Break Free From Toxic Body Positivity Culture

Hi, I'm Rita De Michele, and welcome to another episode of Beyond Diagnosis. How many times have you heard women say, I'll feel better about myself in a smaller pair of jeans, or when I'm 10 kilos lighter, then my life would be great? As women, we've heard like a myriad of reasons why we diminish our self-worth because of our appearance, and maybe even some of our listeners have thought this way. Today's guest has a different perspective on diet culture and toxic body positivity through the power of healing or shifting our emotions. Hello and welcome to Beyond Diagnosis, a podcast to raise your awareness, decisions, and voice for alternative practices so you can take back control of your health. I'm Rita De Michele, your host, a mindset and empowerment coach And the founder of the Onus platform. Join me each week so you can create the health of your dreams. Lane Allen is a certified global EFT practitioner and body acceptance coach. Her mission is to support, uh, and liberate women to unsubscribe from diet culture through the semantic healing of emotional freedom techniques and coaching. allowing women to reclaim their bodies exactly as they are. Lane, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Thank you for having me, Rita. I'm so excited to be here and have this conversation with you.

Yeah, it's, it's such— this is definitely a hot topic. It's a hot topic, and it's a really important one for women who are struggling with body image. And we know that That is a lot of women because of the way society, you know, the societal pressures of how we're meant to look, how we're meant to feel about ourselves, how we're meant to talk, move, stand. It's too much. It's just too much. So, Lane, could you just tell us, um, a little bit about yourself and what inspired you to get into this work?

I'd love to. So I am, I am Lane I'm an advanced emotional EFT practitioner, and I'm a body acceptance coach as well. And my work really centers around empowering women to break free from the constraints of diet culture and really reject those harmful narratives about toxic body positivity. And for me personally, like, I've experienced it, and I'm sure a lot of your listeners have also seen firsthand the struggles that a lot of women go through trying to shrink themselves into society's very narrow definition of beauty.

Absolutely.

And yeah, I think that women blame themselves when they can't meet these unrealistic expectations, and they don't actually realize that there's actually large-scale systems that are in place that profit off our insecurities. And I believe that every single woman deserves to feel comfortable and confident in the skin they're in, no matter what age they are as well. And that's why I'm really dedicated to shining light onto these systems and helping women recognize that, that they are being manipulated. And I really want to guide them on a journey towards self-acceptance and liberation.

That's fantastic. It is incredibly important. So you say that you're an EFT, an Emotional Freedom Technique practitioner, and is that the type of work obviously that you're doing to help people shift their emotions? So can you just explain or move a little bit into that? what you do and how you bring a woman who's, say, very stuck in that culture, that her whole self-worth is based in how she looks, how she performs, and kind of take her through a little bit of a journey, just a very short journey of how you help women come out the other end to feel good about themselves regardless of their size.

Yeah, definitely. So, uh, EFT is, is one of the modalities that I recommend and one of the ones that I certainly use alongside just general coaching practices. So EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques, or it's also known as tapping. So if you hear me use those words, they're interchangeable. They mean the same thing.

Exactly.

And essentially, it's an alternative treatment to physical pain and emotional distress. And the best way that I can describe EFT is, you know, you're on a road trip and you've come to this beautiful spot and you pull the car over and you get and you're just like, wow, this is incredibly peaceful. And it's a beautiful spot. And that's what we can achieve when we practice EFT. So if you can imagine that your body is the landscape of this road trip that we're on, right? And there are these highways that are just running through your body. And they're also known as your meridians or your energy system. And when we start to feel stressed or anxious, or we have really negative or limiting self-beliefs about ourselves, it's kind of like that there's a traffic jam on this highway. And what EFT does is it helps clear that traffic. So by gently tapping on specific points on your body, what you're doing is you're sending signals straight to the traffic control center. So your amygdala, so part of the brain that controls that stress response. And what you're doing is you're saying, hey, it's all good, we're safe, we're gonna clear this traffic so this energy can flow. And what this action does is it really soothes the flight, fight, freeze, or fawn response that we're having when we're stressed. Now, when we're talking whilst doing the EFT, you can imagine being on a road trip with like a girlfriend or whatever. You guys aren't gonna sit in silence on that road trip.

