S2E13 S1E13 Midlife Body Liberation With Deb Benfield

The years leading up to and during menopause are a rite of passage.

The wise woman inside of us is calling to slow down,

To take stock,

To speak our truth,

To burn away all that no longer serves us,

Ready for our next cycle of life.

The good news is with the support,

Community,

Connection,

And most of all,

Sharing our stories and being truly seen and heard,

We will travel through this powerful,

Sometimes painful heroine's journey and out the other side.

Welcome to the Menopause Podcast,

Real and raw stories of midlife and mental health.

I'm your host,

Kylie Patchett,

Menopause self-care coach and storyteller,

And I am so glad you found us.

Let's get on with the show.

I think we start every single show with a little happy dance.

I wish people could see this.

I am wiggling today because I am about to start a conversation with the beautiful Deb Benfield.

Hello,

Deb.

How are you?

Hello.

Thank you so much for having me here.

We are just about to dive into one of my most favorite topics.

So for those ladies in the audience that don't already know you,

Would you like to introduce yourself and what you do in the world?

Yes.

I am a registered dietitian and I have been for more than 35 years specializing in preventing and treating eating disorders.

And my passion currently is working with women who are midlife and older,

Who really want to push back against all the social constructs about our aging bodies and find some liberation there.

And I'm very kind of in love with it right now.

So it's going to be an interesting conversation.

I love that you're in love with it because I don't know whether you actually already know,

But I am in eating disorder recovery.

So this is a topic very close to my heart.

And it's interesting.

I don't know,

I always trust the timing of our lives,

Right?

I always end up having conversations just when they're because I've just gone through after two solid years of recovery and not following any food rules and like none of this weird,

Crazy,

Crazy major things that can happen in your mind with eating disorder just lately have gone down the track in my brain of like,

Really do need to find the answer to fixing this body.

And I'm like,

Whoa,

Like how after I am talking two solid years and it shouldn't surprise me because I've had it disordered in my entire life.

But let's start there with how do you think because you've done this for such a long time.

So you've been working with people with disordered eating and recovery for quite a long time.

How does the midlife and beyond peace change the story around the disorder eating or the disordered body image?

I'm really interested to hear.

Wow.

We can speak the rest of the time in answering that question.

I have several different theories.

One of them is based on Sonia Renee Taylor's work around like that we actually live in a body hierarchy and people can't see the motion I'm making with my hands.

I'm building a hierarchy.

Yes.

I like it.

I like it.

It is.

It is.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And at the top,

Of course,

We have this default body that is thin and young and able-bodied and neuro-normative and cis-gendered and,

You know,

Et cetera,

All the things.

And that default body or folks that carry those attributes have like natural access to the power and a sense of belonging and safety.

And so when you're anything other,

Literally other than that,

You lose a sense of safety and power.

So,

Of course,

As you age and or if your body is not thin,

You feel less safe and people literally could have sensed this change as you age.

It's a feeling that you get.

And my clients,

Of course,

Describe what happens when their bodies change too.

They don't feel as safe when they're not as thin as before.

So there's a natural pull toward passing as young,

Passing as thin.

Of course,

There's a vulnerability that is very real to diet or to do all the things to look younger.

Right.

It's very understandable.

And I have a lot of compassion for people who feel that.

Yeah.

I understand it.

I'm wondering as you're talking,

Because in some ways,

The sense of being less safe,

You know,

In some ways is to do with this system of oppression,

This hierarchy of bodies,

You know,

The,

Shall we say,

The rightest body on top and the least right,

I don't know what language you want to say,

But anything other than.

And as you're talking,

I'm thinking I'm actually picturing almost like a Barbie-like body,

Like,

You know,

The thin blonde head,

You know,

Whatever.

And this sense of lacking or losing safety is in one part imagined because of that system of oppression,

But in another part,

Very much backed up by that system of oppression.

But also I think something I was just sharing with you before we started recording,

I've just discovered that I've got this ligament thing going on.

That's a disorder I've had for my entire life,

But it's showing up much more in perimenopause.

All of a sudden,

My version of my aging body,

Which has always been based on my 91-year-old father who was still,

You know,

Striding around doing a kilometer of walking morning and evening and still driving a car,

Like that to me in my mind has always been the way that I'm going to age.

Right.

And then all of a sudden I'm starting to get these questions of like,

Wow,

If this pain is like this and I'm only 48,

What happens?

So do you feel like there is imagined loss of safety and then real loss of safety and then this mobility or pain or whatever changes as well that they do to me feel like a shifting foundation?

I don't know whether I would use the word safety,

But I feel like that's a contributing factor.

Yeah,

The fact that perimenopause reminds you that indeed you don't have control.

Nice.

Your body is going to shift and change.

Yeah.

And certainly from then on,

There are going to be changes in how you experience your life through your body.

So yes,

That's real.

I agree.

And how we respond to that,

Of course,

There could be fear.

There could be like feeling desperate,

Like white knuckling around trying to control,

You know,

Increasing.

So yes,

I agree.

There are things that are very real and there are stories that we tell ourselves that we're sold,

That we inherit.

Right.

It's a combination.

100%.

100%.

Yeah.

I love the way that you put it.

You have this beautiful saying of when you're thinking about the relationship with your body,

Your body is not a project,

It's your partner.

Yes.

And that is such a key shift,

Isn't it?

And feeling like to me in my body,

Those two things feel very different.

And it's been interesting navigating this voice.

And I totally understand that the voice,

The part of me that is trying to say,

You know,

This has gone too far.

You've put on too much weight.

You are now like it's almost like a danger signal,

Like the canary in the coal mine.

Like if you don't fix this now,

You're never going to fix it.

Even just the fixing language,

Again,

Is back to project.

And it's also back to trying to,

There's a grasping when you are in the changing perimenopause.

Because the other thing I feel like for me with perimenopause,

I've always had this thought of myself as,

Oh,

Exactly like I said,

I'm just like,

You know,

Healthy as a horse,

You know,

My body's fine and everything.

And then all of a sudden I find myself on my five medications and all these doctors and specialist appointments.

And I think,

Holy moly,

That my entire kind of self-identification has been put on a microscope.

And so it's not surprising that because for someone or anyone who has ever had an experience of,

You know,

Going on this desire to change the shape of their body or change something about their body,

There is a sense of control that you get from that.

Or at least for me,

And I will talk about my own experience,

I won't tell everyone what they're thinking,

That the control gives you a false sense of safety.

And that I think is what I've been seeking.

So it's not about the body,

It's not about anything to do with that.

