Ep 61- Speak Up and Set Boundaries by Tuning Into Your Body with Jen Oliver

April 10, 2025

In this candid conversation, I team up with speaking and communication coach, Jen Oliver, to explore the powerful connection between tuning into your body and finding your voice. We talk about people pleasing, setting boundaries around food, and how ignoring your body leads to disconnection.

If you've ever struggled to say no to food you didn’t want (or yes to food you did), or found yourself shrinking your truth to avoid discomfort, this episode is for you.

You’ll Learn:

• Why listening to your body builds confidence with food and communication

• How to speak up without guilt, especially around food choices

• What emotional discomfort really means and how to sit with it

• How people pleasing shows up in your eating habits

• The simple mindset shift that makes boundaries easier to hold

Jen Oliver coaches women to speak with impact and is highly effective at helping her clients show up REAL while leveraging their story, mission, and embodiment to exert powerful influence. Jen enters her 4th season as an Executive Producer, Director of Curation and Speaker Coach for TEDxFolsom and contributes to other U.S. based speaking events. She is also a force behind WomanSpeak™ - an internationally recognized body of work teaching the art and soul of public speaking. Jen hosts the Listen for REAL podcast and is currently co-founding a platform that equips and supports women as they explore their inner world, unearth their truest voice, and then speak with a new level of confidence.

TRANSCRIPT:

 Amber: All right, well, hello everyone. I'm Amber Abila. If you are listening to me on Jen's podcast, I am a binge eating and overeating coach.

We are going to be having a conversation all around, listening to our bodies, listening to our voices, and speaking up around setting boundaries with our voices and within our body. And Jen, why don't you introduce yourself or anyone who's listening on my podcast.

Jen: I love that we're doing this, Amber. So y'all, you know, to my listeners, you know, I love to cuddle up on the couch and have these really candid, earthy conversations.

Well, the couch just got expanded into like a sectional with a whole bunch of bean bags because we're expanding the audience. Amber and I both are so different. And yet so similar, and we saw this amazing kind of cross pollination between our two coaching practices and our topics, and we went, let's just do this.

Let's record a conversation together and give it to both of our audiences, and maybe there's just a beautiful synergy there for all of you as well. So I am so excited to meet you all. I'm Jen Oliver. I am a speaking and communications coach, and simply what that means is I help women to just speak their truth.

To just say the truest thing from their honest voice, whether it's behind closed doors or on a stage like TEDx. I'm actually a TEDx executive producer and speaker coach, so I do private coaching and group programs for everything from helping someone just find their voice. 'cause every time they wanna go use it, they wanna throw up to, you know, standing on a stage and delivering something that is really needy and important for the world.

To all the things. I mean, that's what I do. So group coaching and private practice and all the things that I find a lot of women, that's my niche need. And I am just such a proponent of you all. And your voice. And your voice being in the world. And I think when we neglect our voice or stay silent, it really hurts us and the world loses out.

So Amber, so glad to be here with you. That was like the longest preamble ever. But I'm a speaker coach, so of course I speak a lot. There it is.

Amber: Yeah, and the big reason I wanted to talk to Jen too, and we wanted to do this, is because we saw this thread between us of how listening to your body and finding your voice are very similar.

And so a little bit about me and my journey is I struggled with food for so many years as unfortunately so many women do. From everything from restricting and eating a thousand calories a day to going full out binge eating, having half my cabinet for 5,000 calories, I struggled with bulimia. I struggled with more of just the middle ground too, of just overeating dieting with intermittent fasting and going sugar free and doing all of the things.

And I really had a hard time finding my way of what my unique way of eating was. Because we hear all of these voices and influences from diet culture as women about how we're supposed to eat, how we're supposed to look, how we're supposed to interact with food, and I was subjected to that as a lot of other women are as well.

I really found myself in this moment of I didn't know how I was supposed to navigate my hunger and fullness because I had no idea how to tune into my body anymore. I was so used to getting told what to do and told how many calories to eat a day, and told how many portions of ice cream I was supposed to have.

And so when I was trying to learn how to intuitively more and. Really go into my body and what I wanted to eat and what my body needed. I was so confused and so lost, and it took me so long to figure that out. And so tell me, Jen, like about your experience coming into this work and how you wanted to find your voice and speak up more in your own life.

Jen: Yeah, you know what, it is amazing to me. Well, first of all, I resonate because I've also wrestled with eating my whole life. So I actually resonate with everything you said and. The through line between what you just said and now if you took off eating and you took on saying the truest thing. It was like exactly the same.

So like, let me explain what, what I mean, you said my unique way of eating for me, for who I am, for my body, you know, and eating for the reasons I'm meant to eat. Like that's different for everybody. Okay. And yet we get this barrage of voices that tell us, no, it needs to be this way. And then we just go, okay, I better comply.

I better keep people happy. Uh, I don't know. So this is what I'm gonna do and I'm not gonna listen to my body. I don't even notice that my body has input, right? Mm-hmm. I feel I could say those exact same sentences when it comes to speaking. We have this chatter in our heads. That our voices from the culture, from personality, from ego, protective mechanisms, our moms, our educators, social media, and all of that is chatter in our head and we think it's us.

