The Reason Why Body Image Work Feels So Hard with Steph Dodier

If your mind's been stuck on the loop of "I need to shrink my body," it's time to hit pause and interrupt this repetitive script. You're not alone in feeling this relentless pressure to take up less space. But why does it feel so inescapable? Why does it feel like our life depends on our ability to take up less space?

To unpack these big questions, I've brought in Steph Dodier, a nutritionist and body image coach, to join us for this episode. Steph provides a historical backdrop, shedding light on how we arrived at this point and why it's crucial to reclaim ownership of our bodies to redefine beauty and confidence on our own terms.

We confront the harsh realities of constantly fighting against the influences of diet culture and wellness trends. These pressures can show up as unrealistic standards deeply ingrained in our minds. To find peace with both food and our bodies, we must learn to distinguish between conforming for safety's sake and genuinely embracing self-trust, which means letting go of our reliance on external validation.

Breaking free from these patterns is easier said than done, isn't it? Steph reminds us that a significant part of this journey involves reshaping our beliefs about our bodies. She shares practical strategies to help us rewrite our reactions to shame and create a nurturing space for emotional healing. Surprisingly, allowing ourselves to experience rejection is a very effective means of practicing self-compassion.

Achieving a state of body neutrality isn't for the faint-hearted. It demands a commitment to long-term transformation, recognizing that dismantling years of conditioning takes time. Yet, the returns on this investment can be life-altering.

At the core of this conversation lies a powerful truth: our bodies aren't measures of our worth; they're the vehicles (or meat suits as I like to call mine) through which we experience the world. Embracing this philosophy empowers women in midlife to navigate this transformative stage with confidence, grace, and a new sense of freedom.

To learn more about Steph and the work she does, be sure to check out her website and podcast at www.stephaniedodier.com and follow her on IG @stephdodier and Facebook @StephanieDodiernutrition.

TRANSCRIPT

Jenn Salib Huber: 0:00 

Hi and welcome to the Midlife Feast, the podcast for women who are hungry for more in this season of life. I'm your host, Dr. Jenn Salib Huber. I'm an intuitive eating dietitian and naturopathic doctor, and I help women manage menopause without dieting and food rules. Come to my table, listen and learn from me trusted guest experts in women's health and interviews with women just like you. Each episode brings to the table juicy conversations designed to help you feast on midlife. And if you're looking for more information about menopause, nutrition and intuitive eating, check out the Midlife Feast community, my monthly membership that combines my no-nonsense approach that you all love to nutrition with community, so that you can learn from me and others who can relate to the cheers and challenges of midlife.

Jenn Salib Huber: 0:49 

Hi everyone, I'm very excited to bring this body image podcast to you, and body image is one of those topics that really weaves its way into every conversation about food, because most of us especially those of us who have been in diet culture or were in diet culture for a long time we're really trying to change our bodies so that we could feel better about our bodies. Right, and we felt like it would be better if our body was smaller, and so, even when we know that the things that we do to try and achieve that the counting, the measuring, the tracking when we know that those things don't feel good and are unsustainable and maybe unachievable, we still hold on to this belief that, yeah, but I'm pretty sure that I'm happier in my body when my body's smaller, and so I'm very excited to bring this week's guest.

Steph Dodie is a nutritionist and certified intuitive eating counselor and she's a body image coach who also coaches coaches on body image, and we have a really great conversation about why we hold that belief about bodies. So I encourage you to make your favorite cup of tea cozy up in a corner, listen to this podcast and really let our conversations sink in and, as always, let me know what you think. Welcome, stephanie, to the Mid-Lay Feast.

Stephanie Dodier: 2:15 

I am so happy to be here. I've been looking forward to this conversation. Let's do this, ladies.

