How To Start Liking Our Bodies, and Ourselves a Little More......

Now there's a question!  Do you like yourself?  Ela and I would say we're both working on it and that's ok.  For me, leading with self-compassion has been the game changer.  

So many of us engage in negative self talk and thankfully now we know about neural plasticity and the more we challenge these negative thoughts, the more resilience we build up against them.

As promised we want to share a couple of fabulous resources with you to get you on your path to liking yourself:

https://self-compassion.org/

Dan Harris's TED Talk - Stop Being A Jerk To Yourself

Please reach out if you would like some support with your relationship to food OR movement. Ela currently has limited spaces for Intuitive Eating coaching and if you'd like to reconnect with movement, contact Christine.

AND if you enjoyed this episode, please share and follow the 'Find Your Strong podcast' and if you have time, write us a short review. It would honestly mean the world. Love to you all, Ela & Christine x

Transcript

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Ela Law: The whole thing, because we.

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Christine Chessman: Welcome to find your strong. And this week it's a episode with just me and Ella. That's very bad grammar, isn't it, Ella?

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Ela Law: That is bad grammar, but I forgive you because I'm German, and I should not comment on English people.

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Christine Chessman: With Ella and me with Ella. Yeah, it would be Ella and me, because it wouldn't be Ella, and I.

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Ela Law: Yeah, because you would say, this is with me. So yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Me with Ella and me. Is that okay? All right. So.

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Ela Law: I'm gonna shut up now, because, as I said, I have no right to correct anybody's English.

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Christine Chessman: We have every right to be honest, anybody. When I was in Germany they always told me that my German grammar was better than theirs.

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Ela Law: Perfect.

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Christine Chessman: If you speak a foreign language, you learn the grammar, don't you? In a different way than if it's your mother tongue. But anyway, we're getting off topic tangent queens that we are. This week we thought we'd talk about. Well, Ella actually brought this up, but I think it's a great topic about liking yourself.

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Ela Law: And whether you do like yourself.

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Christine Chessman: How can we start liking ourselves and the relationship between liking ourselves and our relationship, and how we treat ourselves around food and movement, and how we view our bodies.

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Ela Law: So.

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Christine Chessman: I think it's a huge topic, isn't it, Ella?

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Ela Law: God, it's massive. Yeah. And it does keep coming up. I mean, in most client conversations. We hit that point where. And I assume it's the same for you. We hit that point where we drill down a bit, and you know, underneath is actually, I don't really like who I am. I don't really like what I'm doing. I don't really like me. So yeah, it's a big one for sure.

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Christine Chessman: And you know it doesn't help living in the culture that we live in, where you're bombarded with images of people who are simply doing life slightly better or slightly shinier, or slightly wealthier or slightly everythinger than us, in as far as we think, and we perceive it, I think it's very hard to be secure in yourself

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Christine Chessman: in this modern world.

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Ela Law: Yeah, for sure. Because you yeah, you're constantly comparing yourself to everybody else. And then this creates this kind of discontent, this kind of

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Ela Law: oh, I could do better. I'm not good enough, you know. And and also we're being sort of suggested that it's all our fault, basically. So you know, if how do you like someone who's failing at everything? You know it's it's really hard to push through that and and get through the noise of all of that stuff.

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Christine Chessman: I mean, I think my, so what I've currently put on my Instagram profile is about helping women to stop apologizing for themselves.

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Christine Chessman: And I think that's basically a theme with all of my clients. Oh, I'm sorry. And it's not only with my clients is absolutely with myself.

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Christine Chessman: and I. I think I mentioned this that I went to boxing class, and I kept saying, sorry to my trainer, and she was like, right. Okay. Next time you say. Sorry, you've got to give me 10 kicks on each side. I just kicked the whole session. So I just

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Christine Chessman: doesn't stop.

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Ela Law: Kicking.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: But it was great for me, because it just highlighted. I just spent my life apologizing.

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Ela Law: Yeah, yeah, I read something online recently about instead of saying, I'm sorry. Could you say? And then it was something like, Thank you for giving me the time, or thank you for waiting for me, or thank instead of saying sorry, basically apologizing for everything that you you did to just say, well, thank you for being gracious about it, or you know what I mean. Just.

