Glennon Doyle Struggles With Food Peace Too
/A friend and client recently pointed me to the Glennon Doyle podcast and thought I might enjoy listening to the episode titled "Our Bodies: Why are we at war with them and can we ever make peace?"
You can google Glennon Doyle to learn more about her, but many people know her from her book Untamed.
Untamed is about how we can quit pleasing others in order to start living and find freedom and joy in life. It's the same message I love to share in my work with clients making peace with food and body.
Glennon has achieved being untamed in many areas, and yet in the realm of food and body, she readily admits she is still a prisoner to the voice in her own head.
I suggest you have a listen to the podcast with Glennon and her sister Amanda if you want to know that you are not alone and if you want to hear some compassionate talk about our relationship with food and body.
In addition, I would add to their dialog the following observations and things that I have learned on my journey.
It's Not About The Outside
I'll start by pointing out what feels obvious. Even people with cool jobs, famous spouses and friends (I want to hang out with Brandi Carlile!), bodies that fit society's ideal, and best-selling books, struggle with making peace with food and body.
This is a reminder that wellbeing is not about what you have on the outside, but who you are being on the inside. Our journey through life is to open more and more to the truth of who we are and allow our essence to shine through.
Stop Beating Yourself Up
Next, I wanted to tell Glennon that she has never done anything wrong and there is no magic age where we will ever have everything figured out with food and body.
The voice that says you "should have all the answers by now", whether you are age 45, 65 or even 85 is simply the voice of your inner critic trying to gain the upper hand (again). Don't listen.
The Wisdom in the Struggle
Third, please know that whatever you did with food and body was perfect and beautiful and was exactly what you needed to do to feel safe at the moment. We want to celebrate our bodies and our behaviors for their wisdom.
Glennon kept talking about the opportunity cost of spending the majority of her time and energy focused on food and body. Think of the bigger things I could have done if I hadn't been so preoccupied with all this diet nonsense - she says (and I am paraphrasing). She also talks about how during her book tour, the diet nonsense voices got louder.
Do you see the purpose of the voices? The voices are how we distract ourselves from the discomfort of playing big in the world. The voices can also be our way of saying - you know, I don't actually want to play that big so I will distract myself and decrease my power.
Either way - the voices are trying to help! There is a reason for them to be there. What is the higher purpose of the voices for you? How are they trying to protect you?
Glennon may lament the opportunity cost of diet culture, but perhaps it was doing exactly what it was supposed to do. It was the escape valve for discomfort that was even bigger than diet culture - the discomfort that comes from believing in our own magnificence and worthiness.
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us." - Marianne Williamson
What is Body Love?
Glennon also asks in the episode, what does it mean to love your body? My interpretation says that loving your body is that deep unconditional love that you have for a pet or a child. Your pet and your child may not always do or be everything you would like them to be and it doesn't mean you stop loving them.
You love them when they are young or old, thin or fat, sick or healthy. And if you don't love them through all that, then you work on your capacity to love and accept, you don't ask them to change to fit your image of what they should be. The same is true for our bodies.
Trust and Faith
There is also a point in the podcast when the sisters are talking about trust. From what I have heard over the years, it sounds like Glennon has a very spiritual background and yet hasn't quite applied that connection to her food and body journey.
The good news is faith is a transferable skill. If you have it in one area, you can apply it everywhere. That is the beauty of universal laws - they apply to everything.
So if there is an area of your life where trust comes more easily, notice how you can bring that skill to food and body. What makes it work in the other area for you?
Whether we are trying to create a healthy body or share transformational messages with the masses, the path forward is something that comes through us. It doesn't come from our minds and it doesn't come from thinking and figuring things out and micromanaging. If you have been operating this way with work or your body (as so many of us have), there is an easier way.
It Starts With Compassion and Baby Steps
Glennon is starting to embody the easier way.
She is listening to the wisdom that says I will never do the elliptical in a dark room again for the sole purpose of making my body smaller. Her wisdom says that 20 minutes of yoga and walking feels exactly right.
Her wisdom says let go of the trainer, that is not her journey and her wisdom knows that her journey will not look like anyone else's.
Yes! This is her higher self and inner wisdom shining through. Go, Glennon! You've got it! Trust may feel like riding a bike or learning a language, but with practice, anyone can do it.
Understanding Our Triggers
That said - there also might be some old paradigms that need clearing. Glennon touched on one of the big ones in her podcast and left one out.
She mentioned that the culture of dieting has such a broad reach and impact that it's nearly impossible not to be affected by its lure and promises. We definitely need to be aware of the way diet culture has conditioned us and the traps that surround us.
What I'd like to add is the importance of the process of discovering and letting go of the individual triggers in us that allow diet culture to take hold. What was going on when you first lost trust with your body?
Diet culture can't hook in if we don't let it. This isn't saying diet culture is not part of the problem. It's saying that to make it go away, it's our job to unhook and walk away - leaving it to shrivel up and dissolve in the dust.
It's having the awareness that when the voices get louder, there is something else going on beneath the surface that has nothing to do with the size of our thighs and our job is to get quiet and curious.
The invitation is to go within, not to submit to diet culture and not to fight it either. It will have no fuel if we stop giving it our energy.
Depression and Anxiety
I also want to point out that Glennon briefly mentions struggles with depression and anxiety. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that those are two potential outcomes of a restrictive way of eating. If you have these symptoms and have a very restricted way of eating - no matter what size your body is - the depression and the lack of nourishment may be related. It may be something to explore.
BMI is BS
Last but not least, Amanda and Glennon go into a little bit of a description around BMI and I wanted to share that The Student Body on Amazon Prime is a great documentary about BMI if you are interested in learning more.
My favorite part in the movie is when the female student who is asking questions about BMI carries a scale around with her so she can weigh school principles and other officials who require BMI measures be taken in schools. Some of them refused to be weighed. It's not so fun when your body is being judged now, is it?
I also wanted to mention that the standards for being classified as overweight and obese did indeed change in 1998 - so overnight many people who were "normal" woke up to be overweight. It just goes to show you how we can't rely on any measures outside of us to tell us how we are feeling or whether we are healthy.
Health is Not Static
Health is your experience and yours only.
Health, weight, and life is a journey, not a destination. It will constantly be changing and our job is to:
have gratitude and appreciation for where we have been
know that everything is always working out for us
know that our bodies love us no matter what
be still so we can listen to the bodies messages
recognize the inner critic for what it is and find ways to quiet it
focus on compassion and curiosity as we move forward
Many thanks to Glennon and Amanda for tackling such a big and personal topic and using their platform to help people feel less alone.
You are all doing an amazing job and your bodies are right here leading you through it. They can indeed be trusted!