Episode 253: On this episode of Real Health Radio, I'm chatting with Summer Innanen, making her third appearance on the podcast. This episode is all about body image and we cover what body image is as well as how it is connected to self-worth, confidence, emotions, feelings, dieting, exercise, body trust, comparison, and the judgement of others.
Summer Innanen is a professionally trained coach specialising in body image, body positivity, self-worth and confidence.
She helps women all over the world to stop living behind the numbers on their scales through her private and group coaching at summerinnanen.com.
She is the best-selling author of Body Image Remix: Embrace your body and unleash the fierce confident woman within. She is also the creator of the flagship You, On Fire – a 3 month online program dedicated to helping women break out of the diet culture cage and cultivate their inner, rampant untameability (YES!!!) so they can wear, say and do what they want.
She is the host of Eat the Rules, a podcast dedicated to empowering women to live life on their own terms, where she has interviewed leading body image and anti-diet experts and activists such as Isabel Foxen Duke, Virgie Tovar, Kelsey Miller and Ragen Chastain.
She has been featured in Refinery29, FabUplus Magazine, The Huffington Post, Beutiful Magazine, and featured on several chart-topping podcasts including, Harder To Kill Radio and The Paleo For Women Podcast.
She lives in Vancouver, BC Canada with her husband, toddler son, and fur-child.
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Chris Sandel: Welcome to Episode 253 of Real Health Radio. You can find the show notes and the links talked about as part of this episode at www.seven-health.com/253.
Before we get started, I just want to mention that I’m currently taking on new clients. I specialise in helping clients overcome eating disorders and disordered eating, chronic dieting, body dissatisfaction and poor body image, exercise compulsion and overexercising, and also helping clients to regain their periods. If you want help in any of these areas or you simply want support improving your relationship with food and with body and with exercise, then please get in contact. You can head over to www.seven-health.com/help, and there you can read about how I work with clients and apply for a free initial chat. The address, again, is www.seven-health.com/help, and I’ll also include that in the show notes.
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Real Health Radio. I’m your host, Chris Sandel. I’m a nutritionist that specialises in recovery from disordered eating and eating disorders, or really just helping anyone who has a messy relationship with food and body and exercise.
Today’s show, it is a guest interview. My guest today is Summer Innanen. Summer is a professionally trained coach specialising in body image, body positivity, self-worth, and confidence. She helps women all over the world to stop living behind the numbers on their scale through her private and group coaching at www.summerinnanen.com. She’s the best-selling author of Body Image Remix: Embrace Your Body and Unleash the Fierce, Confident Woman Within. She’s also the creator of her flagship You, on Fire, a three-month online programme dedicated to helping women break out of the diet culture cage and cultivate their inner rampant untameability so they can wear, say, and do what they want.
She’s the host of the Eat the Rules podcast, and it’s a podcast dedicated to empowering women to live life on their own terms, where she has interviewed leading body image and anti-diet experts and activists. She’s been featured in Refinery29, FabUPlus magazine, the Huffington Post, Beautiful magazine, and featured on several chart-topping podcast. She lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada, with her husband, toddler son, and fur child.
For many of you, Summer Innanen will need no introduction. This is her third appearance on the show and she’s someone who I’ve been a fan of for nearly a decade. This episode is all about body image, with Summer and I talking about how we help clients in this area. We cover what body image is and how it’s connected to self-worth. We talk about confidence and its connection to body image. We look at the common mistakes that people make when trying to improve body image. We cover feelings and emotions and how important they are in this work. We explore dieting and exercise, body trust, comparison, and the judgment of others and how each of these are connected to body image.
I really love this conversation, which is always the way when I get to chat with Summer. We got to cover so many ideas, and I feel like this is a very practical episode. I will be back at the end with a recommendation, but for now, let’s get on with the show. Here is my conversation with Summer Innanen.
Hey, Summer. Welcome back to the podcast. I’m really excited to be chatting with you again.
Summer Innanen: Yeah, thank you so much for having me here, Chris. I’m excited to be back.
Chris Sandel: This is your third time on the show. You were one of the early guests back in 2015. I think it was Episode 16. And then we chatted again in 2019, and at that stage we had both had kids, so we spoke a lot about parenthood and running our respective businesses, and that’s Episode 178.
But today on the show, I reached out because over the last handful of years, you’ve done many solo episodes on your podcast looking at body image, and I think you’ve done 20 episodes in total or somewhere around there that are specifically dedicated to body image, not to mention all the other episodes you’ve done where this comes up as part of the episode. I’ve listened to the vast majority of these episodes and know how much this is an area that you work on with clients and you have a real solid knowledge on, and I just wanted to be able to share this with the listeners.
I know we’ve not going to cover everything that you touch on in those episodes, so I’ll be adding a link in the show notes so that you can go and check those out. But I’m hoping we can cover a lot of aspects of the body image work.
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Despite being on the show multiple times, I’m aware that some listeners may not know who you are, so I guess as a starting point, do you want to give a brief bio? Who you are, what you do, the kind of clients you work with, that kind of thing.
Summer Innanen: Sure, that’s great. I was thinking, wow, 2015. I feel like I’ve evolved so much since then. [laughs] Just really honed my craft and expertise. So I’m glad to have the opportunity to speak to it again.
I’m a professionally trained life coach. I’ve done a couple of different certification courses for life coaching, and I specifically help people with body image and self-worth and confidence. Most of my clients are women or nonbinary folks who are generally heading more towards midlife or are in midlife, so that 35 to 55, some even older than that, range. They’ve been dieters for decades of their lives.
A lot of times when they come to see me, they’ve done some of the intuitive eating work, they’ve healed their relationship with food, but they’re really still struggling with the body image piece. So they’re still having intrusive thoughts about wanting to lose weight all the time or avoiding pictures or avoiding mirrors or just really feeling uncomfortable in their body. I help those people to get to a place where they feel a lot more neutral in their body so they can just go on, enjoy their lives, and not let their appearance dictate how they feel about themselves so it doesn’t have that emotional weight that it used to have.
So that’s what I do and who I help, and I have a podcast called Eat the Rules that I’ve been doing for eight years now – which is wild to think about – but yeah, there’s hundreds of episodes there related to this topic. I also help professionals, so I also co-teach the Body Image Coach Certification programme with another coach named Danni ‘Amapoundcake’ Adams, and we came together to offer a certification course. Her expertise is really in the area of social justice, and she brings a lot to the table with lived experience and helping people as it relates to understanding how bias in coaching shows up and things like that.
I teach some of the tools and frameworks that I use with my clients to other professionals, so to therapists or dietitians or intuitive eating counsellors and things like that. So we created that programme and launched it this past year, which has been amazing.
So those are the two spectrums of people that I work with and how I help them.
Chris Sandel: Nice. I think what would be useful today, then, as well, when talking about this – obviously the vast majority of listeners are laypeople who are wanting to have better body image or to understand this for themselves, but there’s a good chunk of the listenership who are also practitioners. So I think it would be useful, given your skillsets in both of those areas and the fact that you are now working specifically with practitioners as well – and I’m on your mailing list and I know you have emails that go out that are directed specifically at coaches and how useful I find those. So yeah, I think it would be great to speak to both of those audiences when it is relevant.
Summer Innanen: Sure, I’ll do my best to do that. And you can always just ask me to expand if I’m speaking to one more or to the other.
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Chris Sandel: I guess it would be helpful as a starting place just to first define bod image. And this doesn’t have to be an official definition, but when you think about body image, how would you define it or how do you describe it to your clients or to practitioners? What factors coalesce to create what we think of as body image?
Summer Innanen: On a very simplistic level, our body image is how we feel about our body. I think that’s a pretty good place to start. I think most people have some sort of feelings about their relationship to their body. But I really try to take it one step further and look at, okay, to what extent do we value ourselves as humans, as who we are, based on how we look?
I think that if we have what you’d call a poor body image, for the most part, what we see is that people are really valuing themselves based on how they look. I believe that the way we feel about how we look can be really variable. We can have days where we maybe like the way we look, we can have days where we don’t like the way we look. But when we talk about healing body image, it’s really about divesting that from how we value ourselves as whole human beings and detaching our sense of self-worth from how we look.
In terms of how we assess this, I always look at, how often are you thinking negative things about your body? And secondly, how much does the way you feel about how you look define how you feel about yourself as a whole? When I work with people, we’re trying to improve both of those things. We’re trying to reduce the negative thoughts that we have about our body; we’re trying to develop more neutral thoughts, more compassionate thoughts, and we’re trying to really unhook how we feel about ourselves from how we look.
Because how we look is going to change. We’re all aging out of beauty standards, and if we are hinging the way that we value ourselves on these standards of beauty and on our perception of ourselves, we’re setting ourselves up to have this conditional relationship with ourselves, like “I can only feel good about myself if I like the way I look.” I don’t think that that’s really great in the long term. I don’t think that really gives us a lot in terms of knowing that we’re good enough beyond how we look.
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Chris Sandel: You talked about self-worth there. Would you say that self-worth and body image can be used somewhat interchangeably as terms? Or body image is like a subset or a part of self-worth?
Summer Innanen: That’s a really good question. The answer is probably, who am I speaking to? [laughs] If I’m speaking broadly to the internet, I think most people would probably connect more with body image and have this desire to “feel better about how I look.” But I think once I start having conversations with people, once they understand, when we start to look under the surface of where this is actually coming from, the way we feel about our body has been conditioned in us. It’s been something that we learned, and therefore it is something we can unlearn.
When we look under the surface, it generally comes from this place of unworthiness or this sense of “who I am is dictated by how other people perceive me or how I perceive how I look.” So I don’t know if I would say I use them interchangeably, but I think when I’m working with people, the work I’m doing is probably more based around self-worth. But what we’re really trying to heal is that surface-level issue of the body image.
