Navigating Body Image Pressures in the Entertainment Industry (with special guest, Actress/Model Maria Tornberg)

Have you ever wondered what it's truly like to navigate the cutthroat world of show business while battling insecurities about your body? In this episode, I had the privilege of sitting down with Maria Tornberg, an actress, photographer, and former model for an honest and enlightening conversation. We explore Maria's journey through the industry, discussing her battles with body image and eating disorders.

We delve into the challenges faced in the acting and modeling world, the relentless standards it imposes, and the importance of self-acceptance. A pivotal moment in our conversation is when Maria opens up about a traumatic, near-death event that reshaped her perspective on her body and identity - she felt as if she was reborn. Her journey toward recovery and self-acceptance, and her healthier relationship with food, is truly inspiring.

I admire Maria's openness and bravery in sharing her story. Our discussion sheds light on the healing power of such conversations, making this episode a must-listen.

Connect with Maria on Instagram

Work with Maria

Episode we mentioned was: "When Your Health Obsession Becomes Unhealthy" from Aug 15th 2023

TOPICS COVERED 👇 

• [02:23] Maria's challenges in the acting industry
• [10:26] Maria's modeling career and struggles 
• [20:48] The pressure to be skinny in the acting industry
• [22:26] Maria's life-changing event and self-discovery 
• [24:31] Maria's new relationship with her body and food 
• [35:34] The pressures to conform to unrealistic beauty standards
• [43:20] The struggle of feeling alone and isolated 

LEARN MORE
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📲 Follow me on Instagram (you'll get to know me pretty quickly!)
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Transcript

Michelle: 0:03

Welcome back to the Nourishing Free Podcast, where we take time to create conversations around body image disorder-dealing and how to create a healthy relationship with food and ourselves. I'm your host, michelle Yates, a registered dietitian who has been through my own battle with body dysmorphia and an eating disorder. Today I am joined by the lovely Maria Thornberg, owner and photographer at Thornberg Headshots. She's a writer, formal model photographer, obviously, and actress. You may recognize her from her roles in Super Troopers, general Hospital or Two and Half Men. Maria helps actors create headshots and fine-tune their branding as their career consultant, guiding them towards finding the right representation.

Michelle: 0:45

Maria is going to blow your mind with her stories, from starting out in Paris as a 15-year-old model to acting in Hollywood, and her near-death experience seven years ago after a home invasion. You're going to fall in love with her, just like I did. If you're new to the show, be sure you hit the follow or subscribe button so that you never miss a future episode, and if you love this episode or others, please let me know with a rating or review. Let's dive in with Maria, and we're kicking off with a conversation that I had started right before we pressed record. You just told me that you were on Super Troopers, and people still recognize you for that, which was 20 years ago. So what is it like to still be recognized for something that was 20 years ago?

Maria: 1:28

I'm flattered by it. I used to be really embarrassed, to be oh no, not about the film. Not about the film, because I owe a lot to this film and the filmmakers, but just feeling a bit embarrassed about it. But I'm surprised that I'm recognized so much.

Michelle: 1:47

You must not have aged, which is a compliment. It's like, oh you recognize me.

Maria: 1:53

Oh yeah, it's like tell me more Now, I think, as you get older and you just start to kind of look at things in a different way, I'm just grateful. I'm just thankful that I had the opportunity to do that.

Michelle: 2:07

Yeah, I love it, and you were just something that you said. You probably didn't even notice this, but something that you said a minute ago was that you've been acting on and off and you're having fun with it, and I don't feel like that's something that I hear a lot from people in the industry. From what I've heard, it's a pretty rough industry.

Maria: 2:23

Yeah, it's very hard because there's a lot of rejection and it's not really a natural kind of a competition, because if you're, let's say, a sprinter, you know, you know that the work you're going to put in you're going to see the results. If you're lifting the weight, you're going to start seeing the muscle building. But in this profession it's like you can do all the work and still not see anything. It's like I really, you know you see people just dropping off all the time. I've been here for 20 years, as I said, but so many people are leaving or have left, and it's really hard to stay, and for me it was.

Maria: 2:55

I had to look at it as it wasn't my. I couldn't need it, because you know you're putting yourself in a situation where you are putting your life in other people's hands to either accept you say yes or no, and that's a very vulnerable position to be in, and so I didn't want to be in that position to feel like, you know, I needed these people and that's also how I stayed away from actually a lot of the predators. Because I didn't stay away from them, believe me, I met them all and I interacted with most of them that are in the news today. But you know, I just never came from a place of. You know, I don't feel I need anyone for my career, you know. I mean, obviously they could have attacked me, but I think that it helped me as in I know that I can do it myself and even if it's not to the you know the magnitude that I wanted my career to be I would still be able to be an actor and have fun with it, right.

