| Transcript: Christine Garvin 00:02
Hey, everybody, welcome to this week’s episode of hormonally speaking, this week, we’re gonna dive into a more serious topic that I think is I mean, not that we don’t talk serious topics on here all the time. But I think that is a really important part of not only our Hormonal Health, but our health overall, particularly, you know, if you were born, you know, and live in this world, as a woman, so many of us have been impacted by how we should eat, what we think we should eat in order to have a particular body type, right, because of the cultural just implications and the things that it puts on us in order to be a woman in this world. And how many of us that really has affected in such a, a negative way and also impacted our hormones and all kinds of other parts of our health. And, particularly, you know, obviously, you can be any age and deal with a DD in eating disorder. But I know a lot of, you know, my friends are concerned raising daughters into a world that still has a lot of the pressures that were on us. When we were younger, it shifted some, but there’s still a lot there, and they’re insidious. So I think this conversation is like super, super important to have. And I’m excited to talk to my guests Sarah spears, who’s an emotional eating coach, energy worker and trained psychotherapist, her mission is to empower souls to do the inner work to uncover and improve the root, mental, emotional and energetic factors affecting health and happiness. Over the course of 10 years, she has worked with 1000s of people to help them strengthen their mental, emotional, physical and spiritual bodies. She offers a unique approach to coaching and energy work, fusing traditional and alternative modalities to help process emotional wounds, reprogram the subconscious. rebalance the body’s energy systems and creating lasting change with regards to how one thinks feels and behaves. Sarah, welcome. Sarah Speers 02:14
Thank you. I’m so happy to be here and have this conversation with you. Christine Garvin 02:18
Yeah, so so important, as I was just kind of droning on and on and out at the beginning here. And, you know, I think there’s sort of layers to what we maybe call disordered eating. Right? So I think I can identify with maybe the disordered eating way umbrella, maybe a little bit more, because I never had like a flat out eating disorder, right? Well, we’ve sort of traditionally classified as eating disorders. But disordered eating can kind of range this whole, you know, big spectrum of what a lot of women I think, will fall on that spectrum at some point in their lives, you know, unfortunately. So let’s talk a little bit about that, and talk about what emotional eating is for those who don’t quite understand it. Sarah Speers 03:09
Yeah, that was really well said about the spectrum, because there are clinical diagnoses for eating disorders. And most of the people I work with don’t meet the diagnostic criteria for a clinical eating disorder, fortunately, yeah, but they’re still struggling with their relationship with food. And that can show up in different ways. And so when we’re looking at emotional eating, you know, that can sometimes be normalized in our culture, where we see in TV shows that time of the month, or you’re upset and get a pint of ice cream, this like, joke that we all kid about, but really, it can actually be quite shameful the pattern and something that can cause distress. And ultimately, what we’re seeing is that instead of feeling our feelings, a lot of us go ahead and feed our feelings. And if we engage in that pattern consistently enough, over time, it becomes an automated habit, which means it’s happening unconsciously or mindlessly. And that’s where it feels really distressing. Because it’s almost the sense of I have no control over this. Yeah. And so what a lot of women find is that like the millisecond, they’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed, or there’s this urge to cry or get angry, it’s like, because they’ve trained themselves to eat the brain, it’s just immediately signaling for them to find food and you find yourself in the cabinets or in the fridge are suddenly the bag of potato chips. You know, you’re only going to have a handful and the whole bag is gone. And it feels really, really overwhelming and frustrating because there’s a sense of I can’t control myself around food. And that can spiral into you know, feeling shame about yourself, feeling a sense of guilt about not having the willpower or control and then that also can perpetuate this mental obsession where it’s like, Okay, tomorrow, I need to be good, or I’m never going to eat food again. And then we go into this mental like Olympics where we’re driving ourselves crazy, because we’re trying to figure out how to eat better, or eat good, so that we don’t continue to turn to food to self soothe. And if you don’t have the awareness, and you don’t have the tools as to why you’re engaging in that pattern in the first place, oftentimes, our strategies to stop emotional eating, which is I’m just not going to eat that food, right, actually results in us probably over eating that food even more. And so it’s not an effective approach, and then we just stick ourselves in a deeper hole. Yeah, Christine Garvin 05:41
