112_Alexis Conason
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Alexis:The weight loss strategies I had been told were not very effective. And thankfully, around the same time, I became introduced to a movement called the Health at Every Size. Philosophy, which is really a social justice movement. A group of activists who've been doing this work for a long, long time way before kind of body positivity came into the mainstream.

And they, you know, thankfully I started getting some education around what, what are the things that really impact our health? What is the success rates of dieting long-term and it helped me personally get off the diet roller coaster and it shifted, you know, it really changed so much of my life. It shifted the way that I was working with clients.

And the more that I learned, the more I realized how little I know, and I, you know, here I am probably, you know, 10, 15 years later, still, still trying to educate myself. But one of the reasons I wanted to write the book is that what I was seeing in my experience as a psychologist and my experience as a [00:01:00] researcher was so different from the messages that were getting out to the mainstream, you know, and when I first started writing this book or working on this.

Took me about 10 years from when I first had the idea to actually getting it published because so many publishers were opposed to, you know, working with a book that was not guaranteeing that people were going to lose weight. So I had a lot of people say, this book is great, but can you just tell people they'll lose weight at the end?

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Monica: Welcome to the revelation project podcast. I'm Monica Rogers, and this podcast is intended to disrupt the trance of unworthiness and to guide women, to remember and reveal the truth of who we are. We say that life is a Revelation Project, and what gets revealed gets healed.

Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode. Of The Revelation Project Podcast today I'm with Dr. Alexis Conason. Alexis is a clinical psychologist and certified eating disorder specialist in private practice in New York city. She's the author of The Diet Free Revolution 10 steps to free yourself from the diet cycle with mindful eating and radical self-acceptance.

So you're know already that I'm going to love this episode. She is the founder of the anti diet plan await inclusive on-line mindful eating program that is available. Worldwide. She was previously a research associate at the New York Nutrition Obesity research center in affiliation with Columbia University.

Her research has been published in peer reviewed journals. She is a frequent speaker at conferences, and she has been featured widely as an expert on the topics of mindful eating. Body image and diet culture in the media, a lifelong new Yorker Conason lives in Manhattan with her husband and two daughters.

She loves all things related to food, including cooking, grocery shopping. Watching food shows and of course eating, but most rewarding is helping her clients transform their relationship with food and experience the joys of eating. She is a fierce advocate for helping people recognize and question the societal norms that encourage their feelings.

Not good enough about themselves so they can stop fixating on shrinking their bodies and reclaim the space that they deserve in the world. Hi Alexis, how are you? 

Alexis: Hi, thank you so much for having me here today. 

Monica: It's great to have you and what a subject. I mean, I feel like we could probably do multiple episodes on this, but what I love about the way that we started for our listeners is that we actually started with choosing an Oracle card as I normally do when I set space with my guests and we chose the queen and the queen is all about sovereignty and.

What Alexis and I were sharing what. The interesting part too, about the queen is she also embodies the divine masculine. And what I love about the masculine is there's this inner strength that the, that the masculine holds and a very kind of noble and also strong with like boundaries and things. And I often think about how as women, we are so conditioned.

To not actually know what true boundaries are and how to use them. And I think that that becomes a really interesting topic when we think about our own bodies and boundaries around what the world tries to teach us about. What our bodies are and how we should eat and all of this stuff. Like I always talk about this unbecoming process.

And so of course your work, Alexis is so part of this unbecoming process, because I think there's so much here in respect to how we're conditioned to think about our bodies, our food, our nourishment, and everything associated with that. 

Alexis: Yes. I, I couldn't agree more and I, I love the way of framing. Kind of this intersection around diet culture and trying to reclaim a sense of autonomy around our own bodies as an issue of boundaries and the boundary crossings, that diet culture, kind of the intrusive nature of diet culture and the patriarchy, and these systems that try to tell us how, you know, what we can do, what we can and can't do with our body and how radical it is to try to reclaim.