Jenn Salib Huber: 2:21 

Yes, so I am too. So body image is like this really big topic that we're going to try and have like a 30-minute conversation about. But I think that one of the conversations that I have on repeat and I'm sure you do too is trying to dismantle some of the myths that people have about body image. And I'm going to start off with one, and I'm sure it'll lead into many. But the biggest one that I hear is I will never feel okay in my body unless I like how I look. That is in my practice, anyway. The number one thing that I feel like holds people back when they're doing this work is like okay, but I'll never like myself. I'll never feel okay, Do you hear?

Why We Believe That Our Appearance Determines Our Worth

Stephanie Dodier: 3:10 

that too, absolutely, and I want to say it's normal. The first place I want to start is that it's normal that us, as people, socialize as women. So I'll talk about women during this interview Now. Consider, people socialize as women, so I'll repeat that throughout the whole podcast but as women, it's 100% normal that we have this thought. So that's the first place I want to start, like there's nothing wrong with you having this thought and I want to explain why we're having this thought and I think that's going to lead us into the solution. We have this thought because we have been taught as women that our looks, our appearance, our beauty and all the things that comes along with it the wrinkles or the no wrinkles, the size all of that is what defines us and our value into the world. So, understanding that this is our value to the world, that's what defines us as a being in this world Damn For sure you want to like what you look like, because that's your definition into the world.

Jenn Salib Huber: 4:31 

Oh, yeah, so true.

Stephanie Dodier: 4:33 

So it makes total sense. Thanks for watching and don't forget to bring me in a mé Qualification Dialogue. Is that why we have a body? Is that why we have individual characteristic? Is that why you have blue eyes? The other one has green eyes. Is that why some of that straight hair and curly hair Is the reason why what makes your look unique to you and the size of your body? Is that truly what defines you as a human being?

Stephanie Dodier: 5:02 

I think that's where we need the challenge. We're going into the solution instead of finding a way of liking your looks. What if we unpack why we think we need to like our look and redefine that?

Identifying the Beliefs You Have About Your Body

Stephanie Dodier: 5:19 

So, to me what makes my approach to body image so different? First of all, it's because I live in a fat body, so I've had to find ways of healing and making peace with my body. But two is I think of it as a. What do I want to think, what do I want to believe about having a body? I don't let the system or other people define why my body exists. It's like why do I have a body? For me, my body is a tool, a vehicle for me to experience the fullness of life.

Jenn Salib Huber: 6:01 

Yeah, yes, oh, my goodness, so much. Yes, I describe mine, when I'm kind of talking about this, as my meat suit, like it, really, just like it holds all the things in and it moves my meat suit where it needs to go so that I can enjoy life, right. So I don't have to like it, I don't have to love it, I don't have to look objectively like anyone would expect it to, as long as it does what I need it to do and that's the permission we need to give ourselves as women is redefine the rule of the game.

An Anthropological Look At Body Image Through History

Stephanie Dodier: 6:34 

Yes, so how do we do that? Right, because? So I'm going to go into like a an anthropology kind of Millie lesson, okay, understanding how women's body have been used over the last six, seven, 800 years, the traceable history that we have on women's body, and women's body have been used to define for hundreds of years the value of the men in the relationship, either by producing children. So if you go back in the 13, 14, 1500, women's body would just like a production machine of inheritance and people who could work on the farm and people who could do things

Like. Our role was to produce children and then we became high candy, like in the 1800 and 1900. Women's body were for what we looked and what we made the man beside us look, our body have never been ours. We've never defined for ourselves what our body is and the roles that it play. And now that we are where we are in liberation and equality and women's right, we have this opportunity for us to redefine what it means to have a body as a woman.

Jenn Salib Huber: 8:13 

Yeah.

Stephanie Dodier: 8:14 

It doesn't have to be with men, or patriarchy tells us. We get to choose.

Jenn Salib Huber: 8:19 

That's a really powerful thought, I think, and tying it to the you know, our productivity and increasing wealth and worth of another person. That can't be what we're supposed to do, like that can't be why we're here, right, I mean, that's just. It's so funny, too, about like the time and place. Like you know, we, when we first moved here, one of the first things so I live in the Hague in the Netherlands and one of the first things that I did was I started going to museums, because you know, it's what you do when you're in Europe. And one of the music the big museum here in the Hague is called the Maritzos and has all the Dutch masters and it's just filled with paintings from the 16th and 17th century.