I think probably so many people that are listening to this can relate to that I love the way that you broke that down. It made me think about, you know, a time in my life. So I was vegan at the time. And, you know, I understood much later that my body chemistry that that doesn’t, did not work well, for you know, and, and I’m sure we’ll talk about some of the sort of physical aspects of, you know, the emotional eating, but you know, I can remember that I would, you know, be good, be good be good, quote, unquote, good, good, good eating there. If and then I would just be like, Okay, I want I’m gonna get like vegan cookies and like vegan ice cream, and just start eating it right, and just eat it and eat and eat it. And it’s that same thing. It’s like a weird thing, right? Because you’re like, Oh, this is quote, unquote, healthy food that I’m binging on, right, essentially. But I that literal feeling of being out of control. And even as you’re eating, sometimes thinking tomorrow, like I might as well finish this off, because then it won’t be here tomorrow. And I can start fresh. And I’m Sarah Speers 06:53
never I’m never gonna do this again. We’re doing it again. Absolutely. I always joke Yeah, somehow, I’m just gonna wake up tomorrow with like, new brain and my willpower and just no desire for these delicious foods wrapped just gonna miraculously disappear. And you know, and then that’s where we get frustrated, because then we do it again. Yeah. And there’s this feeling of I can’t trust myself, or, you know, if I say, I’m going to do something, I can’t seem to do it. Right. And we really get stuck in self loathing or judging self. Christine Garvin 07:20
Yeah, helpful. Well, and I think, too, we’ve been taught so often. And it’s reinforced that it’s about willpower, right? And so that’s where we can get into that if I can just pull on my willpower. And then when you don’t put like, pull on your willpower, then it’s you being wrong and not strong enough and all these things. And it’s so, you know, willpower is a very tiny bit of this, like, huge thing. Right, that and willpower, you know, I mean, it’s just interesting, when you look at the science of it, you know, we have sort of when our I like to say our coffers are full in the morning, we quote unquote, have more willpower, because we’re full, right, we have, we’ve hopefully slept well, we have, you know, just before the day has come in and sort of taken everything out of us, then we are feel as if we’re in control of eating, and then it’s by the end of the day when you’ve been zapped dry, because you’re, you know, you don’t have anything left in the well. And that’s when you’re just like in edit mode, as as I call it, you know, and I think people can really get caught in that, that spiral to or that just a way of being that I think, is really tough, because that becomes like a daily consistent thing. Can you speak to Sarah Speers 08:45
it? Yeah, the evening times are typically the most vulnerable time for people. And it is because we have a limited amount of willpower, that if that is spent throughout the day, resisting the urge to snap at a co worker, and you know, passing up the vending machine at work, and, you know, making all of these decisions throughout the day, by the time you get home, you’ve spent all of that energy and you don’t have the capacity necessarily to make an intentional or empowered choice. And on top of that, the other word that I really focus on is regulation, and what is your body’s like baseline and if you woke up feeling really regulated and grounded, and then the day passes, and there’s this accumulation of stress. Everybody’s body has this window of tolerance. And eventually when you pass that threshold and your body starts to become dysregulated. And you haven’t taken a moment to pause or center or take a few breaths or de stress the physiological body right the stress of the body itself. Then you’re you’ve also crossed the threshold by the end of the day where your body is desperate to find a way to come back into its state of regulation. And if you don’t have other tools and processes to support yourself and finding that center again, you are even more likely to then reach for food to self soothe, because that tends to be a default choice that the brain will just naturally make, because food does have, you know, the capacity to help us feel better in the moment. So that’s a very real Christine Garvin 10:16
fast, easy, yeah, it’s learning, quote, way to do it. Yeah, exactly. Sarah Speers 10:19
But there’s other ways that if you integrate throughout the day, these micro moments where you’re breathing, moving, meditating, tapping, you know, the laundry list of the self care practices, then that quote, unquote, willpower, your reserve is going to be more full, at the end of the day, and you’re gonna have the capacity to actually be able to make choices that feel aligned with what’s truly going to help you in that moment to feel your best. And maybe that choice is to nourish yourself, but maybe it’s to actually rest or go for a walk or talk to a friend, right? It’s like you have more capacity to make those those intentional choices. Christine Garvin 10:57
