Cultivating Body Love & Acceptance w/ Laura Phelan

Welcome to the Makeshift Happen podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Daly, entrepreneur, life coach, and your no BS bestie, here to bring you all things mindset, manifestation, and personal development. This podcast is designed to help you expand your mind and uplevel your life. So turn the volume up and roll the windows down if you're coming along for the ride. Let's go make shit happen. Welcome back to the podcast, guys. Today I am joined by a super special guest. This is a woman that I am so honored to share space with inside of my business mastermind this year. She is a therapeutic coach and a body image healer who helps women find food freedom and body acceptance so that they can live full and beautiful lives. We're so excited to hear your story, so welcome to the show, Laura.

Hey, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here too. I feel like we just like met so recently, so it's nice to share this space as well.

Yeah, I know. I was just saying I'm excited to do this interview because I really want to hear about your background and your personal journey and how you arrived you to this place of doing this work, because I obviously know the work that you do and the impact that you have on your community. But you, of course, have your own personal story behind that, your own transformation, a lot of healing that took place within yourself before you arrived to the point of being able to share that gift with so many other women. So that's really where I want to start selfishly, and I also think it gives the audience just a good background. To you and like what you do and who you are. So yeah, walk us through like your journey with food and body image and how you got to this place and why you're a coach.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's perfect. And it's such a big part of what I do, you know, like in my sessions and with my clients. I'm super open on my Instagram. If you guys follow me, you'll know I'm super open about like my past and what brought me here. So for me, everything really started from, you know, a young girl who had low confidence, who didn't know herself, who used food and I suppose her body as a way to control, to control how she was perceived, to control stressful things. And it very much felt like something that just I like kind of stumbled into, and then it just spiraled from there. So when I was younger like, I wasn't the woman I have— I am now. Like, I didn't have the confidence I had. I mean, I know many of us don't when we're young women, but I was a particularly shy, believe it or not, child. Like, a young teenager, I was super shy, didn't have like high self-esteem. This kind of thing would have been a nightmare for me back then. Um, very, very like low confidence in myself. And I think when I went on to develop my eating disorder, that it kind of latched on to me because of that. And I think that, you know, a lot of the things we talk about, Sam, in the Mastermind, is like that self-worth, that like loving relationship with ourselves. And that's so important because when you have that, you're then not a portal for this stuff to kind of latch onto you. So for me, I was— yeah, it's, it started like a diet, like many people I think probably go on. And from there it just spiraled really, really quickly. I was around 13 years old, and before I knew it, I was like full-blown obsessed with food, calories. My weight was dropping off, um, my body image was deteriorating in that period, and it became like this all-consuming thing. Like, if anyone has ever dealt with addiction in some respect, I suppose it can feel like that. It's very all-consuming. You can't really see a way out. You don't know what's happening. You kind of don't know you have a problem either. So for me, that happened, and I ended up being diagnosed with anorexia. So the, I suppose, the most known and maybe the most severe, um, that we have. It has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, so it is an extremely, extremely dangerous disease to, to have. Um, and obviously I'm here today, so that's proof that it does not always do that or take your life. But I'm very, very grateful to be where I am. So yeah, when that happened, it, it unearthed, I think, so much other stuff as well, right? So when we go on any kind of healing journey, it's never just about the thing that we're like using. So like food was like this symptom and the thing that I was using to control, but there was so much other stuff there from like childhood and things which I still heal to this day, you know, that healing never stops. But at that particular point in my life, it was really about getting back to a healthier place mentally, physically, working through my body image stuff, working on my relationship with food, and just kind of getting my confidence back up. So when I kind of went through that process, I had like intensive therapy. Before that happened, my turning point though, which I think is important to share, um, especially if you've been rock bottom and you can relate to that, or if you maybe you're there now and listening and you're like, I'm never going to get out of this. So my rock bottom was when I was 14. It was my birthday, and I remember sitting on my bed in my family home in Ireland, and I remember thinking, this is gonna kill me. This, this the doctors are right, um, it's going to take my life if I don't fight it. And I remember thinking the thought of having to fight it felt scarier than just letting it run its course, which is terrifying to think back now. But that was also the moment of kind of reckoning where I went, whoa, it was like I woke up. It was like, oh my God, I know what's happening. It was like I literally came out of that like possession and like understood how ill I was. And that was the moment where I decided essentially to start getting my life back. So I started engaging with my therapists. I like listened to the doctors, like I wasn't bullshitting them anymore. I was actually doing the things because it's very easy to do that. Um, you know, I worked on putting on the weight and things like that, but more importantly, I worked on my mental health, my well-being, my confidence. And that was a long journey, don't get me wrong. It wasn't, you know, recovering from an eating disorder is not just about your weight, it's about that mental stability within yourself and having the confidence and self-worth so that those things don't take hold again. And that was years of work, you know, coaching, um, continual personal development, like traveling. And that really led me into my business now. Um, I was traveling in South America and I literally had like one of those intuitive downloads that I didn't realize what that was at the time. I was only 21 and I remember thinking 'Oh my God, like, I am finally in a place with my body, with food, where I can relax and feel good. This is amazing. Like, I have to share this.' So I kind of— on that trip, I went home, I started retraining, um, and like multiple, like, um, courses, like as an eating disorder specialist initially, then going into therapeutic coaching, body image, CBT, Rewind work, which is like trauma work, um And yeah, I started building my business from there really, and that's kind of where— what led me to where I am now and the work that I do. And that's been for about the past 4 years. So yeah, I kind of call it from like recovered hell to like recovered and well is sort of that, that journey.

