The History of Fatphobia, Diet Culture & Why Your Body Was Never the Problem with Paula D. Atkinson

This conversation lit me up from start to finish.

Paula D. Atkinson is a body liberation psychotherapist, a body justice professor, and someone who has lived in every size of body: from almost dying of anorexia to being labelled morbidly obese, and everywhere in between. She created a course at George Washington University on the history of fatphobia, eating disorders, and health as a moral imperative, and how all of it intersects with white supremacy, capitalism and patriarchy. She is also writing a book. And she is one of the most ragefully, lovingly clear voices I have ever had on this podcast.

This episode is for you if:

• You want to understand where fatphobia actually came from and why it has nothing to do with health
• You are in recovery and still struggling to understand why thinness felt like safety
• You want the historical and political context behind diet culture so you can be genuinely free from it, not just recovered from it
• You have been waiting for permission to be angry about all of this
• You are ready to stop contributing to your own oppression

In this episode, we cover:

✨ Paula's personal story: born almost eleven pounds, almost died of anorexia at seventeen, homecoming queen, and still felt completely empty

✨ Where fatphobia actually began: the eugenics movement, white supremacy, the BMI, and how all of it was a backdoor form of racism when skin colour alone was no longer enough

✨ The insane closed loop of diet culture: selling us starvation, which biologically causes obsession with food and weight gain, and then selling us more starvation

✨ How the obsession with thinness keeps women too busy and preoccupied to access their actual power

✨ Why "I am no longer willing to contribute to my own oppression" is one of the most revolutionary things a woman can say

✨ How the rage we turn inward on our bodies needs to go outward instead, and why that rage is sacred

✨ Why every time you hate your thighs, you are participating in the oppression of every person in a bigger body than yours

✨ Earning as a white supremacist concept, and why you do not have to earn your needs being met by being thin or pretty

✨ The history of body ideals across the twentieth century and why whatever is hardest to achieve is always what gets sold to us next

✨ GLP-1 drugs, the death and resurrection of body positivity, and why corporations cannot give us liberation

✨ What to actually do when you look in the mirror and your head goes straight to fear and self-abandonment

✨ Why your inner child, that ten year old girl who saw through everything, deserves to be reclaimed

Powerful quotes from the episode:

💬 "The obsession with thinness is not about beauty. It is about obedience."

💬 "Every time I prioritise your experience of looking at my body over my experience of existing in this body, I abandon myself. And it is always empty."

💬 "I am no longer willing to contribute to my own oppression. I have decided that I am hot as hell and other people's opinion about that is not relevant to me."

💬 "Saying there is something wrong with your body is like saying a tree is the wrong shape. It is not possible."

💬 "Women's rage is sacred. Everything good in the world exists because a woman got pissed off enough."

💬 "Your body is nature. She is so much smarter than you. The entire universe is inside her."

You can find Paula at:

Insta: @pauladatkinson

Website: https://www.pauladatkinson.com/

TikTok: @pauladatkinson5

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WINWWY

Episode of Surrounded: https://youtu.be/M7K87rGoGps?si=KPjMLmxc4KPfp0nJ 

Much love. 💛

💙 Join my FREE support group: https://victoriakleinsman.com/free-support-group

💙 Free trial in The Freedom Collective: https://victoriakleinsman.com/coaching

💙 Work with me 1:1: https://victoriakleinsman.com/1-1-coaching

💙 Become a coach: https://victoriakleinsman.com/become-a-coach

Live Group Coaching: Mental Restriction, Emotional Eating & The Fuck Yes to Yourself

This one is a live hot seat coaching session from inside The Freedom Collective.

Sandy joins me for coaching today, and what unfolds is one of those conversations that touches something really universal. She has done so much work already: she left restriction behind, rebuilt her relationship with food, got into her body in a completely new way. And then life hit hard. Loss, family illness, exhaustion. And food became the thing she defaulted to. And now she is in her head about it, ashamed of herself for it, and wondering why she cannot just choose the things she knows will make her feel better.

Sound familiar?