And in fact it's not. And if we can get out of that chatter in our head and drop below it into our body and be grounded in our body and in tune there, that is where we hear our truest voice. Then I go, oh, that's Jen. That isn't all those other people. Right? So I feel like it is so similar and that when a woman can do that and we help her drop into her body and really listen deeply to what's there.

And then speak. It's like the truest thing. It's her authentic voice. It isn't the performative people pleasing BS that is so painful for so many people and puts them on autopilot. And so I really do think this is the key for both. I mean, it's like we're killing two birds with one stone. If you wanna walk away today, you're not only gonna listen more deeply, hopefully to your body about what you're eating, but also what it is you really want to say, not what you think you should say.

Mm-hmm. I mean, it's the

Amber: same, right? Yeah. So let's talk about, when we're talking about this idea of listening to our body and going into our body, what do you think that even means? And I can share it as well, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

Jen: Yeah. Okay. Let me paint it with an example. I. I would say I've operated always, if we have the understanding that as humans we have this complexity that is kind of threefold, right?

There's our mind, there's our spirit and soul, and there's our physical body, and all three are like a board of directors that have really valuable input into a decision. But. If you were me, the mind ran like this totalitarian regime and it bullied the other two into quiet submission. And so I wasn't even really listening or aware that there was an instinct in my body.

And what I started to understand, because I became aware of this, is when I did listen. Got quiet and then spoke. It was like, I remember it was actually, I was ending my marriage, believe it or not, and I was like never saying the truest thing. I was dancing around the subject and I was kinda sugarcoating and, well, it's not really you.

I just want this. And he's like, I don't understand what you want. And then I realized, oh my gosh, I'm not even telling the truth right now. And I'm just dancing around this and I felt it in my body. Like there was just this incongruence that if I took a breath long enough and just got still for just a millisecond, and it was like there was a, this isn't right, this isn't for you.

There was a clear message there, and I just was famous for hitting override. I'd hit override, override, override, and I ignore it and bulldoze past it and fill my brain with something as a distraction. Does that make sense?

Amber: Yeah, absolutely right. And you notice that disconnect. And for me and Mya people, a lot of that times when we notice that disconnect in our body, it's we go to food because we want something to numb that feeling and numb that disconnection, but that only even further disconnects us from our body more than it already is.

Jen: Well, Amb, don't you think it's also, for me at least, food is a distraction for me. So if I don't want to have to get still for a minute and get quiet. Go inward and listen to that. Still voice, maybe that five-year-old or me who's really trying to get my attention. Food's just such a great distraction.

Mm-hmm. Podcasts are a distraction. Mm-hmm. Television's a distraction. Like I think about the noise both literally and metaphorically that I put into my world because I didn't want to just get still and get quiet 'cause I just had a fear going there.

Mm-hmm.

And I think both food and the noise do that.

Alcohol.

Amber: I've used them all. Absolutely. And I think we're not taught that going into our bodies can be a safe thing. A lot of times too, we're not taught that this is something we're able to do with sit with these emotions. We're taught that, okay, if we're feeling some discomfort, we better get out of it.

We better hide it, we better shove it down, and if we sit with it, you know, maybe something bad will happen, but something, I teach a lot of people in my program that's been so huge for me. Is first just knowing how to sit with these emotions and not do anything about them. Because a lot of times, and this is a big mistake I see people making is just they want to change it.

And that can even be like, yeah, let's go listen to a podcast. Let's go for a walk. Let's, you know, do something to get out of this. When oftentimes the most valuable thing we can do is. Lean into this discomfort that we're feeling in our body when we're having these hard conversations with people. When we're doing something new, when we're having to speak up and place boundaries around food or place boundaries around our body for the first time, it can feel uncomfortable, but when we sit with that and we can go into our body and actually show ourselves, we're not gonna die by feeling a sensation.

It feels so much safer to be with them, and we can actually work through it without overloading our body with food or something else.

Jen: Oh my gosh, Amber, so you know the leaning into and feeling safe in your body. While leaning into something kind of difficult, that's really part and parcel to what I teach too from one of the methods I'm trained in is called the Women Speak Method, and we talk about safety in the body, psychological safety, that a woman cannot speak freely or share her truth or use her voice if she doesn't feel safe in her body.

It is the exact same thing you're talking about. So it begs the question, right, and is does it look the same for everyone? How do we create safety in our body and just trust that, okay, I didn't die. I got through that. And is it little micro moments of letting a moment pass sitting with the discomfort? I.

And then going, okay. I made it through that and I didn't have to immediately, you know, for me, if I compare it to when I ways I used to eat, it was like, can I sit with this comfort for a moment wanting that food? Mm-hmm. And just sit with it and let it wash over me. One of my friends who's a therapist, she said, do you know that the vast majority of uncomfortable emotions.

If we will wait it out, it's usually 90 seconds. Mm-hmm. We won't even, it's like too much like No, no, no. I'm putting it in my mouth. You know what I mean? Like we don't wanna go there 90 seconds. She said for an emotion to wash over you and move through you. Like let the energy move. You grow stronger. It's like a muscle that grows stronger, right?

