#85: How Body Image Impacts Our Relationships: A Conversation with Cliona Byrne

Hey, thanks for coming. Welcome to the Love shack.

Hey, it's time to be with us inside of the love shack. And the love shack is a little old place where we get to get together, explore fresh perspectives, ease drop on juicy conversations and discover the things that really matter while having a little bit of fun along the way. I'm here with my husband Tom. And I'm Stacey Bartley. Today we are talking about episode number 85, how body image impacts our relationships. We're going to be having a conversation with Kleena Byrne and she is an expert on body image and it's an important topic. It's one that comes up in my conversations with couples often as well as.

Absolutely no, this is a big one. And this is. It can be tough to accept our bodies, especially when we feel like we don't quite quite meet societal or media standards or whatever standard that we place upon ourselves. Excuse me. Challenges with our body image also come in all shapes and sizes and male and female, not just female. So this can have a negative impact in our relationships and actually all throughout our life.

So, as I had said, we're going to be speaking with Kleena Byrne, a body confidence coach who mentors people from around the world to accept and appreciate their bodies together. Here in the Love Shack, we're going to talk about the many ways our body image impacts our relationships, especially around physical intimacy. This is a conversation that comes up often and it might surprise you how much impact it has. And I'm going to give a little giveaway here because we show up in our relationships as good as we feel. So if I'm in an internal wrestle with my body, it's going to play out in my life and we all know that, but we don't talk about it enough. If you're ready to stop being shut down and frustrated by your appearance and waiting to begin living your life until your self image is a certain size or a certain way, you're sure to gain value today with our conversation and insights and simple steps that you can use to begin accepting your body just the way it is. Stay with us. We'll be right back after the short break.

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Welcome back. We are Thomas Stacey Bartlett Inside the Love Shack, episode 85 and we have our guest today, Kleener Byrne.

Cleena Byrne is a confidence coach and helps people from around the world to accept and love their bodies. Believe it or not, that might be a stretch for some of us. Love your bodies. Can you really do that? Absolutely. You can. She's designed her own specialized coaching programs to work with adults, parents and teens. Her work is incredible and profound. I was actually very much surprised about how Kalina approaches this conversation when I first met her here several months ago and I'm excited to invite her into the Love Shack with us today. Kalina, welcome to the show. It's great to have you here. I've looked forward for this moment for many, many weeks, maybe even a few months.

Me too. We had a great chat the last time, so it's lovely to be back here and chatting again.

Yes. And I. I need to say Kalina is Irish, but she lives in Paris. And I love what you said when you said, I taught croissant. I thought that was just.

I do. I really do.

So, Kalina, I know that you've had a personal journey in regards to accepting your own body, and that's where this work comes from, which is always the best place. Right. Because it truly comes from the heart and it truly comes from an understanding of what, you know, the journey to be when we then turn and support. I know for me, in the relationship space, you know, after my disastrous relationship experiences, that really is what drives me because I know it could be so painful and so difficult, right, to. To get a handle on things. And then when you make it through, you just want to go, oh, my gosh, I have some great ways and strategies and tips and such. You can make it. You can do this. You know, I love the image of somebody being on the other side of the canyon going, you can do it. It's gonna be okay. So tell us your story, will you, please? Will you just kind of give us a summary of how it is you work and that personal journey for yourself?

Yeah. So what happened to me was I. I had bad body image issues from quite a young age, maybe from about nine or ten, I started to really feel uncomfortable in my skin. I always felt like I was too big and I wasn't good looking, and there was just all these things that kept popping up for me and that continued in my teenage years. So there was two things that really bothered me. There was my weight, and there was also the fact that I had a problem with my jaw. I had kind of like an overbite or an unbiased underbite, but instead mine went to the side because I always say I need to be different. So it was really hard to bite things. Like, I would bite into a sandwich and the bread would be gone, but, like, the ham and the cheese would still be left behind. So it was really inconvenient. But what happened to me was I knew that when I was 20, I was going to have this operation to have my jaw fixed. So on the lead up to that, I decided to go on this ridiculous diet. And I had it in my head that once I lost weight and once I had the problem, my jaw fixed, that my life is going to become this sparkly, magical thing. And I was going to be like those women you see on adverts for dieting where they're like eating a salad and they're laughing and having a wonderful time. Like, I really thought my life was going to be something different. And so I lost a weight and I had my jaw fixed. And a few months pass and I find myself looking in the mirror thinking, I still don't feel good. Maybe if I lost more weight or maybe if I changed my hair. And it was like I woke up in that moment and I said out loud to myself while looking in the mirror, when am I actually going to be good enough for myself? And that's when I started on my journey. And no one like me existed back then, so I had to really figure this stuff out by myself. And it took me quite a while to heal my relationship with myself. And then once I got there, a few more years passed and I left my work and decided that I was going to go help people to achieve what I'd achieved, because I actually became the person I needed back then. So I was like, okay, you know what? I'm ready now to help other people because I know you can go from feeling extremely bad to feeling really good. And unlike me, you don't need to have permanent screws put in your face to wake up to that.