Exactly.

You're gonna be talking, you're gonna be laughing. Maybe, you know, you're singing along to a little bit of Spice Girls or whatever's your jam. And what you're doing whilst you're speaking is that during EFT, when you're talking, you're actually allowing that expression and you're allowing that release of your feelings Helping us change how we react to certain problems. So EFT really aims to restore the body's energy system so that the next time that we're dwelling about past events or worrying about the future or having negative, uh, self-beliefs about ourselves, the intensity around those feelings has hopefully decreased and the action that you take is less reactive and more neutral.

Fantastic, fantastic explanation. And one of the things is with talk therapy, like, so many women subscribe to the collective delusion that we're seen if we're slim in society, and we become invisible if we don't meet the societal parameters of feminine beauty.

Mm-hmm.

Then we judge our appearance Then we don't accept ourselves, and then we go down the whole shame path where we, you know, we literally shame ourselves for not being what society thinks we should be.

Absolutely.

Wouldn't you— would you agree that a lot of this actually comes from when they're little girls, what they're told? You know, don't be too loud, don't speak up too much, don't eat too much, don't, you know, Uh, perform too much. Don't be— dim your light, dim your light, basically. So I think a lot of eating disorders start there. A lot of shame and non-acceptance starts there. And I think you, you know as well as I do, because you do EFT, that these are those beliefs that are held so tightly within the subconscious.

Yeah.

How can you tell our listeners how you access— you just have, but these beliefs are more in our subconscious than what they are in our conscious. Can you just talk a little bit to that so people understand? Because so many people go to therapy, to psychologists, and that fantastic talk therapy has got its place, like everything has its place.

Yeah.

But we kind of understand that just talking about it, etc., doesn't necessarily move the needle of where you want to go. So it's that, that held belief in the subconscious, which is really what, yeah, 95% of our everyday thinking. Yeah, please.

One of the examples that I got taught whilst I was studying EFT, which I think a lot of people can relate to and understand and appreciate, is that you If you imagine a table, right, what I imagine to be a table and what you imagine to be a table might be very different looking tables. You might have a table that's only got one leg and it stands up perfectly fine. I might envisage a table that's got 4 legs. And what we can do is we can put that limiting belief or that subconscious belief right at the very top, right, that, that says I'm not worthy. Okay? And the thing is, is that the amount of legs that are associated to that table is gonna be different to each individual person. My reasons for not feeling worthy might be many and very varied to your versions of feeling unworthy. And everyone is very unique and everyone's cause and the root cause of their limiting beliefs are very unique.

Yes.

So we might have, 2 women, for example, that are experiencing binge eating, right? We'll call them Anna and Kate. So—

Yeah.

Anna is the type of woman where, you know, she comes home every single day and the first thing that she does is she kicks off her shoes and she sits in front of the TV and she eats a whole block of chocolate. And the reason for her that she experiences that form of binge eating might be because when she was younger, she went through a divorce. Well, her parents went through a divorce and she feels very abandoned. And so she finds Safety and comfort in food because she knows that food doesn't abandon her. And if we look at Kate, for example, she's also experiencing binge eating, but maybe for a completely different reason. Maybe she grew up in a household where her parents were very fit and healthy and they didn't allow chocolate. So she chooses to inhale the block of chocolate—

Eat it.

