Hey, I’m Katie Harvey, a non diet dietitian. If you’ve spent years battling food and your body, I’m here to show you the path to healing  here on the rebuilding trust with your body podcast. I teach you how to find your own freedom with food through tools, strategies, mindset shifts, and heartfelt discussions around what it means to make peace with food and your body while still existing in diet culture. 

I believe that all bodies deserve respect. And that health is so much more than a number on the scale. It’s about connecting with our true selves and learning that our relationship with food is more important than the food itself.  So if you’re ready to discover the freedom of rebuilding trust with your body, grab a seat and maybe a snack and let’s do this. 

Welcome to another episode of rebuilding trust with your body. It’s Katie here and you are in for a treat today. I am bringing on a special guest and we are going to talk about something called body peace and ending the war with food and with your body. And I think you are going to really love this conversation because my guest today is such a wise heart centered soul.

And she has this really deep and profound way of looking at the relationship we have with our bodies. But she also had these, has these really practical and tangible tips that she shares. And so I cannot wait for you to hear this. My guest’s name is Nina Manelson. Nina is a body piece coach and she helps people end the war with food and body and finally feel truly at home in their body as it is.

She is known for her deeply feminist, anti diet body piece approach. She brings her 30 years of experience as a therapist, a nationally board certified health and wellness coach, a body trust guide, and a psychology of eating teacher to helping women create a respectful and trusting relationship with food and their body.

So without further ado, Let’s get into my conversation with Neena. Neena, welcome to the show. I’m so glad that you’re here.  I am delighted to be here, Katie. Thank you. Yeah. I think this is going to be really a very powerful conversation here and, and my hope is that it, it gives people some things to think about that maybe they hadn’t considered before or they hadn’t heard it that way before.

So  before we dig into all of it, let’s give a little more context, like tell us about yourself and. Why do you do the work that you do? How did you come to do this work? How did you become a body piece coach? Like give us the backstory. Yeah. So I would say  that I became a body piece coach because it found me.

I didn’t become a body piece coach. I literally evolved into being a body piece coach because it became a professional and personal journey because I was an expert at the body wars. I was an expert at looking in the mirror and hating what I saw. I was an expert at walking into a room and comparing myself.

to every other woman in the room.  I was an expert at eating something and then going,  shouldn’t have eaten that. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go on a diet. Maybe Monday. Well, this didn’t work. So let me try again. Oh, this is the new diet. Let’s go on that. Let me enlist all my friends and we’ll all go on a diet together.

I was so deep  in the chaos and that war and the self hatred and the body shape that I was like, you know what, this has got to change. And so I started working on myself very young  to change these dynamics and that eventually led me not just on a personal journey of healing, but also a professional journey of becoming a therapist and studying nutrition and studying psychology of eating and body trust work.

And all of that ended up kind of circling together to evolve into what I call body peace and trademarked as body peace because it feels like the essence. Um, of the kind of relationship that we really want with our body and that’s how I became a body piece coach. That’s incredible. And I feel like such a good blend of things and, and your training and the way it all does come together in such a, a great package, so to speak, for, for what it is that you do and what body piece entails.

So let’s.  Let’s talk about body piece. How would you define it or describe it? Like what does that mean to you? So I often find that it’s easier to describe what body piece is by saying what it isn’t, right? It’s not looking in the mirror and hating ourselves. It’s not looking in the mirror and calling ourselves mean names.

It’s not, as I described before, walking into a room and comparing our body to everybody else’s. It’s not wondering Sunday night what diet you’re going to go on on Monday. It’s not all that turmoil of I don’t feel at home in my body.  So body peace is conversely feeling at home in your body. It’s not body perfection.

It’s not about getting to this place like a gymnast, you know, and landing the, sticking the landing of like, ta da, and now I have the body I always wanted and now we’re going to stay here forever.  Body piece is a practice of being in a relationship with your body that feels like, Oh, this is a good relationship.

I could do this for a long time. And just like any relationship, this will evolve, this will change. And you know what? I have practice of body peace and navigate my body as it ages and changes and moves through my lifetime.  Yeah. And as you were saying the thing about like the gymnast, like, okay, I’ve achieved the body I want and therefore I have peace with it. 

I feel like it’s such good imagery in part because it’s like, we’re, you know.  Olympics are top of mind right now. But what I was also thinking about is how that’s kind of a house of cards, if that’s the way we’re relating to our bodies, because our bodies will change. So even if you achieved whatever the body of your dreams is, it’s, your body’s going to change because bodies change as we get older.

Yeah, I like that. The, the relationship concept. I love that.  There’s one other thing, Katie, when you said that, you know, really focusing on how we decide, like, we’re going to stay there. My favorite example of this is when people post before and after pictures.  I’m like, Oh yeah. And now that after pictures, it’s like they’re saying, see, this is the body.

Now I have achieved it. Don’t I get the gold star on my forehead and the metal around my neck and I will stay there forever. But really normally what we’re seeing in somebody’s before and after pictures. It’s a moment of weight cycling in their life because likely most dieters have gone on many, many diets because 95 percent of diets fail in two to five years and people gain their weight if back, if not more weight than before they started dieting.