That is so true. And I know that this is. I want to just expand the conversation a little bit because I work with many couples and having this body image challenge doesn't just affect women. Although I think we talk about it more, right? We post about it more. We. We tend to be more expressive about it. But I find that men really struggle with this too. And this is where I'd really like you to chime in a little bit, you know, and share with us, if you're willing, some of the wrestles that maybe you've had with your own personal body image. Because I want men to hear that this affects us too, right? We, we all as human beings have a journey and I think sometimes it gets pigeonholed into fe females when really it's not a male female issue and it's really not a size issue. You know, you can be any size. I've. I've worked with anorexia, etc, and, man, you want to talk about some body image issues. I mean, there's nothing left of them and they're still thinking they have this one little spot, right, that they've. They've got to get rid of in order to be okay or to be happy, like you had described in your journey.

So, yeah, I would add, you know, in speaking, you know, and Sharon, Stacy and I, we always talk before our show, you know, I. I really think it's. It's vitality. So wherever are in our journey of life, we're. We've stepped back into, you know, doing some CrossFit and things. And for me, it's. It's a vitality issue. You know, I love Brendan Burchard. He talks about, you know, the power plant doesn't have energy. The power plant produces energy. So what's going to produce energy for us? And certainly clean. I mean, if we're not feeling in a place of appreciation and gratitude for where we're at, wherever that is in the journey, you know, I was many years, if you've listened to us long enough, very aggressive bicyclists and things and so. But I literally feel like I'm starting at ground one again. You know, our workout today, when we came out, that, man, that thing kicked my fanny, you know, I mean, and so to think where I used to be, you know, from a place of being able to accomplish certain things, it's. It's. It's humbling. But so, you know, I can't over stress so that. But place yourself in a position to, To. To be. To have vigor, you know, to have them. That's, I think. And, and it's very different now than it was when I was, you know, 25 years old.

So. But. But what are some of the body images that you've struggled with throughout your life?

No weight. Yeah, My nickname in. In. In high school was tuna fish. That, that, that. That's what. That. That's a good one.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, the football coach said I look like a big fat tuna fish when I was doing a drill and stopped the drill. Stop the drill made everyone mate. Who made everyone sure that. But he. They heard what he was sharing with everyone, and that was my Nick. My high school friends know me as Tuna.

And so then you went on this radical diet too. Yeah.

Yeah. I lost £50 in two months. And. But I. It. What it did is it give. It gave me vitality to start exploring ways that I could, you know, work my body out, which was a good thing. I mean, again, everyone has to, you know, take that journey down the balance beam on their own. But yeah, that was. That was a defining moment for me.

I was really, really tall even through junior high and high school and even when we do, like the school dances, I'll never forget, you know, the boys were a lot shorter than I was. And so, you know, you'd go to do slow dancing. I hate it. Because their head was always Right here in my breast, you know, And I think, oh, really? Do we have to slow dance? You know, come on. And so I always felt like Amazon woman, you know, just this big, like bigfoot, because I, I have a big structure and stature. Not only am I tall, you know, I'm pretty broad and I've got really big back end. I call it my junk in the trunk. And that, that was a lot to kind of wrestle with when you see the little, you know, pencil girls and, you know, they're kind of straight like a telephone pole. And I was more like a pear.

Well, see, that's the thing. It really has nothing to do with how your body looks. It's more about how we feel about it. So you could be the societal ideal of what is beautiful and still feel rubbish about your body because it doesn't matter. It really, you could be the most like what's considered unattractive person in the world and feel beautiful and feel good about yourself and have a great relationship with your body. You could be the most beautiful and feel awful. So it really doesn't matter how the body looks. And I find it really interesting, the example you gave Tom, because someone made a comment about your weight and you change that. And weight is one of those things that often when someone makes comments about it, we go, no, no, no, I'm going to change myself because of it. But you can't do that with height. So if someone makes a comment about your height, you can't go and change yourself and nor should you. And it goes for the same with weight. Just because someone comments on your body doesn't mean we should have that ripple effect of then dramatically trying to change it. Because the people who make those comments on our bodies do not feel good about themselves. I have never met a person who's body confident who said nasty things to other people about their bodies. And the reason for that is when we're feeling bad about ourselves, we actually look for the flaws in others. And what it does is it makes us feel like a little bit better for a millisecond because we think, oh, well, they're flawed. Two, they're a bit overweight, or they're a bit this, they're a bit that. But what all it does is reinforces the idea to ourselves that people are judging us. So it spirals and we go, oh, I'm being judged, I'm being judged, I feel awful. And then we get into a place where we're being really critical of ourselves and we start being very critical of other people. So your coach probably did not feel very good about himself. He probably, you know, he was much older than the people he was coaching. He probably was nowhere near as fit as all these young people he was coaching and probably didn't really feel great. So the fact he felt the need to humiliate you shows that he's not someone who felt great about himself. And that's. That's what happens, unfortunately.

Yeah. I want to broaden this as well. I teach this a lot about judgment. It comes from within. You know, it's like if. If you're challenged by or judging yourself harshly. And we'll stick with our conversation today. A body image, but it could really be anything. You're going to notice all the skinny people. If I'm judging myself for my weight or my size, I'm going to notice, like I did all the small people, all the little, teeny, tiny, petite things, right? And then all the people that were bigger than me. And one, you know, makes me feel. And I go, oh, gosh darn it, I'm going to have to figure out how to shrink myself. And the other one makes me go, whoo. At least it's not that bad. Man, do I feel a lot better, right?

You don't. You feel better for like, a millisecond. And then you're like, oh, well, everyone must be looking at me doing the same thing.