Monica: Yeah, radical such a great word, because I often say like, to love yourself well, in a world that's trained you not to is a radical act. 

Alexis: Yeah, it really is. And I say variations of that, maybe a little less eloquently, but I really do think that to accept yourself in a world that teaches you not to is a radical act of rebellion.

And it's opting out of systems that are, you know, exists because of their ability to. Tell us that we're dependent on them. So when we, you know, kind of reject that and recognize for ourselves that we're not dependent on these systems, the whole system kind of falls apart. 

Monica: Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. Oh my gosh. Yes.

I'm just going to sit with the falling apart of that, because I'm thinking back, you know, to the journey for me and all of the different. Legs I'll call it of the journey and in my world, my own relationship, as I was sharing with you earlier to my body and my source of nutrition, my, my relationship to food was one of starvation and withholding.

And I think that that's common. For many, many women, but I know that there's multiple variations, but what I have discovered is that we all have kind of a very dysfunctional relationship with our bodies and with. Food. And so I'd love to just start out by, you know, really asking more about what inspired you to write this and like your big, why?

Alexis: Well, yeah. And just start off with how pervasive it is. Research suggest that over 91% of women feel dissatisfied with their bodies. So when we think of that in, you know, when we think of 91% of women are unhappy with their body in some way, we start to see, it's not an individual issue around body image or, you know, something that's wrong with, with one particular person, it's a societal issue that women are, you know, being indoctrinated into a belief system that encourages us to.

Dislike our bodies to hate our bodies, but getting into my story. Like so many of us, I didn't understand that for most of my life that it was that the problem was the system, not me. So I grew up very much in a dieting home. I grew up with the belief that, you know, if I could. Shrink my body. Then I would get all the good things that I wanted in life.

Love, acceptance, respect, value. I spent a lot of time and energy kind of on this diet overeating rollercoaster, where there'd be times that I was sticking to the plan times that I would go off the wagon feeling like there was just something wrong with me that I couldn't stay on the plan and make it work.

Long-term. And I got so, you know, kind of engrossed in trying to figure this out, that I decided to dedicate my career to it. I went to graduate school to study psychology and it wasn't until I got out of grad school and really was, had already like opened up my practice with the intention of focusing on weight management.

I had, uh, started my career working in quote unquote obesity research. I was working in a bariatric surgery clinic. I was, I was really into. And I started to see that all the things that I had been taught really weren't working in terms of just trying to motivate people to eat less than 10 exercise more.

And the weight loss strategies I had been told were not very effective. And thankfully, around the same time, I became introduced to a movement called the Health at Every Size. Philosophy, which is really a social justice movement. A group of activists who've been doing this work for a long, long time way before kind of body positivity came into the mainstream.

And they, you know, thankfully I started getting some education around what, what are the things that really impact our health? What is the success rates of dieting long-term and it helped me personally get off the diet roller coaster and it shifted, you know, it really changed so much of my life. It shifted the way that I was working with clients.

And the more that I learned, the more I realized how little I know, and I, you know, here I am probably, you know, 10, 15 years later, still, still trying to educate myself. But one of the reasons I wanted to write the book is that what I was seeing in my experience as a psychologist and my experience as a researcher was so different from the messages that were getting out to the mainstream, you know, and when I first started writing this book or working on this.

Took me about 10 years from when I first had the idea to actually getting it published because so many publishers were opposed to, you know, working with a book that was not guaranteeing that people were going to lose weight. So I had a lot of people say, this book is great, but can you just tell people they'll lose weight at the end?

And I was like, no, that's yeah.

Monica: Oh my God. Had it go like, right. It's it's like that mainstream narattive. It's like, if you have a counter voice against that mainstream narrative, it is really. It is really hard to get your message out there. Not any more, but it, it has been over historic. 

Alexis: Yeah. It really wasn't. You know what, at that time, social media was more kind of just starting out, but I was told over and over again that it's dangerous to tell women that it's okay to accept their body. 