And so when people are looking for that sense of control,

And you said before,

You know,

Deeply compassionate about it,

How do you help people shift from grasping for that control to being more,

Well,

In partnership?

What does that look like?

I mean,

And again,

That's a huge question,

I know it probably wasn't,

People have over years to do this,

But what are some of the things that we can feel into for ourselves?

When I think about,

Well,

I'll just start with one kernel of what I think you're getting at,

And that is,

What is it like to actually develop a,

What I would hope would be healthy,

For lack of a better word,

Relationship?

Like we know what that looks like in our other relationships.

Like to offer listening,

And attention,

And connection,

And asking for consent,

And trust,

The building trust,

In my mind is the same,

Applying what we know with how you relate to your own body.

So what would that look like?

The listening piece,

Like checking in with yourself as you go through your day,

Like,

I put my hand on my heart every time I do this,

Because that's what I do in my life,

Is like a kinetic connection with a part of me that kind of prompts that check-in,

And to really give myself a chance to slow down and listen to my body's response and wisdom,

And honoring that,

Trying not to push it away.

The consent asking is,

I know,

Kind of an odd concept,

But actually,

Like,

Checking in with your body is like,

So,

Are you feeling thirsty?

Do you feel like,

I mean,

Before we started,

We were talking about you being cold.

I mean,

Do you need to go put socks on?

Do you need,

Would hot tea feel nice?

Do you need to take a break,

And put everything down,

And give yourself,

You know,

Five to 20 minutes to rest?

Does this really taste good?

Is eating this,

You think,

Going to make you feel the way you want to feel?

Is it energizing?

Is it comforting?

Like a literally relationship.

I believe that there's huge healing capacity in shifting into that.

And it feels good.

And a deep sense of gentleness.

And I perhaps should offer a caveat here,

Because it's not always safe to be in your body,

Right?

If you've had trauma,

If you've been through harsh experiences with dieting and eating disorder,

Sometimes it doesn't feel safe to be in your body.

There's a lot that you're trying to escape there.

So walking toward your own body relationship,

You know,

Can be very slow,

Can be small steps.

But there's an awful lot of freedom,

And a different kind of safety there.

Yeah.

As you're speaking,

I'm just imagining,

Like,

You know,

My most treasured,

Like,

Relationships.

I've got a dear,

Dear friend in Sydney who's going through something really hard at the moment.

And I just think,

Oh,

Get myself emotional.

Yes,

I understand.

But that gentleness and compassion that I would offer in any other relationship in my life,

I'm only just on the beginning of the journey of offering that to myself in any capacity.

And I think what you said before about not feeling safe in your body,

I had many unsafe experiences as a kid,

And that definitely has coloured my relationship with my body.

Because I have literally,

I don't feel like I have been in my body until perimenopause pulled me into my body.

And whilst that is deeply uncomfortable at times,

It is such a deep gift,

Because it's making me realise,

Like,

I had a moment,

As you're talking,

Last night,

I quite often,

Especially when I'm writing copy,

You know,

It's one of the other things that I do when I was writing copy,

And I hadn't been able to kind of get,

I often will have this sort of idea of a thread of something that I want to,

You know,

Write about,

And then the writing just comes.

And the thread was there,

But I couldn't,

I don't know,

I couldn't quite pull on it.

And then all of a sudden,

At about six o'clock,

Which would usually be my well and truly I'm done for the day,

I'm,

You know,

Packing up shop,

I just got this,

Ah,

And I kept writing.

I kept writing.

And I was so cold in my body,

And my feet were icy,

Because I'd had my windows open.

I'd closed the windows,

But I hadn't gone the next step of,

You know,

I will so often do that,

Where I will ignore thirst,

And I'm just like,

I'm not in my body.

It's just basic honoring.

And at the beginning of,

I have a program called Soothe,

And at the beginning of that,

We talk about,

You know,

If you walked into a room and there was a baby crying in a crib,

What would you do?

And we all know what we would do.

Like,

We would pick up,

We would coddle,

We could,

We would whisper,

We would,

You know,

Feed,

Clothe,

You know,

All of those things.

We would gently rock,

We would,

But,

And the reason why I teach Soothe is very much about this reconnection to,

Can we tend to our own needs?

Yes.

And for me,

I think the biggest thing is,

You can't tend to your own needs when you're not listening in the first place.

No,

No,

You have no awareness.

No.

And so this,

Yeah,

The checking in and the,

For me,

I know not everyone's a journaler,

But I actually talk to my body in my journal,

Which sounds a bit weird,

But yeah.

Sounds wonderful.

Yeah.

What messages do you have?

And particularly when there's,

You know,

Pain and discomfort,

It's like,

Okay,

How can I most take care of you?

But I feel like I've got like little,

Um,

What are those little training wheels on?

You know,

I'm only just,

I'm only just on my,

My,

Um,

My little kind of body connection bike.

Um,

When we're not connected to our bodies,

Have you read,

Um,

The Wisdom of Your Body by Hilary McPhee?

Yes,

Yes.

I only just read it a couple of weeks ago.

Um,

I really,

Really loved the way that she was talking about it.

Um,

When,

When you feel into the pattern of people with eating disorders,

What would you say about the relationship that people have with their body when they have that disordered,

You know,

Because there's such a big,

It's like a whole picture thing,

Isn't it?

Can we talk to that for a bit?

Sure.

I,

Are you saying,

Can we talk about her or talk about.

Oh no,

Not,

Not her specifically,

But just,

I liked the way.

Yeah.

I liked the way that she explained the eating disorder kind of slippery slide when you're not in your body,

Because when you're not in your body,

It is much easier to ignore and not tend to those needs,

Isn't it?

Right.

And we are praised.

There's so much praise for the kinds of things that happen there.

When you don't take the time to eat.

I mean,

So many of my clients tell me about,

You know,

Upbringings or relationships where there was praise for not stopping and taking the time to eat.

Yes.

We tend to drive ourselves and honor productivity and other things above slowing down and saying,

I need,

Like,

Is it okay to acknowledge that I need a sandwich?

That's crazy,

Isn't it?

Yes.

I need to take a break.

I need to get a fresh,

A breath of fresh air.

I mean,

It's,

It's,

It's hard for us to acknowledge that we need.

There's a vulnerability,

I suppose.

Why is it the productivity thing?

Is it like,

I know a lot of people in my circle would say it's a bloody patriarchy.

Like they started that,

You know,

Five day week.

And I think that there is a flavor of that,

But.

Oh,

For sure.

