380-Body Image Grief & Liberation with Brianna Campos

Body Image Grief & Liberation is a powerful interview with Brie Campos that will help you move thru grief for your body image and liberate yourself 

Body Image Grief

I have the honor today to introduce you to Brianna (Bri) Campos, a licensed mental health counselor. She specializes in body image education including her unique framework on body grief. 

As a body image educator and the founder of Body Image With Bri, she’s passionate about all things body image and practices through the lenses of Health at Every Size® and Intuitive Eating. 

What you’ll learn listening to this episode:

• What is body image grief and how to move thru it
• How long is the journey of grieving your body 
• The relationship between money and body image 
• Why your body liberation is in direct correlation to success

Mentioned in the show: 

How To Become a Non-Diet Coach Free Class

Undiet Your Life Program

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Connect with our guest:

Bri’s Body Grievers Guide

Instagram – Bri Campos

Transcript

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Body Image Grief & Liberation

This is episode 380 of the Going to Beyond the Food podcast and today we’re going to talk about body grieving Embody liberation with a very special guest Brie Campos. Stay tuned.

Hey sisters, welcome back to the podcast. It is such an honor today to host a podcast with a dear colleague of mine. Brie Campos. Brie is a licensed mental health counselor, and she specializes in body image education, including her unique framework, which is body grief. I teach body neutrality, she teaches body grief.

We’re both helping people with their body image and accepting their body and making peace with their body. But we have Two different approach. And that’s why I’m honored to have her on the podcast. Because although we have two different approach, we are a team. We are a team together through our lived experience.

She lives in a fat body. And I live in a fat body. And we have two different lived experience that brought us to two different way of teaching about body image. What we are supporting. Each other. And that’s what I think is really special in a world where people are very competitive with each other. This beautiful relationship that we have together that you’re going to experience on this podcast, I think is the most magical part of this podcast.

So we’re going to talk about body image, but in a completely different way. that we’ve been talking over for the last 380 episodes. So I can’t wait for you to understand this concept of body grieving. We’re also going to dig into money and how there’s a strong correlation between how we feel about our body.

and the amount of money we have. And I also coach Bri in this podcast, when we’re talking about the success that she’s experiencing in her business right now, and how, in my belief, in my looking at her for the last It’s a direct correlation to her body liberation. I actually made her cry three times during this interview.

So, get ready to go on a roller coaster of emotion. Now, before we roll into the interview, I just want to invite all of you, if you are a practitioner, a provider, a coach who want to learn to do this work with people to become a coach, a non diet coach that help people with body image, with eating behavior, health behavior.

We are enrolling for the non diet coaching certification right now until December the third. And I’m hosting a class, to take you in behind the scene of our certification, our curriculum, all the Tools you’ll be receiving when you join us in the certification and that’s happening that free class November the 8th you can register using the link in the show note or Stephanie Dozier comm forward slash how to become a non diet coach and if you’re listening to this after November 8th We’ve got youyou can still sign up and receive the recording.

Okay without any further ado Let’s roll in the spectacular, powerful conversation between me and Brie Campos. I’ll see you in the next podcast.

Stephanie: Welcome to the show, Brie.

Brie: Thank you for having me. So excited to be here.

Stephanie: I’m honored to have you. I’m excited to have this conversation. I’m excited for you to teach me something and for us to just be too badass. We’ve agreed that the word badass fits both of us.

Brie: Yes. Yes.

Brie: Badass body image business babes here

Brie: for it.

Stephanie: all the things.

Stephanie: start with body image, and I’m sure at some point we’re going to slip into business.

Stephanie: We both are body image educator. We’re both are coaches in that field. We’re both live in large body, but we teach a different framework. And out of curiosity and out of my own education, I want to understand your framework, which is body grieving and how That supports body image healing. So I’ll just launch the conversation from there.

Brie: Perfect. And, I could talk about, I could talk about this in my sleep. So, you just cut me off when you’re like, okay, we need to move on. So my working definition that I use for body image is from confident body. net. which describes body image in four aspects. That body image is not just how you see yourself in your mind or how you see yourself in a picture.

Brie: That is one aspect of body image, but that body image is your perception, your affect, your cognition, and your behaviors connected to your body image. So what does that mean? That your affect is the way that you feel about your body. Your perception is how you see your body. Your cognitions are the beliefs that you have about your body, and the behaviors are what you do with those cognitions.