Maria: 3:47

So, and then I wanted to focus on my photography as my business, as a steady, stability and solid ground to stand on so that I could have fun being an actress and not depend on that.

Michelle: 4:00

Right yeah, because I'm sure that's where a lot of the stress does come is when you're depending on it for your livelihood, but yet it's so inconsistent.

Maria: 4:07

I want to correct a little bit, because I kind of feel like the way I expressed that was almost like well, the reason why I didn't get in trouble with the predators is because I was, and other women who were you know that's not at all what I meant. I wasn't in a lot of those situations and you know which happened very harmful. But I think that you know the reason why. You know, I always had that mentality of that. I didn't need that situation and I think that when you come from that standpoint and you just have that philosophy, it's it keeps you safer.

Michelle: 4:41

Yeah, I definitely see what you mean, because I think you're more in the position of like being ready to say no at any moment, but if that's somebody's livelihood, they're more prone to say yes to things. Right? Yeah, well, tell us about so. You were born in Sweden and then moved to Paris when you were 15, and was that the start of your modeling career?

Maria: 5:02

Yes, it was Before then. I mean, I grew up in a small town in Sweden and I think I was born to do what I do as an artist. As soon as I knew how to write, I started writing. I was I was very shy, and I think a lot of kids are. I communicated a lot through my writings and I love ballet and I danced and performance art. I never acted, though. I never actually used my voice because I was so shy. So I never really sang or used my voice a lot. I didn't feel comfortable like talking in front of people on stage, but any kind of other expression of art I loved. And I had a mother who really pushed for beauty standards and kind of pushed me in that direction of modeling. So she took some photos of me and she sent it into a magazine and it was the model of the year, a fashion magazine in Sweden that every year there was a competition and you would vote and then there would be a winner and then that winner would go to Paris and then be a supermodel. So that's what we thought that was. My mother sent in the photos and I was selected to be a finalist and I went to Stockholm.

Maria: 6:12

Before I went to Stockholm, I had a very severe acne as a teenager and we thought I should lose a little bit of weight. So I did it five days fast. I dropped weight like crazy that week before and then my mother came with me to Stockholm and I was skinny and my acne had cleared a bit and I became one of the finalists and I didn't win the competition. But I got a letter with a contract to go to Paris over the summer for a little bit more than a month and, of course, coming from Sweden, going straight into that world. It was like the gates just opened to this insane world of nightclubs and fashion and rock stars and supermodels. So it was a great time and my life completely changed. Obviously, I just couldn't. There's no return from that, can I just go back? And so I did go back and which I was supposed to start school, high school.

Maria: 7:15

After a week I decided I have to go back, and it wasn't about the modeling, it was about just the life, the, you know the idea of Paris, and you know sitting there at a cafe and writing poetry and going to museums, and and also for me it was really about because I think, at the core of everything I'm a writer, it was to. I always had this idea that I wanted to go out in the world and just experience all these amazing stories that I saw in the movies and live not like the movie stars but like the characters in the movies. Right, and so I would have these great stories to tell eventually and be able to write about. Be careful what you wish for, yeah, so yeah, I was really skinny when I was there that summer.

Maria: 8:04

When I finally convinced my mom to return, I had gained some weight and I came back and I was told the first thing I was told when I got into the agency Now, you know, the friends that I had met there over the summer had left and I didn't know anybody anymore and it was cold and it was a different time now and it became more real. And so I was told the first thing I was told was to lose weight and had to lose about five, six kilos, which I don't know pounds, I still don't know.

Michelle: 8:31

I think it's 12 to 15 pounds. That's a lot.

Maria: 8:34

So that was the beginning and I remember walking away from the agency and the anxiety that I felt and I felt so alone and I was really scared because I realized maybe I made a mistake. I left my friends back home and left my family, the good friends that I made over the summer. They were no longer there. They put me an apartment on my own and they put me in an apartment called Rue de Boulangerie, which means the bakery street. So next door to my apartment was a bakery In France you can imagine, like you know, just the croissants and the baguettes.

Michelle: 9:07

Yeah, so it smelled so amazing, I bet it reminded me of family right and home. And yet you were supposed to lose weight.

