Do you ever feel like diet culture is stealing your joy?
Like society's expectations of physical perfection are preventing you from truly aligning with your values and fully experiencing life?
How many pictures have you NOT taken, beaches you haven't gone to, social events you missed or trips you didn't take because you let your body hold you back?
So many women have been conditioned to stop living life in alignment with what they deeply value in order to pursue weight loss, dieting and acceptance from society. As a result, you run the risk of waking up at the age of 80 years old with a lot of regret about the life half lived, the missed experiences, and the lack of fulfilment.
In this episode, we are joined by the incredible Cherie Miller, an eating disorder therapist who works with adult clients struggling with a range of eating disorders, including anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, orthorexia, OSFED and disordered eating all along the spectrum.
Together, we cover:
If you want to stop feeling like you're missing out on truly living your life because your body is holding you back, you don't want to miss this episode!
Connect with Cherie
RESOURCES
Connect with Sabrina:
Do you ever feel like diet culture is stealing your joy?
Like society's expectations of physical perfection are preventing you from truly aligning with your values and fully experiencing life?
How many pictures have you NOT taken, beaches you haven't gone to, social events you missed or trips you didn't take because you let your body hold you back?
So many women have been conditioned to stop living life in alignment with what they deeply value in order to pursue weight loss, dieting and acceptance from society. As a result, you run the risk of waking up at the age of 80 years old with a lot of regret about the life half lived, the missed experiences, and the lack of fulfilment.
In this episode, we are joined by the incredible Cherie Miller, an eating disorder therapist who works with adult clients struggling with a range of eating disorders, including anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, orthorexia, OSFED and disordered eating all along the spectrum.
Together, we cover:
If you want to stop feeling like you're missing out on truly living your life because your body is holding you back, you don't want to miss this episode!
Connect with Cherie
RESOURCES
Connect with Sabrina:
Welcome back to the podcast. Today's episode is going to reveal how identifying and aligning with your personal values impacts your journey to a better body image and a healthier relationship with food, featuring food freedom therapist, shari Miller. So stay tuned. Welcome to the Live, unrestricted podcast, a show where you'll learn how to heal your relationship with food and your body so that you can focus your time and energy on more important things, like your personal growth. I'm your host, sabrina Magna, food freedom coach, and my mission is to help make your life happier and healthier without stress, overwhelm or guilt about food. If you love the show, please do go out and share it, and if you're looking for support with your relationship with food, details about my programs are in the show notes. Thanks for spending time with me today. Now let's jump in.
Speaker 1:So I just wrapped up a conversation with food freedom therapist, shari Miller, and we talked about the importance of identifying and aligning with your personal values as you are working through maybe eating disorder recovery or working on breaking free from diet culture and healing from disorder eating, and this was such a massive topic that I wish that I had learned about when I was struggling with my eating disorders, because, as you'll hear during our conversation. There was this one time in my life when I felt like I was at the deepest and the darkest of my food and body obsession and I had these values these values of freedom and integrity and travel and connection and family and I didn't feel like I was living in alignment with those values Because when I was with my family, I wasn't really present because I was just thinking about food and what I looked like. I wasn't traveling because I was so afraid of eating different foods from different cultures. I wasn't living in alignment with my values of friendships because I was so terrified of going out and my social life was plummeting. There was all of these things that I said were important to me, but my behaviors didn't reflect that.
Speaker 1:So when I started talking to Shari, who has 15 years of experience as an eating disorder mentor, speaker, educator and advocate, and I learned more about some of the work that she does and how she focuses a lot on values work, I knew that I needed to talk to her, because values and helping my clients identify and live by their values is a major part of Food Freedom Academy. So I wanted to bring her on and have a conversation. So, without further ado, let me play that interview for you. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Live Unrestricted podcast. We have a great one for you today. I am so excited to welcome our guest, shari Miller, so I'm going to go ahead and let you introduce yourself to our audience. So can you tell us a bit more about who you are, what do you do, and then we'll get into your story and how you got to where you are today.