So most dieters have gone through a lot of weight cycling in their life and so they’re choosing. This is my before, this is my after and see,  now I stay. And what you’re actually seeing is a moment in time in that cycle of up and down and up and down. And then what happens when people, and this is my PSA to people, please don’t post before and after pictures because what people do is go, Oh,  look, she lost all that weight.

Maybe I should do that. Maybe I should start on another diet. Maybe I should be hating my body because I don’t look like that.  And we’ve perpetuated. the compare and despair dynamic in our culture that is based on fat phobia and diet culture. I think that that is something not talked about enough, is the way that those types of photos impact others.

Yes. And yeah. Yeah. The, the way that it, it may be leading others to think that way or feel that they need to do the same. Yeah. Well, not just photos, right? When people want, you know, your well meaning aunt, mother, grandmother, sister who walks in and goes, Oh my God, you look so great, you’ve lost weight.  Okay.

So problematic on so many levels  and worth breaking down, right? One is, is this really the most important thing about me?  That I’ve lost weight.  And what did you think of me before you said that? And what are you saying to all the little girls and boys around who are listening that the first thing someone says to you is, Oh, you lost weight as though that’s important and everybody should be striving. 

Again, another one of my PSAs, please don’t comment on people’s weights. Yeah. And it’s become such a normalized way of greeting each other in our society that I think sometimes people are like, okay, I’m going to try not to say that anymore. But then they, they see their friend or, you know, someone they haven’t seen in a while and it’s, it just like pours out of their mouth before they realize it or they don’t know what else to say. 

So that’s a great question. Like, what else do we say? Right. So there’s a, there’s many things. Even if you want to, even if you feel like it’s necessary to comment on how somebody looks, you can say, wow, you’re radiant or you’re glowing or, oh, it’s so nice to see you. That’s all. That moves it right away from how you look  to the relationship.

It’s so nice to see you. I’m so glad to be with you.  Right? Tell me about your life.  Right? Not, Oh my God, you lost, wait, what did you do? That’s not part of their life. That’s part of their body management system.  Yeah. And it, yeah, it ends up becoming kind of a shallow conversation that doesn’t really tell you about how they are or what’s going on in their life.

It doesn’t create connection. It actually creates disconnection. Mm hmm.  That’s such an important point. And again, it’s just something like we’re all so accustomed to doing it because it’s the culture we live in.  Yes. So, yeah, I feel like And that’s so important to say. It’s the culture we live in. It’s the air we breathe.

It’s the, the water we’re swimming in is full of this toxic  messaging around that our bodies are not good enough the way they are.  And that’s painful. And we don’t really want to live in that, and we certainly don’t want to perpetuate it to the next generation of young people who then get to grow up and feel bad about themselves and then buy into the 72 billion diet industry to try to change themselves. 

Yeah. It gets passed on just so inadvertently and so easily.  What would you say? Because I would imagine that there are a lot of people listening to this who like the idea of having peace with their body. But they are still hung up on  feeling as though they can’t have it until they lose weight. Like, there’s just, there’s no way I can have peace with my body as it is right now.

What would you say to those people? Yeah. I love that. Cause I’ve, many clients say, well, you know, I like the idea. I want to feel at home with my body, but when I get  thinner, when I lose, then I can love my body. Right? So basically we’re talking about conditional love.  If you’re a good girl, then you will get dessert.

If you are a good boy, then you get the gold star. If my body behaves just the way I want it to behave and I restrict food and it loses weight just the way I want, then it, then my body gets love.  Ouch. First of all, super painful. Second of all, the first thing I would say is, of course, I, I totally understand why you would feel that way, right?

Given what we just talked about, Katie, we’re swimming in a sea of you should be in a small body. The only way, what I call like winning, the only way to win love, money, success, all the gold stars of the world is if you are thin and beautiful and look like some influencer that you’ve decided is the epitome of  whatever success looks like to you.

Right? Of course.  Of course you would feel like that. You are not deserving of love, your own attention, your own care, until you have achieved this completely unrealistic expectation of what a body should look like.  So I would start there and unpack how,  how did you get this idea that only small, perfectly toned bodies are deserving of love? 

How did you learn that? Did you get it from your mom, your gym teacher? Was there a sense that unless you were like super cute and had just the right clothes and the right handbag and the right abs, then then you were never going to have love?  What was the messaging? We have to, and  how you decided that you were not valuable unless you were thin. 

Yeah. And it’s, I mean, I kind of get chills thinking about that because to really ask ourselves that question,  you know, where did that belief system come from? I mean, that can be. Really painful, pretty profound.  There probably are people that you can think of in your life, not to mention just the culture around us, but like specific people in our lives that really send us that message.

Yeah. And I can tell you, not in any,  with absolutely zero malice, my mom took me to Weight Watchers when I was nine years old.  It was just the thing. Oh, this is what we do. Don’t we want to be healthy? Yeah. Great. Now the reality is at nine years old, my body was filling up because I was about to go into puberty.