Maria: 9:16

Yeah, and I remember I went to this sort of outdoor mall called Leal and I was just like walking around there and there are all these scents coming from everywhere. And then I saw this big white chocolate cake and I just I just craved it and I was like I can't eat it. And I remember that impulse of that kind of panicking setting in and like feeling like tunnel vision and knowing like my whole body going no, alarm, alarm, this is bad, you can't do this. And I was like I can't even take the time to make the decision because I just have to have it. And I was just buying it and I literally just ate the whole thing.

Maria: 9:57

And then I panicked over that because I'm like how am I going to lose weight now? And I ran into the public bathroom and I tried to throw up and I tried for like 20 minutes and I couldn't do it. And I remember just that feeling of sitting there and the shame and my bloodshot eyes and like what am I doing and what's happening to me? And that was the very beginning of it.

Michelle: 10:23

Yeah, how old were you at this point? 15. Okay, on your own in Paris just booked. Was it a month long contract, right?

Maria: 10:32

Yeah, that was over this summer, and now I was actually going to start my career for real.

Michelle: 10:37

Yeah, and you're told to lose weight but yet you've got all of these scents from the boulangerie and you just want to eat and that insatiable like. I think that the tunnel vision you're describing is what a lot of people will really resonate with, and I know I've experienced at one point where it's just it feels almost like out of body. You know, like it's like a storm in your mind and you can't think quick enough to stop the action.

Maria: 11:06

Right, Because you don't allow yourself to do it. This is so interesting because this is actually the first time I talked about this, that I've talked about it.

Michelle: 11:15

So honored.

Maria: 11:16

Well, I mean you, you really are wonderful. I just don't know how I came across you, but I came across your page and I don't like a lot of the food culture and all the Instagram diets and nutritionists, but it was just something about you. It's your voice, it's the way that you are, so you seem just very comforting, which is what we're looking for, right People with eating disorders. We're looking for comfort, really. And understanding, and that's what you provide.

Michelle: 11:51

Thank you, that means a lot. I mean, I've been there, I needed comfort and I didn't have anybody to comfort me, so that feels good to know that I'm able to provide that. Yeah, so tell me about modeling then. Well, how long were you in Paris for?

Maria: 12:07

So I was in Paris when I returned. I was there only for a month because then they decided to send me to Barcelona. So at the time you went from place to place and so the agency would say you would have a mother agency, so they would always like benefit from wherever you worked all over the world. And then they would say, hey, you know, there's an agency who wants to work with you in Barcelona and since you are, you know, more commercial looking, which is, in other words, fat, you know the marketing.

Maria: 12:33

So the market in Paris at the time was very editorial, means that there was like super, super skinny, not kind of like. The commercial look at the time was like a little bit more curvy and just more kind of smiley right, Whereas the editorial was more the fashion and really really, really skinny. And so the Barcelona market was more commercial and therefore I could go there and get work, to build my portfolio and then use that to come back to Paris and work. So they sent me to Barcelona, was there, and then from there that agency sent me to an agency in Madrid and then that agency sent me to a German agency and after that I returned to Paris and I was there for a year before I finally left for good.

Michelle: 13:19

Wow, and then you came to LA.

Maria: 13:21

No, and then I went back to Sweden and I went full on. I did just kind of 180, just really focused on my writing, and I went to school for that. And I went to Russia on a workshop and I was working different kinds of jobs in Sweden for some years and I had a relationship there and then finally I just decided that I got an opportunity to work again as a model in Germany and I was like, okay, I need the money. So I left and I went to Germany and then from Germany I went back to Barcelona. I was there for two years and then I finally decided I need to go for what I really want to do and I went to New York. I went there to study drama at the Lees-Trasberg Institute and within a month I knew that this was it. I wanted to do this.

Maria: 14:06

But the thing was that, you know, then I got into acting and I got the role in Super Troopers and then eventually I moved to Los Angeles.

Maria: 14:14

But a lot of the auditions that I would get it was the same kind of thing as in modeling.

Maria: 14:18

It was a sexy Swedish girl, it was the bikini girl, you know the Adam Sandler movies, those kind of roles and I just didn't feel like it was true to who I was true to my brand, basically, and I was questioning everything.