Jenn Salib Huber: 9:06 

And as I was walking around and I think I was there on like a tour the first time all of the women in these pictures were soft and round and voluptuous and those features were highlighted. And I talked to somebody in the group that I was with and I was like this is striking, this is really striking. And this person knew much more about art than I do and he said, yeah, and you know what? Because that was considered attractive at the time, even if women didn't look that way, they told the painters make me look that way, which really highlights just how like, contextual, cultural, societal, how all of these expectations of how to have a body have been influenced and changed, meaning that they're not actually about the body right, it's about our perceptions and their worth.

Stephanie Dodier: 10:03 

And because we were deeply entrenched in patriarchy back then, women did not have not only power over their body, but power over their finances, their freedom. We didn't have any power and the more we claim our power back and we're not 100% there yet but the more we do, the more it's important for us to, in the case of body image, redefine why we have a body. So how the question you asked, how do we do that? We first have this conversation. Right now we bring to the surface the bigger question and as I'm saying that, I'm looking at the name of your podcast on the screen and I want to add more like we're all ladies in the midlife at 49.

Stephanie Dodier: 10:53 

And many of you are listeners about 40. Are we going to spend the last half of our life obeying the rules with all the life experience we have in the wisdom that we have, like when we were 20. Isn't that time for us to redefine the second part of our life on?

Jenn Salib Huber: 11:17 

our own terms.

Stephanie Dodier: 11:19 

Do you know?

Jenn Salib Huber: 11:21 

Yeah, and to really live with true body autonomy. And I know that you know, depending on where you live in the world, that that may feel like it's going backwards, but you know, body autonomy is really where you I think anywhere where you find true confidence is believing that you have a choice. And you know, when it comes to diet, what I find and when it comes to body images, that so many people feel like there is no choice, like there is no choice to live in the body that they have. The only choice is to try and live in a smaller body. So maybe that's like the second myth.

Entrenched in Diet Culture

Stephanie Dodier: 11:59 

Well, I think it again. It makes total choice because, yes, that's what society tells you. I mean, that's what diet culture is. Diet culture is a system of belief that where all of us have been entrenched in since we had our first Barbie. I have this image in one of the course that I teach, of a little five year old girl with a Barbie. That was our first encounter with the thin ideal in diet culture and from there on it was repeated to us literally millions of time. Yeah, so yeah again, it makes total sense that you think you don't have a choice, but it's not true. In today's world, in most country, women have the choice to decide what they believe and what they think.

Jenn Salib Huber: 12:49 

Yeah.

Stephanie Dodier: 12:50 

I like to say to my clients is that there's not a diet police.

Jenn Salib Huber: 12:56 

Yeah, nobody's going to knock on your door and check in on you.

Stephanie Dodier: 13:00 

Like my coach told me that years ago. She's like because when I decided to stop dieting, I started to gain weight because I'd been shrinking my body for 25 years. So there's this bounce back effect and I'm like but I can't do this. She's like. She said to me word for word there's not a body police that's going to come knock at your door If you decide to stay fast. Like fuck yeah, like there's nobody that's going to force me back on the diet. The person that's going to do that is me.

Jenn Salib Huber: 13:30 

Yes, and I say all the time that you know, we and I'm bigger, we of, like women in midlife, we find confidence in almost every aspect of life, except for our bodies. You know, like I can say no to anything, right, but until I really stepped into that autonomy and confidence and believing that like my body as it is is enough, it felt like I was never going to really feel confident, you know, and so I think that for so many women they don't know that the other reality exists.

