Latest / Silver FM 100.6 / How to stop fixating on your body in the era of GLP-1s

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How to stop fixating on your body in the era of GLP-1s · Silver FM 100.6

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, you know that nagging voice in your head, the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: one telling you to put the phone down and stop
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: doom scrolling?
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Well, it's time.
• 0:06
  Speaker 3: Look up.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Take a daily curiosity break with Shortwave, NPR's science podcast.
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  Speaker 1: Let your mind wander to the edges of outer space
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  Speaker 1: or wonder about what's lurking in the depths of the seafloor,
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  Speaker 1: all in under 15 minutes. Shortwave, your daily mental reset.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 0:24
  Speaker 4: Your creative force, your ability to connect, your gifts... get
• 0:31
  Speaker 4: a little bit diminished. Like every little bit of energy
• 0:33
  Speaker 4: you're putting into sucking in your nose or your stomach
• 0:36
  Speaker 4: or your, you know, oh no, I'm distracted by my
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: shiny face, pulls away energy from you. Like, and what
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: people want is you.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: Hey, it's Mariel Cigarra. You're listening to Life Kit. And
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: that was Diana Hill. She's a clinical psychologist. And this
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: is a topic she's been thinking about a lot. How
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: has this come up in your practice with your clients?
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: Body's dissatisfaction has been around for a long time, and
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  Speaker 4: it's actually not the body dissatisfaction that I target in
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: my practice as much as when you are dissatisfied with
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  Speaker 4: your body, when you have a negative thought about your
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: arms looking older, or you have a negative thought about
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  Speaker 4: the bags under your eyes. How much energy and time
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  Speaker 4: are you putting into that negative thought, whether it's obsessing
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  Speaker 4: about it in the mirror or going on instagram trying
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  Speaker 4: to find some ways to fix it versus being able
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  Speaker 4: to engage in your life and the things that you
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: care about and in the field of psychology there's a
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  Speaker 4: term called body image flexibility.
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  Speaker 3: Body image flexibility doesn't require you to love how your
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  Speaker 3: body looks or even to get to a neutral place
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  Speaker 3: where you don't really care it's more about what you
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  Speaker 3: do when you have negative thoughts about your looks so.
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  Speaker 4: When those thoughts come up, how well are you able
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  Speaker 4: to just notice the thought and engage in what you
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  Speaker 4: want to engage in in your life? And how much
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: energy is going into trying to fix that thought or
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  Speaker 4: fix your body in some form or another? It's getting
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: less out of the space of either I love my
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  Speaker 4: body or I don't love my body, but more in
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  Speaker 4: a space of I'm inhabiting this body. As it is now,
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  Speaker 4: knowing that it's going to change and it continues to
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  Speaker 4: change just over the course of a day and certainly
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: over the course of a lifetime, it will move from
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  Speaker 4: health to not being as healthy and move from ability
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  Speaker 4: to disability in different areas. It'll move from closer to
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  Speaker 4: beauty standards to further to beauty standards and back. It's
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  Speaker 4: just that's what our body is doing.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Our culture has a shallow understanding of the body
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  Speaker 3: and defines it almost as just something to look at. Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: But your body is so much more than that. So
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  Speaker 4: if you think about even right now in the next
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  Speaker 4: few seconds as I'm talking, you could look at your
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  Speaker 4: body from the outside. You could look at your hands
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  Speaker 4: or your feet or your belly. But you can also
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  Speaker 4: feel your body from the inside. You could bring awareness
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: to sensations in your belly or your back or your
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  Speaker 4: neck or behind your eyes. Or you could feel the
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  Speaker 4: emotions that you're feeling in your body or the urges.
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  Speaker 4: So much of our discussion of the body is about
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  Speaker 4: this external form that we see. And many of us
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  Speaker 4: are disconnected and increasingly disconnected from the internal experience. But
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: then we're also disconnected from our bodies as something that
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: helps us connect to the world around us. My mouth
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  Speaker 4: and my voice right now, that aspect of my body,
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: is what's communicating. My facial expressions, the how am I
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: going to use my hands today to touch something, to
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: hug somebody, to write something. Our bodies are ways of communicating.
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: Our bodies are ways of interacting with the world. And
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  Speaker 4: our bodies house a tremendous amount of information about our
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: inner lives and about each other.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: On this episode of Life Kit, we bring you mental
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: exercises rooted in body image flexibility. These can help you
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: stay present in your life and deal with the very
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: real pressure we face to obsess about and alter our appearances.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: This season on Planet Money Summer School, we have drilled
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: for oil in Norway, we've smuggled products into North Korea,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: and now we make it to our seventh continent, Antarctica.