Yeah, and I’m so glad that we’re talking about this particular, you know, area, because I try and always, you know, in working with clients tell them, you know, breaks throughout the day are so supportive to your body, right. And I think people get that, you know, on the sort of intellectual level, but they will skip over it, including myself, you know, when you get busy, right, you just don’t recognize the importance of doing these things consistently. And how much of a difference it can mean, by taking five minutes. You know, I my always recommendation if people can is around that 3pm time, right? When we’re sort of most of us are naturally declining in energy anyway, and just take five minutes of breath, work, meditation, EFT, any of these, you know, start there. But even thinking about, you know, what we deal with on a daily basis in terms of stress these days, having just a few different moments throughout the day, how that can change everything, you know, and coming back to our hormones again, and again, I talked about it all the time on the podcast, we need safety and security in our bodies, in order for our hormones work correctly. And this is your telling that you’re exactly the same. Yeah, you’re exactly what do you do to help support that? Sarah Speers 12:24
Yeah, they go hand in hand, because the safety and security and your body is also directly correlated with eating habits. And so for a lot of people, we’ve built this attachment to a lot of foods where food is a source of comfort, or food can be an object that symbolizes love and safety. So for example, you know, growing up, your mom always used to bake you, you know, these muffins every day. And it’s like, you associate the muffins with moms love and the safety of home, then as an adult, like if your body doesn’t feel safe, and it’s seeking safety, and you’re not giving it to yourself, or there isn’t, you know, a way that you can experience that in your nervous system, you know, we will often reach for food, subconsciously, to get a sense of of comfort and safety. And that is a deeply embedded, like patterning or pairing in the subconscious. A lot of the work I do with clients is working to actually break the emotional attachments we have to food so that the brain is no longer associating foods as being the source of love or safety or comfort. Because once we can break that association, it’s a lot easier to make different choices to achieve safety, or to feel a sense of of love. Christine Garvin 13:35
Yeah, I mean, you think about it’s such a common thing, right? When the kid is screaming, or, you know, even if they’ve done something good. It’s like, oh, you get a cookie, you get ice cream. And it really sets that up for so many of us, right? I mean, I can think of sugar, sugary things as a child being such a just exciting part of life. Right, you know, and now of course, we have those available sort of all the time, right? So if that compounds, how, you know how tough it can be sometimes Yeah, and we’re Sarah Speers 14:07
not looking to take away the excitement of those things, right. It’s really about adding in another way, ways that we get those needs met, especially the note emotional needs or the safety needs. So it almost like crowds out food, like for a lot of people I work with like food is the only thing they can think of that they do for pleasure that they do for strat to manage stress, that they have to help them through difficult times. It’s like it becomes the crutch. Yeah, when it’s the only option that we know, right? Christine Garvin 14:37
Absolutely. So let’s talk about some of the tools that you utilize with people and sort of, you know, also determining and figuring out what some of this stuff is connected to for them. Sarah Speers 14:49
Yeah, that process is really fun. I always feel like a little bit of a detective and we’re looking at, you know, what are the underlying root causes? And that’s where I use the five bodies of health model to help me and clients just navigate what’s at play here, right. And so we’ve got the physical body, which is looking at just what are your habits in general of how you take care of the body. And, you know, you pointed to like the impact of the vegan diet on your eating habits. And for a lot of people, there is this element of restriction, or not actually getting enough calories or nutrition that fuels cravings. And that can then lead to this like growing binge pattern. We’ve got the mental body, which is what’s going on in your mind, and what’s all the conditioning. So you’ve already pointed to like using food as a reward, but a very long list, right of all the types of eating and programming that we can experience growing up, our childhood environment is really important in forming our relationship with food. And some people grew up in home environments that had really strict and rigid food rules, where sugar wasn’t allowed at all. Other people grew up in home environments where my brothers could eat whatever they wanted. But as a female, like I wasn’t allowed to, when they got put on a diet or other homes had this kind of free for all, it was like we could eat whatever we wanted. And I was modeled emotional eating. So really getting curious about the eating programming and the home environment around food. And the language around the body is a super important area to explore. So that with that knowledge and awareness, we can begin to, again go into the subconscious. And I use Emotional Freedom Technique as a way to just create corrective experiences and repattern some of the memories or the messaging that we received, we’ve got the emotional body, which is how are we processing our emotions. And especially for women, we’ve got a ton of repressed emotions, a lot of repressed anger, a lot of repressed grief and fear and just, you know, that builds up over your