Like I feel like that's the biggest myth for people to know that. You know that I have a hard time articulating which is why I love this conversation is finding other ways to say it because, like, it absolutely exists, like it is a reality that you can choose, not just access. You can choose it. You don't have to earn it, you don't have to buy it, you can choose it, but it's difficult.

Body Acceptance is a Choice

Stephanie Dodier: 14:34 

Can we acknowledge that? Oh yeah, absolutely Like it's difficult. It's challenging to not comply.

Jenn Salib Huber: 14:46 

It's uncomfortable.

Stephanie Dodier: 14:47 

So I want to talk about something I teach, which is called the safety of conformity.

Jenn Salib Huber: 14:52 

Okay.

Stephanie Dodier: 14:54 

So and this is a anthropological concept that has been known in all the human tribe back to hundreds and thousands of years the safety of the tribe was by staying in the tribe.

Jenn Salib Huber: 15:12 

Yeah.

The Safety of Conformity

Stephanie Dodier: 15:13 

Right Like that's. How you survive as a human 100,000 years ago was by being with the tribe, and you defended yourself from the element and from the big animals that were roaming the earth. And if you stepped out of the tribe, there was a mechanism of shame to bring you back into the tribe, so you had to conform to the rules of the tribe.

Stephanie Dodier: 15:40 

There was rules and etiquettes in French, of the tribe and if you didn't conform and you were risking to separate from the tribe, shame was placed on you and you came back. Shame is one of the most powerful human emotion that we have, because it is meant to bring you back to safety. Let's bring that concept in 2020. For us, as women, conformity is being in a thin body, looking young or attempting to look young and attempting to be thin. Yeah, that's the standard that's placed on us by diet culture, beauty standard and wellness culture, and our role is to conform to those standards, and if we don't, then we stand alone, we are different, and that is very unsafe for the human being.

Stephanie Dodier: 16:33 

Yeah, and that's why many women go back to try to lose weight and try to hide the sign of aging because they feel really unsafe making a choice to stand alone.

Jenn Salib Huber: 16:48 

Yeah, it reminds me of the body hierarchy ladder that Sonia Renee Taylor writes about. Right, that like we want to know our place on the ladder. That's safe yeah.

Stephanie Dodier: 17:02 

And then we conflate that with confidence. We think, when we try to comply, or we are in a compliant body, like we've reached our weight and we're thin, or we're working really, really hard to be thin, we think, because we feel safe, that that's confidence. We are conflating safety with confidence, and these are not the same. Confidence is the ability to trust yourself, no matter what. Is the ability to protect yourself, to have your own back.

It has nothing to do with safety. Well, it's in fact. Yeah, it has. It's the safety of being with yourself, like no matter what's going to happen, you're going to have your own back. So, if people disagree with your choice of not going back on a diet, you're going to have your own back. You're going to say no, that's a choice that I made. I have the autonomy to decide what I want for me and this is the choice. And please do not comment on my body. That's confidence, yeah.

Confidence Cannot Be Found in a Smaller Body

Stephanie Dodier: 18:09 

Yeah, the safety of conformity is conflated very often with confidence, and that's why people will tell you and I'm sure you heard that many times I was so much more confident when I lived in a smaller body. How many times we hear that.

Jenn Salib Huber: 18:26 

Yeah.

Stephanie Dodier: 18:27 

The truth is, you weren't confident in a smaller body. You were safe from rejection. You were safe because you were complying. That's not confidence. Confidence cannot be lost with any external sign. Confidence is an internal gain.

Jenn Salib Huber: 18:49 

And that's why it's so threatening to the patriarchal.

Stephanie Dodier: 18:55 

And it's threatening. I live a life today, so I want to say to people doing their body image work the first layer is to do your body image work, but once you gain that confidence with body image, there's many other things that are going to change in your life, like you're going to do this shit you've not been wanting, you were afraid to do.

Stephanie Dodier: 19:17 

You're going to say things that you were afraid of saying, like there's many things that have changed. So my life has been 180 degree change for where it was seven years ago and it's threatening to other women.