• 4:32
  Speaker 6: That's right.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Speak for me.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Mr.
• 4:36
  Speaker 7: Penguin, speak for me.
• 4:37
  Speaker 6: That's another sound of Antarctica.
• 4:38
  Speaker 7: That's a reporter trying to interview a penguin.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: We'll explain on Planet Money Summer School. Listen on the
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 4:47
  Speaker 6: Fall is right around the corner. That means the midterms. Hey,
• 4:51
  Speaker 6: it's Miles Parks from the NPR Politics Podcast. Now is
• 4:55
  Speaker 6: the perfect time to calibrate your news diet for the fall.
• 4:58
  Speaker 6: Follow our show for short daily episodes that will help
• 5:01
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  Speaker 6: the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Tanya, I think you did the best interview that I've done.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Seriously. Oh, that's a great question.
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  Speaker 7: I think I'm going to think about that question for
• 5:21
  Speaker 7: the rest of my life.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Good question.
• 5:24
  Speaker 7: This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air, and the
• 5:27
  Speaker 7: questions are only the half of it. Listen to Fresh
• 5:31
  Speaker 7: Air on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about strategies, particularly ones that focus on body flexibility.
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  Speaker 3: Often people have a particular gripe about their body or
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: multiple gripes. It's, I don't like my stomach or my
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: nose or these wrinkles on my face, and I don't
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  Speaker 3: want to look in the mirror because I feel like
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  Speaker 3: it's not perfect. What strategies would you give to a
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  Speaker 3: patient who's experiencing this?
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  Speaker 4: Well, the first strategy that's part of body image flexibility
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  Speaker 4: is flexible attention. So in all those examples, what you're
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  Speaker 4: highlighting is someone that's paying attention to one body part
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  Speaker 4: or one area. And people notice this. They'll go in
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  Speaker 4: the mirror and they'll be like, all I can see
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  Speaker 4: is my crow's feet. I'm brushing my teeth, but I
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  Speaker 4: don't even, I couldn't even tell you what my teeth
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  Speaker 4: looked like, but I could tell you what my crow's
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  Speaker 4: feet look like, right? So there's two ways that I
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  Speaker 4: would practice flexible attention. One way is, can you turn
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  Speaker 4: your attention to inside your body, how it's feeling, what
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  Speaker 4: we call interceptive awareness. And interceptive awareness is associated with
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  Speaker 4: all sorts of beneficial things like better ability to pay
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  Speaker 4: attention to your hunger and fullness and stop when you're
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  Speaker 4: full and start when you're hungry, but also better empathy
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  Speaker 4: and interpersonal awareness. So paying attention to what's happening inside
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  Speaker 4: when you notice that you're fixated on one part on
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  Speaker 4: the outside.
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  Speaker 3: Takeaway one, practice flexible attention. When you look in the
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: mirror and all you can see is your nose or
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: your belly or your acne or your wrinkles, turn your
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  Speaker 3: attention to what's happening inside your body instead. Are you
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: hungry or full? Does your stomach feel tense or relaxed?
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: Are you feeling nervous, excited, happy, calm? Think about all
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: the things your internal organs are doing right now. Your
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  Speaker 3: heart beating steadily. But then there are also people who
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: are dealing with chronic illness or chronic pain, and so
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  Speaker 3: going inside their body might feel really bad too.
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  Speaker 4: One of the primary treatments for chronic pain is acceptance
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  Speaker 4: commitment therapy. And part of that work is to do
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  Speaker 4: this type of flexibility of attention, but also flexibility with
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  Speaker 4: feeling states. So with something like pain, often pain isn't
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  Speaker 4: just the pain itself. It's the story that we're adding
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  Speaker 4: onto the pain of like, I can't handle this. This
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  Speaker 4: is going to keep on going forever. And a really powerful, helpful,
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  Speaker 4: flexible way of responding to pain is actually to go
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  Speaker 4: to the pain in your body and explore it. Allow
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  Speaker 4: it to be there. Notice the edge of it. If
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  Speaker 4: it were colored in with like a sharpie, what would
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  Speaker 4: the color be? Where is it most intense? Now pain
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  Speaker 4: can get to a point where it's so intense that
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  Speaker 4: all you can do is be in the present moment
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  Speaker 4: with it. But Usually pain is moving and changing. Everything
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  Speaker 4: is impermanent, including your pain. And there's going to be
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  Speaker 4: periods when it peaks and periods when it gets a
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  Speaker 4: little bit.
