Wake Up With Marci

Welcome to Wake Up with Marcy, a deep dive into self-discovery. I’m your host, Marcy Hopkins, and this is the space where we get real about life transformation and finding our true selves. If you’re here, you’re seeking self-discovery, parenting tips, mental wellness, and guidance through life transitions. Today, we’re tackling a topic that affects us all: body image. How can we move beyond unrealistic beauty standards and embrace true self-acceptance? Joining us is Dr. Rachel Goldman, a nationally recognized clinical psychologist and expert in Mind-Body Wellness. She specializes in stress reduction, disordered eating, and helping people build healthier relationships with their bodies. As a clinical assistant professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and a private practitioner in New York City, Dr. Rachel uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to empower individuals towards happier, healthier lives. Welcome, Dr. Rachel!

Thank you so much! I’m so excited to be here with you today.

I am so grateful for you to be my first guest on Wake Up with Marcy. This is truly a topic that is top of mind, especially for women. I recently was out shopping with some ladies, and we all had this image of what we looked like and how we looked in these clothes. We were telling each other, “No, you do not look bad in those shorts, your legs do not look bad.” I think we all deal with body dysmorphia; I think we all deal with this.

We all do deal with it, unfortunately. I think everybody can relate to some level at one point or another in their lives that they didn’t feel so great about their bodies. And that’s okay, right? It’s a matter of kind of what we do with that thought and how it’s going to impact us.

As a psychologist especially in this area, the Mind-Body Connection, what really inspired you to focus on this area of body image, body acceptance, and overall well-being?

It’s such an interesting question and answer that I often get, and it kind of all starts with the topic of your podcast: self-discovery. As a child, I was a dancer. I grew up in a very small town, though, so the competitiveness and competition was not there, to my luck or to my benefit. There was never any pressure on us growing up of being a certain body shape, size, or anything. I think just growing up in a small town, maybe that wasn’t there because of that. Through dance, I kind of was learning about who I was as a person. It’s funny because I actually never wanted to go into psychology. I actually adamantly tried to avoid it purposely, and the reason was because my mom majored in psychology. My mom and I are very similar, and I was like, “You know what, I’m going to be different than you and I’m not going to major in psychology.” I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I didn’t want to do psychology. Fast forward several years, I went to college for a major called dance science at the time, which was Pre-Med and dance put together. I thought I wanted to be a physical therapist for dancers. I went to a very well-known dance school and, actually for the first time, was surrounded by individuals that were putting pressure on themselves in terms of the way they looked, performed, and body image. I never really experienced that, and I was shocked with what I witnessed and observed. It quickly made me think, “Wow, what is going on in people’s brains that is making them think this way?” I was very curious of understanding the why, and very quickly I was like, “Wow, I think psychology is my calling.” I decided to change majors, go into psychology, and study disordered eating behaviors. That’s actually how I started. It kind of all came about related to just an interest in learning about myself and wanting to understand more of the reason why we do what we do, and why we look in the mirror and feel a certain way. I was seeing my roommates and my friends struggling, and I’m like, “What do you mean? You look amazing. What do you mean?” So that’s kind of how it all started, and then kind of Life happened, fell in the right place at the right time with the right people, with the right mentors, and things just kind of evolved from there.

Amazing. There are so many issues with eating disorders within the dance community, right in that world, and there’s so many pressures. So it’s wonderful to hear that you did not have that growing up, how positive that is.

And to this day, I think back and actually have this conversation with my mom sometimes. I’m like, “How was I not impacted by that?” My mom wasn’t on a million diets, and I’m always like, “How didn’t I have that experience?” Because I think so many people do struggle with that related to maybe the way that the parents presented themselves or the way food was presented at home, and I feel very fortunate that I didn’t experience that. But lots of people do and struggle with that, for sure.

And right now, I mean that’s something that’s spoken about so much as far as parenting and how we’re feeding our children, making sure that they’re not having sweets or all of these overprocessed foods. We’re honestly denying them a lot of times certain foods, which can backfire down the road.

Exactly, exactly.

