Transcription:
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
feel, body, part, woman, emotion, scrumptious, juliette, mirror, colour, notice, realised, bit, eyes, charge, observant, create, hear, shame, oftentimes, podcast
Juliette Karaman 00:01
Welcome to the scrumptious woman with Juliette Karaman. This is a sacred space, where we embark on a profound journey, reinventing the most intimate relationship in life. The relationship with yourself. We look within uncover and reclaim the territories of relationships, intimacy, sensuality, kink, spirituality, embodiment, communication, parenthood, and grief.
Juliette Karaman 01:06
Hello, my love’s it’s Juliette Karaman, and I’m super excited to be with you today. And today, I wanted to talk to you about body shame. Now, this is a big subject. So I will just be giving you a tiny little nugget of it, but also to realise like, what, how, and why do we have body shame, right? It’s such a big subject. And I’ve noticed by working with 1000s of women and couples, that it doesn’t only start at a certain age, it’s already ingrained from really early on. And I know I touched upon this earlier. And when you hear me talking about trauma and intense experiences, you’ll know that my definition of trauma is anything that happened too fast, or too quick for our psyche or body to absorb tend to know and that then left an imprint in our body. So I quickly want to just take you through what happens in the animal kingdom. So if, for instance, a rabbit is being chased by a predator, it’s running, running, running, and then you’ll often see a rabbit or a dog or whatever animal it is, and it will be shaking after. So it shakes that off. So it means it completes the trauma cycle. But if you think about you or me, if someone has made a remark about what we look like, we just brush it off, right? We don’t really let that we say that it doesn’t affect us. But it will be looping back in our thought system. And it will come back up and as an emotional, and that is the emotional charge that we have, with intense experiences with an experience that happened in the past.
Juliette Karaman 03:05
Want us to just pre frame this so that you understand what I’m taking you through. So body shame is really when someone has looked at us in a certain way. And it could be as soon as we weren’t, we were little or the way that we might have grabbed for an extra cookie or an extra potato or an extra peach, whatever it is some kind of food. And maybe your grandmother or your aunt or someone in school just looked at you a certain way. It’s like, oh, that’s greedy, or that, you know, it’s bad for you, you’re you’re you shouldn’t be eating that many things. Or it might have been a subconscious little thought that you’re hearing you’re seeing them communicate a look to you and you’re interpreting that, oh my god, I’m unlovable. I am bad for for wanting this. And those are the things that load into our system. They learn into our bodies, and they load into our minds. Add to this that we have so much access to social media. These days, everyone has an internet connection. Pretty much everyone has a phone. And most people are on social media, Instagram, Facebook, tick tock, hear a whole host of others and see all these images. So at the moment everything is quick and it’s fast and we want to you know, we want to be gratified so we look at someone and we compare ourselves to to that person. We might not think we’re most beautiful enough we might think that we don’t have the right body. We aren’t pretty enough we don’t communicate properly Really, our voice is different, our hair is different we are we have wrinkles, we have, you know, little little scars and dimples and bits that they don’t have. Now it’s an age old, say problem, but it’s not a problem. It’s it’s, it’s become a problem. But it’s it’s just an age old thing, right where we see others. And there is something in them that we like so much, but that we can’t see in ourselves. And this is where people are mirror, it’s right, we, we feel something attractive in them. And we then try to be like that, like them. So we try to imitate them, we try to act like them, we try to dress like them, we try to talk like them, we try to think like only if I have a good body like there’s, I might be more like them, I will be popular just like them. And this is where you try to squeeze yourself into a box. That is not you. You’re trying to change your exterior, you’re trying to change the way that you look, just to fit into what society has deemed for you to look like or to be lie. I’ve heard me it’s funny, because yeah, I’m Dutch. And I’ve lived in the UK for 23 years, I was married to a Lebanese, Palestinian, Muslim, and we’d spent a lot of time in Beirut. And people would ask me, it’s like, oh, have you converted, or, yeah, they just would like to put me in a little box because they didn’t understand me. And also, I have lost about half my body weight, I had four kids and under three years time, so went up and up and up and up. And then in weight, because every pregnancy, I put on about 25 kilos, which is, I don’t know, 5060 pounds, it’s a lot of weight. And yeah, and then we had number two kids within a few months, and then all of a sudden, I had the twins, so beached whale for a while. And the thing is, when you look at yourself in the mirror, even if you have lost weight, oftentimes you still see part of the woman that you were before. And there are still those negative thought patterns that are running in your, in your mind. There are still those negative sayings that you say to yourself. And if you listen to another episode, where I talked about communication, really what you say, makes a massive difference what you say to yourself. And part of it is that we shove this under the carpet. We don’t actually say it, but we feel it. We think it then we cry. Yeah. Or we’re very vocal about and we’re saying hi, yeah, but you know, look at this lobby arms, I’m terrible. If someone gives you a compliment, you’re like, oh, yeah, just this old thing. Why did I pick it up? But actually, I want this to go into receiving How do you receive compliments? How do you receive the way that someone looks at you? Some of us might have walked past some construction site. Sorry, my brain went Dutch there. Some of you might have walked past a construction site. And there’s some men labouring there, and there were so that you and part of you is like, oh, okay, that’s, that’s kind of cool. Because yeah, they’re pretty, they think I’m pretty or they think I’m this or that I’m hot. I’m not. And part of you might have been like, oh, man, just you know, that just feels invasive. And that’s the seesaw that often we’re in right, that’s the polarity of life, where it’s like, something might feel good, but for you to feel that goodness, you have to also be able to feel the other side. The not so good bit, right. And this is where we block our emotions, in order to feel all of them. You have you can also feel grief and sadness, but then you can also feel massive ecstasy and joy and everything. And this is the beauty of doing practices to release the charge, release the charge of any traumatic experiences, release the charge of any duality of any pull or push that we have against feeling a certain way. So I wanted to take you through a little exercise here.