life. And so being able to understand when you reach for food, if it’s to help you feel better, that there’s likely something that doesn’t feel good. And there’s an opportunity for us to get curious and go into the body. And let the body show us the emotional energy that’s needing to be processed and released. And then the last two are the energy body and the soul body. So with energy, I’m really a huge advocate for energy hygiene and understanding, you know, how to shield your energy, cleanse your energy, be aware of energy vampires not take on and absorb other people’s energy, which is so common for especially women, caretakers, you know, we want to just take everyone’s pain away. But the downside is we hold it in our bodies, and that can be really dangerous. And a lot of times something you’re doing outside of your conscious awareness. Yeah, so a lot of clearing, I use Emotion Code as a process to help release absorbed energies. And then with the soul body, we’re just looking at soul holes. So what are the, the kind of the fundamental needs of the soul, I talk about soul hunger, and there’s this, like, the need to be nourished with intimate connections and with true love and a sense of purpose. And if we aren’t addressing the fundamental needs of the soul, then we often are trying to fill a void with food. And when we can identify that there’s an opportunity to actually take action in your life to to meet the needs of the soul, so that you’re not just eating mindlessly all the time. Christine Garvin 18:34
Yeah, yeah, that’s so beautiful. And everything that you said, you know, fits in the same framework of what I do with clients around hormones. Right. And it’s such a good reminder that I mean, it’s all a holistic process. I you know, I think that not not saying we completely have the physical obviously taken care of, you know, but we there’s a lot of talk around the physical aspects, there’s more talk these days around the emotional aspects of things. Thank goodness it’s still probably not as accepted as it needs to be but we’re getting better but really talking about the energetic processes in the soul, you know, purpose I mean, I think that that’s so key to right yeah, what what feeds your soul what what is not that you have to have a single big purpose in this life? I don’t believe that, but what what drives you what fuels you and, and exactly the thing that’s so overlooked, right, you know, not talked about enough and such a huge part of it. I think of the the sadness and anger in this world, Sarah Speers 19:40
right? Yes. Yeah, exactly. And I see a lot of women and this was me as well who struggle with some form of disordered eating on the spectrum. And there’s a parallel with struggling with hormones. And when I was at the peak of my my eating disorder, I didn’t have a period For two years, and you know, it didn’t even dawn on me that that was a problem because I was so steeped in the eating disorder, that the impact on my physical body, it was lost on me. And then as I started my healing journey, I realized, Oh, this is not normal. Clearly not working the way it’s supposed to. And I think I need to work on, you know, hormones and balancing my hormones. And that path of healing, my eating disorder went hand in hand and with healing, you know, my hormone imbalance, and so they are, you know, really interwoven? Christine Garvin 20:37
Absolutely. So let’s talk a little bit more about your eating disorder, or you know, what type of eating disorder you had. And I guess the process that you took on, you know, in in figuring that out and healing it and yourself, so Sarah Speers 20:51
yeah, my, I mean, I kind of had this interesting spectrum of eating disorders, and I had adult onset. So I was 25. When I first Yeah, which is a little bit more uncommon, Christine Garvin 21:04
right? It’s gonna say, it usually sounds younger, right? Yeah, but but Sarah Speers 21:09
for me, I had an adult onset. And it was this kind of perfect storm of going on a diet for the first time in my life and moving to a new place. And I had sort of this traumatic experience where my car was stolen with all of my belongings. And so I was by myself in a new place without a job without a car without support, like all of these factors that caused me to start to binge, and over time, that led to binging and purging. And so then I got really swept up into a pretty vicious cycle of bulimia, which, you know, kind of consumed me for six months, where it was living in an even a denial that this was a problem. You know, you can get so enmeshed in it. And then I had sort of this pivotal moment where I realized one day like, Oh, this is not healthy and normal. And, and I make actually die if I don’t stop this because I could feel the impact on my body. And so I just made a valid commitment that I was going to do whatever it took to heal myself so that I could help others because I never wanted anyone to suffer the way that I was. And that just caught took me on this pretty broad journey where I was reading books, I was seeking therapy, I was trying all different alternative healing modalities. I eventually went back to school to become a therapist, and was trained at an Eating Disorder Center. And so was working with, you know, people who specialize in eating disorder. So I was really learning the ins and outs of it. And, you know, I was able to benefit from that learning for myself, but also then for the work that I