This session is for you if:

• You have done a lot of recovery work and then life happened and you feel like you have gone backwards
• You are emotionally eating and giving yourself a hard time about it even though you know it makes sense
• You find yourself mentally restricting even when you are physically eating freely
• You have thoughts of going back to old diets or food rules and then sabotage yourself in response to those thoughts
• You want to understand what the difference between restriction and genuine choice actually feels like

In this episode, we cover:

✨ Why emotional eating during an emotionally depleted season of life makes complete and total sense

✨ Why food should always be on your emotional support list, and why putting it there is not a step backwards

✨ The difference between being back here and being here: why there is no back, only forward

✨ Mental restriction: how judging your food choices, even subtly, creates the same biological drive to eat as physical restriction

✨ Why thoughts of going back to old rules or diets can trigger the exact sabotage you are trying to avoid

✨ What your brain and nervous system need to see before they will trust that restriction is not coming again

✨ The fuck yes to yourself energy: who she is, how she thinks, how she moves through the world and how to start embodying her now

✨ Why attachment to outcomes at the gym creates suffering whether you achieve them or not

✨ Seasons of life: why this moment is not the moment to overhaul everything, it is the moment to be held by everything you have already built

✨ Homework: write the letter to yourself, visit the grocery store as your fuck yes self, notice when mental restriction is quietly running the show

Powerful quotes from the episode:

💬 "There is no back here. Ever. You've evolved and changed. You are not the woman you were before."

💬 "Mental restriction always creates a biological response. Your body hears the thought of restriction and reacts, even if you are physically eating freely."

💬 "Unrestricted eating is a fuck you to restriction. Intuitive eating is a fuck yes to yourself."

💬 "You are exactly where you are supposed to be. If you could have accessed the other tools, you would have. Thank goodness for food."

💬 "This season of life is not about changing your body. It is about embodying everything you have already learned and loving yourself through it."

You cannot go backwards. You can only be here, right now, exactly where you are. And that is enough to start from.

Much love. 💛

💙 Join my FREE support group: https://victoriakleinsman.com/free-support-group

💙 Free trial in The Freedom Collective: https://victoriakleinsman.com/coaching

💙 Work with me 1:1: https://victoriakleinsman.com/1-1-coaching

💙 Become a coach: https://victoriakleinsman.com/become-a-coach

Spirituality, Recovery & Coming Home to Yourself: A Conversation with Lola

This one is a conversation from the heart.

Lola found my podcast when she was deep in her eating disorder and listened on repeat, every single day. Now, recovered and radiant, she reached out to record something together. What followed was one of the most genuinely beautiful conversations I have had on this podcast: about spirituality, about discovering who you are after the eating disorder, about emotional eating in recovery, about allowance and choice, and about what true freedom actually feels like from the inside.

This episode is for you if:

• You are in recovery and wondering if there is more to life than just the eating disorder and the healing of it
• You feel curious about spirituality but do not know where to start or think it is not for you
• You have been in a coaching relationship that felt like it was missing something, and you want to understand what that something is
• You are nutritionally recovered but still feel pulled towards food in ways that confuse you
• You want to hear from someone who has been through it and is genuinely living on the other side

In this episode, we cover:

✨ Lola's experience of working with a coach who, despite good intentions, had too many rules and not enough room for her own autonomy and intuition

✨ Why feeling truly understood in recovery matters so much, and what to do if you have not found that yet

✨ How spirituality found both of us through the back door of personal development and suffering

✨ Swapping "my pain" for "the pain" and why that shift in language was quietly revolutionary for body image

✨ Body neutrality versus body positivity, and why detaching from appearance entirely is the deeper freedom

✨ "I am going to the shop and my body is coming with me" as a practice for separating self from body

✨ What emotional eating in recovery actually is, why it makes complete sense, and why trying not to do it is just another diet

✨ Allowance creates space for choice: what this actually means and how it plays out in real life

✨ How to practice saying no to food when you genuinely do not want it, without it becoming restriction

✨ Cacao, nature, intuitive movement and plant growth as accessible doorways into spiritual experience

✨ Why recovery is non-linear, why going back to square one is never actually square one, and why it is always worth it

Powerful quotes from the episode:

💬 "Allowance creates space for choice. That is true freedom."

💬 "You are not creating a new self in recovery. You are finding the one who was always there."

💬 "Sexy is not an image. It is a feeling, an energy, a connectedness with someone else."

💬 "Nature does not do edges and corners. Nature loves curves. And so does the body."