Brie: And so as somebody who exists in a, I would identify as a large fat person, I exist in a body that is a larger than what standard plus sizing is in most stores. By not having accessibility or by once previously having the accessibility of being able to go into a regular store and, you know, buy a plus size or, you know, buy like their largest size to then losing that.

Brie: I work from the concept of grief. And the reason I work from the concept of grief is because when I was in my own body image excavation, I talk about body image as an archeological dig because I got so tired of people telling me that like body image is a journey. And if you say that, no disrespect, like that might work for you.

Brie: It didn’t work for me because where was I going? I would just talk about this. I’m a little bit neuro spicy ADHD. If I don’t know how long the journey is, I don’t want to do it. I need to know how long this is going to take. And so, because I can’t anticipate how quote unquote long the journey will be.

Brie: The thing that helped me shift was instead of seeing body image as a place of arrival, positive body image, body love as a destination, instead, seeing body image as information to be processed. And through that was born this concept of body grieving. Now, I will say, For as long as I can, I didn’t come up with the concept of body grief.

Brie: I had heard about it, but when I Googled it, nothing came up and I’d find maybe like five posts. And so through my lived experience with grief as somebody who has had personal grief and bereavement in my life. I used that and my clinical knowledge to deep dive into grief. And so when you look up the definition of grief, it is defined as loss that causes distress.

Brie: And so my working definition of body grief is the perceived loss that causes distress around body change. I’ll say that again for everyone. Body grief is the perceived loss. causes distress accompanied with body change. And I use such a vast definition because body grief can manifest in an aging body. Body grief can manifest in a body that becomes pregnant in a postpartum body. Body grief can manifest with chronic illness. Body grief can manifest with weight loss, with weight gain, with, puberty. When one’s body changes. And it causes you distress. That is what I identify as grief.

Stephanie: And the, I’m careful not to use journey because I’m somebody who use journey.

Stephanie: So the healing,

Brie: You can use journey. okay.

Stephanie: but you know, I just want people to pick up my intention. Like you have two people who do the same thing and respect each other from doing it differently. I just want everybody to.witness the beauty of this and when I’m not right, she’s not right, we’re just like exploring and having this respectful conversation

Stephanie: and It’s so needed and.

Stephanie: I

Brie: It’s both and. It’s both and. That you used your experience and your knowledge to make sense of it in your life and taught other people. And I did the same exact thing. And that, a little conversation for later. It’s the power of

Stephanie: yeah. Okay, so we’re using the process of grieving to come to a place of peace with

Brie: Ooh,

Brie: beautiful. So, so truly, right, if body love is not the destination,

Stephanie: No, I agree with you on that.

Brie: Right? For me, it was acceptance. Right? Body acceptance. So when you look at the stages of grief, the stages are denial, anger, bargaining. Depression and then acceptance and what I found is that people want to rush to the acceptance. I want to accept my body. In order to accept, you have to grief. You don’t just arrive there and be like, woo, okay, accept this body and I’ll give you, I’ll give you a short example of, in real time. I just recently got a new tattoo and,it’s. animal

Brie: print.

Brie: I thought it was cheetah.

Brie: Somebody told me it was leopard. I don’t know. I’m from Jersey. It’s a cat. cat spots. And donning my,

Stephanie: Yeah, that you’re wearing

Brie: Yeah, I’m wearing leopard print. It’s a Jersey thing. I can’t. And so, I got spots over my surgery scar because I am somebody who had weight loss surgery many years ago.

Brie: And, I had recently, when I was in Costa Rica on a retreat that I was hosting, a body positive mobility friendly retreat, I did a photo shoot in a bikini on the beach and just five years ago, I couldn’t post a photo of me in a crop top. Because of the body image gremlins, which is what I call those negative body image or body distress thoughts.

Brie: I was like, I can’t post this on the internet. I can’t, I, my nervous system can’t handle it. Fast forward five years later, and I’m doing a photo shoot on the beach with 20 people that I brought with me. That is the power of grief. That is acceptance. It is not forced. It is a byproduct of the grieving process.

Stephanie: So, what are the cheetah print meaning from your surgery?