Oh, I love that so much. And you were— I mean, you were quite young. Yeah. When this all started, like 13 you said, right, was when it started. And I think I mean, it must have been like you said, it's hard to even know that you like have an eating disorder or what it is that's happening to you, especially I think if you're young. But I think even for women that are in their 20s or 30s or 40s that are feeling really obsessive around food or they emotionally eat or they binge eat, you know, there's a lot of these things that because we experience them and because so many of us do and because sometimes they're normalized, we don't really recognize that these can be like like harmful patterns, right? And I mean, eating disorders in general are so broad, and the symptoms, and, you know, it all varies so much depending on the person and the case and all of that. But I guess a good question to kind of ask is, yeah, like, how do we know— how can someone know when they may be experiencing some sort of disordered eating habit or pattern?

Yeah, that's, that's a really good question because some women that come to me don't have eating disorders per se yet, and it's definitely a spectrum of like, well, what, like, what's the fine line? But I would say we live in a world that's very saturated with like dieting and what to eat and what not to eat. And for sure there is an element in there where you can care about your health but also be like anti-putting-your-body-through-hell. Like, I'm very like pro-taking-care-of-your-body and doing what feels best for it, but in a way that doesn't, you know, make you not be able to do anything social and all of those things. So the— where the line starts to get crossed, I suppose, is when you feel like the way that you feel about food impacts your other parts of your life. So are you canceling events? Are you feeling anxious or more anxious than normal around those food choices? Are you stressing about what you've eaten? Are you suddenly having loads of guilt? Are you finding yourself, um, moody and feeling withdrawn and like hangry? Because that, that's part of it. Are you feeling Are you looking in the mirror more? Are you pulling and like body checking? And it's just a change in general personality can be something that is actually a signal that that's happening. And obviously, if again, if that preoccupation with food and your body goes up and your kind of general well-being and day-to-day coping goes down, that's when you want to start thinking, right, like something's kind of happening for me here. How can I start working through what I need to work through before this goes like completely out of control.

Yeah, and I can, I can— when you were talking about that, I can relate to that in some respects. You know, when I was feeling really self-conscious around my body the last year-ish of university, like there would be a lot more thought into what are we going to be eating at this event, or, you know, I have to eat this now because later I know I'm going to be drinking or I'm going to do whatever, or I have to work out for this amount of time because of what I did yesterday, you know. And it was kind of like my— the other parts of my life started to be based around food and trying to be smaller, essentially, like trying to, to fix myself, quote unquote, into a body shape that I felt like was lovable. Which I think is a good— another good thing to touch on, because you've obviously experienced, as many women have, many different shapes and versions of their own body throughout their lifetime, right? Like, we're never just the same. And I think there's so many women that are trying to go backwards in time. They're trying to get back to how they were. They're trying to get back to that weight, get back to that place. That's something that I see and that I hear so often, and that I also have to check myself for when I'm like, oh, I looked so good then, I want to get back to that. But I think— I don't know, this idea of like going backwards and trying to assume an old version of your body is not really the healthiest way is the question.

Like, we don't— like, would you ever do that in like your business or with like your personality? Would you ever want to go backwards, or would you accept and embrace it?

Yeah. And also, even if there's beautiful parts of your past in your business and in your personality and all of that, I think we normally don't think, oh, that was so great, let's go back to that version of my life. But like, let's do— how can we do that again? How can we do that more, right? How can I do that and even better, Right, totally. So yeah, I don't know, I think this idea of looking backwards can, can be damaging. But for anybody that's in a phase of their life or in a version of their body right now that feels like it's harder to accept, like, what would you say to them as a woman who's also, you know, inhabited many versions of her own body, as we all have?