Yes, yes. That's so true. It is so true. And I love what you said. It's. It's not about how we look. We can feel beautiful at any size at any age, you know, with any. Look, it's not about that. It's about the acceptance of self, and that's the hard part, right? And I remember in our conversation prior to the show of saying, I used to get frustrated when people would say, well, just love yourself. And you'd go, ah. How do I do that?

I don't even know.

I mean, I like the idea, but what if I don't? And I remember you saying the same thing about loving my body and accepting my body. So. So let's talk about some of the effects that. That this has on our relationships and on our lives. Briefly, I really want to step into some remedies that we can share with our listeners today about beginning this journey of acceptance, right? And eventually getting to the place where you can love your body, because it really is so important, right?

It's so good. When you get to that side, it's the best. Where it shows up in relationships is basically like, how I explain this to Everyone is. Your relationship with yourself is the foundation for everything. So if that foundation is awful and has lots of cracks in it, and it's crumbling and it's full of holes, then it's going to be really difficult to build anything on top of that. And so you're trying to then build on your romantic relationship or relationships, you're trying to build on your friendships, your career, whatever it is, you're building on this unsteady foundation and those cracks are going to show up. And the thing is, like a crack in a house, it's very all consuming. So when you don't feel good about yourself, it is consuming. It takes up your emotional, your mental, your physical energy. You think about it all the time. So you're showing up to a relationship where your foundation is bad and that can show up in a few different places. First of all, like I said, it means it's all consuming. So you're very, very clued into yourself and feeling bad about yourself. And then how it can show up in the relationship is one of the biggest examples would be you have one partner who feels awful about themselves. So if the other partner compliments them or says anything good, they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, I look like this, I look aw, I feel ugly. And so they're telling basically their partner, look, this is why I'm not worthy of you. Then also it shows up in things regards intimacy too, because you're going to be like, no, no, no, stay away from me, I feel awful today, I look awful. And that actually has a ripple effect that makes your partner start feeling bad. Because these negative comments we make about our bodies do have a ripple effect. And it makes people start to think, well, if this amazing, wonderful person I love is telling me they're not good enough and they're ugly and they're this and they're that, what about me? So the partner starts to become quite self critical too. Then they also feel extremely rejected. They start to feel that they're not being appreciated. Because when you're constantly complimenting a person and they take the compliment and say no, it's the same as if you gave like a compliment is a gift. If you give someone a physical gift and they were to take that gift, throw it on the ground and say, no, no, no, no, no, that's absolutely no good. You would be so insulted. And that's what people do with compliments all the time. They take it, throw it on the ground and say no, thank you. So it starts to show up in these ways. And this is that narrative I just described is so common that I'm sure a lot of people listening to this are like, oh, I feel called out. And it's not about being called out. It's just being aware of that this poor relationship is showing up and it can make us be extremely envious, jealous, self doubting, not feeling worthy. Like, this example I just gave is a tiny one. But there's tons of ways that that shows up in your relationship. And people always say that your relationship is like you become two halves that come together. I don't agree with that. I think when you walk into a relationship, you should already have a good relationship with yourself and your two whole parts that come together. And you work better if you're two whole parts rather than a half and another half that. That don't really know how to have a good relationship with themselves, let alone someone else. So if you want a good relationship with someone else, you have to have a good one with yourself and be kind to yourself and show yourself some love. Because if you can't do it for yourself, how are you supposed to go and do it for other people?

Yeah. Well, here's the deal. You're going to take it out on them. You're going to. You know, we've got really two choices when it comes to the emotional relationship that we have with ourselves. I get to work with it myself, learn about it, accept it, own it, right. And continuously grow with it. There's never a place in a station in our lives where we're going to just arrive. If I don't choose that route, then I'm going to act it out because the emotion is going to need an outlet. And oft times that is taken out on the people we love the most. Right. Because we don't know what else to do with it. And unfortunately, you're absolutely right. That ripple effect happens. And then I've got my partner that's now overwhelmed with this emotion and they don't know what to do with it. And they start to feel, even if they did come into the relationship feeling really good about themselves, like you said, they're going to start questioning themselves, right. And taking on a lot of this emotional energy that's getting thrown off. And. And then we're in a place of, instead of breakthrough and growth, we're in a place of breakdown instead.

And what in clean, in Kleener, what you described, it sounds like the proverbial walking on eggshells. I'm not sure what I can say that isn't taken In a way that seems like it doesn't matter what I say. I'm simply trying to, you know, offer my love and appreciation to my partner. And it's like. Like, that was a great analogy, taking that physical gift and just throwing it on the street like that. That's very powerful. Like, oh, my gosh. And. And I could not agree more.

Yeah.

So, you know, what does. I mean, it becomes so fragile, and we. We don't even know how to share.

We start acting out on each other. Right? And then.

And we cannot expect our partners to be the ones to heal that relationship for us. We can't expect them. The ones that truly make us feel good enough and worthy and let that be beautiful or just accepting of our bodies. That's not their responsibility. It's our own responsibility. So we can't walk into a situation and just say, I feel awful. You make me feel better. Oh, you try to make me feel better. I'm taking it and I'm discarding it. Okay, what you going to do next? It's not going to work, unfortunately. But that's where a lot of people, they go in that direction. They get frustrated, they get disappointed, their expectations are not met, and then they think there's something wrong with the partner or there's something wrong with the relationship. And it's not that relationship. It's your relationship with you. That's the thing that needs to be fixed. Because again, it comes back to that foundation. If that's bad, everything else is going to be bad.