No question.

Is it?

I don't know.

I think my generation definitely got sold the,

You can have it all idea.

And I think that no one ever put the,

Like,

Postscript on the end,

But not all at the same time.

I feel like I definitely drank the Kool-Aid of having it all like,

You know,

Worked.

And I look back at,

I've talked about this before on this podcast.

I was pregnant with my first daughter and I was,

I was managing a sleep and respiratory company.

And so if someone didn't turn up for their night shift,

I would just work a second 12 hour shift.

And I,

And I was pregnant.

Didn't think two things of it.

And I would almost,

No,

Not almost,

I'm going to be honest.

I would feel this great sense of like,

Okay,

No one else will do it.

Or I won't ask anyone else to do it,

But I'm the leader.

I will,

You know,

And I'm like,

My,

Um,

What's that word?

My currency was working hard and,

You know,

We could go down a whole other track of where I live.

And your identity,

Your identity about what you're capable of.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And,

Um,

I,

I love,

Uh,

One of the very first times that I really learned how not in my body I was as a younger person,

I went to,

Um,

My kids were only little,

I was working in medical science and I very quickly figured out that the way that science and medicine pulls people apart into all the different organs.

I just didn't agree that it doesn't work.

And I was just like,

Can you not see that,

You know,

Like I just,

Just did not make any sense anyway.

So I went seeking other answers and I went to study,

Um,

Traditional Chinese medicine,

But the teacher was also a yoga teacher.

And so we used to do yoga three times a day when I was studying,

Which was just delightful.

But he used to say to me,

Um,

He would often say,

Just because you can,

Doesn't mean you should.

I was like,

That was the repeated thing because,

And I guess for me,

Skeletally or not skeletally,

But joint wise,

I can go way further than what you should.

And so I feel like it's kind of like my life lesson,

But it's like,

Yeah.

What,

How do you,

Well,

I guess the journey that I'm on,

It sounds like a similar one to what you work with is the,

Um,

Yeah.

How do you disconnect the,

I don't know what it is,

The dopamine hit or the,

Whatever it is that you get,

The secondary gain you get from the pushing through,

Right.

Like last night,

Go and get a pair of socks on,

Turn a heater on.

You can still write like you don't have to inch,

But I just get so.

Well,

Hello there.

Interrupting this episode just briefly to share a bit of exciting news.

One of the things that has surprised me the most about this perimenopause journey is the fact that the former younger version of Kylie,

Who would always plan and goal set has learned that life often has other ideas.

And that is exactly the same as what has happened in my business.

I thought when I returned to business back in October last year,

That I would go straight back into coaching,

Which is what I've always done in my own business.

And I did do a little bit of coaching,

But then life called me to study yoga specifically for menopause and start Sue,

The self-care immersion program that I have.

And something else that has naturally unfolded is for me to use my marketing and communication skills from 15 plus years in all sorts of different communication,

Storytelling and relationship building roles and offering that as a service to women in business.

So if you're listening to this podcast and you identify as a woman entrepreneur who is a healer or a helper and does work that is deeply transformative for the clients that you work with.

One of my favourite things is similar to this podcast,

Interviewing you,

Pulling out the golden threads that inform who you are and why you are so passionate about what you do in the world and weaving them into a beautiful set of magnetic content and copy that is attracting to your best fit clients.

So if you need the help of a copywriter or storyteller,

Reach out to me,

You'll find all the information on my website under storytelling or at the bottom of the show notes.

Now back to the show.

Excited.

Yes.

And you get disembodied,

Right?

Because you're like,

Yeah,

Which makes sense.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it is that taking the time and I feel like with nourishment,

Yeah,

It's the exact opposite,

Isn't it?

So as a dietitian,

Do you have people still,

When people come to you in midlife,

What are their biggest struggle points?

Like what do you see?

It's this shift to somehow the lacking of safety if their body's changing.

What else?

And they're experiencing something new and different in that it's actually not new and different,

But they're not remembering how it felt when they went through puberty.

Yes.

Or perhaps like when they,

If they did go through labor and breastfeeding,

That there was a force of nature that was controlling your body and your body's size and shape.

And it's happening again.

So the starting line is many times what I've always done isn't working anymore.

So what that many times means,

My translation of that is I've been manipulating lots of things to maintain this one particular way of looking in my body and it's slipping from my grasp and what do I do?

And so I can't do anything about them getting control over their body,

But I can help them realize that it's okay and everything's going to be okay.

And actually there's cause for celebration in that.

The concept of letting yourself go and how much I love that phrase.

Yes,

Me too.

How much I celebrate that phrase every time I hear it.

It's like you've let go of the oppressive systems that you've been really allowing in.

Maybe you've let go of all of that.

Yeah.

And that's okay too.

So that's,

It also,

I have had experiences where,

When you say,

Particularly in friendship groups where you,

Where I have previously bonded over this manipulation of your body or that there's been a shared value of that.

Like,

Oh my goodness.

Oh,

For sure.

All of a sudden you must be a better person because you've lost 30 kilos.

It's like,

You're doing something right.

You're doing something right.

Yeah.

And do you know what is most disordered about that whole dance?

I think is that when I,

Particularly the last time I will say that I joined a cult of dieting,

Which was a horrendous experience,

But I was getting praise for my physical body and yet mentally I was so unwell,

So unwell in the way that I was scared of eating off plan or,

You know,

Like just so broken in the way that I viewed myself and my value and nourishing myself and all of those things.

This,

This program actually told people to just imagine chewing a food and just chew to stop being hungry,

To get past hunger.

And then.

Crazy town,

Crazy town.

It was into my senses,

Deb.

I was like,

What the F?

What?

Like,

I think of myself as a fairly smart person,

But not when it comes to,

I feel like this is a huge blind spot for me and always has been.

And yeah,

So the letting yourself go,

When I can find,

When I can connect to my body and do that,

Because I feel like I wax and wane through that connection.

And I think that that would be quite natural as like,

You know,

Have moments like last night,

But then other moments where,

Particularly because I have such a deep love of being on a yoga mat,

I always say,

That's where I feel like I meet myself.

I'm really in my body.

And so I'm very much more connected,

But that connection definitely waxes and wanes.

But when I'm most connected to my body,

My sense of.

Letting everything go is a sense of complete freedom.

Yeah.

It's like,

I don't have to like,

If my body feels like something and I feel like it would be nourishing to feed myself great.

If my body feels like not.

And I think this colors through the whole exercise thing in perimenopause as well,

Because I have gone through regimented exercise,

Like regimented exercise in my life and then nothing,

And then back to regimented.