Monica: Wow. 

Alexis: So, so it was a little bit of a journey, but at the time, you know, I started writing it and, you know, we were, so this was, you know, a time that you were still essentially turning on the evening news, seeing a ton of stories about the quote unquote obesity epidemic and how, you know, the, the height of Dr. Oz and kind of like, you know, miracle, weight, loss, supplements, and all of these things. But as a researcher, I was seeing that none of this stuff was effective longterm and that actually even the. You know, researchers and scientists in the field, there's not a great way to have people lose weight and keep it off long-term.

And that it is very much not a matter of eat less and exercise more, which is what we were telling people, w which is, I think still what we tell people a lot of the time. So I wrote the book out of a place of just seeing how much my life changed when I was able to stop. I'm dieting and start to reconnect with my body.

And I think that, you know, not only is w when we're able to free ourselves from diet culture and reconnect with our body, it really changes so much. It's not just about our eating, but it shifts our whole relationship with ourselves. When we can move out of this, you know, self-critical not good enough way of thinking of ourselves and start to honor our, you know, our own internal resources and our own self.

Monica: Yeah. I mean, when I think of one of the biggest, you know, kind of traps of the trance of unworthiness, it is, you know, completely kind of in this realm, right? I mean, it's just, it's, it's such a, from the time we are literally two years old, toddlers, you know, we are being message. Too about our eating habits and our food.

And, and it's just tragic. It's tragic. I'm curious. What was kind of like one of your biggest revelations for yourself as you were kind of discovering this, that what you yourself were experiencing personally, then you have this. System, which is kind of like the learning system or the educational system that you wanted to get into.

And everybody's kind of messaging the same way. Like, what was your big like, aha that you really started? Like, I always kind of picture somebody like grabbing onto like one thread that suddenly starts to like unravel the whole massive it was there anything that sticks. 

Alexis: Yeah. I mean, I think that the most impactful moment for me was I first started learning about the health at every size movement.

When I was at a mindful eating retreat, the retreat itself was very weight loss focused, but there was a group of people there who were involved in health at every size. And I remember sitting at lunch with someone one day and I was, you know, I'm sure, kind of proudly telling them about my work as an obesity researcher and they were horrified and, but contained themselves very well and started.

Talking about, you know, what the research really says about dieting and, you know, the way that I remember it, someone said to me like, well, but we know that diets don't work. And it was such an eyeopening moment for me because no, I didn't realize that. And to. Question that to think of that, because I had always been taught that we had to diet that dieting was just like the normal way of life.

And I think when you grow up, so indoctrinated into that messaging from such a young age, we never questioned it. So I always thought there was something wrong with me that I couldn't just follow this plan and have my body look the way that I was told it was supposed to. And that it was like a switch flipped of being able to see that the problem is not me.

The problem is that the entire system is rigged. Like the whole system is flawed. And like you said, it was kind of a thread. And, you know, I can't say that I changed everything at that moment, but it rattled around my brain for a while. And I started learning more and more and kind of the more that I. I started to see and understand it felt a little bit like one of those moments in the matrix where you realize that everything is a bit of an illusion and it was like, I'm seeing, you know, diet culture everywhere.

I'm seeing the ways that we're taught that we're not worthy everywhere. And I'm seeing those things as a product of the dysfunctional system rather than. Truths that I had internalized about myself not being good enough. So yeah. 

Monica: Yeah. What a moment, because it's, it's almost like the story that you've been telling yourself, your whole life about yourself now.

No longer fits it. No longer works. And so now what, and I think that's a scary moment for a lot of people. But I think like one of the things that you pointed to was you were in a community already of people who were kind of busting that myth and telling a new story and, and starting to really kind of help you reframe.

What is all of this and how much more can we kind of like disrupt the scaffolding that holds this whole facade up? 