Because she wasn't allowed to have that when she was younger. And now when she eats it, she feels really, really guilty afterwards. So we're experiencing 2 similar situations here. We're both experiencing binge eating, but for very, very different reasons. And it's really important to remember that different types of therapy are going to help for different types of reasons. And the process with EFT is to look at those table legs and be like, okay, right. For Anna, one of those table legs is that she felt abandoned, right? A leg for Kate is that she wasn't allowed to have that chocolate. So everyone has different amounts of legs on their tables that hold up that limiting belief.

Mm-hmm.

limiting belief for themselves. But the thing is, is that we can connect through the shared emotions, right? We've all experienced shame or guilt or sadness or happiness and joy, but just in various different ways.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And do you find that women are starting to share these experiences with each other, or do you feel that it's still held in secret? Like, are we coming together? Like everyone's saying, the circle, women around the circle sharing. Or is— do you find that with your clients this is still part that there's so much shame that they feel they can't share with other women?

I think that we have come a long way through the use of technology and how quickly we're able to share information and share our vulnerabilities in an online capacity, for sure. That's a, you know, it's a great thing with, with technology these days. However, I think also we get caught up in the perception of there's only one way to be healthy, or there's only one way to look, there's only one way to heal. And I just disagree with that notion completely. And I think that there's a lot of mixed messages that are coming out from people who are in you know, powerful positions where they have platforms and they can share a message with people. And sometimes that message looks like, well, my way is the only right way to heal, or the way that I look is the only way that other women should look. And we compare ourselves a lot to these people, uh, you know, through social media and through various different lenses. And whilst I do think the conversation is definitely opening up and we're so fortunate to have more access to a bit more diversity There's also the toxic element of it, which is why I talk about toxic body positivity in the way that I do, because not everyone is thin, not everyone is white, not everyone is the societal norm of pretty, but yet we're sold that constantly. And that's a problem. We really need to see a bit more diversity and diverse conversations happening.

Exactly. I mean, we're starting to see that diversity in advertising, which is great.

For sure.

We're starting to include women Of, you know, size, or women of color, or women of, um, neurodivergent, or they have a disability. You know, it's starting to come through. So my question is, when someone's seeing a psychologist and they're not getting the results that they want, Mm-hmm. what, what do you do? How, how do you talk How do you lean into that whole toxic positivity with them? You know, how do you lean into that conversation?

Right on. Well, I'm definitely not a psychologist, but yes, I think that your—

from your perspective, for sure.

I definitely think that, as we've talked about and touched on earlier in this episode, is that everyone is unique and therefore their needing of healing is unique. And if therapy or, uh, psychology is not working for you, there are so many other alternative options that are available to us in this day and age where for you to want to see progress and want to feel like you are doing the work and you are making a difference and a change, you have to be comfortable with also what you are doing. If you're— if— and it's the same if I've got clients who see me.

I—

my objective is to create a safe space for everyone that comes into my world. It's up to them how far they want to go into their stories or what they want to share with me, and it's not my responsibility to force anything out of them that they don't want to share. I think that there's always a time and a place, and when you're ready to start that healing journey, it'll come naturally for you. And if one thing doesn't work, that's okay. Don't give up. Try something else. If, uh, if psychology and talk therapy is not working for you, maybe you might want to try EFT. If EFT doesn't work for you, there's breathwork. If breathwork doesn't work for you, there are just so many other options out there. And I just really want to encourage, encourage people to also be on the trying end, right? And not just give up after the first thing that doesn't work for them because That's not what healing's about. Healing's a journey, it's not a destination.

That's so true. Can you just give us a little bit of your opinion around what you think of this, this toxic culture, this toxic positivity? You know, it goes— it spreads right across everything, doesn't it? That you can't make it, you know, everything is, oh well, you gave it a go, oh well, you tried, or well, you know, here's a, here's a little reward for Yeah, not doing much. You know, it's, it's that whole toxic positivity that goes across everything. So what is it that you actually can let our, our listeners know so they understand what, what you mean by toxic positivity? Not everybody understands the concept.

