This is one of my clients who worked with me during the You, On Fire program and she is talking about how aging had brought up some old body image concerns and eating disorder thoughts. It had also made her more concerned about what other people are thinking of her. Through our work together she was able to let go of that external validation and be unapologetically herself.

You, On Fire is the online group coaching program that gives you a step-by-step way of building up self-worth beyond your jean size with personalized coaching from me and lifetime access to the program—so you can break out of the diet culture cage, get free from body shame and live your fiery, free, untamed life.

Go here to get all the details and get on the waitlist for the upcoming cycle>>

Samantha:
We do start to become a little bit invisible, right? Where, you know, we’re not seeing where our opinions don’t matter anymore because we don’t have what you know what we’ve been told that youth and back and give us right like views and beauty give us some sort of fabricated way to be heard. And, and I didn’t want to feel that way.

Summer:
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.

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 episode 286. And I’m sharing the story of Samantha, Who is on the show today. She is one of the incredible women who worked with me in the you ON FIRE program. And she’s talking about how aging brought up some body image concerns for her and is sharing her story about how she learned to let go of external validation and how she worries a lot less about what other people think of her now, you can find the links mentioned at summer innanen.com forward slash 286.

I want to give a shout out to Gretch rip, who left this review just discovered this podcast and I’m very grateful for this content. Thank you thank you so much. Short and sweet review. That’s all you have to do. Look at that I’m a poet and I didn’t even know it. throwback to Peewee Herman for those of you that remember that show when you were growing up. Leaving a review helps others to find this show and the information that you’re learning here, I would so appreciate if you did that you can go to iTunes, or Apple podcasts, whatever they call it these days, search for eat the rules and click ratings and reviews and click to leave a review or give it a rating. You can also do that on Spotify, I’ve realized. And if you haven’t already done so 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 provider, or a professional or an educator who helps people who also struggle with body image, then don’t forget to grab the free body image coaching roadmap for professionals, you can get that at summer innanen.com forward slash roadmap.

I haven’t done one of these Spotlight Interviews in a while I call them spotlights because it’s a way for me to spotlight some of the amazing people that I get to work with and I’m so grateful to have in my life. I’ve done quite a few in the past. So if you want to hear more stories from people, just like you who have had the opportunity to work with me on a more individual and deeper basis in my you on fire group coaching program, you can find those at Episode 134, Episode 164 176 212, and some other ones that are more a little more recent. But I will also link to in the show notes as well. I have a whole YouTube channel with video versions of these interviews, including this one that you’re going to hear today with Samantha. And the reason why I like to share these stories is because I know that oftentimes on the podcast, I’m just you know, sharing advice, or I’m sharing interviews with other guests that typically work in this space as well. And so it’s really important for me to share people’s stories that are just like you like everyday people who have other jobs that are not related to this work. And I share that because I want you to see that no matter your age or your size. It really is possible for you to feel better in your body and to feel more liberated and to feel freer and to not care so much about how you look anymore. And that doesn’t mean you don’t care about how you look. But it’s not making or breaking how you feel about yourself as a whole. And there can be so much fear when we stop dieting, and the idea of accepting our body can feel like giving up or we’re not, quote unquote, ready for it. And I share these stories because everyone that I’ve ever worked with has felt that way too. And I think it’s really important to see that it’s normal to have that fear. And that fear will be there until you really start doing the work of accepting your body. And that, after a few short months, you can have pretty significant changes in how you feel about yourself. You can be kinder to yourself, you can quiet that judgmental voice, you can be able to show up in pictures, you can leave your house without worrying so much about what other people are going to think of you if you’re if you’re wearing makeup or not. You can really find out who you are, and what’s truly important to you in life. Now that you’re not dieting, and spending so much time and energy fretting about your body. And what’s so amazing is that the people I work with really start to experience life differently. Because they have a lot more mental space, they have more time they have more energy, they feel like they have more autonomy and more choice. And it really is this this sense of of freedom, it’s like this burden that you’re letting go of. And so it’s an honor for me, like I love, I love doing this work with people. And I feel so grateful when people come into the program, and they they want to engage in this work. And we really build such a strong connection together. And so if you’re curious to learn more, and you want to work with me, check out you on fire. It’s an online group coaching program that gives you a step by step way of building up your self worth beyond your gene size. There’s elements of of one on one coaching in a group setting, I should say, as well as some content that you do on your own. And you can get more information on that at summer innanen.com. Forward slash you on fire. And I’d absolutely be thrilled to be your coach, I’d love to have you in the group. You don’t need to spend any more time hating on yourself. And so without further ado, I want to share Sam’s story here today. I’m so proud of Sam and how far she came. And it’s just awesome to see someone living their life unapologetically. And how much can change in such a short period of time.