Let’s talk about that a little bit more, but I want to talk about the differences between body positivity, body neutrality, and body acceptance, because you brought up body neutrality for me and that was something that I hadn’t really heard before. I brought it up to my trainer and he too had not heard about that, so if you can talk about that a little bit I’d really appreciate it.

Sure, and I love talking about that because body positivity is a very well-known movement or term. A lot of people have heard of body positivity, and this is why I think body neutrality needs to be talked about, because body positivity may not be realistic for a lot of people. That’s why I always like to go back to, “Okay, if this isn’t realistic, what can we offer people then?” Body positivity is this idea that I love my body no matter what, I love the way that it looks, I’m okay with it, I’m accepting it, and that’s that. Now of course, I’m overgeneralizing a little bit and sharing a little bit of the extreme, but it’s really focusing on the body appearance and loving the way that it looks. I like to think of it as there’s not many things in life that are so all-or-nothing. There is lots of gray in life, lots of in-between, lots of finding the balance and what works for us. It is just not realistic to think that we are supposed to wake up every morning and be like, “Wow, I love my body today, I feel amazing, let’s go.” Now if that works for you, amazing. There is a time and a place for things like positive affirmations, and there is research obviously on positive psychology, but there’s a difference between being overly positive and being realistic or being hopeful. So if you are not somebody that thinks it feels normal to you or doesn’t resonate with you to say something like that, that’s okay. I don’t think I wake up every morning being like, “Yay, I love the way I look today.” We just don’t. Maybe we have to do things to force it, and there’s like that ‘fake it till you make it’ kind of mentality, like I’m gonna tell myself I love my body today and hopefully it works out okay. But body neutrality is actually taking the focus away from appearance, which I think is very important in today’s world. There’s way too much focus on appearance when really our body and our appearance only tell us so much. I always joke that we don’t have Post-it notes on our forehead saying what we’re struggling with. Somebody could be in a larger body, somebody could be in a smaller body, and we don’t know. Are they trying to lose weight? Are they trying to gain weight? Are they healthy? Are they not healthy? What are their struggles? What does their mental health look like? We have no idea. All we know is if they are in a larger body or a smaller body, or maybe the color of their skin. There’s certain things we know, but that’s it; we don’t know the story. Body neutrality is taking the focus off of appearance and actually putting the focus on the function of our body: what do our bodies do for us? I love that you brought up before the parenting and the child thing, but so I’m a parent and I’m also a runner—I used to be a dancer, I’m also a runner. I like to think to what my body does for us. Well, when I am running or even when I’m not running, I’m like, “Wow, my body just allowed me to run x amount of miles.” I’m training for a half marathon right now, so the miles are a little longer. Or when I was pregnant or looking back, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, how incredible is it that my body allowed me to do this?” So I think we can find a place where we appreciate our bodies and love our bodies for what they do for us, even if we can’t fully accept or love the way that our bodies feel or look in the moment. I think we can go back to this idea of what our bodies do for us. My arms allow me to hug my children, my legs allow me to walk my child to and from school, my body allows me to do what it needs to do.

That sounds like it’s about shifting our mindset when we talk about how we’re thinking about something.

Exactly, that’s really where this is, and it may not be the easiest to start that way. But if we do this slowly each day and try to implement that for ourselves, like “Wow, I can hug my child today,” and you keep saying that and you keep looking at it, you may not like the chicken arms or whatever is hanging off of there right now, but your children probably love that. So I mean, that’s what we have to think about. But yes, it’s all about—and I’m glad you mentioned this because I love talking about the mindset shift, the mental shift—it’s all about the shift. That’s what cognitive behavioral therapy, as you had mentioned at the beginning that I do, CBT, is the connection and the relationship between our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. If we wake up in the morning and say, “I hate my body,” or “I hate the way I look today,” that is immediately going to impact the way I feel, and then that’s going to impact what I do with my day. But if I wake up and say, “Wow, my body’s allowing me to hug my children today,” “Wow, my body allowed me to birth my children,” “Wow, my body got me through that marathon,” or whatever it was, that’s going to feel different. Even the tone changes; it feels different, it sounds different, and then I’m going to go about my day the way that maybe I would go about my day as opposed to feeling bad, icky, and guilty about different things, or putting shame on myself. So it just has a different tone, and that impacts everything. It is a mindset shift.

