We also talk about how being neuro-divergent informed Ingrid’s relationship with her body, and why “trauma healing” as a form of weight loss is fake news.

Don’t forget, I’m on iTunes! You can be one of my kick-ass subscribers. Also, I would be SO GRATEFUL if you took 2 minutes to leave a review. Go here -> click “Reviews and Ratings” and then “Click to Rate”.

Summer:
This episode of eat the rules is brought to you by you on fire you on fire is the online group coaching program that I run that gives you a step by step way of building up your self worth beyond your appearance. With personalized coaching from me incredible community support and lifetime access to the program so that you can get free from body shame and live life on your own terms. Get details on what’s included and sign up for the next cycle at summer innanen.com forward slash you on fire. I’d love to have you in that group. This is eat the rules, a podcast about body image self worth, anti dieting and intersectional feminism. I am your host summer Innanen. a professionally trained coach specializing in body image self worth and confidence and the best selling author of body image remix. If you’re ready to break free of societal standards and stop living behind the number on your scale, then you have come to the right place. Welcome to the show.

Summer:
This is episode 245. And I’m joined by Ingrid Pipes national certified counselor who is fat queer, gender non conforming and neurodivergent. We talked about how being neurodivergent informed Ingrid’s relationship with her body. The difference between body positivity and fat liberation and why we need more fat liberation and why trauma healing as a form of weight loss is fake news. You can find all the links and resources mentioned at summer innanen.com forward slash 245. Before we begin, I want to remind you that for the month of October 22 If you leave a review for this podcast, then I will send you a free copy of my best selling book Body Image remix, I’ll send you the audio version as well as the pdf copy. All you need to do is go to iTunes, search for eat the rules, click ratings and reviews and click to leave a review. And then simply DM me or email me you don’t have to show me the review. You don’t have to screencap it I will believe you. I know that you’re not a shady person. just message me and say hey, I love to review can I have a copy of your book and I will send it right over to you. Speaking of reviews, I want to give a shout out to Enchanted mom who left this review amazing podcast the things I have become open to as a listener of this podcast have been life altering. I love summer’s enthusiasm and confidence that she shares with all of us. The idea of body positivity is new to me and completely mind bending. I am grateful I found this podcast so that I could learn about this super important topic. Thank you so much for leaving that review. It’s that easy. You can also help me out by subscribing to the show via whatever platform you use. And don’t forget to grab the free 10 Day body confidence makeover at summer innanen.com forward slash freebies with 10 steps to take right now to feel better in your body. If you are a professional who works with people who may also have body image struggles. I also have something for you you can get the free body image coaching roadmap at summer innanen.com forward slash roadmap. Today on the show I have the lovely Ingrid our pipes she they who is a national certified counselor with a master’s degree from Carlow University, Ingrid provides virtual therapy that focuses on fat liberation, self exploration and navigating structural barriers. Before becoming a therapist Ingrid published works about body politics and Huffington Post New York Post and rosewater magazine. Ingrid has been engaged with fat politics for over a decade and currently manages the fat studies Facebook group, which provides community support for the advancement of fat studies. I love this interview, Ingrid is so full of wisdom and I think that you’re really going to enjoy it, too. Let’s get started with the show. Hello, Ingrid, welcome to the show.

Ingrid:
Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah,

Summer:
I’m excited to have you here. And I would love you to start by just telling our listeners a little bit about what your relationship with your body and or food was like growing up like was that something that you struggled with?

Ingrid:
Yeah, I was born like a chubby, happy baby. And I’d like to think that I’ve stayed that way. I didn’t really have personal struggles with my body. I think I just recognized from a young age that lots of other people struggled with my body. You know, I remember going to doctors at varying ages and sort of getting all the Hallmark fat diseases trying to figure out why my body was larger than other kids. So like early PCOS diagnosis, ADHD, also trying to figure out you know, am I In relationship to eating. And while was a really big privilege to be able to find those things out very early on in my life, it also was this huge quest of like, why are you wrong? And I kept feeling like, I don’t feel wrong. I like my body I like where I’m at. And no one else seems to agree with that. I will also went through times when I was bribed to lose weight, or send to trainers very young. And I talk with my trainers and be like, this is fun. But I would rather be out with my friends, because I’m 14. And that’s what you do after school. So my relationship, my body is not complicated. And yet there’s dissonance in how I feel about it and how I feel like I’m received by the world.