And,

You know,

I'm,

I'm trying on for size again,

This sort of like flowing through my own needs,

But that deep sense of freedom,

When you use the word liberation,

What does that,

If you could give people that are listening and they're like,

I get what you're saying logically,

But I cannot get a sense of what it would be like to live like that.

Can you give us some words or some sensations about this body liberation that we can step into?

Yeah.

I think other than what I've already said about allowing yourself to be friend and to really snuggle up with what your body is letting,

You know,

I think there's also an expansion there and that's just me personally.

I,

I feel liberation feels like the horizon opening up.

Yeah.

There's,

There's like the barriers don't exist and it's just me and space and,

You know,

I'm just picturing like a sunset in front of me right now.

I'm just like meeting myself there,

Meeting myself in a space that is open,

That is free of barriers,

That allows me to move and play and be with my authentic self.

Has anybody talked to you about the podcast Wiser Than Me?

No.

It's a podcast by Julia Louise Dreyfus.

Oh,

Yeah.

I did just listen to the episode with Jane Fonda,

But I didn't realize that that was,

It was sent to me in a link.

So I didn't realize Eliza would,

Yeah,

Okay.

Well,

That's exactly what I was going to talk about because there is a part of that interview where she talks about realizing through all of her therapy that her need to win her father's,

You know,

Approval.

Yes.

Really kept her from her authentic self,

Looking outward for approval and kind of losing herself in that way.

And in this third act,

As she's calling this,

There is an opportunity for her to really be much more connected to the authentic girlhood self.

I feel strongly that that connection is available through body only.

Yes.

Because that's where the girlhood self resides.

Yes.

And when we can drop away from the male gaze,

All the things we've learned about how we should look.

Yeah.

When all of that is allowed to move out of our way,

Then we have the opportunity to meet our girlhood self.

Oh,

I love that.

And that is why I'm on fire about this whole thing because I personally long for that.

I long for that in my clients.

I have two granddaughters that I can see that spirit and it's just such a beautiful opportunity to have that freedom,

To have that liberation.

So this is a very long answer to your question,

But those are the pieces that kind of come to life for me when you ask that question.

Do you know what,

When you say your girlhood self,

I did not experience as much as a kid,

But what I imagined for myself is layfulness and children are so responsive,

Aren't they?

It's like,

I'm hungry or I want to go run or I want,

And there's no filter or censoring or like,

Oh,

But that's not the right thing to do or that isn't.

Yeah.

Yes.

I saw something.

I appreciate you saying that because I realized that not everybody has a girlhood that allows for that freedom.

You're right.

But that doesn't stop you yearning for it.

I think,

And I wonder whether part of this safety valve mechanism that's coming to the surface,

Looking for the control is actually because I'm getting closer and closer through the work that I'm doing with unwinding trauma to the sense of,

Yes,

The self that I could possibly have been.

And I wonder whether,

I do a lot of things in parts works and I wonder whether the part of me that is feeling threatened by that is just putting off an alarm bell because I felt really settled and calm and connected for a long,

I think it's not even two years.

I think it's almost three years since I opted out of the cult and did a lot of work with someone that was an eating disorder recovery specialist.

But yes,

My sense is that there's a little,

Still a bit of a wounded part of me that's still going,

Well,

This is dangerous.

You can't just do what you want because that means that you are going to be literally in danger or unsecure,

Not attached,

Et cetera,

Et cetera.

But as you're talking,

I mean,

This podcast used to be called Wild and Finally Free because when I went to visit that beautiful friend I was talking about in Sydney about September last year and I was still in a corporate job.

There was a lot of things that were not right in my life in terms of the stresses that I was trying to manage that I always have been able to manage and all of a sudden could not.

Thank you,

Perimenopause for the blessing of not having as much bandwidth to pretend I was okay.

But I wrote,

I went and sat down by the water and I wrote,

How do I really want to feel?

And I just waited for the answer.

And the answer was wild and totally fucking free.

And one of the biggest things that I wanted to be free of was the feeling like I had to think about because there is so much energy and space that has been wasted in my life thinking about what is the right thing to eat?

What is the right thing to do with my body?

How much weight I have put on?

I would say probably 50% of the joy space or the delight or the liberation in my life has been stolen with all of that.

When you talk about liberation and particularly that expansiveness of a sunset,

I put myself right on a motorbike right in the middle of that.

I love being on a bike and that's my freedom.

If I think about freedom,

That's free.

Particularly on a country road,

On a perfect riding day,

I don't ride a bike.

I am on the back of a bike,

Not that brave yet.

I really want to be,

But I'm not quite.

But that sense of expansiveness and freedom,

To me,

It's the space.

There's all this space that was taken up with all of this trying to fix or project,

Projectify.

I don't know whether that's a word,

But I'm going to make it a word,

My body.

And yeah,

It's not there.

And just in these recent few weeks where it's been popping up a lot more time and energy and I'm like,

I don't want to go back there.

I don't want to,

Because I feel like there's this great invitation in our midlife years to not take forward what we want to be free from.

Precisely.

I love it.

There is a true threshold and you have choices.

If you're going to still carry all of that through the threshold with you,

Or if you're going to step into that world and finally fucking free.

That's what my heart is calling me to do.

And yeah,

There's this little piece of this wounded and that's just showing me there's some other loving to do and that's okay.

You talk about this time of life being a time of emergence and is that what you're talking about this time of like,

What will we take with us?

Because I feel like perimenopause is the equivalent of being in the messy goo of the chrysalis.

You know,

When everything goes to genetic soup,

That's what I feel like.

Yes.

And I am well post-menopausal.

So I have perspective on the energy and the access to yourself that you have when the chrysalis stage is behind you.

I feel strongly that what starts to emerge can be incredibly exciting.

Yes.

I mean,

And this is my value system.

I try very hard to be careful about like projecting my values on others because feeling vital and excited about an adventure may not be what you're up to.

It may be like you want some chill.

You want some calm and comfort.

You want some release away from an adventure.

It could be lots of different things.

There are so many ways to live a life,

Right?

So just giving yourself a chance to emerge into how you want to age.

Yeah.

To give yourself that sense of agency.

I want a hybrid of those two things.

Like I want the adventure and I want the.

.

.

My dad was 55 when I was born,

So I never knew him as a younger person,

But he never felt old to me.

And I'm saying,

And this is ageism alive and kicking in me,

That what I used to think of as an older person,

Someone who's slowed down and is not so interested in life.