💬 "Recovery is so possible, whoever you are. The growth and the freedom you build, you carry with you for the rest of your life."

💬 "There is nothing better than witnessing another soul come back home to themselves."

Recovery is never too late. One day at a time, it is always worth it. And one day you will be recording something exactly like this, wondering how you got here and so grateful that you kept going.

Much love. 💛

💙 Join my FREE support group: https://victoriakleinsman.com/free-support-group

💙 Free trial in The Freedom Collective: https://victoriakleinsman.com/coaching

💙 Work with me 1:1: https://victoriakleinsman.com/1-1-coaching

💙 Become a coach: https://victoriakleinsman.com/become-a-coach

Lola's YouTube: Lola Love: https://youtube.com/@thesensitiveclub?si=nrrL7AYQZUb-0bnD

The Truth About Ozempic, Wegovy & Mounjaro: Why GLP-1 Drugs Are Dangerous If You Have an Eating Disorder

I have been wanting to do this episode for a while. Today's the day.

GLP-1 drugs are everywhere right now. The injections your work friends are on, your cousins are on, that celebrities are crediting for their body transformations, that GPs are handing out like paracetamol, that social media is celebrating as if they are the answer to every problem a human body could possibly have.

I have a lot of feelings about this. And I am going to share all of them with you.

But first: I understand why people take them. I understand the desperation that comes from decades of being told your body is wrong. And honestly, if they had existed when I was in the depths of my eating disorder, I would have taken them without a second thought. I am so grateful they were not an option then. And I want better for you.

This episode is for you if:

• You are considering GLP-1 drugs or are currently taking them
• You have an eating disorder history and want to understand the specific risks
• You have done recovery work but are still tempted because the old thoughts are there
• You want the full picture that the mainstream conversation is not giving you
• You are supporting someone considering them and want to understand the concerns

In this episode, we cover:

✨ What GLP-1 drugs actually are, where they came from, and why the pharmaceutical industry is projected to make over 200 billion in profit from them by 2030

✨ What these drugs do to appetite and hunger, and why the world's celebration of that is worth questioning

✨ Muscle loss: why a significant portion of weight lost on these drugs is lean muscle, and what that means for your metabolism long-term

✨ Gut damage, gastroparesis and the side effects that are common, serious and not being spoken about enough

✨ What happens to the body when people stop taking them, and why the weight returns

✨ Why these drugs never address the why: the emotional and nervous system roots always underneath

✨ The body image piece: why losing weight does not heal body hatred, and what actually does

✨ Why for someone with an eating disorder history, appetite suppression is not a neutral side effect, it is a relapse trigger

✨ The identity work that GLP-1 drugs bypass entirely, and why that matters

✨ Why this is the most sophisticated, medically legitimised, culturally celebrated form of diet culture that has ever existed

✨ What actually works: the root cause healing that brings genuine, lasting freedom

✨ Q&A: the nervous system and eating disorders, going all in versus smaller steps, unintentional restriction during a hard period, and practical tools for taking action when fear is loudest

Powerful quotes from the episode:

💬 "We are celebrating a drug that makes human beings not want to eat. In any other context, we would call that an eating disorder."

💬 "Body hatred is not caused by the size of the body. It is caused by beliefs about the body. And beliefs are not changed by changing the body. They are changed by doing the inner work."

💬 "Not feeling hungry is not a neutral psychological state for someone with an eating disorder history. It is a relapse trigger being handed to you in the form of a prescription."

💬 "This is the most sophisticated, medically legitimised, culturally celebrated form of diet culture that has ever existed."

💬 "Trading in a thin body for genuine freedom is worth it a million times over."

Much love. 💛

💙 Join my FREE support group: https://victoriakleinsman.com/free-support-group

💙 Free trial in The Freedom Collective: https://victoriakleinsman.com/coaching

💙 Work with me 1:1: https://victoriakleinsman.com/1-1-coaching

💙 Become a coach: https://victoriakleinsman.com/become-a-coach

Why Knowing What to Do Isn't Enough: Hypnotherapy, Recovery & the Subconscious Mind with Bonnie Killip

Bonnie Killip is a dietitian, clinical hypnotherapist and eating disorder recovery specialist based in Australia. She also lived with anorexia for fifteen years, went through hospital treatment repeatedly, knew more about nutrition than almost anyone, and still could not recover until she found something that worked at a completely different level. That something was hypnotherapy. What she shares here is genuinely game-changing.