Summer:
Yeah, that’s a that’s so interesting that you’re able to like, it sounds to me at least, like you didn’t internalize, then that message like that you’re able to like hold it as like a different opinion. Is that am I interpreting that correctly?

Ingrid:
Yeah. And that’s another huge part of my identity is that I’m neurodivergent, which means my brain works a little differently. I think that’s one way that my rigidity, kind of shined, in that I knew I wasn’t wrong. And so nothing anyone could say or do to me would convince me that I was wrong. They had to be the wrong ones. And yeah, I could recognize that, you know, most people perceived me as wrong. And I couldn’t get myself to feel that way. Yeah,

Summer:
that’s, that’s, like, that’s so interesting. It’s so it was almost like protective in a way. And that, you know, because I’m so used to speaking with people who have, you know, a very similar story, but then they really internalize it and and then go on like this, like real quest to try and you know, change their body and really internalize the shame and, and so it’s really fascinating to hear how your experience differs from that and and how your experience being neurodivergent almost like protects you protected you from from some of that messaging.

Ingrid:
Yeah, I really think that’s a huge part of it. As I tried to explore my neuro divergence further, the I yeah, I really understood that something else was going on. And I recognized that people didn’t accept me. And I kind of looked into that as like a social thing, why I was struggling with friendships, or why we’re struggling to be understood by other people. But what happens with lots of fat people as they grew up is people start to see that confidence. And they’re attracted to that. So at the same time, that I’d be, you know, bullied on the street for just existing in my body, that I would also have lots of friends, I’d be like, I can’t believe you’re so confident, I would love to be like that. And that offset those concerns? For me, I think there was some ebb and flow there, too.

Summer:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And so what brought you to the fat liberation space?

Ingrid:
I’m not ashamed to say that it was probably Tumblr, I had. I had a lot of like, internal feelings about body positivity without any language. And I am from the MySpace era. So I was a scene kid who had way too many friends on MySpace. And when Tumblr came about, I was very excited to join that worlds and get to be like one of the first adopters of the fat vanity hashtag because that was very much how my brain works. And then I just kept seeing fat people living unapologetically sharing their bodies with the world and using language about their bodies in a way I hadn’t heard before. And that sounded very much how I felt about my body. There was a person that I followed, named Jessica, I cannot remember their username for the life of me. But they, I think, started the femininity hashtag or was part of it. And they would post pictures of their body and they had fat pride, tattoos, and their entire life. Their entire personality was rooted in fat pride. And that changed the way I perceived myself in that while someone else is doing it. I don’t feel so alone in this. So I just I did like a swan deep dive, I now had more language. So I use those words and plug them into other websites. And that’s how I came upon Marilyn Juan, who made the same fatso and I started like incorporating Maryland’s quotes into work that I was doing and I got the chance to interview them a few times and what I’m seeing no one fat activists, they introduce you to them all. And I just very quickly built up a net of people that were using fat leopard language and speaking about it, like I said on apologetically in this way that wasn’t about appearance, and I owe it to Tumblr.

Summer:
You know, I feel like just Baker was similar in that it was Tumblr that like, was the thing that she discovered, you know, fat positive, like just going there and being like, wait a minute, people are proud of their bodies. Like, I feel like that was her. I can’t remember if I’m getting that mixed up with somebody else. But

Ingrid:
that sounds right, there was a really beautiful group of people that got popular on Tumblr, and then started writing and creating things together and bringing that to places like Huffington Post, bringing that to places like the hairpin and existing outside of Tumblr, but I feel like there was a time when we all knew each other, and we were all reposting everybody’s stuff. And that community felt really strong on all these different blogs. I mean, I did the same thing I started writing that felt like the right way to share what I was learning there with other people outside of tumblers realm.