So let's put that like that is definitely,

You know,

That's a belief system.

So,

But as I grew up,

My sense of age was definitely invited to be one of vitality and interest.

And my dad was a really funny,

Like a quirky sort of an Irishman,

But I still have little sayings.

When he died,

I wrote down all of his little funny sayings he used to have.

They used to call them spoonerisms.

I don't even know whether that's a word anymore,

But just funny.

I can't even think of one now,

But he had little ditties,

The things.

And yeah,

Anyway,

I continue them.

And even last night at the dinner table,

My daughter's like,

Oh,

That's grandpa all over again.

I just feel like that kind of keeps him alive.

But that kind of zesty interest and fun and joyful and being light of heart that.

And he also had a best friend who I used to call Nana Sade.

And this is why when I stepped back into coaching straight away,

My business is called the Radiance Revolution because I have had many years of sitting,

Literally sitting at the feet of an older lady who has this and she had one part gentleness.

And,

You know,

She would never if someone was saying,

Oh,

What did such and such do?

She'd say,

Well,

You know,

She'd always sort of see things from everyone's perspective.

And she had this really soft,

But she also had this zest for life and so many interesting stories and all those things.

And I'm like,

That's the hybrid that I want.

That's beautiful.

Yeah,

I feel like and I but I am I do understand what you're saying that we can't put our value system yet.

Other people may not want adventures.

And right.

But I'm just like,

I,

I would love to be the 80 year old heading off to Tuscany for six months just for,

You know,

Just to sign me up.

Sign me up.

Sounds great.

We'll go together.

Exactly.

That little bit rebellious,

A little bit focused on vitality.

Yes,

Yes,

Yes.

And some gentle sweetness.

Sure.

Yeah.

But yeah,

But I love when you say that vitality snuggling up with yourself.

I feel like I am it wintertime.

I always feel like I want to hibernate.

And when I did my traditional Chinese medicine study,

Like,

You know,

A big thing that stayed with me through that was,

You know,

The natural way of flowing through the seasons is that we do turn inward at winter and we do get quiet and we do sleep more and we do rest more and all of those things.

And I've always had the want to do that,

But I've never,

I've always been in like a corporate pace where like,

You don't get to just like check out for the winter.

Now in my own business again,

I'm like,

Oh yeah,

Half days and snuggling with the pets with good books.

Sounds really good.

Yeah.

Really nice soup.

Yeah.

I've been making,

Oh my goodness.

I'm obsessed with,

There's a,

I've got a recipe.

I've had it for years,

But it's a mushroom soup,

Which is just mushroom and tamari and coconut milk at the end.

And it is the most nourishing,

Like there's some flavor of it,

Umami,

However you say that.

There's something really deeply nourishing my body.

Yeah.

Just so that's what I've been eating every.

Yes.

I just got very hungry.

Yes.

I'm sorry.

I'll send you the recipe.

Please,

Please.

That recipe has gone all over the world because I posted it on my Instagram the other day and I had like 20 people going,

What is that?

And I'm like,

Oh,

It's super easy.

Just a link on the internet.

Um,

I want to talk about the ageism end of things,

Because as I just,

You know,

Added myself,

My particularly as a younger person,

You know,

I saw these two examples of,

You know,

Healthy,

Vital,

Positive,

Happy aging.

And then anyone who felt to me,

Uh,

I don't know,

Old and I don't mean chronologically old to me,

What I was feeling was old was being fixed in mindset.

I'm negative,

Cynical,

Um,

You know,

Not warm and welcoming.

Yeah.

Stuck,

But that's not what aging has to be like.

So can we talk about the ages in peace?

Cause I know you're passionate about this too.

And I feel like I am.

Yeah.

I need to be schooled.

I know that I am ageist.

I mean,

I think it's just like racism.

I mean,

It's,

We've all,

You know,

Been breathing in this mess and yeah,

It just shows up when I least expect it.

So I just want to say,

I haven't got this figured out at all.

I know that I have still have,

You know,

Threads of ageism,

Just like ableism and they're all tied together and yes,

They are indeed.

No shame.

We've all been fed this for eons.

Yes.

So just recognizing it just as you just beautifully showed,

Like you just,

You just said something and you quickly notice what you've said.

And that's all I know to do is to say the story that we have about old being bad,

Old being that long list of things,

Just like the story that we have about fat being the same.

Yes.

Bad and all that list of things.

They go together beautifully.

Yeah.

So just kind of tuning into those two.

Yeah.

Really hard stories that we carry about ourselves and others,

But especially about ourselves.

And we've been swimming in an ocean,

Swimming in an ocean.

Breathing it in,

Breathing it in.

And we don't even,

It was like one of the very first things that the eating disorder recovery person I worked with asked me to do was to pay attention to the ocean I was swimming in,

In terms of body image,

Particularly on social media.

And I didn't even know I was swimming in an ocean.

Like I really did not.

And again,

I keep saying this,

I probably should be doubting this,

But I like to think of myself as a fairly aware person,

But then I'm like,

Oh my God,

Every single account that I was following,

Because I have also studied nutrition,

Like lots of people that have disordered eating,

Looking for their own answers.

And so I was following a lot of like raw food people or keto people,

The answer kind of diet-wise,

But also just not having any different ages,

Bodies,

Like nothing.

And as you say,

They're all interconnected.

And the weird thing I've spent my corporate career has been in mental health recovery,

Aged care and disability services.

Like you would think that my eyes would already be open.

They weren't.

They weren't.

And so then it was like,

Oh,

Okay,

Now I have to really,

Really think.

With the ageism thing,

I also feel like,

Would you,

Well,

Actually I'm interested.

I always feel that once I get to a certain age,

This kind of relationship with my body and eating will just sort itself out,

Which I am very aware is not going to happen without work.

What would you say to someone who says,

Oh,

There wouldn't be any 70 year olds with disordered eating or disordered body image?

Oh,

I talk to them every day.

I mean,

That's not true at all.

Yeah.

Amazing.

For all the reasons that we've talked about.

I mean,

There's an increased vulnerability.

Yeah.

It's infuriating and heartbreaking that there is this machine of anti-aging and diet and wellness culture taking advantage of fear of losing relevance,

Fear of loss of independence,

Even though we can talk a lot about that because actually it's very healthy to ask for help.

And it's actually a risk factor to not ask for help.

I mean,

That increases your loneliness.

So it's okay to realize that we're all connected and we're all somewhat dependent,

Interdependent,

And that's a much healthier perspective.

Yeah.

A hundred percent.