Can you believe that?

Amber: I actually can, because I have experienced the opposite before when I am not allowing the emotion. And yeah, what a lot of people will do is they resist it and fight it. So you might be hearing this and thinking, well, but my emotions always last longer than 90 seconds. Or when I have desire for food that I don't want to eat, I feel like I think about it for the rest of the day.

But that's usually because we're resisting it, we're fighting it. It's like that beach ball example where we keep trying to push it away and we say, go away. Go away, urge, go away, emotions. And then it just comes back even bigger. And what I like to think about instead going with the beach ball example is.

Well, what if we just looked at these uncomfortable sensations as it was like a beach ball that was floating around in the pool and it tapped our shoulder and we just say, oh look, a beach ball, and then it just blows the other direction by the wind. That's what happens when we allow it, and that's where that 90 seconds can come in, is like it just bumps into us and then we look at it and we say, okay, cool.

No big deal. It's just the beach ball. I can handle a beach ball bumping into me, and then it will go away in its own. It's really when we try to. Fight it and resist it and get rid of it, that it makes the emotion or the desire for the food grow because we're going into it so much. We're getting all wrapped up in it more than we need to be.

And doesn't

Jen: that resonate with, we were on a coaches call this morning together and one of the things we talked about is muscling things into submission. So I picture you with that beach ball and like trying to be in resistance, pushing it down, pushing it down, and it just flies back up. Okay. That's the exact analogy that would work when I talk to people about nervous energy around speaking.

So a lot of people think that. When they have like nervous feelings in their body and there's energy there that they've gotta muscle it down, push it into submission, right? Tam it down when in actuality, what if you just saw it for what it is? Like, oh, there's some energy here. I'm need this energy to meet this moment.

It's actually here in service to me. Oh, there it is. See it for what it is. Move it to the side, partner with it, play with it a little bit, and not take it so dang seriously that then it's all we can think about and then we're fixating on that. It's just, it's so similar.

Amber: I love it. Yeah. And I really wanted to talk to Jen about something that I see come up a lot with my clients, which is when we're having a hard time finding our voice around setting these boundaries.

So for example, setting a boundary around food being. When you are at your aunt's house and she keeps pushing her pie on you, but you check in with your body and you're like, I genuinely don't really want the pie. I am full. But you feel like you have to say yes because you're not tuning into your own voice and you want a people please.

Or on the flip side of maybe you really want the cake and you're scared to say yes because you're scared of what people will think about you. Jen, what do you think people should do in that situation in order to be able to speak their truth? Setting these boundaries around food and what other people are asking them to do around the food.

Jen: Yeah. This is such a tough one, right? I really get this. I think honestly the answer is this. First I just did it. I just took a deep breath, like for a moment, pause enough to just take a breath. And then can you say just the truest thing in that moment? Auntie, I love you so much. I even really love your pie.

But today what I'm needing is to not have it, or I really wanna honor, I'm not in a place where I want it today, but I love you and I thank you for offering and that's where I'm at and not wishy-washy. The thing is, is it gives people like this room to go. If you say, oh, I wish I could, but I'm trying to be good.

We say that all the time. Oh my gosh. That one we always say, I really want it, but I can't. And they may wanna make us feel better and let us off the hook. Oh, you can have it just this one time when that's not really what you meant. If you really are selling the boundary and you're going, I don't intend to have her pie or her cake.

You can really just say, oh my gosh, I love you so much and thank you for offering, but for today, I have made the decision. I'm not having any, I just feel better without it today and make it definitive. Then it's not a debate back and forth where somebody feels like it's their job to convince you because they think they're giving you what you actually want and you're looking for their permission.

Do you know what I'm saying? And then the other thing, so then let's say the opposite one, you said, when they wanna set a boundary. It's like just being honest with people like, God, you guys. I really want that cookie right now. I'm not even gonna lie about it. I want that cookie and kind of enjoy it unapologetically, and don't feel like you've gotta talk about it and make excuses.

First of all, most people aren't noticing anyway. They're like, whatever. Um, but I think it's okay to call out what's just true for you if mm-hmm. If you take the breath, even ask yourself what's true in the moment, and then just give words to it. Then imagine you're at a table where everyone's just being really frank and honest.

That normalizes just an honest exchange and real conversations, even if it's about pie or cookies or whatever. I really think it's actually at the heart of it. It's about women, it expressing what they want and don't want what they desire, what they need. I know you see this in your coaching practice. Uh, I see it too, it women don't believe that they can give voice to what they truly want, need or desire.

Mm-hmm. And one of the biggest things I train my clients in is, oh, no. Voicing your needs, your desires, the things you're proud of about yourself. I know the culture's told you that's, that's not okay, but it's, it's a lie. It's actually alive. And so what if we normalize being really honest in expressing what we want, what we need, what we desire, whether it's in eating something or not eating it, or abstaining or not abstaining, and then we get better at supporting each other in it too.

'cause we, someone took a stand and had the courage to just give voice to it. And it's like, girl, yes. I, I got you.

Amber: You got it? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Have you ever seen that quote that's like, have the confidence of like a straight white male? Yes. And it's like, show up acting like that. I think this could like totally apply here where.