I call it work only you can do. And. And we try and get around it and under it and over it. And. And I get it. I did it too, right? I. I tried to, like, do everything in my bag of. Outside of facing myself and taking responsibility for this up to. And including, you know, needing to be pleasers or begging for affection and love. And. And that was where I would get my exterior validation. Right. So maybe my taking it out on others is me pleasing others and, you know, needing or wanting that, hey, you did a really good job, or, oh, you're so beautiful. You know, we're fishing for those compliments to reassure ourselves in our hearts that we are okay and that we are wanted and beautiful and. And. And what I find in couples is that when we finally come to a place of acceptance where this is what's happening inside of me, we can simply ask for support instead of fishing for what it is we're looking for. And it's a game changer. In fact, I have a personal experience when Tom And I came together, and we went to this restaurant, this beautiful restaurant, and I noticed that when I was zipping, this was the trigger for me. I was zipping up my little tight dress that I was trying to look all fancy in, and the dang thing was really tight around my rear end, and that's always just, like, a big thing for me. And I was like, ah, dang it. You know, it's. It's not as, like, you know, loose as I had wanted it to be. And I noticed the zipper was kind of pulling right in the rear end. You know, really exciting moment. And so we get to the rest. We get to the restaurant, and we get seated, and. And all of a sudden, I can see Tom, like, looking through me at the table. And I. I immediately turned, you know, my head and was like, what's going on? And, oh, my gosh, standing behind us was this most gorgeous, tall, lean woman dressed to the hilt. She had her hair up, these beautiful, like, high heels on. And. And I just remember that. That overwhelming, like, emotion, right? In nanoseconds, going, you're looking at that beautiful woman, aren't you? And then all of my own fears and doubts are starting to come up, right? Oh, my gosh. You don't think I'm beautiful anymore. You know, you. You know, the jealousy, the. The self doubt, the spiraling, all of that. And I remember taking a moment just thinking, okay, okay, look, Stace, you got a few choices here, okay? How are you gonna. How are you gonna get yourself out of this one? You can get Maddie's looking, and we can have that conversation and. And have a fight right here at the dinner table. Okay? I don't like that option. Check. You can get up and cry and run to the car and go home and eliminate that kid. That's not a good option either, because I want to have a wonderful dinner and experience with my. With Tom. Okay? What if you were to just accept the fact that you're feeling insecure right now and ask for his support and love, and maybe you could get, you know, you could ease it by reaching across the table and saying, remind me that you think I'm beautiful and remind me that you love me. Would you do that for me? And that's exactly what I did. So I grabbed his hand and said, I'm feeling really fat.

And.

And there's a beautiful woman behind me, isn't there? And he's like, and I'm so grateful, babe, that you said, yes, I'm looking. And, yes, she's beautiful, because I think if you would have said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not. I would have known you were lying. And then I don't know that I could have hu. And he's like, yes, I am looking. And I said, I'm feeling really insecure right now, and I'm just feeling fat and ugly. And I'm starting to make up a narrative in my movie that you don't love me and you don't think I'm beautiful. Could you support me? Would you be willing to help me through this? And he says, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you want to do? And I says, I'm going to come around the other side of the table and just hold my hand. And I said, let's check her out together. You know, I want to be brave and I want to. I want to check her out together as you reassure me that you're. I'm beautiful and yet you love me so that maybe I can work with some of my fears and insecurities. And sure enough, I mean, we were like, oh, that dress is bomb. You have kind of one like that in the closet. I mean, man, you. You put your hair up like that, you look just like that, you know, And I'm like, oh, yeah. And I got a pair of shoes and. And so we went home and. And literally had the best sex of our. Of our lives. Right. It was like being able to play this out in. To step into that place of feeling beautiful and using the inspiration is not a way to like, degrade or downplay me, but to understand and see with his help and support that we can step into that too. You can be beautiful too. Right? And that was such a game changing moment for me. Anything you want to say about that?

No. You know, and again, you know, I think that there's some not think there is power in appreciating beauty, whether it's male or female, but that doesn't mean that I want to go have an affair with that person. But there, again, clean, like you said, that becomes. Because that comes from a place of knowing who I am and Stacy knowing who are. You know, each person in the partnership has to be very grounded in feeling good again. I use this statement often, but it's so, so true. You know, we can never get enough of what we don't already have. Right? So correct me if I'm wrong. That's what you're saying, and it's not, or I guess it is cliche because it's true. So I would say for our listeners, I think, okay, Cut the. You know what? How am I supposed to. You know, it sounds good in my head logically, but in my heart, I'm struggling or emotionally feeling wise. It makes sense, Klina. But, and I'm sure you hear this, but how do I. I'm not where I want to be physically. How can I accept and appreciate where I am right now? What are your best ninja tricks for our listeners that are saying, okay, guys, cut. Cut to the chase here.

Tell me what I need to know.

What can you give me here to help me as we step here in the United States into a holiday weekend where there's going to be lots of food on the grills, probably eating and drinking too much, and we're all going.

To be in swimming suits and bikinis.

Yes. So.