I love that you said it takes time, and it just takes me back to the things that we say and we think do affect our children. So if you wake up in that negative mindset and that negative body thought, that’s going to bring a heaviness on yourself and you’re not going to be feeling good about yourself starting the day. Also, the words that we say about ourselves when we say them out loud do affect our children. For me, when my daughter was younger, I used to complain about my legs all the time. It’s just been the one area I’ve always hated and struggled with, so I would always say, “My legs are so fat, I hate my legs.” She started saying it about herself because she has an athletic body, and we don’t have these really thin legs, which we always want what we don’t have, right? But once I recognized that my daughter was starting to say that, I cut it off.

You’re like, “Oh my gosh.” Yeah, and the example that you just gave, your story and your experience, is so common actually, so common. I like to describe it in a way of, if you look at yourself in the mirror—and this could be anybody—and say something like, “My legs are so fat,” or “I feel so fat,” and your child hears you, we know they hear everything. They hear you, and guess what happens? They actually internalize that and they think to themselves, first of all, you’re amazing to your children. We are Superwoman, Superman, we are superhuman to our children. So our children are looking at us and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, but I think Mommy’s beautiful. But if Mommy thinks she’s fat, then I must also be fat,” or “If she thinks she’s fat, then what’s wrong with me?” So they look at that and they internalize it of like, “What’s wrong with me?” because to them Mommy is amazing, but if she thinks that, something else is going on. Children absorb everything, they hear everything, and they internalize everything, so we have to be so mindful of what we’re saying around them. Then I even take that a step further: we have to be mindful of what we say to ourselves when nobody is listening in our own head, our thoughts, because we’re listening. But we also must be mindful of what we say around other people because they hear it, they absorb it, and they internalize it. So absolutely, I think we don’t realize a lot of those things until somebody else hears them or they repeat them and then you’re like, “Wait a minute.” Even there was something, I’m trying to remember what it was, it was something very cute, but my son started saying something not related to body. I remember being like, “Where did he get that from? That’s so funny,” and my husband’s like, “You say it all the time.” I was like, “I had no idea.” Wow, yeah, we don’t realize the things that we say automatically because they’re so automatic until things like that happen.

You touched on the ‘I am’ statements and shifting our mindset and our thoughts. How can we really shift that so if we want to lose some weight or change how our body looks, which also affects how our body functions, how can we shift our mindset around feeling positive and not setting these huge goals where we’re failing before we even start? And do you believe those ‘I am’ statements work?