Summer:
Yeah, that’s so cool. I know. It’s like social media can be such a detriment. But In instances like this, like it really allows you to, like, you know, get into a community that maybe otherwise you will not be able to access. And then and that can be like, pretty revolutionary for Yeah, for you. And for, you know, forever for all of us. Really amazing. Amazing. So I would love for you to speak to the difference between body positivity and fat liberation.

Ingrid:
Yeah, I’m trying to be delicate, but it’s a heated topic. That’s why I brought it here.
body positivity is digestible. I think that’s what it’s become like its chewed up little sister of all the political activism that came before it. I think it’s dominated by straight size, people at this point as a way to feel empowered instead of criticized when they publicly body check themselves. And that’s like my harsh criticism of what body positivity has become, it’s no secret that body positivity was started by fat black women, and then co opted by several different white women to try and improve their business structures. And I think, you know, mid to 2000s, early 2000 10s that we needed body positivity after coming out of like venison, we needed that narrative. And so it was welcomed, it had a place, but now with influencing the bodies that dominate the things we’re seeing are on the thinner side. And fat bodies aren’t celebrated in body positivity, because there is this idea that you have to want to look like that person you’re praising. And so a lot of the influencers or even people just involved in a discourse that do very well get lots of likes, and keep the movement moving are midsize and they can shop at most stores, they have most things accessible to them. And larger fat people in the movement tend to get ignored, especially the more oppression you add to their identities. So like I think about lush on a is a black plus size model who has their own alternative clothing brands, who has been on the scene for years, and has worked with so many different brands, so many different luxury brands. And they have under 200,000 followers on Instagram, which sounds like a lot. It sounds like a lot for them to have over 100,000 followers, but they’re midsize people who have done far less for the movement, who have millions of followers. And it shows a disparity in what body positivity has become. So when I talk about movements, I’ve started change my language to body acceptance. I think that there is the idea with positivity that we have to love our bodies at all times. So like why would we promote our bodies if we don’t love it? I just don’t think that’s attainable for a lot of people, even if you’re in an ideal body. And I also think on today’s internet internet, it means to be conventionally pretty to be positive about our bodies. And that is also not attainable for most people. They fat liberation is a movement that supports dismantling the social stigma against that people in addition to showing up as fat people in the world. So that means implementing safer healthcare, accessibility justice for all types of bodies, and that liberation in itself is intersectional. I know that many parts of the movement are focused on the advancements of fat studies. So that’s also dismantling anti fat bias in studies that create the structures which were oppressed by so A fat liberation really seeks to break down structural change in the institutions that change how fat people are being treated, regardless of health status, or size or opinions or appearance. So you don’t have to be pretty to have access to health care. You also don’t have to be healthy, to have access to health care. And I think that’s a real difference between where body positivity lies and fat liberation lies because like, I don’t have to love my body in order to see a doctor, that’s not going to tell me how to change your body for me to help you.

Summer:
Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely. I think I mean, you said so many good things there. But the mainstream body positivity movement is so hyper focused on like, okay, let’s like embrace our cellulite and like love our belly rolls, and doesn’t really step near the conversation of like, okay, people are denied health care denied life saving surgeries, because of their body size, people are discriminated against in, you know, the workforce and with respect to accessibility and things like that. And I’m curious, like, because I feel like some of those people probably know, like, do you think they know like, do you think they know? And they just don’t want to talk about that stuff? Because it feels too political, or do you think it’s like, I mean, we don’t know the answer, because we’re not talking to those people here. I’m just curious. I’m always sort of curious because for me, like, I feel like body positivity was kind of a gateway, right? And I appreciated what it did for me at that moment in time. And then as soon as I started to follow about activists and really learn from them, and like I remember kind of, you know, like, I feel like Virgie Tovar was one of the first people that I really like, read their work and interviewed and things like that. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, like, it totally blew my mind open that I couldn’t not talk about those things, or, you know, like, have other people talk about those things on the podcast, right? So I always sort of wonder with other people who are more really famous in the body positivity space, like, do they know, and they just don’t want to talk about it? Or do they just like maybe they’re just still maybe they still hold internalized bias? I don’t know.

