Latest / Vox Novus with Victor Fuhrman / Dr. Ann Saffi Biasetti – Your Body Never Meant You Any Harm

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Dr. Ann Saffi Biasetti – Your Body Never Meant You Any Harm · Vox Novus with Victor Fuhrman

0:05
Speaker 1: Vox Novus, the New Voice, Vox Novus, the New Dimension,
0:14
Speaker 1: Vox Novus thought and movement leaders who will share from
0:19
Speaker 1: their experience and offer tools to help us navigate our
0:23
Speaker 1: rapidly changing world. My name is Victor Furman. Welcome to
0:28
Speaker 1: Vox Novus, the New Voice. If you have spent years
0:37
Speaker 1: feeling at odds with your body, judging its shape, or
0:42
Speaker 1: fighting its needs, please know that you're not alone and
0:46
Speaker 1: you are not to blame. We live in a culture
0:49
Speaker 1: that teaches women and men to mistrust and disconnect from
0:53
Speaker 1: their physical selves. But deep down, your body has been
0:57
Speaker 1: waiting for you, not as an enemy, but is a
1:01
Speaker 1: wise protector ready to welcome you home. My guest this
1:05
Speaker 1: week on Box Novus, doctor an Safi Viasetti offers a
1:10
Speaker 1: series of gentle, research based practices that lead you out
1:14
Speaker 1: of your critical mind and through a supportive journey of
1:18
Speaker 1: body forgiveness. Doctor Viasetti is a trans personal psychologist, licensed
1:24
Speaker 1: clinical social worker, and certified yoga therapist. She specializes in
1:30
Speaker 1: helping individuals heal their relationships with their bodies, food, and
1:35
Speaker 1: sense of self through somatic therapy, yoga therapy, and embodied
1:41
Speaker 1: self compassion. Her website is an embodiedlife dot Com and
1:46
Speaker 1: she joins me this week to share her path and
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Speaker 1: new book, Your Body Never Meant You Any Harm, a
1:53
Speaker 1: somatic guide to forgiving and healing your relationship with your body.
1:59
Speaker 1: Please please join me and welcoming to vox Novius, doctor
2:03
Speaker 1: and Safe Viasetti. Welcome doctor An.
2:06
Speaker 2: Thank you Victor, thank you for having me on.
2:09
Speaker 1: And please share with us your path and how it
2:13
Speaker 1: led to your career and your calling.
2:15
Speaker 3: Oh okay, it's a long one that I will try
2:18
Speaker 3: and keep a little short because I've been working in
2:21
Speaker 3: the field for thirty six years, so that's a long time.
2:24
Speaker 3: And I started off of graduating pretty early through my
2:30
Speaker 3: undergrad and then write into my master's in clinical social
2:33
Speaker 3: work and where I loved that program. I came out
2:37
Speaker 3: of there and went into a graduate postgraduate program in
2:40
Speaker 3: gestalt therapy and that was really my first introduction into
2:46
Speaker 3: centering the body in psychotherapy. And I was very interested
2:50
Speaker 3: in that and found that quite fascinating. So when I
2:54
Speaker 3: started to work, I noticed that I only had a
2:58
Speaker 3: little bit of that because my graduate training really included
3:02
Speaker 3: very little. I had to do that POSTCRAD and I
3:05
Speaker 3: started getting into my own personal practice of yoga and meditation,
3:10
Speaker 3: and I noticed that that was starting to change my
3:13
Speaker 3: own relationship not just with my body, but also with
3:19
Speaker 3: my own cognition, my own thoughts. I had started to
3:23
Speaker 3: notice the impact that getting to know my own body
3:26
Speaker 3: had on helping my own ability to regulate emotion and
3:32
Speaker 3: to be more cognitively aware of myself and also more
3:37
Speaker 3: sensory aware of my body. So I became very interested
3:41
Speaker 3: in why don't we learn these things in graduate school?
3:44
Speaker 3: And I had to learn more. So my path continued
3:48
Speaker 3: then into yoga training, and specifically yoga therapy training, which
3:54
Speaker 3: is a very I call it like the PhD of yoga.
3:57
Speaker 3: It's a very advanced training in yoga where it really
4:01
Speaker 3: the centering that I did with that was on a
4:04
Speaker 3: specific program that centered the mind and body connection. And
4:09
Speaker 3: I started integrating that on my own as a psychotherapist
4:13
Speaker 3: and noticed enormous changes in my clients and I had
4:17
Speaker 3: to learn more. I started seeing people in a different way,
4:20
Speaker 3: in a more holistic way, not just through the door
4:23
Speaker 3: of diagnoses and problems, but rather I started taking a
4:30
Speaker 3: look at the whole system of a person, both their
4:33
Speaker 3: body and their mind together, how one influences the other,
4:36
Speaker 3: and I really wanted to help people center in to
4:41
Speaker 3: the use of their body as greater awareness of self,
4:47
Speaker 3: and so I went off to a mindfulness training program
4:50
Speaker 3: after that and then decided to go back to school
4:53
Speaker 3: for my PhD. And it was in psychology, but the
4:59
Speaker 3: program was centered on a specialization in trans personal psychology,
5:04
Speaker 3: which is all of this plus really helping people to
5:08
Speaker 3: get in touch with higher states of consciousness.
5:11
Speaker 2: The way we live through the.
5:12
Speaker 3: World attached to the meaning of self in one realm
5:17
Speaker 3: is so limited. As we know, there's so much more
5:20
Speaker 3: to a person than just the way we have lived
5:23
Speaker 3: through the world or our lives, believing the roles that
5:26
Speaker 3: we play, and our ideas of self. So trans personal
5:31
Speaker 3: psychology really married the worlds of psychology and spirituality for
5:36
Speaker 3: me and the somatic work.
5:39
Speaker 2: So in that.
5:40
Speaker 3: Program I did my dissertation research which was a qualitative
5:44
Speaker 3: research study, and this current book is based on an
5:49
Speaker 3: independent qualitative research study that I did. So I love
5:52
Speaker 3: finding out the meaning making that people do in their
5:57
Speaker 3: lives about experiences, and I really love to find out
6:00
Speaker 3: the depth of experience and what that is like for
6:05
Speaker 3: an individual. So that is really how I center my work.
6:09
Speaker 3: But also what this book is based on.
6:12
Speaker 1: You share that embodiment and interceptive listening help you become
6:17
Speaker 1: your body's advocate after being diagnosed with an autoimmune illness
6:21
Speaker 1: at a young age. Please share with us.
6:23
Speaker 4: Yes.
6:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that was a big eye opener for me
6:27
Speaker 3: and really what took me further into my own exploration
6:31
Speaker 3: of the somatic practices. It really started off for me.
6:35
Speaker 3: I was, you know, in my late twenties, and then
6:38
Speaker 3: at thirty, I had my first pregnancy, which was twin boys,
6:43
Speaker 3: and I was in you know, pregnancy bliss, and then
6:45
Speaker 3: I was in new mother bliss for the first four months,
6:48
Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden, everything came crashing.
6:50
Speaker 2: Down and I was feeling really ill.