So funny, I’m gonna first focus on the body part that you just said. I think that is also where body positivity is setting people up for failure in a way, or disappointment, because let’s talk about social media for a minute. Unfortunately, I think because of social media, we have more comparison, and we have more disordered eating behaviors and thoughts than we ever have because of that. I think if we see somebody on social media being like, “I love my body, yay, wake up, feel great,” and you’re like, “Well, I can’t do that, that means something’s wrong with me,” that belief is already setting us up a little bit for failure. This is why, again, I like body neutrality and working towards body acceptance. If we don’t like something—for instance, again going back to thoughts, emotions, behaviors—if I were to wake up and say, “I’m a failure,” that’s not going to feel good. I don’t want you to change that thought to, “I’m a success,” or “I’m gonna get that job,” because that might not be realistic either, and that could be setting you up for failure as well. So when we talk about shifting the way we talk to ourselves, we want to shift it in a way that is neutral and is realistic. We’re not going to go super positive if that’s not realistic. If you saying, “I’m amazing,” doesn’t resonate with you and you feel like you’re fake, then maybe that’s not the right mantra or self-affirmation for you to say. But for like the job situation, I like to use that as an example: “I’m not going to get the job” is already setting you up for failure, as opposed to, “I’m gonna try my best. I don’t know if I’m going to get it, but I’m gonna try my best.” Or even weight loss: “I don’t know if I’m going to lose weight, but I’m going to try to change these behaviors and I’m going to see what happens.” It’s not setting us up for this all-or-nothing mentality, so shifting to a more neutral place is a good first place to start. And then I like that you asked about the ‘I am’ statements because, actually, for my son’s lunch every day, I put a little note on a napkin. One of his teachers made a comment yesterday about this, saying, “I love your affirmations that you give your son every day.” I had to think about it for a moment, what do I do? I do it because we talked about it at home and it’s something that he likes, so I put in the note like, “You are amazing,” or “You are kind,” or “You are a good friend.” Sometimes I write “I am” because he’s reading it, but I’m doing them with words that I already know that he’s using and resonate with him. Like I know he says in school, “I am brave, I am kind, I’m a good friend,” so I’m not going to put something that maybe is not going to be believable to him. But I do believe in those affirmations, and there is some science even in acting in the way that you want to feel. So if you want to feel brave and say, “I am brave,” that might help you get closer. But again, if that doesn’t resonate with you and you’re like, “That is total BS,” every time you say it, then it’s not going to work. So kind of checking in with yourself and being like, “Is it helpful for me to stand in the mirror and say, ‘I am amazing, I am beautiful’?” Then go with it. If you’re not sure, try it; if it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it. If it feels so unattainable, then that’s not for you.

Can you give us some key, maybe two or three, CBT techniques that we could incorporate into our days and into our lives to challenge these negative body thoughts that we have?

When we have—I like to call them unhelpful thoughts, but scientifically and psychologically we actually call them cognitive distortions—they’re automatic thoughts that we all have, and I want to repeat that: that we all have. They’re automatic because we’ve been saying them for years; our brain is used to them, so our brain kind of spits them out. When we’re tired, emotional, or stressed, it’s really hard to challenge them. So the first step is to identify them. I like to be able to identify them and to help people in that process by asking yourself, “How does it make you feel?” If the thought doesn’t make you feel good, that means that it’s an unhelpful thought. If it feels good, go on with your day. But if I say, “I’m a failure,” and it makes me feel like a failure and it makes me feel icky, that is not a good feeling. I don’t want to feel that way, so it’s unhelpful. The first step I would say is maybe to do something like a thought journal, like start writing down some of these thoughts and ask yourself, “How does this thought make me feel?” If you identify it’s unhelpful, then the question is what do we do with it? We actually have two choices: we can either let it be and accept the fact that thoughts are not facts, we could just say, “It’s just a thought, it is what it is,” and we go on. Sometimes it’s easier to do that if we think of the thought as a cloud passing by; this thought is going to pass on by, this feeling is going to pass, and it’s fine. That’s really hard for a lot of people to do, so I like to take it a step further and challenge the thought. Where’s the evidence that this thought is a fact? We know that all thoughts are not facts, but we want to put the thought on the stand: where is the evidence that this thought is true? So if I say—actually, “I hate my body” is not a good example, an example might be using your example: “My legs are fat.” Okay, where’s the evidence that your legs are fat? Is it a belief, is it a thought, or is it a fact? There’s probably no evidence that your legs are fat. You probably can tweak that thought to be like, “I don’t like the way that my legs feel today, I don’t like the way that my legs look,” but that’s different than “my legs are fat.” So we identify that there’s no evidence, then we could say, “Okay, what is a more helpful thought? What is a more helpful statement, a more real factual statement than ‘my legs are fat’?” Let’s use your example. What would you say? How can you tweak that thought to be more realistic and more neutral?