This episode is for you if:

• You know what you need to do to recover but cannot seem to actually do it
• You have spent years in therapy and still feel stuck
• You feel like there must be something uniquely wrong with you because others seem to be able to recover
• You have been told recovery is just something you manage forever, not something you fully achieve
• You are curious about hypnotherapy and what it actually involves in practice
• You want to hear from someone who found the system lacking and discovered a different way

In this episode, we cover:

✨ Bonnie's fifteen years living with anorexia, in and out of hospital, and why having all the nutritional knowledge made no difference at all

✨ The moment she sat in her car after a support group and cried, and why it changed everything

✨ How she found hypnotherapy through a newspaper clipping her grandmother had saved

✨ Why she went to her first session completely sceptical and what happened anyway

✨ What hypnosis actually is, and why the subconscious responds to it differently than conscious talking therapies

✨ The ninety-five percent principle: why almost everything we do runs on autopilot and why that matters so much for recovery

✨ Why feelings, beliefs and identity, not lack of information, are what keep people stuck

✨ How pre-verbal beliefs get formed and why talk therapy often cannot reach them

✨ What hospital treatment looked like for Bonnie and why disempowerment keeps people cycling back

✨ Why no one asked Bonnie what she wanted for fifteen years of treatment, and what happened the first time someone did

✨ Why trying something different when what you are doing is not working is wisdom, not failure

Powerful quotes from the episode:

💬 "Fifteen years of treatment and no one asked me what I wanted. The very first question my hypnotherapist asked was: what do you want? I was shocked."

💬 "I knew more about nutrition than almost anyone. That was not the problem. The feelings and emotions just took over every single time."

💬 "Our subconscious runs about ninety-five percent of what we do in a day. An eating disorder is mostly repetition of the same patterns. Working at that level is a shortcut to actually changing things."

💬 "I cannot connect now to how I could possibly have believed I did not deserve to eat. But I believed it. Hypnotherapy helped me change that."

💬 "Shame can only live in the darkness. When it is brought into the light and met with love and understanding, that heals something at a foundational level."

Full recovery is absolutely possible. Bonnie is living proof of that, and so am I. If what you have tried so far has not worked, that does not mean you cannot recover. It means you have not yet found the thing that works for you. Keep looking.

How to find Bonnie:

https://fuellingsuccess.com/

and on Instagram @fuelling_success

Much love. 💛

💙 Join my FREE support group: https://victoriakleinsman.com/free-support-group

💙 Free trial in The Freedom Collective: https://victoriakleinsman.com/coaching

💙 Work with me 1:1: https://victoriakleinsman.com/1-1-coaching

💙 Become a coach: https://victoriakleinsman.com/become-a-coach

Let's call it exactly what it is.

I could have titled this one "how to build body confidence" or "cultivating self-acceptance," but that is not really my style. This episode is about genuinely, truly, deeply stopping giving a fuck about what people think of your appearance. Not saying you don't care while still dressing in the dark and cancelling plans because of a bad body image day. The real thing. The freedom thing.

This episode is for you if:

• You are keeping yourself small, hiding or not fully living because of fear of being judged for how your body looks
• You know intellectually that you shouldn't care what people think but have no idea how to actually get there
• You have been waiting to feel worthy before you start living your life
• Someone has made a comment about your body and you cannot stop thinking about it
• You brush off compliments and find it genuinely painful when people accept or love you
• You are in recovery and the fear of judgment feels like one of the biggest things keeping you stuck

In this episode, we cover:

✨ Why caring about other people's judgment is not vanity, it is a literal survival mechanism rooted in evolution

✨ The separation of tasks: the Adlerian concept that is quietly revolutionary for body image

✨ The what if questions and why asking them opens something that forcing confidence never can

✨ Why actions come before feelings, not the other way around, and what that looks like in practice

✨ What actually happens when someone comments on your body, and why it lands so hard

✨ The golf ball and glass of water: what chronic body shame does to your sense of self over time

✨ The scar study and what it reveals about expectation bias and the invisible lenses we see ourselves through

✨ Why the judgment you fear from others is almost always a projection of your own inner critic

✨ Why you cannot collect enough external validation to fill an internal void, ever

✨ Comparison as the thing that requires hierarchy, and why you are losing a competition that was never real

✨ The grief of letting go of a body, an identity and a coping mechanism that were familiar, even when they were destroying you

✨ Why receiving love and compliments can feel genuinely dangerous, and what to do with that

✨ Six practical ways to move from understanding all of this to actually living it

Powerful quotes from the episode:

💬 "You are the only one who is worried about how you look. Everyone else is too busy worrying about themselves."