6:54
Speaker 3: But you know, when you're thirty years old and you've
6:56
Speaker 3: come from this, you know very quote unquote health the body,
7:00
Speaker 3: you know that you could just make it do whatever
7:03
Speaker 3: you wanted to do. I actually didn't really even understand
7:06
Speaker 3: what unwellness was. You know, I had two babies in
7:09
Speaker 3: my arms, and I was like, I guess this is
7:11
Speaker 3: what every new mother feels in her body. And I
7:14
Speaker 3: would go to the doctors and I was being dismissed
7:18
Speaker 3: because as many women are especially with autoimmune illnesses. They
7:23
Speaker 3: don't most autoimmune illnesses and women don't get diagnosed for years.
7:28
Speaker 3: I think the average is three to five years before diagnosis.
7:32
Speaker 3: And I would run to the doctor and say, I
7:35
Speaker 3: am really not feeling well, and I was told things like, well,
7:38
Speaker 3: but you look great and you lost all that baby Wade,
7:42
Speaker 3: and so I kept getting dismissed. And it was at
7:46
Speaker 3: my son's first birthday when I tried to go to
7:49
Speaker 3: sleep that night and I was an extreme weakness. I
7:54
Speaker 3: could I actually couldn't even walk up a flight of
7:56
Speaker 3: stairs anymore. I would have to sit midway up the stairs.
8:00
Speaker 3: And I was lying in bed, and everyone kept saying
8:03
Speaker 3: to me, this is stress, this is new mother's stress.
8:05
Speaker 3: And you know, I was a psychotherapist by that point.
8:08
Speaker 3: You know, maybe I was only eight years into it,
8:10
Speaker 3: but I was still working for quite a while already.
8:13
Speaker 3: And I said, you know, I knew deep down inside
8:17
Speaker 3: that this wasn't stress. I knew what anxiety felt like
8:22
Speaker 3: in my body before, and I knew what stress felt like.
8:25
Speaker 3: This felt very unwell, like my body was really feeling
8:31
Speaker 3: like something is seriously wrong here. And it was in
8:34
Speaker 3: that moment that I decided to just stay with that,
8:37
Speaker 3: because I realized that I was dismissing my own information,
8:42
Speaker 3: my own interceptive information, which is our bodies or inner
8:46
Speaker 3: bodies communication. So I stayed with my hands on my
8:50
Speaker 3: heart and I could feel the racing, I could hear
8:53
Speaker 3: my heartbeat in my ears, and I really just stayed
8:57
Speaker 3: in stay, and I was like, this is not anxiety,
9:00
Speaker 3: all right, where is this coming from? And I and
9:02
Speaker 3: I really centered into those sensations, and in that moment
9:07
Speaker 3: was just you know, I tell my clients listen to
9:10
Speaker 3: the words that form in and with the sensation that
9:15
Speaker 3: is really interception when we're in that inner body experience,
9:18
Speaker 3: and then we have a connection, we have a cognitive
9:22
Speaker 3: connection from born from that experience. And that moment said
9:26
Speaker 3: to me, like, something is very wrong. This is not
9:31
Speaker 3: anxiety and you need help. So the next day, I,
9:35
Speaker 3: you know, called up the doctors and I insisted on
9:40
Speaker 3: repetitive blood tests that they had done prior to me
9:43
Speaker 3: getting pregnant, and that's why they were saying, everything's okay,
9:46
Speaker 3: we tested all of that, and sure enough I was
9:49
Speaker 3: tested and then you know, brought into the office immediately
9:52
Speaker 3: and they were saying, oh my goodness, you're in thyroid storm,
9:55
Speaker 3: which you know, if I was older and my body
9:59
Speaker 3: was or frail prior to the illness, that would have
10:03
Speaker 3: been a dangerous condition and they would have hospitalized me.
10:07
Speaker 3: But you know, I had two babies, and the doctor said, well,
10:10
Speaker 3: quickly take down the heart rate, and then you know,
10:12
Speaker 3: next thing I knew was, Okay, this is what has
10:16
Speaker 3: to be done, and you know, it's radioactive treatment for
10:20
Speaker 3: the thyroid gland to be removed. And it was a whirlwind.
10:24
Speaker 3: It was a whirlwind. But it was in that moment
10:26
Speaker 3: that I didn't even know the term interception yet. We
10:30
Speaker 3: really weren't talking much about it. This is twenty eight
10:34
Speaker 3: years ago now, so we really weren't talking much about
10:37
Speaker 3: it then, and I just knew that what I called
10:42
Speaker 3: it at that point was listening to the words of
10:45
Speaker 3: my body.
10:47
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Do you find I personally have friends of family
10:52
Speaker 1: and friends women who find that doctors are more dismissive
10:57
Speaker 1: towards them than to their male counterparts, their male partners.
11:01
Speaker 1: Do you find that so? And what message would you
11:03
Speaker 1: send out to male doctors today.
11:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great question, and it is actually a
11:08
Speaker 3: very reality based question too, because that is the case
11:13
Speaker 3: women's diseases as a whole are researched less than men's diseases,
11:19
Speaker 3: even though there's more reports. As we're saying about eighty
11:24
Speaker 3: percent of women compared to men have autoimmune it's like
11:30
Speaker 3: a It really is like a two to one ratio.
11:34
Speaker 3: It's a very high percentage of women. And the problem
11:39
Speaker 3: I think that happens is twofold. One is that we're
11:44
Speaker 3: used to women's bodies going through many changes. So a
11:48
Speaker 3: lot of times when women come in with bodily complaints,
11:53
Speaker 3: they are dismissed or put in the categories of hormonal
11:57
Speaker 3: change and oh, this is us, what's to be expected.
12:01
Speaker 3: That's a lot of even what I heard postpartum, and
12:05
Speaker 3: many women here that. Of course, then later on in
12:08
Speaker 3: menopause as well, their symptoms are just said, well, this
12:12
Speaker 3: is just how it is, and we know now that
12:14
Speaker 3: that's not the case. Actually that many hormonal disruptions in
12:19
Speaker 3: even the perimenopausal stage we know now can be treated,
12:23
Speaker 3: and women's lives can be so much better and so
12:27
Speaker 3: much more functional. They can remain in their bodies if
12:30
Speaker 3: treated earlier. So I do think that there's that one
12:34
Speaker 3: general categorization of women's complaints in their bodies that very,
12:41
Speaker 3: very easily get dismissed into the typical, oh to be
12:45
Speaker 3: expected categories. But then I also think there's another issue,
12:49
Speaker 3: and I write about this in the book for Women
12:52
Speaker 3: and embodiment is empowerment, And I say that because when
12:57
Speaker 3: we get to know our own bodies, we can be
13:01
Speaker 3: our own body advocate. And I do think the other
13:05
Speaker 3: issue is that women are really socialized to not be
13:11
Speaker 3: too needy and to oh, my goodness, that's like the
13:14
Speaker 3: worst thing right is to show up too needy, the
13:17
Speaker 3: needy woman, the complaining woman. So there is a socialization
13:22
Speaker 3: from a young age of being good and being cooperative
13:28
Speaker 3: and be the people pleaser rather than the disruptor or
13:33
Speaker 3: the troublemaker or asking too much and demanding too much.