Brie: For me, the meaning was as a form of body reclamation. That I get to reclaim, like, this scar that’s on my body. Wow, Stephanie, this is emotional. I didn’t even realize.

Brie: I got, I got my surgery when I was 19 years old and I say that it was an autonomous decision, but I was not.

Stephanie: it’s a weight loss surgery. It’s not

Brie: Correct. It was the lap band surgery and my God, I’ll never forget the decision to get the surgery was made very shortly after I had tried on a prom dress that I had purposely bought in a size too small with the intent of fitting into it, working as hard as I could to lose weight.

Brie: unsuccessfully so, and then having to grieve the fact that not only did I not meet my goal, but I also couldn’t wear this dress that was already so hard for me to find a dress for a body like mine as an adolescent. And so I remember having the surgery or getting, wanting to do the surgery as a way to hate my body less, to make myself smaller, to be able to fit in. And so to have this tattoo on the heels of my very first body, positive body, liberation, travel, mobility friendly group was a way of saying, I get to take my body back. I took it back. When I first rejected diaculture and said, you know what, I’m gonna, I’m gonna let my body do what it’s gonna do and it’s gonna suck, a. k. a. the grief, and hopefully I will land somewhere that resembles acceptance. If you had told me that this is where it was going to land me, I wouldn’t have believed you. But I couldn’t believe it because I’d never been there before. So my cheetah scars is a way of reclaiming my body.

Stephanie: Such a powerful story and I have to, to, I want to share something with you that you, I don’t think anybody knows. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about that personally. a, I have a similar tattoo on my body.

Brie: Really?

Stephanie: So, I have a scoliosis. So, for me, grieving is relating to mobility of my body due to scoliosis and all of the things that it causes.

Stephanie: And I got a tattoo 10 years ago made of the footprint. Coming out of the curvature of my spine, wrapping around my body in a kick ass, I believe in fairies, in a kick ass fairies that goes all on this. I’ll send you a

Brie: Please do.

Stephanie: but it’s very I I wanted to take back my power from the limitation of what the scoliosis was

Brie: Wow. Wow.

Brie: I have chills.

Stephanie: So I fully sense. what you did and what it, now that I understand why you did it, like it’s, we did the same thing because of that desire and that embodiment of liberation.

Brie: Yes. embodying the reclaiming of agency over my body. Like I love, and this is probably a whole other podcast. The tattoos I’ve gotten now as an adult are so much more a reflection of me and my personality. And. It’s just another way that I’m like, this is my body. This is art that my body alone is a form of art.

Brie: and so I just, I love that. I have chills knowing that you also have spots. I love

Brie: it.

Stephanie: Yeah, and it’s liberation. That’s true to me and my framework. Liberation is the last stage of expression of your body image is when you can liberate yourself. And that leads us to the business and taking space and making money for years. I didn’t believe that because I lived in a fat body. I was allowed to like, take space publicly.

Stephanie: I wasn’t allowed make ask for money and make money.

Brie: Yeah. Yes. And I know for me, I don’t know if this was your story as well. When I stopped having the body image gremlins or the body image thoughts about taking up space. And I was like, yeah, I could take up space in the world. And then it was like, oh, and now I’m going to raise my rates. Then I had all these new gremlins. I was like, can you do that? Who’s going to allow you to, are you allowed to do that? and even going on This life changing, beautiful retreat, gremlin still came up, not body image ones, but ones of perfectionism, ones of people pleasing where I’m like, Ooh, these, this pain runs deep.

Stephanie: I’ll give you an in, so I’m traveling as a digital nomad living, co living with six other people. And I am the person who’s the oldest and in the larger body. And even my my meaning of this is like every new circumstance in our life digs up new body gremlin.

Brie: Bingo. Bingo. You don’t get to escape the negative body image just by existing in a smaller body. And that’s what I thought was going to happen with my surgery. And I will tell you, I had never felt. So much shame about my body as when you are hyper focused on it shrinking. And if you had told me that Oh, this is actually going to be worse because there’s no surgery for your brain.

Brie: And this is why we say, I believe we both say this, that body image is not about your body. It’s about

Brie: your mind.

Stephanie: the surgery is the framework you teach and the framework that I teach. That’s to me is the surgery of knowing how to use your brain and your nervous system. live the best life that’s accessible to you or the format of life that’s accessible to you.