Alexis: And I think it really. Let's say, I just want to add that. Like, I think it also really speaks to the power of these one-on-one interactions. I think oftentimes people say to me, oh, it's so overwhelming.

Like our whole culture is so dedicated to diet culture and, you know, weight focused, uh, beauty ideals. And what can I. One person. And you know, you, you never know what's going on for each person that you talk with and that you interact with. And, you know, I was at that moment really, you know, set up for a career in obesity research and weight management and this conversation, you know, changed my trajectory.

Other things were going on as well. Like seeing that it didn't work, but this was, you know, it wasn't a community that I was involved in. It was more of a chance meeting at a weekend retreat that I was on. Um, I went back to work. You know, Monday in a very weight focused environment. And you know, it was that from their slow process of change, but I think.

Each person who starts to recognize the investment of the, you know, these systems like diet culture, the patriarchy capitalism, you know, all the systems that are invested in us believing that we're not good enough. So we buy different products so that we act certain ways and do these things to keep the system afloat, like each person who recognizes that and rejects those ideals and ops out, and maybe has a conversation with someone else in your life, or as a parent, you know, raises your kids a little bit differently.

I truly do believe that that's how the change is going to happen. We need big, big waves happening too, but those, those small interactions are really important. 

Monica: They're really, really important. I think it w I think w when. A woman, you know, speaks out in a counter narrative. It really like, has it really generates attention?

Right. It's very impactful because it it's, it's almost like, you know, all the salmon are swimming in the same direction and suddenly you've got somebody swimming in a different direction. It's like, whoa, what's happening here. You know? And there's also, I think a resonance, like a resonance of truth that happens when we hear somebody speak, you know, to something that has always kind of banged around back there is like, and there's so much relief that comes in that moment that we realized like, my God, it's not me.

I'm not broken. I'm not fricking broken. I have been spending my whole life thinking there is something wrong with me and yet. The system is rigged, the system is rigged. So I also have a curiosity question with. When you went back to work back to work that day over time, were you able to impact that system or, or did you have to get out of the system to create impact on your own?

Alexis: So I spent a number of years kind of staying within that system and trying to make changes and make impact. And I, you know, ultimately I did end up kind of moving away from that because it started to feel. Like, I, I think it's really important that we do that. People who are kind of quote unquote on the inside of these systems do really try to make impact.

Cause I think that's a powerful way of making change for me. It kind of got to the point that the impact I was making felt so small and that the. It felt like I was supporting these organizations in some way that it felt I started to feel a real disconnection from myself from, with what I felt to be.

Right. And I'm talking about things like speaking at conference at wheat focus conferences, where I wasn't getting in there with a really radically different message, but trying to kind of sneak little seeds in here or there that's what could, what I was, you know, I think it's really hard work to make change from within.

And if you're in a position that you can do it, it can be incredibly, incredibly, uh, you know, powerful. 

Monica: But what I'm hearing is that ultimately you disconnected from that system and, and kind of went a different direction. 

Alexis: I did. And you know, for me, I was in a, I was in a unique position because I was working, you know, at that time, mostly in my private practice, I was still involved in the research in the research community, but my bread and butter of the work I was doing was through my private practice and through my clinical work.

So for me to, you know, over time, move away from that, it was more of a, you know, I think that what I was losing was kind of the. The goodies that came with having had kind of established like reputation for myself in that certain career or that segment of my career that I had to give up and move away from in some ways.

It's a lot harder, obviously when your nine to five is within, you know, a week normative system and you have to completely change career paths or change jobs to do that. So I just want to be upfront that I did not have to make those kinds of sacrifices. 

Monica: Well, and I wonder if, you know, for our listeners, you could take us through like, how do you work with some of your clients and what, or even like a day in the life.

Like if there's a scenario, like, cause I'm just imagining that there are a number of different struggles, but there's kind of a way that you start to teach this anti diet and you of course have the online. Program that I, you know, however much you want to say, but just to give our listeners a little taste of what this kind of work looks like or feels like.