Well, the first thing I'd say is, you have to really make the decision that I actually want to heal this relationship. Because, like, that moment that I had many years ago where I was looking in the mirror and saying to myself, when am I actually going to be good enough for myself? I made a decision that day that I was going to try mend this relationship and actually give it a go. Regards, having a good relationship. So you have to decide on that. Like, it's like, it's like your relationship with your partner. You can't just sit there and be like, well, that would be great now, but I'm not going to actually put any effort in. You need to decide that you're going to put effort into that relationship. You need to decide that this relationship is actually worth something and there is value in fixing it and that there's value in having a good one. So that's the first thing. You have to make that decision. You can't just half do it and expect something amazing to happen. So decision has to be made. And then the first, I have lots of tools I give clients, but the main one I give everyone to start with because it's very easy and anyone can do it, is to try and mend their relationship with the mirror. And this is very simple on how to mend this relationship to get the ball rolling on it. What I get people to do is, is to stop approaching their reflection with a frown. Most people go to the mirror and they're frowning and they start scanning their bodies and they're like, I look tired, I look ugly, I look fat, I look this. And it's like they have a shopping list of all the things they don't like, and they go through it. Then they get really close to the mirror and Start looking at pores and all this kind of stuff goes on, right? Now imagine if you walked up to a friend and did that to. To them. You walked up with a frown, and then you started saying, this looks bad, this looks bad. And then you went up really close to their face and started picking up their spots. No one would be friends with you, and rightfully so, because that's weird and just totally inappropriate, yet we consider it completely fine with ourselves. So we need to kind of switch that out for something that's a lot more positive. So what I get people to do is to simply start smiling at themselves, ourselves. Now, this feels a bit weird in the beginning because you're like, why am I standing here smiling at myself like a fool? But you're not a fool. There's a perfectly good reason to it. So when we smile, even if it's like a fake, you know, forced smile, it does make us feel good. It releases serotonin dopamine. So it has this mechanical impact on our bodies that impacts our brains, which makes us feel good. So swap out the friends down for a smile. You can fake it in the beginning, right? Sometimes, like I will when I'm working with clients. I'm like, wink at yourself. Say something stupid to yourself. And you look in the mirror, be like, hey, hot stuff. Like, whatever it is, make yourself actually genuinely laugh and do this whenever you see yourself. So, I mean, like when you're getting ready in the morning, when you see yourself in the storefront, just smile at your reflection. When you go to take a photo and your camera's on the wrong way and you see yourself looking like a thaw come, smile at yourself, why not? And just start doing that, okay? And that tiny thing that takes no effort, doesn't cost you anything. And you're just swapping out a frown for a smile has such a huge impact on what we. How we see ourselves. Because what happens is it makes us feel good. And over time, we start associating seeing ourselves with feeling good. And you didn't even have to do much there. You just had to smile at yourself. In the same way you'd smile at someone you half like that you see bump into on the street, you know, like some acquaintance, your neighbor that you don't like, you probably still smile at them, you know, and be polite so you can do that for yourself. Smile. And if you want to add that extra bit of spice on top to really move things forward, say some positive things to yourself when you do it. You could pick out a few things that Are your go to. It could be like, I am, am beautiful, I'm tall. I've got a fine juicy bomb that doesn't fit into all my dresses. But I love it. You know, you can have your list of things you go to. And again, if it makes you laugh when you say it to yourself, all the better. I'm not saying turn yourself into a joke, but I'm saying say something where you're like, I am gorgeous. I have the best bum in the world. I have, like, whatever it is, it's simply adding some joy into your life, changing the way you see yourself, adding those positive affirmations. And you're doing a huge amount of positive things there just by smiling and saying something nice to yourself. It sounds very easy because it is, but it has such a huge impact on how you, you think about yourself.

I so love that. And I would stack on that by just saying, recognize how important I am. Statements are like, I always teach with circles. And you know, the circle of I am is the most important circle that we all have because it's life or existence itself. And so if I can validate that circle right again and again and again by just owning who I am, you know, respecting myself and as you say, you know, treating myself with love like I would any other human being, even the neighbor I don't like across the street. It is a really big game changer. And I, and I love those I am statements. In fact, often I'll give them as an assignment and I'll say, I need 25 I am statements about how you see yourself in a positive light. And people go, oh, I can't even come up with three. I know. So now we're going to do an emotional push up and we're going to work at this, right? I want you to come up with 25. And then when you do that, we'll add 25 more. Because the way we talk about ourselves to ourselves and to others has also a huge impact as well.

A huge impact. And it's so interesting you said that because I have the same clients, I make them create the list. And every one of them can come up with the longest list of reasons why they don't like themselves or their bodies. But when I'm like, okay, now we're, I'm like, I don't know anymore about why you don't like yourself. Tell me what you do like about yourself. And there's radio silence because they genuinely cannot think of anything. And eventually they'll come up with one or two things or they'll say the same thing in two or three different ways, but they can't. And I'm like, can you imagine, like we have people in our lives that we really don't like and we can find more positive things about those people than ourselves?

Yeah, it's not good.

It's not good. We need to do better for, we need to do better for ourselves. And if we don't want to do it for ourselves, then we need to decide, okay, well, I'm going to do this because it's going to be better for my partner. It's going to be better for my kids, my siblings, my parents, my colleagues, whoever it is. Once you start to actually do that inner work and repair that relationship, it has such a beautiful impact on not just you, but everyone in your close circle. And it's a beautiful thing to see when you say, no, I'm good enough. And the people around you start saying, maybe if you're good enough, that maybe I'm, maybe I'm good enough too. Maybe I'm not ugly. Maybe I am actually. Okay, actually, you know what? Maybe I'm quite good looking. And it, it has this profound impact on everyone around you. And it's worth it. You are worth it. But if you can't, again, if you can't see yourself as worse as are the people in your life, worth it.