Brie: Yes. Living your whole, full, unapologetic, big, fat life.

Stephanie: And so I have limitation because of scoliosis and not the degree of limitation that you have because of the size of my body, but it’s also learning to live your best life with limitation.

Brie: Yes.

Brie: And

Stephanie: Can we talk about

Brie: I would love to talk about that. I think one of the things, and you could comment on this if you agree with this, I have folks that I talked to you about body grief, who have chronic illness, who have pain. And the story that they tell themselves is, this is my fault. That if I wasn’t in such a big body, then maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much.

Brie: And what objectively I, I know is I know people who are in small bodies with scoliosis who have so much body pain.

Stephanie: Yes.

Brie: It’s, body pain, my, my PT said this to me once. He said, body pain is your body communicating to you in the only way it knows how. And that, that shook me. I was like, wow, like my body’s talking to me.

Brie: I’m like, can I find another way to communicate with me? I think that one of the things that we don’t, we, I don’t do this is I’m not going to rate grief, I’m not going to say my grief is worse than yours. One of the things that I find with grief is that there is something with the collective. That when you experience pain, the human in me can empathize with what pain feels like and feel empathy for you because I know what it’s this is why my podcast is called the body grievers club, because if you are grieving your body, whether it be from a chronic illness, whether it be because you live in a super fat body, whether it be because you are getting older or you are having more wrinkles or you regained weight.

Stephanie: Oh,

Brie: As a collective, we know we are not alone.

Stephanie: yeah, and. I’ll go a step further is knowing how, So, in my case it’s I have to spend days in my room with a heat pad when spasm. Right? What I had to learn is how to not make that affect me living the rest of my life. And I think it affects also, like, just think about many, how many women don’t travel because they don’t, quote, fit in an airplane seat, or they’re afraid of, like, the person sitting next to them and taking their space.

Brie: this came up so much on my retreat and I will tell you like I created a Retreat because I looked at going on I was I had the travel bug I was like, I want to go somewhere and nobody talked about being mobility mindful A lot of these trips were like, and we’re going to do walking tours. And I know that with my back pain, a walk from my kitchen to my bedroom is a walk.

Brie: Like, I don’t need, I don’t need to walk any more than that. and my trip, there ended up being some walking happening. especially when people don’t understand mobility, they’re like, Oh, it’s just like a light walk. And you’re like, this is a hike. whoever said that this was going to be a light walk. But what we did in the beginning is we acknowledged. That there was going to be some stuff that came up and that there is nothing too embarrassing, too shameful to name out loud. And that this is not the space to perform. You don’t need to do something because you don’t want to be the only person not doing it.

Brie: And if that narrative or that story comes up, say it out loud and somebody is going to sit with you in that.

Stephanie: I love this. Here’s how, and you tell me what you think. The way I think about, for me, Spasm, I think of it as a teacher. To help me be more compassionate with myself. I think of, I think about it as my limitation as my teacher to, like, how can I be even more compassionate with myself?

Brie: I love that. And I know. A lot of people in the spaces that I work struggle with being compassionate to themselves. lot of people are, excuse my language, but they’re like a dick to themselves. And I’m like, okay, so what if instead you think about your best friend, your daughter, the younger version of yourself? Would you do that to them? And if your immediate response is hell no, then what that tells you is that is not in alignment with your values and the way that you’re speaking to yourself. If you wouldn’t let somebody else say that to you or wouldn’t let them say that to somebody you love, then how do we shut that down with you?

Brie: That’s to me, building awareness around what and how we’re speaking to ourselves, reassessing how we speak to ourselves, and then identifying, you know, how distressful is it? And what can I do in this moment? Is the key from being in grief and moving towards something that resembles acceptance?

Stephanie: let’s move to business. So 1 of the thing I have absurd and I, right now we’re recording this in So, you’re talking a lot on social media about how the work you’ve done on your body image has propulsed your business,like, step by step. how do you see the work that you’re doing or have done in body image, how do you see it show up in entrepreneurship?

Brie: My, my like new catchphrase that I’m saying is that my business became an extension of my body liberation.

Stephanie: Ooh.

Brie: My business became an extension of the work that I was doing that if I was going to say to little Brie, Hey, you get to take up space. You get to go and travel and unapologetically be you. Then I have to tell graduate school Brie, Hey. You get to take up space here to you don’t have to take this story that just because you help people means you don’t get to deserve not just a living wage, but a thriving one

Stephanie: Yeah.