Why Others Don't Want You to Be Happy in a Larger Body

Jenn Salib Huber: 19:31 

Yeah, yeah, that's the really uncomfortable part of body confidence for a lot of people is that some people don't want you to be happy in a larger body.

Stephanie Dodier: 19:45 

Can we talk about that, because it's a fact.

Jenn Salib Huber: 19:46 

Let's talk about that, yeah. It's really uncomfortable.

Stephanie Dodier: 19:51 

Why I always like I'm a student of human behavior, I'm like huh, what makes it for the other person? What being me, me just living my life, makes it threatening for the other person? And what I have found is that I don't wanna say secretly, but deeply, consciously or unconsciously, many women want to have the confidence that I have, that you have, but they can't see themselves do the work or take the action required. So when they look at you, there's resentment. The threatening is the resentment of them not doing the same thing as you.

Jenn Salib Huber: 20:48 

And not being able to access it, feeling like if they can't have it, no one can.

Stephanie Dodier: 20:52 

Yeah, and meanwhile they're frustrated because and that happened to me many, many times but I have to die. It's like I can't eat what I want. Well, actually you can. You're choosing not to. It's not like it's a choice. So there's a resentment of me as a fat woman eating pizza when we go out in a group and a person feeling threatened by me eating her salad while she wants to eat the pizza and she's resent that I don't eat the salad like her because I should be on the same diet as her and I should want to lose weight like her. So there's a really deep resentment that I have said no to the things she hoped to be able to say no to.

Jenn Salib Huber: 21:36 

Yeah, oh yeah. There's like 8,000 layers to this little snippet of this conversation, but it's all true, like it really is true, and I think that it is one of the challenging things for people when they're doing this work is that they might taste body confidence. They might taste the confidence of really feeling like you're living in your body, but then it can feel like it's taken away by someone else because of this pressure to conform, this pressure to follow the pack, which it is part of the lizard part of our brain, like it is somewhat unconscious. We can consciously respond, but the thought and the feeling that's coming up isn't consciously driven. Usually it's happening because we're still animals as part of pack, right, yeah, but I want to say there's a way of changing that.

Jenn Salib Huber: 22:34 

Yes, well, let's talk about that.

How to Attack The Negative Body Image Mindset

Stephanie Dodier: 22:37 

Yeah, so my approach to undiating right Food and body image is a cognitive behavioral coaching base, meaning that we go in and attack, attack, quote, unquote, like we find a solution through changing cognitively our thoughts and our belief system.

Jenn Salib Huber: 23:04 

Yeah.

Stephanie Dodier: 23:05 

So when you're talking about the unconscious part of the brain, like the lizard brain reacting, that is because there's a belief in you that you should be not rejected from the pack, for example, like it's dangerous for you to be rejected from the past, and that thought has been put in there at two, three, four, five years old, when your mom kept telling you be careful, be careful, be careful, right, repeating the same thing program your brain to unconsciously avoid rejection.

Jenn Salib Huber: 23:42 

Yeah, there's a way of changing that.

Stephanie Dodier: 23:46 

Connectively. There is a way of changing that by changing your belief. First of all, inventoring your belief, normalizing the current belief that you have, like it's 100% normal that you're afraid of rejection, but today you are in a position of power. What do you want to believe? Is there really a danger for you to be rejected by certain of your friend because you no longer want to die? Is that really a danger today?

Jenn Salib Huber: 24:18 

Yeah, Truly not. For most of us, it isn't thankfully.

Stephanie Dodier: 24:23 

Yeah Right, we no longer need the tribe. I mean, we need people, but we no longer need the approval of a tribe. We can do our own thing and then we can go through a process of intentional thinking over time, rewire the brain to believe different concepts. That's how we change the unconscious brain.