13:38
Speaker 3: So it's a twofold exchange here that if you learn
13:45
Speaker 3: your own body's messages through this interception, you can go
13:50
Speaker 3: in and say, hey, this is not how my body operates.
13:55
Speaker 3: As a matter of fact, I just did that because
13:57
Speaker 3: you're halfway through writing the book. It's not uncommon when
14:01
Speaker 3: you have one autoimmune to develop another. So as I
14:04
Speaker 3: was in the middle of writing this book, I actually
14:07
Speaker 3: finally got diagnosed again. It took a while, but less
14:11
Speaker 3: time that it didn't than it did the first time.
14:13
Speaker 3: I got diagnosed with another autoimmune and I just was
14:16
Speaker 3: at my rheumatologists two weeks ago and he said to me, oh,
14:20
Speaker 3: but your sedimentation rate looks good. And I said, you know, doctor,
14:27
Speaker 3: please hear me out for a moment. I said, that
14:30
Speaker 3: is not how my body presents. I said, even in
14:33
Speaker 3: the worst of my symptoms, the worst of my flare,
14:36
Speaker 3: my said rate, my sedimentation rate.
14:39
Speaker 2: Never was high.
14:41
Speaker 3: I said, some people's bodies present that way, but mine doesn't.
14:44
Speaker 3: You know, I said, rate stays normal, but my symptoms
14:48
Speaker 3: are really high. My antibodies are really high. So he
14:51
Speaker 3: got it, like when he heard me present that way
14:54
Speaker 3: with clear communication from my body. I said, these are
14:57
Speaker 3: my symptoms and that's those numbers do not match my symptoms,
15:03
Speaker 3: and he got it. He didn't even question me after that.
15:06
Speaker 3: He said, got it. Now I know your body, so
15:09
Speaker 3: it does work twofold, And I do think that is
15:13
Speaker 3: part of the reason I wrote this book is that
15:15
Speaker 3: women could break through these restrictive social barriers that have
15:22
Speaker 3: been out there around women and women's health and their
15:26
Speaker 3: bodies and be their body advocate.
15:29
Speaker 1: So it's a combination of interceptive listening and self advocacy. Yes, wonderful,
15:36
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing. That's an important message. Thank you
15:38
Speaker 1: so much for sharing.
15:39
Speaker 2: That they're welcome.
15:41
Speaker 1: Now you created embodied self compassion intervention. Please describe how
15:46
Speaker 1: this works?
15:47
Speaker 2: Sure? What I discovered through the years.
15:50
Speaker 3: So, my first research study in my doctoral work was
15:53
Speaker 3: on the role of self compassion in helping people heal
15:58
Speaker 3: from disordered eating eating disorders. And what I discovered in
16:02
Speaker 3: that research was there was a very specific delivery method
16:07
Speaker 3: of self compassion that had to be offered to people
16:12
Speaker 3: when they were so far away from self compassion, you know,
16:16
Speaker 3: when they felt so critical, so disengaged from themselves and
16:19
Speaker 3: their bodies. Self compassion had to be delivered in this
16:23
Speaker 3: very I call it like a backdoor approach. I couldn't
16:27
Speaker 3: come directly toward them with the typical self compassion language
16:31
Speaker 3: that we hear out in the world, like oh, just
16:33
Speaker 3: treat yourself like a friend, or what would you say
16:36
Speaker 3: to a friend, or can you just be kind to
16:38
Speaker 3: yourself today? You know, for folks that don't have as
16:42
Speaker 3: intense of a critical or shameful experience going on, we
16:47
Speaker 3: can hear those words, we can take them in that
16:49
Speaker 3: could create a little bit of softening. But for this
16:51
Speaker 3: particular clientele and many other people, especially with trauma backgrounds,
16:56
Speaker 3: those words just are to they do not feel safe,
16:59
Speaker 3: They do not feel safe in the body. So it
17:01
Speaker 3: was after that research and I developed a pattern. Really
17:06
Speaker 3: it was a method of delivery of self compassion. What
17:10
Speaker 3: I recognized is that I had to find different words
17:15
Speaker 3: that actually left someone with a shift within their body,
17:20
Speaker 3: like feeling the softening first, and then they were able
17:26
Speaker 3: to have a different understanding. And what I mean by
17:29
Speaker 3: that softening is when self compassion is received in a
17:34
Speaker 3: non threatening way, it actually creates an autonomic nervous system
17:40
Speaker 3: shift within our body. We call self compassion the mediator,
17:46
Speaker 3: you know, we call it the part of ourselves that
17:49
Speaker 3: can actually soften. It's like the caregiving system lights up
17:54
Speaker 3: in our brain whether it comes from somebody else's kind words,
17:58
Speaker 3: but even when it comes from our own self kindness,
18:02
Speaker 3: we have that area of our brain, the caregiving A
18:05
Speaker 3: million mammillion brain lights up and we create a whole
18:10
Speaker 3: internal shift that feels safe and protected. So this embodied
18:15
Speaker 3: self compassion came around where I noticed that I had
18:20
Speaker 3: to really work carefully with my language with my clients
18:24
Speaker 3: and in my teachings and my retreats that I hold
18:28
Speaker 3: with women to give this languaging off in a way
18:33
Speaker 3: that it could be felt within. So once that softening happens,
18:38
Speaker 3: and once that nervous system shift happens, that's when the
18:42
Speaker 3: receive is very different. So for instance, when someone comes in,
18:48
Speaker 3: you know, had someone come in and complain about, you know,
18:51
Speaker 3: their foot pain and I can't stand this, and you know,
18:56
Speaker 3: my actually her words that she used or you know,
18:59
Speaker 3: my body's angry all the time. My body's just angry,
19:02
Speaker 3: and that's what she used for her pain experience. And
19:06
Speaker 3: if I came in and said to her, well, really,
19:09
Speaker 3: you know, your body isn't doing that to you. You know,
19:13
Speaker 3: that's a you know, don't be so hard on your body.
19:16
Speaker 3: Let's see what would you say to a friend with that,
19:18
Speaker 3: you know, it really wouldn't go very far. But instead
19:22
Speaker 3: I let her, you know, I let her talk about it.
19:24
Speaker 3: And then I said to her, well, wow, oh boy,
19:28
Speaker 3: that's that's got to be really, really tough. And I
19:31
Speaker 3: asked her to describe what was going on in her
19:33
Speaker 3: foot a little bit more on a sensory level, and
19:36
Speaker 3: she was like, well, there's pain on the left side
19:38
Speaker 3: and then at my ankle, and I, you know, can't
19:40
Speaker 3: rotate my foot good and all this sort of stuff
19:42
Speaker 3: she started saying, and I was like wow. I was like,
19:45
Speaker 3: I can't imagine. I was like, how old are you again?
19:48
Speaker 2: She's like, oh, yeah, I'm forty.
19:49
Speaker 3: I was like, wow, it's amazing, right, forty years. I
19:53
Speaker 3: can't even imagine what that foot is going through right now.
19:58
Speaker 2: She's like, what are you talking about? I was like wow.