Brie: and for context and, you know, we can get into all the business stuff like my. Retreat made the same amount of money that I did in an entire year of counseling, my first year of counseling.

Stephanie: Holy shit, eh?

Brie: Now again, like it cost a lot of money to run the

Brie: retreat. So

Stephanie: we’re talking about revenue, not profit,

Stephanie: but

Brie: you. Yes. But like I had never known that one could see so much money in their lifetime, especially being told you’re not going to, you’re not going to make money this you’re not in this for the money. You’re in

Brie: this to

Stephanie: Yeah, you were socialized by your teacher, the expert, that you were never going to make money, so why would you even try to make

Brie: Exactly. Exactly.

Stephanie: So, the more you liberated yourself, in the context of body image, the more financial resources were available, created by you.

Brie: Yes. I would say the more permission that I gave myself to take up audacious space with my body, the more I allowed myself to take up space in business and you know, a little bit of my business story is my quote unquote reliable job as a mental health counselor was no longer reliable during the pandemic

Brie: I did.

Stephanie: Oh, is that when the, the top

Brie: Yeah. It went from having consistent 25 client hour weeks to 10. And guess what? My rent was still due. My car payment was still due. I still need to pay groceries. And I had already built this platform on Instagram because all I wanted to do was help people with their body image.

Brie: And people would say to me, Bri, how do I work with you? And I was like, I don’t know, because I didn’t, I, one, I didn’t want to do it wrong, aka perfectionism. I didn’t want to do, I didn’t want to do anything wrong. I was waiting for somebody to give me permission of like, here, take this program, pay more money to qualify yourself in something you’re already qualified to do.

Stephanie: Yeah, I know.

Brie: When what I needed was somebody to teach me how to do business. I’m like, how do you make money doing the skillset that you already have? I actually, I podcast. I, In 2020, I applied for a PhD program

Stephanie: I see that all the time, Brie.

Brie: I thought it was going to qualify me,

Brie: and then I would feel more entitled to ask for more money.

Brie: And guess what? You would not, because I’m working with people. It makes it so much worse because now you have even more dead,

Stephanie: Yes.

Brie: which I still have. I still, I’m still,

Stephanie: And you still don’t know how to run a business.

Stephanie: With a Ph.

Brie: teach you that. They, it should be standard practice. They should be teaching graduate students how to run a business and they don’t, they just tell you’re not in this for the money.

Brie: And so, so yeah, so I opened up my body grievers program and accidentally made money and I was like, this is a fluke. Like this isn’t, isn’t gonna happen again. So I did it again and I was like, this is more money than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. I was like, the government’s going to come for me.

Brie: they’re going to be like, who gave you this money? And it just so happened that a friend of mine started business coaching and I told her, and she’s like, this is not a fluke. This is what happens when you have a business. And so I said, how do I make this process repeatable? How do I make my income reliable? And so I started working with a business coach and was like, nobody ever taught me this.

Stephanie: there’s an actual formula to do this consistently.

Brie: Correct. That isn’t the extortion of my time because one on one alone is not reliable. I’ve been doing this exercise with people. I’ve been doing a couple of business intensives and it’s you know, I was doing 25 client hour weeks and then realized if I run a group program at half the cost, I can make the same amount of money in one hour of time instead of 20 hours of time, like the math is, but you also have to have the demand and you have to have the offering. it’s like throwing a party. You have to have the invite list and you have to have actually have the party, you have to throw the party. And I think a lot of people, they either have the demand, but they don’t have the party or they have the party.

Brie: And they’re like, come to my party, come to my group program. And then they’re like, why is nobody buying? Cause you’re not telling them about the party.

Stephanie: and I think that’s where body image comes in. Like, if you’re not owning your body and your voice, you’re not owning your space. People are not going to know you have a space.

Brie: Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie: Because I see it when I coach business, because we have a, we have a business segment and it has nothing to do, as we know, with the size of the body.

Stephanie: It could be at any range of size. If you’re not confident in showing up in space, then your business is not going to thrive.