Maria: 14:33

I felt a bit hopeless. So I decided to write my own stories and I made my first short film Never Be Mine and then eventually I made a second film and then I started to think that maybe I could do more behind the camera. And I got a camera that has a really good video feature and I started to shoot my own short films and videos and I did a lot of still photography, and a lot of it was of my friends who were actors and models, and then they use those photos as their headshots and I did a lot of different photography in the beginning advertisement, fashion, family photography but the thing that I really loved was the one in one connection and especially when I started to realize that I could actually use all of my own experiences and everything that I'd gone through and to just pour that into my job.

Maria: 15:22

But it took years before I felt like confident that I actually had something to offer and to give. So that is really my focus now is to be that place, to be that person that I wish that I had, that I longed for right and that I filled with food disorder. I don't know what to call it really. I think it is a disorder, yeah it depends.

Michelle: 15:46

I mean, there's two ends of the spectrum. One of the ends is an eating disorder and the other one is just normal healthy eating, intuitive eating even. And then in the middle of that whole spectrum is disorder dating, you know. So I think a lot of people fall on the disorder dating spectrum and maybe don't meet full criteria for diagnosis, but that doesn't mean that they aren't struggling and it's not stressful for them. So yeah, I've found that, like, the labels don't really matter. At the end of the day, if you're struggling, you're struggling you know.

Michelle: 16:18

So what was it like for you to be in an industry, specifically when you were young, and in the modeling industry, to have your entire career based on how you look and to have how you look constantly critiqued?

Maria: 16:33

You know, I'm so emotional right now, like I'm shaking and it's not like, oh, you know it's a bad thing. It is scary for me right now because I've never talked about this openly and I just decided that I'm ready and I just jumped on this. But it's the truth. I'm just going to tell the truth. I love it. Yeah, I mean, first of all, I wasn't even ready yet, Like I wasn't fully cooked, I was still growing, I was still developing. I didn't really know who I was. I mean, I was coming into it, right, and then trying to figure out who you are and, at the same time, having people telling you that you are wrong, that there's something wrong with you, on a daily basis, all the time. Yeah, a lot of people along the way, you know, in my life, say, oh, if they give me a compliment about my looks, oh, but you know you know that or you know you're a model.

Maria: 17:33

So the truth is that I think that it's complete the opposite, because you are always told what's wrong with you. That's interesting. You start feeling this shame and you start to separate yourself from your body because it is not yours anymore. It's for other people to judge and to decide whether or not you're accepted or not. That also goes back to how you are raised, right, how it is in your family, because, you know, my mother gave me praise when I was thin. My mother gave me praise when I was pretty innerized. So you know that was always in, already inside of me. Yeah, that was already a fact. So that's why I believed them when they told me that something was wrong with me, because that's what I already, you know, led to believe.

Michelle: 18:25

Yeah, and it's just confirmation of that. Yeah, yeah, Just rolling it in. I think what you said about this perception people have that models already know that they're pretty. You're like, oh you know you're a model and how it's actually the opposite is. It's so interesting for me, being the person who's never modeled and assumes that about models, right, Like I think you always have a friend that has done like a random magazine and is now like the model you know and everybody, oh my gosh, she's a model.

Maria: 18:57

She thinks she is. Yeah, exactly.

Michelle: 19:00

And you just like assume that now she has all the confidence in the world. But I think it's really amazing that you're sharing your story and sharing that. On the other side, what you're receiving is just constant berating for how you look and criticism and being told you're essentially not good enough. And who wants to feel that way?

Maria: 19:24

Yeah, I remember the skinner you were. The more praise you got and the more you worked, so you know, the food automatically became an enemy in a real sense as in, you know, I wouldn't be able to work and survive.

Michelle: 19:43

Yeah, which is a very tricky belief to unravel, right, because it was, in a sense, very true. You know it's not like this made up rule that you had around food. It was actual reality. You needed to restrict in order to be small enough to get jobs, and that's just the situation you're in. You know it's not something you made up.

Michelle: 20:07

If you feel like your life is completely centered around food, I need you to know that there is hope and it doesn't have to be like this. The women I work with start their journey in a dark, lonely place and they walk away feeling like they're able to live their life again, no more stressing about everything they eat or letting the scale decide how they're going to feel that day. If you're ready to put in the work and heal from the inside out, then visit my show notes to learn about how you can spend four months with me and my signature program, where you'll have a high touch support system, a proven framework delivered through online modules and a community of women who get it and are walking alongside of you, so that you can truly become nourished and free. Visit my show notes for more info. So is the industry in Hollywood, when it's more picture focused.