20:00
Speaker 3: I was like, you know, I was like, if you
20:02
Speaker 3: really think about it, no part of our body really
20:06
Speaker 3: wants to have these issues either.
20:09
Speaker 5: You know.
20:09
Speaker 3: It was like, your foot is going through an experience
20:12
Speaker 3: in and of it by itself that is kind of
20:15
Speaker 3: unnatural for it, right, So I kind of wonder what
20:19
Speaker 3: your foot is going through? And she started laughing, right,
20:24
Speaker 3: So there's there's a first signal that I kind of
20:26
Speaker 3: had her back online with me and her nervous system.
20:29
Speaker 2: You know, she was no longer angry.
20:31
Speaker 3: She was laughing with me, and she was like, well,
20:34
Speaker 3: that's kind of silly, and I was like, well, it is,
20:37
Speaker 3: but it isn't you know, your body is not separate
20:41
Speaker 3: from you. You're not separate from your body, and if
20:44
Speaker 3: your foot is experiencing pain, you know you're experiencing it.
20:50
Speaker 3: But we can also get to wonder like, well, gee,
20:55
Speaker 3: this isn't very pleasant for.
20:57
Speaker 2: This foot either.
20:58
Speaker 3: If it could be different for me right now, it would.
21:04
Speaker 3: And so that kind of language that sounds strange is
21:08
Speaker 3: what I talk about in the book, about the subjective
21:12
Speaker 3: experience of our bodies rather than an objective experience. So
21:18
Speaker 3: embodiment means we move away from seeing our bodies as
21:22
Speaker 3: a separate entity that we just control and ask to
21:27
Speaker 3: function the way our mind wants it to function, and
21:31
Speaker 3: instead we start to see our body as a subjective
21:35
Speaker 3: relational experience where we may want our bodies to function
21:40
Speaker 3: a certain way, but they're also having their own experience. Now,
21:45
Speaker 3: the body's having its own experience, and it may not
21:47
Speaker 3: always be able to function in the way we want
21:50
Speaker 3: it to.
21:52
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and that was featured in your first book, Befriending
21:55
Speaker 1: your Body, a self compassionate approach to freeing yourself from
21:59
Speaker 1: the soord did eating, and also your card set Awakening
22:03
Speaker 1: Self Compassion Cards with fifty two cards, one for each
22:07
Speaker 1: week of the year. How may these be applied.
22:11
Speaker 3: The Self Compassion Card Deck was what I you know,
22:14
Speaker 3: the project that I did in between my first book
22:17
Speaker 3: and now this coming this upcoming book, and it really
22:22
Speaker 3: was a lovely It was such a fun I have
22:26
Speaker 3: to say, it was so fun writing those to begin with.
22:28
Speaker 3: It was a really lovely project for me to work on,
22:31
Speaker 3: and the point and purpose of them was to make
22:34
Speaker 3: self compassion a really simple act in someone's life. So
22:39
Speaker 3: it's fifty two cards one I encourage people to use
22:43
Speaker 3: one a week, and in the front of the card
22:46
Speaker 3: it has a teaching, a simple teaching about self compassion.
22:51
Speaker 3: It also has like a couple of words or a sentence,
22:54
Speaker 3: a little mantra that people can use to hold in
22:57
Speaker 3: mind throughout the week. And then on the back of
22:59
Speaker 3: the car it has an embodied practice exactly like what
23:03
Speaker 3: we're talking about. It's the felt sense of self compassion,
23:08
Speaker 3: so that it doesn't just remain in the head, but
23:11
Speaker 3: rather it's a body based practice that allows people to
23:15
Speaker 3: feel and sense that autonomic and sensory shift that we
23:19
Speaker 3: were just talking about. So it's been a lovely experience,
23:24
Speaker 3: you know, to get the feedback from people. Many people
23:27
Speaker 3: you know have them hanging up, you know, or carry
23:30
Speaker 3: them around with them. I know many therapists that hand
23:33
Speaker 3: them out to their clients. So it's a really nice
23:36
Speaker 3: way of taking simplicity around the teaching and the embodied experience.
23:41
Speaker 1: My guest is doctor an Safie Biasetti. When we come back,
23:45
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about her brand new book
23:47
Speaker 1: Your Body Never Meant You Any Harm. And please share
23:50
Speaker 1: with our listeners where they can get all your books
23:52
Speaker 1: and find out more about you and your wonderful work.
23:55
Speaker 2: Sure, thank you, Victor. So they can go to my main.
23:58
Speaker 3: Website which is www dot a an so not an
24:03
Speaker 3: but an an embodiedlife dot com and there they can
24:09
Speaker 3: find all of my bodies of work as well as
24:13
Speaker 3: my specialization, my focus in my practice, and they'll also
24:17
Speaker 3: find the link to my Befriending Your Body program as well,
24:22
Speaker 3: which is an eight week somatic program, a somatic self
24:27
Speaker 3: compassion program, I should say, for those working through any
24:31
Speaker 3: eating disorder, disordered eating recovery.
24:34
Speaker 1: And we'll be back with more after these words. On
24:37
Speaker 1: the own Times Radio network.
24:39
Speaker 5: The Cutting Edge of Conscious Radio, ome Times Radio IOMFM.
24:44
Speaker 5: Ome Times Magazine is one of the leading online content
24:48
Speaker 5: providers of positivity Wellness and Personal Empowerment. A philanthropic organization,
24:53
Speaker 5: their net proceeds are funneled to support worldwide charity initiatives
24:57
Speaker 5: via Humanity Healing International. Their commitment to creating community and
25:02
Speaker 5: providing conscious content, they aspire to uplift humanity on a
25:06
Speaker 5: global scale. Home Times Co creating a more conscious lifestyle.
25:11
Speaker 1: Back on Vox Novus, my guest this week, doctor Ann
25:14
Speaker 1: Safi Biasetti. We're going to be talking about her new book,
25:18
Speaker 1: Your Body Never Meant You Any Harm of somatic guide
25:22
Speaker 1: to forgiving and healing your relationship with your body. And
25:27
Speaker 1: what inspired that book?
25:29
Speaker 2: Oh, well, this book.
25:30
Speaker 3: I had the idea for this book for many many years.
25:34
Speaker 3: For first was a story about twenty years ago when
25:39
Speaker 3: I moved to this area and I was out to
25:42
Speaker 3: dinner with a friend and we were in one of
25:44
Speaker 3: those sitting in one of those communal areas, like an
25:47
Speaker 3: outdoor restaurant, and we got to talking with a couple
25:51
Speaker 3: next to us, and the woman looked at me and
25:54
Speaker 3: I was all dressed up that night. And you know,
25:57
Speaker 3: my other role in the community, aside from sematic psychotherapist,
26:01
Speaker 3: is I also teach and train people in therapeutic yoga.
26:05
Speaker 3: And so the woman found out that I taught and
26:07
Speaker 3: trained yoga and meditation, and she kind.
26:09
Speaker 2: Of looked me up and down.
26:10
Speaker 3: She said, well, you don't look like a yogi, and
26:13
Speaker 3: I thought that was interesting.
26:15
Speaker 2: I sort of stepped back for.
