EPISODE 040 | Redefining Your Relationship With Food with Emily Roberts

Continuing our conversation on health & wellbeing, this week we’re analyzing our relationship with food through the lens of an OT.

My guest this week, Emily Roberts, is making serious waves in the nutrition coaching space with her mission to ditch diet culture, come home to your body, and learn to practice wellness with compassion.

I really connected with Emily's work on so many levels, and we could have talked for hours, so this is definitely an episode you won’t want to miss!

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL DISCOVER: 

• Why intuitive eating isn’t just another fad diet - it’s a lifestyle.
• How reframing your relationship with food can change your life for the better!
• The secret to healing your inner childhood trauma when it comes to your relationship with food.

Download The Intuitive Eating Book HERE and Check Out the Intuitive Eating Website HERE!

Nourishing Women Podcast

Association for Size Diversity and Health (ASDAH)

National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA)

If this episode has inspired your own journey of wellness, leave a review and share your biggest aha moments & takeaways with me. And while you’ve got your phone out, don’t forget to connect with me on Instagram @OTsGoneRogue and Emily @TheBodyImageOT and at her website WellnessRootedWithin.com

Transcript

00:00 Melissa LaPointe

Hey everyone, I hope this finds you doing well. I am currently joining you from Prince Edward Island, a small island off the east coast of Canada where I grew up that I'm sure many of you have heard me talk about before. I have a different microphone, and I'm currently sitting in my brother's home office in the city of Charlottetown.

00:22 Melissa LaPointe

If you are an avid listener to the podcast, you might remember hearing in an earlier episode, but this summer, we were undergoing extensive house renovations, and that I would be bouncing around for five to six weeks without a home base. Well, I'm now going on week seven living out of a suitcase without said home base. And it's still going to be another couple of weeks before we can start moving back into our house. So this has been a gypsy summer for me, we have been bouncing around from motel to Airbnb to our Granny's vacation home on the lake back to a hotel. And more recently, we flew across the country to spend time with my side of the family. So this is something that my son and I usually do every summer. So here we are on the east coast, the house renovations themselves have been going relatively smoothly, so no major surprises, thank goodness. And other than moving around on stop, it hasn't been a huge source of stress. And so we are working with an amazing general contractor. She is handling everything in stride. She's staying on budget, she's keeping her subcontractors on track. She's been sticking to her timeline, well, for the most part, but some of the timeline changes, I will take full, full credit for full responsibility for. And she's just been doing a great job keeping us in the loop each step of the way.

01:58 Melissa LaPointe

My house is a 75 year old home. So you never quite know what you're getting into when you start tearing things down and opening up walls. But so far, so good. My biggest challenge at the moment is when it comes to work. So my biggest challenge when it comes to work is trying to find a quiet place to work and trying to find a steady Wi Fi connection. So I seem to have been successful at finding one without the other. So it's been really hard for me to find both at the same time. Some days, yeah, it's been going well and other days, not so much.

02:43 Melissa LaPointe

Yeah, the last couple of months, it's been about optimizing my work conditions whenever possible, and optimizing my performance whenever possible. So it's the summer of working smarter, not harder. Now, if you've tuned into either of the last episodes, for the last two episodes, you might have noticed a recurring theme. So the focus has been on various aspects of health and wellbeing and how this impacts your performance as a business owner. And as an entrepreneur.

03:20 Melissa LaPointe

We had Episode 43, a throwback episode where the focus was on syncing my business with a 28 day work cycle. Then Episode 44, I interviewed a functional nutrition practitioner about the work she's doing with female entrepreneurs to optimize their health and hormones. Today, we're going to continue the conversation as it relates to nutrition more specifically, our relationship with food, but this time, we are diving deep and going at it through an OT lens. My special guest today is Emily Roberts. She's an occupational therapist that's shifted gears relatively recently, to start an online integrative wellness practice specializing in improving your body image and healing your relationship with food through the practice of intuitive eating. This was one of those conversations that just flowed. I really connected with Emily's work on so many levels. And we could have talked for hours. As you're going to hear during our interview. This is a great example of an OT thinking outside the box and doing things differently. It also touches on a part of entrepreneurship that we often don't talk enough about being on camera, our relationship with our physical appearance, our body image, and how these things impact our occupational performance on many different levels in the way that we show up. This work is complex, and I hope you enjoy the many different facets that we bring to the table

05:00 Melissa LaPointe

During this conversation with that being said, let's go ahead and play the interview

05:12 Melissa LaPointe

you're listening to the OTS Gone Rogue podcast, where we inspire therapists to think outside the box and do things differently. I'm your host, Melissa LaPointe.

05:23 Melissa LaPointe

My passion is in helping ot entrepreneurs have a bigger impact on the world while building a life they love and doing transformative work that lights them up. On each episode of the show, I'm going to share tools and tricks to help you flex your entrepreneurial muscles and grow your business from the inside out. I want to see more OTS step up as visionary leaders changemakers and influential CEOs. So let's get started.

06:00 Melissa LaPointe

All right, welcome back, everyone to another episode of the OTS gone rogue podcast. Emily, we have finally made this happen. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Yes, we get an A for effort in this, don't we?

06:18 Melissa LaPointe

It's been many months that we've been trying to connect and make this happen. So I'm glad that we're finally making it happen. Yeah, well, and in our defense, we both had some things going on. So you had just finished moving when I think when I first reached out to you, and we had first connected. So tell everyone, where are you geographically at this moment in time? 

06:59 Emily Roberts

Oh, yeah. So I was actually living in my in law's house when we first connected. So lots has happened. But I'm currently in central Illinois of us. 

