HELMET EPISODE! You’re going to need one for this one.

Our body image story and our relationship with food is buried DEEP. Under hundreds if not thousands of layers of years worth of stories, social conditioning, and self-confirming biases that make us all feel what we’ve been taught to be true: our body is bad and must be managed AND our body and appearance is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing about us.

Key word: taught.

Some people are taught how to eat with chopsticks, others are taught how to use a fork- in my early 20’s, I learned how to use chopsticks properly. All of this to say, we can learn new things. And we can unlearn things that don’t serve us.

Remember that time I told you all my money-relationship story? I learned that money was bad and people with money were bad. Is this true? No way. I had to unlearn it- that thought, particularly as a business owner, is NOT helpful to me in any way. But it felt so true. It was a part of my learned familial value system- and I had a choice: unlearn the garbage that wasn’t serving me or hate people with money, stay broke for my entire life by mismanaging my money, not charging enough, and using this to gather evidence that proved my belief: MONEY IS BAD. But, what kind of life is that?

The same is true with our bodies. Our beliefs don’t serve us. Sit with your beliefs for a moment- how do they feel? Do they make you want to expand and lean into your life or hide, contract, and cry in a corner? Exactly.

We must unlearn these things. And it’s emotional, it’s hard work, and it doesn’t start out feeling warm and fuzzy- it starts out feeling SO DAMN UNCOMFORTABLE. But on the other end of digging these things up is a freedom you never knew you had access to, a freedom you never knew you had the right to experience.

First, we have to identify where we learned this from. And in most cases? From our parents. Then it gets buried under decades worth of more evidence and social-priming that makes it feel absolutely, without a doubt irrefutable.

But we have to go deep.

Today, we’re talking about how your parents’ relationship to their own body and food impacted you. And you can take this however you want- begin undoing your own self-worth and body-image story, and/or make damn sure you’re not passing on generations worth of bullshit onto your children. You’ve got your work cut out for you- we all do.