Yeah, of course. And this is such a great question because the thing that's really coming through for me strongly at the moment in my work is body safety. So, um, like, if you're listening now, like, I'm not going to do a full-blown visualization, but like, if you just close your eyes and just imagine the first time you felt unsafe in your body, I guarantee that this moment is far earlier than you are thinking. So for many of my clients, it might be you were a child and you were in a dance school and someone pointed out something on your body, or you were in a changing room with your mom and you had to get the size up or the size bigger than your friend. Or someone said to you, oh, aren't you getting big? Or, you know, something like that. I guarantee that this experience is far earlier back than you recognize within yourself. And so the reason I bring up body safety is that what we try and do as women in this world is, as soon as we feel bad in our bodies, instead of like getting into it and like listening to it and like being with it, we just want to escape it. We're like, right, I'm going to get to the gym and I'm going to cut out all the food and I'm going to buy all the clothes that I'm definitely going to fit into, and we totally disconnect. We completely disconnect. And what we need to be doing is, well, what am I feeling in my body right now? How do I take care of it? How do I listen to it? Do I move it in a way that feels good for it? Do I feed it in a way that nourishes it and feels joyful and like is fun, right? Like all the kind of things. Does it satiate me? Am I getting enough different foods in? When do I feel most uncomfortable in my body? Is it visually? Is it around a certain person? Is it in a certain experience? Is it when I'm tired? Is it when I'm premenstrual? Like, we all have different body sensations. So my first piece of advice is probably the most difficult, I know, for so many women because it's uncomfortable. Please try and not escape your body in that moment and instead just turn inward, because even if you go and do all the fatty quick fix stuff that we're told to do, that won't last forever. And that feeling of safety and comfort and acceptance that you're truly desiring will not come from that. You will eventually have to go back and do this work, I promise you. There is no skipping over it. You cannot diet forever. You cannot outrun your, like, body image things that are coming up for you forever. So if you can allow yourself to go inward and actually think and see sit with what is truly going on, then you can begin to really, really heal it. And that's when you can truly find peace in your body. And for many people, that might mean a weight change, up or down. Your body is gonna react and respond to you when you look after it the most and the best. And that means so many different things. That's not just about how you eat and move, it's how you sleep, how you interact. Are you doing things that you love in the day, is your— are your cortisol levels really high, which can cause like bloating, for example. So if you can get back into yourself and look inward and start there, you're going to find body acceptance a lot quicker than all the other external stuff that you think is helping.

Okay.

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So, so, so good. So good. This is like the inner work that is— I mean, and it's so interesting because because so many areas of our life require exactly what it is that you're talking about, is turning inward and being present with yourself and feeling the feelings and going there and questioning, okay, what's going on for me? Why do I feel this way? Rather than just trying to numb it out or cover it up, right? It's not just like— you know this, it's— this doesn't just show up with food and body image, but it shows up in literally like every area of our life. Yeah, so like this is, you know, when people say the work, I really feel like this is the work, is learning how to stop escaping ourselves and numbing ourselves and really being with ourselves and tuning into what messages our body is giving us. So I love, you know, that message of body safety. And I've, I've heard about this before in terms of emotional eating, that You know, when you eat because you are stressed or you're bored or you're triggered in some way, when you eat out of emotion, you know, it's like you said, you can't cover up that emotion that's trying to come through with food forever. You can cover it up for a moment. You can cover it up for that, that 5 to 10 minutes that you feel good eating the ice cream or the pizza or the chips or whatever it is that you reach for. But right, that's what we're looking for. When we're eating in that way anyway, is that sense of safety. We're looking for comfort.

You know what a great first step is as well, if you're in that right now and you're listening? Like, if you have the food, like, don't beat yourself up for it, but also sit with it after. Like, if you want to have the ice cream and it comforts you, and whether it is or not, like, do you know what I mean? Like, if you're gonna have it, just do me a favor and please sit with yourself after, as uncomfortable it may be. And maybe say, okay, I'm gonna have the ice cream, but I'm also going to sit for 10 minutes and I'm going to journal and I'm going to release those feelings and I'm going to access what's actually going on. Because then the way that you turn or use food will change based upon that reaction and you getting used to being with yourself and those feelings. Because for a lot of people, it feels unsafe to do that. It's like, I don't want to know what I'm feeling, so I'm just going to block it out and numb it out. So if you can start that way, then it's almost like a halfway house to build up that courage.

And I think some people are afraid of going into those feelings because maybe there's this idea or belief that if I go there, it will get worse or it'll make me worse, right? If I allow myself to unpack my insecurities or unpack my low self-worth or the things that are actually coming up for me, then everything will get worse because I'll be more sad, I'll be more angry, I'll need more food to cope. That is some sort of subconscious idea that by doing the work of actually sitting in your feelings, you're moving in the opposite direction of healing, when we know that the contrary is true. You're actually moving towards your healing.

Exactly, exactly that. Yeah, I love that.