That is normal for girls to gain a bunch of weight before they puberty. Our body needs that. As we’re moving through that developmental stage, in the same way that as we’re moving out of fertility,  our bodies are going to change. And those two times, Margot Main, who’s a doctor who’s studied. Love Margot.

Yes. So she talks about from her research, there are two very vulnerable times in a woman’s life. Where she’s vulnerable to disordered eating and eating disorders. And one is moving into fertility. That’s that. I was nine years old. I was about to come into, you know, that time of getting my period. And when we’re moving out of fertility, perimenopause, menopause, there’s so many changes and our culture is saying, no, no, you should not be changing your body.

That’s not okay. Let’s control that. Let’s restrict your food. And so my mom was like, Oh, you know what? You’re getting big. Let’s go to Weight Watchers together. That’ll be fun.  But what did it teach me?  My body was not okay the way it was. Yeah. And yeah, it’s that thing where I’m sure she was just probably trying to help protect you from painful things she had been through with her weight and her body.

A hundred percent. Yeah. A hundred percent. My mom, who’s 92 now, looks back at pictures and says, I cannot believe I thought I was fat.  I cannot believe that I gave myself such a hard time.  It was a hundred percent. I don’t want you to feel the way I felt. Let’s go fix that problem right now,  but it set me up. 

And yeah, I mean, what you were talking about with the body changes in puberty, it’s why historically we’ve always thought of eating disorders and disorder eating as teenage girl problems. It  But I’m hearing more and more. There’s so many more conversations happening around perimenopause and menopause.

And not just from like clients and people who are struggling with their body changes, but also I’ve noticed a lot more just on social media and world around us, the  kind of preying on women who are in that phase of life of, you know, here’s your flat belly reset Whatever plan, you know, there’s all this stuff that’s trying to literally go against your biology and, and not even appreciating, well, why would our body be doing this?

There’s probably good reasons. Yup. Yes. Exactly. And this idea that we are  still being objectified as though we’re some commodity. The idea that we’re objectified at any age is terrible. And as we’re growing from, from this sort of what’s in a archetypal psychology you would call that princess stage, what do you think of me, right?

How do you perceive me? And my identity is based on your worth. And we move into queen stage in our forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, and we’re getting more into crone stage. But that queen stage is, I know who I am. I don’t need you to validate me. I have my own inner wisdom and that audacity that at that stage of our life, when our normal  development is to know our own worth so deeply, and to be sharing it with the world that our culture is telling us, no, your body’s not okay, and you still have to hustle for worthiness.

That’s a Brene Brown thing. And you still have to hustle to have the body that you had before kids or before menopause or before you had fertility issues or before surgery or illnesses  that you’re supposed to have still an idealized movie star  body that looks like, I don’t know, Demi Moore or whoever it is is, you know, the latest  older.

It’s a star that looks all, you know, perfectly toned and tiny.  It’s ridiculous.  Absolutely. Yeah.  And insulting, I think.  Mm hmm. True. So true. Yeah.  It really is. Yeah. When we think about the message behind it and what we’re being told, yeah, it’s insulting.  We’re being devalued. Yeah. It’s like, hello? My value has nothing to do with you.

With my body, my body is valuable to me because it gets me places. And I would like to be agile. I would like to feel strong. I would like to feel energetic,  but my body is not the. object that gives me worth out in the world, right? By the time we’re 40, 50, 60, we know what we’re here to do. And that’s our job is to go do it.

And I ended up working with a lot of women in that age group who feel diminished because of their body and are not out there giving the world their gifts because they’re feeling bad about themselves and they’re spending their time  obsessing about their body and obsessing about what they just ate and spending all their time.

And that’s really what got me out and into deep healing was like, really, I am exhausted. And frankly, a little bit like bored by the endless, Oh, I’m not good enough. I’m not good enough. I’m not good enough.  We are good. And for some of us that have food and body issues, have to look at our relationship with our food and body in order to break free of the not good enough. 

Amen to that, yeah.  What would you say, I’m really curious when you’re working with clients, what are some of the biggest challenges and struggles that they’re having throughout the process? And so they come to you and they want to work on this, like what’s tripping them up along the way? Yeah.  I would say  doing this work of healing your relationship with your body,  it’s work, it’s hard work.

We have to look at our stuff, we have to look at our beliefs, we have to look at the places we’ve been hurt.  And that is a process. And so one of the things that trips me up is  it’s been a month and I’m not changing,  right? Is our impatience. We’ve been sold for our whole life, you know, the quick start method,  you know, just do this and this and this for three weeks and you, and let me tell you, I was totally bought into that when I first started coaching.

I was like my 21 day program, my 28 day program. And I was like, this whole thing of like, yes, we can change things right away. But the reality is, is we can’t do the deep, actual how we talk to our body change in 21 days. That’s a process of healing.  So part of coming to this work is really being patient with oneself and allowing ourselves to develop practice.

Practice with our body.  Practice of connection, of relationship with self.  That’s a really beautiful way to think about it. Do you have any tips for how does one practice that? Like, what does that look like in action? Yeah. So, one of my very favorite, like, beginner beginner exercises is, let’s do it together, so, Katie, I love doing it.