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Christine Chessman: Like.

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Ela Law: Reframing that. And I thought that was quite powerful listening to that, because it's so easy, especially in the Uk. I don't know with other countries. I don't think the Germans apologize as much, and my husband in the early years has commented on that. But it's a very British thing to apologize for everything.

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Ela Law: I'm really sorry. Can I just squeeze past? No, you're fucking in my way right? Get out of the way, you know. It's those kind of things where we just go over the top at making everything our own fault.

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Christine Chessman: And I think if we do that, we we get into our minds that we're doing something wrong.

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Ela Law: Yeah. You know, we're we're in the wrong.

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Christine Chessman: I mean, it matters as we learn as we get older. It matters so much how we speak to ourselves matters so much, and I think if you've grown up in a certain way, or you've just got into a pattern of speaking to yourself in a certain way for decades.

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Christine Chessman: it's very hard to unlearn that.

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Christine Chessman: Something that takes a lot of practice.

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Christine Chessman: and you know you might never get rid of that 1st thought of. Oh, I'm rubbish! I'm useless, but it's

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Christine Chessman: about having the space to then actually hold on. Hold on! No, I'm not. This is just a thought. It's yeah. I don't know. It's.

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Christine Chessman: do you? How do you feel about yourself, Ella? Let's start. There.

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Ela Law: Well, now I feel I feel good about myself. I can't speak for other people. I'm sure there's plenty of people who don't like me, but you know that's their

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Ela Law: hey?

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Ela Law: Mine! That's their problem.

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Christine Chessman: Bastards.

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Ela Law: I know right? They're lost, anyway. Yeah, I feel good about myself nowadays, but it's not always been like that because you you go through phases, whether that is to do with upbringing school, whatever, where you just maybe feel not quite good enough.

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Ela Law: and often that has something to do with other people and other people put that thought into your head. It could be a partner. It could be friends, it could be teachers. It could be your parents or your wider family, and I think.

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Ela Law: whilst that is not necessarily the case for me. But I think that is the case for a lot of people where you just never quite feel like you've been accepted for who you are or not quite good enough, or criticised too much. And then it's going to be really, really difficult to like yourself, I think

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Ela Law: really, really difficult to just be authentic, and be who you are, without sort of trying to please everybody around you, and make yourself more likable. Does that make sense.

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Christine Chessman: A 100%. I have. I have a friend who is amazing in the sense that she she tells me she has an internal locus of evaluation. So stay with me here. It's like a counselor term. She's a counselor, and she said, I have an external locus of evaluation. So I'm always thinking about what other people think about me, and using that to determine my next step, or what I should do, what I should wear, what I should blah blah!

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Christine Chessman: She doesn't. She just thinks she's fantastic. She thinks she's probably the most beautiful person the most you know the best at her job. She just thinks she's got a great personality. She's very confident in herself, not in a cocky way, not in a way that would put you off. She's the most warm, engaging person that I would know.

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Christine Chessman: Because she is so comfortable with herself.

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Christine Chessman: And it is something that I love being around because it is just magnetic. If you know what I mean.

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Ela Law: Yeah, is it catching? Does it make you feel like, oh, if she can do that, I can do that a little bit more.

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Christine Chessman: Well, yeah, being around her is nice. It's really nice. But then she doesn't understand why

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Christine Chessman: I sometimes struggle with myself. So I think she just has. She has no concept. It's almost like she doesn't quite

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Christine Chessman: get thoughts.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: And I think what you were saying. It's like, if people say negative things to us, we do have this confirmation bias, don't we? We have this we'll not remember all of the hundreds of things people have said that are positive. We'll think about.

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Christine Chessman: That. One comment will stick with us and sit with us.

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Ela Law: Yeah. And how often have you spoken to somebody where that is the case that put them on a trajectory of hating their bodies, eating in a way that's not helpful moving their bodies in a punishing way. It can just be that one comment, that sort of

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Ela Law: tips them over the edge into, you know, I don't want to say hating themselves, but really kind of feeling like there's something that needs to be fixed because there's something wrong about them.

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Ela Law: But I love that about your friend. That's so. That's so amazing. I love the idea of that sort of external versus internal validation, and I've actually spoken to my son about this.