Michelle: 20:58

Being in the acting industry. Is it just as bad? The pressure to be skinny, and maybe it's again different than it was, but was it just as bad for you there versus being in a modeling industry?

Maria: 21:14

I don't think the weight was. For me it wasn't an issue in the acting industry. It was more about being a typecast as that person that I was trying to get away from being. And as soon as I got completely away from modeling, then I started to not worry about it so much, even though it was still a factor. It wasn't as bad and constant for me. But I think it's just so much better now that, from my perspective, what I went through and the way it is now, I don't have myself, I'm not feeling any pressure anymore as an actor.

Michelle: 21:58

That's good, yeah, so how did you? I mean, you've got so much deep rooted emotional ties to how you feel about your weight, how you feel about food. I mean, how do you get out of that? How do you get to a place of recovery?

Maria: 22:18

Yeah, I think it's ongoing. I think it's always going to be there.

Michelle: 22:25

Yeah, well said.

Maria: 22:26

It is part of your personality in a way. Right, yeah, I went through something seven years ago. In September it's going to be seven years I became a victim of a crime. It was a home invasion. I ended up jumping out of the window and I broke my back, both hands and I shattered my feet. I was in a wheelchair for four months. I didn't know if I was going to walk again. It was sort of like the pilgrimage of my life. Right, it was the before, it's, before and after that event.

Maria: 22:55

You know, throughout that process, I really had the opportunity to. I had no choice but to associate, as in my whole life I feel like I have disassociated through a lot of trauma and I literally was not in my body and I think because of that, I became very vulnerable to a situation. That was what it was, and I had to question myself and ask myself how did I end up here, how did this happen and why? And I had to, I didn't have a choice because I was flat on my back for four months and I really came to the realization of how I had been rejecting myself, rejecting my own body and lying to myself, and that was sort of the process of where I started to realize, well, I lost completely my identity because my identity was this tall person. I didn't understand what that impact is Like. When you are really tall, for example, you walk into a room until I was in a wheelchair and I was overseen and I understood how much of my identity was tied to my body and to the way that I looked. And when that was completely shattered, I had to understand who I really was right and that my body was my friend, because my body saved my life. If I hadn't been as strong as I am the way I fell, I would not be here today, and so I started to look at my body in a different way, as in I thank my body for saving my life and just starting a new relationship with it. Right, and I was basically reborn because I had to start to walk again. I had to start to learn how to walk again, and I'm so thankful for my body now. So not that you are not if you have an eating disorder, it's just.

Maria: 25:03

It took that for me to just start to understand that I am safe because I trust myself, I can survive something so horrendous and I won't be starving. I lost almost everything, but I did save myself right, and I had to understand like, where does it all come from? Well, it comes from the fact that I was alone as a child out in the world and I wanted my parents, and food for me became my nurturing, my comfort, as it is right, comfort food. And so I really started to change my perspective on it. And I love to cook, by the way, food for me is so important. It's my love language, it's how I show people how much I care about them, because it's such a fundamental, beautiful thing. It means family, it means being together, and I think, because I miss that so much, I miss the sense of family. I turn to food, right, because that was that thing that you want, like the grounds to you, but it's so much more than just nutrition and taste. It's a sense of comfort and belonging.

Michelle: 26:28

Yeah, it's an emotional experience. There's a lot of pleasure wrapped up in food, and I love what you said about you felt like your body was your friend and it had saved you. And the concepts that you're talking about there shifting from you feeling like it was your enemy or it was your identity, I guess, to it being your friend and something that helped you is kind of along the lines of something that I do a lot with my clients, which is called body neutrality, and the concept of body neutrality is that you've got body positivity over here. We all know somebody on Instagram who's a body positive warrior and that's great and it's awesome that they can feel that way about themselves.

Michelle: 27:13

But most of us just don't have the capacity to feel that way because we've been on the complete opposite side, where we've just got body blaming and body hate and we just detest ourselves, come up with every reason why it's wrong and ugly and isn't worthy, and so neutrality is this nice little bridge in the middle where you're not trying to be obsessed with your body and be in love with it, but you're not hating it either. You're just seeing it as what it is, which is like a body that was able to break your fall quite literally, but also save you from death, and it's a friend for you in that sense and it does help you to pursue your passions in acting and photography and writing and all these things. It's a container for your soul and for you to be able to be a part of this world and create and experience and live, and that's beautiful in and of itself. That's something that we can feel really good about, and so that's a lot of times much more attainable and much easier for women especially, to get to than the body positivity side of things, where you're like I love my cellulite, I love my roles and it's great if you can do that. It's just difficult and even some days you're going to feel that way and some days you won't.