Alexis: Yeah. So the way that I work, you know, I have kind of a structured program that I've laid out in the online program. We go through more in depth. It's also kind of a somewhat similar structure to what I've laid out in the book. Somewhat similar to the work that I do in my practice, although that's obviously more individualized to each person, but a lot of people come in to work with me where they're kind of in a place where they're still.

One foot sometimes too, in diet culture, meaning they don't feel good about their body. They know that their eating is dis-regulated in some way, they, they know that something wants to, you know, they want to change. They know that what they've been doing, isn't working, but they're not really at a place of just saying I'm accepting my body and I'm starting to eat intuitively or, or mindfully, you know?

So they're in that open to change. Place, but still often very much holding on to dieting because we live in a culture that really does tell us that our worth is dependent on our body size and that the thinner we are, the smaller we are, the more valuable we are. So it makes a lot of sense that people hold onto that and still want to lose weight.

So one of the things that I think is really important is to just try to share some of the research and what the science actually says about dieting and weight loss, so that we can help people shift from this idea that I'm not losing weight. You know, if I'm my body, you know, that body size is not a reflection of health.

It's not a reflection of our value as a human being. It's really, you know, determined by so many things that is largely outside of our control and it's not, you know, I think a lot of people are taught this narrative around personal responsibility and that if I just try hard enough and do the right things and have restraint and self-discipline, then I can have my body look the way that our culture tells us it's supposed to look.

And that's what. The case. And then many people, you know, as we've talked about, end up blaming themselves and feeling that they're the ones that are broken. So I think the first step is to really start to shift the blame away from ourselves to our culture that is convincing us, that it's our fault and starting to see that, you know, the thing that's broken is our culture, not ourselves.

And when we can shift that, That can help us move away from these old programs and plans and things that we've been doing that really aren't working for us. And that's keeping us stuck in this place of eating in a way that doesn't feel good and kind of doing that over and over again, and start to heal our relationship with food and our bodies.

And ultimately kind of reconnect and come back home to ourselves. So I use a lot of, um, mindfulness and mindful eating and self-compassion work, acceptance work to help us, you know, the first kind of phase is about just reconnecting with our physical body and understanding when we're hungry, what we want to eat, how different foods make our.

Yo, what we enjoy eating, reclaiming pleasure in food, trying to get out of the con uh, conflicts around food. And then also, you know, ultimately like how did y'all with emotions that might come up around all of this, um, how to sit with our feelings, how to kind of work with uncomfortable emotions. And then the last phase, which is what I really love is is that when we have created this extra space in our lives to that.

Consumed with hating ourselves and thinking about what we're going to eat and not eat all the time, then how do we want to live our lives? And how can we live a life that's really aligned with our values that has meaning that is filled with pleasure. And it comes back to what we had talked about initially, you know, that I think deprivation often happens in many layers of our life and.

When we are able to feed ourselves and nourish ourselves with food, sometimes that also also opens up space to nourish and feed ourselves in other ways to really live like a full whole life that feels meaningful and pleasurable. 

Monica: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I mean, I was just thinking about what you said, like the space that's not consumed with hating ourselves, because when you think about that statistic that you shared earlier, What was it? 90, 

Alexis: 91% of women. 

Monica: I mean, come on 91%. When I think about how much of, how much time of our waking hours is spent. Like in, just in these, in these narratives inside of ourselves, every time you look at a reflection, every time you eat something, every time you go to prepare to put clothes on or take a shower, right?

Like there's so many opportunities to kind of trigger that conversation, that inner dialogue. And when, when you think about it, it's like what a shift, what a. Uh, difference in now being able to disrupt that trance of unworthiness and actually start to feed ourselves so disrupting the messaging and to be able to feed ourselves nourishing messages of love toward ourselves, and to be able to actually.