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Ela Law: that you know there's there's some people who are sort of very intrinsically motivated to achieve stuff just because it makes them feel good. And then there are some people that achieve because they get that external validation and that praise and the grades and and whatever. So it's a similar kind of thing with kind of liking yourself, isn't it? If someone says something like.

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Christine Chessman: Very much linked, isn't it? I think it's it's

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Christine Chessman: I don't know if you remember any comments. Do you remember any comments that would have when you were little that maybe stuck with you? Or was that.

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Christine Chessman: or what you said, that you've only recently started to like yourself, or it's been a work. It's been a.

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Ela Law: I have. I think I've always been very critical of myself, but I can't say that it's because of someone

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Ela Law: saying something specific. So I think that is just me being a recovering perfectionist, because I always thought that the only way I can make myself likable to other people is by being

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Ela Law: pretty much perfect, and doing everything properly, and not messing anything up, and you know what part of it I don't want to sort of be. I hope this doesn't come across as sort of conceited or anything, but I've always done well.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Ela Law: Yeah. So I've always I did. Well, at school. I've passed my driving license by the skin on my teeth just 1st time all of those things everything kind of just worked out. I got my 1st job that I applied for. It was just like an accumulation of things that just worked out, which then made me even more

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Ela Law: worried about failing at anything and becoming this person that wasn't perfect.

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Ela Law: Yeah. So

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Ela Law: that's not authentic. And that's not necessarily likable because I got teased at school for basically being a teacher's pet and all that, it couldn't be further from the truth. But it was that kind of thing. So those kind of comments then exacerbated how I felt about that.

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Ela Law: You have to keep going, couldn't I? Couldn't stop.

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Ela Law: But that's not because I was liking myself. That was because I felt like I had to do that, because that was the only reason people liked me that I was doing so well, and I was performing

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Ela Law: to a level that was acceptable.

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Ela Law: Does that make sense.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah. And did you, I mean, was there? When did you kind of realize that that was the thing? When did you realize that that was something you needed to

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Christine Chessman: think about and work through.

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Ela Law: Do you know what? Probably as recent as when I did my intuitive eating counselor training.

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Christine Chessman: Oh, okay.

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Ela Law: Yeah, it probably wasn't really on my radar because I wasn't immersed in this kind of counseling world. So yeah, it's probably reasonably recent. I wish I'd known it before, because then I could have done it differently. But I've done a lot of work with clients and people that I know on, and a network of therapists that I see regularly on values.

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Ela Law: And that is really eye-opening. When you, when you look at your values, what are your values, and one of my values very strangely was authenticity.

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Ela Law: and looking back, I feel like there were loads of times in my life where I wasn't authentic

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Ela Law: because I was performing.

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Ela Law: And you know, when you're not authentic, you are

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Ela Law: by default, basically saying, you're not liking who you are.

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Ela Law: Does that? Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: You're trying to be somebody different than who you are.

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Ela Law: Because you think who you are is not good enough.

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Christine Chessman: Hmm.

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Ela Law: So I think now I'm a lot more authentic.

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Ela Law: but maybe not as likable or sort of perfection. Driven as I was.

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Christine Chessman: Well, that's only to me. That's only positive.

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Ela Law: Yeah. And it. I'm just thinking about your friend. And that's why I asked the question, does it sort of rub off on you when you are with someone, and I love that, you said, well, it's actually really nice to be with someone, because she sounds like she's completely, authentically herself.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, I mean, the thing is, though, I probably wouldn't tell her if I was having a bad day.

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Christine Chessman: because I don't. So there's, you know. I think there's never a black and white is there, and it's it's it's lovely to be around somebody who's comfortable in their own skin. But it's also lovely to tell a friend who understands when you're feeling really down about yourself. You know.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Maybe been there and who's been in that position. But it's from the perfectionistic point of view. It's a really interesting one, because our kids are kind of going through Gcsea level as we were talking about.

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Christine Chessman: I've got a real, and it's my stuff. It's my baggage, but I don't want the kids

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Christine Chessman: pushing themselves to get frigging eights and nines and all of that.

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Christine Chessman: when I just I have a real sticking point with it, because I pushed myself

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Christine Chessman: to break down and got straight A's.