07:06 Melissa LaPointe

Okay. And do you remember how we said we've been connected for some time through the interwebs. But when we first jumped on that call, do you remember what the instigator was? 

07:18 Emily Roberts

I was trying to figure out like clarity and my business. And you reached out to me and said like, hey, like, I think I may be able to help you. You want to just jump on a call? So we can, so we can talk about it? And I was like, Um, yes. Because I don't think you even know how long I've been like following you. But yeah, I've really been following you for a long time. And like, it's like, I can't believe that there are people that are OTS that go out and like they do other things. And so yeah, I was totally all for it. So I appreciated that a lot. 

07:30 Melissa LaPointe

My pleasure. Well, and I had seen your post it was supposed to have made in a Facebook group around promoting yourself or or how you were carrying yourself in the world in terms of the work that you were doing, which we'll get into in a moment. And I had made, I don't even think I made a comment on the actual post itself, because there were other other OTS who were making comments that I really didn't agree with some of the advice that they were giving you like, oh, goodness, I don't want to, I don't want to be arguing and I don't want this to turn into I just want Emily to know, I can give her some tips on this.

08:06 Melissa LaPointe

But yes, I think that takes a lot of maturity. Yes. Well, we all have our different ideas. And, you know, especially in the coaching world, and how we're carrying ourselves as coaches versus occupational therapists, and the difference there and everyone has their own experience. And, you know, there's a lot of gray areas. Now, it's not the focus of the podcast, it's something that I can talk about all day long. But no, it's it's there are a lot of gray areas in terms of how we are navigating the world as coaches versus therapists. On that note, can we talk about so that's a great segue into your coaching work. So let's fill everyone in on what you've been up to. And this new business venture of yours. 

08:21 Emily Roberts

Yeah, so um, I guess I'll just start by saying that I am an Occupational Therapist, like I just said, I work full time in the acute care setting. So I do have like a full time regular job, per se. But that wasn't really fulfilling me very much, especially even before the COVID 19 pandemic came about, I was just feeling kind of burnt out, I always knew that I didn't really align with like that medical model way of doing things. And I went through my own journey of like body image issues, disordered eating, and was really healing in my first couple years of working as an OT. And I realized a lot of the things that I used to help myself heal from this and really find freedom and peace in my body and with food, or things that OTS could do, like, I found that they were very aligned with each other. And so I kind of got the idea of like, well, you know, maybe I can start something on the side that help

10:00 Emily Roberts

Most people do this because I would talk about it all day long, I had friends that were like, You really need to do something with this like you, they would come to me specifically with questions about like nutrition, but then also body image. And I was getting people talking about their stories by sharing my story. So I decided to start a business in the midst of the pandemic. And that kind of scared me a little bit too, although I never got laid off. I was like, Listen, this could happen because people were getting laid off left and right. It's like, how would I provide for my family if that did happen? And so I did start a coaching business. I call it coaching still. But like Melissa said, I am kind of like, do I call myself an OT? Do I call myself a coach? What would differentiate me from being an OT and coach? And what do I really want to do? Where do I really want this to go. But my main focus right now, is I use intuitive eating as a framework. So I'm a certified Intuitive Eating counselor. I'm also a certified trauma professional, because I think eating and body image are very connected with trauma work. And so I have those other certifications. But I also just do basic coaching. I never got a coaching certification or anything like that, because I have heard that OTS really have a lot of the information already through our education, to be coaches. So I just went ahead and started taking clients. And that kind of actually fell into my lap a little bit. But I really focus on helping people heal their body image wounds, heal their relationship with themselves, ditch diet culture, and just kind of come home to who they were before the world told them who were theirs who they were supposed to be. 

11:51 Melissa LaPointe

So let's unpackage the concept of intuitive eating a little bit more. So can you keep going with that? What is intuitive eating what you know, enlighten me, please.

12:06 Emily Roberts

So intuitive eating, it's it was created by two dietitians. So Evelyn Tripoli, and Elise rice were the creators, or at least they named intuitive eating, I hate to say they were the creators of it, because all of us, at least in my opinion, were born intuitive eaters. So it's a good way to think about it is if you look at a baby, they tell you when they're hungry, right, that crying, they stop eating, when they're full, they don't really go based off of like a structured, like diet plan, they may have a structured plan that like the moms create for them to get them to go to sleep or whatever, but they're still gonna let you know if they're hungry in between those times. And you're probably going to end up feeding them. And then as we get older, we kind of create these concepts like Oh, eating, this is bad eating, this is good. So we create this morality around food. And then we become almost afraid of food and an essence. So Intuitive Eating is an anti diet self care framework is how I like to phrase it that helps you ditch the diet culture, so kind of make peace with food in the sense of taking the morality away from food, unlearning all of these ideals that we have been taught about food and about our bodies and the way that we should look. And then relearning how to, like, Come home to our bodies and sense of connecting with our interceptive cues of hunger and fullness. And then also being able to incorporate exercise and nutrition in a gentle and compassionate way as opposed to like, an obsessive or

13:46 Emily Roberts

what's the word I'm thinking of punishing way, a lot of people food or they use exercise as a way to punish themselves or like restricting food as a way to punish themselves. So it's really trying to get you to be well, but in a way that's not coming from a place of like Hating Your Body, if that makes sense. And this is lifelong work. Oh, yeah, this is not Yeah, this isn't something you learned in a masterclass. Oh, no, you do not learn this in a master class. This took me personally,