Ingrid:
I think there’s probably a small portion that don’t know, but a large portion that does, I think there are many outspoken people in the fat liberation movement that speak to it. I know, specifically, I’m not gonna name names. But I know specifically of an influencer, who’s mid size, and that’s their whole dealio. And they have, I think, over a million followers, and they came out with a swimsuit line. And it went up to like a size 14. And a backlash over being someone who has made their entire following who can afford to live in a very expensive apartment, spending more money than many people can over the money they made using the body positive movement, and then not support fat people when they release a clothing line. It’s yeah, impossible not to note, in my opinion, when people come out of the woodwork and express their discontent with the choice, and then they didn’t respond, they never made a response. They ignored it, because they’re making enough money that they can, they’re profiting off them enough from the mid size and smaller people that need to feel empowered, and don’t need the structural change as much as larger bodied people do, that they don’t have to sign on to the size 2426 32 People who are saying, this was wrong, you used us to get enough clout to make those clothes. And now you won’t clothe us.

Summer:
Wow, wow. Yeah, I had no idea about that particular person. I am aware of other people that, you know, like promote brands and stuff that only made me go up to like a to x or something. And that in and of itself, to me feels I mean, probably not to the same extent, as the other one of like, launching your own line. But still, yeah, like, it’s not truly, it’s not truly what what the movement should be about. And and so I understand I totally understand why that’s so problematic, and why people get really upset by that.

Ingrid:
Yeah, I think they know, I think they know that exists, but there’s like a threshold of financial power that once you reach that you don’t need to answer to as many issues. You’re still making your money, you’re still able to support yourself. And especially this was a white person, so there’s not much that can tear them down. They weren’t breaking any laws. They were just really pushing down people who supported them in order to make ABA. Hmm,

Summer:
yeah. So interesting. I Yeah. So what would you like to see change in that area? Just out of curiosity?

Ingrid:
Yeah. I mean, more fat bodies period. I spoke earlier. I would love to see them on the cover of every magazine. That’s how I feel about it. I also, I don’t know if you’ve watched the new show monarch. It has been no on it, but it’s a new show. I think Fox I can’t remember but Beth did was in a Beto is a singer from the gossip. She is my personal hero. And I’m, I’m in love and very excited that she was leading in the show. And she’s got Star Power. I mean, I’ve heard her voice live, it’s unstoppable. And she seems that you know, maybe I put on our pedestal, but she just seems wonderful in in this show. She’s the sister. But she’s like a queer, fat country singer and holy promotions for the show. Don’t show her. She’s Oh, wow. In the backgrounds or like, not on their Instagram, when you watch the show is so clear that her character is well liked. Her character can be the underdog that overtakes her rival sister, and all the other thin presenters on the show, she just exudes that energy. And she doesn’t really have to like, I don’t know how hard she has to act to have that come off. Because I’ve seen it. It’s amazing. And I’d like to see more truth in those stories. Because in real life, people love that energy. In real life, people love bestill and that she’s playing herself in that show. I mean, other than being extremely, you know, Rich from a famous country family, the energy and personality that she gives us very similar to who I think she is in real life, you know, and I’d like to see her celebrated that way. And I feel that way about every fat bodied person, I would love to see them supported and celebrated for the things that they’re doing, not despite their fatness, but because they can do it. Even in myself. I think I’m a very talented person. And I love being a therapist. And I wish I was celebrated for doing therapy or, you know, I used to sing I wish I was celebrated for that instead of being a person who was doing it while fat, but I recognize the importance of celebrating that I do it while fat. Also, I just wish it wasn’t the case, I wish that we didn’t have to feed into our oppressions to get recognized for the hard work that we put in. And I’m sure that many different oppressed groups feel that way.