So let's talk about this idea of like resisting the inner work, because I think people resist the inner work in all areas of life, but Surely this shows up as well in the work that you do with body image and relationship to food and everything. It's like, it's so much easier to just look for a quick fix or the next diet or, "Okay, I'm finally going to get consistent and I'm going to do this in the gym," or, "I'm going to try being vegan," or, "I'm going to try, you know, this next keto," or whatever it is, like looking for that next Band-Aid rather than doing the inner work. So how do you see this show up with your clients and in the work that you do?

I think using that term band-aid is such a good depiction of like what it ends up being. And I feel like we're literally taught for things to be a band-aid. So I did an interview the other day on the radio about like the UK want to solve our health crisis by putting calories on a menu. And my argument is basically just that it's just not good enough. That's lazy. That's not gonna solve anything. It's gonna create obsession for some, and others might not be bothered by it, but you know, the art— it's about— to me, it's a band-aid. It's a way of trying to fix something that has so much more depth to it. What we need is, like, from the age of 4, instead of just learning fractions, we need to teach kids how to, like, deal with their emotions. And that, like, it's almost like that thing of instead of being like, don't cry, it's like, why are you crying? What do you feel? What's in there, right? And this isn't, you know, no one is, like, perfect in terms of— we're all learning. And I feel like right now like in— on this time, on this planet, there's like such a big comeuppance of this, of like we've got to stop kind of going in the old way, whether that's business, whether that's the way that we live, the way that we access our emotions. And we've got to stop band-aiding things. We have to be with the feelings, with the discomfort, with whatever is coming through. And I think it comes up massively because essentially people are using food and their bodies as a way to escape it. You know, the women I work with, some of them have had you know, like sexual harassment, abuse. Uh, some of them have been— had like neglect, childhood traumas. Others have been bullied. Some of them haven't had any of that and actually have grown up in quite a secure environment but have perfectionist tendencies or high achievers, right? Like, there's no one, um, person that, that kind of can, can deal with this stuff. But in all of them, yeah, there is a way to are trying to like escape their feelings. So when we do the work, we do a lot of work on like, what are you actually feeling? What is the emotion behind that? We do a lot of that inner child work as well, like what emotions feel safe versus what emotions feel unsafe for you. So I had a beautiful client, and for about 2 weeks she had a really tough time like emotionally wise. And I remember holding the space for her and thinking, you're in such deep healing right now. You're going to come out the other side and it's going to be amazing. But at that moment, she was like, this is horrible, I feel like crap, I'm so triggered, I feel weird of my body, like, what is going on? Sure enough, we went deep, we, we went in, we didn't bypass anything, and her relationship with her body is the best it has been in God knows how long because we went there and we didn't bypass it and we didn't just go, okay, no worries, let's just go back to the dieting and the things that you were covering up with. We like went in and we accessed the things that were really troubling her. And when we can do that, we don't need to take it out on our bodies anymore. We see it separate. Just because something awful happened to you, that doesn't need to be blamed through your body. Like, your body is not to blame for that, and your body and food cannot solve that. They are part of you and they're a separate thing, you know? Like, it's that saying of, even if you feel bad about your body today, you still need to eat. Like, you take care of yourself that way. So the inner work just shifts everything. It shifts everything, which is why all of these kind of Weight Watchers-type style things just— they just don't do that because they don't facilitate that process.

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Yeah. Something that came up for me when you were talking about that and just kind of accessing those memories of the, you know, the first time that you felt unsafe in your body or, you know, what's gone on for you in your life that has created or, you know, yielded you to use food and exercise and these things as the mechanism for you to kind of solve the real root of what happened is like thinking about— this was an exercise, I don't remember who taught this to me or where I got this from, but this was an exercise that I did once, and it was thinking about the first time that you ever viewed your body as being separate from who you are, like separate from part of your identity. Because when you think about it, when you're a kid, you don't think about there's me as in my personality, my intellect, my consciousness, and there's my body, which I want to fix and change and manipulate, right?

Right.

It's just I'm this whole thing, right? But then at some point, we start to view our body as being separate from ourselves. And that's, I think, why we're able to be so cruel to our bodies sometimes, not only with our words but also with our actions, because we've forgotten that it's part of us and that it's our home and that it's, you know, this, this piece of, of us that needs to be nourished and loved and taken care of. Like, we view it as this outside separate object that, you know, we need to pound to the dirt in order to make it look a certain way.

Yeah, you know, 100%.

Yeah, so viewing the— viewing your body as as part of yourself and choosing to look at it with more love, which I think is— I mean, I know is a practice. It's something that we have to do over and over and over again.

So important.

Yeah. And something that, something that you said on your Instagram was that you don't choose recovery once. And even if someone hasn't really experienced a full, you know, eating disorder It's kind of the same. You don't choose healing once, whatever that is, right? Whatever healing looks like.

Yeah. Yeah.