I like do it all the time.  So, put your hand on your heart,  close your eyes,  and whisper these words in.  Hello, body. 

You can do it once, you can do it a million times,  and what do you notice when you do this?  For me, it’s an immediate kind of quieting internally to listen to how my body wants to respond and, and kind of a softening and  a curiosity.  That’s it, right? There’s so many things you said there, curiosity, a softening, a listening. 

Isn’t that what we want in every relationship?  Right? How are you? Really? How are you? Tell me. I’m curious. I’m coming in soft. I’m really listening to you.  So those two words really are the beginning.  Any relationship, right? You and I started talking. I was like, Hi, Katie. That’s how we start every conversation.

And so why should the conversation with our body be any different?  So it’s hello body.  And that  practice is just to say that  then what happens after is gets really juicy because sometimes you can say hello body and your body’s like, seriously, you’re going to talk to me. You haven’t talked to me in a month.

I’m pissed.  Fair. Okay. That’s interesting. Sometimes you put your head on your head and go hello body and your body’s like, I’m starving. You put me on this ridiculous, like don’t eat between this and this hour and I’m just hungry. Okay. Okay. Right? Sometimes we put our hand on our hello body and our body’s like, Oh,  so happy to be alive and to be in our body.

It could be a million different things. We are a human being. We are complex, but starting the conversation with yourself because the relationship with your body is the most important relationship we have. It is the longest relationship we have. We’re born into this body. We will die in this body. This is where it’s at.

So when we can feel like we’re really Tuning in, listening, respecting, being curious, being compassionate, being caring, then we’re practicing BOD.  Mm. That’s amazing. And something that, I mean, all of us could practice every single day, multiple times a day if we wanted to. Mm hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. And it’s very powerful.

If, if mealtime is a little bit like, wow, for you,  or you end, or somebody who ends up eating in the car, or you end up, uh, end up being somebody who.  You know, is eating like in front of your computer. If you’re somebody who does late night eating, any of the unwanted eating behaviors is just start before.

Oh, okay. Hello, body. Just to notice, Oh, I’m about to eat and the food is going where? Oh, in my body. How about  start the conversation? Because more often than not, we’re shutting down the conversation. Oh, I’m tired. I don’t want to hear that. Have some coffee. Oh, I’m, you know, hungry, uh, just have a protein bar, move on,  right?

Often we’re shutting down the conversation with our body. What we want is to be opening the conversation and creating a dialogue so our body is very clear about her needs and then we get clear about how to respond to her with respect.  Oh, yes. And I think that that word respect is really important. 

Cause sometimes it’s like, Oh, my body is telling me that I’m tired. That’s ridiculous. I shouldn’t be tired. You know, I should  power through, you know, like we don’t want to hear what our body is saying sometimes. Absolutely. That’s such a good point, right? Like that. Oh, you’re not tired. Look, you slept last night.

What’s your problem? Move along. And that’s where, so one of the things that’s developed in my work is I’ve created this body piece map.  It’s really talks about different relationships that we have with our body and you can get more about that on my website. There’s a free masterclass all about the body piece map  and one of the planes of relationships we need desperately it with our body is body compassion. 

And so when we’re in that, like you’re not tired,  right? To be able to zoom out and go, Oh, you know what? You just had a really intense meeting with so and so in that. You know, maybe it wasn’t physically tiring, but you’re emotionally really drained, right?  Right? A little compassion coming to ourselves with that sense of zooming out instead of like push on through. 

Yeah. Incredible. Incredible. And we can link that. You said it’s a masterclass. Yeah. Yeah. We can link that in the show notes. Yes. Absolutely. I love that.  Let’s do a practical example. I feel like you’re good at giving these really, like, practical real life things. Okay. Imagine that somebody’s getting dressed and they’re putting on a pair of pants they haven’t worn in a while and they’re too snug.

Like they don’t want to go over their thighs or they won’t button or they’re just really tight  and cue the shame spiral.  What can they do in a moment like that?  Yes. I love this. So first of all, I want to say many people open their closet even before they put something on and their closet is yelling at them. 

And if that’s you, if you are somebody who opens your closet and the entire closet is yelling, um, Okay. You’re not small enough. You won’t fit in everything. This whole side is not for you. You have to go to the other side of the closet and you’re hanging on to four different sizes and shaming yourself no matter where you are unless you’re on one end. 

Change your closet.  It’s not you.  It’s your closet. What should be in your closet  are clothes that fit you  and that make you feel good and that give you a sense of self worth. I’m going to give you an expression for the day and give you a sense of feeling like, you know, it’s fun to be in a body. I get to wear fun stuff, right?

I get to adorn myself the way that suits my sense of being. So that’s the first thing is notice, what’s your relationship with your closet?  Because if your closet is yelling,  that’s a toxic relationship. Who wants to be yelled at every morning? Nobody.  Right. So. Yeah. Right. So let’s change the closet. You may need help with that.