Speaker 2:Sure. Well, first of all, thank you for having me on. I'm so glad to be here today and again. I'm Shari Miller and I'm actually a licensed counselor in the state of Texas, and I specialize in working with women and men that struggle with food and body issues, as well as OCD and trauma. So I have been doing this for a few years. It's actually my second career. I was in corporate marketing before this and then finally got to go back to school and get my graduate degree and start this career in counseling, which I'm so happy to be able to do this day in and day out now, and I love this work because I'm recovered from those things myself, and so it just feels like a huge blessing and brings a lot of joy and meaning to my life to be able to help other people in this journey, because it's so common, unfortunately, in our culture. And so, yeah, that's a little bit about what I do in a nutshell and why I do what I do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you briefly touched on this and I know that this is a common thread along a lot of us who get into this kind of work as having been recovered yourself. So can you tell our listeners a little bit more about your story when it came to your own struggles with food and body image and how you got to where you are here today?
Speaker 2:Sure. So I struggled most of my life, as far back as I can remember, with body image stuff, and it really wasn't until college when I went on my first quote unquote diet like it's so harmless, I'm just going to lose a few pounds, and that quickly morphed into a full blown eating disorder and I ended up going through. At the time I would have called it recovery and I guess it was in some ways, but not as deeply as I really needed to do all that healing. I call it quasi recovery, which a lot of people can relate to as well.
Speaker 1:So I had one of those yes.
Speaker 2:I think it's not uncommon and so I really had gotten to a place where I was not engaging in a lot of clinical eating disorder behaviors, but I was still very much in diet culture and still had a very tenuous, sometimes hostile, relationship with my body, so did not have peace with food and my body at all at that point, and so I ended up relapsing pretty heavily after I went through a divorce.
Speaker 2:That was like eight years later.
Speaker 2:So it kind of caught me off guard because I had thought of myself as recovered, not realizing that I was still very much entrenched in a lot of disordered stuff.
Speaker 2:And then after that, I think, I realized wow, I hadn't really done the deeper work that I needed to do, and it was the first time I had heard about diet culture and just realizing there was this whole other element of making true peace with food and myself that I had missed in the first go round. And so, yeah, maybe I hadn't engaged in clinical eating disorder behaviors for a long time, but there was still a lot of healing and growing to do. And so that second go round I was able to do more of that work and now I would definitely consider myself recovered, and I know that's a little bit of a controversial topic in our field about recovered versus being in recovery, and I think that's such a personal issue for everyone to decide what that means for them, and I would never say for anybody else what that is For me. I really do consider myself recovered, but yeah, I. It's hard, though, in this culture because it's a constant swimming upstream.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I've been asked a lot in the past couple of weeks like how do you determine if someone is in recovery? If someone is recovered and I would categorize myself in that category of recovered as well and what would you say? Is that differentiation between someone who is in recovery and someone who can be in confidence that they are recovered?
Speaker 2:For me. I am so far removed from that period of time in my life that I don't feel triggered by things very often. I, even when I do, I manage that in a way that is much healthier and it doesn't. It doesn't really lead to thoughts of like, oh, I really just want to restrict, or, you know, I want to you know, binge and purge or any of those kind of same disordered thoughts that you know. And it took me a few years to get to that place where I didn't have those like well, I could just kind of go back to my you know eating disorder ways and to manage. You know all that's coming up for me right now, whatever that might have been at that moment, and I just don't have those thoughts or urges anymore. And even if I did, I'm so solidly planted in this second chapter of my life of like, no, those are not my values. I'm not going to participate in that more anymore.
Speaker 2:I really see it as this is not just a me issue. I feel like I'm very much a part of a larger issue of social justice and what this means for women specifically, although this definitely does affect men more and more as well. But seeing this as like, wow, this is a society issue, this, this weight discrimination and bias and this fat phobia, and how people are affected by that and how harmful it is to people. And so, yeah, I think that shift in perspective was really key for me in realizing like, well, this isn't just an individual issue, I'm part of something much bigger than myself, and I think that gave me a lot of motivation to recover and then stay in that recovered place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's such an interesting point that I haven't really thought about intentionally, but I think it really does happen when you get into this kind of work. I would love your opinion on this. Do you think that when you've gone through that process and we're not talking just strictly eating disorders, but it could be disordered eating having been in trench and diet culture and having struggled with food and body image, and then not only doing that work on yourself, which is that individual healing, but then taking it on as a bigger movement and helping people who you might know who are struggling with this and maybe bringing them into the world of intuitive eating and food freedom, Do you think that when you make it bigger than you, it becomes easier to stay in that healthy mindset and to not get pulled back?