But then it helps in many other areas of your life, because I think what happens is that if we heal the body image piece and we’re still having these feelings of unworthiness, it’s going to show up in other areas of our lives. And I don’t think it’s a perfect thing. It’s not like you heal the unworthiness and you never feel bad about yourself again. We all have these beliefs about ourselves that are then manifesting in terms of body image issues or issues with how we show up in our career or how we show up in relationships.
I think I try to get to the root of what those beliefs are that are driving that need for approval, whether it’s through our body image or through trying to get promotions at work or trying to obtain more money or whatever it is we’re going after to give ourselves that feeling of like “Okay, I’m good enough” and try to get to that place where we know that we’re good enough regardless of those things. Does that answer that question for you?
Chris Sandel: It does. I think what I would imagine is people come to you thinking “this is about my body image” and you help them see that this is much more about self-worth. And while it might feel, as you say, about how I look, when you start doing some digging, there’s this same pattern when it comes to how they are with a partner or how they are at work or how they are with their friends group or whatever it may be. It morphs. But it’s kind of the same thing because at the core or base, it’s about worthiness or a feeling of unworthiness.
Summer Innanen: Yeah. An example of that would be – I’ll speak for myself here so I’m not sharing anybody else’s story. For me, two things that stemmed my own struggles with food and body image. One is just this belief or fear of not having control, and two is this belief of “there’s something wrong with me.” Both of those things manifested in this ongoing quest for me to change my body and me believing “If I change my body, then I won’t believe these things about myself anymore.”
Now, I didn’t have any awareness of those beliefs. That took me a lot of work, and I still do work around those things, because they still show up in other areas of my life. [laughs] But that’s what I’m talking about when I work with people – getting to, where are the roots of this coming from? Because it’s not about our body. I mean, on some level, yes, our culture has made us hate our bodies. But the way we feel about ourselves as a whole is really rooted in something else. And that still comes from our culture, too. Any kind of sense of who we are or sense of self-worth comes from both our lived experiences as well as the cultural messages that we receive.
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Chris Sandel: Definitely. I want to dig into that a little more and come back to it, but if we’re starting from a definition standpoint, what about the difference between say confidence and self-worth? I think sometimes people will use them interchangeably or think “I need to be more confident.” Is that actually what people really need?
Summer Innanen: Right, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to be more confident. I think a lot of us do want to be more confident. But confidence is sort of – I mean, you can know that you’re good enough and still struggle with confidence in certain areas. Confidence is more about how often we are stepping outside of our comfort zone to build up a sense of confidence, to really work with the fear that we have.
Certainly it becomes easier to be confident and to step outside your comfort zone when you’re not pigeonholed by this fear of like “Oh my gosh, what are people going to think of me?” or “I can’t do that because of the way that I look.” But I think self-worth is going to stay consistent throughout all of the experiences we have.
So even if we do step on a stage to do a presentation and it’s a terrible failure, we don’t come back afterwards – and although that was a thing that took a lot of confidence to do, even though maybe the outcome wasn’t great, self-worth is more about afterwards being able to say to yourself, “Okay, it doesn’t mean that I’m a failure. It just means that something didn’t go right” or “I can do better next time” or whatever the reason is. “It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me.” That’s on the surface level where I see the difference. Self-worth will stay consistent amongst the ups and downs, and confidence is more about taking action to step outside your comfort zone, to become more comfortable doing certain things, to help you work with fear and overcome fear.
But I think we’re always trying to be more confident in different areas in our life, so I don’t see it as a static thing, confidence, whereas self-worth becomes more of something that you become rooted in over time as you continue to nurture this belief that you’re good enough.
Chris Sandel: Just using your example there of going onstage, I can imagine someone who had really low self-worth, even if that went really well, there could be a feeling of “I could’ve done this better, I could’ve done that better.” Even if they felt confident, it might not then translate into feeling good about the experience even when the experience goes well.
Summer Innanen: Yes, exactly. That’s such a good point. The confidence doesn’t necessarily help with the belief system inside. And that’s where you see that leading to imposter syndrome and things like that.
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Chris Sandel: The other one I want to define to start with is body acceptance. What is body acceptance?
Summer Innanen: Body acceptance I see more as a practice of accepting our whole selves and accepting that we’re made up of parts of ourselves that we like or don’t like or feel neutral about. It’s about showing up for yourself every day and accepting what is. Like, how am I feeling today? What am I thinking about myself today? And accepting it. It doesn’t mean settling for it. It doesn’t mean that you can’t change the thoughts that you’re having or how you feel about yourself.
But it means that we’re not in this constant state of resistance or feeling like we have to feel positive about ourselves all the time or love ourselves all the time. It’s about just accepting that we’re humans, we’re made up of different components of ourselves, we’re going to have different emotions that range from joy to grief on any given day or on different days, and just accepting what’s there. When we do that, we are in a much greater place to really be present with ourselves, be more embodied, and give ourselves compassion. And I think those are all practices as well that feed into this overall ‘state’, if you will, of body acceptance.
But it’s not a destination. It’s not like you wake up and you’re like, “I’ve accepted my body and that’s it!” It’s really a practice in general of accepting ourselves every day. Sort of like the way you show up as a parent to your child. You’re just accepting what is there today. “My kid’s having a really bad day? I’m accepting that this is what’s happening and we’re going to get through it” versus “There’s something wrong with you! Get yourself together!” I think that’s just an example of how acceptance can play out. It’s about playing that same sort of principle to ourselves.
Chris Sandel: I could also see then the overlap in terms of self-worth and acceptance. If you have a good level of acceptance, even when you’re having a bad day, you have a higher level of compassion, you’re able to navigate and move through that better, reach out for support, whatever it may be, versus if there’s a lower level of acceptance and there’s higher amounts of resistance, even on a good day you’re still just fighting and you’re still at war with this thing. And then when it’s a bad day, then it’s a really bad day because you just compound everything and it’s like, “See? This is the proof of why I’m such a failure” or whatever the thing may be.
So if you can move the acceptance piece higher up and have more acceptance, that helps overall in the same way as with the self-worth. And I can also see people’s resistance to both of those things in the sense of like “But if I have high self-worth or I accept myself as I am, then this is as good as it’s going to get” or “then I’m never going to live up to these standards” or whatever it may be. There’s that resistance, feeling like, as you said, “I’m giving up or I’m losing something by doing this” even though it’s actually the opposite.
Summer Innanen: Yeah, and I think that’s a common misconception. I think that’s because we interpret acceptance as just settling for whatever is there. Sometimes I’ll work with people and be like, “Let’s redefine what that really is going to look like for you.” Because in my mind, acceptance is really about treating ourselves with respect and compassion and kindness and being there for ourselves, and that’s the polar opposite of settling and giving up.
I think any time you look at research on what helps people achieve things, what helps people do things, it really has to come from that intrinsic place of treating ourselves well. For lack of a better term, being an asshole to yourself is not going to be a positive thing. [laughs] We don’t achieve positive outcomes by doing that to ourselves.
So I think if you think about it that way – and that’s more of a cheeky way to think about it, but I think that can resonate with people, because it’s like “Oh yeah, shaming myself doesn’t really result in a positive outcome.” Again, you can bring it back – I know not everybody has a child that’s listening to this, but if you think about parenting, shame-based tactics don’t really work very effectively. They might get some obedience in the short term, but they don’t really work. Whereas accepting and treating kids with more respect and things like that tends to yield better outcomes for most people, at least. And I’m not a parenting expert, but I think some people can see that play out in our own lives.
Chris Sandel: Definitely. Although what I would add – and this comes up often with clients – is they haven’t been treated with a lot of respect from parents. There isn’t a model they can lean back on to be like, “Oh okay, that’s how you treat a child nicely” because they didn’t necessarily experience that. And when you’ve had that experience all of your life and you’ve used self-criticism as a motivator, you’ve used getting down on yourself as a way of moving forward, and you’ve had some level of success with that, it can feel very at odds to be like “And you now want me to be nice to myself and be kinder?” It can feel like “If I do that, I’m going to get nothing done. All of my flaws are going to show.” I can understand why there is this fear with that.
Summer Innanen: Oh yeah, absolutely. And I don’t want to discount that a lot of people have had experiences like it wasn’t role modelled to them very well. But even then, it’s like, then how did that work out for you? Maybe that’s why some of these beliefs that you have are here.
It’s also a matter of working on it on a day to day basis. Like, do you want to clean your floors? Is that important to you today? Is there something else that might be more important? What are your needs today? And helping people realize that yeah, sometimes things can be let go a little bit, but that’s in favour of prioritizing other things that are overall going to be better for you, whatever that might be on that particular day.
I think people get tripped up on the long-term thing of “Oh my gosh, I’m never going to do anything, I’m just going to be lazy.” So I like to try to bring it back to the present moment in terms of, what would practicing acceptance look like in the here and now, today? And if there’s resistance around that, how can we explore that together to find a way to make this something that you want to buy into, something that feels good, that is going to be free from that shame-based belief system that you’ve been using to motivate yourself?
But it’s a rewiring, so it takes time, and that’s why I think really focusing on just the small things and starting small there can be super helpful for people.
Chris Sandel: As you’re talking about all this, it’s doing a lot of the things that people might not associate with body image. They’re thinking, “We’re going to be doing things that are very specific about how I feel about myself aesthetically”, and actually there’s all of these other areas that then, when they get worked on, are what make the real, genuine change.
Summer Innanen: Yeah, exactly. It’s funny, actually. There is some specific stuff I do with people around their body.
Chris Sandel: Same.
Summer Innanen: But that’s usually the gateway, and then it’s definitely doing other things that have nothing to do with their body but also have everything to do with how they feel about their body. [laughs] I love seeing that play out for people, and I love seeing the lightbulbs go off when they think, “Oh okay, this is why I’m feeling this way or this is why I’m doing this thing to myself.” Yeah, you said it well.
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Chris Sandel: Thinking about people who are at that earlier stage with body image or may have been trying for a while to improve it and not getting very far, what do you see as some of the most common mistakes people make when they’re trying to feel better in their body?