You know, when I talk about natural eaters, who are these people who just effortlessly eat when they're hungry? They stop when they're full. They can leave half a cookie behind and it's no big deal. They leave like the three chips in the bag. A lot of times, those people in our life that we look to as those examples of a natural eater are these men because they haven't had the same diet, culture, experience that a lot of women have had.

But if you look at a man, they are not going into their meal saying, you know, I'm not sure I kind of want the cake. Like, should I do it? Should I not do it? Should I have it? There's like, yeah, gimme a slice of that cake, and they just eat it. Right? And same thing if someone's asking them, Hey, do you wanna slice of cake?

And they don't want it. They're just like, man, I'm full. I'm gut. Right? And so kind of embodying that a little bit of like. Taking on this personality of imagining you're in a different body for the day and you've never dieted before and you are fully confident in your eating habits and you can just be like, you know what?

I don't want that cake. And just having it in a simple, short phrase, the way we phrase things is everything too, as you were talking about through that. Like if we go into it like, I don't know, like kind of want it and. A lot of times it's 'cause we're having our own internal battle about it too. But if you can get to the place where you say, you know, I am clear that I don't want this cake, or I do want this cake right now, and saying that in just a clear way of like, Hey, thanks so much for offering, but I don't want it, then it will come across so much easier and there'll be less of a discussion around it because you are sure in that decision first.

Jen: Yeah. Yeah. And you know what it is, it's the acting as if I really like that. Like put yourself in the body and the psyche and the mind and the voice of that person who, whether it's how they eat or how they communicate, that is something too. I learned to do that this year with dating. And I talk a lot about this on my podcast 'cause I'm always so open about my own journey and what I'm in right in the moment.

And so my audience knows this, but for yours, it's like, I really wanna say it's the same thing. I had to just. Get through those moments, kind of almost practice picture the situation. Like before I was in it, before I'm at the party being offered the cake, or before I got on the phone with the dude that I was dating that I needed to end the relationship with.

Mm-hmm. And I had to go, okay, here's how I'm gonna say it. I'm not gonna wiggle around and go, well, we can be friends and have coffee. And like, no, we're not. No, actually, we're really not gonna be friends and have coffee. Like I, I don't have any time to see the friends I have. So why? Just make it a soft place to land and sugarcoat and do all that, right?

Mm-hmm. So it's the same

thing.

We don't have to, we can be unambiguous in whether it's stating a food or stating, you know, dating. And I remember going, okay, I'm gonna do this. And then I took a breath again. I took a breath and just said what I needed to say and gave him the dignity of his response. And I didn't jump in and try to fix it, and I didn't try to make him feel better.

And it's like, no, I know my value. I know my worth. I know what I want and need. I know what's right. It is. I don't want to string someone on a relationship. I don't wanna be in, I know my value. So I'm going to speak to that in very clear, plain terms and give them the dignity of his response. And so I think the same is true with food.

I know my value, I know my worth. I know what I want for myself and I'm really fooling this great resolve and I wanna be in that situation, be able to express it and then give them the dignity of their response. And they may not like it 'cause they want to eat the cake and misery loves company, right?

Mm-hmm. And so I think we can justify whatever. So I, yeah, a

Amber: hundred percent. I think deciding too, like as I was saying, that you need to be clear on your decisions, which I think can be half the battle of deciding like, what do I wanna say? Where do I wanna eat the cake and where don't I? And where are these boundaries for ourself?

And how do you help people like decide, you know, what is true for me and my voice? What does that sound like for me?

Jen: Yeah. You know what? There's a few, and I think they're different for everybody, but there's a few internal questions. I always say to my clients when it's like you're trying to find your truest voice and what it hinges from.

Is, it's called the Work. It's by Byron Katie, B-Y-R-O-N, Katie, K-A-T-I-E. She's an amazing woman who wrote a book called Loving What Is, but if you just look up Byron Katie's Four Questions, Google it. They come right up. Okay. And she has four questions she asks, and it's a way of approaching something that's a belief or a decision or a like a struggle.

And you ask these four questions of it and it kind of like. Demystifies it and breaks it down a little bit and makes it a little less difficult to approach. And one of them is, so let's say you got a voice saying something and I want the cake, or do I really like the way this guy makes me feel? Whatever.

And she'd say, the first question is like, is it true? And it's like, yeah, totally. That's why I'm saying it. And then she goes, no, can you be absolutely certain this is true? Without a shadow of a doubt, that's like question two. And then you call, well, I guess it could be this, that, or the other. And then the third one is, I think it's Who would you be without this thought?

And then the fourth is like, okay, act like that person. Mm-hmm. And I really feel whether you're dismantling a voice in your head or a limiting belief around how you eat or how you speak, or that you can even voice a boundary, we all have the limiting beliefs in the narratives in our head that we wrestle with.

I think when you can pause long enough to ask those questions. Either heading into the situation or in the situation in the moment. I just don't know. Any time that pausing and asking a few curious questions of oneself for someone else can't ever be that beneficial ever.

Amber: I agree with that. I think also really getting clear on the vision of your life that you want and where you want to go is so important within that, because if you like, it's hard to know at first.