Juliette Karaman 09:54
First of all, to recognise that body shame most people have it Right, I have a whole massive course on scrumptious bodies, I’m really getting in touch with every part of you. But it starts by being willing and by being willing to look at yourself. And oftentimes, looking at a mirror is a really, really challenging exercise for people to do. I have a whole mirror exercise, I think, to two modules on this. But one of the things that I love you to start with doing is actually spending two minutes a day, in the morning, or in the evening, when you’re brushing your teeth. I’m just looking in the mirror, looking at your face. If that’s all you can do, look at your face, look at yourself in your eyes and start noticing, you might want to actually describe what you see. We’re not very observant, we’re oftentimes very observant. And notice what happens like I’m looking at myself in the camera right now. I’ll be like, Oh, here’s a little brown spot on my my forehead. And I want to have you look at yourself. And if you can just describe what you look like. It’s like, Oh, I see that my eyebrows go up. There’s a little bit of hair there and they go up a little bit and then they go down. And I’m noticing that there’s a blue vein on the side of my face going into my hairline. I notice under my eyes, there is a little bit of a shadow, or a few freckles around my nostrils not around my nostrils but around the bridge of my nose. If I get down my face, there are a few wrinkles. Yeah, a few lines, horizontal lines around my upper lip. Then are two lines on the side of my lip. The love freckle on my chin. My cheek bands are quite high. I see my lipstick has come off a little bit. Now I’m gonna look myself in the eyes. Oh, my see timed blue eyes sparkle. And notice where I’ve been pretty value. Neutral. You know, it hasn’t been massively negative. But thanks. But I’m I’m being really just what are you noticing about yourself? It’s like ticket from the observer perspective, you’re sitting at a cafe, or you’re noticing a woman passing by? What do you notice about her? That’s the first thing and then really be completely value neutral about what you have just perceived yourself. And it’s so often that we have so many emotions, because I’ve just been talking about the little wrinkles and there’s a bit of red there and they’re freckles and skin is not as perfect as I might have wanted to be. But there’s no emotional charge left with that, right? It’s just like I’m being really observant. This is who I am. And this is the first step to kind of getting in touch of who you are. Alright. So first up, take two minutes, look at yourself in the mirror, and then really recognise who you are. What What’s your hair colour like I see a woman with blonde hair there’s there’s a bit of a melange of, of darker blonde and light blonde. I have two earrings on my ears. My teeth are sparkly. Be observant, just be completely impartial in what you are describing. And then I want you to feel what does that feel like in your body to be so observant about yourself and to really be impartial? Because that is where the charge lies. Second bit, again. We’re going to do that exercise to now. Feel into your body. Take a breath in exhale, take a breath. And again. I’m exhale. And now I want you to think, back to a time that you had someone say something about you that you didn’t like. Okay, we’re just going back to that memory, you’re not going to be in that moment, but you’re going back to the memory. And I want you to recognise, does it still bring up charge? What emotion does it bring up in you? Just go ahead and say that emotion up out loud. And then I want you to rate it on a scale of one to 10. How strong is that emotion right now. After we had done that exercise of looking in the mirror beautiful, so one is very little and 10 is like off the scales. And usually, I would say pick something at around a six or a seven. And now I want you to tap Get in touch with your body, just notice what is happening in your body because we are talking to that part of your body. And there might be some tightness, there might be some stuckness there, it might feel like there’s something happening in a part of your body and just recognise where that is. Go ahead, put your hand on it slowed down a little bit. And then when that aspect, one that part of yourself feel safe enough to communicate. Go ahead and give it some characteristics again, where is it located? What’s its size? Does it have a colour? What does it feel like? Is it vibrating? Is it static? Is it warm? Is it cold? Is it smooth? Is it jaggedy? You might even want to give it a colour.
Juliette Karaman 17:34
And once you’ve done that, put your hand there, feel it. We’re not trying to move it or anything, but we’re just getting in touch with that part of you.