It would be like, okay, I'm done now.

No. And it's like, it's even what we talk about in our business mastermind. It's like launching is so triggering and so exposing and so vulnerable. And honestly, until I came into this mastermind, I was like, oh my God, I thought I was the only one that found this absolutely terrifying to put myself on a platter like that. So yeah, you do have to choose again and again. And, you know, just— I just wanted to refer back to something you said about the body there because it's so important. Is when you do this work again and again, and what you eventually start to realize is that it's impossible to hate your body and treat it badly when you genuinely learn to treat yourself properly, right? It's genuinely like really difficult to do that. So even if you're in a body that doesn't feel great to you the way that you treat it will be so different if you build that respectful, loving relationship. The way that you go about it will be so different because, look, not every woman that embarks on a diet or loses weight will get an eating disorder. A high proportion do, but not everyone does, right? So if someone that's in that loving and respectful place can— wants to move their body more and eat a bit differently, and they're doing it from a genuine place of this is empowering. This feels great. I am— this is my vessel and this is me. But they could also have the dessert if they want to and skip the gym day. That's amazing. Like, that is like the goals, right? Like, food freedom and body freedom is basically being able to do whatever you want because you know it feels best for you. There are no rules. It doesn't mean that you're going to just eat donuts all day, which I think most people feel like you just don't give a shit about your health and all. That's such garbage. When you truly have that relationship with yourself and your body in your body, your body, you respect it so much. You want to take care of it and you want to take care of you. So yeah, even if you do have to go through these, this healing and like keep going and it's not a straight line, you can eventually get there. And I think that that's just an amazing place to be. I feel like every person, woman, needs to, needs to not stop until they get there.

Yeah, I agree, I agree. Because when you were saying that, I was just thinking like I feel like I'm really in that place because I can recognize— it's not that like we don't have limiting beliefs or inner critical thoughts that ever come up, like of course we do, but my response to those is like so wildly different than what it was when I was, you know, a senior in college or whatever, you know. Like if I look in the mirror and I'm like, oh, not really looking how I wish that I was, Immediately, immediately, my like loving inner best friend comes through to talk to my inner critic and be like, don't talk to yourself like that. Like, you're so beautiful. Like, you're so worthy. You're so incredible. Like, think about all the things that your body does for you. Like, that's literally the voice that like happens in my, in my head, like on autopilot. And I think, you know, some, some women may be sitting in a place right now where they feel like that's so crazy and far away, and that's not what their inner voice sounds like at all. But you can definitely get there. Like you said, don't stop until you get there, you know. Get the support and the help and the healing that you need to get to a place where you have that loving, respectful relationship, and you can cultivate an inner voice that does come through to converse with your inner critic when your inner critic inevitably pops up.

100%. Yeah, couldn't agree more. It's the best place to be in.

Yeah. So speaking of cultivating this, you know, more loving, accepting, respecting relationship to ourselves, what do you think are the top things that really helped you in, in finding that, in cultivating that?

Yeah, so when I think about the flip with body— and I can do this for food and body image if you want— they were slightly different but also quite similar. I think the thing with food is, right, you eat it but you're not with it all the time. You have like breaks, right? With your body, with it all the time. So for food, it was a lot of unlearning and relearning. Unlearning that, you know, all the diet ads and stuff, like what, what they really mean and why they're really there and what they really want you to achieve. And actually learning what health is for myself and feeling empowered around my food choices and understanding the role of like different food groups and stuff can definitely help. But there also needs to be a kind of middle ground where you do do like food challenges and you're happy. Like, you know, Mel, who's our coach at the moment, talks about this in one of her books. Like, you have to have a period where you're just like, no rules, nothing, I'm just gonna go and be intuitive with it. And that's okay, and that can feel terrifying, but it's sometimes that's necessary because to get through that extreme part from like under-eating into like or just disordered eating in general into a more peaceful relationship. So yeah, just absolutely allowing yourself to explore with food and know that that's safe and that's okay. And then with your body, I remember literally thinking like, I remember looking in the mirror and thinking, I don't love you yet and I don't accept you yet, but I am committed to stop going to war with you every single day. And like, it was like a little kind of Tenya moment in that moment to make a choice to change how I was going to look at it. Because that changed so much. It changed my feelings of needing to look perfect if I went outside, right, or got dressed. It helped reduce, um, photo fear of like getting in photographs. It stopped me looking towards my body to try and micromanage, control everything I was feeling. And also the real big piece to it that I really work on with people is it's also a journey of getting to know yourself really well. And like what you kind of just said there, like bringing that best Brendan? What are you passionate about? What do you really care about on this earth that's far bigger than what you look like, than what your body currently looks like? Because when you start to do that and tap into that, your body image can't help but improve because your focus is elsewhere. And then eventually you look back towards it and you have this different relationship with yourself, and you get to look at your body that way too. So there has to be a conscious choice, right? And if I'm thinking about someone at the beginning, if you're listening to this, there has to be a choice around I've got to fix up all the things that I read and the things that I take in and the things I'm following. You've got to take responsibility for that, you know. If you find that you're comparing yourself loads to other women, you can definitely like reduce the time that you're looking at them. But you can also ask yourself like, well, what has their weight, looks, etc. got to do with me and my healing? Like, literally, what has it got to do with it? How can I focus on what it is portraying in me that I want to work on healing and feeling better in? Because I can tell you this now, like, I don't get triggered by other women and like what they look like in their bodies anymore, but I used to. I used to be angry at my friends for going on diets because I'd be like, you can't talk about that around me, you know that that's really hard for me. But when you do that work on yourself, it doesn't bother you because it's your journey and your body, and what other women choose to do will show up as is irrelevant to you, right? And that's a really nice place to be in as well, because body comparison can be super high. And if you find yourself doing it a lot, you can ask yourself, like, what do I really know about this woman? What do I really know about her other than her Instagram page, other than how she shows up? And how can I stop spending so much time there and spend some more time inside me and figuring out what's going on for me? So yeah, there are a few of the things that I would really recommend, um, if you're at the start of that journey and struggling.