Summer:
This episode is brought to you by Ember and Ace Ember and Ace is an athletic wear brand for plus sized kids. The five piece essentials collection is launching this fall in kid size extra large to 4x subscribe to their newsletter at Ember and a stock calm and be the first to know about new products, sales and more. I love this brand. It’s an amazing idea. If you know someone or have a child that could benefit from this definitely pass them along to Ember and ace.com. Yeah, I really appreciate you sharing that. Thank you. One of the other things I really wanted to talk to you about is that I saw you talking about on your tech talk was this idea that if you heal your trauma, you’ll lose weight, which I’ve seen a lot in terms of like people selling programs like that. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that?

Ingrid:
Fake news? I just think is,

Summer:
yeah, just period, right.

Ingrid:
Yeah, I just think it’s not real. I think that trauma causes a lot of things. Trauma changes the way our brains work, the way we process information, it can make pretty permanent changes to our behavior. So how we protect ourselves, and a result of that is that our bodies can change. I think for a lot of people, they lose and gain weight frequently when they process or go through trauma. I mean, even medical trauma is real and that causes weight gain and loss. I don’t think that healing that trauma has a direct correlation to what happens to our body. And I do think that specifically influencers but anybody coaches, like therapists, like who promoted the idea that by healing trauma you can change us in body are really just trying to make a quick buck and pray off of people’s insecurities. But I also think that if your goal in therapy is to lose weight, and you’re not working on the real therapeutical weight loss is not a therapy goal. It usually is attached to more serious issues, deeper concerns that you have I think about self image, self image is a therapeutic goal. Being able to learn how to live in your body and a content way to do things in your body regardless, have you feel about it? That’s a great therapy goal, but I didn’t go through nutritional training to become a therapist and I didn’t have to ever walk into any gym to become a therapist. I didn’t have to do yoga to become a therapist. I know nothing about physicality when it comes to who like the wellness brigade? So my therapeutic goals can’t be based off of the wellness structure takes a lot of training to do that. And I think that anyone who’s trying to correlate these things are really just like I said, preying on people who have insecurities in those areas.

Summer:
And it adds, like another level of, you know, stigma because it’s like, well, then someone must have trauma, if they’re, you know, if they’re fat, like, they must have experience. I mean, we’ve all experienced trauma, but, but it’s like, it feeds into like another, you know, another harmful belief, like another kind of stereotype that people don’t make assumptions on based on someone’s body size.

Ingrid:
Well, it’s interesting, too, because I think it would be hard to be in a fat body and not experienced trauma, but that’s the trauma, like having people try and sell us things to lose weight, that’s trauma are constantly having ads shown to us about weight loss about stomach amputation, right? That’s trauma, the fact that I’m self disclosure, I’m a diabetic, and my medication that’s meant for glucose is being touted as a weight loss product. And so now my medication is harder to purchase. Yeah, because they’re giving it to midsize people to become thin. That’s trauma, that’s medical trauma, that now my doctor, instead of looking at my glucose readings is thinking about how much weight are you losing on this product? That’s medical trauma. And so yes, as a fat person, I experienced a great deal of trauma. But when I want to heal myself, that’s not the trauma that I get to work on, I have to work on how to hold my own in this world, healing that traumas learning self. I want to say like, not accountability, but my own authority over self. So like, when I want to take in the criticism of others. And when I want to say that that’s not for me, that’s for you. If you want to feel that way, you can, oh, my body’s not wrong. I don’t need to lose weight to heal. That’s what my therapy would be focused on.

Summer:
Yeah, yeah. Oh, so good. I’m so glad that you that you mentioned that as well. So one of the other things that you talked about on your tech talk was was your chin and recording at like, quote, unquote, in your words and unflattering angle to rebel against fat phobia? So I know. Yeah, I know, a lot of people listening, definitely struggle with a particular area of their body. And oftentimes it is, is their chin. So what’s your advice to them? If they hold shame about like a particular area of their body?