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And that's a really great question. The, the difference between toxic body positivity to me Mm. And just body acceptance is— there is a very fine line in the sand. And sometimes it's hard to not realize that you are in that space of toxic body positivity. And that's when you hear people say to you, if you say something like, oh man, I really hate my thighs, and your girlfriend turns around to you and goes, you can't say that about yourself. Like, you need to love yourself. If you keep saying that about your thighs, then you'll never be happy. happy. And that to me is just so unwarranted and so unhealthy. And I know that it kind of seems a little bit controversial. I just want to clarify that not all body positivity messaging is toxic. I just think that we've taken it away from its original meaning, which was wanting to see more diversity in the media. And we have really washed it with messaging about we need to be positive all the time and we need to love our bodies. all the time, and we need to show them off to the world all the time.

Yes.

And the biggest issue that I have with body positivity in the toxic sense is that I think that it really invalidates our experiences as midsize, large, fat, plus-size people. When we experience and express our frustrations or our fears or our challenges that are related to our body, the responses that we get are, you just need to love yourself a little bit more, babe. Or, You need to have a little bit more of a positive outlook so that you can attract good things into your life.

It doesn't work like that.

Oh, God. And that's— I understand that they're so well-intentioned. These people, they love you. But what they're doing without realizing is they're actually dismissing your experience, right? It's like when you're having the worst day in the world and you're walking down the street and the bloke catcalls you from the car window and he's like, hey, honey, just smile. And it's just like— Shut up, you big jerk.

You know, it's definitely diminishing, diminishing your feelings, diminishing how you feel at that time.

Yeah.

The other point, another question, which whether you want to answer this one or not, is the body positivity where people go, okay, this person may be morbidly obese or maybe very obese not necessarily— we are talking about women here, but it's not necessarily just to women. And a lot of people with the body positivity, which I find can be a little bit toxic, is leave them alone, they're fine, they're perfectly well, you know, like they're okay like that, which you can be.

Mm-hmm.

And then you have the other side of the people saying that is super unhealthy, you are predisposing yourself to a myriad of diseases, heart attacks, stroke, all the rest of it. What do you say about that? Do you have that in your— do you have people coming to you like that who feel a little confused? Like, on one side everyone's saying, I'm okay to be the way I am, and then you've got the other side saying, well, you know, you're going down the path of a very short life.

Oh, look, I have experienced that myself as someone who has always lived in a larger body. I have always been of the notion that I need to get smaller so that I can be healthier. And when I was at my smallest weight, which was probably in my early 20s, that was probably the most unhealthy I'd ever been in my whole entire life. I was drinking a lot. I was working ridiculous hours in hospitality, partying almost every other night, smoking, just had really unhealthy behaviors. And that's when, from the perception of the outside world, that I looked my best. And in reality, I was at my absolute lowest.

Mm-hmm.

Now I'm the heaviest I've ever been, but I'm also the healthiest and happiest I've ever been. And I understand where people are coming from in terms of, oh my gosh, like you can't expect people that are overweight or obese, if you dislike using that word, I apologize, but I understand that notion. And what I really encourage people to do is look into Size Inclusive Health Australia, which was formerly known as the HAES method, which is Health at Every Size. And it really sheds a light on the fact that people who are in larger bodies aren't necessarily unhealthy. And again, it comes through that lens.

That's so true.

Yeah, it comes through that lens of society telling you that all fat people fat, lazy, unhealthy, and, you know, shouldn't be in society looking the way that they do. And that is just so unwarranted and so unnecessary.

It is. It's a delusion, really.

It is.

I have some friends where she's considerably bigger and the husband is as thin as anything. She's healthy as— as healthy as an ox, basically.

Yeah.

And he has a myriad of health problems.

Yeah.

And I think a lot of people have that delusion that if I'm thin, I'm healthy.

Yeah.

And that's just not the case. No, absolutely not the case. There's so many other things that contribute to ill health. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And your physical health is only one dimension of wellness. You know, there's so many other things that contribute to a person, uh, to a person's overall wealth and health and wealth and well-being, you know.