26:16
Speaker 3: A moment, and I wasn't offended. I actually was curious,
26:20
Speaker 3: and I said to her, can you tell me more
26:23
Speaker 3: what you mean by that? But I don't look like
26:26
Speaker 3: a yogi And she said, well, I don't know. I
26:28
Speaker 3: just expected you to, you know, maybe be dressed differently.
26:31
Speaker 3: And you know, we got into this conversation, and the
26:34
Speaker 3: whole conversation led to that, you know, her idea of
26:39
Speaker 3: a female yogi with someone maybe who you know, didn't
26:43
Speaker 3: wear makeup, but who wasn't dressed, or who didn't dye
26:45
Speaker 3: their hair or something like that, and it really left
26:48
Speaker 3: an impression within me. Not, like I said, not in
26:53
Speaker 3: a critical way or anything. I was perfectly fine with
26:55
Speaker 3: it because I actually had compassion around it, because I said, boy,
27:00
Speaker 3: this is what women have learned to do.
27:04
Speaker 2: This is what we've learned to do.
27:06
Speaker 3: Instead of seeing or wanting to see someone on the
27:10
Speaker 3: inside or get to know them on the inside, we
27:13
Speaker 3: have been trained through the outside world, the image obsessed world.
27:19
Speaker 3: We have been trained from the youngest of ages. Little
27:24
Speaker 3: little girls from as early as they can remember start
27:27
Speaker 3: to be trained very quickly in competition and comparison. And
27:33
Speaker 3: competition and comparison are really not the nature of the
27:38
Speaker 3: female body, the female brain. We are actually wired to
27:43
Speaker 3: bond and to be cooperative and to be communal. And
27:48
Speaker 3: so this woman was just doing what we're all trained
27:52
Speaker 3: to do, which is to judge from the outside, because
27:55
Speaker 3: that's what we do to ourselves. We judge ourselves on
27:59
Speaker 3: the surface body. And that idea really stuck with me,
28:05
Speaker 3: and I really had this longing to learn more and
28:10
Speaker 3: understand more. So that was twenty years ago, so that
28:13
Speaker 3: was long before my first book, and I really had
28:16
Speaker 3: to go through that journey, that journey of growth myself.
28:20
Speaker 2: First book, The Card Deck.
28:21
Speaker 3: And then it came around to me leading my Befriending
28:25
Speaker 3: Your Body program. And there in that program, primarily women
28:30
Speaker 3: come into it, but men come into the program too.
28:33
Speaker 3: I heard so many women just in shame and hatred
28:38
Speaker 3: and divide with their bodies. This exact divisiveness, this exact
28:43
Speaker 3: competitiveness and comparative thinking that was ruling their lives. And
28:49
Speaker 3: I was in the middle of guiding a forgiveness meditation
28:53
Speaker 3: with them, which was a practice of really trying to
28:59
Speaker 3: move to hoard some letting go of the regrets of
29:04
Speaker 3: the past and you know that they may have done
29:06
Speaker 3: toward their bodies, And the room was frozen, like I
29:10
Speaker 3: looked around and everyone was just like they were not
29:13
Speaker 3: having it, you know. And in that moment, I said
29:17
Speaker 3: to them, well, did you ever consider almost like what
29:22
Speaker 3: we just said earlier, I said, did you ever consider
29:25
Speaker 3: that your body never meant to harm you either? You know,
29:30
Speaker 3: because this meditation was about them letting go of the
29:34
Speaker 3: harm they may have done to their body. And I said,
29:37
Speaker 3: do you realize that your body never meant to harm
29:39
Speaker 3: you either? And it was in that moment that something shifted.
29:44
Speaker 3: That's what I just said earlier about the embodied self,
29:47
Speaker 3: compassion and the subjective view of the body. They started softening,
29:51
Speaker 3: Their bodies started softening. They started to cry, and they
29:54
Speaker 3: were like, oh my goodness, you know, no.
29:57
Speaker 2: I never thought of it that way. I always just
30:00
Speaker 2: thought of that.
30:01
Speaker 3: You know, I've been in this battle with myself, you
30:04
Speaker 3: know that I haven't been treating myself kindly and I
30:07
Speaker 3: never and they always were blaming their bodies and shaming
30:11
Speaker 3: their bodies for their distress that they had out in
30:14
Speaker 3: the world, and never did they think of the subjective experience, like, Hey,
30:19
Speaker 3: your body's been shouldering all of this, you know, and
30:23
Speaker 3: holding all of this for you for all these years also,
30:27
Speaker 3: and that's not easy for our internal system at all.
30:31
Speaker 3: And so it was in that moment that something shifted.
30:36
Speaker 3: I understood forgiveness on a different level. I said, Okay,
30:40
Speaker 3: there's a difference between forgiveness from the mind that attaches
30:46
Speaker 3: to all the regrets, the guilt, the shame I should
30:50
Speaker 3: have done this, I could have done this, What if
30:52
Speaker 3: I did this instead? You know, that attaches to all
30:55
Speaker 3: of that, And there's a difference between what I call
30:59
Speaker 3: body forgiveness, which is when we sit in that really
31:05
Speaker 3: tough stuff, all those tough emotions, and we get to
31:09
Speaker 3: sense and feel that this body is once again a living,
31:15
Speaker 3: breathing entity with us that also was deeply affected by
31:20
Speaker 3: the kind of thoughts and criticisms that we've held all
31:25
Speaker 3: these years, by what it received out in the world.
31:29
Speaker 3: As we know, it's not easy to be a body,
31:31
Speaker 3: and a female body out in this world. And so
31:35
Speaker 3: in that moment, that body forgiveness came alive and I said,
31:39
Speaker 3: I need to learn more about this. So I spent
31:42
Speaker 3: many years, it's already six years that I've been guiding
31:46
Speaker 3: this program globally. Actually it's a virtual program, so I
31:50
Speaker 3: get women from around the world, which is amazing to
31:54
Speaker 3: hear the different cultural experiences as well. And the last
32:00
Speaker 3: this number of years, about three years ago, I decided
32:03
Speaker 3: to embark on an independent qualitative research study on the
32:08
Speaker 3: role of this different type of forgiveness, this body forgiveness,
32:13
Speaker 3: for women that really felt like they understood that difference
32:18
Speaker 3: and how it led them to a much more embodied life,
32:22
Speaker 3: a more living, breathing, subjective experience or relationship with their bodies.
32:28
Speaker 3: So that's how this whole book was born, from my
32:31
Speaker 3: own inspiration by you know, inadvertently being criticized twenty years ago,
32:37
Speaker 3: to really wanting to understand the depths of this, and
32:43
Speaker 3: that's how the book was born.
32:45
Speaker 1: And as you share, healing the relationship with the body
32:50
Speaker 1: matters more than changing one's appearance.
32:54
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, And that goes back to that interceptive relationship
33:00
Speaker 3: we mentioned earlier, which is when we focus on this
33:05
Speaker 3: external which is what the world calls us to do,
33:08
Speaker 3: like I said, from the youngest of ages, you know,
33:11
Speaker 3: and a big part of that is just the embedded
33:14
Speaker 3: world really worldwide paradigm of the mind body division, the
33:19
Speaker 3: mind body duality, that mind is separate from bodies. So
33:24
Speaker 3: we've all been subjected to that. And then systems, systems
33:28
Speaker 3: of oppression like diaculture and the health and wellness industry
33:33
Speaker 3: as well, have really run off and away with that.