Amazing. Yeah, let's unpack this a little bit because there's so much, there's so much in what you just said that's so good. So in terms of like the messaging that we all receive about food and, you know, I guess like diet culture, right, in general, if, you know, there's a woman listening that's maybe still in a space of, of thinking or believing or wondering if carbs are bad or sugar is bad or that you should only eat this type of food before noon or all these things that we learn, that we absorb, right? What should we really take from all of that? And should we just let it all go and be like, it's all bullshit?

You know what really came through there that I think is quite funny to ask yourself? Just be like, who said that? Like, actually ask yourself, like, who said that? Was it a dieting magazine? Was it someone on the news? Was it the public health system that I'm in? Was it my mum? Was it my friend? Like, where has that come from? First of all, like, acknowledge for you, because it's, it's so funny when we talk about this because it's like, I know what you mean by like the whole system, but we also have our own brains and our own hearts and our own responsibility to ourselves to choose what we take on, right? This past year has been like an ideological battlefield of like confliction, right? Conflicting opinions. So when it comes to this, like, think about the term like sugar is bad. Like, that's so black and white. It's so black and white. Sugar is in everything, and I don't mean this to like scare anyone, but like sugar's in fruit. Do you consider the fruits in sugars as bad as you do the fruits in a chocolate bar? Like, so unpick it a bit for yourself and actually say like, okay, maybe no, I don't actually like having an apple or some berries or whatever, um, doesn't feel as unsafe for me as having a chocolate bar. So it's like, okay, I know that. So what's next? So what feels unsafe about the chocolate bar? Um, it's, you know, it's full of sugar and it's unnatural sugars. Well, you know, to an extent, again, a lot of foods we eat are processed and doesn't kill you. Like is a chocolate bar a week or a bit of chocolate every day or whatever it is, is it going to kill you? Or is it maybe just going to satisfy a part of your hunger? Which, you know, if you're an intuitive eater, part of the 10 principles is like, um, desire, like satisfaction, and like allowing that through food. Like, it comes from like Japanese culture, I believe. So maybe it's just you tapping into that part of food. But you also know that if you have a really long day ahead, you're gonna want, I don't know, like something with like grains in it or whole wheat or porridge or like something that's gonna give you all that energy. So when you find yourself saying those black and white statements, actually unpick it for yourself and unpack it and actually ask like, well, what is this blanket statement doing for me? How is it useful? How is it not useful? And how can I start to look at food differently? Because look, If you ate broccoli all day long and nothing else, it's probably going to be like just as unhealthy if you did that with another food. Like, you're not going to just keep getting the same nutrients over and over again, and you're going to be so bored, um, and probably really hungry. So look at those statements and those rules that you have and start to unpack them for yourself and see where they don't really add up and how you can start to create a more useful belief from there.

Yeah, I love that idea of useful beliefs. I, I talk about this a lot in, in my own work in a different way, but it's the same, you know. It's like, is this belief serving me? Because I think that's something that people forget, is they— that they, they have the autonomy to choose their beliefs, right? All of us, we have different belief systems, we have a lot of shared beliefs, but at the end of the day, we get to train our brains as to what we believe. We get to choose. And so if you've forgotten that you have that choice, like, reclaim that and begin to choose again, you know. This is what I always say in terms of reframing beliefs to my clients, is when a, when a belief or a thought comes through that doesn't feel good to you because it feels like, you know, it's limiting for you, or it's negative, or it's going to draw you into some sort spiral, you just sit with yourself in the moment and you say, I forgive myself for thinking blank. I choose to believe that blank. And you just choose again. You just choose a new one.