And this is totally a thing that people do, you know. I think a lot of us have multiple sizes in our closet. And then those, I always talk about how like the smaller ones are kind of haunting you in there. It’s like little ghosts.  Yes.  Yeah. Even if you can’t do like a big closet clean out. So in our house we have what’s called the Adios box.

Literally like a box, like a paper, you know, a cardboard box that came in the mail that we just wrote in big Sharpie, Adios. And when my kids were in big growth spurts, we put the adios box and I will sometimes keep an adios box. You open your closet, this, that’s yelling at me, adios,  adios. And if you’re not willing to get rid of everything, great.

It’s a giveaway box, but it’s basically, it’s out of my life. I don’t want that. That piece of clothing is not supportive to me.  The things in our closet should be supportive. Okay. Okay. Okay. So that’s the, even before you try anything on, it’s a real thing to what the relationship is between you and your closet.

So that’s step one. Step two, now you’re trying something on and it’s snuck.  The first thing is to what I call speak your state. Ouch,  ouch. I, oh, this feels bad, right?  We want to speak our state because the default is  I’m bad.  We default to our body is the problem. We default to, we are wrong. We default to the shame spiral.

Like you said, Katie. Okay.  And so the first stop is to acknowledge, Oh, I’m having a feeling,  I am having feelings about this, right? Because the shame spiral is a way to avoid what I’m feeling and instead go somewhere very familiar, which is I hate my body. My body is bad. I should go on a diet. Even though those, those are feelings  and they’re terrible feelings to feel.

They’re familiar. We know them well.  And so they’re easier to feel than, Oh, I’m really disappointed.  You know, I thought I ate in this way that was going to make my body smaller and these genes, they still don’t,  and I’m disappointed when  I’m having a hard time feeling good in my body.  Acknowledging the sadness, maybe acknowledging the disappointment, maybe acknowledging maybe the anger, right?

I’m so mad this week was so stressful and the only way I knew how to cope was to eat all day. And now I freaking can’t fit into my jeans. Well, be angry that the week was so stressful and that your only coping was eating,  but you are not the problem. Your body is not.  Then once you’ve spoken your state,  the next piece is  opening that door to self compassion.

And if you have no idea and nothing comes to mind and you’re like, I have nothing good to say to myself at all.  The classic way to open the door for self compassion is what would I say to a friend,  right? That’s the classic. What would I say to a friend? Oh, that’s a bummer. Those don’t fit. Maybe you want to put those in the Adios box. 

Jane,  you’re really disappointed. I know you really love those jeans. And I know you wish you could fit into them, and I’m sorry.  This is hard,  right? Self compassion.  It’s so hard in those moments. It is. It is. Yeah. I love that. What would you, what would you say to a friend? Because it comes to us so instinctually when we think of it that way.

Completely. It’s so easy because we know how to be gracious, how to be supportive, how to be a friend that just understands that sometimes there’s moments of suffering  and to even acknowledge, wow, you’re suffering. And I really get that you’re suffering  because there’s an expectation that your body should be different than it is. 

And that’s a bummer that you were ever led to believe that your body should be different than it is.  That’s so powerful. Yeah. And I hope that, that people are maybe writing some of this down, like, or taking a quick note in their phone, or maybe come back to this because these are the types of reminders that we need.

And we’re going to probably need to be reminded multiple times because we’re countering so many negative thoughts that we’ve had about our bodies. Yeah.  You, you kind of touched on this or, or sort of referenced it a moment ago, and I want to dig in a little more here. You talked about  sometimes when we might be eating as a way to cope with feelings.

And so  let’s talk a little bit about emotion regulation. And I know that you love working with people who have ADHD or highly sensitive individuals. And so I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Talk to us about emotion regulation. Yeah. Absolutely. You know how we talked about like we’re having a relationship with our body, we’re having a relationship with our food, we’re having a relationship with our closets, right?

We’re also having a relationship with our nervous system.  We’re also having a relationship with our brain.  So I’m going to give you an example. I had a client,  had little kids, sort of school age kids, and she was really struggling. She was like, you know, by the time we do dinner and I can barely get dinner on and then there’s homework and then, and then there’s bedtime and then.

And then everybody finally gets to bed and I just sit on the sofa and I just,  so we talked. She was both highly sensitive and had ADHD. The thing is she didn’t actually know she had ADHD. So part of it was to, um,  you know, how is that executive functioning your way through an evening with kids? Get them home from school, get them a snack, get them dinner, get the homework done, get them bath and bed, right?

That’s a lot of executive functioning.  And she was like, just too much. I have three kids, everybody’s doing all these things. It’s I’m exhausted,  right? For some people, executive functioning their way through all those things, like no big deal. You eat, blah, blah, blah. With someone who’s ADHD, it’s a lot of  mental load  to support a family through a cycle of an evening. 

And so one was to acknowledge this is hard for you.  This takes a lot of energy.  And at the end of the night, you’re like, I’m depleted and I need regulating because I am completely dysregulated by the time I’m done.  And so I sit on the sofa and eat and watch TV.  And first we want to acknowledge, great, you’re coping. 