I, I know firsthand that. I had no idea what my life would look like without a food struggle. I just thought I was gonna be struggling for the rest of my life. And it was hard to even remember a time when I didn't, even though I knew that that time existed. Yeah. But I think sometimes just knowing like.

What's your next closest vision that you can imagine about your life? Like, is it okay, I'm gonna be able to have a half a piece of cake and throw the rest away without any anxiety about that? Or fear that someone's gonna call me out on throwing away a half piece of cake? Is it that I'm gonna be able to walk away from the birthday party feeling like I energized and light and not guilty because I binged in the corner secretly?

Is it going to be I wake up in the morning and I just feel. So proud of myself because I'm finally not spending 24 hours a day thinking about food, like whatever it is. I think when you can get really clear on that, then you can start to see, well then is this a decision? I wanna say yes or no around. And is this something that I truly want?

Because you have a very clear vision of what your life will look like, where you wanna go with food, with your job, with whatever it is. And then it makes it so much easier to distill down what thoughts are true that you wanna believe and which ones aren't.

Jen: Yes. And the same is true. So you could take that exact analogy you just gave.

I don't even need to restate it. You said it so beautifully, Amber. It's like you could take that same approach to communicating a boundary, thinking about a hard conversation with someone you love, thinking about, I've gotta promote my business, I've gotta do a coaching call, I've gotta, you know, whatever it is that I need to.

Show up with my confident voice. I wanna show up real. I wanna be true. I don't wanna just say what people want to hear. I don't. So you start to reprogram and go, well, how do I wanna show up?

Amber: To your point, how do you think people stop? People pleasing then if they know what they want, like they've made a clear decision on it.

They've decided, all right, I'm gonna decide. I'm not gonna care what other people think. How do we actually get out of that?

Jen: Okay. I can only speak to it from my own position, uhhuh as one. It's because instead of people pleasing, I began to understand that there was value in my own worth and pleasing me.

Mm-hmm. And I still struggle saying that because it feels really self-centered to go well, I'm gonna focus on pleasing me. But if you really think about it, how do I care for me? What is it I need? It's like a tree doesn't apologize for needing air and water and the proper soil and sunshine. I mean, a tree doesn't.

It's unapologetic about what it needs. A baby. A child doesn't need to apologize for what they need growing up and the certain love and attention and good food and nourishment and care and forgiveness like. They don't have to apologize for needing that, but like just goes without saying. Mm-hmm. But somehow us becoming mature enough to recognize our own needs and then take responsibility for them.

Mm-hmm. To create

the life that we desire, somehow pleasing ourself for doing what is pleasing for me, that just suddenly becomes wrong. But in all those other settings, it wasn't. Mm-hmm. Isn't that crazy? I mean, it's so backwards, but if you start to think of it that way, you go, oh. And then when you realize that me bringing voice to what I need and pleasing me instead of trying to please everyone else, actually benefited everyone else.

So what I realized for me is me doing something that I didn't wanna do. Because I thought it was gonna please these other people. A, it's a fool's errand. You're never gonna please everyone, so you might please someone temporarily, but then you disappoint someone else and you disappoint yourself.

Mm-hmm.

As opposed to,

I mean, so it, it really, it only gets you so far. So instead, if I am really taking stock of what do I need and what I want. What's important here? I still have my values. I still care about other people. It doesn't mean I'm just throwing them to the curb and sacrificing them. Right. I, it doesn't have to look that way.

Not what, what's that called? A zero sum game? It's not like that.

Mm-hmm. And

then when I do speak what's true and ask for what I need, I. Every time. It's like this beautiful gift you give other people and they know what they're dealing with with you. So they're not dealing with this fiction. They actually know what's true.

Mm-hmm. And it makes everything better. And in fact, it offers them permission and invitation to take care of themselves, to take responsibility for their needs. Mm-hmm. So we put that notion on our head and I mean, I've been right there in it and I still battle it. Still. Mm-hmm. I think it's like something I'll just, I'll, they'll come a day, I'll finally get past it, but I mean, I'm way different than I was, uh mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. My whole life, I mean, these last few years for sure.

Amber: I finally understood that. Yeah, and like if you think about the message, it communicates to our body too when we tell ourselves like, our needs don't matter, you know? Then next thing you know when you are full, because you have trained your brain to think my needs don't matter.

It's like, well, who cares that I'm full? I wanna keep eating anyways, or I'm hungry. Well, you know, it doesn't really matter that you're hungry. You need to lose weight anyways. So we think it also translates internally too. We're then. When we trained our brain to think, Hey, everyone else's needs matter except mine.

Then we bring that into our everyday life and disconnect from our body even more that way. Yeah,

Jen: and then what's a bummer about that is then I think about it too. Whether it's our body food speaking, it's like how do we show up more whole to our relationships, to our life? Mm-hmm. If we are kind of leaving those, the neglecting those parts of us and just kind of, Nope, no, you know.

I feel like we are missing out. Other people are missing out. They're not even getting the whole Jen or the whole Amber. Mm-hmm. Or the whole so and so. Right. And so it's really a gift you give yourself, but it's also a really important part of having better relationships and showing up as that more whole person to our work, to our our kids, to our marriages, to our love partners, you know, all of it.