do. And that’s why I integrate a lot of energy work into the work I do, because I found processes like tapping, Emotional Freedom Technique, and Reiki and Emotion Code, like all of these beautiful modalities that I stumbled upon were all key components to my own healing, because it was really helping me accessible a lot of the unprocessed emotional pain and trauma that I had been carrying, that I didn’t even know was there. Yeah, and for anybody who does struggle with binging or purging, while the bench is a way to try to suppress or numb or feel better, the Purge is a way to try and get out of your body, and energy or a feeling that like is uncomfortable. Mm hmm. And so when that unconscious energy and trauma is present, and we aren’t aware, and able to process it in healthy ways, what I was doing was reverting to binging and purging. And, you know, with that awareness, I realized, Oh, this is why the inner work is such a key component to healing, because without it, you’re just dealing, you know, a lot of treatment will focus on just food and rain, right, and eating. And that’s an important piece, but that is really the symptom of the deeper layers. Yeah. And so yeah, I would say over the course of five years, you know, I started to just gradually chip away at the inner work and, and do a lot of deep healing, and then eventually, you know, reached a place where, over time, the symptoms started to subside. And then there’s just a period in time where you realize, oh, my gosh, like, I don’t I can’t remember the last time I had an episode, you know, and then that just becomes the new norm, which is like, it no longer exists. Christine Garvin 24:35
Yeah, that’s amazing. Yeah. What you know, thank you for sharing the truth. Yeah, for you. So we’ve talked a decent amount about EFT on the podcast, but I’ll just, you know, say once again, for those that don’t know what it is, you know, that stands for emotional freedom technique. And mostly, I think a lot of people have heard of it as tapping, right, right. It’s this like you tap in these different spots and I always in You can correct me if I’m wrong, but I like to think of it as somewhat similar to acupuncture in terms of certainly regulating the nervous system, you know, opening up energy pathways where things may have gotten blocked and allowing, you know, the processing of stuck emotions, things like that. Can you speak to Body Code, because I’m not sure that everybody’s aware Sarah Speers 25:26
of that? Sure that yeah, The Body Code Emotion Code is a process developed by Bradley Nelson when he was a chiropractor. And essentially, it revolves around using muscle testing or energy testing. So the theory is, if something is true for the body, the body will have a strength present. And if something is untrue, or potentially harmful for the body, the muscles become weaker. And so we can use this process called muscle testing, to ask the body questions, to get information about what it might be holding. So for example, we could ask the body, do you have any trapped emotions or absorbed emotions contributing to your hormone imbalance, or contributing to your binge gene? And based on the strength of the muscles? When we do muscle testing? We’ll get a yes, no. And there’s this whole map and chart where we can then identify what are the specific emotions? Is this fear? Is it sadness? Is it grief? Is it overwhelmed? And we can even ask the body, when did you experience this emotion, we could get information such as you know, this is when you were a child, right is this, you know, and we can start to paint a picture of what the body is actually holding energetically and emotionally. And its impact on the physiological symptoms or the mental symptoms that you’re experiencing. And then this process uses a magnet to just neutralize, essentially, or clear those energies from the body. So the same way that a magnet would deactivate a credit card, for example, it works similarly, where it just creates an opposing frequency or wavelength that would just gently neutralize or clear whatever energies we uncover. And so it’s this really neat way to communicate with the body, and it’s a very non invasive, gentle technique, just uncover what we would maybe not be able to discover otherwise, you know, it’s like, I could talk to you, but you’re not gonna be able to tell me if you’ve inherited energies or absorbed energies, like you might be aware of your own. Oh, yeah, I’m stressed about something, right. But it’s hard to sometimes uncover things that don’t belong to us that we’ve taken on. So that’s why I really love using that tool. Christine Garvin 27:45
I love it too. And I haven’t used I haven’t done a lot with it, but have used other systems that are similar, and I’m just learning, you know, more specific around Body Code. But I also like to tell people that are, you know, maybe a little bit? I’m trying to think of the word there just to go. Yeah, that’s it. Yeah, I was like, they’re not sure about the whole energy frequencies thing. You know, and one of the things that I kind of point to is, if you look at a lot of the tools that are used, even in western medicine, now, they’re actually essentially measuring, you know, energy frequencies, electromagnetic things, like, you know, some of the heart machines, if you go in and you know, and for them to see if you have a blockage in the heart, and all these kinds of things, Echo machines and that sort of thing. It’s essentially, they’re measuring energy frequencies. And when it comes down to it, right, yes. And so and more and more, we’re seeing that more and more, and we’re seeing that in biofeedback machines, and all of that now. So it’s just a reminder that along with a physical and emotional body, we have this energetic body that we know definitely exists, you know. And going back to the acupuncture thing, that’s something that Chinese medicine has been aware of, for a very, very long time, if you’ve known anything about your VEDA, same thing, right? It’s these energy bodies, and we’re kind of just catching up, I’d say, Western medicine with those long held ideas and beliefs, and kind of proving them with these machines. Exactly. Yeah. Sarah Speers 29:27