It may not be the most supportive coping system, but you found a way to cope, TV and food. It  doesn’t feel great. Not necessarily the worst thing. Yeah. Not necessarily. Right. Real quick, just to pause,  how would someone know if they are emotionally dysregulated?  Okay. So a couple of things. One is some, people feel it differently, right?

Literally some people feel a buzz in their body.  They’re like, like literally feels like a pulsing. Some people, their mind is racing.  Some people are futurizing a lot, like, okay, well then this is going to happen, this is going to happen. What if, what if this, if this little bit catastrophizing? Some people are replaying,  Oh, I shouldn’t have said this.

I should have said that. I should have. What about this? Right? So some people have a body experience of dysregulation. Some people have a brain experience of dysregulation. Some people, I, when I’m dysregulated, I’m suddenly like, why am I scrolling? I’m literally not even reading anything. I am only doing the action of scrolling. 

I’m like, what am I even, Oh,  I’m dysregulated. And how am I trying to regulate myself? With the phone,  right?  So if you need to watch, you know, a show to regulate, great. So sometimes I’m like, you know what? Just watch. Like I love Great British Bake Off or like cooking shows that are not stressful, not competition.

I love things that like I know at the end, you know, it’s going to happen. They’re going to end up with a cake. And that’s pretty much the entire plot. So, for me, I find that deeply relaxing. You need regulation,  go watch a show. You need regulation, get in water. For me, water is everything. I am a swimmer, drink water, take a bath, take a shower, put my feet in a soak.

Just get me in water and I will be regulated.  Right? So, We need to tune into, it’s a great question, Katie, what does dysregulation feel like? And it’s so important to notice what is that for you?  Because we’re all a little different,  right? For some people who are highly sensitive people feeling dysregulated is, I think they hate me.

Maybe, what did I say? Did I say something wrong? Maybe they really hate me. And we get, they get into the rejection dysphoria syndrome, right? Like, oh my gosh, I’m the worst. They, um, nobody likes me. Everybody hates me. That’s being dysregulated also. Right? ADHD people do it. So do people who are highly sensitive do that. 

So what does that sense of being,  to use a less clinical term, off kilter  feel like? And to be able to really notice  and go, Oh, I’m really dysregulated right now.  Yeah. Sometimes I’ll say to my husband. The, the way I know I am is I will say, I feel like my nervous system is like on fire. Like I’m, it’s kind of that buzzing thing you were talking about.

And I’m just, I’ve got all this energy and I, nothing feels right. And I just sort of feel  yeah, off kilter. And for me, it’s a very like body based thing. Yes.  And so to be able to go, Oh, there it is.  And then, and that’s being in relationship with your body, right?  A practice, a body piece, oh, that’s my state right now,  what do I need,  right?

Just like if you saw a little kid bouncing off the walls, you’d be like, honey,  how can I tell,  how about we go for a walk, how about we get in a bath, how about we jump on the trampoline, what do you need,  right? It’s that, yeah, kind conversation.  Yes. Yeah. Sometimes with my kids, I’ll say like, okay, we need to change the energy in here.

Like we need to go do something different than what we are currently doing  and just see if that will kind of shift thing and help everybody sort of regulate. And I hadn’t thought about that till now, but we can do that as adults too. Absolutely. I love the water tip. Like you said, drink the water, get in the water, take a shower.

Like I love that.  Yeah. For me, that’s  everything. And I swear most days.  And I just, like, I get in the water, my dad, I grew up in Montreal and we would, North of Montreal, there’s a lot of little lakes and we had a little tiny cottage on one of those lakes. And my dad in the summers would come up, walk into the house with his suit,  drop  his suit, put on a bathrobe, walk down to the lake and you could hear it for like a solid half hour.

Like him, like plowing, you could hear his strokes. And he would come back up, he hadn’t said a word,  since he, like, no hello, no nothing, stressful job,  come back in, and he’d be like, I left all my problems at the bottom.  And I always think about that when I’m swimming, because my mind, it lets everything unwind.

It lets my body unwind. It lets my brain unwind. It lets, I’m in flow, I’m literally buoyant.  And all  stuff drops to the bottom of the ocean. Lake or pond or pool or wherever I am.  That’s beautiful. Yeah. And we all need a practice that regulates us. Yeah. Right. Absolutely. People think of movement as like, I got to exercise, but I really think movement can be more of how do I regulate myself, what do I enjoy that lets me kind of wring my body out a little bit like a sponge so that I’m like,  and shift out of like home exercising and then I’m going to get strong and then I’m going to have this body that I’m supposed to have.

Absolutely.  No, our bodies are designed to move and the movement itself helps us regulate our system.  God, what a, what a different way to relate to movement. You know, we’ve talked so much about relating to things. What, so if someone does like the nighttime, I’m going to sit on the couch and eat thing as their way of regulating,  what might you?

Suggest, or how might you help a client who’s doing that who wants to maybe change or shift that pattern or regulate in other ways?  One is, and it’s  this example that I’m going to give you is also the same thing that I, when people say, well, I just,  you know, I’m good. I’m putting that in air quotes. I’m good with my eating all day.