Brie: A hundred percent. I would say that my reputation preceded my financial revenue. I was already body imaged with Brie. And that contributed a lot to my financial success. But I’m also like a person who’s I need to deal in Actualities like I’m like, I, this, if I did not have those accidental months of making money, I would have been like, this is impossible because I’d never been there. I’d never

Stephanie: So you were body image with Bree just sharing without the revenue formula.

Brie: I was just

Stephanie: Oh, thank God you met that business coach.

Brie: I mean, and I honestly, like in the pandemic was absolutely atrocious and horrible and lives lost. But I think that if the pandemic hadn’t happened, I don’t know if I would have. I don’t know if I would have been brave enough to leave my quote unquote reliable job, because here’s the other thing, especially in the health and wellness field, my ego was stroked by the fact that I knew I was doing good work.

Brie: And by the fact that people were like, wow, this is so helpful, but there was a safety and yep. Okay. And if I lose this one, I don’t even have a wait list. Cause I knew that I was in demand. It’s such a much more vulnerable experience to be like, and I’m going to charge money and I might get rejected and that rejection isn’t about me. The rejection doesn’t mean that I am not good, that I am not worthy, that my, what I have to offer isn’t valuable and yet it still will hit upon those same self esteem gremlins that my body image once struggled with.

Stephanie: Yeah, our money stories I find is a direct correlation to all the socialization to diet culture and body image. We are, and we were talking about that before starting to record, like we’re thinking as making money as a zero sum game. if I, if I ask and get money, I’m stealing money from someone. Instead of being a collaborative effort, I offer value, I get money for the value. And that person is happy to give, solve their problem because they’re getting value from it.

Brie: one of the like reframes that I had to come up with, like the impactful reframes that I had to tell myself was that. My worth is not greater when I’m giving.

Stephanie: Ooh.

Brie: is not greater when I’m giving, and that healthy relationships are equal parts giving and receiving.

Stephanie: Repeat that last one.

Brie: Healthy relationships are equal parts giving and receiving. I am a great giver.

Stephanie: So true. That’s what I just said in other words, like it’s value shared,

Brie: Exact, exactly. I am such a good giver. I struggle with receiving and it used to be like when people would compliment me, I would reject it. I’d be like, Ooh, no, I can’t. I can’t accept that. But I love giving people words of affirmation. When I healed my body image, I started to be like, no, you know what?

Brie: I received that. I can take that. And then when someone’s Oh, I want to pay you. I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, no, it’s okay. Do you know that nobody tells me that I could raise my rates anymore? That’s not a compliment I get anymore.

Stephanie: really.

Brie: that’s okay, because I believe that the investment that I, or the price that I have said, this is what my time is valued at. And we could actually have a whole other podcast on this too, of like

Stephanie: Mm hmm.

Brie: time for money. Right? I don’t believe that my time is worth an hour, because when it comes down to it, a 1 on 1 session is more than just 1 hour. Right? There’s so much that goes into it.

Stephanie: There’s all the work you’ve done to create your own body image, your framework, the mindset clean up before the session and the processing of the session.

Brie: The, the administrative part of it contacted, but there’s so much that goes into it, but that when I’m going into session. I’m going in excited because I know that it is an equal exchange of they’re showing up and I’m being paid

Stephanie: And can we also layer in that you’re raising your rate because you’re more skilled too. You’ve been doing that for years.

Brie: and I didn’t realize this either. That like when you were in demand, right? Not having a wait list used to be an ego stroke for me, but what that meant was that. The only thing I could do was split myself even more to make myself more accessible and that the way we do it equitably is by creating multiple ways for people to work with me. So I’m sure similarly, I have low cost offers. that are as low as 17.

Stephanie: Yep.

Brie: have free resources that I give everything away. I don’t want you to pay me for my knowledge. I want you to pay me for the implementation. I want you to pay me to partner with you. And I have programs that are several thousand dollars for those that can make that investment. And it’s something I’m still working on. I know that’s something that you are super passionate about of Making sure that your program is rooted in anti racism and not in the patriarchy and making it equitable and accessible. One of my favorite people to learn about from money is Rachel Rogers.

Brie: And one of the things she says is that when women make money, we invest 90 percent of that money back into our communities versus men who invest about 30.

Stephanie: Yeah, Patriarchy. Right? Because matriarchy gives it

Brie: Yeah.