Speaker 2:I do. I mean, I've seen that for me personally, like I said, but I also have seen that be true for clients, and that doesn't mean that every client or every person that's struggling with this needs to have that perspective or have those same values. But I do feel like it's helpful because it gives us a different perspective and allows us to detach a little bit and not get so enmeshed in our own individual thoughts and concerns about it. And I know we're going to talk about values today, but it goes back to that a lot.
Speaker 2:When I have a bad body image day, which we all have still sometimes. Right, it's a journey. There's no state of perfection where we're like I always feel great about my body. That's not realistic, probably for most people. But when I am having those days to be able to connect back to okay, I'm feeling this way about my body, but that's only because I have been conditioned to feel this way by a culture that benefits from making women feel bad about their bodies, and I do not want to participate in that system anymore because it hurts me.
Speaker 2:It hurts the other people in my life that I love. It hurts the daughter that I have now that is four years old and already coming home and talking about how women are supposed to be, girls are supposed to be pretty mama and the stuff that I'm like. It's not harmless. It does affect people in very negative ways and I get to choose whether I want to participate in that system or not, and so for me that's how it's been helpful and I've seen that be helpful for a lot of clients that, especially clients that tend to be very social justice minded, and sometimes we unpack like some of the racist roots of diet culture and they can really connect with that and it's almost like a shift away from being this, like hostility like I mentioned earlier that we have towards ourselves and our bodies for not being quote, unquote right to shifting that anger onto a system that makes us feel that way in the first place, and I think that can be really powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that shifting of the blame is so important because you know as well as anyone that when we have these clients who come to us, the blame is all on ourselves, and I felt that way too. There's something wrong with me, there's something wrong with my body. Why can't I be better? And when you're able to take that responsibility and actually place it where it lies, in more of this system and this cultural movement, then it becomes easier. And I won't say that healing is easy, but it becomes easier to start doing that compassion, work on yourself and not feeling like we are broken.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would totally agree, and I love doing self-compassion work with clients, and it has been a game changer for me, both in relationship with my body as well as just myself in general, because I have such perfectionistic tendencies as a lot of us that struggle with disordered eating do right, like the research is clear that so many of us have that temperament, that that tends to be a common thing, and so that has been so elemental in being able to shift that relationship and not be so critical of myself and others too, and I think that's really important in this journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I want to circle back, because we briefly touched on this and when you were talking about getting clear on what your values were and getting clear on what truly matters to you and finding where the real responsibility lies. So I know that in your work, you do a lot of something called values work, and this is something that I also do in my program because it is so important. It is crucial, and not just when it comes to healing your relationship with food and your body, but any kind of healing, anytime that you feel stuck in your life and you feel out of alignment with what you say, that you want, what you say your values are and then your behaviors not aligning with that. So can you tell us more about what values work really means, what it is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when I work with clients doing values work, it's usually part of a theoretical framework called acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT for short, and the idea is that when we identify what our true values are, we can start living more and more in line with those values, which creates more joy and a sense of meaning and purpose in our life, and it also creates that like congruence kind of like you hinted at. It's like sometimes we are very incongruent and like how we're living our day to day with our actual values and that always creates some sort of emotional or mental conflict there. Right, and really, when we talk about body image and I get into this work with clients what we often discover is that we are spending a lot of time and money and energy on perfecting our bodies and micromanaging our bodies and our food, and it's really not one of our values. It's driven by something other than our actual value system, because most of us, when we really drill down, we'll recognize like actually no, I don't think women's value is dependent on what we look like and I don't think that you know you're worthier if you're prettier and thinner and younger, right, but that's our culture's value system and we've bought into it and so we're living within that until we make an effort to break up with that and step out of it and so realizing, hey, that's not actually my values, you know, even though that's kind of what my day to day is really wrapped around.