And then I like have to have sweets later.  And I’m like, well, how about we have the sweets after lunch or for snack or like, let’s put the sweets in so that you’re not in this like, I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. And now I get to have it. I’ve had my, like, you know, cookie monster moment.

Right. Instead it’s no, I get to have sweets. I literally, and I kid you not, I have chocolate after breakfast every day. Why? Because I love chocolate. But if I have chocolate late in the afternoon, I will not sleep. I am intensely sensitive to caffeine, and I will not sleep. So my little kid says, I want chocolate.

Get me chocolate. So I’m like, okay. Every morning after breakfast. Have that. I love it. Have some sugar. I’m the same way. I have mine after lunch pretty much every day, but same. After lunch. Yeah. Yeah.  It’s the same idea as, you know what, I need nervous system regulation and for me to leave it until the very end and then I’m flopped on the sofa and I’m exhausted and emotionally overwhelmed and the only way I can regulate is by eating and watching TV, wait a second, Let’s add a little nervous system regulation.

You don’t have to wait until you’re completely depleted. Fill up your cup. Yeah.  It’s like you don’t have to wait until you’re dehydrated to drink something. Yeah. Right.  I love that.  Right. We want to be filling our own cup  regularly. The other thing about specifically nighttime eating and television is I find that that particular thing placeholder for emotion. 

I’m lonely and I’m sitting and eating. I’m angry about the day and I’m sitting and eating at the end of the day. So there’s one is let’s regulate your nervous system, but the other is let’s identify what the feeling is that you’re left at the end of the day. That’s hard to be with. You feel like you need to turn the volume down by eating. 

Aha. That is so good. Yes. Yes.  I love that.  Well, let’s, I have one more question and then we’ll do just like my rapid fire wrap up and this is just shifting gears a little bit. I’m, I’m curious about like you and the work that you’re doing. What are you excited about in your work? What lights you up? What, what projects do you have going on or what are your topics that you’re just really into right now?

Yeah, one thing that always lights me up is I work with women individually, but I also do groups. I have a body piece keepers group and a body piece sages group. And I love these groups. There are women who are  committed to this deep  relational shift with themselves. And just before we got on this conversation, Katie, I was in the body piece sages group and one woman said, Oh my God, I can’t get over that.

I had just had a whole summer.  I just got in a bathing suit. Another woman said, yeah, I just got in a big kini, like, okay, big look, I have a body. There’s a bathing suit. There’s no shame in it,  right? So being with these women in this process and really being in the relationship and the practice of body piece and supporting them always lights me up. 

And then specifically what I’m working on right now is actually a body piece, a workbook because I write poems about body piece. I write poems that are about women’s relationship with their body. And often when I send out a poem, I get a lot of feedback back about, Oh my God, this brought up this for me, or this made me think about this.

And so what the workbook is going to be is some of the poems, but really an inquiry sort of more questions about.  you and your relationship with your body so that people can really start to unpack  what is their relationship with their body and how would they like it to be and how do you start to practice body peace.

So I’m super excited.  Oh, that is very cool. And I think that’s such a neat idea to take a poem and then allow someone to use that to access deeper things because that’s kind of what poetry is for. Then totally. Yeah.  Oh, that’s so cool. I can’t wait to get my hands on this. Thank you. Okay, so let’s wrap up, um, just lighthearted questions here.

My first one is, what is currently your favorite sna  Oh, gosh, my current favorite snack. It is, oh, Trader Joe’s Truffle Almonds. It’s become my go to right after swimming.  I like,  they’re just like full of flavor and crunchy and oily and delicious.  Trader Joe’s has such fun snacks, like kind of unique stuff that you don’t see everywhere else too.

Yeah, totally. Love Trader Joe’s. Yeah. Are you more of a winter person or a summer person? Absolutely summer. I grew up in Montreal. There was a lot of winter there. I am done.  I am now deeply into the land form.  I don’t blame you. And I was thinking with swimming, you know, that, not that you can’t swim in the winter, but you know.

You can, but, and I have a wetsuit and all that, but it is just so great to just pull on a, a bathing suit and jump into Walden Pond in the summer. There’s this bliss. Yeah. It sounds amazing. What about animals? Are you more of a cat person or a dog person?  Oh gosh. It’s just so divisive, that question. I grew up with a dog, but I, there’s nothing like curling up with a cat on my lap to soothe my nervous system. 

Yeah.  That is such a good point that our pets can help us regulate. Mm hmm. And even I’ve read some of the research about how it can, like, help lower blood pressure to, like, pet your animal. Yeah. Absolutely. What about TV? Do you have any shows you’ve been watching lately?  Oh. Last night, my son, my husband’s out of town, my son and I, um, started season two of Señora Volpe.

It’s this fabulous mystery that’s on, I think we got it through Acorn TV and it’s  set in Italy and Tuscany. I led a retreat there and so I’m like, Oh my gosh, that looks just like when we were there. So it’s beautiful and a little bit intriguing and the personalities are great. Great.  Ooh, that does sound good.