14:17 Emily Roberts

probably three and a half years of trying to do this work before I felt like I could really even help somebody with it. And it's still a journey. Like, I think it's a lifelong journey of just kind of, you get these concepts, right. And you get, you get the framework and you understand and it's more like mental, okay, I understand what's going on. And I understand these ways that I can incorporate intuitive eating into my life, but you still have the triggers, and you still have days where your body image sucks, and you still have like, times where you're not really sure if you feel hunger or fullness and so it's really it's a lifelong work of trying to just take

15:00 Melissa LaPointe

Take care of yourself in a compassionate way. But it's a beautiful journey. So a lot of our listeners know I have a background in pediatrics. And I've done quite a bit of you know, I did the SOS approach I did quite a bit in terms of babies and infants and problem feeding and breastfeeding and bottle feeding. And I've extensive training and sensory processing and seven years lots of stuff felt like I was pretty knowledgeable in terms of feeding and relationship with food. And then it was two years ago, I believe I was doing some pro bono work as a pediatric therapist. So I'm not practicing as a clinician, but I still have the odd, you know, involvement. So I was doing some pro bono work. And it was with a 10 year old girl who had was having quite a number of sensory problems as a sensory issues and disordered eating. And we live in a rural community, there's not a lot here. And at the time, my old pediatric mentor, Kim Barthel, was offering a program. So it's an online two weekends in a row, I believe,

16:14 Melissa LaPointe

program, oh, it was the name of her program, I will link it into the show notes for anyone who's interested, it was on feeding. And it was a buildup of so much of Kim's trainings on the science of attachment and attunement and sensory processing in terms of challenging behaviors and self regulation. And I should have known should have known. So I was very naive signing up for this program, thinking, Oh, I'm going to learn about disordered eating. And I'm going to learn about within an hour, it was like a gut punch. Because there were so many triggers in terms of my own history with eating my own and human nature. But you know, in terms of people pleasing in terms of interoception, in terms of it just went so deep, so fast.

16:59 Melissa LaPointe

Now, I believe I missed the first weekend and was playing catch up. So when I started, we really like we were in it. And

17:08 Melissa LaPointe

I was just so caught off guard yet again by how deep this work goes. And, you know, at that point felt like I had a pretty healthy relationship with food with myself. I think I was 41 at the time, and was so caught off guard yet again. That's why I say I should have known better because every training I've ever done with Kim. Now I think it's about the kid, it's never about the kid.

17:36 Emily Roberts

But it goes so deep this work goes so deep. Yeah, it really does. It is a really great way to highlight all of your insecurities and have like the deep childhood wounds that you never even know existed. 

17:40 Melissa LaPointe

Yeah. And you know, the connection, right, the connection in terms of our behavior and what I call our default programming. So I grew up on an island, very rural community, we had a lot of processed food, we didn't have access to a lot of fresh produce. So when I think of moments of stress or moments where I am dysregulated my urge is not to have a green smoothie, I can tell you that. Oh, there's there's a lot of a lot of work that goes into

18:26 Melissa LaPointe

soothing and comfort and what that means and again that default programming you know, it's not necessarily set up to fuel my body or to nurture my body I did not grow up in a setting like that, you know, I'm we grew up becoming experts at disconnecting buffering the numbing that's what I could get a gold medal in a so yeah, a lot of work. 

18:40 Emily Roberts

Yeah, I think I think a lot of people, including myself can relate to that. I did not I mean, I will put a disclaimer out there I did not grow up in like a rural community. I feel extremely privileged. I'm a if you can't see me a thin white, heterosexual, able bodied, neurotypical female. So I'm extremely privileged in this area. But i That's why I love intuitive eating because I think a lot of people have a very different view of it because it's becoming a little trendy right now. But intuitive eating really is something that everybody, in my opinion can access to a point. So you said that you grew up in a rural community with you ate a lot of processed foods, it wasn't necessarily nurturing to your body. 

19:40 Emily Roberts

You did not have access to a lot of like the foods that people like in the suburbs of Chicago where I grew up had access to. But the fact that the wellness community right now really highlights like you need to eat fruits and vegetables you need to eat clean, eating processed food is bad that can create a lot of shame around

20:00 Emily Roberts

Eating what you have access to. And so intuitive eating breaks down that shame portion of it helps you to realize that there shouldn't be shame attached to eating, and unlearning a lot of the morality around food, like I said, and then helping you

20:18 Emily Roberts

make peace with foods so that you, you don't feel so bad about eating what you have access to. And then also, that's why I love that it's a framework that like a lot of different disciplines can use, because then we can work forward. And I think this is why I think OT is really great in this area. And there's really not a lot of OTs, if any that that work with intuitive eating, but we're great at helping people find access, and creating adaptations, and whatever that may mean, so that if they are lacking in one area, we can hopefully try to break that down, break down the activity of eating, break down the activity of cooking and figure out a way that feels accessible to them.

21:00 Melissa LaPointe

How does this apply to people who do have sensory challenges when it comes to food. So I think of my best friend growing up, for example, she still to this day at 43 has a lot of sensory challenges in terms of her diet. And now she's at the age where she has the awareness that she should be eating certain things, which doesn't make it easy because she just can't handle it. You know, she grew up on Oh, my goodness, chocolate milk chocolate milk shakes, chicken fingers and Kraft dinner. And she still struggles to get her veggies in. And there's there's a huge piece there. You know, she's had a lot of sensory sensitivity. So how would a situation like that apply to intuitive eating? 