So the stories that we carry about what happens when we age sets us up for more involvement in diet and wellness culture or relapse into your old stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yes,

I talked to a person in her seventies today.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It happens.

Oh,

I'm so grateful that we have in this conversation and that your work is being shared with other people in this age group,

Because I feel like you are giving me the confirmation of the,

If you go back to old ways,

You're just continuing the pain.

Like I could take up the next 30 years of my life trying to manipulate my body.

Like I have the last 30 years of my life.

Many,

Many,

Many people do.

And I'm just like,

No,

I want,

Like,

If I'm blessed with grandbabies,

I want to be,

And that's the thing that actually terrifies me.

Like I can't go back in time and fix anything that I showed my daughters,

But I don't want to be continuing it on for the next generation.

That's right.

Like I just,

You know,

And I,

And I was talking to someone the other day and their granddaughter is not allowed sugar at all.

No sugar,

No sugary,

Anything,

Not even banana.

And I'm just like,

Oh my God,

That's a real problem.

And that's a really large problem.

Yeah.

It's,

I don't,

I can feel myself getting pulled into that conversation.

There's a lot I could say,

But the intergenerational relationships around food,

Nourishment,

Allowing pleasure,

You know,

Allowing celebration with food.

Yes.

Allowing kids to figure out what they like and how much they like.

Yes.

You know,

Let them do that with themselves so they can learn how to self-regulate so they can feel confident.

Yep.

So they feel comfortable in their bodies.

Yeah.

I had,

I had the awful juxtaposition of one parent controlling everything I ate and also binge eating in front of me.

And then also when things were going sideways as a kid,

I used to go and hide food.

So,

You know,

There's a perfect setup for a disordered relationship with,

And I can look back now with compassion though,

This is,

You know,

Directly as a result of the work that I've done over the last probably decade of,

I used to be really angry at myself for my lack of,

Lack of control.

The cult that I was in used to,

Used to sell the concept of food addiction,

Which I actually don't believe in at all now.

But anyway,

I bought the Kool-Aid.

But where I was going with that is one of the things that is a beautiful thing to experience having stepped off that right and wrong way,

You know,

That sort of black and white way of seeing food.

And one of the main reasons that every time I think,

Oh,

I've got to fix this,

I need to,

Then I come back to,

But Sunday night dinner,

Because both my girls now have partners.

And so Sunday nights often are around,

We've got a kitchen with a big extended table and we,

You know,

That's where we share a meal.

And that is always something that I've held,

You know,

Really special in my heart when I've imagined the future of those things.

And maybe,

You know,

Eventually grandbabies,

Not in any quick amount of time,

They're only 18 and 19,

But you know,

That joy of coming together and the joy of like making food for people,

Like I love cooking.

And then it's like,

Oh,

If I have to go back to something that's structured,

Then I can't,

Like,

I'm like,

No,

I don't.

I'm not willing to steal all that away from myself.

And I think that,

Yeah,

I mean,

I'm by no means an expert in how kids should be with food,

But I think my sense is that the more we let them to discover all different tastes and all different,

You know,

Like one of my daughters was obsessed with vinegary stuff when she loved olives.

And like she used to eat like my dad,

Because her and my dad were like joined at the hip and he used to love sour stuff.

So he'd eat like pickled onions and olives and she will still get a jar of olives out of the fridge and drink all the juice out of it because she feels like something really sour.

I'm like,

No thanks.

Yeah,

No thanks.

But that has always been,

You know,

And maybe there's a little intertwining of a memory of dad that's in that as well.

And I think that that's,

You know,

That the beautiful visceral memories we can have around food and.

Yeah,

It lives in our bodies.

It lives in our bodies.

Yeah.

So we have to have some connection and respect there.

Yeah.

Live full,

Exciting lives.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's okay.

There are all kinds of ways to have a body.

So there are all kinds of ways.

Can we just please let that be and we just stop it with the thinking there's only one way to have a body causing a lot of pain and heartache and it increases as you age,

Unless you actually decide to step over the threshold and let that go.

Yeah,

That can happen.

I'm just thinking about what you said about the interconnectedness with older people,

Too.

A big part of,

I'm just,

I,

As you're talking,

I'm questioning my own stories.

And this is what,

This is why writing and coaching to me go together because it's all about stories.

It's all about the storytelling or the,

Or the stories we tell ourselves.

It's like my version of aging well is to be still independent because I'm fiercely independent.

And actually what you're saying,

And it's the same as,

I mean,

If we think about this,

Literally the cycle of life,

Like we start,

You know,

In baby and we're,

We're,

We're dependent on other people for our needs.

It's actually very natural for us to come back to the same point.

That's our design.

And yet my story of aging was not to do that.

So thank you for that as well,

Because.

Well,

I think that's,

I think what you're describing is the cultural story.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A hundred percent.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We remain rugged individualist to the end.

Yeah.

At the expense of connection and at the expense of.

It's very problematic.

I can never remember.

I think it's a Harvard study that says the biggest indicator of a happy and satisfying life is connections with,

And it doesn't have to be family,

It's neighborhood connections,

Whatever.

I watched something the other day,

I can't remember which part of Australia,

But a lady I think she,

Or a friend of hers lost her husband quite young and she had young kids and she got together 23 people to buy this big piece of land and they now there's a hundred people there.

I can't remember how many families,

But it's like they've gone back to the old way of,

You know,

Multiple generations.

So if a kid's sick or a mom's sick or whatever,

Like it,

And the kids just they're free range,

It's like 150 acres,

A decent chunk of land,

But the kids free range,

They've got walkie talkies if they need to be called back.

But,

You know,

And there's a community garden and community chickens and everything.

And I just thought,

And there's one little lady there that had built this house,

Like an old like hobbits,

You know,

The round doors,

Like she's very quirky.

I was like,

Oh my God,

I'd love to interview you.

I think you'd be an absolute card.

And yeah,

But she was saying,

You know,

My grandchildren and my son are overseas.

I don't have any other family connections here.

I think I would have already passed away had it not been for me actually choosing to move here because yeah.

And then she's saying,

You know,

I have this whiz bang juicer and people are in and out all day borrowing the juicer and like little things like that.

And I thought,

What a beautiful way to be living.

It reminds me of the 70s too.

It's just like it's all the old commune,

Which is all based on when we were talking about our cultural stories,

I was thinking,

Well,

If you're white and if you are in this culture,

There are many wiser cultures that don't do this.

Yes.

They stay communal.

There's a lot of wisdom.

And of course,

You know,

Indigenous folks already knew that.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Yeah.