Speaker 2:That, I think, is like the beginning of being able to say like, hey, I want to do, I want to do things differently. This is not how I want to live my life, you know, because we only get one life. So, you know, we don't want to look back at the end of our life and think, man, I really wish I had done it differently, because I don't think most of us are going to get to the end of our life and think I wish I dieted more, I wish I had, you know, really worked harder to lose that last 10 pounds, or I wish I had spent more time hating my body, exactly.
Speaker 2:You know, that's not what we're going to say at the end of our life, and so it can be really hard, though, on a day to day basis, if we're not pausing to consider that and dig a little deeper into it, because we just get caught up in, you know, the day to day, or how we were raised, or how we've always thought about things, or what we know and what the messages are that we get constantly from culture and media, and maybe friends and family that we're around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I. One thing I hear all the time and this happened on one of our coaching calls last night is we were talking about body image. One of my clients was saying like when I look at other people, I don't think that their worth is determined by their body size. I don't think that if they're in a bigger body they're weak and they have low willpower and they're not successful as a human being. But when it comes to myself, there is a disconnect because my values about myself and my values about the world seem to just not be different. And I would love to know, like, how do you start getting rid of that disconnect and starting living in alignment with what your values are for other people?
Speaker 2:Well, one, I think, is identifying what our values are and so and they're a little different for everybody, and so we kind of start with that looking through a list of values, exploring those, identifying okay, what are, what are your values? And then we narrow it down even further. I call them, like your non negotiable values. What are the things that you're like? I kind of want to live these out on a pretty regular basis, like every day if possible. I usually say, like you know, pick out the top three to five that are those non negotiables. And then we kind of we explore, like, how is how you're living right now line up with those values and how does it not line up with those values?
Speaker 2:And a lot of times what we find is the disordered eating, the focus on our bodies really can get, in a way, in the way of those things. And then we talk about what would it look like to live more in line with those values, what are some things that could change and be different? And it can be scary because we might be challenging ourselves to do things that are outside our comfort zone or that we think we really couldn't do until we lost weight or you know, whatever that might be like said, it's so different for every, every client, but really taking steps and realizing, wow, this actually creates true joy and a true sense of connection with other people and meaning. Versus the feeling that when you go on a diet and you lose 10 pounds and you have that like high, you know at first that like, oh my gosh, this feels amazing and I have so much self control and it's you know. That eventually wears off and superficial quote, unquote value Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I will have clients write their own eulogy, which sounds really morbid, but okay just like as a way to kind of clarify, because sometimes clients are like I really don't know, because this feels so important that I really don't know what I value. And so when we talk about like, okay, think about what you would want people to say about you at the end of your life, that you know she was so kind, or you know she really loved her children well, or she was an amazing teacher, or you know what a again, whatever that might be, I've heard all kinds of things that those are the things that we actually care about and that's the legacy we want to live. And so, yes, I know it's kind of a morbid exercise, but usually clients are like wow, that was. That was actually very clarifying and helping me understand what matters to me and what kind of legacy I want to leave, and putting in perspective that this idea of me being thinner feels really important on a day to day basis, but it's really not in the grand scheme of things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that exercise I.
Speaker 1:I did this unconsciously when I was realizing how much my eating disorder was affecting the quality of my life and there's this sense of compulsive need for control and for restriction.
Speaker 1:And what really helped me was very similar and I call it the front porch task, which is at the end of your life, when you're sitting on your front porch, maybe with your husband or your kids or your cat or your dog, and you're looking back on the life that you've lived and you think of the memories and the things that you accomplished and the things you focused on. What do you want to look back on? And that thought, when I was living this life of restriction and depriving myself of joy and focusing so much time and energy on food in my body, it was really heartbreaking and you mentioned it's kind of a morbid exercise, but sometimes we do need to have those really strong emotions come up to kind of snap you out of it and hit that rock bottom so that you decide that, okay, maybe change is going to be painful because it is going to be uncomfortable. But what's even more painful is the thought of being at the end of my life and having not done that uncomfortable work to change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. I love that a lot and I tell clients all the time. You know, it's not necessarily that we get to a place where we stop wanting to be thinner. At least it wasn't for me. I just got to a place where I wanted other things more, that I wasn't willing to sacrifice all these other things that I truly cared about on the altar of being thin anymore, and so I think that's encouraging for people, because I think sometimes we get to this place where we think, well, I just want to get to a place where I don't care, and then I can have food freedom and do the things. And I just want to encourage people that it doesn't have to go in that order.