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think it’s helpful to keep an open mind, but like you’re pointing to, I mean, science. You could talk to any scientist who’s going to say, Absolutely, the body is an energy body, you know, at the fundamental level inside the cell, you’ve got these protons and, you know, energy molecules that are moving around, which is what gives our cells the energy for us to function. I mean, everything is made of energy, and we’re just learning how to work with the energy Yeah. Have the body in new ways, which is really exciting. It is it is, we’ll have more and more tangible evidence that can support what we’re doing. Christine Garvin 30:12
Yeah, absolutely. And I love that there are these different modalities that are happening, you know, that that therapists can utilize with their clients and sort of these body therapies that, you know, I think talk therapy is fantastic. And it’s sort of level one in a lot of ways, right? It’s like to get to these things that are stored in the body, we need these other kinds of forms of working with it. And yeah, I just I think it’s such a beautiful thing, when we’re thinking in the context of emotional eating of disordered eating, where we’ve sort of, we’ve lost the connection to the body, we’ve lost the connection to our energetic selves to and so you’re really developing a different a new relationship, Sarah Speers 31:02
that’s really a it really is it’s the path to healing is not fixing my eating habits and fixing right food, it’s, it’s about a return back to yourself, and rediscovering and reconnecting with your body and like really learning how to love and take care of yourself in this vessel, from a place of, not from a place of like, I have to change this to feel worthy and deserving. But from a place of realizing like wow, like, who, what this isn’t exactly like, oh my gosh, this like incredible body and, and this incredible soul that I have in this body, like these things are worth loving and taking care of. And so you know, that’s ultimately what this work is about is the return to self love. Christine Garvin 31:50
Yeah. Oh, I love that. And because there’s, there’s a lot of talk about self love these days. But I don’t think a lot of people really understand what that means. And again, we go back to I want to focus on the problem, which in this instance, is the fact that I am eating these foods that I quote unquote, shouldn’t be eating or overindulging or what have you, right. And that’s the focus so often goes back to that again and again. And it’s like, that’s not focusing on that is not going to get you. Right, has the problem or healing, you know, absolutely Sarah Speers 32:23
right. I had a client recently who, you know, she she said, I think I’m starting to love myself, which was like, music to my ears. I was like, This is why I do this work. But she, she never realized she’s like, I never realized, like how to do that. It was like, it’s so ingrained in our culture to like, not like yourself, or to be unsatisfied with who you are that like, the concept of loving self was, was foreign, right? And so sometimes when we say, Oh, just, it’s just about loving yourself. For a lot of people that is, exactly, it’s just words and fluff. And the actual experience of doing that, like you do sometimes need someone who can guide you into doing that. And the way that we learn how to love ourselves is by someone murine to us, right. And so for anybody who has a child that you love, and you would do anything for that child, it’s like, that’s the energy that you’re wanting to recycle towards yourself. I even recently thought, you know, what, I’m in partnership, I put all this energy into making really nutritious meals, because I like love these people, and I want them to be healthy. And then when I’m by myself, I’m like, I’ll just eat a protein bar, I realized there was this disconnect, like, wow, why don’t I Why am I not loving myself in the same way with nourishing myself the way I would nourish another person I love. And so there’s little, like, ways that we can see examples of how we love others. And if we’re not doing the same thing for ourself, there’s an opportunity to like, grow there. Christine Garvin 33:49
Mm hmm. Absolutely. Can we talk about boundaries? And how that Sure, all of this? Oh, yeah. I was like, I dropped the ball. You know, I, I just I I bring up boundaries again and again, on the podcast and with my clients, because I know from personal experience, and how I continue to have to work on boundaries consistently, right, in order to have my body feel safe and secure. And I also think that, you know, there’s probably that word has been thrown around a lot lately, but not everybody knows what that really looks like, either. It’s not just saying no, right? It’s all of these other things, too. So, yeah. How does that show up in your practice? Sarah Speers 34:38