Absolutely. I 100% agree.

Amber: So something else that we mentioned was, I was telling Jen about how much shame I felt in the beginning when I started coaching on binge eating and really talking about the things that I had gone through. And you know, it feels like so easy for me now. I have a podcast, I do all the things around binge eating, but in the beginning it was like so scary for me to speak up around this and like the shame around it.

And I think it prevents so many people from getting the support that they need and. Really, truly acknowledging that, Hey, I want help for this and I'm really struggling with it. Have you had like any similarities in your journey around finding your voice and like feeling, you know, shame around, speaking up around that or you know, speaking your truth on what you want to

believe in?

Jen: Yeah. Because you feel like, well I'm the coach. I should freaking be crushing this. Right? Like I'm the one coaching in it. And what I recognized very quickly is then I was just trying to. I could put on, I'm a good speaker, I'm good with people. I could definitely pass off as very capable, just like someone might be able to do with food.

Okay. But my business really took off as a coach. I. When I just started getting honest and vulnerable, even with clients, even on socials like you guys, I'm in this work with you. I was called to this work 'cause I needed it because I needed it so badly. Not so much from a stage necessarily that was okay, but being honest and saying true things in my relationships and behind closed doors, I wasn't so great and I really wanted to have confidence there.

I really wanted to feel like this is the true me showing up. And speaking and using my best voice and what's honest and true in these exchanges, in these conversations, and I just started owning it. And I just believe that that's a way to keep us small, right? When we think, again, the ego is like, I can't possibly let people know I only made this much money last year, or I only.

You know, I didn't have good communication skills in my marriages and with my kids. 'cause I remember my ex-husband and my kids who are now adults and we love each other dearly, but we're very candid and they were like, it is hysterical. They said this a number of years ago, that you're a communications coach 'cause you suck at communication with us because it's what the people I'm closest to that I struggled the most with.

Isn't that net? So, so yeah. I don't know if that answered what you asked, but. I really do think, and I know that's one of the things when I pay attention to you and your coaching work, it's like you are so transparent about it, which I feel like for me, engenders a huge amount of trust. You are reliable, we're trustworthy, you know, of what you speak.

'cause you've literally been there. You're not just talking and telling someone, oh, here's what you do and look at me. I'm amazing. Like nobody. That doesn't make anyone feel encouraged. I think if anything, it drops people into their shame a little more. And shame is what? Silences us. Shame is what causes us to eat oftentimes.

I mean, mm-hmm.

Amber: One thing that happened when I started sharing my story too was it was the craziest thing all of my friends that I texted of like, Hey, like I'm doing this thing. Can you follow my Instagram for it? Pretty much all of 'em came forward and were like, I struggle with this to some capacity too.

You know, I've been really struggling with my body image and I, or I've gained some weight recently and I'm feeling really shitty about myself for it, or, oh my gosh, I have always. I've just been obsessed with food and I think about it all the time, or like I'm always in the all or nothing thinking and I can't find balance with healthy foods.

Like it was mind blowing to me how many people struggled with this too. And I think, you know, it's unfortunate, but at the same time. I know so many people have so much shame around food struggles because we're told as women that like the worst things we could ever do is gain weight and overeat. And that's why it's like so glamorized to be, you know, underweight and, oh, I'm eating the salad and I'm starving myself, which is like so fucked up in our world.

But besides the point, you know. When we're taught that, that like, oh my gosh, God forbid I start overeating and binge eating with food. It's like, wow, I don't wanna tell anyone I do that. I'm not gonna tell my neighbor that I just binge ate 10 cookies last night. I'm feeling really bad about myself today.

And so then we hide it inside and then it, we never get support for it. We never, I. Acknowledge it with something. I think it's so beautiful when we can tell someone like, Hey, I'm struggling with this. And they're like, yeah, I get it. Me too. Like I've also struggled with it and that is really the why behind why I do what I do, is because I wanna help people feel less alone in the struggle with food and to realize that they're not broken like at the end of the day.

All you are doing is eating food. Like no one's killing any puppies out here. You are just eating more food for more than your body needs. But like, it's fine. We can calm down a little bit, gonna be okay with it. And so I think like anything that we're wound of

you

like dying over that analogy.

Jen: No, that was awesome.

But you know what you're reminding me of. Okay. This is gonna seem obscure, but stay with me for a second. My audience has heard me tell this story because it had such a profound impact on me. Okay. Especially when you wrestle with body dysmorphia or you feel fat, or you think you know all the things right as it relates to eating and weight and image.

Okay, so this last year, I decided to go to a nudist colony. Ooh, that's so fun. Whoa. I went for the day. It was like this resort and it's clothing optional, but around the pool, it's literally required. 'cause they don't want like people to show up and like be in their clothes just watching naked people. So it's actually really very healthy and normal the way they run it there.

But I really wanted to kind of push this growth edge for me around my body. And you're gonna see how this relates in a second. But I remember thinking like, God, our own psyche, our own head games and narratives that we. Berate ourselves with are so brutal. And I went there and I just wanted to just feel like, again, I was shedding something else.