Speaker 1:Yes, that is such a good point because, especially anyone who is starting to work on body image and breaking free from diet culture, there's this new kind of guilt right, like we are already living with so much guilt. And then there's this new kind of guilt of well, I still want to lose weight, and we are. There's some like. There's some area of intuitive eating and food freedom that will say, like weight loss, you cannot go after it. Yes, put weight loss on the back burner. Yes, it is not the goal.
Speaker 1:However, if you still have that desire, it is normal because we live in a society that has been telling you this for your entire life and you have been conditioned to believe it time and time again. So I love that you brought it up, because even me, there are times where I look in the mirror and I don't necessarily love what I see. And I have an example of the past weekend I was traveling for one of my girlfriend's birthdays and I just really didn't feel good in my body. When I travel, I tend to be bloated and like I just don't feel great. And I love what you said about.
Speaker 1:It's not that you don't have that desire anymore or you don't have bad body image days, but it's that. Something else is more important and I knew in that moment well, I'm not going to starve myself, I'm not going to restrict myself this weekend, because what's more important for me is to still take the pictures, even though I don't feel that great. What's more important is to still enjoy the amazing meals and be present with my friends. So, having that like hierarchy of this is this used to be really important and this used to be a priority. Now I don't have to feel guilty if it's still present, but other things are more important and I'm going to act in alignment with those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and the reality is for people who are in larger bodies. You know I'm in a straight sized body and so I 100% acknowledge that when you're living in a larger body, there is a lot of reasons to maybe still desire to have some weight loss. Because it is easier to exist in this culture in a straight sized body, because that's what our society praises and it's what's more physically comfortable. You know, if you have to worry about whether you're going to be able to fit comfortably in a seat or, you know, be able to buckle a seatbelt on an airplane without asking for an extender, you know all things that should be completely acceptable or accommodated for and larger bodies should be considered. They're not right now in our culture. I hope that changes, but until then, you know there's a lot of weight discrimination and physical comfort to consider that make it a very reasonable thing for people to think like it would be easier if I lost some weight, and you know that when I work with clients in larger bodies, that is something that it's okay to be honest about, those things and there's no shame in that at all. And really it comes down to yes, and what does it look like to continually pursue weight loss. Is that realistic? And also, what are the costs of that? Is it worth it? And maybe the person's answer is yes for them and I would never judge that or tell them they're wrong for that.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of times what we find is the answer is no, because there is such a high cost to that. You know whether that's the physical symptoms of disordered eating or the emotional toll that it takes, or you know the way that it does interfere with our values and things like that. But it's such a personal thing and there is no shame for anybody. I always want to put that out there because I do think there can have that vibe in our field of like. How could you want to still lose weight and you know that's so fat phobic and it's like. Well, maybe, but there's more nuance to it than that. It's just not that simple or black and white.
Speaker 1:And I kind of want to have that virtual highlight of what you said is someone who does feel discriminated against and who does feel like life is harder I don't always know if I'm going to fit in the stall at the restaurant or I'm.
Speaker 1:I don't always know if I'm going to be able to tie up my seat belt and all of those different things and I would have that belief that well, my life would be easier and I would be happier if I lost weight.