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  Speaker 3: Less.
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  Speaker 4: Then you can also notice, wow, I can put my
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  Speaker 4: attention on my pain, but I could also find another
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  Speaker 4: part of my body that actually doesn't experience any pain
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  Speaker 4: at all. It feels free. It feels either numb for
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  Speaker 4: some of us or neutral or even positive. And could
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  Speaker 4: I bring my attention to pain and bring my attention
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  Speaker 4: to another part of my body that doesn't have an
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  Speaker 4: intense pain to it. And now I'm in this whole
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  Speaker 4: realm of a body that has many different experiences happening
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  Speaker 4: in it. The idea here is not to get stuck
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  Speaker 4: in one spot, whether it's get stuck on fixing or
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  Speaker 4: stuck on a thought or even stuck on a sensation.
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  Speaker 3: Diana says when you're doing this exercise, you can also
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  Speaker 3: turn your attention to what's outside of your body.
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  Speaker 4: What's around you? What's going on? What's in your life?
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  Speaker 4: How are you going to use this body and how
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  Speaker 4: are you using it in this moment? So right now
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  Speaker 4: I'm sitting on the floor. I have a window outside
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  Speaker 4: of me. There's a tree. My eyes are seeing a tree.
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  Speaker 4: My eyes may not always be able to see a
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  Speaker 4: tree the way I can see a tree now, right?
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  Speaker 4: So I can appreciate that tree and I'm listening to sounds.
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  Speaker 4: My ears are receiving sounds. My body is breathing in air.
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  Speaker 4: I'm in a conversation with you. These are ways in
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  Speaker 4: which my body is connecting me to this world. And
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  Speaker 4: the more and more you practice paying attention to your
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  Speaker 4: thinning hair or whatever it is you're paying attention to,
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  Speaker 4: the stronger that neuronal connection will get. And where do
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  Speaker 4: you really want your stronger neuronal connections to get? You
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  Speaker 4: want to have a better awareness of the inside of
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  Speaker 4: your body, what it's telling you, and also how it's
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  Speaker 4: functioning and connecting you to what matters to you in
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  Speaker 4: this world. When I work with clients that are highly
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: fixated on the body as a form, one of the
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  Speaker 4: things that happens is they actually are more disconnected from people.
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  Speaker 4: Because if you're in a conversation with someone and you
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  Speaker 4: are so focused on your nose or so focused on
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  Speaker 4: the wrinkles of your neck, maybe you're being intimate with
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  Speaker 4: someone and you're so focused on whether or not your
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: belly is sticking out, then you are not engaging in
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  Speaker 4: the connection with another human being, which we know is
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  Speaker 4: so important for our well-being and our mental health and
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: our feeling of satisfaction and even our physical.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: If you want to do this kind of work, what
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  Speaker 3: are some questions you can ask or ways you can
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  Speaker 3: approach it? Let's just say you are always sucking in
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  Speaker 3: your stomach and you're so uncomfortable with your stomach.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I think the first thing is that you've already
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  Speaker 4: had to develop the awareness that you're always sucking in
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  Speaker 4: your stomach and start to notice, are there times when
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  Speaker 4: you're doing that more and times when you're doing that less?
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  Speaker 4: I don't know if you're always stuck in your stomach.
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  Speaker 4: There may be times where you let it go a
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  Speaker 4: little bit because maybe you feel a bit safer. Maybe
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  Speaker 4: you're alone. Maybe you're on a hike. Maybe you're in bed.
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  Speaker 4: So what are the contexts? Are there thoughts that you
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: believe to be true that you're holding onto about sucking?
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  Speaker 4: If I stuck in my stomach, then like finish that sentence.
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: If I don't suck in my stomach, then finish that sentence.
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  Speaker 4: What is the biggest feared experience for you?
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  Speaker 2: Is there.
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  Speaker 4: Something about messaging around your stomach that you received or
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  Speaker 4: you saw or continue to see from culture and society.
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: Is that messaging you want to believe and guide your life?
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  Speaker 4: And then how is it impacting you in your day?
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  Speaker 4: Are you less comfortable in your clothes? Are you distracted?
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  Speaker 4: Are you hiding behind a desk? Are you not standing
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: up and speaking in front of a group? There's a
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: whole slew of things that's happening at the biological level,
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: at the psychological level, at the social level. when we
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  Speaker 4: are just automatically shutting off a part of our body.