Stephanie: like for me, I do scholarship. I do like different things where people can get more access. I get another podcast started and I produce it so I don’t have to do it. Likeso many things we do. I don’t want to say right, but to help more people.

Brie: love that. I love

Stephanie: But when people sit with you for an hour one on one, they will get more skilled and probably faster benefit. I don’t want to say result, but faster benefit just because you’re that skilled.

Brie: a greater ROI,

Stephanie: Absolutely.

Brie: return of investment.

Stephanie: a one hour with you versus a coach who just started will be completely different. The coach will take three sessions to get to where you go into one session.

Brie: and as somebody who,I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Enneagram. I mean, I identify as an Enneagram too, which means I am the helper. I love to give my eye makes me happy to give I remember meeting with an anti racism supervisor and was like, I am giving beyond what I can and needing that unconditional permission to be like, I need to sort my house out first. Seeing the work that I’m doing, the pro bono work that I’ve done or that I’m doing is a form of giving and that there has to be a way to protect my nervous system so that I can continue to help people.

Stephanie: So talking about quotes and people that we get mentorship from for me, it’s Kelly deals, the feminist business coach and said, there’s no feminist business without a feminist being taken care of first. So if you’re working, like, way too many hours and not making enough money and stress about money, like, how is that? Anti oppressive business. how is that helping you? Who’s going to take care of you?

Brie: and even for me, that hits on some of my own wounding of you know, part of the thing I’ve been sharing on Instagram recently is like the 19 year old Brie needed a fat, positive advocate in her life. And because she didn’t exist. I became her.

Stephanie: Yeah, are a leader.

Stephanie: By you living your best life, are inspiring thousands of women who think they can’t do it.

Brie: Yeah. Yeah. And that you and I are not the goal post. Like you don’t have to make your own fat positive business if you don’t want to, but the invitation is there.

Stephanie: And I’ll say, it doesn’t have to be about business. I always say to people, like, if you want to be a mom and you want to homeschool your kids, that’s your best life. Mine is travel. What’s yours?

Brie: I love that. I love that. yeah, I think mine keeps changing. I know for me. One of my, you know, in my history of wanting a home base, I have not felt home for years in just for a lot of reasons. And this year, I’m going to cry again.

Stephanie: you just bought a house,

Brie: I just bought a house and that would not have been possible without my business. when I was actually looking into buying a house in 2020 and looking into buying a house now, I was offered over 250, 000 more dollars to borrow just because of my business. Now, again, that doesn’t mean that I could buy that much. I was like, I still know what I make and what I need to survive and not wanting to.

Brie: You know, be panicked or worry about money, you know, when you’re looking at buying a house and you say, okay, here’s my budget, you’re usually buying below your budget. So with that small budget, I was looking at things even less. I was like, I’m going to live in a cardboard box. that’s what I can afford as a single person in a very expensive state. And so to be able to buy a house. In this state, by myself, no romantic partner, that’s my dream, that I did it,

Stephanie: Yeah, that’s your best life right now at this stage. And then your retreat last week or last month was the next level. What’s the next one?

Brie: You know what? I haven’t even thought about it yet.

Stephanie: You’re still running the high of the

Brie: when your dreams come true, it’s like, what’s next? II don’t know, but the possibility is what’s so beautiful

Stephanie: What was the absence of limitation now?

Brie: about it. Oh! Woo! Absence of limitation. Yeah.

Stephanie: Because that’s what body image does to us. Is it like sets preset limitation?

Brie: and I think even just going back to what you said before of and for you, like for me going to Costa Rica on a retreat, but it was mobility, there was one excursion that I had done that, would never want to go. What’s the thing when the zip lining that would never, never appeal to me.

Brie: But somebody else was like, wow, that makes me really sad that I, I’m not like, I can’t because of my body size. I’m like, I’m not, I’m not grieving that because I wouldn’t want to do it anyway.

Stephanie: yeah.

Brie: And there’s space for that. And then this is where my business brain kicks in because I asked them, why is there a weight limit? For zip lining, and they said, literally it’s inertia. They haven’t figured out a way to suspend or slow a body down when it’s zip lining. And so it’s dangerous for you because of the speed you’re going. So my business brain is like, somebody just needs to create an innovation like they have the gear.