Speaker 1:For anyone who does think that way, I love what you said, that, yes, and what would be the cost of it? Because if you're coming here and if you're struggling with this, chances are you've tried the diets before and chances are this is not your first rodeo. So let's look at the past, right, and if we look at the past and we look at your history with this and we use that data, what will realistically happen if we keep repeating the same patterns? And most of the time, not only will it have a massive cost on your physical, your mental health, your weight is more likely to go up in time to go up every time that you do a diet. So it is. So it's so important to stop thinking of the short term relief that might come from it and again expand our vision of the long term and the end of my life and what's going to be important and what's going to really bring me the kind of joy and fulfillment that I'm looking for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:And that's hard because I think there's a certain amount of acceptance which, going back to the acceptance and commitment therapy, that acceptance is so difficult but it can be completely life changing and so freeing to come to a place where we accept that our body size is not as much in our control as we are told that it is, that there's such a component of genetics and other health related things and you know our history with the weight cycling and dieting and all of that.
Speaker 2:And that's hard because we are told over and over in our culture, both from the medical system as well as the media, that if you just try hard enough, you will be able to get the body that you want and to come to a place where you recognize that's not true, Because I think diet culture does a really good job of convincing us that well, the reason I haven't achieved it yet is because I just haven't tried hard enough or I haven't found the right diet, and so there's always this like, yeah, my history is not as good as I thought, yeah, my history shows that that's the pattern, but the next time I'll do it right.
Speaker 2:And so there's always that like magical thinking in that sense which, again, that's how we're programmed to think by diet culture. So sometimes it's a matter of coming to terms with that and you know there can be grief in that and grieving like hey, I may never be able to really have that quote unquote ideal body that I want for myself, and it's not as in as much in my control as I have been led to believe in as much as I want to believe that it is hard.
Speaker 1:And what would you say to someone who has the fear of what if I start the acceptance work? What is our if I start accepting my current body and my current circumstances and accepting who I am? And I'm thinking not just in the terms of this work, but this could go with any, any big goal that you're going after. We almost we, don't want to accept where we are because we think if I'm unhappy enough now, I'm more likely to get success and I'm more likely to change. So how would you, how would you talk to someone who is hesitant to have that kind of acceptance because they're afraid if I have that acceptance I won't want to improve myself.
Speaker 2:So I think part of the issue is that we tend to think of acceptance in such binary terms that it's like if I accept myself, then I also can't value growth, and those are not mutually exclusive concepts, you know. That's why I like to use the word and a lot instead of the word. But because things that seem like they're opposite can totally exist. I experience that on a very regular basis as a mom, where my kids grow older and are doing new things and I am so happy and proud and excited and I'm also really sad and like miss, you know them being babies and some of the things that about their childhood I will never be able to get back.
Speaker 2:So those two things sadness and happiness that we think of as opposites, can totally exist at the same time, and acceptance and growth can also, because just because I'm accepting myself in the moment doesn't mean that I also don't value or desire to grow in whatever area that might be. They can both exist at the same time, which I think is where that compassion part is so important. Right and again, thinking in terms of a parent's like, I can have compassion for my children, like learning new things and making mistakes and I also want to teach them and encourage them to grow and challenge them to, you know, be better in certain ways, or whatever that might be. And so we've got to challenge that like black and white, thinking of as it's one way or another, and realize that both can coexist at the same time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's exactly how I would describe it as well, and I want to just circle back to when we were talking about values, and I would love to know, in your experience, as you've been working with clients, what are some of the most common values that tend to pop up for your clients, that you need to work on creating a life that's more in alignment with those values and what that could even look like.
Speaker 2:One of the ones that I find most common is some sort of connection with people they care about. So oftentimes family is one that comes up a lot, or relationships that might be friendships or a relationship with a partner. So connection is a good one, and I'm sure you know doing this work and anybody listening that struggles with disordered eating. You know you can see, when you really take a look at it, how that kind of life can be disruptive to meaningful connection with other people and that can show up in a lot of different ways. Another one I see is a lot of my clients and myself included, do value growth and learning right, and I think that's where we can kind of use that and go to extreme when it shows up as perfectionism and trying to be perfect, right. So figuring out how to temper that and value growth without it having to be a perfectionistic thing, or about achieving like self confidence, that like my identity, and my confidence isn't wrapped up in what I can achieve or how much I learn and grow, but that is one that I see a lot as well. I see adventure come up sometimes and I think that is so great, because when we are really focused on losing weight and changing our bodies or we're ashamed of our bodies. It is hard to show up and be adventurous because there's so much that we feel like we can't do yet or we don't deserve, or we have to look differently.