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  Speaker 3: Takeaway two, become aware of how your attention to your
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: body image is stealing your energy. Notice when you hide
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: parts of your body where you feel especially self-conscious about them.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: Ask yourself what you think will happen if you don't
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: hide that part. And think about what you could do
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: if you weren't held back by your body image. What
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: else might you spend that time on? And what could
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: you do more easily? Give a big presentation at work?
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: Go swimming? Laugh and smile freely? After the break, we
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: talk about social media and also weight loss medications and
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: cosmetic procedures.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: How do products end up on big box shelves? Well,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: we at Planet Money pitch the Planet Money board game.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: I'm trying not to think how much of a big
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: deal it is and how much work has gone into it.
• 13:23
  Speaker 6: It's really big.
• 13:24
  Speaker 7: Is it helpful if I remind you how big it is?
• 13:26
  Speaker 6: It's sort of the whole thing.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: We go inside the minds of the people who decide
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: what goes on store shelves. Listen to Planet Money on
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: I just want to say it can be really hard
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: to focus on anything else when we are bombarded with
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: these images of people who just lost a ton of
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: weight on a GLP or who have no forehead wrinkles
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: because they do Botox. And then if you're looking at
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: this kind of content on social media, then you just
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: get served more of it.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: We're being served up things that are very captivating. And
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: not only are they captivating, they're hitting us right in
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: our sore spot. And they have the ability to figure
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: out what your sore spot is because they're tracking how
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: long you're paying attention to it. You know, get out
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: of your phone into your life is probably the best
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: thing that you can do. But if you want to
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: feel better about your body, be in your body. There's
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: so much to explore about the body. Everything from if
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: you have the ability to hear, you can explore sounds.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: Bird watching is a big thing right now, right? So
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: exploring bird sound, that's a way to relate to your
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: body differently. Exploring foods and the taste of foods. Exploring
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: touch and the many different ways in which our body
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: loves to be touched. The five senses. Those are all
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: great things that when we're in our phones, we're not doing.
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: Another practice that I like to do with clients is
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: a little bit of an energy audit. This is an
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: exercise where you start to look at how your energy
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: is actually getting drained when it comes to your body.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: So how much energy are you putting into comparing your
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: body during the day? When do you feel energy drain
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: in terms of your time? How much time you're maybe
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: looking for products or on Instagram, looking for likes and
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: seeing those as like sucking down of your life force.
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: And then what actually fuels your energy in relationship to
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: your body? Maybe it's being outside. Maybe it's doing movement
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: that you enjoy. Maybe it's playing with your dog on
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: the floor. But having that energy audit for yourself where
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: you actually get honest about how much time and effort
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: is going into your body and where it's taking energy
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: from in your life.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been trying to get to this place and
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: I feel like it's working with my phone and with
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: Instagram specifically. Like when I have the impulse to look
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: at it, I just go like, There's nothing for me there. Yeah.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think the ways to look at it
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: is like, this is a false refuge. This is a
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: place where I'm trying to seek out refuge. It's easy,
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: it's quick, but it's away from my values. And what
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: actually are my true refuges? What is it that when
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: I engage in it, it has a deeper, more satisfying,
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: longer-term experience? In psychology, we're looking at sort of two
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: things that drive behavior, and both of them have a
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: good amount of research into them. The first one is
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: being driven by avoidance, and we call it experiential avoidance.
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: So I'm feeling uncomfortable. I'm feeling stressed. I just grab
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: my phone. It's a quick escape. And when I feel uncomfortable,
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: I feel stressed, and I grab my phone, often what
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: happens is the phone is actually serving something up to
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: me That's going to make me feel more uncomfortable and stressed.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: But then there's this other part of what drives our behavior,
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: which is called experiential attachment. And this is what's dangerous.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: It's our drive for status to be seen, our drive
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: for control, our drive to be in power. It's basically
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: our ego drive. And our phone does that too. So
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: we can feel like we're left out or we can
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: feel We're not getting the attention that we want to get.
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: And then we can go to our phone and go
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: to our likes. You know, like the experience on Instagram
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: where you're kind of going down, like, who made a
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: comment on my post? Oh, they made, I'm going to
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: go look at them and see if they, oh, who
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: are they? And it's this ego chasing aspect as well.