Summer Innanen: There’s a few of them that I usually speak to. I think the first one is thinking that they have to love their body, and more specifically that they have to love the way that they look. I believe a lot of that has to do with the way that mainstream body positivity speaks to these types of things. You see a lot of influencers or advertisements – for example, the Dove campaigns that we see – and it’s always about loving your cellulite or loving your belly. I think that for a lot of people that I work with, that just feels so unrealistic that then they start beating themselves up for not feeling that way. They think to themselves, “I should love my body but I don’t” and then they’re doubling down on shame.
The other issue with that is, again, it’s keeping the focus on our appearance. You don’t have to like your cellulite, you don’t have to like the way your stomach looks to feel good about yourself as a whole. That concept in and of itself can be sort of mind-blowing to people. But the one thing I’ll always encourage people to do is to think about something about themselves that they don’t like, but that they feel neutral about.
I think I’ve probably used this example before with you, but parallel parking. I’m actually a good parallel parker, but if I wasn’t, that doesn’t define how I feel about myself as a whole. That’s a similar sort of thing. You can probably find something that you don’t like about yourself, whether it’s “I don’t make very good coffee” or “I’m not a very good cook”, but you don’t define your whole being based on that thing. Whereas with our body, we tend to do that.
So we want to get away from doing that. This idea of we have to love our body keeps us in that headspace of thinking “I have to like my stomach” or “I have to like the way I look in order to feel good.” So that’s where I see a mistake, people really focusing on the body piece of it and trying to force appreciation where it’s not ready to be had. And it doesn’t need to be had, to be quite honest.
Along the same lines, I think that some of the mistakes people make is just thinking that you’re going to feel good all the time – that if you have a bad body image day, you’re doing something wrong, you’re a failure, you’re not doing it right. That could not be farther from the truth, because again, we’re humans. We’re going to have bad days. We’re going to have days where we don’t feel good about ourselves. It’s about riding those ups and downs and building resiliency so in those bad moments, we can actually learn a lot about ourselves – learn how to treat ourselves better and get through those moments faster with more resiliency. Even if it’s not about our body, we’re still going to have days where we don’t feel good about ourselves because we’re human.
Chris Sandel: Yeah.
Summer Innanen: And I think one of the other mistakes I see people making is just thinking that this really happens by osmosis. I hear from a lot of people, “I listen to a lot of podcasts, I read books, I follow people on social media, but I still am not feeling good in my body.” What I always hear is this idea of like “I intellectually get it but I still don’t feel good in my body.” I think that’s really common too, because it feels like that should be enough. And for some people it is. I think for some people, they can read books, they can listen to podcasts, and they feel 10 times better and they’re good.
But I think if people are still struggling, then there’s more work to be done in terms of really being intentional about changing thoughts, about doing mirror work or doing photo work or whatever areas someone’s really struggling with. And actually, taking action, which is what you and I both do with people, is helping them to actually see where they can make some changes or implement some stuff in terms of, “Okay, when you have these thoughts, here’s what I want you to do instead.” That’s where we can start to change that and rewire the way we feel about ourselves as a whole.
Chris Sandel: Definitely. On that last one, I’ve become fairly regular with saying to clients, you don’t think your way into acting differently. You act your way into thinking differently. You really need to be doing things that help you to relearn a different way of being. As you say, yes, there are certain people who can do this by just listening to podcasts and reading books, but it’s actually more about the stuff with your body gets in the way of you doing certain things in your life, and that then reinforces a lot of how you feel about it.
If you’re then not taking the action to say, “Hey, I am going to go to that pool” or “I am going to wear that article of clothing” or “I am going to start taking selfies of myself” or whatever it may be, it’s hard to move through that because a lot of it, you’re just doing it in theory. As you say, like, “I intellectually understand this”, but to really viscerally get it and then truly believe it at your core, you kind of need to prove it to yourself as opposed to just “I understand this as a journalling exercise, but in reality I still can’t do that thing.”
I want to also say, I understand how challenging that is. It can take a lot of time to build up to get to that, so it’s not me saying that “people just need to do more” type thing, but I do think the action piece is really critical for this.
Summer Innanen: Yes. For example, I’ll hear people that say, “I saw a picture of myself and it made me feel so terrible.” I’ll ask them, “How often are you taking pictures? Have you done any work with pictures?” The answer is no. It’s like, well, you’re not going to just wake up and feel good in a picture. You actually have to take pictures and look at pictures and work through the feelings that come up when you see those pictures in order to then feel good when you see a picture of yourself – or feel neutral, I should say.
But I think avoidance is more comfortable, or distraction or just we don’t want to go where there’s hard feelings for a lot of us, or where there’s that fear. But I think you and I both do this – we break it down into baby steps and try to do it really easily. It doesn’t mean you go to the beach in a bikini and take a picture of yourself and post it on social media as a first step. Like, no, maybe let’s just try doing a selfie in your bedroom, or let’s try to find a bathing suit that you can try on. That’s where we can start with it, and I think that a lot of people get tripped up by thinking about the end result they want or stepping way too far outside their comfort zone, whereas we can start really small.
But it is these actions where we start to really change how we show up and we realise that we can do this, and that’s how we build and build and build and it becomes so much better. But the action is critical.
Chris Sandel: And doing the action where the expectation is “this is going to feel shitty and uncomfortable.” I think that can also be the other piece, like, “But I thought that I would feel super confident when I did this thing” or “That’s how I want to feel and then I’ll do this thing.” It’s like, neither of those two things are going to happen. It’s going to be after the fact that you feel better about this thing.
00:33:50
And I think with a changing body, it takes time to re-process and kind of acclimatize to that. And when I say changing body, that can be anyone going through eating disorder recovery or quitting dieting or just aging generally. I shaved my head over a year ago because my hair was balding, and I was like, “I’m going to beat this to the punch and just shave my head and get used to it.”
It’s been a year, and I still look in the mirror and I’m like, I’m still not 100% “this is me.” And I was super intentional once I first did it of spending time looking in the mirror, trying to get my brain to acclimatize to the fact this is how I look now. And it’s been a year and I’m still not there. And I will add I feel pretty neutral about this. I think I look better with hair, but in the whole scheme of things, it is what it is. But still, with no negative emotions attached to it, this is the place I find myself in.
I use that as an example to be like, this is not going to be a very quick process. It takes time and it takes real intentionality with doing specific practices to really move the needle. And we’re talking here just about the aesthetic piece of it, but obviously, as we talked earlier, there’s all of these other components connected to it as well.
Summer Innanen: Yes, exactly. I’ve been going through something similar with the aging process. Every time I look at myself in the mirror, I’m like, oh my gosh. [laughs] It’s kind of jarring because it’s unfamiliar and it is uncomfortable. It’s something that I’m working through.
Something funny that I’ve noticed – I always talk about how body shame is often a coping mechanism. When we’re feeling really strong emotions, we turn to our body because it becomes this thing we think we can fix. That’s started to happen to me with aging. When I’m going through a really stressful period in my life, for some reason I start thinking “I need Botox.” [laughs] I start to really fixate on the wrinkles, and I have to go through this whole process that I used to go through, which is like, “This is not about my body. This is not about these wrinkles. This is about the fact that I’m feeling all these other emotions right now and I’m trying to distract myself from them and find something to fix.”
I know that’s a bit of an offside there, but I think that’s also important to mention with this stuff. There’s just so many factors at play.
Chris Sandel: Yeah, but I actually think it’s a really useful thing for people to realise, and I think we can go through this in more detail as well. I do think that so much when someone is struggling, with whatever it may be – whether it is “I’ve got this really shitty email from my boss” or “I had an uncomfortable conversation with my partner” or “I thought my friend was going to invite me to this thing and then they didn’t” – whatever negative emotion arises, it then typically gets channelled through the “I need to fix my body” or “I want to focus on this thing in terms of my diet” or whatever it is.
I think that it can be useful to understand that this is the pattern or the order of things, and then when there is this feeling of “I want to do this thing”, have that be a lightbulb moment of like, “Huh, this tells me exactly what state I’m in.” I don’t know how much reading you’ve done around polyvagal theory. Is this something you know about or don’t know about?
Summer Innanen: I would not be able to define it for you. I am familiar with the term and I’ve probably heard it, but I would not be able to define it for you. Go ahead.
Chris Sandel: I’ve done a whole podcast on it with Deb Dana, so I will refer you to check out that. I’m blanking on what episode number it is, but I’ll put it in the show notes. But basically, you have different states that your nervous system can be in, and based on the state you’re in will dictate the kinds of thoughts and the kinds of feelings and the perception that you have about yourself and about the world, etc., based on where you are with your nervous system.
So if you’re starting to have certain thoughts or certain feelings, that can be an indicator of “Oh wow, I’m in this place and that’s why I’m feeling this way. What are the things I can do to support myself to move out of this place so that I naturally start to think differently about this?” And for a lot of this work, there is a permanency to how someone thinks about their body image in the beginning, so it’s not necessarily quite that easy. But for someone like yourself or someone who’s further along with this, it can be a real indicator of like “Oh okay, I’m in this place at this moment.”
Summer Innanen: That makes so much sense. It’s about understanding that a lot of it is just the reaction to the stress response and so developing other coping mechanisms and things. That’s super interesting. I’ll have to check out that podcast to learn more about the mechanisms behind it, because I do find that stuff fascinating. Yeah, I think making that connection for people is really critical, and being able to then get in tune with what you’re actually feeling to be able to tend to yourself is so important.
Chris Sandel: In terms of your first comment about the mistakes people make, the idea of having to like how you physically look and that that is the hallmark of better body image – I am in complete agreement with you. That is not the end goal. If that can happen, fine. Great if that happens. But that shouldn’t be the yardstick for how you determine, “Am I being successful with this thing?” Because how you look is just such a small thing, or should be such a small thing, and should be a very small thing in determining your sense of self and your self-worth. So doing all the work to start to put that in proper proportion to the amount of impact it should be having.