You get to take your power back. And I think that's the thing, like, with food and with our bodies, we often, you know, we can often get into like a victim mindset and feel like we are completely out of control with our choices. Because of the overwhelming information. But you always get to choose again. You always get to— you know that if you need to come off Instagram for a day, you have the ability to do that. You're just not choosing that. So there definitely is an element here of like self-responsibility. What is it I truly desire, and what am I willing to do to get that?

And sometimes we need that like tough love, right, of, well, you have the option to move towards healing, but You're not really choosing it, right? Like, sometimes we just have to be— we have to be straight up with ourselves.

You do, you do. And it reminds me of the call that we had with Susie when, um, she was just talking about like tapping into our higher self. And I think that, yeah, something I'm really big on working with the women I work with is I'm getting them in back into that higher self because I really truly understand that I did not start in the place I'm in now, and I started from a very wounded victim mindset where I felt like I would never ever get better and I would never feel okay in myself. So if you are listening and thinking, that's easy for you to say, I really truly understand what it's like to like not be able to even look at yourself in a shop window without cringing. But it is also possible to move through all of that. You just have to be like so open and like be willing to, be willing to just visualize for a moment the, the person that is waiting for you at the other side, because they are, they're always there within you.

Yeah, that makes me so sad just thinking about, you know, the place that all of us women have likely been at some point in our journey of being so hard on ourselves and so unhappy with who we are and how we look. And it's like, for what? You know, for what? For what? Yeah, right. We're wasting so much of this like precious gift of life that we have by feeling stuck and then staying stuck, you know. Yeah, I think it's— I think it's, um, it's fine to be in a place and recognize that you're struggling, but you also have to like make the choice that you're ready to move into the healing and not to stay stuck.

And even just take that first step and and I know that that can often come with— it can come with costs, like financially, time-wise, energy, and it can come with working with someone, but you are gonna make that back in, like, life, joy, happiness, love for yourself, for others, 10 times over. And, like, the biggest investment you can ever make in yourself is your own happiness, health, well-being, and, like, not having that self-torture. So if you're listening and that first step is something on whatever level that is that you start out, or even if you just engage with more people online and, you know, all of that Like, the average woman wastes— and I say wastes— £25,000 a lifetime on dieting. Like, that's legit like a small mortgage, or like a really, really, really, really great trip, or like a great car. Like, that's the price that you're paying in money, you know, mind time and everything else. So even if that first step does mean you need that support, we've all needed it at some point, so there's no shame in that. There is so much strength in that. And I just want anyone listening to know that there is so much strength in getting help and support.

Totally. Yeah, it takes a lot of courage to reach out and be ready and to choose yourself, right? And to choose that, choose that next level for your life and for your own acceptance. So yeah, I mean, and I was just thinking about when you said that, like, all the things that— because, you know, I think some people undervalue what it would be like for them to live in a mindset and in a body that they can accept and love, right? It's like, what is the ROI on investing in myself and fixing this? Yeah, you know, so I'll have you kind of talk about like the ROI for you, like what has changed, because I was like, it changes relationships, it changes your sex life, it change— it changes everything, so many areas, right? So like, what are some things that come up for you when you think about what has been the return on investment in reaching this place of body acceptance?

I mean, I was literally asexual. Like, if you want to talk about— like, I had no sexuality at one point. Like, I was fully asexual when I was anorexic. Like, I had no feels whatsoever. I had no periods. Like, nothing was going on there for me. So yeah, like, I literally gained my own sexuality back and my confidence and joy and life and relationships, not just like romantically. Like, yes, my first romantic relationship, which was not until I was 19. It took that long for me to really go on that journey, um, and accept myself. Um, but even friendships, the ability to like do stuff I loved at school. Like, I couldn't have done drama and acting, which I loved back then, if I hadn't gone on this journey. I could not be living the life I am now if I wasn't on this journey. I wouldn't be able to wake up in the morning in the same way, wear the clothes that I wear in the same way, talk to people in the same way. I'm currently living in a space where we have a communal garden and a communal pool, which is so random, and it's in the middle of London. Like, going out there with all those people with the body image thoughts I used to have would be hell. Summer was hell. Um, my business, like, my life freedom comes from my recovery. Like, it literally comes from that. Like, I It's kind of like, you know, like before Christ, after Christ. I feel like I had like a before anorexia and an after anorexia. I'm not like, you know, I did grow up Catholic, so I'm not like, you know, using that as a pun. But, um, it literally feels like that. It feels like it was meant to happen, but everything I have learned since has allowed me to flourish and just step into an entire new person. And I couldn't do any of the things that I've ever done work, study, life, relationships, any of those things without recovering. So if you think you can just get by with that kind of half loving or half awful relationship with yourself, I guarantee it will keep interrupting everything until you are willing to do that work on yourself, because then your mind and your heart and everything, you know, is free to just enjoy and find the freedom and everything else.