Ingrid:
Yeah, great question. You know, I have to sort of roads of thought, one is a bit of a therapy joke, which is, I don’t give advice. But

Summer:
yeah, I totally hear that.

Ingrid:
From like a therapy standpoint, I really think that exposure Response Prevention therapy is a great option for moments like this. So exposure therapy is just exposing ourselves to the things that make us anxious. The things that bring up worries for us, and learning to deal with distress, right, sitting through that and checking in on ourselves, and learning how to get through those situations because they’re going to exist. And I feel that’s very much how we should approach our bodies that our bodies change. And there are going to be moments where we don’t love it. And sometimes our bodies don’t change for us to do that. We just wake up feeling differently that day. And so learning how to sit in the stress, I think is important. I don’t use CBT CBT often, but I do think that CBT therapy is a great way to challenge some of those ideas about ourselves. So that’s when we get a very distressing thought to come up with a challenge for it and work through it very similar to exposure. But I do think that a lot of the reasons we feel shame about our bodies are very real people hate fat body. So I’d be hard pressed to find any amount of therapy that can combat decades or full lifetimes of fat phobia. And even if I feel great about my body, I can still see that my views on Tik Tok are just a fraction of what they are when I film at a higher angle. So those things are very real. It’s okay to feel shame, right? Like, I think that it can be really hard. And my advice to myself would be to do the thing anyway, do the thing that I’m passionate about anyway, even if I’m feeling shame about how I’m showing up doing it, and then I can do the work about the shame later. I don’t recommend that for everyone. Right. I think that I’m at a time and place where I can do that. But I think for a lot of people just accepting that there’s a certain amount of discomfort that we’re going to have to live in a world. That’s the structure of our environment. So learning to live with some of that discontent. Some of that uncomfortability will help us still be able to do the things that we want to do like sing on a stage or dance in front of a group or even just As I get to the top of whatever profession we’re interested in working in, I also think it helps us relieve ourselves from this idea that we have to be productive on capitalist standards, because we get to understand where our level of discontent is at. So when we’re feeling like it’s time to take a break, it’ll feel really authentic to choose to do so. So not advice, but that’s how I would do it.

Summer:
Yeah, no, you said, Oh, my gosh, she’s had so many good things there. So as we kind of wrap things up here, I did want to ask you one more thing, like, what would you like to see change in therapy spaces,

Ingrid:
such a big one for me, because I think there’s so many different levels to it, I want to eradicate, let me start this sentence over, I want to eradicate fat phobia across all lines. So of course, I want that for therapy too. But I want to make education more accessible and affordable, so that there can be more diverse therapists to support our very diverse population, I want the process towards licensure to be more affordable and more accessible for the same reasons I want therapy to open up its gates to more people, I think it’s extremely outdated that internships are unpaid most of the time. So grad student has to be able to attend school, they had to show up to their internship, they’re paying tuition to attend to that internship or not getting paid, and they have to have a full time job. So it means that most students are showing up as new professionals already burnt out. And then they need to complete their postgraduate hours, they get unlimited pay. While they do that, a lot of times, it’s like maybe $10 an hour, considering a 40 hour workweek Ray. And then we have to pay for an expensive license pay for an expensive test. And sometimes, like in my state, you have to wait a couple years before they even award you that license, and you can get paid more. So there’s extreme limitations. And all of that, while we’re doing that, we’re also expected to be educated on every client’s issue, to be educated on every culture so that whoever walks through our doors can be supportive, we’re expected to know a lot of bit of a lot of things, and then talk to our clients about self care. So we don’t get a moment to breathe, and can barely afford our bills a lot of the time, and there’s already extreme gatekeeping. So we’re seeing very small numbers of people of color as therapists, not because they’re not capable of it, not because they don’t want to be therapists, but because the profession prevents them from doing so. And once we’re out there are overworked burnt out and underpaid. So it’s a profession that promotes the idea of your work being a passion project, and be willing to make that sacrifice. And a lot of families can do that. Specifically, a lot of people of color can’t make that sacrifice, because there are already so many other hurdles. So that’s what I would like to see change. fatphobia is part of that, right? Because it’s part of what gait keeps us going to school is hard, because seating is different. So you walk into a classroom, and you’re already told, as a fat bodied person that you don’t fit in, right. But there are also so many other structures that make it hard to become a therapist. And honestly, it’s not very attractive. So I’m in the camp of the passion project of I just love doing this so much that I had the privilege of making that sacrifice. But I really understand why so many people can’t and don’t, it’s not lucrative and it’s not supportive, the work is worth it, if you’re privileged enough to make that choice. So I would like to see the structure of licensure and education change to support more people to become therapists and do this work for diverse populations.