Summer Innanen: Exactly.
00:39:53
Chris Sandel: I want to come back to the thing we were just talking about there in terms of the feelings piece, because I think this is something that’s come up a lot with your writing and is something I’ve really valued from what you’ve talked about, which is asking people, “What are you actually feeling in your body right now?” instead of the thoughts that are going through your head. Can you talk a little about this?
Summer Innanen: Yeah, I think the thoughts we have can run wild, and the thoughts we have about ourselves are learned through our culture. What I find so much more important is getting to the actual feelings that we’re feeling underneath, because that gives us something to work with.
I think a lot of the times, we get stuck at the thinking level. Either it’s trying to rationalise things with ourselves, or we’re trying to argue with our inner critic. Maybe our inner critic is saying “You shouldn’t eat that” or “You should be working out today” and maybe we’re just trying to tell it to shut up or we’re trying to rationalise it within ourselves. But there’s still this level of discomfort underneath that we’re not getting to. I find, again, if people are getting stuck in that “I intellectually get this” spot, often another one of the reasons is because we’re not getting to the feelings piece underneath, which is really, really important.
I think for people who are newer to this, it’s a matter of just trying to slow down your mind as best you can. Oftentimes I’ll just have people take some deep breaths and become aware of their surroundings. Even asking yourself, “What am I actually feeling right now? What emotion am I feeling?” Emotions for some people can be very difficult because a lot of us have maybe blocked out emotions or we were never taught to identify or feel emotions or we were told that it was bad to feel emotions. This can be a real practice for some people.
There’s a great tool that’s an emotion wheel that you can Google that has all the base emotions as well as all the different sub-emotions off of those base emotions. That can be super helpful for people to get some more language around identifying their emotions. Even just being able to say, “You know what, I’m actually feeling really lonely today” or “I’m feeling inadequate” or “I’m feeling really on edge or anxious” – it becomes so much easier to then respond to ourselves when we identify that emotion.
If we’re staying in the thoughts, we might be going through this internal argument or telling ourselves to shut up, whereas if we go to the feeling, it’s like, “Okay, I’m really feeling anxious.” Then we can look at, “What do I need right now? What do I need to say to myself? What do I need to do for myself? What might be helpful for me in this state at this current moment?” And sometimes it’s just, “You know what, I just feel this way today and maybe I need to talk to somebody about it or write it out or take a walk” or whatever it might be that’s going to be helpful and bring ourselves back to that.
But if we can continually try to bring ourselves back to this emotion, it really helps us because we’re giving less power over to these negative thoughts, to the voice of our inner critic, and to the things that are reinforcing this belief system that isn’t very helpful to us.
And when I talk about this belief system that isn’t very helpful to us, often it’s just that anti-fat bias belief system of “thinner is better and fat is bad” and that drives a lot of the thoughts we have about our body. So if we’re staying with those thoughts, we might just be reinforcing that belief system, whereas if we can go to the feelings, it really helps us to then become better equipped to work through what we actually need and start to turn the volume down on some of those thoughts and start to change that narrative. That’s where I think it’s super important.
I think, again, it’s one of those spots that a lot of people maybe struggle to do on their own, need a bit of support around, and I think that’s where I see people making big changes: when we get to the feelings stuff. Which I know is not fun for people, but I try to make it as fun as we can and really try to bring it back to how things are feeling in our body so that it doesn’t become this overwhelming thing. Like, you’re not going to feel bad forever if you actually feel what you’re feeling underneath, I promise.
Chris Sandel: Yeah, especially if you’re trying to be pragmatic about this. If you’re thinking, what are the thoughts, and then you’re at that level, it’s very easy to think, “I should go on a diet” or “I should go for that run even though I’m tired.” It’s very easy to get caught up in continuing to do disordered behaviours that aren’t actually helpful because it feels like it makes sense. This is especially true whether you feel angry or frustrated or anxious or overwhelmed or sad or lonely. Every one of those manifests as “And this is why I should be doing this disordered behaviour.”
By then getting to that next level of feelings and you’re asking, “How do I help with that feeling?”, I think you get a lot closer to an answer that is more genuine about self-care and what you need in that moment. So if I’m feeling lonely, okay, maybe I need to reach out to someone. If I’m feeling sad, how do I comfort myself when I’m feeling sad? Or whatever it may be. But I feel like you’re getting closer to the right ballpark when you’re focusing on feelings as opposed to just staying at the content level of the thoughts.
Summer Innanen: Exactly. I will say that what becomes so difficult for this for people is that it has been their coping mechanism to stay at the thinking level and to engage in disordered behaviours. It is very hard to sit with the discomfort of what might be underneath there. I think for a lot of people, it’s this feeling of not having control or this feeling of worry or anxiety. And that can be so hard because you’ve had this coping mechanism for so long to distract you from it. It’s kind of like taking away any coping mechanism, whatever that may be, whether it’s alcohol or relationships or watching too much TV, whatever it is. Any time we take away a coping mechanism, there’s a lot of discomfort there.
I think it’s normal to feel resistance to first of all want to do that, and secondly, those emotions might feel a little more intense. But I encourage people to just try to dip your toe into it. Even just an acknowledgment of that emotion is a good place to start. Even just saying to yourself, instead of “I should go for a run”, “I’m just feeling a lot of anxiety right now. I’m feeling really unsettled.” That’s such a great place to start because at least you’re starting to identify what’s underneath there.
And then you can gradually try to feel more into it and develop new ways to, as you said, lean more on things that are going to be more like self-care versus things that are going to be old coping mechanisms that weren’t very helpful or what your body needed.
Chris Sandel: I should also add, I’ve labelled it a disordered behaviour, but it truly is doing something for someone. It’s probably at that point the best way they know for how to deal with that thing. So as disordered or problematic as it may be, it has genuine benefits. It’s always about understanding or trying to understand and honour that as well as then looking at, what are some other alternatives? How could this play out differently? What would happen if we did this thing or that thing? Or whatever, and starting to then explore that as a different option.
Summer Innanen: Exactly. And it’s hard. It’s not easy for people. It’s easier to stick with what you know, for sure.
Chris Sandel: Definitely. I really like Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart. I don’t know if you’ve read or listened to that yet.
Summer Innanen: Not yet. I haven’t read that one.
Chris Sandel: Just because she goes through all of the different emotions and talking about what they’re like, how they show up, how they feel, what’s connected to them, all of these different things. As she talks about, for most people, they have an inability to correctly label emotions. Most people can do three, which is happy, sad, and mad. She’s saying how powerful it is to be able to accurately label it to then understand what needs to be done as part of helping through that, just to really give your feelings more nuance and more colour to really understand them better as opposed to it being this very broad brush feeling of “I’m angry” for pretty much any situation.
Summer Innanen: Yeah, you see an analogy of a piano. If the soundtrack to your life is three keys – like you said, happy, mad, sad – then it’s going to be a pretty boring soundtrack. But if you play all the different keys on the piano, if you learn to be able to tune in to them, then the soundtrack to your life is going to be much richer.
I love the emotion wheel. I probably need to use it more myself, to be honest, because I probably only stick to a repertoire of maybe 10 feelings. [laughs] And I forget – I think one of the students in our coaching programme was actually saying that it’s considered emotional intelligence if you can identify like 30 different emotions or something like that. Which is quite a lot, if you think about it. But it’s just something for people to keep in mind. Print out one of those emotion wheels. They’re super, super helpful.
00:50:11
Chris Sandel: Do you also do more of a somatic thing, where even if someone’s not labelling the emotion or you say, “Let’s put the labelling of the emotion to the side for now; where are you feeling that in your body? What is the sensation like? Is there a colour?” That type of thing?
Summer Innanen: Yeah, that’s the basis of the majority of what I do with people, the somatic piece. I think that’s where things can really move and shift. For people who aren’t aware, it’s about then starting to make the connection of where you feel that feeling in your body and giving that space and seeing how it transforms or diffuses. It’s amazing what can happen from there, and just different perspectives, because when we’re more in tune with those visceral sensations in our body, we can gain new perspectives that we don’t get when we’re stuck inside of our heads.
00:51:07
Chris Sandel: It seems like, from what we’re talking about now, how much this disconnects people, and it’s really about, “How do I reconnect with what my body sensations are? How do I reconnect with what my feelings are?” We haven’t got on to “How do I reconnect with my true values” and that kind of thing, but it’s about “How do I come back into my body or in alignment with who I am and want to be?”
I also understand why that can be scary for someone, because it can feel like such a big thing to try and start to work on when I have this weight of short-circuiting that and being able to put on the blinkers and just get on with what I need to get on with. But yeah, so much of this is, “How do I truly come back to myself?”
Summer Innanen: Yeah. And honestly, I can’t recommend enough to work with a professional, whether it’s someone like you or I or a therapist, if you do want to do more work around this. I just think that when you’re in this safe container – and I realise that’s a privilege for people. I want to acknowledge that not everyone has access to that.
But if and when you can, if you have that container of someone who can guide you, it’s so much easier than trying to do it on your own. At least I find for myself personally, and I think my clients would agree with that, too. When you have someone that can help you through it or conduct it, it becomes easier to move through those things and feel like you’re safe and know, “What can I learn from this in terms of how I want to respond when this happens again or when I feel this way again?”
Chris Sandel: Totally. I think this is a lot to deal with, so having someone to help you do that is going to be really useful just because if you’re struggling and then you start Googling, you’ll most likely find some contradictory ideas; you’ll most likely find more of diet culture and more of the things that are actually unhelpful as part of it. I think it’s a challenging process, and having someone there to hold your hand metaphorically and guide you is really useful.
Summer Innanen: Absolutely.
00:53:24
Chris Sandel: It would be useful to chat a little about dieting and diet culture and its connection to body image. I know we’ve touched on it a little bit, but maybe speak about your own personal experience if you think it’s relevance, but also how it shows up with your clients.