So let’s get started. Hi, Sam, welcome to the show.

Samantha:
Hi, summer. It’s good to be here. It’s so lovely to see you.

Summer:
I’m so happy you took the time to be here today. Why don’t you start by telling everyone just a little bit about who you are.

Samantha:
Okay, my name is Samantha Smith. And I’m 53 this year, I have a background in psychology. And I am currently an intuitive eating counselor and a eating disorder educator.

Summer:
Amazing. Fantastic.

Samantha:
I built myself.

Summer:
That’s great. I love it. I love it. And so tell me a little bit about you know, what your frustrations were with your body before we started working together?

Samantha:
Well, I mean, I have previously done a lot of work on myself already. And that was just from years battling eating disorder. And then my son going through one as well. He was hospitalized. And while he was going through that process, I realized that I was still glossing over stuff and that I needed some, some extra help. And I thought okay, well I’ve been following summer for a while. I feel comfortable with the way she presents things. So maybe this would be a good opportunity for me to just delve a little deeper and and start wiggling those last little bits free. Right, giving them away. And so that’s what I did. And it was probably one of the one of the best things I’ve done for myself in a long time. Yeah, it just it felt good. It felt right.

Summer:
Oh, I’m so happy to hear that. When you say like you wanted to sort of, I can’t remember exactly how you did. I’ll try to paraphrase but sort of deal with those last little bits. Like, can you articulate what some of those were out of curiosity? If you’ve if you can recall, I know it was a while ago.

Samantha:
No, I can definitely do that. Well, it kind of brings up some of your modules. So I guess external validation is one of them as still being kind of held in the trap of external validation and not realizing it until, you know, it was kind of hitting me in the face. So I’d have those moments of being okay. But then something would trigger it. And I would be right back there trying to, you know, seek out some sort of validation for how I looked, or, you know, whether it was from family or friends or whatever it was. And that really, I think, for me, those are the hardest ones to uproot. Right? Because it’s so based in, in who you are as a person, then your value system, and it really starts to if you haven’t started to dismantle that stuff, it can be very hard to sort of face. And so I thought, okay, yep, I still need to do a little bit work around that.

Summer:
I appreciate you detailing that a little bit further. I feel like so many people can relate to that struggle, like it’s, it really goes hand in hand with the body image stuff and our desire to dye it, I think our desire to dye it is is often really like this desire to belong, this desire for validation. And so if we don’t sort of get to the core of that, like you said, even though if we’ve done some of the other work, it can still linger and be envy there. Yeah. So you you mentioned I know, I always asked like was, was something that happened that made you want to change, and I didn’t know, you mentioned your son being hospitalized, was there anything else that made you want to meet, you want to change and do this work?

Samantha:
I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older, that there are as you get older, as women get older, we tend to become more invisible. And I was finding that I was the old habits were creeping back. And I know, we just talked about external validation. But as you know, as older women or as we get older, and we lose that external validation of being young, you know, young, beautiful, thin, all of those things that we sort of took for granted that aren’t there anymore. And I was, you know, I was kind of, I could feel that, you know, the old Ed voice coming back and going well, you know, you could just go on a little sneaky diet, nobody has to know, or, you know, there’s always, you know, you could go visit your, your friendly neighborhood Botox injector. And I don’t like that voice. And I and I knew that, that it, I needed. Again, I needed a refresher, I needed some more help dealing with it, and coming to, you know, sort of peace within myself, to be able to move forward, I had a son who was very ill. And I thought, I don’t need to be modeling things that put him into the place where he is. And so, you know, there was a bunch of things happening at that point, it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of your, a lot of the women who come to you are older or are hitting that age, right, or getting into sort of, you know, whether it’s, you know, in their kind of late 30s, early 40s, somewhere around there, where we do start to become a little bit invisible, right? Where, you know, we’re not seeing where our opinions don’t matter anymore, because we don’t have what, you know, what we’ve been told that youth and back and give us, right, like views and beauty give us some sort of fabricated way to be heard. Yeah. And I, I didn’t want to feel that way. I don’t like feeling that way. I like the fact that I’m 53 it’s taken me a while to get there, it’s taken me a while to be okay with my age. And the fact that I don’t have to be, you know, I don’t have to try and make myself look like a model on the front of the magazine, you know, that what I say actually has weighed, through my own experience, through my own education, through all of the things that I’ve been through my life. My voice matters, right? So did I totally go off topic there? I’m sorry.