We're just the ones that always,

It's so funny,

Isn't it?

I was traveling down one of our freeways the other day and there was obviously new development and it was all,

You know,

The same,

Same,

Same,

Same,

Same,

Same,

Like the Truman show almost like they're all the same,

But they're slightly different colors.

And I'm like,

We all live in our own little boxes and we're not going to talk to each other and we don't like I live in the country.

So very different where I live.

That is a much more community feel.

And,

You know,

You go and get your coffee from the same person every day.

And the butch is the person that,

You know,

From the footy club and all of those things.

And that's one of the reasons why we moved here,

Simpler,

But more connected life.

And we wanted our kids to grow up where they could free range pretty much as well.

But I was looking at these boxes from the freeway and I'm thinking every single one of them will have their own little tiny contained,

Whatever it is,

Whether it's a single person,

A couple or whatever.

And we don't even see each other anymore.

Like we don't,

You know,

We don't actually.

Yeah.

And then the pandemic kind of sealed the deal on that one too.

What's that?

The pandemic kind of sealed the deal on that.

Yes.

Yeah.

Kind of accelerated that.

Is there a natural uptake,

Though,

On the other side of the pandemic?

I feel like here we are more motivated to get connected post-pandemic.

I hope so.

Yeah.

I hope so.

Yeah.

I,

Yeah,

Certainly showed where our society was most not working.

Exactly.

Definitely.

And the older people went first.

And that seemed to be,

I mean,

It really showed the ageism.

Yeah.

It was highlighted greatly.

Tell you what,

My time,

Yeah,

My time in aged care,

My job,

I worked in aged care for about 18 months and my job was,

I was lucky enough to work in a company where they were quite forward thinking with their,

You know,

I don't know whether it's the same there,

But in aged care facilities here,

They used to have this thing called the leisure team and the leisure team was kind of code for,

We might have a colouring in session once a week and we might have a sing-along session once a week.

But it was in general,

Pretty not individualised,

You know,

Using all of the boxes that we've just talked about,

Like,

Oh,

People must like singing and they must like colouring in.

Well,

And I,

When I went there,

I was employed to create a program that was based on individual preferences.

And we had just,

I'm so grateful.

We had,

I had a team of four and still really good friends with one of them's moved to Adelaide and I talked to him just the other day,

But just really good hearted people.

And we,

You know,

There's 110 residents and only four of us.

It's a lot of people,

But we took the time to find out about each person and what their likes and dislikes and what they did and didn't like to do.

And we ended up having this complete turning around of the idea that once you're in aged care,

You know,

Your family shoves you there because no one's willing to do the elder work of looking after you.

And I'm talking,

You know,

Gross generalisation,

But it was really interesting once we started paying attention to the individual rather than the institution,

That all of this gold came out of it.

We had,

You know,

Gentlemen building things in the woodwork shed and then a whole team of these,

You know,

A lot of crafty older ladies in the aged care,

But we started doing knitting blankets for disadvantaged families.

But they didn't just do that.

That was the kind of the normal way of doing things.

But what we then did was we actually got the individual person who made the blanket and the family that it ended up for to meet and create these relationships.

And then we had the kids coming in and it was just so beautiful.

Unfortunately,

The pandemic put an end to most of that.

But yeah,

I feel like the connection and the just spending time because I feel like a lot of the time part of ageism is not like feeling like almost that person doesn't have a need to be seen and heard.

Well,

Loss of identity.

I mean,

The only identifying factor being their age,

Because actually the older we get,

The more unique we are.

Heterogeneous group of people that exist on the planet.

We've all had so many different kinds of life experiences and different bodies and body processes and diseases and medications and exercises and all sorts of things that make our experiences more and more and more unique and different.

So kind of checking in with each of those individuals and letting go of all those assumptions.

You're right.

I mean,

Just assuming that someone in a facility would like to do this and that without.

Because it's easier on the institution.

Yeah,

It's easier on the institution.

And unfortunately,

You know,

As with,

You know,

Why does any system of oppression,

You know,

Why is it created in the first place?

A lot of the people that benefit are people that make the money out of it.

And of course,

That's the case in that ageism end of things as well.

Absolutely.

When you feel into liberation from ageism,

If we were to like the same sort of picture that you painted for us with liberation.

Yes.

If you felt into what it would be like for most people that are listening to this,

They're kind of about 39 to 55 ish.

Okay.

Can you paint us a picture of crossing through those threshold years and being free of the types of things that we're talking about as far as,

You know,

Aging bodies or aging,

Aging women,

Really?

Yeah,

I would say that I think it's so important to look at this early in your 30s,

If not earlier.

I have a really wise friend who's talking to her teenage daughters about like their ideas of what aging is.

And we have research now that shows that if you have negative bias about aging,

Your own aging will not go well.

No,

Not decreases your life expectancy by seven and a half years.

It's very real.

Wow.

Yes,

That this is Becky Levy's work.

The book Breaking the Age Code is fantastic.

Definitely will highly recommend it.

Yep.

But the way you see aging affects your own body's experience,

Your own development of dementia.

Even if you have genetic markers for Alzheimer's disease,

If you have positive beliefs about aging,

Your experience is very different.

So it's wise to go ahead and look at this,

Look at what you believe to be true about aging.

And I want people to be able to participate fully in work if they choose and relationships in whatever way they choose and sex if they choose and fashion if they choose and health care in the way that they would choose.

Yes.

Like any aspect of life in the way that they would like at any age.

That's the way I see it.

It's like trying not to believe that aging puts you in this like box.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like anything negative,

Negative bias,

You know.

Yeah.

Goodness.

If you go back to original,

Original mindset,

Like what you believe to be true is one of the biggest filters that your brain uses to show you or not show you the things in your reality.

It's very real.

Yeah.

I,

Okay,

I've got work to do with my teenage daughters.

I talked to them all the time about menopause to the point where one of them said to me the other day,

Can we go,

Can we have Sunday night dinner without talking about menopause?

And I was like,

No,

Because one day you'll be going through it.

And these young men at the table may or may not be still your partners,

But they will be partnering with someone else eventually going through it if that happens,

You know,

Making grand assumptions.

But,

You know,

And the more that,

Because I was noticing myself,

It's kind of similar to what you were saying.

I was noticing that what I was talking about with menopause was all the negative stuff.

Like,

Oh my God,

I'm so hot.

Oh my God.

And I was buying into Anne-Marie McQueen from Hot Flash.

She uses the term enterpainment,

Like I am not for your enterpainment.