Summer Innanen: The only reason we diet is because of the fatphobia in our culture. Depending on the upbringing you had and the messages you were exposed to, I would say the majority of people really inherit this belief that thinner is better and that health equals thinness. From a very young age, we’re implanted with this belief system, and I think especially for people who are female-identified, in our culture as well, it’s very normalised that you need to always be pursuing thinness. That’s just normal. Of course. Like, “What diet are you on? Oh, are you going to eat that?” It’s embedded into the fabric of how we operate, which is why it’s called diet culture.
But it really stems from fatphobia or anti-fat bias. Just the fact that in our culture, the way that fat people are treated, they’re discriminated against, they are treated differently. There’s a lack of respect, a lack of access to certain things. So that really feeds that cultural narrative and therefore feeds the desire for people to want to diet.
The problem with dieting is that it doesn’t work, which I feel like listeners of your podcast probably know that. In the long term, it’s not going to work out for us. But what happens is that every time we diet, we’re continuing to reinforce that our body isn’t good enough. It’s an action that’s reinforcing this belief system. When we engage in dieting, it’s reinforcing this idea that thinner is better, that “my life is going to be better if I’m thinner.” It’s just planting – not planting, fertilising the roots of that belief system within us.
Then what happens is we go on these diets, it gives us that sense of hope – any time I went on a diet, it was like “This time it’s going to be great!” It fires up your dopamine and it makes you feel good, that whole “Things are going to be different for me this time.” But then it isn’t, and then we end up feeling worse about ourselves. We end up feeling like “There’s something wrong with me, I’m a failure, I didn’t do this right.” We blame ourselves when really the issue is that our body was trying to protect us and keep us alive by stopping us from engaging in restrictive behaviours.
But what happens is then we feel even worse about ourselves. Every time we diet, we’re not only upholding this belief system that’s harmful to us, but we also usually end up chipping away at our own sense of self-worth because we feel even worse. We feel like a failure, we feel like there’s something wrong with us or that we’re not good enough. So it creates this vicious cycle where we just keep feeling worse and worse about ourselves.
I remember being in that cycle myself. I remember getting to what would be considered my thinnest body, and I think I looked in the mirror and I felt good for five minutes, and then it was like, “How do I keep this up? What else can I fix? I need to keep going.” There’s no end to it. There’s literally no end to it. It’s not until we actually step outside of that cycle that we can really put an end to it. But that’s really the problem with it. I don’t think we realise that the problem isn’t just that diets don’t work; it’s that it keeps feeding this belief system that’s causing these issues, and then we keep turning to dieting as the answer when really that’s the problem.
It’s this never-ending cycle that people go into, and then they end up being 85 years old, still dieting, or not wanting to eat certain foods because they’re afraid of gaining weight. I mean, I don’t blame those people; I’m not judging people who do that because it’s a very innocent response to the culture that we live in. But I think that unless we actively take a step to say, “Hey, wait a minute, this isn’t working for me anymore” – which can be really scary – but that’s the only way we can get out of that.
Chris Sandel: I would also add, I now work a lot with eating disorders, and it now makes up most of the people I work with, so I would even add that for the people where it appears like this thing has been successful – they are the ones who can keep up the dieting or the restriction on an ongoing basis – you still end up in this same place. Because in a lot of ways you’re able to do this, but your body is continuing to break down. So you’re now having all of these symptoms starting to occur, and you’re still not feeling like this is enough, it’s not feeling like it’s delivered, but it’s the fear of “But if I don’t feel comfortable here, what happens now when I have to start doing recovery and I really have to let go of this?”
I think sometimes the feeling for people who have been on and off diets is “If I could’ve just held it together long term, then I would feel differently about my body.” And that also does not happen.
Summer Innanen: Yeah. But that’s what the diet industry teaches you, that you just need to try harder, you just need to hang on to it. I remember a moment in my own story where I would put all of the food I ate into a spreadsheet every day. Every cherry tomato, every piece of food that went in my mouth. I remember sitting there and thinking, “Am I going to have to do this for the rest of my life?”
But that didn’t shake me out of it. I was in denial. It was like, “Well, I guess.” Or “No, at some point I’ll be able to stop.” But I was just so in it that even though that thought came into my mind, it didn’t hold any power because the disordered mind that I had and the negative feelings I had about myself were just so powerful that that dictated everything I was doing.
Chris Sandel: Definitely. I think two things. One, your awareness disappears. We come back to the thing I was talking about with polyvagal theory; when you’re in a particular state, the kinds of thoughts and feelings that arise in that state match up to it. When you’re in that place, it makes sense to feel the way that you do.
But also, the added part of diet culture where you look around and everyone’s on a diet, and everyone’s worried about putting on weight. You’re just like, “Yeah, if I have to put my food into a spreadsheet, I have to put my food into a spreadsheet. That seems to make sense. This is what we’re told. Maybe I take it a little further than the average person, but maybe that’s why I get the results that I do.” It reinforces why you think that what you’re doing is fine.
Summer Innanen: Right. And I literally believed it was healthy. [laughs] In hindsight, it’s not, for those reasons that you mentioned. I think that’s true with a lot of people that have those behaviours. We believe it’s healthy because it is applauded, it is normalised.
I also think it’s so protective. The reason why we’re engaging in that is just to protect ourselves, whether that’s from judgments or the emotions that are underneath or whatever these behaviours are protecting ourselves from. So I think if we can look back on these things and recognise it as – don’t beat yourself up for having done those dieting behaviours. It was just your own way of coping and protecting yourself. It’s just a very innocent response. Again, I don’t judge anyone for engaging in those behaviours.
Chris Sandel: Totally not. Given the society we live in, it makes complete sense why someone would do that. And it’s not going to deliver a better sense of body image and/or self-worth.
Summer Innanen: No. Maybe for five minutes. [laughs]
01:02:05
Chris Sandel: Somewhat connected to this, in terms of exercise and body image, what are you noticing in terms of your clients and how are you helping them with this piece?
Summer Innanen: Depending on someone’s relationship with it, this piece can be quite the struggle. For myself, movement was something I had a really disordered relationship to. That was my go-to coping mechanism, was overexercising. I think if that’s where you’re coming from, it’s really tough because, again, it’s applauded, it’s normalised. And for many of us, it actually does have some benefits. Moving your body does help with stress. It helps with sleep. It helps you feel better. It helps you feel strong. There are some benefits.
But if your only intention or your primary intention was weight control, it’s a very long process to try to heal that relationship and to reframe the way you feel about movement. Where we want to go with movement is really having intentions that have nothing to do with our body size. That’s actually a really helpful question that I’ll have people ask themselves: “If my body size didn’t matter, what would I do?” So if you’re sitting there struggling with “Should I go for a run? What should I do?”, if your body size didn’t matter, what would you do?
I think it’s a good question to start to at least bring awareness to where you’re engaging in movement from a disordered perspective versus where you’re engaging with it from a place of, again, care and compassion and something you feel like your body needs.
One of my clients said she did this, which I thought is such a good idea. She’s like, “Whenever I’m struggling with whether I should or should not move my body, I lie down on the floor and I take deep breaths and I really bring my attention to my body and how it feels. I ask myself, ‘What does my body need?’” Or “Body, what do you need?” However you want to phrase it. Just tuning in to that, like “Maybe stretching would feel better. Oh, no, you know what? I really have some energy I want to burn. I want to do something more intense.”
It’s not about not doing any movement at all, although I think some people maybe need to go through a phase of that depending on if they’ve really banged up their hormonal system as a result of the chronic stress on their body. But I think rather, it’s about let’s make some adjustments, let’s pull things back, and let’s try to find stuff that feels good and the outcome has nothing to do with your body size. It’s about how you feel and really focusing on how you feel versus how this is going to make you look.
There’s just so many good options right now that people can engage in that fortunately, a lot of them are available online, which is great.
The other thing, too, is to try to get out of that black-and-white thinking – to not think, “If I can’t run 5k, then I can’t go at all.” Just go for a walk for 10 minutes. Good enough is better than nothing. And to see that all kinds of movement ‘count’, because I think we get stuck in this idea that if it doesn’t look a certain way or if I don’t sweat, then it doesn’t count. But a lot of things, like gardening or chasing after your kid or walking to the grocery store – all of those things are movement. We need to really blow up the box as to how we see movement.
And I’m realising I didn’t really speak to how this relates to your body image, but I think a lot of us in many ways rely on exercise to feel like we have control over our body size. It gives us a little bit more of that endorphin hit, which can make us feel better about our body. But a lot of that is fleeting and false and, again, not coming back to that intrinsic sense of worthiness. But it’s very similar in terms of dieting: if you’re engaging in unhealthy movement patterns and behaviours, that’s only going to fuel this idea that thinner is better, your body isn’t good enough as it is, and that you need to be on this punishment cycle in order to feel good about yourself, which is not sustainable in the long term. It can really lead to a lot of health consequences, as I experienced myself.
Chris Sandel: Definitely. I’m an advocate of movement or exercise when it’s done in a way and with a body that can actually adapt and genuinely benefit from that as opposed to just putting someone further into a hole. I think, as you said there, if your reason for movement is to change your body aesthetically in some way, that should be a good indication of “Maybe I need to be rethinking my relationship with exercise here.”
A lot of the time with clients I’m working with, we do need to be having time where they’re not exercising because they’re just not in a place that they can genuinely benefit from it. And again, coming back to the state that someone’s in, if they’re in that depleted state, body image tends to be a lot worse. And for lots of reasons; if you’re riddled with different symptoms that are going all the time, you feel you’re in pain, you’re not getting your cycle, all of these things that are occurring, it’s hard to have really good body image at that point because often there’s this feeling of “I’m confused” or “My body’s letting me down” or whatever it may be.