Speaker 2:Or like I had one client. She loved to travel and like all around the world and she really wanted to be able to enjoy all the foods of these different cultures that she was visiting. And when she finally got to a place where she had healed her relationship with food enough that she could go and enjoy those foods without obsessing about, you know, trying not to eat too much or not eating certain things and you know she would spend her whole day consumed about that. She wasn't even enjoying like what she was seeing or the people that she was traveling with. It was. It was such an aha moment for her, like wow, it is so great to be in this place again, of like I'm living my actual values, the things that actually do matter to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm laughing because I was actually going to say a story and it sounds like your client was exactly who I was, because two of my biggest values are freedom and integrity. So integrity meaning, if I say I'm going to do something, I will do it. If I say something is important to me, I will live it. And unfortunately, I don't think that a lot of people live that way. We talk the talk but we don't walk the walk.
Speaker 1:And when I was at the deepest of my eating disorder, I really valued traveling and I, when I imagined my adult life, I wanted to see the world and experience the cultures. And I had this opportunity to go to Italy for a summer and I almost didn't go. Well, I didn't want to go. Well, I wanted to go, but my eating disorder didn't want me to go, because that was the land of pasta and carbs and all of the things that I was terrified to eat. And I had to pause and recognize.
Speaker 1:If I say that one of my values is freedom, if I say that I value traveling and I don't live in alignment with that, then who am I really being?
Speaker 1:And that created such a disconnect for me that I did the very uncomfortable thing, because sometimes living in your values can feel uncomfortable at first. Walking the walk I know, especially when I started my business. Another thing is I started my business so that I could work from anywhere in the world and I wasn't doing that at first and after a year I was like, well, if I said I would do this, then I'm going to do it. And it's not always comfortable when you do it and I think that's really important for people to understand is that living in integrity and living by your values at first may feel tough to do, it might step out of your comfort zone. But once you do it once and you do it twice, it becomes easier. Like fear is always going to be present but you know that you can handle it because you've done it before and you appreciate that you've done it before, so you're more willing to do it again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more and I have those same conversations with client. I say it's in the doing that the anxiety and the fear lessons. I wish we could talk ourselves into a place of not feeling those things and we can do some thought work which can make a huge difference. But usually those feelings are still there to some degree. It really is in the doing and realizing that we can handle it, that we can get through it. Those things aren't going to overwhelm or kill us and that wow again, like what's on the other side. That is when we get stronger and things really start to click into place and we don't have so much fear.
Speaker 2:And I can relate a lot to what you're saying. For me, one of my highest values is honesty and authenticity and I could not be those things completely in my eating disorder. There was just so much secretive, like behavior and deception with the people around me to maintain my eating disorder. That felt very incongruent and icky to me and that was one of the things that motivated me to get well and recover. And so I do believe that this value is work. It's not the entire piece of recovery or anything like that, but I do think it can make a big difference.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And for anyone who is used to like diet culture and the diets that just focus on the rules and the restrictions and eat this, not that, when we're talking about values work, it could sound like well, why is this important? And a lot of the times, the things that you do in recovery and that you're working on and you're healing a relationship with food is inside your mind, it's thoughtwork, it's changing and rewiring your mindset and it's values work. So all of these fundamental pieces they're not as fancy as lose 30 pounds in 30 days, but they are the key to living that life that you so truly want. That aligns.
Speaker 1:So, as we're wrapping this up for let's, I really like to leave my listeners with like kind of a cliff notes of, let's say, someone is listening to this and they feel like they're not living in alignment with their values. Or they say that they value connection and family and freedom, but when they're with their family they're not really present because they're just thinking about food the entire time and they're not traveling and they're not going out to see friends and they're not connecting with people, and that feels really icky to not live in alignment. What can they do? How can they get started to identify their values, to start taking action, to live more in alignment with them.