Michelle: 28:32

So I think it's really cool that you had. Obviously it's a terrible circumstance and I'm so glad you survived and I'm really like I cannot believe you went through that and it's horrible. Nobody should have to go through that. But it's amazing what you've made from it and what you've been able to do out of that experience. And I'm a believer in God and I feel like that was totally a God thing just using that tragedy to build you up from the ashes in such a cool way and now look at you. You're like this amazing warrior in your own way, talking about your story, and that's so impactful.

Maria: 29:10

You know, I know that God saved me and it's a big story, right. But it took me a long time to get to the place where I understood what it was that I needed to learn from this right, and I went through a lot of the emotions beforehand. But after I knew what God wanted me to learn from all of this, I started to look at it as a gift. And it's become a gift where sometimes I want to talk about it and people are like, no, no, no, you have to talk about it. And I'm like why, it's who I am right, I want to, I'm a new person, I've changed.

Maria: 29:48

I don't mind talking about it. It doesn't have to be this thing where people have to be. You know, it does not talk about that. Well, I have wanted to get to that place where I'm like, ok, I need to do this with that experience. But I realized that it doesn't work like that. It's the gradual little moments along the way and just now, being creative enough to actually tell my story, tell some small truths here and so that eventually I can tell the big truth, which is the circumstances around what happened. It's just, it helps me a lot with my healing.

Michelle: 30:21

Yeah. So what is your relationship with food like now? Then that you've come to a completely different place with your body, because your relationship with your body was causing food to be your enemy. So, now that your relationship with your body has changed, what kind of part does food play in your life now?

Maria: 30:39

no-transcript. I do care a lot about how I look.

Maria: 30:44

I have to admit that it's very important to me to have a body that I consider a healthy body, a body that I feel sexy in, right and also. But I work out a lot, I do hot yoga and I go swimming, but a lot of that is my physical therapy, so I have to do that in order to be able to walk without too many complications and things like that, and I do watch what I eat, as in I want to eat in a way that is yummy and healthy and makes my body feel good, right, and I feel comforted. So I think that my relationship with food is wonderful. I mean, I love food so much, I love to cook. Yeah, food is everything to me, but in a good way, as in.

Maria: 31:44

I feel like I'm actually a Swedish woman trapped in Italian mama's body, because I always have tomato sauce on the stove, a curry on the stove, I'm always creating new recipes and I do my cooking videos. Like I said, it's my love language, so it's a love relationship. It really is. But the ticks and the thoughts always come in. It's like maybe if you meet somebody new, you're kind of like oh shit, do I have to lose weight before we? And it's not even a thought, it's just a tick that.

Michelle: 32:25

I know.

Maria: 32:26

And then I'm like OK, wait a minute. Why am I doing this to myself right now? I'm being my own perpetrator. Now, someone was the perpetrator and this is what happens. It's called trauma bond. Right, you have a trauma bond with maybe a person, or even with food, so it's not me. I'm just carrying on retraumatizing myself over and over again, and so I just have to break it. Still, today, when I get hungry, I get really scared. It's like a fear that sets into my body that I'm going to starve. Something bad is going to happen, but that's the abandonment. It's like you need your mom. You need your parents in a very crucial time of your life and you have to turn to the thing that gives you some sense of that. That's what I have come to realize. It's a new realization for me, because I never really thought of the source of it.

Michelle: 33:25

Which is so important that you get to the root of all of things.

Maria: 33:28

Yeah. So when I got to the root and I realized that the feeling that I really had was a hollowness, it was a feeling of being hungry, I was feeling of starving for comfort.

Michelle: 33:40

Yeah.

Maria: 33:41

Right, it's here. It's the longing and the yearning and the sadness. It's right here. It's in your soul, where your stomach is.

Maria: 33:50

And so when you feel that you feel comforted and filled Right, and then the guilt sits in, it's almost like you are being, you're attacking yourself. But I think it's always going to be that in me, but I have to. When I do have those thoughts, I get a little angry with myself because I'm like wait a minute, maria, do you remember how your body healed? And I remember one time when I was lying down and I had my feet up and my cast and I could feel all this like little tingling inside of my bones and I was like what is that? And I had this idea that it was like these little men with little hats, some construction hats, and they were hammering and fixing and killing me. Because that's basically yourselves are working over for you.