As counterintuitive as it may sound tot hat person in that moment, having that time off, as uncomfortable as it is, can then help the body to get out of that state and for the state change to help the perception and help them feel differently about it. And that’s not going to change everything, but it can be one of the things that is really important.
Summer Innanen: Yes. When I was a chronic over-exerciser, I felt like I’d lost my spark, and that was one of the reasons why I went to seek help, because I just didn’t feel so much like myself. When they measured my hormones, it was the same as a postmenopausal woman. Your hormones impact the thoughts, which impact how you feel about yourself. Same kind of mechanism that you’re talking about. So that’s the other piece of it, too. Depending on what this has done to your body, that chronic stress can have a pretty significant impact on your hormones.
And for me, I had to take a big chunk of time off completely as a result. But I was then able to start to feel more like myself again and rest more and see the value of those things. That’s something I also encourage people to do: put just as much value on rest and recovery. That’s this beautiful thing you can do for yourself that is ultimately going to help you feel so much better in the long term.
But when I started to get my spark back, that’s when I started to feel better in my body as well, because like you said, if you’re beating yourself down, it’s going to be really hard to feel good about your body.
01:09:16
Chris Sandel: And I think, connecting to something you said there, how much productivity is connected to this as well – people feeling like they constantly have to be doing things or saving the world or whatever as opposed to just being able to appreciate more time resting and more space. I understand that that’s not available to everyone, but there’s a lot of people where that is available and they have an inability to be able to give that to themselves, or they haven’t been able to learn how to practice so that they can actually benefit and make the most of that. It just feels like laziness or “I’m giving up” or whatever it may be.
I read this book, Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. Have you come across that?
Summer Innanen: No, I haven’t.
Chris Sandel: It is really, really incredible, and I highly recommend you check it out and listeners check it out. It’s basically a guy who used to be someone who was looking at “How do I constantly maximise efficiency?” and used to write for The Guardian all about this – and then, after 10 or 15 years of doing this, realised how miserable he was by implementing inbox zero and all of these different things.
His book is all about how we need to really notice how limited we are in being able to get everything done, and that we are not going to be able to do all the things we want to do and to actually really embrace that, and that there is some real benefit to knowing that, actually, I only have a finite amount of energy to give to different things, and I should be starting to look at how I want to actually use that time. Because otherwise you’ll constantly feel like “I’m not doing enough” no matter how much you achieve.
Summer Innanen: That sounds really good. Yes, I think that’s especially true in Western cultures where productivity and this mentality of more is better and working hard is always better – obviously, there’s nothing wrong with working hard, but I think we’ve gotten to a place where a lot of us aren’t living. We’re just working and that’s the primary focus, versus living our lives. I know that’s a side topic, but it does play into this.
And that need to always be busy, to always be doing, that productivity, hustle culture if you will, feeds into diet culture in many ways. It is kind of one and the same in that you always have to be working on yourself, doing something on yourself. It even grows into this idea of self-help and people thinking that they always need to be fixing themselves and improving something instead of just being. So I think taking time to just be and figure out – just go lie down for a bit. [laughs] Go lie in the grass if you can. It’s so good to slow down, is what I’m trying to say.
01:12:17
Chris Sandel: Definitely. Another thing that comes up a lot with clients – and I see this as fairly connected to the self-worth piece and also the body image piece – is just trust. Body trust and trusting ourselves. I wonder if you could speak to that.
Summer Innanen: I think we struggle with trusting ourselves because we’ve been told that we can’t trust ourselves. A lot of us have been told we can’t trust ourselves. Our parents made the food decisions for us. They would tell us to eat. “You have to eat that” or “You need to eat this” or “You need to clear your plate.” That’s how it can start to manifest, and then just culturally, we’re told that we can’t trust ourselves. “Ooh, sugar is evil. Once you have some, you’re never going to stop eating.”
All of these messages that are infused into diet culture make us believe that we can’t trust our body. But we’re all born being able to trust our body, for the most part. If you look at babies or small children, they know when their tummies are full, they know when they’re hungry, and they know what their preferences are, so long as they’re being exposed to a variety of foods. But we start to cut that off when we take over that control.
I think that’s what a lot of us experienced – at least my clients, and myself included. I wasn’t the one necessarily in control of what I was eating, and therefore I never really learned how to truly trust myself. And then culturally, I was taught to distrust my instincts. “That desire for cake, that’s bad. You shouldn’t have that. So therefore, try to shut that off.”
Building up that trust again takes a long time. I think it’s like building up trust in a relationship takes a long time. In the same way that we would build trust up in a relationship, you have to do that with yourself. With every meal, the more that you can say, “Okay, my body needs this and I’m going to give it this” – that’s an opportunity for you to build up that trust.
But it goes beyond just what we eat. It really goes with trusting the feelings that we have or trusting the sensations in our body. Trusting, “Okay, my body really does need rest right now” or trusting our instinct of “Something just doesn’t feel right about this situation” or “You know what, I probably should’ve set that boundary with a friend.” I think the more we learn to tune in to what those messages are that our body is sending us, the more we learn to trust ourselves, and the more that that actually supports this belief of “My needs matter. I matter.”
And when we support this belief of “I matter,” then that really helps build up, again, this sense of self-worth. That’s how those two things I see feed into each other.
Chris Sandel: Definitely. Two things I would add. One is I think it’s really useful to notice, “These are the feelings I’m having or this is the emotion I’m having come up” – it could be in a conversation, it could be in a situation – and then adding on a level of discernment with that. For example, if someone has been very restrictive with their food or cut lots of foods out, just because there is then a strong fear reaction when trying to reintroduce that food, doesn’t mean, “Cool, I now need to keep not eating that food.” There can be a level of discernment of like, “In a sense, I’ve taught my body this is how it should feel about body, and I now need to be the adult to re-teach it how to feel differently about this situation.”
I often talk about, how do you help your body to trust you again? Because I think there can often be this very one-directional thing of “My body has to show me that I can trust it.” I’m like, let’s look at this from the other side. Over the last 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, what have you been doing to show your body that it can trust you? If this was a proper relationship, how would you start to show your body that it can trust? I think the more that you do that, the more you start to notice, “Oh, actually I can trust my body.” It’s not this perfect linear improvement, but I think the body trust piece is really important where it is bidirectional. It’s not just in one way.
Summer Innanen: Right. You mentioned something important there, too, about if the feeling is fear or, for example, guilt – I think we have to ask ourselves when it comes up, what value system is that aligned to? For example, if you feel guilt after you eat something, that doesn’t necessarily mean you did something wrong. You have to ask yourself, what value system is that guilt aligned to? Is it aligned to the value system of my eating disorder brain or my diet culture brain? Or is it aligned to the value system of “these are the things I actually value, these are the things I want for myself”?
Because then we can see that guilt as either a neutral thing or even an indication that you did something right because it’s showing you, “Okay, I’m feeling this guilt, but the only reason I’m feeling it is because I did something that was against this eating disorder brain system that I’m trying to fight against. So therefore it’s a good thing”, if that makes sense. I think, like you said, it’s that level of discernment.
I always like to tie it back to that question of “What value system is that aligning to?” Because then it can help us in that moment to not see it as a bad thing, necessarily, but rather we can see it for what it is and maybe a step in the right direction in many cases.
Chris Sandel: Definitely, and also helping to see the wisdom of the body. Like, “Okay, my body is doing this. Let’s imagine that it’s doing this for a good reason. Why would it be doing this? It’s doing this because this is what it’s been taught and trained to do. How can I help it to feel differently about this situation and show it a different way?” And then figuring out how to do that piece.
Summer Innanen: Exactly.
01:18:56
Chris Sandel: You mentioned there about values. Talk about how you use the values piece with clients when looking at body image or self-worth. What do you do there?
Summer Innanen: The way I look at self-worth is self-worth is really about knowing who you are and knowing that who you are is valuable and worthy. That first part, knowing who you are – that’s where the values piece fits in, because the way that I look at values is it’s really about two things. One, it’s about understanding the different aspects of ourselves that when we express them, we feel most authentic, whether that’s honesty or sense of humour or whatever it is. When we’re expressing these things, we feel most authentic.
Then the other piece of values that I do with people is really looking at what aspects of their life bring them a sense of fulfilment. Both of those pieces come together to really give us a bit more of a blueprint of who we are and what we want to get out of this life.
What we find is that dieting and engaging in trying to manipulate our appearance in a lot of ways is often really counter to our values. It takes us away from living life aligned to our values. An example of that is one of my values is freedom, and I really value having a sense of having a little bit more control over my own schedule, being able to do some things when I want to do them. Obviously, this is quite challenging with an almost-four-year-old. [laughs] But for the most part, it is something that I really value. That’s why when I was in the corporate world, I found it was not aligned to my values at all because it was always working and always working on someone else’s timeline and schedule. But beside the point.
Dieting takes away from that value for me. It sucks away my freedom because it’s all I think about, it’s all I engage in. Same with overexercising. It took away my freedom. So that’s where we can use our value systems as well to decide how we want to make choices. It just gives us a really great framework for deciding where we want to allocate our energy in our life.
What we find is that a lot of the values that we are in compliance with when we’re dieting or feeling negatively about ourselves, those are really not healthy values. They’re the ones that are really driven from maybe the voice of our inner critic – things like people-pleasing, having everybody like us, having control, being the best at stuff. There’s more things like that. Just the ones that really cause us to engage in these unhealthy behaviours.
Whereas our own true values, the things that make our life fulfilling, the things that make us feel most authentic, how we want to be showing up in our lives – those things, when we’re really living in alignment with those things, feel good. And not necessarily happy good, but just a sense of “this feels right. This feels like a good situation.” One of my other values is authenticity. When I’m around people that I can just be myself with, it feels really right. When I’m not, it just doesn’t feel right to me.