33:37
Speaker 3: They thrive actually off of us not knowing our inner bodies,
33:42
Speaker 3: so that the focus can remain on what makes the
33:46
Speaker 3: most money, which is the surface body, and manipulating the
33:50
Speaker 3: surface body to fit into whatever crazy standard is deemed
33:56
Speaker 3: acceptable and valuable at the time. I know, now we
34:00
Speaker 3: see a really horrific trend happening again of that, you know,
34:05
Speaker 3: heroin Chic, a thin look happening, and that being put
34:12
Speaker 3: out as a standard that is acceptable and not just acceptable,
34:18
Speaker 3: but desired. And so women have primarily been subjected to
34:25
Speaker 3: this industry, to this whole system, and billions of dollars
34:31
Speaker 3: are profited here. The activists and author Sonya and A.
34:37
Speaker 3: Taylor says that, you know, the direculture industry profits off
34:42
Speaker 3: of our shame, and that is true. The more we
34:47
Speaker 3: stay on the surface body and stay in that shame
34:51
Speaker 3: filled place of whether we belong or not, and the
34:55
Speaker 3: only way to belong is to change the look, the
34:59
Speaker 3: more the system stays alive and the more we are
35:03
Speaker 3: entrapped in it. So when we get to learn who
35:07
Speaker 3: we are on the inside, when we get in touch
35:10
Speaker 3: with our sensory body and that interception, well, all of
35:14
Speaker 3: a sudden we understand that body image is actually just
35:18
Speaker 3: a distraction. It's a distraction from the relationship with ourselves.
35:25
Speaker 3: And so I tell people, the more they get in
35:28
Speaker 3: touch with their inner body experience, the more they'll recognize
35:32
Speaker 3: that when body image obsession or rumination is happening, that
35:38
Speaker 3: that is just a moment that we're out again. You know,
35:42
Speaker 3: that's just a moment of disembodiment. So we get pulled
35:47
Speaker 3: out in the world. But this is where the empowerment
35:50
Speaker 3: part comes from embodiment, is that the more we can
35:53
Speaker 3: stay in, the more we can actually push back to
35:59
Speaker 3: those systems that end uparming and they end up harming
36:03
Speaker 3: multiple generations. You know, in my retreats, it's not uncommon
36:09
Speaker 3: for me to have grandmothers with you know, their daughter,
36:12
Speaker 3: their granddaughter, and these multiple generations of women that say,
36:18
Speaker 3: enough enough, I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm
36:21
Speaker 3: going to be who I want to be. And if
36:24
Speaker 3: I'm someone who you know, this is my body's natural size.
36:27
Speaker 3: We don't even know half the time what our body's
36:32
Speaker 3: natural size is because so many women have stunted their
36:36
Speaker 3: growth from the time their bodies started to develop. It's
36:41
Speaker 3: not uncommon for me to hear women in their thirties
36:45
Speaker 3: forties and if I ask them, do you know what
36:48
Speaker 3: your bodies unmanipulated natural size is? You know what do
36:54
Speaker 3: you imagine it?
36:55
Speaker 2: Would? They say?
36:56
Speaker 3: I have no idea because I've been on a diet.
36:59
Speaker 3: My mother put me on a diet when I was ten,
37:03
Speaker 3: so I have no idea. They have no idea. If
37:07
Speaker 3: someone was to ask them, do you know what your
37:09
Speaker 3: body's natural you know growth chart would have done if
37:18
Speaker 3: you weren't manipulated away from your natural state.
37:23
Speaker 1: And this time of year doesn't help. Many become concerned
37:27
Speaker 1: about their bodies with the advent of summer. Why does
37:30
Speaker 1: this lead to discussion about summer bodies and not the
37:33
Speaker 1: summer nervous system?
37:36
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly, Well, this is such a big one. The
37:40
Speaker 3: moment that clothing starts to shed, right, So the moment
37:45
Speaker 3: the warm weather comes and there's exposure of any parts
37:50
Speaker 3: of our bodies, that's where immediately we get pulled out
37:57
Speaker 3: to the surface body again because there's that immediate judgment
38:03
Speaker 3: of self that comes in, or the comparison once again,
38:07
Speaker 3: the competition. Everything we just mentioned, and all of that
38:11
Speaker 3: comes from the mind, right rumination in the mind, and
38:15
Speaker 3: when we can drop into understand like if we drop
38:20
Speaker 3: into the sensory body at that point, what I say
38:22
Speaker 3: to folks is check it out. That was just a
38:25
Speaker 3: moment that your nervous system system completely shifted.
38:31
Speaker 2: You know.
38:32
Speaker 3: Someone may have been may have been taking a beautiful
38:36
Speaker 3: walk right and really enjoying it, like walking their dog,
38:40
Speaker 3: really enjoying it, being in a moment of joy, and
38:43
Speaker 3: they were in their sensory body, and then they pass
38:46
Speaker 3: by a tinted car window. Oh, and they take a
38:50
Speaker 3: peek and there they see their reflection, and there the
38:55
Speaker 3: entire internal system system just shifted from joy to dysregulation
39:03
Speaker 3: because criticism comes on board, comparison comes on board. The
39:09
Speaker 3: moment stops being a moment, we stop being present in
39:13
Speaker 3: that moment joy has fallen away and someone if they
39:18
Speaker 3: don't catch what happened inside, then that person is likely
39:23
Speaker 3: to go home. Continue the shame cycle. Continue the cycle
39:29
Speaker 3: of feeling like they don't belong, that they don't deserve
39:32
Speaker 3: to belong, Continue the shame cycle that leads into then
39:37
Speaker 3: preventing themselves and stopping themselves from enjoying moments out in
39:44
Speaker 3: the sun, out in the park, the beach, whatever it
39:48
Speaker 3: may be. And it's her, and you can see. We
39:51
Speaker 3: can keep snowballing with this victor until somebody can stop
39:55
Speaker 3: and understand. Wait a minute, I ask people in that moment, pause,
40:01
Speaker 3: place a hand to someplace I feel soothing, hand on
40:05
Speaker 3: the heart, or just hold your hands together and say,
40:07
Speaker 3: this is a moment of disembodiment. This is a moment
40:13
Speaker 3: that I just left this experience, this joyful experience. This
40:17
Speaker 3: is a moment I am in a disregulated state inside.
40:22
Speaker 3: Can I feel that? Can I sense that? I can
40:25
Speaker 3: sense my heart racing, I can sense the critical thoughts
40:28
Speaker 3: that immediately are born from this moment. And out of fairness,
40:34
Speaker 3: how could this not happen? This is what we are
40:37
Speaker 3: trained in, This is what is constantly bombarding us. So
40:42
Speaker 3: it's a radical act in this world to come back.
40:47
Speaker 3: It's a radical act to come back to yourself and
40:49
Speaker 3: say I deserve this moment just as much as anyone else.
40:54
Speaker 1: What does embodiment actually mean and why is it becoming
40:58
Speaker 1: central to mental and the physical wellness.
41:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, so embodiment really is a philosophical term, and it
41:07
Speaker 3: really means being connected to the sense experience of our bodies.
41:13
Speaker 3: Similar to what I just said, like coming back to
41:16
Speaker 3: that sense experience, what was that moment like and how
41:20
Speaker 3: did it shift, how did it change, how did it
41:22
Speaker 3: come back? So when we're in, when we're in tune
41:26
Speaker 3: with our sensory experience, we start to live in and
41:31
Speaker 3: with the connection with our body with all experiences that
41:35
Speaker 3: we have. So in other words, there was you know,
41:38
Speaker 3: the French philosopher Mirla Ponte from years ago, he would
41:44
Speaker 3: say embodiment. He described embodiment as the relational experience where
41:51
Speaker 3: we are constantly beside our body. And I love that
41:55
Speaker 3: term because that's really what it's like. So it's going
42:00
Speaker 3: moving through the world with every experience that we have,
42:04
Speaker 3: sort of making sure that we check in and notice
42:08
Speaker 3: what that's like inside, whether that's feeling safe, protected, joyous,
42:14
Speaker 3: whether that's feeling not so safe? And how do we
42:17
Speaker 3: know those things? You know, how do we know those
42:20
Speaker 3: answers to the things we just think about so quickly
42:23
Speaker 3: in our mind, But what's our body's report and bodies
42:27
Speaker 3: experience of that. So it's really developing this communication and
42:33
Speaker 3: this relationship with your body and that communication again going
42:37
Speaker 3: back to that interception on a neuroscience level interception where
42:43
Speaker 3: it lands in the brain, in our limbics deep in
42:46
Speaker 3: our limbics system, in an area of our brain called
42:49
Speaker 3: the anterior singular cortex. That area. Actually, the more interception
42:55
Speaker 3: we have, the more we actually develop a sense of
42:59
Speaker 3: who we are are, so that acc that area of
43:02
Speaker 3: the brain. As that develops, we gather a sense of
43:08
Speaker 3: who we are as a whole being. So the more
43:13
Speaker 3: sensory information we have, the more we can actually feel
43:19
Speaker 3: and be able to center our emotion regulation more because
43:25
Speaker 3: we now have a connection to Oh, when that happens,
43:31
Speaker 3: this is how I experience it, Or we can say
43:35
Speaker 3: to someone very carefully, well, when you say that to me,
43:40
Speaker 3: or when this happens, this is what I notice happened
43:44
Speaker 3: inside from me, I feel that pain in my stomach
43:47
Speaker 3: or I feel that tightening in my throat. So we
43:50
Speaker 3: have a deeper register, and there's lots of research on
43:55
Speaker 3: interception now, especially with trauma, that really expands the window
44:01
Speaker 3: of tolerance, meaning that we're able to tolerate the fluctuations
44:07
Speaker 3: that happen within our nervous system system, within our sensory
44:11
Speaker 3: body as well, so that when we have a sensation,
44:15
Speaker 3: as we know that for folks that have had especially
44:20
Speaker 3: chronic trauma, ongoing or very complex trauma from the past,
44:27
Speaker 3: we know that the biggest problem in their lives in
44:29
Speaker 3: the current is that they continue to experience sensations that
44:36
Speaker 3: they're unfamiliar with, and so when those sensations happen, it
44:41
Speaker 3: brings their memory, brings their mind right back to the past.
44:47
Speaker 3: And the Meanwhile, if we could have, if we can
44:51
Speaker 3: develop a really good register of that sensory information, what
44:55
Speaker 3: they would start to notice and what they do notice,
44:58
Speaker 3: because this is how I work with my clients. They'll say, oh, my,
45:01
Speaker 3: there goes that that sick feeling in my stomach, and
45:05
Speaker 3: rather than saying, oh, that's because that happened you know
45:09
Speaker 3: when I was five, you know, they'll say that sick
45:12
Speaker 3: feeling in my stomach because the encounter that I just
45:16
Speaker 3: had had a little bit of that in there, you know,
45:21
Speaker 3: had a little bit of that angry voice maybe that
45:23
Speaker 3: person had or something, and that reminded me of the past.
45:29
Speaker 1: My guest doctor and Safie Viasetti. Her book is called
45:33
Speaker 1: Your Body Never Meant You Any Harm. We'll be back
45:36
Speaker 1: with more after these words on the Own Times Radio network.
45:41
Speaker 4: Humanity Healing International is a small nonprofit with a big dream.
45:45
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Speaker 6: More than twenty four million Americans have an autoimmune disorder,
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46:57
Speaker 1: Back on Box Novus my guest this week dot Com
47:00
Speaker 1: and Safie Biasetti. We're talking about her book Your Body
47:03
Speaker 1: Never Meant You Any Harm and please offer some everyday
47:07
Speaker 1: somatic practices that help women feel safer, calmer, and more connected.
47:13
Speaker 3: Sure, so, I have lots in the book, but I'm
47:16
Speaker 3: going to pick the one from the beginning because I
47:20
Speaker 3: think that this is a simple one to get people
47:23
Speaker 3: started in getting to know their body. And it sounds
47:28
Speaker 3: like a nothing, little practice, but it actually opens up
47:31
Speaker 3: a lot of awareness. And I'll say more so, this
47:35
Speaker 3: practice is just beginning to center your everyday actions that
47:41
Speaker 3: you do, but to start noticing what those actions are like.
47:49
Speaker 2: On the inside. So I'll give you an example.
47:51
Speaker 3: So I like to start my day off every day
47:54
Speaker 3: with my cup of coffee, you know, in the morning.
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Speaker 2: And it's habitual, isn't it a U act?
48:00
Speaker 3: So I just make that coffee and I'm checking my
48:03
Speaker 3: emails or whatever. But if I make that coffee, check
48:06
Speaker 3: my emails, go to drink it, and pause for a moment.
48:10
Speaker 3: So pausing is extremely important when it comes to body awareness.
48:15
Speaker 3: So if I pause for a moment and say, well,
48:19
Speaker 3: what about this do I like on the inside? Meaning
48:25
Speaker 3: what does this experience feel like on the inside right now?
48:29
Speaker 3: So there's a reason we like it, not just in
48:32
Speaker 3: the mind, but there's a reason we like it in
48:34
Speaker 3: the body, meaning it feels soothing. Perhaps perhaps the warmth
48:40
Speaker 3: of it feels calming to us in the morning. Maybe
48:43
Speaker 3: we can feel that bit of awakening energy shift inside.
48:50
Speaker 3: Maybe the smell of it reminds us of other pleasing
48:55
Speaker 3: or pleasant experiences.
48:57
Speaker 2: We have had. Maybe there's connection to others.