Taste food to slow down because we're not doing it for the wrong reasons. We're not eating the things that we don't actually even enjoy eating because they don't, you know, because we've been taught that we have to eat them because they're the things that are going to make us. Disappear honestly, is what we've been taught to do is to make ourselves disappear in so many ways.

I mean, it's just, it's again, I go back to the tragedy of this, but I also want to share personally that, you know, I'll never forget that part of my journey and kind of coming back home to myself was. Learning how to feel. And you, you were talking about this and it's like, I remember for the longest time I was working with somebody that would say, how do you feel right now?

And I'd be like, feel like. Like, what do you mean by that? And, and I D I could have a relationship to saying, like, I feel full or I feel heavy, or I feel gross, but I didn't have language for other feelings yet because I had disassociated so much from my own embodied intelligence and my own embodied permission to declare or to explore, or to.

Work with what was there and to have somebody even be with me to witness me who wasn't going to either make me weird for it or put me down for it, or they themselves get uncomfortable. It was like, it was such a, it was such a gift to have somebody who was embodied, who was a wise woman, start to kind of lead me back.

And model what it was to actually articulate feelings, even though her feelings might not have been my feelings, it gave me language. It gave me hope for having sex. You know, it was like, And, and once I started to actually give myself permission to say, to say things like I'm feeling something come up in my throat.

I think this is an emotion I'm feeling like something feels like it's blooming in my chest. Right. I think it's anxiety. Maybe it's excitement. I don't know. Right. Like it was, it was so confusing to come back to my body. It was literally like they say, it's a jungle out there. Well, it's a jungle in. Because, but, but yet I'm the queen of the jungle, right?

Like now I'm the queen of the jungle. Cause like I know what's going on inside of myself now. Like I know how to orient myself to like what my body's trying to tell me, but that is a journey that is a practice. And so for our listeners, I think that's like just a huge part of it is this emotional piece is like the, the articulation and the feelings.

And like the coming back into being with these really difficult emotions without abandoning ourselves or disassociating or running or. Fulfilling, right. Like feeding it, like with something, drink food, whatever, because I think the more we can get in touch with what we're really hungering for, the more we can disentangle ourselves from the illusion, the starvation, the deprivation.

And it's like this other piece that I want to point to. That was huge for me is, and was pleasure, you know? And, and how much of our. How much of our it's like our embodied, right? Not only to feel, but to Intuit the world, like an addict to be built as a woman is such a gift because we're our neural networks.

Like the way that we actually are built to perceive and Intuit the world is such a gift to the world, which is part of the reason. We have, we, we create an environment for women to disembody is so that they're not in their power because when there we're in our power, we are finely tuned to what is going on and we don't take shit.

We do not, you know, like it's like, this is some bullshit, right? Like then we start to actually be able to like, whoa, what's going on here. 

Alexis: Yeah. And that's why I called the book, the Diet for Free Revolution. Because I think that when we start to reclaim our sense of power, which is very hard to do that.

Stuck in the trance of unworthiness when we're stuck in this sense of, you know, not being good enough and trying to shrink our, our bodies until we disappear. We are not able to fully claim our power because there's this huge distraction that's taking up so much of our time and energy. And I think that, you know, I really do hope that like if a critical mass of people is, are able to free themselves from that system and reclaim their power, like we're going to see some real change in the world.

Monica: Yes, we are going to see some real change in the world. Amen to that. I believe that wholeheartedly and 

Alexis: Sorry, I just want to pick up quickly on what you were talking about with emotions, because I think this is such an important piece. And obviously as a psychologist, emotions have a very special place in my heart, but in my, one of the things that I had found with clients over the decade or so that I've been working with people, struggling with these issues is exactly what you described is there's a lot of language for feelings around.

I feel. gross. I feel bloated. I feel full, but in terms of getting into really how we feel there can be a big disconnection and, you know, I really break it down to basics in my book, in terms of like, here are some, you know, here are some emotions that people generally feel and, you know, here, like we talked about the four basic emotions that can we try to even category.