So having that is a key piece of the work I do with people because I find that when we have this sense of identity, it is so helpful. I think a lot of us have a sense of identity that came from dieting. Dieting was my purpose, dieting was my identity. Or “healthy was my identity.” That’s what I hear from people all the time. So then without that, they’re like, “Who am I?” Well, here are the things you actually value, or let’s explore the things you actually value, because this is a better idea and blueprint of who you are.
Again, this doesn’t have anything to do with our body, but it is such a foundational piece of the body image work I do with people because it’s so helpful in terms of knowing who we are and being able to detach from some of these other, less healthy values that we inherited from our culture.
Chris Sandel: Definitely. How you work with this is very similar to the way that I do with clients. And I’ve found similar things; most of the time – and I’d say nearly every time – when you do this and someone genuinely looks at, “What do I value?” – I’ve got a list of values that people have. I think it’s from James Clear’s website. You can go and have a look at a list of values. I have all these questions, like “Who do you want to be? What do you want to be? What’s important to you?”, etc. “What would be something you’ll look back on and regret? What is something you’ll think ‘I wish I spent more time doing this’, ‘I spent less time doing this’?”
It becomes really obvious that dieting or the eating disorder or whatever is not in alignment with values. And not even just not in alignment with values – genuinely not serving those values in terms of them coming into fruition. It becomes very obvious from that, like, “If these are meant to be my values, I want to be living in a different way and be doing things differently.”
I think that can then be a really useful, as you said, blueprint or a North Star of asking yourself the question, “If this is the person that I say I am or I want to be, and these are the things I say are my five values, what would a person in this situation do? What would be the choice they would make? Even if it feels uncomfortable or even if it feels difficult, what would they do in this scenario?” I think that can then be really helpful in making decisions.
And even just in your example there where you talk about “I value freedom but I have a four-year-old child”, I would imagine there are other values you have that then mean that “Even though he’s cramping my style in terms of the freedom piece, there are other values I get to live out that he allows me to have and I can then appreciate.” Like, it’s not every action is going to meet every one of your values. Sometimes they can be somewhat in opposition. But you can get them this way, and then in this other event or doing this other thing, you meet this other value. So it’s not that everything has to meet every one of your values.
Summer Innanen: Yes, that’s so important to understand. We never want perfection with it. I think it’s just understanding that there’s going to be some give and take. And there’s a diminishing point of returns with all of these, too. I wouldn’t want 100% freedom all the time. That’d be a bit strange. [laughs] I do appreciate some structure in things. But yeah, it’s about being able to have that assessment and being able to understand, okay, this value is in favour of this one.
Going into parenthood, that was something I actually worked with a coach around, like, what values are these going to align to and which ones would this take away from? So I could almost mentally prepare for that. And that was really helpful, too.
Chris Sandel: I know there’s a question you ask, which is “What would feeling better in your body mean to you?”, which I think also touches in on this values piece. You start to get a sense of, “Feeling better in my body would mean I’d be able to do this thing or that thing or be able to go here” or whatever. This can give us a bit of a sense of the values that are underneath that thing.
Summer Innanen: Yeah, and just what’s important to you. That’s really critical when you’re in this work because it becomes so easy sometimes to think “This is too hard” or “I’m upset that my body has changed, I need to go back to dieting.” We have to be rooted in what’s more important to us than that. So understanding, what would it be like to feel better in your body? What’s more important to you than dieting? Or what’s more important to you than your appearance? All of those questions really help to give us something to anchor ourselves in when we have those feelings of “I’ll just go back on another diet.” Because that naturally pops up in this process, because things get tough.
01:27:17
Chris Sandel: Definitely. Another piece is the comparison piece, comparing ourselves to others. Somewhat connected is the fear of judgment, because it’s like the other side of that same coin. How do you work on this with clients? What are some of the things you talk about?
Summer Innanen: I think it’s really important, first of all, for people to understand that this is probably one of the last things to go away. If you think about what’s happening in a moment of comparison, you’re looking at yourself in relation to other people and thinking, “How do I measure up?” Until we are really rooted in “I’m good as I am”, we’re going to have that doubt. We’re going to have that question of “How do I measure up?”
People come to me and they’re like, “I just want to stop comparing myself.” I’m like, it doesn’t really work like that. It’s not like, “Here are the things you do and you’re going to stop comparing yourself.” Everything that we do creates a foundation that then is going to diminish the intensity of those comparisons over time. So I just want that to be really clear up front. It is one of those things that I think takes probably the longest to really see a decrease in.
I think the first thing to do, though, is to really get curious about what you’re believing about yourself in that moment. What’s causing you to compare? What is it that you’re believing about yourself? Maybe it’s “I’m unattractive.” Okay, what does it mean to be unattractive? “Maybe it means that people don’t like me.” What do you think they’re thinking about you? “They think I’m a failure.” So do you think you’re believing in that moment that you’re a failure?
I just did an example coaching demo there with myself. [laughs] But that’s how you can start to peel back that layer, like “What am I believing about myself in this moment? I’m believing that I’m a failure.” And that gets a little bit easier to then be able to respond to yourself or think about how you want to manage that thought. You can even go to the feeling there, too. “What am I feeling? I’m feeling really inadequate. I’m believing that I’m a failure and I’m feeling really inadequate.” Those two things – then you start to bring awareness to that.
A simple question – obviously, you could go into this in a lot more depth or detail, but just: how do you want to respond to that part of you that feels like a failure? What do you want them to know? That’s how you can start to work through some of those thoughts that are popping up in the moment if you’re going through comparison.
It’s really about giving yourself a lot of compassion. Even just acknowledgment that “Comparisons are really hard. This is really tough. I haven’t seen these people in a while” or “Everyone here is in a smaller body than me, so of course I’m going to be comparing.” Cut yourself some slack that it is really hard.
Those are some things that you can do up front to work with some of the thoughts and beliefs, and some other things that I like to encourage people to do in those moments of comparison is to just bring awareness to what assumptions you’re making a swell. Sometimes we assume, “These people must have way better lives than me because they look a certain way”, and I think we all know that’s not necessarily true at all. They may just check off more of society’s standards, but that doesn’t mean they feel better about themselves. That doesn’t mean they have a happier life than you. It just means they look more like the ideal.
So bringing it back to reality and grounding yourself in that and really calling out, “I’ve attached all these other meanings to it, that I suck and that their lives are clearly better than mine, but none of that is true. We don’t know. We’re making all these assumptions. All I know is that they look more like society’s standard.” So that can also be helpful on a more cognitive level.
But we can use these as opportunities to really challenge some of these thoughts and uncover some of these beliefs and be able to then pull out whatever that belief is and help ourselves work through that. Again, if it’s like “Gosh, every time I’m in these situations, I believe that I’m a failure”, then let’s play around with that belief or let’s try to challenge that belief and be able to build more resiliency to get through those situations without comparing so much.
And just with curiosity, like, “Hmm, isn’t that interesting that I believe that about myself?” It doesn’t have to become all-consuming. Just with non-judgment and curiosity. That’s really where I like to start with people with comparisons. Judgments as well –
Chris Sandel: Let me just say with the comparison piece for one moment – and I would say I’m in total agreement with what you said there. And the thing I would add is our brain thinks thoughts. It doesn’t mean that they are true. It doesn’t mean that we believe them. It doesn’t mean that we have to entertain them or come up with a counterargument for why that thing is wrong.
I think, again, coming back to that discernment piece, there are definitely times where it’s useful to be like, “Let’s unpack this. What’s the layer beneath this? What does this mean? I’m feeling inadequate”, etc. And there’s other times where it’s just like, “It was just a thought, and I need to put it to the side and just move on with my day.
I think this comes especially true as someone gets further along with this work, because I think there can be this feeling of like “Why is this feeling still coming up? Why is this thought still coming up? I thought I was past this” or “I’ve been putting in so much effort, why is this still here?” It’s like, your body is just reacting in this way because it’s been conditioned and that’s what your nervous system is doing in this moment, or that’s what thoughts are happening in this moment. You don’t necessarily need to give it the time of day.
Summer Innanen: Yeah, exactly. It’s very useful to explore when it’s pervasive, when it’s really impacting your life, and it’s also very useful to just be like, “Oh, there’s one of those old thoughts again” if it is just popping up. I talk about how the odd time, I’ll still get a diet thought. Like I’ll think about something in relation to how many grams of carbs it has or something and I’ll be like, “Whoa, that was strange. Why did that fly into my head?” But it’s just there, and then I can just move on from it.
So I think it’s a good point to be able to understand that we’re not looking for perfection. Again, it comes back to not every thought’s going to be positive or neutral. You’re going to have negative thoughts, and that’s okay. Not everything has to be unpacked. It’s just if it’s pervasive, if it’s impacting your life, if it’s something you’re doing chronically, then there’s probably usefulness in unpacking it.
Chris Sandel: Definitely. We don’t sit and analyse why we thought of Katie from grade 3 that we used to ride the bus with when it just pops into our head. There’s times where just random stuff pops into our head – and most of the time that is what happens. If we actually looked at all the things that come into our mind, most of it is garbage and comes of its own accord and you’re just a witness to that thing. I think it’s helpful to remember that, and there’s times for doing one thing and times for doing the other.
01:34:57
Summer Innanen: Yeah. The piece on judgment is probably actually going to support more of what are some other things you can do, because I find that worrying about what other people are thinking of you – some things you can do, I really try to get people to be intentional about focusing on other things.
Before you go to a social event – let’s say you have a wedding coming up and you’re feeling like you’re worried about other people judging you. What can you intentionally focus on instead? Can you focus on the music? Can you focus on connecting with maybe the friend you haven’t seen in a long time? Be really intentional about redirecting yourself and going towards what you want to focus on instead. That works similarly in the comparison example as well.
And putting the focus more on other people. Ask them questions. Be curious about them. That can be super helpful instead of being inside our own heads, like “What are those people thinking of me?” Let’s put the focus on them. Let’s ask them a bunch of questions about their life. [laughs] That can be really useful too.