Yeah, so true. I couldn't agree more. And speaking of, you know, you mentioned the pool and summer. So obviously we're moving into summer, right? And this can be a really obviously triggering time for people that struggle with, with body image. So how— for someone that may be, you know, currently living in a version of their body that they don't fully love or they don't fully accept or they don't fully feel safe in yet, like, how can they take back the joy of things like summer right now, even if they're not like at the place of being like, I've, you know, healed so much, if they're just starting out?

So some small practical things you can try are things like, like literally, like, what are you wearing that makes you feel comfortable? Who are you spending your time with? Like, what can you do, even if it does mean that you have to go outside and you're a little bit more covered up than you'd like to be? Like, how can you start engaging in experiences that you don't want to miss out on with where you're at. Like, if you're going out with your friends, almost like, can you have like a buddy that knows how you're feeling, that knows that you're feeling self-conscious, just to talk to during the night, have there to like, you know, like be in that space and share that support with. But I'd love you to try this exercise that I get a lot of people to do, and it's that I want you to think of yourself in 5 years' time from now, or as an old lady could be even more powerful, like, and think back to this moment, like literally think back to this moment What are you gonna feel like knowing that you did or didn't spend your time enjoying your life in the summer that we've had? Especially after the fact that we have just come out of, like, you know, depending on where you are in the world, like, in and out of lockdowns, all of that stuff. Like, life is short and precious. And do you want to be looking back and think, I didn't go outside because I was worried my thighs looked too big in those shorts? Or do you want to look back and think I know that I really struggle with my body image then, but I'm so glad I enjoyed those experiences with those around me. So if you're really struggling and you're finding it hard to shake, that's a more powerful exercise, I think, to get you into the now. But otherwise, those first few things around like immediate safety in your body now can also really help.

Yeah, amazing, beautiful. I love that. I know there's so many people listening that are going to do that exercise and try to get themselves out of their comfort zones and do stuff this summer that maybe they're hesitant about.

For sure. Like, like business planning.

Yes, yes. So just to wrap up, final last thing. I love this question because it's, uh, like a practice that I adopted in my own journey was kind of like speaking to my body, right? Or writing love notes to my body. I'll do that sometimes on Instagram. I'll write like a love letter to my body. So if you could tell your body anything, what would it be?

I'm sorry I didn't listen to you, and you've always just been like beautiful, perfect, and amazing as you are. And like, thank you for keeping me around because you, you house my organs and shit. Like, you're keeping me alive, you know? So like, thank you. Thank you, and I'm sorry I haven't always been so kind to you. I'm excited for more adventures.

Yeah, I love that. It's so true. Our bodies do so much for us, like, that we don't even— that we can't even fathom, you know? Like, what are your cells doing right now? I don't know, but they're regenerating some shit. Like, your body is working for you all the time, in all moments of life. Like, in any time that you felt so down or struggling, or at the peak moments of joy and love and happiness. Like, your body has always been there for you, providing everything that you need. So if you can just create a little bit of gratitude, and maybe even for everybody listening, like, what would you say to your body? What do you want to say to your body? You know, I love that.

And start saying it every day. Start saying it, start believing it, start stepping into it, and for sure it will change for you.

Yeah, amazing. Okay, well, thank you so much, Laura, for coming on. For everybody that wants to get connected with you and learn all about the work that you do and slide into your DMs and all those things, let them know where they can find you and how they can work with you.

Yeah, amazing. So Instagram, I've recently changed it. It used to be phelanwell.com, um, which is my surname, P-H-E-L-A-N, but it's now @thisislauraphelan. So that's me over on the gram. And you can probably find me through Sam's as well. Um, and then I've got my website, which is feelingwell.com. And yeah, like, probably those two places. Instagram's like where I announce everything. I've got a newsletter you can join if you want to like access my community and have like support that way, um, like free advice. And then you can also find like applications to work with me one-to-one, any upcoming programs. Yeah, I'll be birthing some new things in the few months. So yeah, keep an eye there. And I'm always releasing like topics and posts and things to support you around this, so that's probably the best place for you to get a feel for, for what I do.

Yeah, amazing. And I'm going to link, uh, Laura's Instagram and her website in the show notes for you guys. So if you're interested in connecting with her, all you have to do is scroll down and just click those links. So go ahead and give her a follow. She is absolutely incredible, as you know from listening to this episode. The work that she does is So incredibly important and so healing. Thank you so, so much for coming on. It has been such a pleasure. Sending you so much love. Thank you for doing this with me. So welcome.

Bye.

Bye, guys.