Brie: You can do the gear. It’s just about slowing you down. And so when I started seeing. What used to be as like, Oh, this is a problem of, Ooh, this is a problem that has a solution. I just need somebody who’s in a, I need it. I need an engineer,

Stephanie: Yeah, you need to do a pitch to an engineer.

Brie: And I don’t know if you experienced this as well, like a lot of the. The people that come into my world with body image are some of the most incredible, badass human beings. I’m like, that is so like you build bridges for a living. that is so cool. And yet there are these wounds that are like fifth grade wounds of like, but what if people don’t like me? And it’s keeping them limited.

Stephanie: 100%. It’s the, call it, like, the thought curve limitation that just has been embedded in your brain. Everything like, put your eyes on, you’re like, but how am I limiting? How am I limited to do that?

Brie: Yes.

Stephanie: So, when you take off those glasses, the world becomes your oyster.

Brie: and I don’t know. So are you familiar with the process of neuroplasticity? Right? So neuroplasticity is this concept that our beliefs can change. And the way I like to think of it is like, So if you have a, if you think about like when a, when an idea or a thought comes into your head and it’s linked to a thought pattern or behavior, it’s like a stream. There is a stream that is already formed. So I think many of us have grown up thinking, Oh, I’m in a fat body. This is my fault. This is the stream that I am. deferred to

Stephanie: A hundred percent.

Brie: through time, time, active, unlearning community. All of those things can create a new neural pathway. And you and I are both evidence of that.

Stephanie: And no matter what age you are. Like, there’s no limit to neuroplasticity.

Brie: yeah.

Stephanie: like, you could be listening to this and you’re 60 years old and you’re like, but that doesn’t work for me because, no, neuroplasticity is there your whole life, you just have to know how to activate it and work with it.

Brie: And what I would say too, from a grief perspective is it might be harder for you the older you are, because if you think about a mess, like to call it the conditioning of diet culture, right? If somebody like myself, I was conditioned for 30 years and got out in 30 years, right? So now I’m going to get to live the rest of my life as my best life.

Brie: Somebody who’s learning this at 60, you’ve been conditioned for 60 years. So it’s going to be harder for you to unlearn that. And I’ll just share a quick testimony. I had two people. I did not anticipate crying all of the emotions coming out today, Steph.

Stephanie: make you cry all over the place

Brie: I cry always with gratitude. that is my, my, my signature.

Brie: I’m like, wow, I’m so grateful. I had two people on my trip who were older, who had never worn a bathing suit on a vacation before, and they came down to the pool the first day, and neither of them put their bathing suit on, and they fucking did it together. And that will be a core memory in my mind, that we Facilitated that by showing up in the suck, in the struggle, everything became worth it for me in that moment to see the healing that was produced for them.

Stephanie: This is powerful. this medium of this retreat that is your dream. Can you just appreciate, like, you made you live your dream, but what is the impact?

Brie: And I think this is the piece of grief, right? I think this is a universal question of what is the point of suffering? What is the point of hurting and philosophers will study this for the rest of time. And Elizabeth Cooper Ross says she’s the creator of, the stages of grief and there is no silver lining.

Brie: There is no, you know, but okay, what can we look forward to? Or what’s the gratitude? But when you have experienced grief, it allows you to connect to other people who are grieving. And her phrase is, when grief is shared, grief is evaded.

Stephanie: You know, I just wrote an email yesterday for a program that I’m launching in 2 weeks and I shared my thoughts as to how, like. What are my thoughts that are driving my business and 1 of them is what you said, but. Said another way, everything that happened to me happened for a reason.

Brie: Yes.

Stephanie: be here doing this program. With you,

Brie: And at the same time, saying that to somebody while they’re still in the struggle can feel like a silver lining, like it can feel like a dismissal of pain. But for you to say the journey has been worth it, that is the byproduct Of acceptance. It’s not, yay. I’m so glad I struggled. It’s wow. I struggled and I survived.

Stephanie: It was hard as

Brie: It was hard as fuck. And I am, I have not only survived, but I am thriving now.

Stephanie: Yeah. We’re going to end this conversation on this for now, because I’m sure we can have Many more. I appreciate so much the time that you spent with us today.

Brie: Thank you for having me.

Stephanie: I respect your work. I’ve learned a ton from listening to you answering my question, and I really appreciate you, Bri. Thank

Stephanie: you.

Brie: appreciate you. Thank you, Stephanie.