They’re not how I look, but I can work on them. Does that work? Yes, my legs are not defining how I look or defining who I am, but I can work on them. And that is where the body acceptance and body neutrality also comes in. It’s okay to love our bodies for what they are and still want to work on it. I think a lot of people with body positivity are like, “We can’t change our bodies because that means we don’t love it,” but we are all evolving every day. I mean, that’s part of self-discovery; we are all evolving every day. It is okay to want to change something; we’re not bad for it, it doesn’t mean we’re a failure if we want to change something. I mean, it’s a little easier to change the color of our hair than changing maybe our legs, but we can work towards it and we can also work towards body acceptance. Maybe there’s things we can’t change, maybe genetics, maybe a lot of other factors that we can’t change, and then we start working towards acceptance. But we can try to work on maybe toning our legs a little differently, or maybe walking a little bit more—things that we can do that might help. We don’t know for certain if it’s going to change the appearance, but with body image in particular, research actually shows that movement does help improve body image, and that’s because we feel like we’re doing something that’s going to make us feel stronger.

I love walking, I just have to say. Body, mind, spirit—it’s amazing, it’s amazing.

Movement helps us feel better about our bodies. We don’t have to be running marathons, no, but we can be moving our bodies in a joyful way, in a way that makes us feel good. If you’re not a runner, I tell people don’t run; walk. If you love the elliptical, go on the elliptical. You love the bike, go to the bike. You love Pilates, do Pilates. Whatever makes you feel good, and in time you’re going to feel stronger. As we feel stronger, I think it is easier to have a more positive—I’m not saying positive, a more neutral body image. And don’t expect things too quickly; I think that that’s another thing. We want things to happen immediately, and that’s just become how we are—we just want results right away, and it’s just not the reality.

Exactly. So let’s go back. We started to talk about our children, feeding our children, how we feel that they should eat, and the things that we’re saying and doing. How can we do better as far as supporting and raising children that would have a healthier mindset around food, working out, and body image?

First, I just want to tell people that I know this is difficult, and I know this is a very sensitive topic, and I know that a lot of people have a lot of different opinions about it. So I’m going to give a perspective obviously from a professional standpoint, from the psychology and the science, and I’m going to share a little bit of what I do with my children. It works for my family, and it may not work for your family. So first, I want us to think about how we view food; how we view our bodies is how we view food. Because if we say things like what we should be eating or what we can’t be eating, we’re already putting that label and that mindset present with our children. So back to the words: words matter, language is powerful. If we say, “I shouldn’t be eating this,” our kids are going to question, “Why shouldn’t we?” If we say, “I can’t eat this,” our kids are going to be questioning, “Why can’t we?” and we’re already labeling foods if we’re doing that. So I first like to remind people, let’s take the label out of the equation. There is not a good food and there is not a bad food, but there are foods that have more nutritional value—that is a fact—but there is no good or bad food. Some foods are healthier than other foods, but we don’t want to label them, we don’t want to categorize them in that way. I like to think of it as all foods are welcome, just like all feelings are welcome. I’m actually wearing a t-shirt—we talked about this before—that says ‘All feelings are valid.’ I love that, I look for one that ‘All feelings are welcome,’ but maybe I should have a shirt that says ‘All foods are welcome.’ But it’s going to be your catchphrase: yes, all foods are welcome. We don’t want to limit certain foods because that can backfire. Think about us for a moment: if I said to you, Marcy, you cannot eat this, whatever it is—what’s your favorite food?

Oh, my favorite food, I’ll go with crab.

Oh, me too! I’m from Maryland, so yummy, I haven’t had it in a while. But if I said you can’t eat crab, what’s gonna happen?

I’m gonna want it more.

You’re gonna want it more, and the next time you eat it, you’re probably gonna think to yourself, even unconsciously, “I don’t know when I’m gonna eat this again, so I’m gonna eat a lot of it.” And I love that you picked crab because it’s not—I thought you were going to pick like a sweet, which would be the typical example in this situation, but I love that you picked crab because I think people can really understand it better if we use a food more like crab than like a cookie or ice cream in this situation. But it doesn’t matter what it is; if I say you can’t eat it, you’re gonna want it. So actually, what I do with my son—I have a daughter also, but she’s very young so it’s different—I actually allow any food. I will never forget a few years ago, my son had asked, “Can I have a cookie?” and it was like before dinner. Most people would probably say, “You can’t have the cookie until you eat dinner,” right? In the moment, I was like, “What am I gonna do? Like, this is my specialty, right? What am I gonna do?” and I actually think I shocked my husband because he didn’t know what I was going to do. I said, “Absolutely, I’m gonna put the cookie in this little bowl, you’re gonna have it next to your dinner, and you can eat it with dinner.”