Absolutely. That's what I find about this whole notion of subscribing to how thin can I possibly be also diminishes the fact that we're multi-dimensional people.

Absolutely.

We have so much more to offer, you know. We have vibrancy, we have intelligence, we have artistic value, we have so many other things, you know. We have wisdom, you know. Yeah, and we want to diminish that and put it all down into one little box called sleep, you know. Yeah, it's just not— I hope that your work really helps so many women, you know.

So do I.

Break that apart. Yeah, bust that.

Yeah, it's such a—

it's such an urban myth, and it's such a cultural myth because there's so many other cultures Where women with, with, with weight are celebrated.

Absolutely. And so you can look at history, you know, the first perception of beauty was Greek goddesses in mythology, and then it turned into the Victorian era, and then we look at the 1920s flapper girls, and it's just evolved so much over time. And now today's standard of beauty from a societal norm perspective is someone who looks like a Kardashian who has a big bust and a big bum and a tiny waist and big thighs. And that body is just not realistic for the majority of the population. Uh, and to— so to confine ourselves into this box is unhealthy, unrealistic, and just frankly unwarranted.

Absolutely. I totally agree with you, which leads me on to my next question. What legacy would you hope to leave with your work in supporting women?

There is this quote by C. Joyce Bell, and it's quite long, so I'm bound to kind of mess it up.

We all stumble. I've stumbled today.

But the quote that was by C. Joyce Bell is something along the lines of, when women can understand their worth and their beauty outside of, you know, the way that they look, society will just be so much more better off. And I'm definitely paraphrasing that quote, but I just want to be able to leave a legacy that allows women to be comfortable in the skin that they're in. And that sounds so much easier than the work that is done behind it.

Yes.

Which is a lot of work. But the moment that you decide, hey, I actually don't have to diet and I don't have to shave my legs if I don't want to, and I don't have to buy another goddamn anti-aging cream if I don't want to.

Absolutely.

The moment that we have those realizations, we are so liberated and we get so much time back in our days. There's a statistic that says women actually spend approximately 17 years of their life in total trying to diet. And then we spend thousands of dollars a year on beauty products and things like that. Imagine how much time and money we're gonna get back.

Exactly.

By no longer contributing to this and taking actionable steps to prevent it. But we have been conditioned for so damn long to contribute to these things, and it's a vicious cycle. So this is why I really love EFT in the sense of, Right, well, maybe the next time I walk by a mirror, maybe I won't go, ugh, gross. Maybe I still will, but at least I can recognize it and go, hey, that's not a nice thought about myself. My body is my home and I've gotta be a little bit more nicer to it, right? So shifting that needle a little bit and just day by day, habit by habit, changing the narrative, changing the actionable steps that you are taking.

Yes.

So that you can create a better ideology of beauty for your daughters or your sisters or your nieces or your best friend or even your mum, you know.

Absolutely. Well put. Absolutely. For our listeners, what are 3— just 3 simple things you could advise today to start prioritizing self-worth over image? Just 3 things. They're at home, they've heard this, they're just thinking, okay, What are 3 things that I can just do daily to get myself going?

Yeah, that is fantastic. I mean, EFT is definitely one of them because it— EFT is something that you can do at home. It's something that you can do on yourself and you don't need to pay for it. If you want to go down that avenue of just giving it a go, there are tons of free videos that are out on YouTube that are just 5 minutes long. And if you can tap into your subconscious mind and start questioning a little bit, about, okay, well, why do I feel this way about my body? Like, what have I been taught? Let's tap into that. Let's go into my subconscious mind and go, oh yeah, I remember it was because when I was a kid, my mum told me that I look fat in a particular dress, or my brother laughed at me because—

Yes.