21:29 Emily Roberts

Yeah, so I think a lot of people too, I just was looking at a conversation the other day of people posting about intuitive eating and how it's inaccessible to those who are neurodivergent, or have sensory issues because of this. Because intuitive eating really does talk about like hunger fullness cues, it talks about satisfaction. And there's a whole section of it that really breaks it down as in terms of sensations to figure out what is satisfying for people. So this is another area that I feel like ot can really step up in because we are or we can be trained in the sensory processing issues and sensory issues when it comes to feeding. But I think that there's this misnomer, that intuitive eating if you if you don't have that ability to have like perfect interoception or relate to your hunger fullness cues. Or if you can't find like different things that you are you only have a small amount of foods that you do like to eat because of the sensory stuff that you can't do intuitive eating. But I think it's a really, I think it's still in all I know, it's still intuitive eating because Intuitive Eating is individualized. So for somebody who does have those sensory issues. I think just I guess it depends on we would work through a lot of like, what what are your foods that you're able to eat, work through those different sensations that that those foods provide for you try to discover other foods that may be like that, that do offer maybe some different nutrition.

23:20 Emily Roberts

And so there's really a lot of doors that can be opened with that, but I don't, I don't want people to be turned off from intuitive eating, if they do have problems in this area, because it is individualized to you. You can still be an intuitive eater. Wow, still having the sensory issues, you just have to understand that that's that's your body and maybe even lean, lean into that a little bit and see, okay, chicken fingers, they can be kind of crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. Are there other things that are crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside that we can explore?

23:57 Melissa LaPointe

And how does it connect? So when I think of trauma informed care, and the work that I've done in the past, both with my clients, but also with myself, and there are a lot of times where we are disconnected from our body in terms of safety. And we are not wanting to be in tune with those signals. It's not a place where we feel comfortable where we feel at peace. So there's no again coming back to numbing coming back to that disconnection, coming back to dissociating. How do we approach intuitive eating in those scenarios? 

25:00 Emily Roberts

So I actually have a client that I've worked with in the past that I didn't even introduce intuitive eating or the at least the main concepts of intuitive eating intuitive eating for months, because we really did need to learn how to regulate our nervous system first. Because as with any sort of trauma and

25:03 Emily Roberts

when you're constantly in an elevated state, when your nervous system is dysregulated, you don't have the capability of using your frontal lobe rationalizing things, figuring out, okay, like, I'm really feeling unsafe while cooking this meal, I'm really feeling unsafe while putting on these clothes. Because in the past, I've been told I'm too fat, or in the past, I've been bullied because of the way my body looked and something similar to this. So I'm going to just go ahead and do that and say, like, hey, like, yeah, just go ahead and eat what you want. Or just go ahead and wear whatever you want, is not going to make you feel good. So you have to learn how to regulate your nervous system and break that down first.

25:50 Emily Roberts

Before even introducing those activities before, I can tell you all day long, like you should, you should just drown out the rest of the world. But that's not going to be something that you're able to do in that moment, if that's continues to make you elevated, and you don't have the coping mechanisms in place to be able to deal with that kind of situation. So I think I think most and this isn't how it's set up right now, like the certification process. But I do think that most people who do get certified in this should also get certified as a trauma professional, because I think the two go hand in hand for sure.

26:28 Melissa LaPointe

Oh, I bet.

26:31 Emily Roberts

And isn't that the way? You know, most things?

26:36 Melissa LaPointe

I often, like in my work in women's health. So often I've seen comments. Now I don't, I think it's becoming more common in terms of the importance of trauma informed care. But in the early days, there were times in professional communities that I would see people Oh, I don't do trauma informed work, because none of my clients know or maybe two of my 50 clients have any history of trauma, I just want to bang my head against the wall. Like, okay, if you're working in women's health. Now, the reality is, you're not asking the right questions, or you're not creating a safe space where they're comfortable divulging that information. Because statistics tell me that what you're saying is incorrect.

27:29 Melissa LaPointe

Yeah, but these are things that we need to talk about. And even in terms of therapists, you know, I have no problem saying a lot of times, I was a really good therapist, because I was able to disconnect from what was happening in my body, I was able to, you know, shut that down, I'm really good at it so that I could be present for them so that I can hold space for them, you know, working in really tough situations in terms of Crisis Intervention working, especially in my pediatric career, my goodness, you know, things that I had to carry families through.

28:01 Melissa LaPointe

Yeah, there wasn't space, or there wasn't the you know, it wasn't a good place for me to be if I was really tuning into what my body was telling me in that moment. You know, there were times that just as therapists we have to do really hard work. And yeah, that ties into the intuitive eating piece, you know, again, what's your body telling you? Well, I can't listen to it right now.

28:24 Emily Roberts

Right. And I think to that, that's okay. Like, it's okay, if in that moment, you, you can't tune in, it's too hard, and you don't want to feel it, that's okay. And then other times if you feel like sitting in the feeling and feeling it, and we can do that together, and we can talk talk it through and we can work on different regulation strategies, so that eventually you can feel through that feeling. And feel safe with that activity and task. 

28:49 Melissa LaPointe

And so important to have someone to do that with to have someone you know, knowing, because it is scary work, you don't know what you're going to uncover. And then there's a whole Pandora's box of stuff. And to have someone who can create that container for you to explore some of that when you can't always rationalize it, or you can't always approach it from a linear logical perspective. And again, knowing you know, there's someone there to hold your hand and go through that with you, I can imagine would be much more reassuring to a lot of people.

29:27 Emily Roberts

Yeah, and we talked about intuitive eating in terms of it's a combination of instinct, emotion and rational thought. So if you think about it, that way, our instinct for most of us is going to be there we're going to need to eat in order to survive. Some of us have a harder time feeling the cues, but then the emotion and the rational thought pieces, it's still a triangle. So if we don't have one, if one is out of sorts, it's going to be hard for you to to approach eating in a way that is come

30:00 Emily Roberts

passionate for both honoring your body and what it needs and also compassionate for what you need in that moment emotionally so. So yeah, I think it really does take a, like a skilled person to, to address this because like you said, it's, it's really challenging, and really goes really, really deep. And a lot of the stuff that comes up has nothing to do at least seemingly with eating. But it just the way that the way that we cope with whatever we're dealing with in the past, can come into eating and come into the way that we approach our bodies, especially as woman..