Oh, with dinner! I like it, with dinner.

And you know what? He had a little bite of the cookie, he ate his dinner, he finished his cookie, so be it. I had to really think about it because I know what I would tell a client in that situation, but he put me on the spot and I had to be like, “What am I gonna do now?” He’s welcome to have it whenever he wants to with his food. For instance, we still have a Halloween candy pumpkin pail sitting out, full of Halloween candy; it’s just sitting out. I think because it’s just sitting out, it’s not gone, you know? If he wants it, it doesn’t make it the forbidden fruit. Exactly, absolutely right, it is not ‘not allowed,’ it’s there. I think back to my childhood, and I think that’s what helped, actually. We had cookies around, we had ice cream around; it wasn’t like it’s off-limits, it wasn’t locked up, it wasn’t only Halloween. Even I have clients that say around certain holidays they love this food so much that they overeat it every year. Say it’s Thanksgiving stuffing, my response is: have it year-round. Why are we saving it for Thanksgiving if you love it? Why can we only have it then? Exactly. Crabs, like I typically get crab cakes when I go to my mom’s in Maryland, but you know what? I can have it any day I want to; it might not be as good, I’ll tell you that, but that’s the key. You want to make food more available so it doesn’t feel off-limits and it doesn’t feel so special.

I’m just gonna tell you, when I was young, very young—we’re talking kindergarten—my mother, she would only give me health food. So like a sandwich with bread with seeds, I don’t know what 5-year-old wants that, but that’s what she gave me. An apple, there were no treats, okay? I ended up—this is so funny and embarrassing—I started stealing other kids’ lunchboxes so that I could have the Twinkie or the Ding Dong because I didn’t have it. Exactly, I was not allowed to have it, and it wasn’t in my home, I had no access to it outside of these kids’ lunchboxes, so I was doing whatever I could to have what these other kids had. Right now, I’m a healthy eater and, you know, maybe there’s some conscious thoughts that I learned from that about what healthy eating looks like, but also the deprivation made me act out in a way that I shouldn’t have.

What you just described we also see with individuals kind of hiding and hoarding food. So maybe it’s not a 5-year-old, but maybe a teenager that has those kind of treats—hidden under their bed or in the bathroom when nobody can see that they’re eating them. Those behaviors—when we ask where, like, everything serves a purpose in life and I always like to think of what’s the why, what’s going on that caused this, what’s going on that led to this—those behaviors probably are because of that. It is the restriction, it is the ‘this is not allowed, it’s forbidden,’ so I have to hide it. So that is the exact same thing of what you’re describing. It’s interesting because just recently, a few months ago, my son used to get school lunch, and I didn’t question it, whatever it was, it’s what the other kids were doing. All of a sudden one day he’s like, “Mommy, I want lunch from home.” I’m like, “Okay, fine, more work for me, but you got it.” I started actually going through the little Halloween candy basket and I’m like, let me find a teeny, teeny little something, a piece of chocolate, to put in his lunch every day. It’s funny because now every day he’s like, “Don’t forget the little piece of chocolate also.” It brings a little happiness to his day.

It does, with his little note that says ‘You are brave and you are kind.’ Yes, such a psychologist mom, I am, right? Makes it a good experience.

But it’s so funny, so at night I’ll be like, “What do you want for lunch tomorrow?” and we’ll talk about it, and he’s like, “And don’t forget my little, my little, my little chocolate.” I’m like, “You got it.” But he knows that he can have that. Again, we want to be mindful because I know we’re going to get listeners saying, “But my child’s overweight.” I hear this all the time: “What should I do? My child’s overweight, my child this, I’m concerned for their health.” I hear you, and it all goes back to the messaging. Also, I like to tell people—I might actually do an Instagram video on this because it’s the truth—I have dessert every single night, absolutely every night. I don’t think I miss a night, and I enjoy it, I love it, there’s nothing wrong with it. So I tend to tell my clients, I don’t care what you eat—and this is a fact, like I’m not lying when I say this—I don’t care what you eat, but I want you to be mindful when you’re eating it. Ask yourself how it feels, and enjoy it. So if you’re going to have a cookie, eat it slowly, sit down at a table, and enjoy it, and don’t feel guilty about it.