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Christine Chessman: and I've never been more miserable and kind of dived head 1st into an eating disorder through that time. So it was, you know, for me. That was the worst time of my life that I can remember, because I just wanted that validation. I didn't feel good about myself in any way. So I wanted that.

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Christine Chessman: I'm smart. You know. You're gonna I'm going to prove that I am smart. And then it kind of was that internal thing where I'm also going to make my body look right in, and it was miserable. It was absolutely miserable. It didn't bring me any joy, not one bit. And I, just looking back, wish I just hung out with my friends and

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Christine Chessman: and worked, but not put that pressure on myself, you know.

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Ela Law: Yeah. So when did things change, do you would you say you are a lot more at peace with yourself now? And do you like yourself. Now did something change for you? That kind of made it better or.

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Christine Chessman: I mean, it's it's like you. It's very much a recent thing since I started really getting involved with intuitive eating and changing how I viewed movement. So it's really very recent. And that's I'm very happy to talk to the listeners about this, because it isn't. We're not. Neither of us are sitting here on a pedestal going. Oh, we've got it all sorted.

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Ela Law: God, no.

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Christine Chessman: We don't have.

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Ela Law: It's work in progress, isn't it? The whole time we're learning? We're working on ourselves as well right.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah. And I think I think I have a lot more compassion for myself. Now.

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Christine Chessman: Than I used to, and I'm working on liking myself.

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Christine Chessman: I doubt myself a lot, which is something that I'm trying to

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Christine Chessman: to work on. But I definitely have. And I think we were talking about this also, since the Adhd diagnosis

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Christine Chessman: I kind of, I'm giving myself a bit more compassion because I know that

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Christine Chessman: my brain does work slightly differently, and that I've probably masked a lot of my life trying to fit into situations. But that's that's very common for somebody with Adhd. So I'm not going to beat myself up about that. I'm just going to try and

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Christine Chessman: move forward from here and be. But I think I don't know, Ella. I think for me in terms of food and movement.

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Christine Chessman: Listening to my body has been the thing.

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Christine Chessman: Because it's rather than pushing down what my body's trying to tell me just going. No, I'm not listening, not listening. I now listen, and that has been the biggest game changer, and I think that is liking yourself. I think to me that's the definition of liking myself.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: I listen, and if my body's going I'm hurting. I'm tired. I listen.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Rather than going. No, you're gonna go and do that half. Marathon. You're gonna go up, you know. It's it's

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Christine Chessman: I kind of go. Okay, I can take a step back. And

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Christine Chessman: what about you? Where is it? How is it seen as, how do you see this change, or how do you see this

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Christine Chessman: sort of movement away from perfectionism? Where have you seen that in terms of food in your body, and all of that kind of.

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Ela Law: Yeah, in a similar kind of way, I sort of let go of this.

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Ela Law: I think, as a nutritionist. When I 1st studied nutrition there was a lot of Oh, this is this is the right way to eat, and this is the wrong way to eat. There was a lot of that going on, and that was the narrative that we were being taught at University. So it was one of those things that I literally carried a soapbox with me, and would evangelize to anyone who was ready to listen what they should and shouldn't be eating. I was I was there, I was telling you.

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Ela Law: and now I realize that that is actually not very kind, because a Me telling people, but also me sort of trying to eat a certain way that wasn't actually what my body needed wasn't a very kind thing to do, and I think you hit the nail on the head there with the self-compassion and the kindness because

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Ela Law: you you are kind to things and people you like.

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Ela Law: Yes, yeah, you are. You punish

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Ela Law: things and people you don't like. Not that I'm not saying you should go out and punish people, but you know what I mean. So it's the it's the kind of if you if you go on very restrictive diets. If you engage in very punishing exercise routines.

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Ela Law: you are not being kind, and to me that indicates that you don't really like yourself or your body or both of it.

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Ela Law: And I think that's something to really

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Ela Law: to pause over and take a moment to, to really consider. To anyone who's listening to this? Is there something that you're doing to yourself that doesn't feel good? But you're doing it because you feel you need to do that and think about how unkind that is. And what would you say if a friend did that and punished themselves? Would you say, oh, just keep going, love. Yeah, just keep flogging yourself, and you know you wouldn't, would you? You would say, Well, stop!