Speaker 2:Well, it's pretty easy to go online and just download a values list and maybe start there getting some ideas, because a lot of times what I see with clients is they're really not sure. If you just ask them like, what are your values, a lot of times it's like I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:So sometimes it's helpful to have like a list to start from, to go through and say, yeah, that resonates with me. I feel something when I read that word and it can be really helpful to do that work with somebody. And I know that's not accessible to everyone because of financial reasons or you know where it, depending on where you live and what's accessible. But if you can work with a coach or a therapist, it can be really helpful to have somebody guide you through that process. But if not, even like I said, just taking the time to be intentional, about going through a list and identifying and then asking yourself those questions about okay, now that I maybe know a little bit more about what my actual values are, how is my life in line with these? How is it not? How is my relationship with food and my body, you know, adding to my values or just attracting from my values? And then what steps could I take to live more in line with my values? What could that look like?
Speaker 2:I think those are pretty easy places to start. And I say easy and that it's simple, not easy, and that, like some of that, diving deep can be, can be tough and sometimes it can be a little painful to realize, wow, I'm like really not living in line with my actual values. That can be kind of a painful realization, but I also feel like it's very empowering, because that's really what values work is all about. It's this idea that, despite what thoughts are in our mind which we can't always control, or the feelings that come up for us, which we also can't control, we always have a choice. We can control our behavior and so, whatever thoughts might be happening, whatever feelings like the fear, anxiety, might be coming up, we can always make a choice to live in line, in line with our values. And that is empowering, I think.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. I remember I had done a values test. If you just go online and you write values tests, they'll prompt you with a bunch of questions that will help you gain some of that clarity and then asking yourself, like you said, someone who has those values and someone who lives in alignment with those values, what does that life look like? And where in my life is there a disconnection and where can I start? And you don't need to flip your life around. That's going to be way too overwhelming and intimidating, but start with one and start with those small actions. Like you said, the magic is in the doing. So I think that those are really good steps for someone to get started. I think it's such a crucial piece of doing this, especially at the beginning, before. It helps you also getting some of that momentum, that motivation, because you uncover your why and your purpose and the reason why this is so important to you.
Speaker 2:Which is crucial, I think, to doing this work, because the work is so hard and it is so uncomfortable that circling back whenever you need to about why am I doing this, can be really helpful in pushing through that discomfort, because it's just our nature that we want to avoid discomfort. That's super, all of us right and so I think we have to be really in touch with and, like I said, remind ourselves as often as possible why we're doing that and what is important to us that is prompting us to push through that discomfort.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Well, cherie. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom with our audience. For anyone who would like to connect with you, find you on Instagram. Where can we find you?
Speaker 2:Sure, yes, I'm on Instagram not as active as I'd like to be, I'm so busy, but I am still around on Instagram at Food Freedom Therapist. And then I also have a website for my group practice in Texas and that's nursesoulcentercom. So those are the main places to find me. I cannot handle more than one social media platform. I am on Facebook, but most of it's like pushed from Instagram, and so those are great ways to connect with me and, yeah, I would love to hear from anybody if there's anything I can do to help or if you need to be connected with anyone, even if it's outside of Texas.
Speaker 2:Like, I'm happy to help people. I find practitioners who can help them in this journey. I just I really want everybody to experience the freedom that I've been able to experience and I've seen clients experience. I'm just so passionate about it and I, like said, I want that for everybody and it's always very exciting when you have clients and maybe experiences too, where they go through this journey and then they get passionate about it and then they're talking about with people and I call them almost like intuitive eating profits, where they're like spreading the word, and I'm like that also makes me feel hopeful that, like we will have change in our culture, because it's like I wasn't having these conversations 10 years ago, you probably weren't either, and so it's like, the more we have these conversations and then you know somebody gets freedom and then they have those conversations. I'm like I it's going to be slower than what we like, but I do believe that there there could be change on the horizon and that's very exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that ripple effect is is so it's so great to see one of my, a few of my clients actually went on to become coaches themselves, and it just it's. It warms my heart because, yes, we can help a certain amount of people, but then those people can help more people, and I am. I'm so with you in taking part in this movement and thank you to everyone for listening. Make sure to connect with Shari I'll put all of her websites and Instagram in our show notes as well, and we will see you next week for our next episode.