Are we feeling more in one of these rounds or another, just to start to name it, even if it's not perfect to start to put a label on that, there is an emotion here. And then a lot of the times, you know, the next thing that I get asked by my clients is, okay, I feel something, how do I make it go away? 

You know, I'm angry now, what do I do?

How do I get rid of it? And you know, so like there also a lot of the work is kind of de demystifying emotions. Like accepting that they're not, you know, it can feel scary, but they're not ultimately, you know, going to destroy us and we can just sit with them. And the more that we sit with them, the more practice we get to a bad and the more comfortable it is.

And the more that we get to know ourselves, because emotions are important, messengers of information. And if we're just kind of pushing all of our feelings away all the time, that's a lot of ourselves that we're keeping at a distance. 

Monica: Oh, my gosh. Is it ever? Yeah, it's, it's so true, right? Like the, now what do I do?

It it's the allowing, right? It's like, it's like part of the, part of the unbecoming process is recognizing that everything gets to belong. Right. Including ourselves like that, that everything, all of our emotions, all of the, the good, the bad and the ugly, all of the body parts, all of the paradoxes, all of the grief, my God.

Right? All of the grief, all of the anger. Like it gets to belong here. And I think when we kind of get that, there's nothing to solve that there's nothing to fix. And it's more about just the witnessing, like the what's here now. Oh. You know, and to just be curious with ourselves, like, oh, oh, I'm actually like tender about that.

Right? Like I actually feel sadness. Look, we don't have to know why. We don't have to know why yet. Just, just to notice is such a powerful, powerful it's like, I think about like the life preserver, somebody throws out on the shit, like, just to notice is like the life preserver that we can just, you know, hold on to and just buoy ourselves in the noticing.

You know, and it's like, when everything gets to belong, there's nothing to run from. There's nothing to hide from. There's nothing to mask or, you know, and that's this part of the reason, like, I love this subject about like say yes to the mass, like all of these messy places that we've been taught to cover up, we've been taught to hide.

Put a plant in front of it, even in my house, right? It's like, there's a hole in the wall. Let me put a plant in it or let me put a low, you put a pretty picture in front of it. It's like, we're so uncomfortable with these messy places. And yet, you know, these are the places that the Lotus blooms, like we're also kind of have these beautiful stories and metaphors and nature is always showing us like, but Hey, if you don't go into this messy dark place, That's where enlightenment happens.

That's where we start to, like, we ha we can trust ourselves that we don't, we're not going to be down there forever. And plus I always, I even laugh at like the down there. Right. It's like, it's just it's for me, like coming home is also like that, that rooting that coming back to the, to the mother, to the womb, to the darkness, to the.

You know, to that creation place, because like when we can, unbecome like you had talked earlier about like this spaciousness that shows up when we're no longer hating ourselves. All of that time and effort we spend hating ourselves. Well, what is that space now get dedicated toward, I mean, the possibilities are endless.

Alexis: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's really powerful. And it's one of, you know, all of what you're describing is one of the reasons that I think that mindfulness lays the foundation to the work, you know, at least the work that I do in terms of. You know, creating the space and increasing our ability to just sit and be with ourselves and to accept, uh, accept with curiosity and with compassion and to notice.

And I think that I agreed noticing is one of the most powerful things. And I said, Over and over again to my clients is, you know, can you just notice that and, you know, maybe bring your awareness. Cause I think from noticing it opens up the space for us to make intentional choices about how we want to move forward.

So, you know, like, can you notice those negative. Thoughts about your body coming up. And when we notice it, then we have more control over it, not in control over the thoughts, but control over how we react to the thoughts. So when we're on autopilot or we're not aware, we're not noticing, you know, it's kind of, there might be a thought.