Whether it's a metaphor for speaking, whether it's a metaphor for about our body image or something entirely different, it felt like this great equalizer because all of a sudden it's weird for about a few minutes and then you kind of just realize everyone just sort of blends together and you've got every kind of body shape.

Size, age wrinkles, non wrinkles, like men, women, whatever. And you just kind of stop noticing and looking and then you just kinda, it's like all that stuff falls away and this great equalizer of everybody's just being human, talking to everyone. It was such a cool day and experience. I loved it. But here is one of the most profound moments I had there was this woman, this gorgeous woman.

Walking across the pool deck, and again, she's buck naked, not a thing on her, and her doctors would qualify her as morbidly obese. Okay? Mm-hmm. Let me tell you what this queen, she was so beautiful because her energy, her spirit was so clear, and I wasn't thinking for a minute about. Fat. I wasn't thinking about wonder what she's eating.

Like none of that came. I was struck by how gorgeous she was because I felt like I could see her soul and she had kind of a confidence and an air about her and I went, wow, like that. So back to what you were saying and what triggered me to tell you that story, like that's so imagine being all of us could be in a place.

Yes, we're doing what we're doing for our bodies and what we're eating, and we wanna live long healthy lives like yes. All of that. Like who doesn't? Yeah. But to your point, we're not killing puppies either. Like let's, let's put all of this in perspective. And I feel like then the resistance kind of starts to chill out and we can just be kinder and more gentle with ourselves and so much of that resolves things, whether it's.

Saying the truest thing or eating what we really actually desire or eating within reason and not before the emotional stuff or whatever, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that has much merit.

Amber: I love that story so much because I think it's the perfect example too, of. The whole reason for most of us that we're trying to control our food and our bodies is 'cause we think it's gonna make us feel a certain way.

We think we're going to feel confident, we think we're gonna be perceived differently. But if we actually look at how we show up when we are in this diet mindset and going crazy around food, like I was my absolute most insecure self. I didn't wanna go out ever. I hated who I showed up as in. Groups and around other people because I was just so worried about myself all the time and how my jeans were slightly squeezing my side bat a little too much, and you know, sewing my head about it the whole time.

And so I wasn't actually even accomplishing anything that I thought the diets would give me of this confidence and this freedom and this energy. It was actually giving me the complete opposite. But I think that's a beautiful story because it shows like. How this person, she just decided probably, I guess either consciously or unconsciously, that she was worthy, that she was beautiful, that she was gonna have the time of her life at this nudist resort, and then that energy showed up.

You perceive that as like, wow, like this ethereal goddess of a woman was just walking around like this. And you know, that's what we really need to focus on is when we tune into our body and we feel good about ourself, we are listening to our hunger and fullness. We're connecting in. Like that's the energy we put out to the world, and that's what we're actually trying to accomplish by all of this diet bullshit.

Anyways.

Jen: Yes, exactly. And I mean, to your point, same when I was younger and I remember thinking I was so fat and I would just beat myself up about whatever. And I'm way heavier now as a 54-year-old menopausal woman. And like, I still wanna exercise, I still wanna do all my things, but I don't let it get in the way of feeling sexy, wearing what I wanna wear, being naked in front of someone, like I'm just over it.

And because I've shifted, it's not about the body like you're saying, right, like that. That's the beautiful byproduct and where our bodies are at given certain situations, seasons of life, what we've eaten, what we have in our exercise. Okay, fine. It's all there. But like how we feel internally, gosh, that's the work.

I mean, that's the work. And listening deeply, inward, listening to our body, which I really do believe, like spirit and soul, like that's that voice. It's got so much wisdom, there's so much information there, there's so much good intuition and um, and we can't go wrong tuning in there. Mm-hmm. But for many of us, you know what Amber I was thinking about too.

I now remember too many of us, like from a religious standpoint, there are certain faith practices that really are like, you can't trust your body.

Mm-hmm. Your heart

is with it. You can't trust your heart and you only thing you can trust is. This teaching or this person or this authority figure, and in fact, you are not to trust your body or your heart, and it's like, whoa, I needed to dismantle that for sure.

Mm-hmm. Because I was dismantle that. Yeah.

Amber: Okay. I think that's such a common one that I'm sure so many people struggle with, and it's very similar to this outside voice of diets too, of just how these. Other voices are telling us how we should be listening to our own body, which is like, how could they ever know what our unique body is telling us and the intuition that we have.

Yeah. And for so many people, then they think it's broken that because I have binge so many times or because I've over eaten so many times, like clearly my broken, or maybe for you, because I had. This one thing that my brain told me once, or I did this one thing that my body and my internal signals must be broken, so now I need to outsource it to someone else.

But really like all of these things, you know, depending on how spiritual Wu we wanna get, but like. We have this intuition for us, in us for a reason. And from a more scientific perspective too, like with our hunger and fullness, we would literally die without these signals. We would not survive as humans if we didn't have our body communicating with us, telling us when we're hot and when we're cold.