49:00
Speaker 3: You know, I think of it, and if I answer
49:03
Speaker 3: all those questions, I could go way back as a kid,
49:06
Speaker 3: you know, I lived with my grandparents, and my grandfather
49:08
Speaker 3: made his coffee and the percolator every morning, and before
49:12
Speaker 3: I even tasted it ever as a child, all those years,
49:16
Speaker 3: I just remembered the smell. So if we ask that question,
49:20
Speaker 3: what's this like on the inside, it takes us not
49:24
Speaker 3: just to our connections and associations in the moment, but
49:28
Speaker 3: it also can bring us back to a lot of
49:31
Speaker 3: really important information. So that question, I ask people to
49:36
Speaker 3: now take a pause throughout the day and see if
49:40
Speaker 3: they can ask that with all their experiences, just so
49:44
Speaker 3: we can start turning our attention inward. We're really training
49:48
Speaker 3: the mind to not just stay on the surface, but
49:53
Speaker 3: to now start asking the question, what is this like
49:56
Speaker 3: for my body?
49:58
Speaker 1: You had mentioned the smelling the grandfather's coffee. How should
50:02
Speaker 1: we treat adolescents and teens with eating disorders?
50:05
Speaker 3: Hmmmm? Ah boy, Well, I actually worked the same with
50:10
Speaker 3: adolescents because they are so much closer to their embodied
50:16
Speaker 3: experience than we are as adults. You know, we've been
50:19
Speaker 3: unfortunately trained away from our sensory body for so many
50:24
Speaker 3: more years.
50:24
Speaker 2: Than they have. So I love to take them.
50:27
Speaker 3: Back to just a few years earlier, when they were
50:31
Speaker 3: a young child, and I want to find out not
50:35
Speaker 3: just what their likes and dislikes, are were then, But
50:39
Speaker 3: I want to find out what their bodies likes and
50:41
Speaker 3: dislikes were, what was there? Were they a sensory based child,
50:46
Speaker 3: meaning did they were they very attuned to their sensations.
50:51
Speaker 3: I find that most of the adolescents I work with
50:54
Speaker 3: that have developed in eating disorder that they are very
50:59
Speaker 3: sent not just sensitive people, but sensitive systems. They have
51:06
Speaker 3: been a sensitive body. They are the type of person
51:11
Speaker 3: that tended to feel deeply everyone's emotional experience around them.
51:17
Speaker 3: They're often sensitive systems as far as sounds, you know,
51:22
Speaker 3: and textures and tastes. So when people when they stopped
51:27
Speaker 3: eating certain foods, you know, a lot of a lot
51:30
Speaker 3: of those adolescents or the reason was because of certain
51:34
Speaker 3: textures or even colors of the food or how they
51:37
Speaker 3: were mixed together. So we want to really center the
51:41
Speaker 3: body and bring them back to this kind of information
51:46
Speaker 3: so that many of them sit with me and say, oh,
51:48
Speaker 3: my gosh, I thought this just started two years ago
51:52
Speaker 3: when I was twelve, you know, or fourteen, But now
51:56
Speaker 3: that we're talking about this, I think I had, you
51:59
Speaker 3: knowsitivities like this from such a young age. And then
52:04
Speaker 3: we usually find out that really what they were experiencing
52:08
Speaker 3: younger was a lot of anxiety, feeling unsafe and not
52:14
Speaker 3: knowing how to live in a sensitive body and a
52:18
Speaker 3: body that easily felt overwhelmed. So this is really important
52:23
Speaker 3: information that we can use with young people to who
52:28
Speaker 3: are closer still to their embodied experience. And I love
52:33
Speaker 3: to hook that in right away because as their brain
52:37
Speaker 3: is developing, we still have a chance there to really
52:40
Speaker 3: move this interception in and back within them and bring
52:45
Speaker 3: it alive.
52:48
Speaker 1: Any words for people of my gender.
52:52
Speaker 3: Yes, Victor not leaving the guys out here, but as
52:56
Speaker 3: I write in the book that you know, the first
52:59
Speaker 3: chapter really does it's a dedication to women only because
53:04
Speaker 3: of the world we live in right that we are unfortunately,
53:08
Speaker 3: like I said, subjected in these systems. They really do
53:12
Speaker 3: center and want to speak to women's minds more. But
53:18
Speaker 3: we are seeing such a huge resurgence and you know,
53:24
Speaker 3: and coming back again also to the male body and
53:28
Speaker 3: body image disturbance, they are not exempt by any means.
53:34
Speaker 3: So so I do invite men to read this book
53:38
Speaker 3: for their own path back to a remaining embodied and
53:44
Speaker 3: in their power, you know, so you know, when we're
53:47
Speaker 3: truly in our own agency, then we don't have to
53:49
Speaker 3: move into you know, toxic masculinity and overuse of power, right,
53:55
Speaker 3: because we trust ourselves. So this is all about body trust.
53:59
Speaker 3: That what embodiment's about. And I also encourage men to
54:03
Speaker 3: read it so that they can understand the females around
54:08
Speaker 3: them mother's, sister, daughter, you know, wife, partner, this is friend,
54:16
Speaker 3: This is so important that we need We need men
54:20
Speaker 3: to understand this end and how to help right, how
54:25
Speaker 3: to help communicate with women so that they are not
54:29
Speaker 3: actually centering just what they look like on the surface.
54:34
Speaker 3: You know, we're making comments about that inadvertently without knowing it.
54:38
Speaker 3: How many times I hear young women say, well, my
54:41
Speaker 3: father didn't mean it, but he told me I was
54:43
Speaker 3: getting big, you know. Or my father didn't mean it,
54:46
Speaker 3: but he told me to, you know, exercise with him,
54:49
Speaker 3: or go on this diet with him. So and the
54:51
Speaker 3: same I hear all the time with partners. You know that, oh,
54:54
Speaker 3: my husband doesn't like the way I look anymore, or this,
54:58
Speaker 3: and so we have to be so careful with this,
55:01
Speaker 3: and how do we really be supportive so that we
55:04
Speaker 3: can be in intimacy and that intimacy that really sees
55:09
Speaker 3: one another for the wholeness of who they.
55:12
Speaker 1: Are, the wisdom and experience of my guest doctor and
55:16
Speaker 1: Safie Bassetti her book Your Body Never Mention You Any harm,
55:21
Speaker 1: a somatic guide to forgiving and healing your relationship with
55:25
Speaker 1: your body. And please tell our listeners one more time
55:28
Speaker 1: where they can get all of your wonderful books and
55:29
Speaker 1: find out more about you and your work.
55:32
Speaker 2: Thank you, Victor.
55:33
Speaker 3: Yes, so the book will be available. It's on pre
55:36
Speaker 3: order now at Shambala Publications and there is actually a
55:40
Speaker 3: coupon code that they're giving now through the end of August,
55:44
Speaker 3: and it will also be available available at all major
55:48
Speaker 3: bookstores and Amazon. And my website is again an embodied
55:54
Speaker 3: life dot com, so it's an embodied E M B
55:58
Speaker 3: O d I ed life dot com and there they
56:03
Speaker 3: will find also the link to my Befriending your Body
56:06
Speaker 3: program as well.
56:07
Speaker 1: And thank you for all of this wonderful work that
56:09
Speaker 1: you're doing on behalf of women and men.
56:13
Speaker 2: Thank you, Victor, Thank you for having me on, and
56:15
Speaker 2: thank you.
56:16
Speaker 1: For joining us on Vox Novus. I'm Victor the Voice Furman.
56:20
Speaker 1: Have a wonderful week