I hate my body and then. The next spot is, you know, don't eat that donut. And the next thought is you have to get back on a diet. What's wrong with you, you know? And then we're led down this spiral versus where we can notice. We can notice that thought I hate my body and maybe say, oh, that's the story that I've been told that from a culture that's deeply invested in me, hating my body.

How do I want. Forward. And then maybe thinking about, is there a way that you can really care for yourself in this moment? Is there a way you can Sue yourself, tend to those feelings and it's such a different path, you know, overinvest, probably one of the things that I say over and over again is can you just notice, 

Monica: Can you just notice it's also such a powerful parenting tool because you know, I, I parent both a daughter and a son.

And it's really important to me and to us that not only do we notice kind of our interior feelings and thoughts, but that my children recognize and notice how they're being messaged to, you know, in question. Messages, you know, and really interrogate those intentions behind those messages, because that's where I think, you know, we do tend to get entranced is when nobody's talking about it and we don't normalize that we can see, right.

We can now see behind these messages. And we know for instance that the beauty industry. Benefits from our brokenness, from, from us, believing in our brokenness. I mean, and, and that there's any number of ways that we can, like you said, unconsciously kind of subscribe to that without realizing kind of that spiral that just kind of never ends.

And so creating opportunities for conversation and dialogue. Has been really powerful for me as a parent, not only to disrupt my own trance, but to disrupt the generational trance because my own children, I want them to know, to question everything, to question everything and. Especially, I think when the symptoms show up in our bodies as dis-ease, because oftentimes I can be out and about with my kids and something shifts and it's like, huh, where'd you just go?

What just happened? And something will have happened. Maybe it was a message that they saw and suddenly they started like comparing and despairing because they check their phone or they saw something that like put them in. So it's like just being aware of like these subtle shifts in our energy and what triggered it.

Alexis: Exactly. And I think that, you know, as a parent for myself often, I, you know, kind of get misled into believing that a lot of it is like having these big conversations with our kids, which I, you know, my oldest daughter is 6 it could be tricky trying to explain like systems of oppression to a six year old without making her believe that everything in the world is, you know, lying to her and hope to get her.

But I think that all also kids, you know, and research supports this, that more than anything, kids pick up on how we're, what we're doing and how we're talking, especially to ourselves, you know, even in terms of body, Some studies show that the most important predictor of how a, I think the research is done on girls, like how a daughter will feel about her own bodies, how her mother feels about her own body.

You know, I think that starting to do the healing for ourselves is in itself going to make an intergenerational. 

Monica: I couldn't agree more. So I know that we're at time and I'm like, ah, see, I knew it. Like, we're just starting, we're just getting started. That's the way I feel. So I just want to, you know, thank you.

And I want to ask you to tell our listeners, like where can they go and learn more? You know, I don't know if you have a place you'd like to direct them to, I don't know if you have a free gift or something to download or something to check out, but I'd love for you to tell us. 

Alexis: Yeah. So I do have a free five day mindful eating a starter course that you can get from my website, which is Dr.Conasandot com. Or you can go to the anti diet plan.com/free, and that will bring you to the free five day. I also have a signature six week mindful eating course, the anti diet plan, which you can find on the MD diet plan.com. My book, the Diet Free Revolution is available. Wherever books are sold, you can get it through the penguin random house website.

Amazon independent bookstores, wherever you get your books. And you can find more information if you're in New York, Florida, or a few other states and are interested in therapy through my practice, you can find information about that at Dr. conason.com and I'm most active on social media on Instagram at the anti-diet plan.

Monica: I love it. I love it. Well, Alexis, this has just been so great and I love that. Like, I'm kind of realizing the timing is so great. Like 20, 22 can be like the anti diet year. I hope it is. All right. And so for our listeners, we'll be sure to have all of Alexis's links in the show notes. And until next time more to be revealed, we hope you enjoyed this episode.

For more information, please visit us@jointherevelation.com and be sure to download our free gift, subscribe to our mailing list or leave us a review on iTunes. We thank you for your generous listening. More to be revealed.