Body Image Work is Not A Switch to Flip

Jenn Salib Huber: 24:44 

And the timepiece is important too, because it isn't a switch right, like everyone just wants to be, like they want to get in the right mindset and they feel like once they get the right mindset, it all just opens up to them this whole new world. And no, I mean, I think mindset is probably important, it is important, but it really is the practice of rewiring that makes it happen on autopilot right, where you no longer have to consciously think about choosing the different path every time, but you have to prove to your brain that it's safe.

Stephanie Dodier: 25:21 

And that's why it's not just cognitive, it's nervous system. It's emotional base as well, we cannot do this work. I like to give the image to women of thinking like. I can't sit on a top of a lush mountain and repeat my mantra and think, oh, I'm going to like my body. No, you have to go out into the world, feel rejected, come back home and create safety for that rejection Emotionally in your tissue and your body.

Stephanie Dodier: 25:53 

So it's mind and mind. So it's mind and emotion. And I want to add the piece on time Because I thought the first myth where you are going to tell me is it takes too much time and it's going to be too long, and it's true, like let's not deny it Changing the perception that we have of our body, making rejection safe. We're talking years. Yeah, it's not bullshit anyone.

Jenn Salib Huber: 26:28 

No, it's not a fast process and I really appreciate you bringing that piece up, because I think that a lot of the body image conversations is about like, here's the body image fix, or do these things and you'll have a better body image. Right, and it's not. That's not the way it works.

Self-Compassion is a Habit to Practice

Stephanie Dodier: 26:54 

I'll teach you the tool in six months, but then there's another two years, perhaps three years, of you practicing the tool. In order for you to be what I call body neutral, yeah, do you need to coach with me for three years? Totally up to you. I need six months to teach you the tool, then you can go on your own, but you have to be committed to doing it for years, because you have to think about this like we're midlife, so we're assuming people here are 40 and above. Is that a fair statement? Yeah, I'd say so. So you have 30 years of repeated conditioning and thinking of solid wiring in your brain to undo. We don't undo that in six months. We don't undo that in 12 weeks. Yeah, and think about this If I tell you, it's going to take you three years, for an example, three years to undo 30. Pretty good deal. It's a pretty good return on your investment.

Jenn Salib Huber: 28:01 

And three years for the next 40, 50 years of your life.

Stephanie Dodier: 28:09 

Pretty good investment, like if you do committed the work for three years and then you don't have to worry about that for the next 50. And then you can live your life in a body neutral position. What an amazing investment.

Jenn Salib Huber: 28:25 

The ROI on this is pretty high.

Jenn Salib Huber: 28:30 

It really is, and I think that the idea, too, of like you need to practice it, and one of the things that I tell people is that it doesn't mean you're doing something wrong If the first time you're doing something wrong, if the first time you step out into the world after doing this work, you still have this moment of like when you see a picture Like that is going to happen, it has to happen. You have to practice changing the response and every time that you get the chance to practice it, it becomes less scary, you become more comfortable with it. But so many people think like, oh, I did all this body image work and I still just I hate myself in pictures and it's like well, did you feel like you had enough time to practice or did you just stop?

Stephanie Dodier: 29:17 

Right, yes, and can I add to this? Yeah, absolutely the. I want to. If that's what you're like, okay, I'm going to do the body image work, I do the booklet or whatever the thing is. And then you're like, okay, I'm going to go to the beach with my family and I'm going to put my bathing suit on for the first time since I did the work, the quote work, whatever it was and you go to the lake or to the beach and then you feel shame about your body and you're like, or something went wrong. Then I just want to offer to you that there's a missing piece to the body image work. One of the most important piece that should be taught to you in body image work is emotional processing.

Jenn Salib Huber: 30:06 

How do you respond to?

Stephanie Dodier: 30:07 

process your emotion. So to me, it's a gift. When I feel challenged with my body image, it's an opportunity for me to practice processing my emotion of shame or frustration. It's an opportunity to practice and reinforce my resilience, my emotional safety. Nothing has gone wrong. It's a gift.