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: So experiential avoidance and experiential attachment are a lot of
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: what's driving our behavior in the phone space. And we
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: need to catch ourselves. Like, am I trying to avoid
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: something that's uncomfortable? And how could I actually really meet
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: my true need here? Or am I chasing after something
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: that is going to, in the long run, actually not
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: give me the satisfaction that I'm hungry for?
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: Takeaway three, get out of your phone and into your life.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Recognize how you feel about your body after you browse
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: your social media feeds and swap some of the time
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: you spend scrolling for an activity that's right in front
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: of you. Look up. Listen to the sound of birds
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: in the park. Pet your cat. Taste a sweet, juicy blackberry.
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: Put on some music and dance. Your body is glorious
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: and capable of so much. And when you treat it
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: as a meat suit and judge it based on its appearances,
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: you diminish it. How do you counsel patients who have
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: a negative view of their body's and who are also
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: considering weight loss medication or cosmetic procedures.
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: I actually don't take a moral stance on GLPs. I
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: don't take a moral stance on cosmetic procedures. I take
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: a functional stance on it. And that's because something like
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: a GLP, for one person, a GLP may open them
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: up to be able to go hiking with their grandkids.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: So what's the function of taking that medication or what's
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: the function of the cosmetic surgery? Does it open up
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: your life? Does it help you live more aligned with
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: your values? Or is it one of those other two
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: things that I talked about earlier? Is it avoidance and
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: trying to control something and fear-based or chasing after something
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: that you may never actually get to? So I'm really
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: just curious about what's driving it. for people? Will this
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: open up your life more? Is this aligned with your values?
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: How much energy is going to go into doing this thing?
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: Is it where you want to spend your time and
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: energy and money given our limited time and energy and
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: money on this planet? And what do you think it's
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: going to offer you?
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: Takeaway four, when you're considering body alterations through procedures or
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: weight loss medications, just make sure you know why. What
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: will these changes offer you? Will you be able to
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: function better, to move more easily, breathe better? Or will
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: you feel more open to life? Also think about the
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: time and money that you'll put in and whether that's
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: worth it to you. There are people who rightfully will say, like,
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: the way I look, some feature of how I look,
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: whether it's like my height or my weight or my
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: facial features, has caused me to be discriminated against. Absolutely.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: And if I change this thing, then my experience in
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: the world will be better.
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah. There's ways in which we dress to be accepted.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: There's not only body features and body parts, but also abilities,
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: physical abilities. And some physical abilities are more visible than others.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: And is that up to you to change you? Or
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: is that really not up to you in a much
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: bigger cultural systemic issue than yours? And that's where I
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: find that having groups of support and friends, and even
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: on your curating your social media, being protective. You can,
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: to some degree, decide who you're following and why. You
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: can find groups of people that are resisting that belief system.
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: And the more that you align yourself with that, the
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: stronger you may start to feel and being okay with
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: not going with the trend of trying to make yourself
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: the same.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: Diana, thank you so much for this.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: Thank you for having me.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: All right, time for a recap. Takeaway one, practice flexible attention.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: When you look in the mirror and all you can
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: see is your nose or your belly or your acne
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: or your wrinkles, turn your attention to what's happening inside
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: or outside of your body instead. Takeaway two, consider how
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: your attention to your body image is draining your energy
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: and what specific activities you might try if you weren't
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: thinking about how you looked. Takeaway three, get out of
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: your phone and into your life. And swap some of
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: the time you spend scrolling for an activity that's right
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: in front of you and stimulates your senses. Takeaway four,
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: when you're considering body alterations, know your why. What will
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: these changes offer you? Weight loss medications and cosmetic procedures
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: are not.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Morally good or bad.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: They're tools you can use if they align with your
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: values and make sense for your life and your budget.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: All right, that's our show. If you love Life Kit
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: and want even more, follow us on Instagram at NPR
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: Life Kit. We post video snippets of interviews plus comics
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: on things like the three types of financial guilt and
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  Speaker 3: how to cope. Also, if you're curious what I look like,
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: here's your chance to find out. One listener DM'd me
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: to say that my face matches my voice, which was
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: nice to hear. Follow us at NPR Life Kit. This
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: episode of Life Kit was produced by Margaret Serino. Our
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: digital editor is Malika Gharib, and our visuals editor is
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: CJ Rikalan. Megan Cain is our senior supervising editor, and
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  Speaker 3: includes Andy Tegel, Claire Marie Schneider, and Sylvie Douglas. Engineering
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: support comes from Kwesi Lee. Fact-checking by Tyler Jones. I'm
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: Mariel Segarra. Thanks for listening.
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