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Ela Law: You need to look after yourself. You need to look after your physical, mental health, and by punishing yourself through either restricting food or feeling really bad about what you eat or exercising to an extent that doesn't, doesn't really work for you. That's not. That's not kind. That's not what you would do to somebody you liked.

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Christine Chessman: And maybe it's about also knowing that you have intrinsic worth like, because you're not attaching your worth

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Christine Chessman: to doing well in a certain area, whether that's.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: I, you know I used to sort of attach it to how fast I ran, or you know that kind of thing, or how well, I was doing in business, and all of that, and it's about finding that that worth now, if I never ran again my business, I stopped tomorrow and.

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Christine Chessman: And that I still find hard. So with running, I've definitely turned a corner. So it used to be all the half marathons, all the Marathons. I had to be there. I had to be well prepared, I had to, and people would say, Oh, you're fast, you're great, brilliant! I wasn't. I didn't love it. I did it because I was looking for that validation.

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Ela Law: Hmm.

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Christine Chessman: And now I kind of run a race. If I do a race, I don't do many because, and I do it at my own pace, and I enjoy the last one I did. I really enjoyed it.

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Ela Law: Well.

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Christine Chessman: Because I didn't think about a time. I just sort of ran and saw what would happen. I was kind of just going. Okay, let's see, let's see what you want to do. Here, let's.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Like, find the rhythm, and just see what happens. And it was a very different experience.

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Ela Law: So the as was it Damali Fraser, who said, The journey is the destination. So it was about actually doing it rather than I have to get under a certain time, or else I failed. It's very much going away. By the sounds of it from the all or nothing thinking, isn't it. It's the

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Ela Law: I'm doing it for the joy. I just want to see what happens. I'm not doing it for a particular goal. I'm just sort of, you know, having fun with it. I think that you can apply that to food as well. Right? You don't have to have a particular destination if you step away from intentional weight loss. You could just see what happens. You just enjoy the food, see what you like, see what you don't like. There's no sort of perfectionism

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Ela Law: in there when you step away from the

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Ela Law: one way or the or the other.

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Christine Chessman: And I think this is where it's hard, I think, for somebody who has struggled with disordered eating, or or any kind of eating disorder in the past.

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Christine Chessman: If you don't like yourself, you know, kind of at your core.

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Christine Chessman: Things get tough. That will be the, you know, for me. That was a coping mechanism where? So it was the oh, so I'll just restrict so that I can keep control over this section of my life. So.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: And that's a belief that kind of stays with you. And you often your brain just jumps straight back to when things are, you know when you're struggling with other things, your brain goes. Hold on. We know how to do this. Let's just control what we're eating. We can control something in our life which is not true, and I do. I have to say I do find it hard when things get hard, not to then

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Christine Chessman: move away from food. And it's something I'm very mindful of now.

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Ela Law: But it sounds like you're aware of it. And I think that's the most important thing that you notice this is happening. My brain wants to go straight to the shortcut, and you know it's something that's a shortcut that's been paved really, beautifully over years. You know, it's like a big highway that maybe has started to grow some weeds over it. So it's less of an automatic. Or let's go down this clear path. But it's still there, isn't it still readily available? Your brain.

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Christine Chessman: I like that. That's a great.

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Ela Law: Use that metaphor. I use that a lot because I think it makes sense. It's like when you're trying to change something. It's like getting into the woods, and there's this

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Ela Law: potential of a path, but you need to forge it. You need to get rid of all the weeds and maybe knock down a few trees and and keep trotting over it, so that it becomes a path that you can then go on quite easily, whereas if you always stay on the autopilot. This is the path I've always taken. That's well trodden. That's really clear. You know exactly where you go, and you don't even have to think about it. It's easy. So I love that as a

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Ela Law: as a sort of a way of looking at moving away from dieting and movement, as punishment to. Okay. Well, it takes time and effort to forge a new path.

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Ela Law: but eventually the path will be clear enough for you to go over it just like you would on the old one.