30:41 Melissa LaPointe

It's hard to turn my pediatric brain off right now I keep coming back to a lot of the training, you know, in terms of the work that I've done with preemies and with late preemies and how often are late preemies. Now they

30:56 Melissa LaPointe

seem to like their red flags aren't quite prominent enough. But yet they there are so many challenges in terms of feeding difficulties. And again, I think back to so much of my training in the science of attachment and our relationship with food, where it's like, Oh, my goodness, if you're working in early intervention, with a kiddo on sensory challenges and on feeding, and you're not carrying that over to meal times, and the relationship with the parents and the family, you're missing the boat. Now. So again, such a great example of how deep this work goes. 

31:06 Melissa LaPointe

That is so interesting. I would love to learn more about all of that, even though I don't work directly with pediatrics right now, like that's a dream of mine to work in early intervention and also work in feeding and kind of combine everything. So I would love to really dive into that work, because that's super interesting. I'll be curious as to how many preemies grow up to have disordered eating patterns? Yes, that's what I was thinking. Like, I wonder if anyone's done a study on this. Everyone does study.

32:03  Emily Roberts

When we get off here, do all the research.

32:06 Melissa LaPointe

All the things.

32:08 Melissa LaPointe

So let's shift gears and talk about body image. And okay, let me back up. We're not shifting gears there, you know, Potato Potato, intuitive eating body image. But let's talk about the work that you're doing in terms of body image. 

32:40 Emily Roberts

Yeah, so I call myself the body image ot on Instagram, because this is an area that I think even aside from intuitive eating, I mean, it is combined, like you just said like intuitive eating. Part of it is to talk about respecting our body and the way that we talk about our body and the way that we address like everything about our body. But body image really impacts even if you don't have a super hard time with the eating aspect of things, it can impact every area of occupation. And I've noticed that in myself, I noticed the occupational deprivation I was having because of my poor body image. And then I noticed how much freeing how much time I had when I stopped obsessing over the way that I looked and trying to make myself look a certain way. So this is like the area that I love. Like I love, love, love talking about body image. I love working with people on their body image. But it's also extremely hard, especially for me as a privileged person, because I've never, I've never known what it felt like to be oppressed by society because of the way that my body looked, even though I thought I looked bad. And I perceived people's looks and comments and stuff.

33:39 Emily Roberts

As because of the way that I looked. I've never had to not be able to fit into an airplane seat or be told I couldn't ride a roller coaster because I was too big. So it's hard for me to talk on this because I don't have lived experience on it. But I'm very passionate about people seeing themselves in a way where their worth isn't attached to what their body looks like to the outside world. 

34:14 Melissa LaPointe

Yeah, it's a complicated area of life, for lack of a better yeah, it is. Yeah. I know, in my own personal experience, it wasn't. So I had, I was very healthy for my pregnancy with my son. And I put on a pound to a pound and a half every week for 41.5 weeks.

34:33 Melissa LaPointe

And then when I had him, you know, I really trusted that that's what my body had to do. And I was in a very good headspace. And that's what my body had to do. And that's, you know, that was part of my journey and I was eating and exercising right up until my due date so I felt really good that way. And then I started losing it and there wasn't a lot of pressure on me to lose it but I just again was moving and feeling good and eating healthy and start

35:00 Melissa LaPointe

had to lose the weight. And then I hit the six month mark and I kept losing the weight. And then I hit the nine month mark the 10 month mark, and it got to the point where I was down to a size one.

35:12 Melissa LaPointe

I mean, you can't see me now, but I'm not a size one. I didn't realize my body could actually get that small. And from a societal standpoint, I kept hearing from people. Oh, my goodness, you look amazing. Yeah. And I was in the, probably one of the darkest times of my life.

35:33 Melissa LaPointe

really struggling was really disconnected with my body hated what I saw. My clothes weren't fitting, right. My skin didn't feel right.

35:43 Melissa LaPointe

You know, I had abs showing for the first time I was like, What is this? Like?

35:49 Melissa LaPointe

These are my curves. What is going on? But again, from a societal standpoint, no one ever said hey,

35:56 Melissa LaPointe

are you okay? Like, are you? Are you doing okay? It was just Oh, wow, you finally did it. You finally you know, you lost the baby weight plus 20 pounds? This is amazing. How did you do it? And my relationships were suffering. I was not in a good space. No. So as the flip side, it took me you know, all this because so much of my, you know, my teenage years in my 20s Yeah. So it's like, Oh, I wish I could be five pounds lighter. I wish I could be 10 pounds lighter. And then all of a sudden I was and I wasn't happy, you know. And that's when I really realized, wow, I've got some work to do in terms of body image in terms of self love really started

36:37 Melissa LaPointe

considering I wasn't until quite a number of years later that finally a therapist talked to me about body dysmorphia. I wasn't I wasn't ready to even look at that yet. But you know, it took me being a size one being at this this size that so many people aspire to be that I was like, Wow, I'm, I'm not happy. And I don't like what I see in the mirror. And I don't know how to.

37:02 Melissa LaPointe

You know, I just I just don't know how to be like this right now. And yeah, it was really I was exhausted. That was probably part of it just wasn't sleeping at the time my son woke up. You know, I've talked about this on the podcast before I just didn't sleep for two years. Yeah, but it was a weird place and a weird time for sure.