And the act, yeah, I so love that you did that because, or that you brought that up because, you know, so much of how we see our bodies is kind of given to us by their parents who raised us right, and, and what they struggled with and the statements that they would say to themselves and, and how they would judge their bodies and their lives harshly. And it's a sobering thought when you see it as a, as a mother, you know, in your, you've passed it down to your children yet again and you can, you're in that go between place where you, you can see it came from your parents. And then, oh my gosh, I just, I just gifted that down, right? And now they're struggling with body image and thinking that they have to show up a certain way or be a certain size. And, and if I may, I just want to say the beauty is having a body and regardless of what size or shape it is or what its abilities are. You know, I think sometimes it's so easy in our critical conversations to negate the fact that we have a body and it has the ability with all of its inabilities and abilities to experience the sensories of life. Right. It's that's the joy of it. The sensory, the sight, the sound, sharing a meal, you know, being able to taste and touch and. And feel. Those are. Those are the gifts of a body, period.

We forget, right, that our bodies, right? We could sit at home and be like, I hate the gap between my toes. I hate my thumbs. Like, we could sit at home going through all the things we hate and tell our bod. We hate them. We could go through frowning at them, telling they're not. Telling them they're not good enough and treating them worse than we would treat anyone else in this world. But our heart keeps beating, our body keeps breathing. If our bodies responded to us, and they often do, we do get ill, actually, from being quite cruel to ourselves. But if our bodies were just to say, you know what? I'm done with you. You're mean to me. You don't treat me well, we'd be very upset about it. And then angry at our bodies for not performing for us and not, like, keeping us going, going. So we have to show some kindness towards that. We can't experience the best things in our lives without our bodies. And the thing is, we only get one. Like, it's not like you get this one and you can swap it out later. You can't trade it in, like, a car. You have one body and this one vehicle to experience your life. So are you actually gonna just be like, you know what? This is the car I got. I'm just gonna accept it. And that's great. Are you gonna sit there and be and imagine you're on, like, one of those old TV shows like Pimp My Ride and try to swap out everything thing? Like, I think when we put ourselves into different contexts, like a car, for example, we start to think, yeah, seriously, what am I on about? It gets me places. Isn't that enough?

Yes, absolutely. And I love the analogy, because then we can start to emotionally associate what it feels like to truly accept myself, right?

It.

It is the acceptance of, okay, this is my car. Even if it's my car right now, it's my car, right? And. And there is a tremendous amount that we can do with our bodies. There are. And sometimes, you know, that, like, Tom and I, just as he had described earlier, just kind of come to a place where, you know, through Covid and such, we've kind of let a lot of our physical vitality go. And it's not about the size. It's about the feeling in my body. And we can appreciate that too. We don't have to Use it to kick our own fannies. We can use that as motivation to say, okay, these are some things that I want to improve about the way I feel in my body. Body. And that's very different than this is something I've got to change in my body so that I can be good enough. And I want to make that distinction.

Yeah, I think it's, it's a very important distinction that like, clean. You said our bodies are miraculous. What takes place without any, without us acknowledging and appreciating. Like you say, it's a miraculous system, if you will. So how about, you know, just as we take care of, of our automobiles from a place of appreciation. Okay, what can I do to really optimize this one spacesuit that we do have, you know, at least in this incarnation, whatever our belief system is. So, you know, mine's had some pretty significant, you know, swap out here lately. I've got places, you know, things replaced. What a miraculous thing. They can go in and replace my knee and put a fake one in there and it feels a lot better like. And they do it kind of like changing your oil, you know. But so from this place of appreciation, like you just so wisely pointed out, my. What might be possible. Possible from that place, you know, versus the, the damnation of it.

Yes. Well, that's the interesting thing, right? Like when we actually start to really appreciate our bodies, that's when we choose to nourish ourselves and to choose movement that really makes us feel good. And what I mean by that is, right, so if you have somebody who really does not like their body, they will actually try to hate their body into a place where they, they think they're taking care of it. So what that can look like is someone who over exercises someone who's exercising to try and make their body a certain shape or look a certain way. Or it could be that they're eating food to try to change the way that they look. That's coming out of a place of hate towards yourself. You don't, you can't love, like, you can't hate yourself into loving yourself, right? The other side of when you actually love yourself is when you start to say, say you know what? My body is deserving of nourishing food. And I again, I don't mean doing any silly diets. I mean just saying to yourself, you know what, Instead of having a coffee for breakfast, I'm actually going to have a breakfast because my body deserves nourishment and the same movement. Instead of saying to yourself, I need to Go do these crazy intense workouts because I want to change my, the shape of my body. You instead say, you know what, when I was a kid, I absolutely loved my trampoline. I'm going to go trampolining. Or I love yoga because of how it makes me feel. Or I love going, you know, for a hike. You know, movement can just be about things you like or it could be like playing with your kids. It doesn't matter what it is, but that's how it works. It goes from I have to hate myself into looking a certain way so then I'll like myself to I'm doing it because I deserve it and it makes me feel good. So why wouldn't I?

Exactly. I love it. You had a distinction too in our conversation between the difference of body maintenance. Maintenance. Right. And, and self care. And I, I would love for you, in the few minutes that we have left to share that with our audience.