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Christine Chessman: I love that because I always use the the muscle. When building a muscle it takes time and effort to build a muscle. So it is like every little tiny bit

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Christine Chessman: counts every time you speak to yourself in a nice way, in a positive way.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Counts. And it's kind of, you know, neural. We know that the brain can change itself. So we know that the brain is plastic. We know we didn't used to think that. But you can absolutely it doesn't. Just you don't just stay exactly with the mindset that you had when you were in your twenties. You can slowly, like, create a new pathway, but it takes a lot of work and.

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Ela Law: Yeah, a bit of patience. Yeah. But practice, I think I think you're so right. It's like building a muscle. It's like forging that.

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Christine Chessman: So you gotta keep doing it.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: You know what I mean? It's it's like, and you can have little disruptors. This is the thing you're gonna get disruptors.

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Ela Law: Yeah, there'll be a storm, and there'll be a log across the path. You need to clear that absolutely. And I think if you think about. How many years has it taken for you to get into the disordered habits or the things that aren't serving you that's taken years to do so you can't expect to snip your fingers and just be out of it onto a new

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Ela Law: path trajectory, whatever it does. Take time and patience and self-compassion, and all of that needs to be practiced, because, as you said, it's a muscle that you need to keep flexing, otherwise it won't grow.

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Christine Chessman: I mean, there was somebody I listened to, was it? Maybe you know the we can do hard things? Podcast oh, I love that, and Abby won back and.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Sister.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Amanda? So Abby was talking about. You know you can be kind to yourself, sitting in your chair. You can go. Why could I sit more comfortably? How can I make this chair right now feeling more comfortable? Maybe I could put a cushion behind my back. Maybe I could just cross my legs, maybe, and or get myself a nice cup of tea. Maybe I could put a blank little things like that

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Christine Chessman: so simple and so small can sort of be a way in.

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Ela Law: Yes.

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Christine Chessman: You know, just making yourself a bit more comfortable, or just doing something nice for yourself, and just

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Christine Chessman: allowing giving yourself permission to take a break when you're tired, or to

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Christine Chessman: to eat a cake when you fancy it. You know it's small steps, but it can make a huge difference, can't it?

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Ela Law: Absolutely. Can I? Can I ask you something just to sort of go back to what you said earlier about neurodivergence and this whole

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Ela Law: thing about when you, when you grow up, and you kind of know something's not the same as with everybody else.

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Ela Law: How has that affected you in terms of liking yourself. How has that been a factor in everything?

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, I mean.

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Christine Chessman: it's a good question. Yeah, massive. I, you know. So there's a thing called Rsd, which is rejection, sensitivity, disorder, which is part of Adhd, and I think it might be part of autism spectrum disorder as well. But I have very. I struggle with Rsd, so that's basically, you just are very, very sensitive to rejection. And you imagine

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Christine Chessman: anybody that reacts in any way. That is not. I love you. I love you. They hate you.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Despise you. They must think you're and it's you know. I even find it with my own family. I'm like they really don't like me, do they? They much prefer, they much prefer my husband. They nobody really likes me in this family. It's ridiculous. The degree of it is.

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Christine Chessman: Something I've battled with always. It's like, if a friend doesn't message me, I'm like, Oh, she doesn't like me anymore, or she doesn't, you know, it's just constant to the point that I've I'm having worked with therapist after therapist and coach after coach in a privileged position to be able to do that. I must say

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Christine Chessman: I've had to really work on every single time I have a thought like that. Go, hold on! No, this is not you. This is just.

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Christine Chessman: Or Sd, or this is just your thought. You're telling yourself a story doesn't mean it's real, and it is exhausting.

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Ela Law: It must be.

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Christine Chessman: Exhausting to constantly say, maybe it's okay. Maybe there's nothing wrong, but that's

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Christine Chessman: that's where I'm at. So it is. At least now I know that every time I start feeling. Oh, I go! Hold on!

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Christine Chessman: Is this real? Or is this just you reacting? And on my good days I can do that. I can be rational. But on my hormonal days.

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Ela Law: Not so much.

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Ela Law: Still, it still hits me. Yeah. So I think it's.

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Christine Chessman: You know, I think for some people medication can be helpful.

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Christine Chessman: Or Adhd, certainly, but.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Yes, definitely. It's definitely a struggle, because you don't ever feel like you fit in with people.