Juliette Karaman 17:51
I want you to ask it what it wants for you. And just this might be the answer might come up as an intuition as a thought. And Insight has an image you might hear something really just stay open. And a lot of the times the answer would be I just want you to feel me, I want you to get in touch with me
Juliette Karaman 18:20
to go ahead and feel that. And then whatever was the answer, I want you and that part of you, your team together. I want you to create a situation in which that goal, whatever the answer was, maybe it just said I want to feel safe. Because often that is what that part wants. A way to create a situation because your mind is super powerful. You can create a situation you can feel it, you can experience it, and then you can completely feel safe. Go ahead, experience it. Be in that moment 100% where you’ve created safety. Once you’re there, anchor that in as your new baseline. Knowing that safety is your new baseline and from there on, again, place your hand on that part or maybe you’ve kept it holding there. Ask if there was anything more important more spiritual or higher that it wants for you. And maybe there are no goals. It just wanted that safety or whatever the answer is, whatever the image is, the thought is just go ahead and acknowledge it. Say thank you. And again in your mind’s eye You and that part of you can create that situation where that goal is fully realised. Perhaps the next goal is not not caring about others emotions about what they say to you, letting it slide off, to go ahead and create that. See it in your mind’s eye, experience it as 100% is achieved. You can see it, you can feel it, you can hear it, you can taste it, you can sense it, and be 100%. In that situation. Take a moment there, take a deep breath in and out.
Juliette Karaman 20:59
Anchoring to that. And then that is if there’s anything else that this part of you this aspect of you wishes to communicate with you. And again banket if there is another part and for those of you that there is nothing else just sit in that knowingness into that consciousness. Because this is where we go into different states of consciousness. into more elevated states of consciousness, where we’re no longer stuck in the fear or in the mind.
Juliette Karaman 21:50
Whatever next goal came up, you and your aspect, you allow part of you, again, create that situation as 100% realised actualized 100% real. Breathe it, see it, smell it, be in it, taste it. And from that, consciousness have that radiate out of you, in all directions, to your left to your right in front of you, behind you, on top of you underneath here.
Juliette Karaman 22:47
Now again, in your mind’s eye, you can just look back over the goals that you have achieved safety, how having better marks just slide off you they don’t really matter anymore. And then I want you to go back to their original emotion. And write that on a scale of one to 10 Where are you at? Now does it even matter? Because oftentimes, the charge that you felt with that incident is completely gone. Now I need to just go ahead and sit in that place, knowing that this is your very essence, this is the place that you always have access to. This is the place of scrumptious mess of being one with yourself without any thoughts or emotions or anything holding you stuck, but really being present in the here and now
Juliette Karaman 24:07
a man go ahead and open your eyes again, come back to the room, wiggle your hands and feet a little bit. I noticed that you can just use this. Practice anytime in your mind anytime in your day or evening wherever you have a few minutes. And you just feel that you’ve gotten stuck somewhere. It is really how can you get unstuck? How can you move that energy through your body so that you no longer feel stuck? And then think about what is one of the action steps that you want to take to feel this more because now that you feel this expanded and wonderful, and that if you think back about the body shame that you might have had you and I are Or yeah, there might still be a few things lingering. What is one action step that you can do to feel more like this today. And it could be something like, I’ll go for a walk today. And I’m gonna go for a 45 minute walk because it always has me feel better. I’m going to go for a stroll in the park, I’m gonna dance on the lawn, I’m gonna get into nature, because that always has me feel amazing. Or it might be something like, You know what, I’m going to have that conversation with my mother. And I can tell her that every time that she looks at me a certain way when I grab a cookie is really impressed that I am not good enough and I feel unloved. Or, I’m going to cut my friend out of my life for the next two, three weeks. Why really? Get back in touch with me? And what are the things that have me feel happy. At the end of this, I want you to just note down two things that you can do for yourself today. That will have you feel happy. Might be taking a bath, it might be calling a friend. It might be picking a few few flowers from the garden or buying a tiny little bouquet of flowers. Because every time that you look at them, it has you feel like you’ve done something for yourself today. That’s it my loves. And that is how we slay body shame.
Juliette Karaman 26:37
Thank you for joining the scrumptious woman podcast. I appreciate you being here as time is your most precious commodity. If you enjoyed these insights, please hit the like and subscribe button. By doing so you’ll stay connected. Visit feel fully u.com for a wealth of resources, tools and guidance to support your journey towards living a more scrumptious life. Follow me on Instagram under the handle Juliette Karaman french spelling with double T Karaman ka-ra-man Facebook again, Juliette Karaman don’t keep this magic to yourself. But share this podcast with anyone who you feel will benefit from this energetic exploration. Spread the wisdom ignite their inner fire and empower them to embrace their true selves. Together let’s create this ripple effect of transformation and inspire others to embark on their own journey of self discovery. Thank you for being part of our vibrant community. Stay fully you and continue to radiate your unique essence and all that you do
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