My pants didn't fit me anymore, right? And so, we can tap into our subconscious mind a little bit and go, oh, these are the reasons why I invalidate myself so much and why I think that I'm unworthy. But that's not me anymore. That's not who I wanna be. So let's shift it and let's start tapping on things that I want to bring into my life. Because obviously, what we focus on, we attract and bring into the world.

That's true.

So that's definitely one thing. And if you don't feel comfortable doing it by yourself, because our brain does have a tendency to wanna protect us and shield us from really negative or sad experiences in our life, So if you don't feel comfortable doing it alone, you can reach out to an EFT practitioner that can do it with you. Number 2 is I would definitely start looking at some ways in which you can start unsubscribing from diet culture and toxic body positivity. So they might be things like looking at your social media feeds and Unfollowing and removing people that make you feel crappy about yourself. Because we get so stuck in this comparisonitis world where we're constantly, yeah, constantly looking at—

Comparing, comparing.

Exactly, yeah. And you know, you're comparing yourself with someone, someone else's, uh, perfect picture lifestyle, which is also not their real life either.

That's right.

And so it's really important to recognize when you're in that comparisonitis phase and start stepping away from that. So unfollow people that make you feel crappy about yourself and start following people that don't necessarily look like you and create that diversity in your feed. So you can be like, wow, there are so many other bodies out there that don't look like mine.

A really good point. Yeah, a really good point.

Yeah, absolutely. And the third thing is to remember that no matter what happens, there are always going to be days where you do not love your body and do not love the skin that you're in. And that's okay as well. We want to get to a place where we're accepting of who we are and not punishing ourselves for it. And even people, I think, that are very positive and very optimistic about their bodies I personally still don't believe that they are loving their body every single day and every hour of that day and every minute of that day. I'm sure that they are still being human and still looking at themselves from time to time and being like, oh man, I don't really feel that crash hot today. But that's okay. You know, the, the thing is, is that we need to start recognizing that we're going to be stuck in this body For a long time. It's the only relationship that we have that is longer than any other relationship in the whole entire world.

It's the only body we have.

Exactly.

I love it.

Exactly. And so when you're looking at the mirror, you know, maybe you go, oh man, I, I do feel quite fat today, but that's okay because I have this human stomach that gave birth to a beautiful baby, or I have this human stomach that gets to digest really delicious food with people that I love. Or, I get to eat this nourishing food, because that's all true. And your body and your mind can't reject it because it's a fact, right? But your body's going to reject it if you stand there and go, I love my stretch marks. I love my chicken flappy arms, and whatever. But if you know that that's a lie, you don't actually love those things about yourself, then your body's going to be like, well, that's a lie. I'm not going to accept that. So it just doesn't make sense to me. So being a little bit more neutral and a little bit more accepting of the body that you're in— those are my 3 things.

They're great points. The last one was excellent. That was a really good point because that's what people do. They don't like themselves, they pick out all the, the problems, and then they try to love themselves. Then they shame themselves, and then they try to feel love for themselves. Well, it doesn't work that way. The way you explained it was fantastic. And I think if I could add one extra point to that, what I find works is having clients write a love letter to themselves. Just write a love letter to yourself. Just start pointing out what is it— like you said, you know, this great stomach, this beautiful stomach that gave birth to this gorgeous child of mine. You know, like, start writing that love letter, that acceptance letter to yourself. I find works really well as well.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for the work you're doing and for taking such a strong stance in helping women regain confidence in their body. I'm also grateful to our listeners for joining us, and if you would like to hear more insights from Lane, tune into her podcast in Melbourne, Wait, There's More. Thank you, Lane. It was a pleasure having you on the show.

Thank you so much, Rita. It's been great.

Thank you. I would love to know what was the biggest insight or aha moment you got from this interview so you can now speak up, take action, and make informed decisions for your health. And if you like this episode, get instant access to your free ebook, Alternative Wisdom: Taking Back Control of Your Health, at life-onus.com.