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Christine Chessman: You've always felt slightly different. So you maybe try and fit in. But you get to a point in your life where that's just too tiring, and you just can't do it anymore.

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Christine Chessman: Hence why so many people are getting diagnosed in their perimenopause years because.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: They literally cannot keep doing the thing that they're supposed to do all the time, because they yeah.

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Christine Chessman: they're too absolutely bloody knackered.

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Ela Law: Yeah, it's this perfect storm perimenopause, isn't it? Because you have all of that burden and all of that trauma to go through? And then you have the hormone changes which you know all of that together, and possibly, if you have children, children in teenage years, which is another.

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Christine Chessman: It's a joy, it's a joy.

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Ela Law: Joy, isn't it? Yeah, so grateful? I'm so grateful.

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Ela Law: But yeah, it it must feel so so hard to to do with all of that in in one go for sure.

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Christine Chessman: I mean, we're gonna come to an end now soon, because we can. We can waffle like the best of them. But what alert would we tell so if you have a client who comes to you and says, I don't like myself.

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Christine Chessman: How would you start? What would you say to this lovely client to help them.

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Ela Law: I would always, always start with self-compassion and practicing that I love, and I do share this with loads of clients. Actually, the Kristin neff selfcompassion.org website

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Ela Law: has tons and tons of resources. We can pop it in the show notes. If anyone's interested, there's little guided meditations. There's resources and extra things to read. It's brilliant, and I think, whilst it might feel a little bit cringey at first, st especially if you're coming from a place of I actually hate myself.

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Ela Law: I can't possibly do this.

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Ela Law: It's as we said, it's a muscle. You're flexing. It's a path you're forging. It's practice, practice, and it does work because I have heard it from clients that they have practiced that. And I thought, Wow, I actually don't feel as bad about myself now as I did when we started working together, and it's opened my eyes to the fact that you know. Well, maybe it's not me. Maybe it's

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Ela Law: society that's made me believe all of this shit about myself. And yeah, it's really worthwhile exploring for, sure. So that's I think that's where I would start. I'd probably do some values work. I probably also

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Ela Law: look at really sort of reframing thoughts and coming up with, well, what is actually brilliant about you? Can you write a list. I've done that with a few clients, and it's really hard. Some people are stuck at sort of 3 things. But you know, we working on that

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Ela Law: and admitting to yourself, actually, I'm quite good at that. Actually, I'm you know, this is something I like about myself, just admitting that is a massive step, saying it out loud is another massive step. Just things like that very small steps. How about you? What do you do?

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Christine Chessman: Well, I meditation is brilliant. There's certain meditation teachers here who do guided meditation on liking your body. I do. Tapping as well. So eft is really powerful around self love and liking yourself. There's a great Ted talk with Dan Harris who does the 10%.

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Ela Law: I love Dan Harris so much.

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Christine Chessman: And he's great because he talks about how not to be a jerk to yourself so, and he he finds it a bit cringey to start with, but it's really helped him. How he speaks to himself, and that I find transformative because he's very real, very kind of look. This is really hard to get your head around. He's very authentic, very normal, very human.

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Christine Chessman: So we'll put that in the show notes as well, but that I just think any little thing that helps.

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Christine Chessman: Just go to it, you know. Take 5 min a day and just listen to somebody.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah. So saying, leading you, guiding you in that way towards self-compassion is like worth it, isn't it?

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Ela Law: Yeah, absolutely.

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Christine Chessman: And this has been lovely. I've really enjoyed chatting about this. I could have talked.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: All evening about it, but.

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Ela Law: Yeah, there's so much more to say. So maybe we need to come and revisit this, because I think I wonder whether this really resonated with our listeners, because I think we all go through phases and times where

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Ela Law: you know, liking ourselves is a bit harder than others. So yeah.

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Christine Chessman: And you're not alone.

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Ela Law: You're not alone.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Ela Law: So if anyone has any comments, please get in touch and share this with anyone you think might need to hear

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Ela Law: what we've had to say.

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Christine Chessman: But nice to talk to you, Ella, and thank you for listening everybody, and we'll see you next week.

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Ela Law: Take care of yourselves. Bye.