37:23 Emily Roberts

Yeah, you that's not the first time that I've heard people like losing a bunch of weight for medical reasons, and then being praised for it. And I think that that just highlights

37:36 Emily Roberts

how much work really needs to be done in our society in general. And why I try to promote the best I can just not commenting on people's bodies. I mean, a lot. There's this body positive movement, which is great. But I'm more for just body neutrality. Like why why are people's bodies the first thing that we comment on? When we see somebody like, even even like going out and seeing somebody from high school or something? Oh, you look great. Like, even if it's a compliment. It's always about the way we look. Like why not ask people how they feel? Why not? You know, it's just such a surface level connection to and I think that, as a society, we really have a lot of work to do in terms of really trying to connect with people on a deeper level than just our bodies. Yeah.

38:28 Melissa LaPointe

How do you see this playing out in terms of social media? And no, I think back to the, to the challenge that I did for OTS a couple of years ago in terms of showing up on video with confidence. And there is a different level of pressure in terms of especially if you have a business showing up on video showing up on camera.

38:55 Melissa LaPointe

You know, if you're working in the online space, but even if you have a brick and mortar, there's something to be said about digital marketing about social media. So how do you see that playing out? Or how do you see that, you know, being connected in terms of the pressure, we have to show up on camera and our connection with body image?

39:17 Emily Roberts

 Oh, man, this is a this is a big question. Because

39:21 Emily Roberts

if if we're all being honest here, Sex sells, beauty sells. Like if if you look at one person, and they seem to be the person that you're hoping to be in terms of your body, and they're offering something and then you look at the next person who's offering the same thing and they don't look the way that you want, you're probably going with the person that you want to look like. And that's just the reality of things. That's not right. That's not what we should be doing. But, but how, how difficult that is.

39:56 Emily Roberts

For me personally, I have found a lot of free

40:00 Emily Roberts

Freedom and just showing up purposefully without makeup on purposefully, just how I look in that moment, and just telling myself, you're just showing up, and you're doing it. And then once you do it once, then the next time, it feels a lot less scary, and then you do it again, and a lot less scary. On the other side of things, I think that there's this, I think with reels, especially like on Instagram, and tick tock and stuff, people, you see people of all different shapes, sizes, colors, makeup, no makeup, showing up and sharing with the world. And I think that that can be healing for a lot of people. Because you see somebody that's like you, and you're like, oh, this person looks just like me, and they got a million likes. Because as humans, we want to be liked, we want to be loved we want that's just a natural human thing. And so I think it's just that fear of people not liking you. Because maybe you've had that in the past. And maybe people haven't liked you because of the way that you look. So fearing showing up just as you are.

41:07 Emily Roberts

But I would encourage people that if you do have a business, or even if you don't, to show your face, just how you are just just do it, just rip the band aid off once if it feels okay. And it doesn't have to be for long, maybe you just put post a picture or you show up on your story or you know, just something and then notice how nothing happens. Or maybe something does happen. But then you you hopefully can work with somebody or maybe a therapist or just kind of work with somebody to figure out what your nervous system regulating tools are. And you do that, and then you show up again, and maybe some people compliment you and and they don't come at you. But I think it's I think it's a really complicated place to be when you I mean for everybody, because all of us deal with our body image in some way, shape, or form. And I think it really depends on who you are. Because somebody who does face oppression, because of their bodies, is probably going to have a lot harder time showing up on social media where the whole public space can now comment on your body and the way that you look versus somebody who has never felt that before. Maybe that comment can roll off their shoulder a little bit easier.

42:31 Emily Roberts

I think it's really hard to even to comment on it. But

42:36 Melissa LaPointe

as I'm listening to you talk I'm having this like out of body experience where I'm realizing my

42:45 Melissa LaPointe

biggest fear or not even biggest fear. So stories are a little bit easier because they disappear in 24 hours, I have a hard time posting to my feed because

42:58 Melissa LaPointe

I'm listening to you talk. I've never once been worried about what someone else would say I was never my problem. It's when I have to see it. Oh, I've never once had concerns over what someone else might say. And I'm just having that epiphany like listening to like, oh, wow, people are worried what other people think it's my own self criticism. It's my own discomfort. It's my own, like that dialogue that I have a hard time with. So posting something to my feed where I can go back and see it if I'm not in a very good headspace. It's really hard. I really struggle with seeing myself on camera. I'm really good at doing it. You know, people especially if you're in my one of my programs, you might be listening to this thinking what you're on camera like 80 times a day. Yeah, I am. But it's in a small intimate environment. You know, the idea of putting something out on social media that may go viral gives me great anxiety.

44:00 Melissa LaPointe

You know, that's not like no, I will never grow my business that way. I would probably delete the post before it could go viral. If it got too much traction, I would 100% Delete it that would make me so uncomfortable. I'm like, No, I'm gonna go a little bits at a time in terms of my intimate community and get used to being on camera that way.

44:20 Melissa LaPointe

Yeah, but that was one of my biggest barriers in terms of my first online course was seeing myself on camera. Like goodness, it was such a challenge. I believed in the program, I believed in the content. And that's what got me through you know, I really believed in it. But if there's any type of content that needs to be edited, where I have to do my own editing, just this most recent program, I was saying to my husband I'm feeling really good about this because for the first time I'm editing my own videos, and it's not painful, you know, it's this is okay, and there are lots of bloopers in there. There are lots of takes

45:00 Melissa LaPointe

It's okay, you know, I'm not cringing while I have to edit the videos. And yeah, I told him like, wow, this is a different space to be in and I'm really liking it, it's bringing a different level of lightness to, you know, I always believe in the material. I have no problem with that, you know, cognitively intellectually, I really believe in what I'm teaching. It's getting used to, you know, seeing myself on camera, oh, my goodness, lifelong work. 