In so many ways, I mean, there’s sort of two back there’s different types of boundaries. But the two that I’ll speak to are what I call body boundaries. There’s like your time energy boundaries. And so for a lot of women, we see that there’s this tendency to be people pleasers, and over givers, and perfectionists and it’s like I will, you know, disregard My needs, and what my body’s telling me it has the capacity to do to say yes to support other people to take on their responsibilities, I’ll do it for them to make sure it gets done. Right. And so that is like, overriding your boundary of time and energy, because then you’re left with nothing for yourself and the body is rundown, and you’re exhausted and maybe resentful, because your cup is not full. And so there’s a need to first of all get comfortable saying no to the things that you don’t have the capacity for, or that aren’t your responsibility in the first place. And that can be really hard, especially for mothers to be able to, like, give and be able to trust that this person will figure it out or learn how to do it. And they may stumble as they go, and I’m here, but I don’t do it for them, right, I guide and assist, like the coach watching a soccer game versus being a player in the game. Right, right. And then we’ve got the body boundaries, which is how do I let other people engage with my physical body. And this can be a really big one, especially with disordered eating. Because for a lot of women, we’ve had experiences where people have looked at our body commented about our body touched our body engaged in our body in ways that made us very uncomfortable. That felt like a body violation. And oftentimes, we go into a feat of freeze response, right, there’s an automatic fear response. And so our throat chakra shuts down, we don’t say no. And this person essentially gets away with doing something that inflicted a sense of not feeling safe. And over time, what happens is, we start to protect the body with eating, right, we like stuffed down the discomfort with food and or to subconsciously put on a weight barrier to protect us from unwanted attention. And so if we’re not asserting healthy boundaries, the body is going to create a boundary. Right? Right through weight and through eating habits to perpetuate a sense of safety. And so this is why coming back into the body and reconnecting to the body is so important, because your body is going to tell you if something is like you need to know how to listen to the signals from your body. Is this safe or not safe? Am I comfortable with this? Am I not comfortable with this? And then can I communicate? Hey, you know, I’m actually not comfortable with you putting your hand there. Yeah, yeah. Do you mind just like removing it, and having the courage to be able to express what we need, so that our body, which is ours, right, gets to feel safe and protected and honored and respected? And other people aren’t going to treat us that way until we’re aware within ourselves? Christine Garvin 37:34
100% You know, and, and we’re so often not taught this at all right? We’re, we’re taught to keep quiet, we’re taught to just kind of go with the flow. And so, so many of us are disconnected from how our body even is reacting, right? And so that first step, I’m sure is just reconnecting to, how does this make me feel? And then you can speak from that place, right? So, Sarah Speers 38:00
so many of us have rationalized in our mind, and I did this, I had to do a lot of work on this, but like, oh, no, it’s fine. It’s okay. Right? So we haven’t convinced ourselves that we like it. Oh, I like the attention. But really, your body is like, I don’t I do not. I’m not comfortable with this, like nothing about this feels okay. And we’ve overwritten the body signals with our mind. Yeah, we do that with boundaries. And we do that with eating, right. It’s like, your body’s telling you, hey, I need I need, like protein or I need like this food. And our mind is like, oh, no, I can’t have that. That’s, that’s bad. No, I can’t eat that. That’s not on the plan. And so we have this almost internal battle between like, the body’s very clear signals, and then our minds and what we’re choosing to think or believe, according to, you know, the societal programming or conditioning? Christine Garvin 38:48
Yeah. It’s such a like, Well, so, so much is done right? There. So let’s talk about how you work with people. Do you work with them one on one face to face? Or do you do programs? Sarah Speers 39:03