💬 "I am not who and what you think I am. You are who and what you think I am."

💬 "You will never collect enough external validation to fill an internal void. Never."

💬 "The strategy of keeping yourself small to avoid judgment is not only not working. It is costing you your life, your freedom and your happiness."

💬 "It is not your job to like me. It is mine."

💬 "Recovery means trusting your body more than you trust the fear."

The key to stopping giving a fuck about what people think of your body is not getting your body to look a certain way. It has never been that. It is healing your relationship with yourself, meeting the parts of you that believed they were unworthy, and showing the little version of you who learned her body was wrong that she was never the problem.

That is the work. And it is the most worthwhile work you will ever do.

Much love. 💛

💙 Join my FREE support group: https://victoriakleinsman.com/free-support-group

💙 Free trial in The Freedom Collective: https://victoriakleinsman.com/coaching

💙 Work with me 1:1: https://victoriakleinsman.com/1-1-coaching

💙 Become a coach: https://victoriakleinsman.com/become-a-coach

Parts Work, Self Energy & Healing in Difficult Environments: Q&A with Mike, Part Two

Me and Mike are back, and this one goes deep.

If you're interested in learning more about Parts Work, have any questions for Mike, or are potentially interested in having Mike support you through your own part work as your coach, he offers a complimentary call, and you can reach him at [email protected]

We received so many beautiful, brave questions from listeners after our first conversation about parts work and Internal Family Systems. So we sat down together and worked through four of them in real time, the way we always do, naturally, honestly and without a script. This is one of those conversations that kept surprising me as it unfolded.

This episode is for you if:

• You understand parts work intellectually but struggle to actually access self energy when you need it
• You find it easy to feel compassion for others but the moment you turn it inward, a critical or shaming part takes over
• You are trying to heal while still living in the environment where the wounds happened
• You experience compulsive movement and feel stuck between knowing what you need and being unable to act on it
• You want to understand how to use your own anger, determination and drive as fuel for healing, not just obstacles to overcome

In this episode, we cover:

✨ How to access the compassionate parent part when a critical protector keeps taking over

✨ Why the part that reminds you of your dad showing up in self-work makes complete and understandable sense

✨ The difference between being caught up in a part and being in self, and why it is often far more subtle than we expect

✨ Why the one asking the questions and noticing what is happening is already self

✨ Healing while living with emotionally unavailable parents: is it possible, and what does it actually look like

✨ Grief and acceptance as the real foundation of healing in a triggering environment

✨ How to use triggers as invitations to turn towards the parts that need you, rather than evidence that you are failing

✨ The question to ask every single part that wants to do something harmful: what are you afraid would happen if you didn't?

✨ Compulsive movement, the biological migration response and the parts work layer underneath

✨ Why self never tells a part what it should or should not do, and why the voice saying "stop this behaviour" is probably another part

✨ Using anger, resentment and the overachiever energy to fuel recovery, and why that is not anti-parts work at all

✨ Why parts never really want to do the harmful things they do, they just do not yet know there is another way

✨ What it looks like when a part finally trusts self enough to stop the behaviour it has been using to stay safe

Powerful quotes from the episode:

💬 "The part that wants to compulsively move is not bad. It is exhausted. It just does not know there is another way yet."

💬 "The thing you are seeking, the love, connection and belonging, is where you are looking from. It is already you."

💬 "Self has no agenda. It is not trying to fix or stop anything. It is just there to listen. And paradoxically, that is when the healing happens."

💬 "I used the anger. I was a grown woman afraid of food and I was furious about it. That fury helped me face the terror and do it anyway."

💬 "You are the parent your parts have been waiting for. You can go back to where they are stuck and be the person they needed then."

We have so much more to come from me and Mike, including episodes on people pleasing, the personal development trap, seeking perfection versus acceptance, and Mike's word for this year: embody. Stay tuned.