Right, present in that moment.

But really quick about that, that brings up something I always say: the thought that follows the behavior is more important than the behavior itself. That’s why I say I don’t care if you’re going to eat the cookie; the behavior doesn’t matter. But if you’re going to feel guilty about it, beat yourself up about it later, shame yourself, and go into a negative spiral, that’s what matters. If I can eat my dessert at night in peace when the kids are already asleep—it’s like my me-time in peace—and enjoy it, I’m not gonna feel guilty about it. But if I’m impulsive, if I’m acting out of stress, if I’m feeling guilty, then it wasn’t worth it. It doesn’t matter if it was a cookie, it doesn’t matter if it was the crab, it doesn’t matter if it was a bowl of spaghetti, it doesn’t matter if it was a bowl of fruit—if I’m not enjoying it and I’m gonna feel guilty about it, then it wasn’t worth it.

I love that, I love that. So just a couple of things as we wrap up, what would you say to someone that’s starting their body acceptance journey? What’s one piece of advice you’d give them?

First, I want to say to them that I know this is difficult, and this is amazing that you’re here and that you want to be on this journey. But don’t expect yourself to wake up one day and be like, “I’m there, I did it, I love my body,” because it is a journey and each day it’s going to feel a little different. There’s going to be ups and downs, turns around, and all these unexpected things, but just start where you are today and ask yourself how you can do one thing differently today that’s going to be helping you on that path of getting you where you want to be. Because we can all start today with one small, small, small tweak. It’s hard to jump to the top of the staircase when we’re at the bottom, but we can take one step at a time, and not to beat yourself up over the fact that you’re not going to wake up feeling amazing every day. That’s okay, you’re not expected to; it’s not realistic.

And so what would you want the listeners to take, just one thing from this conversation that they can implement and just say, “That was a great conversation and this is the one thing that I’m going to hold onto today”?

The one thing I want to say, and I’ve said it before actually, is to be mindful of your self-talk because you are actually listening. Your words matter, you are internalizing what you are telling yourself, and it is impacting you and your day and your life. So if nothing else, just be mindful. You don’t have to change it yet, just be aware, just be mindful of what you’re saying to yourself and ask yourself, “How did that make me feel?”

It all is connected, it all is connected. And where can we find you? Where can people find you and learn more about your work and if they have more questions?

Thank you. So my Instagram handle, my social media handles are @DrRachelNYC. It’s a really great place to find me. I always like to remind people social media is not therapy, but I’m always happy to connect, provide appropriate resources, referrals, things like that. I also have a newsletter that if you go to my link in my bio on my Instagram, there’s a link there to sign up where I have lots of exciting announcements, recordings, and things like that, as well as a new book coming out, so stay tuned for that as well. If you sign up for my newsletter and my emails, you’ll be the first to know about all of that.

Well, I’ll have you back on definitely to talk about your book.

Yes, there’s actually a chapter on what we’re talking about. Actually, the whole book is a little bit about what we’re talking about, but one chapter in particular is really about body image.

So that would be wonderful to continue. I think I’m gonna have you on once a month just so we can talk about the different things that come to mind. I mean, there’s—I wish that we could talk further, but there’s so many things that we could address, and I definitely want to do that with you, Dr. Rachel. And just remember, every day is about self-discovery, it is. So just wake up with purpose, implement a little change and action, and the change will start happening for you. So thank you again so much, Dr. Rachel, for coming on Wake Up with Marcy, and I will link all of your links in the information, the show notes, and I can’t wait for our next conversation.

Me too. Thank you so much for having me.

All right, bye-bye.