And I don't think those signals are that much different than our intuition and our soul's calling and what we're being asked to do in this world. And I think just reminding ourselves that like. If we didn't have these signals, none of us would be here today because humans have evolved over tens of thousands of years, and the fact that you and I are having this conversation means our ancestors listen to their body really well, and they learned to figure out their hunger and fullness very well, and they had a lot of great survival skills that got us here today.

So no matter how tuned out you've been out from your body from all of these years. Those signals are still in you and they wouldn't be here today if you know weren't meant to be here and meant to listen to them.

Jen: Yes. Oh my gosh. I love that so much. Amber, you're so spot on. Okay. Why are you not out speaking all over the place?

I love hearing you. You get so passionate about this. Like, again, I really wanna honor because this is hard one, and you've been there. You know of what you coach and teach and you've walked through it yourself. I just feel like, what a gift.

Mm-hmm. What a

gift to be able to articulate this with so much strength and power and conviction.

Thank you. It really,

it's so painful to be, I'm thinking about everybody's who's here in the conversation with us right now. Like we're all on the couch, just. Man, I hope this is feeling so liberating for people because it's such a better way to feel and live, and it takes a little effort to kind of dismantle these things, but

Oh yeah, it's

worth

it.

Amber: It's so worth it. Absolutely. I agree. Yeah. Thank you. And do you have any other last minute parting thoughts and how people can find you? And then I'll go as well.

Jen: I love it. Yes, please. So I am at. Real, REAL, real jen oliver.com. Everything about me is there. That's my handle on Instagram and Facebook, and YouTube is real.

Jen Oliver, and I'm on LinkedIn too, is Jen Oliver, and I love helping people with this stuff. And I just want you all, from my perspective, I really believe it matters that you don't. Suffer and feel silent. I think feeling silent, like you can't express yourself.

Mm-hmm. So then

you wanna create comfort.

Mm-hmm. After me, I wanna feel satisfied. I wanna feel comfort. I didn't get to express what I really wanted or wanted to say. And so for me it was eating and drinking. That was definitely my, and, and I really get that. And so. I believe when you can share openly, drop into your body, speak what's true for you.

Mm-hmm. Have honest exchanges with people, it's so nourishing. It's so satisfying. Mm-hmm. And that solve. At least assist with a myriad of things, whether it's eating, binging, whatever, all of the things out there. I mean, we are talking about our two specialties, but if you think about it, there's a lot of pain and struggle when people feel like they can't express themselves.

And so I just encourage

you,

if that is, if anyone's here with us just going, yeah, that's me. I get you. And you don't have to feel like. You can't speak up and say things. You don't have to be an extrovert to speak you just to drop into who you are. Spend a little time listening there, which may be difficult.

Move through the 90 seconds of discomfort. Mm-hmm. And sit with yourself like, 'cause you're amazing and you're awesome. And get to know yourself and that voice in you. And then. See what comes of that, but mm-hmm. I really wanna, everyone with that, we need you and your voice and your ideas and your lived experiences and your stories.

Mm-hmm. Because, but then just like this are so rich, like, we need you. Mm-hmm. We need you all.

Amber: Love you babies, all of you. I agree with everything you just said. I think that was so good and just nothing bad I think can come from us tuning into our body. It can feel scary at first, but I think the more we do it, the more we recognize how much wisdom we have inside of us and how much value there is to asking ourselves for the answer versus going to someone else.

The diets, the meal plans, like the nutritionist, whoever else, like we actually have so much more inside of us than we can ever imagine. If you're listening to me on Jen's podcast, you can find me company eater.org. My website. I also have a podcast become a confident eater. And I'm also gonna give you Jen, my free guided Urge audio.

This is a something, oh my gosh. Like I wish I had so desperately in my journey. It's a seven minute audio that you can pop in your ears when you're having this urge to eat. And you just want someone to like gently and lovingly like I. Slap you around and remind you why you don't wanna do this. That is what I'm going to do for you.

And I also do practices that Jen talked about of the deep breathing going into your body, really noticing where you feel these sensations, showing yourself that you're safe from them. I also use visualization techniques to show you kind of the future of how great your life will be when you don't act on these food urges and how valuable tuning into your body can be.

So I'll give you that resource as well for people. Okay.

Jen: Wait, wait, wait. I wanna give him a resource then. You're so generous. Okay, so you guys either, if you go to my website@realjohnoliver.com, there is a download that you can get for free. And it's like for those people who go, I've always wanted to speak or write, or, I don't know, do I even have any good ideas?

It is the steps from point A to point B in the beginning phases of creating a signature talk, even if it's just isolating first. Okay? What voices are getting in the way of it? It's, it's a great framework to get you started there, and I think that would be hugely beneficial to a lot of people who go, okay, how do I express myself?

Okay, this is one place to start because it asks you great questions that you may choose to jot down or think about that is going to stir what comes out and you express either verbally or in writing, or you decide to make a talk or you're on a podcast, whatever. So yeah, that'll be helpful.

Amber: Yes. Yay. I love that.

Thank you for sharing that as well. Well, thanks so much Jen This's conversation today.

Jen: I love hanging with you, Amber. More ahead. I know we've got more ahead and y'all. Thanks for just being here with us and joining the conversation. That matters. It matters a lot, so thanks for having me. Yes, of course.