45:35 Emily Roberts

Yeah, there are a lot of people that don't like seeing themselves on camera, even the people that don't hold the business. But that's why my thoughts are so disorganized about all this, because I feel like every single person is going to be different with how they approach social media and what's hard for them. And I think people who have been oppressed are probably the people that are afraid of what people are going to say about their body. I'm like you, for me, it was more of like,

45:56 Emily Roberts

seeing my own face and hearing even my voice, like, we're more on a podcast right now. But like, I've listened back to podcasts I've been on in the past, and like, I didn't realize my voice was that high?

46:09 Emily Roberts

And why am I laugh and stuff, I'm like, it doesn't sound that way when I speak out loud and laugh out loud. And so I think there's always stuff that we can find and like, we're our own worst critics a lot of the time, for sure. But I'm with you. Whereas this is kind of just what I got to do gotta show up and show your face and like people want to get to know you. And they want to, yes, they see you and your body, but they really care about you and your soul, and how what, like, what you can provide for them. And so that has really gotten me through is just like the connection with people. And then in the process, just doing it just doing the dang thing. It gets easier every time.

46:54 Melissa LaPointe

Yes, I think that's so true, you know, connection showing up for your people. And that's why I mean, a podcast episode for a different day in terms of really knowing your avatar and knowing who it is that you want to target and holding them in your heart when you're putting things out there.

47:12 Melissa LaPointe

Yeah, and then, you know, finding balance with that too, right? Like times where I do get so stuck in my head about oh, my gosh, I haven't posted a picture of my face in a while. Okay, I've got to do this. And then the flip side of that, you know, recognizing my privilege, recognizing, you know, and then dealing with the feeling of guilt that comes up around that. Because, you know, I know like, okay, there I have. So I'm, you know, very privileged in many, many ways. And I acknowledge that. And, you know, we all have our own.

47:45 Melissa LaPointe

We all have our own battles. And we all have our own journey with this work and how we're showing up. And it is so individualized. Oh, my goodness. So individualized. Yeah, absolutely.

47:59

Yeah, it goes deep. It goes really, really deep.

48:04 Melissa LaPointe

Really does. So for people, what are some good resources? Like I'm sure there are people listening that are like, Oh, my goodness, I didn't know. I didn't know what this deep or I didn't know. You know, yes. Oh, my goodness, these are things that I need to work on. Do you have any suggestions or so let's start with showing up on camera. You know, let's start with social media and self love and body image. I can share one of the so a program that I was in and some tips that they gave to me, which I'm still working on. But do you have anything that you would share? So if we start with that, you know, social and social media and showing up on camera showing your face and learning to love yourself in the process?

48:21 Emily Roberts

Yeah, so first of all, for social media for the people who just even normal people who don't have a business online, and everybody that does have a business, going through the people that you follow. So the people that show up on your feed, and just doing a complete, like clean out of the people that don't make you feel good. So that could be people. That could be anybody, right? So if you look at somebody and you immediately compare yourself to them in one way, shape, or form, don't follow them. That doesn't mean you don't like them. That doesn't mean that you're not friends with them. They should hopefully understand if they're close to you if you know them in real life, but just don't follow them. Get them off your feed because the moment you start comparing the moment that you feel bad about yourself, that's that's what happened. So I would go through your social media feed, take out the people who you compare yourself to on a regular basis. And then number two on the flip side of that follow people that you aspire to be but not in the way of like, aspire to be in the way of showing up like as you are, and maybe people that even look like you so if you are in a larger fat body, maybe

50:00 Emily Roberts

That means following people who are fat and they're proud to be fat. And they, they consider themselves to be fat. So that they see them showing up as they are. And then that can inspire you to do the same thing. If you are somebody who

50:17 Emily Roberts

is neurodivergent, maybe that means following people who are neurodivergent, and see them showing up as they are. So that will encourage you to do the same. Same thing goes with you having a business should follow people that you feel like you would connect with in real life if you're not connected with them in real life. And that use them as an encouragement to show up as you are. Now in terms of actually showing up, maybe start small. So like you said, stories disappear within 24 hours, maybe you start with a story showing up showing your face on a story. I love stories, because it makes me feel more connected with people. Whereas like posts, they come and they go like, I'm usually scrolling past them pretty fast, like Yeah, like it in the moment. But I don't typically like connect with it, right? Where a story like you hear somebody's voice, you see their face, they're talking about something, it's almost like having a conversation. So maybe show up with the story because that does disappear. You don't have to look back on it. Other people can see it if they want to, but it's not going to show up on your feed, it's not going to show up on their like scrolling feed, they would have to click on you in order to see it. So a story would be a good way to start and then maybe try to do like a real or a live video. And honestly, with Instagram algorithm, your first real is probably not gonna go viral. So you don't have to worry about that. But just starting small, and then, and then seeing how you feel afterwards. And then if you want to continue, then just continue step by step.

51:53 Melissa LaPointe

That's what it does go viral, you can delete it, people. That's what I tell myself.

51:58 Melissa LaPointe

You have complete control over your Instagram and your feed like yes, it's the internet. We don't know what happens once it's out there. But you can still delete things. It's okay. Yeah, yeah. And it's something you know, for me, a lot of it was starting in a small, intimate environment, right, getting used to seeing myself on camera when I'm facilitating group calls, you know, for me, that's an I have no problem showing up. Because I know my people, you know, at this point, it's like showing up with a group of friends or, you know, for a book club. Right. So showing up on video in that capacity. At this point, it used to be a little bit anxiety-provoking at one point, whereas now it's not, you know, it's equivalent to going out for supper with a girlfriend showing up on a zoom call for one of my groups. Yeah, so that was, you know, a nice, nice baby step, Facebook Lives still make me want to vomit.