Sure. So we often confuse self care. We think of self care as like putting on a face mask, doing our nails, you know, this kind of stuff. And that is self maintenance. That's maintaining your skin and your nails and whatever. That's grand. There's nothing wrong with doing those things. If you want to do those things, that's lovely. You go put on your face mask, do whatever it is that makes you feel good. But self care is actually properly, truly taking care of ourselves. And I split that into three categories. There's doing things that takes care of your emotional well being. So again, a face mask is not going to do that.

So. Right.

Takes care of your emotional well being. So that could be saying to yourself, I'm going to every morning, I'm going to maybe meditate for five minutes, I'm going to breathe, I'm going to go for a walk, I'm going to keep in contact with my friends. That helps care of my emotional well being. Then you've got your mental well being. So that is your mental health. It's a little bit different from the emotional. But that could just be doing things like making sure you sleep enough, making sure you actually have some like downtime when you get home from work. Making sure you're not always on your phone or on social media. Take care of the mind. And then there's your environment. You need to make sure your environment is some at place that makes you feel good. And that could mean getting out into the countryside to be in that environment. It could mean taking care of your home space that's not like, I don't know, really dirty or messy or you know, you make sure you have things in your space that make you feel really happy. Could just be a candle. It doesn't have to be complex stuff here that I'm talking about, but that's self care, looking after your emotional, your mental and your environment. And what I get clients to do is to come up with three things that they can do that would take care of those things. And I like simple stuff. Like I said, get yourself a candle. If it makes your environment, make you feel happy, go for like a little five minute walk. If it makes you feel better mentally and emotionally. If you're like, Instagram is making me sad, get it off your phone. Just do those things to take care of you. And again, you can see how wildly different that is from putting on a face mask.

Yes, no, absolutely, massively. It's an incredible distinction that I loved and wanted to make sure that we passed along to the listeners today. Well, so clean a burn. Tell us how people can connect with you that are maybe needing some extra support with their body image or learn more about the work that you do.

Yeah, so my website is my name, it's cleanaburn.com and I've loads of resources there. I have a free body confidence journal. I've loads of blog posts about different things like what to do if someone says I'm fat. You know, how to like do the self care plan. All of that's there. So there's loads of resources and that's cleanaburn.com and then I'm quite active on Instagram. My handle is at cleenathecoach and they're the two main places I hang out.

Nice.

So website on Instagram.

So as we take another 1 minute 60 seconds to wrap this up, I'd love for each of us to express and share our biggest takeaway for our listeners today. And so Kalina, would you like to go first?

My biggest takeaway from today is I think there's always more to learn in this area and when you start this journey, just keep your, your head and your heart open and you'll learn more and more along the way. I've taken some great things from this conversation today too. So keep your heart open, keep your mind open and I keep learning and everyone else can keep learning about how to improve their relationships with themselves.

I love that. What about you, babe?

Well, I loved your, your self care, you know, and we talk about that and we hear that you literally have to be in a cave if you haven't hurt but you know, they Cannot be overemphasized. And they're not as difficult as we like to make them, you know, so find something that feeds you emotionally, feeds you mentally, and feed, you know, makes your environment to where it gives you vitality. And as you said, it could be as simple as bringing a candle. Stacy's been incredible influence in my life in that way. Wherever the space is, environment does matter. It's hugely important. And we, I think we dismiss it.

Often to keep my vibration high. Absolutely. The idea that your body is such a gift and if we could love and appreciate it and treat it as though it is a miraculous thing, and it truly is. Even people who don't have access to do basic things like walk and move their arms and talk and those kinds of things. I love seeing them be such a demonstration of joy through that sensory experience of still being able to connect with food and sound, sound and tight taste and touch and smell and. And so, you know, if that's where we have to begin with appreciating our bodies, appreciate the fact in this moment that you're simply alive and that you simply have the gift and the opportunity to explore those things and begin finding those things that you love and start bringing them into your life. And appreciating the fact that you can do that, I often find is an easy, easy place to begin as well. Just, just, just step in and realize you get so many opportunities to experience such beautiful things in your body. And maybe if we started appreciating those, then we could start appreciating ourselves more. So thank you so much for being here with us, Kalina. It's been such a wonderful conversation as always. I'm sure we'll have you come back in and. And we'll have another conversation. This is one that we could continue to explore for, for many, many conversations, for sure. So please. Yeah. Have a beautiful day. We'll be, we'll be in touch soon. We're going to take a quick break so that we can make this show possible. We have some. A quick break that we're going to share with you, but then we'll be on back. We'll come on back with a little bit of fun to finish up our show today. And don't forget the other part, my favorite, the music part. Yeah. That way make me feel. Be right back. Hey, babe. Did you know that the average couple spends only two hours a day with each other? And the majority of that time is spent eating, watching TV and surfing social media rather than connecting with each other? And if children are Involved. My gosh, it's even less time than that.

I know, babe. That's why you created our conversation cards, for connection. Because they're the perfect conversation starter. So the next time you're sitting on a couch, rather than turning on the TV or grabbing your phone, pull out a card. Card and get ready for some good old fashioned laughter and loving connection.

Yeah.

You can get your cards@stacybartly.com Seattle, Tacoma, Antwerp.

That's right.

We're streamed worldwide on our app and on the web at 1150 kknw.com.