I like it. Okay. Last question. What is your favorite form of self care?  Swimming. I knew you were going to say that. Swimming. Swimming. But it’s not the only thing that I do. So also I do floats, again, getting into water, isolation tank floats. That completely resets my nervous system immediately. I did one of those once.

Such an interesting experience. It is. Yeah. It is. For many years, I had a membership and I’d go once a month just to do that. Like clockwork. And it was, it would just reset me. It was like induced deep, deep, deep meditation. Yep. I also like, I go to community acupuncture and I love that also, again, resets my nervous system or anything that’s going on.

I’ll be like, something’s funny with my knee. She’ll deal with that. Something’s funny with my, whatever. She’ll deal with that. I’m feeling stressed out.  She’ll treat that. So those kinds of things.  In terms of self care, making appointments and going to something that can also be really supportive to me because somebody’s holding the container for me to care for myself. 

Yeah, sometimes I even think of self care as like.  Going to your doctor or dentist or you know, things that might not be fun, but it is caring for yourself. Yes. And very important, especially when women have been in larger bodies most of their life and been shamed by doctors, they stop going.  And so going to a doctor with a friend and five of them is a really good thing to feel like you are taking care of yourself and feeling supported at the same time. 

That is a really great idea. Bring a friend with you. Bring someone supportive. Yes. Yeah. Very important. And I have a personal philosophy that no one should go to a doctor or hospital by themselves because it can be, feel stressful. And in those moments, we don’t really remember what to do.  Was it so true?

Yeah. I mean, it’s yeah, cause you’re stressed out and it can be kind of overwhelming. Absolutely. Yeah Yeah, bring somebody. Yes. Oh my goodness, Nina. This was wonderful. I love loved loved it Where can people find you if they want to connect if they want to know more if they want more of what you’re putting down Where can they find you?

So first of all Katie, I want to say thank you. It’s so fun to talk to you It’s such a delight And if people want to know more, the best place to find me is on my website, which is NinaMandelson. com or BodyPieceWithNina, all one word, same place, just easier to spell. And there, there’s two very powerful tools that are free.

One is the masterclass that really goes into the body piece map, super helpful to understand different relationships that we have with our body, where we get stuck and how we can shift into other relationships.  And then the other is kind of the mini body piece journal that I talked about. There’s one that’s pre that has five of my poems and 20 questions that I would ask you if you’re sitting with me to get to know your relationship with your body.

And that’s there too as well. Oh my gosh. And I’m on all social media too. Incredible resources. Yes. And we’ll put all of it in the show notes, make it easy for people to find it. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Katie.  I hope you enjoyed this episode. I think what Nina said about the way that we have a relationship with ourselves, with our body, was really important.

And I want you to try the exercise that she walked us through, where you put your hand over your heart and you say, hello body. And I want you to sit with that and see what your body says back to you. And maybe even journal about it. And she gave so many other great tips and nuggets of wisdom that I think you might even want to come back to this episode again and maybe listen to it, take some notes because there’s so much here that was just amazing.

And if you’re listening to this episode and you’re thinking, okay, I get it. It is time for me to make peace with food and my body. It is time for me to get more serious about digging in and doing the work to fully heal that relationship, then I invite you to take my self paced mini course called Stepping Off the Dieting Rollercoaster. 

Even if you’ve already quit dieting, this mini course is about more than that. It is about the mental mindset shifts that you need to make in your brain to help you fully let go of dieting and to unlearn  all of those deeply entrenched thoughts. That have been imprinted inside your brain from all those years that you existed in diet culture. 

And so we do a lot of that mindset work upfront in the mini course so that you have no more uncertainties and no more questions in your mind about whether making peace with food and whether intuitive eating is the right approach for you. And then from there, we dig into how to approach food differently when you’re committed to no longer dieting.

And I teach you how to implement intuitive eating and the non diet approach to food without winging it and hoping for the best. I have watched way too many people read the intuitive eating book or they’ll hear about intuitive eating on social media and they’ll think that sounds great and they’ll just wing it from there.

And they end up lost, confused, frustrated, and still feeling at odds with food and with their body months and years later. So, I’m going to show you exactly how to implement the principles of intuitive eating in really practical and tangible ways. And then we dig into body image. We explore your relationship with your body and with your weight.

And we look at those core beliefs that you’re holding on to and how to cultivate more compassion towards yourself while also taking care of your health.  So if you’re nodding yes, this sounds like exactly what you need. You can go grab it right now and get started immediately. It’s set up in bite sized chunks, so you can take it one piece at a time and go at your own pace, or you could binge the whole thing, pun intended. 

The best part? It’s under 100. It is one of my most budget friendly offers because I want this to be accessible to you. So for only 97, you can get more serious about your journey right now. No more messing around and DIYing it on your own. Take the leap and give yourself the gift of doing this work in a more structured and intentional way. 

And if 97 is too much of a stretch for you, no problem. Reach out to me via email or DM and we can set up a custom payment plan. I am more than happy to do that for you to spread it out, to make it more financially feasible. You can check out all of the details at the link in the show notes or go to non diet academy.

com forward slash rollercoaster. That’s all for today. In case no one has told you lately, you are worthy just the way you are. Talk soon. 

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