Much love. 💛

💙 Join my FREE support group: https://victoriakleinsman.com/free-support-group

💙 Free trial in The Freedom Collective: https://victoriakleinsman.com/coaching

💙 Work with me 1:1: https://victoriakleinsman.com/1-1-coaching

💙 Become a coach: https://victoriakleinsman.com/become-a-coach

Q&A: Stop Chasing Outcomes: The Real Work of Recovery is What You're Avoiding

You sent in your questions, and I am answering them, honestly and without holding back.

This episode is a solo Q&A where I go deep on five listener questions that cover some of the most common, most stuck places in recovery. From comparison and fatphobia to leaving home, reintroducing exercise, gut health complications and the terrifying thought that maybe you actually don't want to get better. If any of these have been living rent-free in your head, this one is for you.

This episode is for you if:

• You consider yourself recovered but a friend's weight loss has sent you into a spiral and you don't understand why
• You suspect you might be fatphobic and feel ashamed to admit it
• You are living at home and wondering if you can recover in the same environment where you became ill
• You have gut infections or food intolerances that complicate eating unrestrictedly
• You want to reintroduce exercise but are scared of what will come up when you do

In this episode, we cover:

✨ Why seeing someone close to you lose weight can trigger even a recovered person, and what that is actually pointing to

✨ The difference between what we think we are chasing and the feeling we are really after

✨ Micro restrictions and why they will always backfire, even when they seem sensible

✨ Yes, you are probably fatphobic, and no, that does not say anything bad about you as a person

✨ Why you cannot simply drop a fear of fatness until your nervous system has evidence it is safe to do so

✨ The difference between wanting to recover and being willing to do what recovery requires

✨ Why identifying with your eating disorder makes the prospect of recovery feel like a death

✨ Can you recover in the same environment where you became ill? The honest answer

✨ Autonomy, rebellion and why your own recovery has to belong to you, not your parents

✨ Gut infections, food intolerances and SIBO: how to approach freedom when certain foods cause real physical consequences

✨ Reintroducing exercise after a long break: why the thoughts you are afraid of coming up are exactly the ones you need to face

✨ The difference between "I have to exercise" and "I choose to exercise" and why that distinction matters enormously

✨ What it actually means to bridge the gap between no exercise and a genuinely free relationship with movement

Powerful quotes from the episode:

💬 "Trauma is also what didn't happen to you. The absence of the big stuff does not mean your emotional needs were met."

💬 "Of course you are fatphobic. We all are. We have been conditioned to be. That is not a character flaw. That is what recovery is here to dismantle."

💬 "Want and willing are two very different things. You can want recovery with everything you have and still not be willing to do what it takes. That is where the real work begins."

💬 "You cannot heal what you are not willing to face. The thoughts you are scared of coming up when you exercise are exactly the ones that need to come up so you can move through them."

💬 "True freedom is feeling at home with yourself wherever you are in the world, whatever is going on in your life. That is the goal. Not a location. Not a body size. Just you, at home in yourself."

If any of these questions sound like your own inner monologue, you are not alone and you are not broken. You are just someone doing the brave, messy, necessary work of recovery. Keep going.

Much love. 💛

💙 Join my FREE support group: https://victoriakleinsman.com/free-support-group

💙 Free trial in The Freedom Collective: https://victoriakleinsman.com/coaching

💙 Work with me 1:1: https://victoriakleinsman.com/1-1-coaching

💙 Become a coach: https://victoriakleinsman.com/become-a-coach

Beverly Atkins is the founder of pauseture, a mobile app that brings the Feldenkrais method, one of the most powerful and least known somatic practices in the world, to people who need it. She stumbled into it after putting her back out and not being able to walk upright for three weeks. What she found changed not just her back, but her relationship with her body, her food, her emotions, and her entire nervous system.

I have been using the app myself and I cannot recommend it enough. So we sat down to talk about all of it.