Welcome back inside the love shack. We are stepping into our follow the fun. Mrs. Bartley. What, what are we, what are we having fun fun with today?

Yeah. That was an awesome conversation. I'm still kind of thinking about it. I loved that conversation about.

It's a big one. It's a big one. And it's a. There's a lot of ripples, a lot of ripples to how that can step in and, and either help us in our relationships or adversely affect us.

I so agree. So as we turn the corner here, the reason why we have a follow the fun moment is because relationships really are an act of creativity and we can choose to, to recreate them as often as we desire or we become stuck in something old. And so for this reason, we're always going to leave you with a little bit of fun. Right? This is going to be a fun one today. I call it do it outside. And do it outside. There's a little bit of prep. So let me just walk this, you know, walk you through this to prep for this fun delight a day or two in advance. Ask your special someone the following three questions. And then what you're going to do is you're going to build your experience around their answers. And these three questions are, do you like it hot or cold? And that's all you're going to say. And they're going to say, what are you talking about? No. Do you like it hot or cold? Insist that they choose one. You know, you can do this through text or through conversation and have a, have a fun moment with it. This is going to set up some serious anticipation and curiosity for your hotel date. The second question is, do you like it hard or soft? Right. The third question is, do you like it slow or fast? Now, here's the thing. You're gonna take the hot or cold, and that's going to be the food temperature. It's either going to be a hot picnic or cold one. You want it hard or soft. That's going to be the dessert. Do we want a cookie that's hard, or do we want a little something soft like a pudding? And slow or fast is going to be the music selection for you. Then you're going to lead them to a wonderful place on the day of the activity. And that place is going to be a tent in your backyard in the most beautiful place that you can muster up or that you have access to, or you can make a fort. If you don't, by chance, have a tent, I'm going to invite you to fill this tent with blankets and pillows, your delicious picnic, and a portable speaker so that you can bring in the music component. Now, if you really want to put this on steroids, you can even blindfold them as you walk them to the tent or the fort that you've set up and prepared. Ooh la la. And share your picnic and point out their answers and how you've incorporated them in this experience. And after you've enjoyed your delicious picnic, do some stargazing, tell stories by flashlight, even some poetry, if that's your thing. Maybe pull up a few jokes, have a few good laughs. Bottom line is, allow the stress to fall away and the arousal of this moment to move you to a different place. I remember us doing this on the park, right? It was a blast.

Yes. You. You had to remind me. But I do remember now that you just walked us through that. A very special, special, special experience.

Yeah. Get on the fun list. Each week, we're gonna deliver to you fun tips and ideas, and monthly, we do a giveaway, and that's going to be happening next week. So if you're not on the fun list, get on the fun list and you'll be entered to win some giveaways that we have prepared for you next week. So let's dive into the song, shall we? This is a can you feel it? Moment where we choose a theme song and, oh, I was so excited about John Mayer's song. Your body is a wonderland. Because it is. It is such a wonderful thing to be explored, to be sensory rich with yourself and with your partner. And John Mayer says it best when he says, hey, if you want love, then make it swim in a deep sea of blankets. His lyrics are always the best, aren't they? Take out, take all your big plans and change them. It's going to be a while because your body is a wonderland. And I want to impress upon you today that is so true. Your body really is a wonderland. And there's so many magical things that can Be experienced through your body and with your body and then it's just on steroids when we get to experience it or share it with somebody else. So check out that song along with each and every song that we have for the episodes of Love Shack. They're designed to trying to move you, to get you to think, to get you to feel. And I guess that's a wrap, honey.

Yeah. And I would just encourage you, as we always like to if, if what we share today with, with Kleena or past episodes and you're finding yourself, we've really touched on something that's really causing you some challenges in your relationship. I, I would, with great love and respect as, as Robin Sharma likes to say, you know, reach out to us. This is what we do. This is, is what how we are serving our clients. And there's lots of different ways that we serve our clients. But the very best way to do it is check us our website out the work with me link at the top of the website. They'll give you lots of different ways that we work with our clients individually in unique ways and frameworks. And it's going to be very different probably than what you've ever experienced.

And if you are hearing the follow the fun and go, oh, I wish I could do that. I wish, wish that was available. That would, that sounds so fun. But I could never or my partner would never. You know, that's a really great sign to say, hey, maybe this is possible with a little growth and expansion and understanding about myself, my partner, our relationship, this could become available. So, you know, that's a, that's a great sign to say, hey, this is available for you too if you want, if you want it, if you want to take some steps towards creating it in your own life. And once you go there, just, just like we said, you'll, you'll never go back. It's a wonderful, freeing place. And remember, the only thing that ever stops us is ourselves from doing a lot of things that we like to do. So have a beautiful week. It's been great to be here with you inside the Love Shack. We wish you all the best and we'll look forward to being back here with you next week. And thanks to Kalina and Eric, you're always so great to support us. Our wonderful engineer KK&W team will be be back next week for another episode of Love Shack Live.

See you soon.

Bye bye.

Thanks for joining us today in the Love Shack. We hope you came home away with something that made your toes tingle. To learn more about everything you heard on today's show, go to stacybartley.com podcast Love the Show. Help us spread the love by sharing the show with others. Okay, everybody, time to go. We gotta close the doors to the Love Shack for this week. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Come back next week, though, and join us for another edition of Love Shack Live with Tom and Stacy Bartley.