And just being in the moment. What can you come back to in this moment? “Oh, my friend’s telling me this story. I want to focus on that instead of getting lost in that narrative of self-consciousness.”
Chris Sandel: Definitely. I would also add, bigger picture, the things that you are worried people are judging you on are the things you are judging yourself on. To come back to your original comment, you are not walking around this world thinking, “I wonder what everyone thinks of my parallel parking” because it’s not something that you really care about or define yourself on or anything along those lines.
So I think if there is this real worry of judgments, it’s like, “How do I do more of my own work?” And it’s not to say that we don’t live in a society, as you talked about, that is fatphobic and all of those things. Yes, there is discrimination, yes, there are assholes who make comments, etc. And a lot of the time when people are worrying about the judgments, it’s the judgments they are actually having of themselves.
Summer Innanen: Yeah, and what that means to them. Again, trying to just be curious about what that deeper layer is in terms of, so what if they think you’re ugly? What does that mean to you? So that you can get to what that really means and be curious about that. But I think any time we are feeling these things, like we said, getting curious within yourself is great in terms of pulling some things out that then you can work with around it.
But they take a long time to go away. I just want to reiterate that. I still compare myself in certain areas of my life. I still worry about what people think in certain areas of my life. It’s not 100%. And I just don’t think it’s meant to be, to be honest. I think you would maybe be, I don’t know, a sociopath if you never felt anything. [laughs] If you never felt any sort of feelings of doubt about yourself. Or it means that maybe you’re not pushing yourself outside your comfort zone very much.
I think it’s just normal. You’re human. And that’s actually one of my complaints about the self-help world; they lead people to believe that you can get to this state of nirvana and just never feel anything negative, and that’s just not true. I think we’re really looking for balance. It doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong if you feel this, but if it is something that’s impacting your life in a negative way, then there’s definitely room to explore it.
Chris Sandel: And I think from an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense to compare. We used to live in small groups. We would have to figure out where we were, what other people were doing, were we doing the right things as part of that. So there’s some evolutionary hardwiring that we’re really not going to outgrow. And the way we outgrow it in a sense is noticing that that thought came to mind and noticing that that is a very human thing to have that thought come to mind, and then like “What am I going to do with my next thought or my next action?” And then using something that is helpful.
I know you said the self-help world is not necessarily great, and they give you these false promises about what should happen and where you can make it to self-actualisation. I largely agree with you. And I really like acceptance and commitment therapy. I think that’s the one that is, for me anyway, very well rooted in understanding that there needs to be self-compassion, and we’re going to have certain thoughts and we’re going to have certain feelings, and it’s not because we’re doing something wrong; it’s because we’re just human beings and we are messy.
Summer Innanen: Oh yeah. And I don’t want to crap on every self-help thing. Trust me, I love self-help. [laughs] I’m all over it. And it’s important to set realistic expectations of what that outcome is going to be.
I was going to say something else as you were speaking there and I lost the thought. But anyways, if it comes back I’ll mention it again.
01:40:19
Chris Sandel: The final question I was going to ask – I know in the intro I said the first time I interviewed with you was back in 2015, so it’s been a long time of you doing this, of me doing this. What has changed with how you help clients with body image? Are there things you used to do, but you’ve stopped doing? Are there new approaches you’ve started to be using over the last couple of years? What’s different?
Summer Innanen: I think when I first started, the focus was more on the body and doing actual work around the body, like “Find something you can appreciate about your body” and that type of thing. Whereas now, the work that I do is largely about creating better internal belief systems and knowing who we are and finding our sense of purpose and how we want life to be. That’s one of them.
The second one would be, I think, the social justice aspect of it. I think when I started, I really looked at everything through the privileged lens that I had, and there were a lot of knowledge gaps in that area. I’ve done quite a bit of work and continue to do work around that in terms of different courses and trainings. I’m constantly working on that because I feel that we all have internal biases, and we’re all looking at the world through whatever privileged lens we were given based on the identity we have.
I think for me as a white person, whiteness is something that I have to be aware of in terms of how that shows up with whatever I’m saying or doing, so my own internal work there is huge. It’s not a one-and-done job.
As well, it’s really shaped the way I speak to this work, and it’s completely changed the guests I have on the podcast, for example. And really understanding how all of these different social oppressions drive the way that we feel about ourselves and our body.
And looking at things through a much broader lens. It’s not just about someone being able to go to the beach in their bikini. It’s about let’s have equitable health care. Let’s make sure that people can have a surgery that’s going to save their life and not have to go on a diet before they do that. You know what I mean? To actually bring attention to these social justice issues and inequities to be able to make a cultural change that therefore will hopefully, down the line, eliminate any kind of body image issues. Obviously, I don’t think that’ll be in this generation. But I just think they go hand in hand. You can’t talk about one without the other.
Really just spending a lot of time, whether it’s reading other people’s lived experiences through their books or interviewing them on my podcast, trying to really highlight people who have different lived experiences than myself, partnering with them or collaborating with them to just have a more well-rounded framework. I think that’s probably one of the biggest changes that I’ve made. When I go back and read stuff that I wrote in 2015, I’m like, “Ooh, okay.”
Like my book, I wrote that back then, and I’m like, ooh, there’s just so much in here that I – like, it’s fine; it’s not terrible. I don’t think it’s necessarily doing harm. But I think it’s missing a big chunk of the puzzle, and I don’t really mention it too much. [laughs] It’s just sort of out there if people want it. But when they hear my podcast or work with me, they see that there’s a much more political intersection than what was there many years ago.
And that’s been amazing. That’s been great from a personal development perspective as well as being able to help clients, as well as just feel like making a bigger difference culturally.
Chris Sandel: Nice. I would say if you’re looking back on what you were putting out 10 years ago, 8 years ago, and you don’t feel somewhat squeamish about it, I think you’re not doing enough work. I genuinely think back on either conversations or articles I’ve put out or whatever, and I’m like, “Okay, I would definitely say that differently or I wouldn’t have even put that thing out.” And that’s just part and parcel of learning more and evolving and understanding things from a wider perspective. So yeah, I think that’s very normal and should be happening if you’re doing things right.
Summer Innanen: Right. It doesn’t mean I look back and think I’m a piece of shit or anything like that. [laughs] I think that’s important, too. But it’s just to have humility. I don’t know everything. I’m going to make some mistakes, and I’m constantly trying to learn and grow, and I think it’s great. I love learning and doing trainings – even though it’s uncomfortable, because a lot of the ones I do now are more social justice oriented. But it’s so rewarding to be able to evolve. I value that process for myself, and I think it’s been very, very important.
It’s also just very beneficial when I work with people now. We share similar value systems, and it’s nice to be able to have open conversations. Like in my group programme, when Roe v Wade was overturned, it was nice that everyone in our programme was able to speak feelings about that and not worry about whether there were people in there that disagreed with it. Not that I only want people who think a certain way. That’s not what I’m saying. But I just think the political piece is important to me, and the people who come to work with me now also value that and see that.
Chris Sandel: Nice. Summer, this has been awesome. I always love chatting with you. Is there anything we didn’t cover that you wanted to mention?
Summer Innanen: I feel like we covered so much, so I don’t think so. I think you did a great job covering so many aspects of what I speak to.
Chris Sandel: Where should people go if they want to find out more about you?
Summer Innanen: My website is www.summerinnanen.com, but you can just type in www.thebodyimagecoach.com and that will take you to my website, where I have a free 10-Day Body Confidence Makeover for people who want some steps to take to feel better in your body. For professionals, I also have a Body Image Coaching Roadmap for Professionals that’s there as well under the Professionals tab.
The best place to find me, though, is really my podcast, Eat the Rules. That’s where I put most of my time and attention. I’m also on social media @summerinnanen; that’s another place to hang out with me. But I would check out the podcast if you want to learn more. That’s the best place I think, personally. [laughs]
Chris Sandel: Perfect. I will put all of that in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on again.
Summer Innanen: Thank you so much for having me, Chris.
Chris Sandel: So that was my conversation with Summer Innanen. Body image and self-worth is such a big part of the work we both do with clients, so it was great to be able to have her back on the show and to spend an extended amount of time going through this. I hope you found it helpful.
01:47:32
I have one recommendation of something to check out. Over the last year or two, my podcast consumption has dropped off a cliff. I don’t know what happened; I think it was start of the pandemic, and it just stopped, and it really hasn’t picked up. I used to have a long list of different shows that I would listen to, and I now just don’t listen in the same way I used to.
One of the shows that was on my list and I used to listen to a lot was Broken Record. It is a show that I’ve got back into recently. Broken Record is a podcast about music, and it interviews artists, typically about their full body of work rather than just one specific album. The interviews are mostly done by the producer Rick Rubin. If you’re into music, you’ll know that he’s worked with pretty much everyone. He’s obsessed with music and he knows everything and everyone, and he uses his knowledge to help with his interviewing.
I’m someone who loves music and am interested in music and love hearing the conversations. It’s interesting to hear about and notice just how sensitive so many of the artists are, and how this sensitivity has been such a gift for their creative process and aspects of the creativity within their work – but also how this has led to many struggles and destruction, whether it be through drink or drugs or other issues in terms of anxiety. So it feels like so much of the conversations he’s having are conversations that I have with clients and are things these artists are dealing with.
Because I haven’t listened for such a long time, there are literally years of episodes for me to pick from. Recently, I’ve enjoyed episodes with Win Butler from Arcade Fire, with Henry Rollins, Michael Stipe from REM, and then James Blake. But there are many to choose from. So if you’re into music, check it out. There will be people that you like, hopefully, that you can see and you want to hear about. The podcast is called Broken Record.
So that is it for this week’s episode. As I mentioned at the top, I’m currently taking on new clients. If you found this episode helpful and body image and self-worth are areas you want to work on and want help with, then I would love to be that help. You can head over to www.seven-health.com/help for more information.
I will be back next week with another episode. Take care, and I’ll catch you then.
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