This episode is for you if:

• You feel disconnected from your body and live mostly in your head
• You have tried meditation or breath work and it made your anxiety worse, not better
• You are in recovery and need something gentle to replace compulsive exercise
• You carry tension, chronic pain or bracing in your body that nothing seems to shift
• You want to understand how stored trauma shows up physically and how movement can release it
• You are curious about somatic healing but don't know where to start

In this episode, we cover:

✨ Beverly's personal story of body hatred, extreme exercise, back injury and how she accidentally found the Feldenkrais method

✨ What the Feldenkrais method actually is, and why it is so different from yoga, pilates or conventional exercise

✨ Why the lessons ask you to close your eyes, go slowly and stop comparing yourself to anyone else

✨ How 24 days of gentle movement lessons changed Beverly's relationship with food at her calorie-abundant workplace

✨ Why Beverly stopped working out entirely for 18 months and what happened when she returned to movement

✨ Why traditional meditation and breath work made Beverly's anxiety worse, and why movement meditation worked instead

✨ How the method builds neuroplasticity and rewires habitual patterns in the brain

✨ Why the nervous system must feel safe before it can learn anything new

✨ The pelvis, trauma and bracing: what Beverly witnessed in her private practice with clients who had experienced sexual abuse

✨ Interoception and proprioception: noticing how you feel inside your body and how you fit in the world around you

✨ How this work can support body image and body dysmorphia by helping you sense your body accurately rather than just see it

✨ Why going smaller and slower in the lessons is where the most profound change happens

✨ How finding choice in movement quietly creates choice in every other area of life

✨ How to access the app, the free trial and how to find a Feldenkrais practitioner near you

Powerful quotes from the episode:

💬 "The only thing permanent about our behaviour is our belief that it is."

💬 "Instead of judging yourself for falling back into an old pattern, just say: that's interesting. That's my old pattern. And now I have a choice."

💬 "I chose this food because of how it made me feel, not how it was going to make me look. That shift changed everything."

💬 "When we let go of judgment of ourselves, something profound happens. We start to meet other people, and life itself, with that same curiosity."

💬 "Your nervous system is not in a learning mode if it does not feel safe. Safety comes first. Always."

If you have been searching for something gentle, something that meets your nervous system exactly where it is without forcing or fixing, this might be it. I found it genuinely life-changing and I think you might too.

You can find the app by searching pauseture in your app store. There is a seven day free trial so you can experience it for yourself before committing to anything.

Pelvic mobility and its connection to back, shoulder, neck, and jaw pain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yYMqCwZrrc

Much love. 💛

💙 Join my FREE support group: https://victoriakleinsman.com/free-support-group

💙 Free trial in The Freedom Collective: https://victoriakleinsman.com/coaching

💙 Work with me 1:1: https://victoriakleinsman.com/1-1-coaching

💙 Become a coach: https://victoriakleinsman.com/become-a-coach

"But I Had a Happy Childhood": Why Your Eating Disorder Still Makes Complete Sense

This one comes up with almost every single person I work with.

But Victoria, I had a happy childhood. My parents loved me. I don't have any trauma. So why do I have an eating disorder?

This episode is my answer. Because trauma is not only what happened to you. Trauma is also what didn't happen to you. The absence of the big stuff does not mean your emotional needs were met. And unmet emotional needs in childhood are trauma, just not the kind that gets talked about enough.

This episode is for you if:

• You have always said "but I had a happy childhood" and wondered why that hasn't explained or healed things
• You feel like you have no right to struggle because nothing that bad happened to you
• You have done the therapy, the journaling, the work, and still feel it in your body
• You want to understand why your eating disorder was created in the first place
• You are ready to grieve what you didn't get, without blame, but with truth

In this episode, we cover:

✨ Why trauma is not only what happened to you, it is also what didn't happen to you

✨ How unmet emotional needs in childhood create the same nervous system wounds as more obvious trauma

✨ What a "happy childhood" can actually look like beneath the surface, and what it communicates to a developing nervous system

✨ Being sent to your room when upset, and what that taught you about big emotions

✨ How early body shame can begin long before magazines or social media

✨ Early sleep separation and why your nervous system may have been in low-level survival mode from the very beginning

✨ Enmeshment and codependency: what it looks like to grow up not knowing where you end and your parent begins

✨ Erika Commissar's research on the first three years of life and why it matters so much for eating disorder recovery

✨ Why the myth of quality over quantity time does not hold up for babies and toddlers

✨ Why talk therapy alone often cannot reach wounds that formed before you had words

✨ Four practical things you can begin with: permission to grieve, somatic work, writing to your younger self, and understanding the eating disorder as a messenger rather than an enemy

✨ Victoria answers a listener question from someone who is pregnant and exhausted by the fight

Powerful quotes from the episode:

💬 "Trauma is not the event itself. It is the wound that the absence of what should have been there leaves inside of you."