Summer:
No, I love I loved it. Because, you know, I did a survey on my audience over the summer. And it was like, 75% of the people were over 40. And I mean, that’s like, that’s pretty typical in terms of like, who’s in you on fire, although we do get some people that are that are, you know, maybe a little bit younger in their 30s and stuff, but, and I think it’s like, to your point, like you have this dynamic of, of, you know, you have the intersection of ageism coming into play and it kind of creates this period where you’re just like, what, what is happening and if you’ve been struggling with this, you know, then you have this extra layer that comes in it can it can just kind of it’s more confronting and you kind of realize you’re like, like, I can’t like escape this now. Like, you know, like the you know, like I my body is changing and there’s nothing that you know, like I have to I They’re, you know, make some decisions to really make peace with this. And there’s also I think, this this period of time that happens where you’re sort of like, I’m too old for this shit, like, I know, like, it is, like I have spent decades doing this. I don’t want to feel this way anymore. So yeah, so I just I know, I appreciate you sharing your personal experience with that. And that’s my, because, you know, I kind of witnessed it on the other side. I’m also like, on the flip side of 40. Now, but it’s, but it’s it just echoes, you know, everything that I have sort of heard from other people in the program as well. And what I observe. So with that, like in the program, what were some of the things that like that the elements of the program are the stepping stones that really helped you along the way?

Samantha:
I think it was, for me, it was going through the modules, and even though some of it was stuff I’ve already done in different ways, obviously. But the same sort of flavor, is that rather than glossing over the things that I thought I knew, or that I thought I would, I had gotten past. I said, No, we’re gonna sit with this. And we’re gonna see what comes up. Because I know that about myself. I know that enough about I’ve done enough therapy, to know that when I start glossing over things, it’s usually because there’s something there that I don’t want to look at, right? Yes. And so I went, No, you know, what, if you’re gonna do this, you’re gonna do this, right? You’re gonna do it, you’re gonna, you’re gonna go in there with a beginner’s mind to go, Okay, let’s do this. And so that’s what I did. And I was, I was surprised. I was surprised at how much I kind of went, you know, I can, I can get away with that still. Right? I can get away with that kind of thinking still, you know, as long as it’s not hurting anybody, it’s fine, I can get away with that. And the only person you end up hurting is yourself, obviously. But I, I really, again, I’m going to bring up the external validation, because module five really did it for me. And I went, That’s it. It is for me. And it has always been because I learned it from, you know, my mother, and her mother and all of the women around me that if you weren’t consistently being validated for the way you looked, there was no, there was no room for you. Right. And even though the women that I grew up with, still were very generous women and loving women, they were also very confined in how they looked and how they appeared. And you know, my mother’s term thin and lovely, still gives me a little bit of a twinge. Oh, yeah. I couldn’t hear her say, Oh, you’re so thin and lovely. And so part of it for me was getting the external validation from her. It wasn’t then, then she wouldn’t think highly of me, even though I know that my mother doesn’t think that way. Right. She loves me. And she supports me, and she’s a wonderful woman. But that term that she use really just kind of sunk it in. So external validation, definitely I and I do believe that, you know, ageism, and our health and wellness, culture, and diet culture, are all intertwined so deeply, that it’s very hard to let go of wanting external validation in our society. And, you know, I’m much better now after doing your program and really sort of powering down on not necessarily beating myself up by going when it comes up again, because it does always come up. I don’t think it’s something that we ever fully get rid of, or that we can never fully get rid of. But rather than beating myself up, I’m now a little more curious. Oh, look, there it is. What’s happened? Am I particularly stressed out right now? Right? Is there something going on in my life that’s making me feel really uncomfortable and insecure? Yeah, right. I don’t need to control it. But I do have to realize how it’s affecting me.

Summer:
Yeah. Amazing. I’m so glad that was impactful for you. So were there any, like highlight moments for you or any, like changes that you noticed that you felt were impactful?

Samantha:
I have to say that after doing your program, I have become easier. I don’t want to say more easier, because it sounds horrible, but easier in my body. Again, I mean, going through an eating disorder really kind of when you when you get to recovery, and I’m putting recovery in quotation marks, you still, you know, we’re all human. You still have voices sometimes, but now you know how to come at them. Right? So you’re not listening to them specifically, but you are going oh, there it is. Right. So it’s the curio So the factor again, oh, what’s going on in my life? What am I? What am I stressing out about? What am I not doing for myself, and I, I’ve found that I care less about, I care less. That’s what I that’s really, it sounds, it sounds a horrible thing to say, but I do care less. I care less about how people view me, I care less about, you know, making sure my makeup is perfect, or my hair is done. I know, I when I emailed you, it’s like brushing my hair. But I really don’t. I don’t care as much anymore about those things. And it is all wrapped up in external validation. But I do care less about those specific things.