52:57 Melissa LaPointe

You know, it's still I don't like them. And, you know, I just have some issues with the Facebook platform in general. But, again, with social media, you know, when you don't have control over who necessarily is seeing it versus, you know, a zoom private call, where the only people who can get on the link are people you've invited? Yeah, yeah, we just have different, you know, different levels of comfort. And I mean, for those of you that are struggling with this, I struggle with this every single day, and I'm still finding ways to grow my business, you know, is it holding me back? In some ways? Well, yeah. But it's also where I'm doing the work. And I've managed to grow a business without a big social media following and online business at that age. You know, and I do it through connection, and I do it through relationship, and I do it through a lot of relationship marketing, and that's okay, that's part of my journey. And, you know, part of my way of showing up while stepping back and doing the internal work that's required to do all this. So yeah, you don't have to go. You don't have to have it all figured out. You don't have to

54:07 Melissa LaPointe

be put together.

54:09 Emily Roberts

Yeah. Moral of the story, you don't have to have it all together. You know, it's great. If you do right, come on, let's be honest. Because if you have a two together,

54:21 Melissa LaPointe

what's there to relate to especially for therapists, we've all got our stuff, let's be honest with you, we all do for sure.

54:31 Melissa LaPointe

And then in terms of the so I have nothing else to add in terms of my steps because you hit the nail on the head. So that's exactly terms of recommendations. So I at one point had unfollowed as I'm slowly starting to follow people again, because that's what I just did. I unfollowed everyone and I started following funny cat videos and dog rescues, then started adding in some funny stuff and literally I unfollowed everything and every one

55:00 Melissa LaPointe

And then and then I started from scratch, highlighting what feels good, and really listening to my body. So for a while, I wasn't following any OTs, I literally was following my cats and my dogs. And then I started adding in some funny stuff. And so I've just been picking away at it gradually. And that's okay. You know, I just hit a spot where I'm like, don't, I need to shut things out for a little bit and reconnect with myself and ground my feet, and then move forward again. And so again, you know, we forget that we have control over what shows up in our space and so many ways, we just get caught up in the busyness and think we have to absorb everything. No, we don't, we don't at all. 

56:35 Emily Roberts

That's right. And I mean, your pages, your page, like, and your account is there for you. It's for you, to grow, to be the best person that you can be, and sometimes to give to others as well. But you don't need to be following a bunch of people that make you feel like crap in order to give to other people. So yeah, yeah. Well, and we can say, you know, you're going to be in a position to give more if you're feeling connected, and you know, having some of that self love. Yeah, absolutely. Compassion here, like that you give yourself is a cyclical thing. And the same thing that more compassionate you give to yourself more compassion you can give to others. So

56:24 Melissa LaPointe

yes. All right. So before we wrap this up, Emily, so we talked about the body image piece, let's circle back to the intuitive eating. So do you have any resources, I'm going to link your Instagram account to this, you have a great Instagram account, you share lots of good stuff on there any other resources in terms of where someone might start or if they want to learn more about intuitive eating? 

56:20 Melissa LaPointe

Yeah, I would buy the intuitive eating book by Evelyn Tripoli and Elise rice, if you like to read. There are also a bunch of intuitive eating podcasts out there. My personal favorite is by a dietician, her name is Victoria Myers. her account, I think is or her podcast is nourishing women's podcast, I believe. And she talks a lot about wellness without obsession. She talks a lot about intuitive eating. And she's just a very compassionate person. So I would lead you there. But if you are interested more in intuitive eating, I would just buy the book. Because right now there's a lot of stuff going on around social media and stuff that really is not intuitive eating, and it's easy to get it wrong. So also, you can reach out to me on Instagram, I would love to connect. And I could provide any more specific resources for exactly the things that you're looking for. And jump on a call and talk about it.

57:49 Melissa LaPointe

 So. Okay, sounds awesome. So everyone listening, I will link up. So the resources that Emily's just mentioned, as well as her website, and her social media, or Instagram account, I'll make sure those are in the show notes. This was lovely. Before we hit record, I said it would be you know, very much like a coffee date, and it felt like a coffee date. So thank you, I think I got as much out of this, if not more, just connecting and know I'm really passionate about this work. And I'm really excited to see an OT taking this on. It's really important work. It goes very deep. You know, we just scratched the surface, but goes very deep in terms of where we can go with our clients, but also, as we talked about where we can go in terms of our own journeys, and so thank you for all that you're doing. 

58:03 Emily Roberts

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It was like a coffee day. I actually have coffee right here. So perfect. It was such a nice chat. So thank you so much. 

58:49 Melissa LaPointe

You're welcome. Okay, take care, and we'll talk to you soon. All right. 

58:57 Melissa LaPointe

Okay, I hope you enjoyed that interview as much as I did. There were a lot of takeaways related to our relationship with ourselves, and this concept of intuitive eating, and it's certainly given me more food for thought. Pun intended. If you're interested in checking out Emily's work, go ahead and find her on Instagram, the body image O T, or visit her website, www dot wellness rooted within.com We've linked everything up in the show notes. All right. Take care, everyone. And we'll be back in a couple of weeks with another episode of the OTS Conroe podcast, where we're switching gears a little bit to focus on branding and marketing. Until then, I hope you too are finding ways to work smarter, not harder as we start to wrap up the month of August. All right, we'll talk to you soon.