The Opportunity to Develop Resilience

Jenn Salib Huber: 30:35 

That's such a great perspective. I feel like we need eight hours for this podcast, but we don't have eight hours, so what would you kind of share as parting information for anybody who's in the thick of I don't know what to do, because all I've ever done is try to make my body smaller, and I can't do that anymore. And yet I don't feel comfortable.

Stephanie Dodier: 31:04 

So the first thing I want to say and you're limiting me to one, so I'm going to say this one, but hopefully I can add one more so the most powerful principle I teach is something called normalization Normalizing the current state you're in and understanding why it's happening. So, for an example, we'll call it the desperation phase, right, and I like it for people listening on audio. I'm putting my two hands on my chest right now. It has a significance, like to tell your physical body that you're there, and then you can use something like this.

Stephanie Dodier: 31:48 

It is completely normal for me to feel put in the emotion like I'm feeling desperate right now. I'm feeling stuck. It's totally normal for me to feel desperate. The thing that I'm stuck about my body image, about how I feel about my body, because that's very important, because I have been socialized to attribute myself work to my body, or I have been living in diet culture my whole life, whatever the reason, how you've learned to put so much value on the way your body look because and fill in the blank. So it's totally normal for me to feel fill in the blank because and then find the external element that caused you to feel this way. So I've been living in the culture of my whole life, so it makes total sense for me to think that something is wrong for my body and just watch the change in your inner world by normalizing how you feel instead of fighting it or resisting it or thinking something is wrong.

Jenn Salib Huber: 33:05 

That's a powerful tool.

Stephanie Dodier: 33:07 

How's that?

Jenn Salib Huber: 33:08 

That's awesome. You can say a second one if you want to Okay.

Your Body is a Vehicle to Experience Your Life

Stephanie Dodier: 33:13 

I've been doing so many podcasts on body image. The second tool that most people just absolutely love is this intentional thought that I shared at the beginning. I'm going to repeat it for everyone my body is a vehicle for me to experience my life, not a sign of my worth. My body is a tool to experience my life, not a sign of my worth.

Jenn Salib Huber: 33:40 

Yeah.

Stephanie Dodier: 33:41 

And let's define experiencing life because it's pretty broad. It's your senses, right? So my body is how I interact with my partner. I get touch, I get caress. My tastes is how I enjoy food. The smell is how I smell the flowers, the tulips, right, it's how I smell. My eyes is how I see the beauty of the world I live in. That's when I say my body is a vehicle to experience life. It's through the senses of your body.

Jenn Salib Huber: 34:20 

So my body is a vehicle to experience my life.

Stephanie Dodier: 34:22 

Oh my goodness, I love both of those.

The Missing Ingredient in Midlife According to Steph

Jenn Salib Huber: 34:25 

So my parting question for everyone what do you think is the missing ingredient in midlife? Compassion, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. All kinds of compassion.

Stephanie Dodier: 34:43 

Compassion to why we struggle with midlife because of all the system above us that says you should look different, you should not have perimenopause and you should not have a flashes and you didn't take care of yourself enough, like all that bullshit. We need to have compassion why we struggle because we have all these expectations on top of us.

Jenn Salib Huber: 35:04 

Yes, I love it. Thank you so much for this conversation. I've been really looking forward to it and it did not disappoint, and I'm sure that listeners were going to love it too. If people want to learn more about you and the work that you do, where can they find you?

Stephanie Dodier: 35:19 

Podcasts Going Beyond the Food it's been on air for almost seven years now and my website wwwstefanydotecom, and we'll have both of those links in the show notes too.

Jenn Salib Huber: 35:31 

So thank you so much for joining me, and I'm sure that we'll have you back at some point. It was a pleasure being here.

Stephanie Dodier: 35:35 

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Midlife Feast.

Jenn Salib Huber: 35:40 

For more non-diet health, hormone and general midlife support. Click the link in the show notes to learn how you can work and learn from me, and if you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, please consider leaving a review or subscribing, because it helps other women just like you find us and feel supported in midlife.