💬 "Your eating disorder was not a malfunction. It was an incredibly intelligent adaptation."

💬 "A child doesn't think my parents are struggling. A child thinks there must be something wrong with me."

💬 "You can spend years understanding it intellectually and still feel it in your body like it is the most real thing in the world. Because the body keeps the score."

💬 "If you keep telling yourself you had a happy childhood and there is nothing to heal, you are leaving your inner child out in the cold. She is in there. She has always been in there."

If any of this is landing in your body rather than just your head, that is the work beginning. She has been waiting. And you can go back for her now.

Much love. 💛

💙 Join my FREE support group: https://victoriakleinsman.com/free-support-group

💙 Free trial in The Freedom Collective: https://victoriakleinsman.com/coaching

💙 Work with me 1:1: https://victoriakleinsman.com/1-1-coaching

💙 Become a coach: https://victoriakleinsman.com/become-a-coach

Healing Through Movement: Embodied Dance, Trauma & Reclaiming Your Body with Allison Pagano

This conversation goes somewhere unexpected and beautiful.

Allison Pagano is the creator of Embodied Dance, a body of work she accidentally built over 25 years that uses dance and movement as a healing art. She leads teacher trainings, works with clients one-to-one, and has spent decades helping people reconnect to their body's truth and reclaim their power from the inside out. She also has her own deeply personal story of recovery, which is where all of this began.

We talk about how the body stores what the mind cannot name, why being witnessed in raw vulnerability is one of the most profound forms of healing, and what it looks like to turn your emotions over to the body and let it lead.

This episode is for you if:

• You feel disconnected from your body and live mostly in your head
• You have emotions that feel too big, too scary or completely inaccessible
• You've done mindset work but sense there is something deeper that hasn't shifted yet
• You struggle with rage, grief or fear and have no idea how to express them safely
• You want to understand how trauma is stored in the body and how movement can release it
• You have never danced in your life and wonder if any of this could possibly be for you

In this episode, we cover:

✨ How Allison accidentally created Embodied Dance while in the middle of her own eating disorder recovery

✨ The moment of being witnessed in raw vulnerability that changed everything for her

✨ How lineage pain, trauma passed down through generations, shows up in our own bodies

✨ The process of following emotion as a thread through the body, from activation to full expression

✨ Why you do not need to know where something came from to begin healing it

✨ Pre-verbal trauma and how the body holds memories the mind cannot access

✨ How to begin if you are completely disconnected and cannot feel anything at all

✨ Rage as a power reclamation: why owning your anger gives you access to more of everything

✨ What to do when you cannot physically express an emotion in the moment

✨ Why the cup that holds your grief also holds your joy: feeling more of one opens you to more of everything

✨ Victoria's mirror work story: what started as rage led to a memory that had nothing to do with her body at all

✨ How creating new movement qualities rewires the brain through neuroplasticity

✨ Why you need absolutely no dance experience to benefit from this work

Powerful quotes from the episode:

💬 "The body never lies. No matter what a person is saying, their body is always telling the truth."

💬 "On the other side of doing this work is everything you ever wanted: safety, peace, and feeling at home in yourself."

💬 "When you deepen into the rage or the grief, you get back ten times your aliveness, ten times your joy, ten times your pleasure."

💬 "Your body holds all your tender secrets. It is your greatest guide. We just have to learn how to access it."

💬 "There is a way out. It is not a life sentence. On the other side is a really wonderful way of being in the world, being in your body."

If you have ever felt at war with your body, cut off from your emotions, or like there is something stuck that words and thinking cannot reach, this episode is for you. The body has been holding it all, waiting for you to come back to it. And it is never too late to start.

Much love. 💛

💙 Join my FREE support group: https://victoriakleinsman.com/free-support-group/

💙 Free trial Freedom Collective: https://victoriakleinsman.com/coaching/

💙 Work with me 1:1: https://victoriakleinsman.com/1-1-coaching/

💙 Follow me on Instagram @victoriakleinsmanofficial

💙 Become a coach: https://victoriakleinsman.com/become-a-coach/