Maria: 34:39

And so you're just laying there, you're not doing anything.

Michelle: 34:43

Yeah.

Maria: 34:43

Body is like working nonstop to fix you. How dare I, or how dare anybody else, have an opinion about my body? Right? It's like you have to stand up for your body.

Michelle: 34:59

Totally, because it's amazing and it's working overtime all the time.

Michelle: 35:04

And I was just thinking about this the other day, how our cells are continually dying and then like regrowing and multiplying, and it's crazy how all of that is happening and we have zero clue, because it's just not on the top of mind. But what is on the top of mind is how we don't look like that person that we, which we, looked like, or that model that was actually super edited or whatever, or was starving herself in order to look that way or whatever, and it's crazy.

Maria: 35:34

The thing that I'm most concerned about is the surgeries and changing the idea of what a woman should look like, because if you're looking at models from the 90s, I mean their bodies were most of the bodies were still natural right, even though you know they were skinny and modified that way, but just also like the shape of the woman's body, like it's not natural to have a body, like you know, the Kardashians, for example Like that's not a female body form, it's not, it's made up, it's created, and that's what I think is really one of the things that I find really scary, because that you cannot achieve.

Michelle: 36:21

Right, it's completely and totally unnatural.

Maria: 36:24

Yeah.

Michelle: 36:26

Yeah, I know it is. It is disheartening. So I mean, you were talking about how the industry was different in the 90s versus now, and I think there's like there's some good and bad there, right, because maybe there's not as much pressure to be as thin as possible, but now there's this different pressure in our culture Whether it's like specific to models or not just as a general culture, for women to now look like these images that are completely and totally just at its core, created in a lab. You know, and you can't win. You just can't. It's crazy. So I feel like I've taken a lot of your time already and you've been so generous with your story. Is there anything else that you want to share that you feel like you wanted to mention today? That would be helpful for you in your healing journey.

Maria: 37:17

I think that you know at the end, what I wanted to say is I was listening to one of the episodes where I can't remember her name but she said just going out for ice cream with your friend, right yeah. And that really hit home for me because these last years that I have been on my healing journey, I realized that there's so many things I didn't allow myself to do before, and a big part of that is food. Like why didn't I ever, just when I was living in Hamburg, why didn't I just go out and have a big beer and try different beers? I'm in Hamburg. Why didn't I do that? And or like, when I was living in New York for five years, why didn't I just go and have pizza in Brooklyn? You know, that was not a part of my accepted life.

Maria: 38:17

So now, because I have had a near-death experience and I start to look at things from a different perspective, as a newborn in a way, I find myself just going down the street and buying myself an ice cream on a Sunday and I walk around with my ice cream cone and I'm like this is so good. And I'm like resisting all that anxiety of like, oh my god, can I eat tomorrow. Can I eat tomorrow? Then maybe I shouldn't eat for two days now because of it. And then I have to do this. And what a shame. They're going to look at me and they're going to think look at her butt, look at her butt. Those words and those voices are in my head. But it is like when you meditate, you just have to just let them chatter and keep eating your ice cream Because, as we all know, theoretically, but once something happens to you like that and you think you're going to die and you get a second chance, it just changes you.

Maria: 39:22

And so I just have tried to really just live my life and live it fully. If I want to eat that pizza, I'm going to have it. I'm not going to have it every day because I do not want to gain weight. I want to be the way that I want to be, but I'm not going to punish myself. I'm not going to do it. If I go out to a restaurant, I'm going to eat what I want to eat on the menu, and I do it very intentionally. When I look at a menu and I would always go the salad, we all know we go for the salad or the fish and I'm like what do I really want to eat?

Michelle: 40:02

Love that.

Maria: 40:03

And that's the thing. I think that eating disorder for many people can be that abandoned child within who wants love and comfort and wants to be seen and heard. Once I started doing that for myself and I said to myself hey, maria, what do you want to eat? But what do you really want? You really want to eat? Come on and I'm like I want the mashed potatoes and I want the cream corn and the big ribeye steak. That's what I want. Ok, you can have it. Really, I love it. Yes, you can. So that's how I'm working on it on a daily basis. I'm having these conversations with me and when that tick sets in, I just stop and I look at it and I'm like what is this? What's causing me that anxiety right now?