Summer:
Yeah. Wow. That’s a Yeah, that’s really amazing. And, like, so true. And I don’t know enough about like the I imagine it. I mean, I don’t know the specifics. But yeah, like, so much time, so much money. It really is like a privileged endeavor. I think with any schooling really, like whether it’s like, you know, a lot of different professions that require some sort of like, masters, it’s like, you know, it’s really only for people who have a certain level of privilege or you’re making massive, massive sacrifices to, like squeak by to try and do it. Yeah, it’s interesting, because it’s like, one of the things like that I appreciate about coaching being an unregulated industry is that it’s less expensive to get into it. I mean, you’re gonna have people who are like snake oil people, but, but I feel like you have that in every professional anyways, but

Ingrid:
I think it’s a big reason why coaching should be more popular. I think. You’re right. It takes a lot of that structure out of it. And I think You know, I’m sure you’ve heard the battles between therapists and coaches, it ebbs and flows. But in reality, there are a lot of people who can’t access, learning to do therapy and coaching as a way to be able to give that to people to give healing to people. And a lot of therapists are choosing to become coaches for that exact reason. I mean, once a person is licensed, they’re only licensed in this state. And then they can’t get therapy to someone 10 minutes away, who just happens to be in another state, even if it’s virtual. So the therapists opt to do coaching across state lines. And they’re just very clear that it’s different. It’s different than therapy, but there’s recognition that the structure isn’t working. And so we’re having to find loopholes so that we can not only make enough money to survive, but be able to support clients across state lines across country lines. And like, that’s not even bringing to the conversation that in the UK therapy is completely unregulated. So lots of different wow, I had no idea. Yeah, lots of different people can become therapists, and they have very different educational backgrounds. And you might not know what you’re getting. When you look for a therapist, it’s very hard to find that information out. So I think decolonizing our education is a big part of that, and lowering the disparity between coaches and therapists, because essentially, we’re helping the same clients. Yeah, just in a different way.

Summer:
Yeah, absolutely. I feel like I could talk to you about that for a long time. But we have to wrap it up here. So it’s been such a pleasure interviewing you Where Where can people find more of you, Ingrid.

Ingrid:
So I am on Tik Tok at Ingrid with feelings. I do therapy within the state of Pennsylvania. And you can find me at Ingrid pipes.com. That’s where I’m at now. So you can shoot me an email if you want to start a conversation.

Summer:
Amazing. Thank you so much for being here. I really, really appreciate it. It’s been such a pleasure.

Ingrid:
Thank you for having me.

Summer:
Rock on. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. It was such a pleasure to have Ingrid on the show and to hear all of her wonderful insights. You can find all the links and resources mentioned at summer innanen.com. Forward slash 245 as well as the transcript for this episode. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate you rock on.

I’m Summer Innanen. And I want to thank you for listening today. You can follow me on Instagram and Facebook at summer Innanen. And if you haven’t yet, go to Apple podcasts search eat the rules and subscribe rate and review this show. I would be so grateful. Until next time, rock on