In this episode:
In this episode, I reflect on how sobriety reshaped my relationship with my body, and why I now lean on neutral affirmations to speak to myself with honesty and care.
Resources:
Just Eat It by Laura Thomas – The book I got the quote from in the episode
Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Classes, and Workshops
Transcript:
00:03 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Hey y’all, it’s Jessica Dueñas, and thanks again for tuning in to Bottomless is Sober. So today’s episode is all about the bodies that we live in, right, these same bodies that we have spent years numbing, judging, trying to fix, trying to shrink, and how sobriety invites us to really come home to our bodies. Right, not to change our bodies, but literally gives us the opportunity to just meet our bodies Honestly, maybe for the first time. There’s a book that I love called Eat it, and it was written by Laura Thomas, and here’s a line that I love from Laura. She writes you are not a before and after photo. You are a human being with a rich and complex life and you deserve to be heard and seen and respected in whatever body you’re in. I love that, right.
01:00
I think about how, when I first got sober, you know, I would have folks asking me questions like so have you lost weight now that you’re not drinking? Or you must feel amazing, right, like glowing skin, more energy, and some of those things can sometimes be true for some people. Right, let me say that again, some of those things can sometimes be true for some people. I actually gained weight because in my addiction, I started to lose weight as a result of my alcoholic liver disease, and I was hardly eating. So for me, a sign of health was the fact that I was gaining weight right. And then, as I started to exercise and lift weights, I actually started to add muscle onto my body. So I have been heavier since getting sober, but regardless, right, getting on that sobriety journey, my body did start to feel different. But the thing is, when someone asks you eagerly, right, like, oh so have you started to lose weight now that you’re drinking, or now that you’re not drinking, or you must feel so amazing, right, when you start to get questions like that, there’s definitely something loaded in those questions, right, there’s almost like an unspoken expectation and unspoken assumption about sobriety, as though we’re supposed to look a certain way to prove that we’re healing, as, like you know, if our body doesn’t show a visual evidence of change, that maybe our recovery doesn’t count. Right. But the truth is, is that sobriety forced me to just be in my body again? It forced me to feel the anxiety, to feel the shame, to feel the exhaustion, but also, eventually, right came the strength and sobriety enabled me to feel that it was like I don’t know, meeting this part of myself that I had abandoned for years, and, honestly, when I met my strength, I didn’t know what to do. You know, growing up for me, my body, it just was never mine, right? So this whole like meeting our body for the first time thing it was definitely brand new to me.
03:22
Growing up, my body was constantly commented on. It was constantly controlled, constantly compared to others. You know, though, my mother had the best of intentions, it didn’t work out that way. So I still remember, you know, mommy saying I don’t eat that You’re going to get fat. Or you know, when I did actually put on weight, you know the constant like. You know, that’s why you are as big as you are, and so and then.
03:52
The funny thing, though, was that she’d still pile my plate super high with food, because that was also how love showed up, right, and she grew up so poor that to have like a full plate was a blessing. And so, here, eat all of this. And if you don’t eat like this food, where’s all this food going to go? Right, you know she definitely didn’t mean harm, but she was definitely passing down messages that she got from society, you know, from survival and from her own mother, which weren’t helpful messages, right, there was one time I was sitting on the couch with her and we were watching one of those, you know, like diet commercials that we always see, with the before and after. You know, like the before is this like sad, slouched woman, and then suddenly, like the woman after, she’s just like glowing and she’s loved and she’s like happy. And you know, and my mom like literally had pointed the screen, I was like, oh well, that’s what you want to aim for, right? Así es como debe estar. And that’s the thing, like I did aim for that.