A little bit of everything? Okay, I have one on one work that I do with clients, typically for four to six months. But once I start working with people we tend to stay together for you start doing this work, you realize there’s a lot there as there’s a lot of conversation reveals. So, you know, I would say on average, it’s for a year or two that I tend to go on this journey with women. Yeah. And then I do have group programs. So I’ll be starting again in April, next round of the group program, which actually love because there’s an element to our relationship with food and eating and especially with disordered eating tendencies. That’s secret. Yeah. Like a lot of women have shame and they keep it secret, and they think they’re the only person. Yeah, and I’ve seen some miracles happen when women come together for the first time in their life. And they start to actually like, have this confession and it’s like, air all your dirty secrets and realize like, Oh, I’m actually not weird, right? This is kind of normal. I’m not alone. And here one And who get it. And so we heal when we come together. And we shed the shame for sharing our stories and, and there’s medicine and being seen and being validated and being held. And I’m really a proponent for CO regulation, because when we’re using food to sue, that’s a form of self regulation. It’s how am I helping myself feel better, but that’s not effective. And really, the gold standard of, of soothing is with another human being through their nervous system through their compassion through their care. And so in the group space, we have this, this opportunity that you don’t always get with one on one to have the CO regulation that happens in a group field of like hearted beans who understand and who care. Yeah, and then you’re no longer walking the path alone. And that’s just really beautiful. It is Christine Garvin 40:46
beautiful. Yeah, space. Yeah, I think it’s so needed in this this day and age to so I have to ask, are you able to do things like body code in your group setting too? Yeah. So do you teach people how to, to to self muscle test? Or do you do this is muscle testing? Sarah Speers 41:07
Yeah, I’ll do distance. Okay. Christine Garvin 41:09
Yeah. Okay. Can I ask what form of distance muscle testing you do? Sarah Speers 41:14
I? Yeah. Well, so I personally actually use a pendulum. Christine Garvin 41:18
Okay. A pendulum Yeah, yeah, Sarah Speers 41:21
that I find is the easiest. And for me, I have the least amount of bias. And so whenever that comes in, when I do that, I also have another Emotion Code practitioner on my staff and she uses finger the finger Das. See, Christine Garvin 41:35
I’ve always been horrible at the finger like anything on yourself. I just, Sarah Speers 41:43
I’m weary of it as well. Yeah, I can do it a little bit. But after a little bit there, like your body gets tired. And your mind jumps in? And I just question if it’s like, is that was that strong? Was that? Right? With? With the pendulum? It’s Christine Garvin 41:58
much clearer. waveclear yeah, that’s, that’s cool. Yeah, cuz I utilize it, you know, often with clients just around if we’re trying to figure out which supplements is going to be best for them, and how much they should take and things like that. So Sarah Speers 42:13
yeah, I don’t yet teach people in the group how to do that. Although this conversation is making me realize why not. But, you know, we can do collective healings and with energy. It’s one of those things where there’s no real distance, or time and space. And so right now, I think we can connect right here via zoom, and I can also connect to your energy body Christine Garvin 42:36
right now. That’s, that’s another good reminder for people when they’re like, I don’t understand this, you know, it’s like the fact that we can even talk over these devices. That’s all. Like, Sarah Speers 42:46
that’s usually my biggest, my biggest sales point, too. I’m like, if you can pick up that phone and call someone in China and connect to them. Like, please explain to me, right, the technology that allows that to happen, right? It’s all energy frequencies, you know, exactly. It’s a definitive device that’s sitting in front of me, the things that are making it happen is all energy sales. And I’m like, I don’t understand this device. I don’t understand how it works. But I trust that it works. Yeah, yeah. And we have our own, like, even more fascinating devices called the body. Yeah. So you know, I trust in the power of our energy bodies to also, you know, do similarly fascinating. Things such as connect over distance and clear energy. Christine Garvin 43:29
Yeah. Oh, I love it. Well let people know how they can get in touch with you. Sarah Speers 43:33
Yeah, you can find me on Instagram. My tag is at Sara, Emily spears. And that’s spears, SP E. R S. So not like Britney Spears? Just their spears.com. And they find ways to connect with me on both of those places. Christine Garvin 43:51
Perfect. And you said the next group that you’re doing is starting in April. We start Sarah Speers 43:55
in April. Yeah. So again, opening enrollment in March. So yeah, again, Christine Garvin 43:59
this will be really good timing, because I think it’ll probably be on early March, something like that. So. Yeah. Well, Sarah, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your experience. And, you know, I think, I mean, you have wonderful energy to do this work to you know, I mean, going back to the energy aspect, just the, the sort of the way that you explained everything, and your your demeanor is just perfect for this work. So thank you for, for helping women, you know, in this in this journey that they go through. Yeah, Sarah Speers 44:32
absolutely. It’s an honor for me, and I’m grateful to be in the space now where I can look back. Yeah, say it’s possible and it’s must be able to help you know, that’s like, just such a gift and I hope something that inspires anyone struggling to know, no matter how bad it is. There’s there’s ways out. Christine Garvin 44:51
Absolutely, absolutely. All right. Well, thanks again for being here with us today. And I will see you guys next week. |