Michelle: 40:51

Yeah, it's that automatic thought that's just really. I mean, that's a neural pathway in your brain that has been walked so many times and that strength or that connection is so strong in your brain to have those thoughts that it's automatic. So what you've been describing of like that well, wait a second, why are we thinking that way, Maria? Like, do we really Can't? I just have ice cream? It's the concept that I tell my clients a lot, where it's like you can't always choose your first thought, but you can choose the second thought. And the second thought is where you can kind of question that first one and that automatic one and challenge the chatter.

Maria: 41:32

Yeah, and I think also a big part of the problem is that when you have this problem, then you shame yourself on top of it for having the problem, and then you get mad at yourself because you cannot be normal. Why can't I not be normal? Why can't I not figure this thing out? And so I think it's important that people understand that this is not something to be figured out and not something to be figured out quickly. It's a journey, right, and the journey is really to discover the source of it and understanding what it is that you really truly need and that you feel that you're lacking in your life. Yeah, right, so it's not something that, oh, if you just do this and that, then you're going to fix yourself, because everyone is going through their own journey. And I think that you said something in one of the episodes the awareness, which is really everything, because once you have the awareness, you can separate yourself from it, right, and you can look at it as oh, ok, this is interesting, this is happening, and internalize it. I'm a bad person.

Michelle: 42:44

I should be ashamed of myself for having these thoughts, and yeah, yeah, yeah, that awareness is huge, because you can't make change without knowing what is going on, what the heck is going on right now, right? So, yeah, this was great, maria, I commend you and your bravery, and I'm so glad you're here with us today because, all things considered, that's pretty amazing considering what happened seven years ago. So I appreciate you.

Maria: 43:16

Thank you so much for listening for a long time.

Michelle: 43:20

And I'm kidding, this was great. I love stories and I love hearing, because I think there's. What you mentioned was that you felt like you couldn't really, you were ashamed and you couldn't really talk about it. Right, because it's like I'm the only one that's going through this. Right, nobody else is struggling with this, but in reality, there's millions of other women struggling with this, and men too, and it's so powerful to talk about it because then we start to have more and more conversations and normalize it and then we can really heal. And the longer that you feel isolated and you're alone, then the more you're stuck and you can't really move forward and there's no conversation around it. So just huge props to you for being vocal about what's going on and having those conversations, because it's not easy to say how imperfect you are and the struggles you've been through and even traumas that you've been through, but it is important for healing and you're crushing it.

Maria: 44:25

Thank you so much. You're really wonderful and there's something really special about the energy that you give out. It's very authentic, it just feels very comforting, like I said before, and also honest, and I love your approach to this food culture. What is that called? Again, it's anorexia, and then it's the orthorexia. Which I think is very triggering for a lot of people, myself included, and I love that you shine light on that.

Michelle: 45:03

Yeah, and I think you must have been listening to that episode about when your health obsession becomes unhealthy. You had mentioned that story about getting ice cream with a friend and that was what Katie had talked about on there. So anybody that's interested in that episode you'll have to go back and find that. That's just a couple episodes ago. I can't remember the date exactly but I'll put it in the show notes. But it's a good one. If you're struggling with feeling stressed around the ingredients in your food or just types of food, like having whole grain pasta versus regular pasta, that can be super triggering. Not necessarily just eating in general, but just eating certain things can be very triggering. So if that's something you identify with, that's a good episode to listen to and I'm glad that you enjoyed it. Maria, I really did. Yeah Well, thank you so much and I cannot wait for this episode to come out and for all the feedback. It's going to be amazing.

Maria: 45:57

I'm nervous, but I'm excited.

Michelle: 45:59

You don't need to be.

Maria: 46:02

Thank you so much. Oh, and also, I have to plug in Tornberg. Headshots is my company.

Michelle: 46:10

Yes, I'm so glad you said that. So you are a photographer for Headshots. Yeah, so people can find you at your website, correct?

Maria: 46:19

Yes, it's tornbergheadshotscom, and also on Instagram tornbergheadshots T-O-R-N-B-E-R-G.

Michelle: 46:26

Great, and that's for actors and actresses, correct?

Maria: 46:29

Yes, I focus on helping actors with their personal brands and their careers. I create their headshots and I also help them find the right representation.

Michelle: 46:41

Awesome, I love that. So any actors or actresses listening to this needing some headshots or representation brand help. Maria is your gal. I mean, what about a person to help you with finding representation than Maria for real? No, I love it. I love it, but I sat down and I I was also writing this interview with my old film casting, be Be Ready, pink and Blue. The interview went really well. The video went great. Are there good people? Yeah, there are plenty of good people.