04:49
I spent years aiming to me to be like the smaller, quieter, prettier woman and if I could maybe just shrink myself enough that maybe I’d finally feel like I was enough. But that was never the case. And then thankfully jokingly I’m not seriously saying thankfully, but you know my experience with alcohol was that alcohol did make it easier to not feel at all Right, so if I couldn’t shrink my body, well, at least I couldn’t feel anything. It’s just that over time my body became something to escape and I escaped over and over and over again until getting into recovery finally brought me back to her. You know, getting sober it cracked me open, and so it wasn’t just about the quitting drinking piece, but it was about facing what I had been trying so hard not to feel. And in my journey, a lot of it was decades of body shame, of perfectionism and, just you know, making myself worth being conditional on whatever number was on the scale or what size clothes I was fitting into. Worth being conditional on whatever number was on the scale or what size clothes I was fitting into.
05:56
And now, you know, as I approach my fifth year, sobriety. You know, now, after becoming a mother, I’m definitely looking at my body through a new lens. You know. It’s not that I’m looking at my body with constant praise, you know, but I’m looking at my body with permission. Right, I’m giving my body permission to just be. I’m not going to pretend that I always love what I see, but what I do have for my body is a huge amount of respect. I respect my body. Today, my body is a home. My body carried me through trauma, heartbreak and healing. My body grew and delivered my daughter Amara, and my body is still showing up for me every single day. So how dare I tear this body down? I won’t do it. I absolutely won’t. So today I want to invite you into a space of curiosity, right? Definitely not judgment. And so let’s wrap up the episode with a couple of neutral affirmations Now.
07:05
I love neutral affirmations because they are not as phony sounding as positive affirmations. Sometimes positive affirmations are great if we are in the head space to receive them and practice them and we’re feeling really good. So a positive affirmation lands well. But sometimes, like when I coach my own coaching clients, I teach them about using neutral affirmations because sometimes the positive stuff it feels too phony and if it feels phony it’s not going to click and land on your body, right, and it’s not going to do its job in helping you with the healing process. So sometimes we’ve got to go neutral, right. Oftentimes neutral affirmations are based more so on facts, right, undeniable facts that help negate the negative self-talk that we might’ve had otherwise about our bodies. So they don’t hype you up unrealistically, but they’re basically almost like a peace offering and they’re just a nice small shift in how we speak to ourselves.
08:03
So here’s a couple of neutral affirmations that you can take with you, right, take what you need, leave the rest. Feel free to grab a journal, right, and maybe list out your own that might resonate with you better, but here are a few that I know have helped me a lot. With you better, but here are a few that I know have helped me a lot. My body is allowed to exist without explanation. I am learning to relate to my body in a new way. I don’t have to love my body to respect it. I can feel discomfort and still be kind to myself. My body tells me the truth and I am listening. And so, again, I invite you to take some of these neutral affirmations and adjust them to yourself Again. Whatever might land for you, great. If you need to do something different, go ahead and do something different. And then, lastly, just to wrap up, I always like to.
09:03
I’m switching into trying to offer people reflection questions. Whether I’m working with you in a sobriety support meeting, whether you are one of my one-on-one coaching clients or here on the podcast, I love, love, love the idea of just taking questions and sitting with them and journaling them or just thinking about them, right? And so here’s a couple of questions for you to go home with. So, number one since getting sober, how has your relationship with your body changed, physically, emotionally or spiritually? Number two have you noticed any ways that body image pressures show up in recovery. What’s one way you respond to or want to respond differently. And then number three if your body could speak right now, what would it say? And if you could respond with compassion, what would you say back? And so just a reminder, right Again, thanks so much for listening today.
10:07
But you’re not this project, you are not some product, you are not a before and after picture. Right, we are constantly evolving, always. You’re a person and this journey that you’re on you’re never going to reach a perfect after. Let me just keep it real with you. So it’s about learning to live fully in your now, learning to live fully in your now. So, thanks so much for spending time with me today. If the episode resonated, please feel free to send it to someone else. Right Again, someone can always benefit to have a nice little reminder that they are enough in whatever body they are, in whatever body they are occupying. Until next time, take care, I will see you all next week. Bye.
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