kind of holiday outfits and I don't really decide what I'm going to wear until that day , because how I feel is going to vary . And there are , you know , sometimes where I'm going to want something that is just roomier , that gives me a little bit more freedom of movement there , and , depending on how I'm feeling at it , for another event I might want something different . And so , instead of kind of having this rigid this , I have to wear this one dress , this one thing , it has to look a certain way . Really , having just that flexibility built into your choices I think can might be helpful too . So it sounds like your book is full of really great practical strategies .

Jenn Salib Huber 27:45

If you could leave our listeners with maybe one other strategy for anybody who feels like they're heading into the month of vulnerability with you know family gatherings , and we've talked a lot about things they can do ahead of time . So , thinking about you know who's going to be there , how they're going to feel , I love that relational mirror . What about the after ? What about you come home from the party , the family gathering , and you just really feel like your body image has taken a beating . What might be some practical strategies or a tip for just that recovery process ?

Deb Schachter 28:17

It makes me think about . Actually , in the clothing chapter , we have a section called correct me if I'm wrong , I think it's Super Bowl , super Bowl , what's the end of it ? It's something like Super Bowl survival kits , and we talk about how weddings are tending to after and really again bringing a lot of these same tools of mindful awareness , curiosity and compassion to the other side and really figuring out , you know , taking the space to figure out what you might really need . So it might be , you know , related to body image . It might be saying like , oh , I could really use a yoga class just to move some of this stuff through . It might be talking to somebody .

Deb Schachter 29:08

It might be buying something really cozy that you just feel like you can sort of tend to your nervous system with really really bringing curiosity and attention because you know , as you said , your body image took the hit . So how do you take care of your body image ? If it's been working really hard to try and manage all of that , what might it really need ? It might need , you know , more of those relational mirrors that really bring us up . It might just be a lot of quiet time really really thinking of our whole body . As you know , what's been tended to through our body image , fantasies and again , maybe , what's gotten projected all of that , so really offering that as a way of really taking care of a part of yourself that's had to work really hard .

Whitney Otto 29:51

And I would boil that down again if I give you the cliff note version , Jen is sort of what you said , like three outfits or four outfits and I don't know which one I'm going to need . So , as Deb said , planning ahead , what are four things that make me feel better when I'm in a bad body image moment that I have at the ready when I come home from that event ? I love it , yeah .

Jenn Salib Huber 30:12

Thank you so much for sharing all of your body image wisdom . I can't wait to read the book . I think that it you know , I love . I love a good body image book because I think that there are more of them in the world , and yours definitely sounds like it's that , Bill .

Deb Schachter 30:26

So thank you for bringing it up . Thank you so much . It's such an honor to be here and so important to talk about this stuff .

Jenn Salib Huber 30:31

Yeah . So , deb , what do you think is the missing ingredient in midlife ?

Deb Schachter 30:37

I would say connection , I would say being able to laugh . I feel like the amount of perimenopause and menopause cards that I've sent the people in my life and how important that is just to have a good giggle about it . Oh my gosh . I think that because it's so mysterious , it's a moving force , you can't nail it down . So I think just having places where you can just share that ridiculousness is so key A hundred percent .

Jenn Salib Huber 31:04

A hundred percent .

Whitney Otto 31:06

I am actually really emotional about that question , jen , and I think what's missing is like a manual right , like there's so much like you hit puberty and it's like here's what's going to happen , here's what you should expect , right , and like people like you are creating manuals and communities because we have to . We have to work through so much bullshit to get to ourselves , but I think midlife is the time when we have the greatest opportunity to really connect , honor and know ourselves say it louder .

Jenn Salib Huber 31:36

say it louder , I'm all for it . One of the greatest gifts of midlife is that you know you get to a point where you really can no longer not be yourself .

Whitney Otto 32:05

Yeah , and what's with your pink hair ? I'm like don't mess with me . That's what it's about .

Deb Schachter 32:11

And then you throw in a pandemic . We always call it Whitney and I call it pandemic pause , like those . That combination kind of leaves you just pretty broken here .

Whitney Otto 32:21

It is Wide open , yep , but I really want to bring it back to him , like I think spaces like this where we can learn together how to be in this stage of life and how to work through the hard stuff so we can get the good stuff .

Jenn Salib Huber 32:36

Love it . Thank you so much for joining me today . We will have links in the show notes to buy your amazing book . And yeah , thank you so much for sharing your time , our pleasure . It was so great to chat .

Whitney Otto 32:48

Great to be here , thank you .

Jenn Salib Huber 32:51

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Midlife Feast . For more non-diet , health , hormone and general midlife support , click the link in the show notes to learn how you can work and learn from me . And if you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful , please consider leaving a review or subscribing , because it helps other women just like you find us and feel supported in midlife .