Summer:
Amazing. I love it. And so how does that feel for you? Like, what’s it like for you to be in this place where you’re not so burdened by valid and wanting validation?

Samantha:
Freeing, I love the freedom of going, Okay, well, you know, it’s not even thinking about putting on makeup, it’s just walking out the door, right? It’s walking out the door, it’s maybe throwing a hat on my head, or, you know, because my hair is a bit wavy and crazy. Or not even caring about that and going and it’s just my hair. Right? It’s, it’s not worrying about whether or not I’m feeling particularly you know, if I had chili the night before, and I’m bloated, or, you know, worrying about my, my comfortable grandmother’s stomach, as I call it now, because I have a grandchild and she likes to cuddle, it’s worrying less about how I look in pictures. That was a big one. And one I had held on to for a long time. It’s it is it’s just caring less and enjoying my life more. And it’s a really sad thing to have to say that it took me this long to get to that point. But going forward, I don’t have to worry about it as much anymore. And I’m not saying that I’m not that I’m perfect. I know that I still run into those moments where, you know, I’m I’m feeling a little less than, but it’s, you know, through through the work I’ve done with your program. And through other work that I’ve done, I know that I have the tools in my toolbox to be able to counter it compassionately.

Summer:
Amazing. And so what’s one piece of advice that you have to people listening today?

Samantha:
Oh my God, just keep doing it. Just keep working the program. Just yeah, just keep working the program, keep do it. Because you’re doing it for yourself. Right? It’s the most is probably one of the most important thing that you will ever do for yourself, is to give yourself the gift of this program. I’m working with you.

Summer:
Oh, that’s so very kind of you. I appreciate you saying that. It’s been such a pleasure. It’s like so meaningful to me to hear about the impact that it’s had on you. Because I know, it’s been it’s been a while, right? Like it’s been, I’m trying to remember when it’s been like a year and a half. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s been a while since we connected. So it’s like, it’s really, yeah, it’s really special to me to just be able to catch up with you and, and hear about the impact that I make. Sometimes I just don’t quite know, right and, and to hear a little bit more about, you know, just how how that’s working for you now, like a year and a half later, because I think that’s the thing, it’s just the way I see it is like the program really plants the seeds and then you just keep watering them and then you know, you just keep flourishing so it’s not like a diet where you do something and then you regret it and feel terrible afterwards. Like this puts you on the upward trajectory.

Samantha:
What I tell people that I work with, it’s just I’m just here to plant seeds. Into know give you a little guidance, but you can do it.

Summer:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that so much. I appreciate you sharing your story. Is there anything else that you want to say before we wrap things up today?

Samantha:
I don’t think so. I’m just so grateful for finding you. When I did and having the you know, having the means and the ability to do it. I think it’s fantastic. And if you’re doing the program and you’re listening to this, or if you’re thinking about doing the program and you’re listening to this, just do it now

Summer:
Thank you so much Sam That’s so kind of you and like I know you’re helping other people in a similar way and so it’s it’s just amazing that you’re you’re out there as well doing that and I will link to that in the show notes too. If you have like a website that you want to share or anything like that. Do you have a website that you want to share that you…

Samantha:
I am in the process of revamping the website. But I will send you the link when I’m when I’m ready to do it. The majority of the work I do is with parents and spouses Is partners of people who have eating disorders. Because it is a much neglected niche. And they need a lot of support. Yeah. And I’m, I’m quite happy to do the work. I am quite happy to do the work.

Summer:
I love it. Oh, thank you for sharing that. I’m glad I asked. Because I feel like it’s like that’s a that’s such an important resource and, and I’ll include it when you have it. And otherwise people can look you up as well.

Samantha:
I appreciate that.

Summer:
Thank you so much for being here, Sam. Thank you summer, Rock on.

I hope you feel inspired after listening to Sam’s story. And if you want to take the next step, if you want to learn more about working with me, you can go to summer in an n.com forward slash you on fire. I’ve been running you on fire for over eight years now since 2015. It’ll be nine years next year. And every year I’m blown away by the transformations that take place. And it’s really, it’s not about liking the way you look, which I think you probably took away from this episode. It’s really about transforming the way you see yourself and your outlook on life. And it’s such an amazing thing. So check out summer innanen.com forward slash you on fire. If you want to learn more, you can find this interview the video version of it at the show notes which are at summer innanen.com forward slash 286 as well as links to other episodes that I’ve done like this where I catch up with previous clients of mine. Thank you so much for being here today and listening. I really appreciate you being a listener of the show and I will talk to you again soon rock on.

26:46
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.

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