Menopause is not enterpainment.

And,

But I was doing that.

I was,

You know,

Really,

I was only talking about that sort of thing.

And I wasn't talking about this deep knowing that was bubbling to the surface of all of the things that I can not take forward and old pain that used to keep me stuck,

That now is like,

Oh,

And I can still,

You know,

All of those things.

So I've changed the way that I talk to them about it because I don't want them to just have the,

You know,

I'm hot and I'm feeling a bit crazy.

But I will start talking about the aging thing in the end,

Because unfortunately for them,

They don't have,

I mean,

They have grandparents that,

Yeah,

Some of what their grandparents are experiencing is probably not on the positive end of the spectrum.

Whereas if they were around when,

Yeah,

My dad was bouncing around and,

You know,

He was volunteering at a community center called,

Oh my goodness,

Meals on Wheels,

Peeling potatoes.

We worked out that he used to peel something like 50 kilos of potatoes in a week.

That was his job for the old people.

And this is when he was about 85 and he was peeling potatoes for 60 year olds.

I think I would have liked him a lot.

But yeah,

I think you're right,

Is the more that we talk to,

Because as I said before,

I don't feel like I can change too much about,

Well,

I can't change anything about what I did when the kids were little,

But conversations that we have,

Yeah.

As with most things about body relationship,

Kids are learning from their parents' experience,

Your parents believe systems and behaviors.

So you've got a lot of power there.

Oh,

Geez.

If I could go back in time,

But anyway,

We can't.

You can also heal,

Right?

It's like you can always repair.

You can always repair.

I do talk a lot about that to my kids of like,

You know,

The way that I used to see things versus the way that I see now.

And even that,

I think it's important that we speak about how points of view and biases and ideas and stories can change or shift.

You can't know until you know.

Let me ask you,

So you've got grandkids.

Yes,

But they're very young,

Two and four.

Yeah.

Beautiful,

Beautiful.

Right.

Yeah,

Soon to be two and four.

Oh,

So gorgeous.

I cannot wait.

Again,

Not hurrying,

Not wishing this too early.

When you think about the world that they,

Their youngsters in,

How do you most or actually probably an easy way of asking this question is when you talk about bodies and food or whatever,

What type of sentiment,

Feeling do you,

How does that,

What does that look like?

Well,

You know,

I'm a dietician,

So I've got all of these.

I'm not only a dietician,

But I'm a dietician who's been working for 35 years in eating disorder recovery.

Yes.

So I want them to feel confident and comfortable in their bodies and resilient against the crazy that I know they're going to hear.

Yes,

That they will be seeing.

They're probably already here.

Yeah,

They're probably already here.

I mean,

Just to really help them maybe have openness toward going,

What does that mean?

What are you talking about?

Yeah.

That doesn't feel right to me.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

All of that,

Like your body is yours and nobody can like make you feel any kind of way.

Yeah.

All of that,

Of course,

I just really want to wrap them up.

Yes.

Yeah.

But I know better.

I know that we can always just keep talking.

Just keep talking.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Keep talking and demonstrating,

As you said.

Yes,

Absolutely.

Oh,

My goodness.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

I want to express,

Well,

You,

I have been wanting to talk about this intersection of like what it's like to be pro-aging and what it's like to want body liberation and body diversity.

And I've found interest in people who are wanting to talk about eating disorder recovery and body liberation to like take a good look at ageism within those cultures.

Yeah.

But the pro-aging folks don't really want to talk about this.

So I really appreciate you having this.

I don't know that I identify you as somebody who is pro-aging and really talking about menopause a great deal.

Yeah.

Why?

I think it's just slow change.

I think there's a lot of fear.

I think there's a lot of health anxiety.

Yeah.

And there's a lot of pressure around like strength training,

Eating lots of protein so that we keep our bodies strong and a lot of pressure around belly fat and restricting carbs.

Oh God.

I think that's deeply held,

Deeply held.

And there's not a lot of openness for this conversation.

So I really appreciate you bringing this.

Oh,

I'm really appreciating that.

It was funny when you reached out to me,

I'd already got you on my to pitch to list.

I was like this lady in her work.

Because it just,

It all makes sense to me that this is a natural time of getting really curious about all the stories that are keeping us the opposite of liberated.

I agree.

Because we probably,

Well,

Certainly I will.

And again,

I'm aware that I can't speak for everyone,

But I find myself in a blessed position where I do not have too much demand on me at all.

My young people mothering is being done and I have space at the moment.

And to me,

I just think if we don't look at this stuff now,

Then I could,

Like I said,

I could waste another 30 years stealing precious,

Precious moments.

And the other thing I saw just not too long ago on social media,

Someone was talking about,

Um,

I have to be careful here because I don't want to be too negative.

I saw someone put a post up that was talking about the quality of skin and the underlying thing was you've got to take care of this certain skin because otherwise it will show your age.

Hmm.

And I had just heard,

And it was only coincidental,

But I have a friend in Melbourne who has a close family friend who just that week,

Probably two nights before,

Died overnight of a heart attack.

And I think she was about 53,

54,

Same age group that these people.

And there's all these comments about,

Oh my God,

We can't do it.

And I just thought,

Are we missing the point?

Are we missing the point?

Because we could be spending our entire lives worried about looking too old or too big or too othered,

Whatever.

And we could be literally stealing.

Well,

We are,

No matter whether we die tomorrow or die in 50 years time.

Like,

You know,

Not 50,

Far out,

That would be.

Oh,

I could,

Maybe.

I'd be almost a hundred.

That'd be impressive.

But yeah,

I just think,

I don't.

Yeah.

Anyone who talks of any liberation from the stories that can limit our joy and our vitality and our connection and the true zest of life,

Like squeezing the juice out of life.

I want to talk to you because I just think this is the time.

If we're not asking these questions now,

When will we ask them?

Yeah.

I lost my best friend when I was 55.

So I think that totally changed a lot of the way I see this aging thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wake the fuck up and stop wasting your precious fucking time worried about shit that does not matter.

And everything that went in,

I hold both to be true.

I a hundred percent agree with you.

You know,

That's where I stand.

Yeah.

And I have compassion for people who feel caught and frightened and pulled.

And I hope that they can hear that there's another way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And even if there's just a tiny inkling of the freedom,

And particularly when you painted that liberation picture and feeling of that expansiveness,

Like if that is like the complete opposite of how you're feeling.

Yeah.

The constriction into shrink and I'll take up space and be quiet.

And yeah.

Yeah.

Oppressed,

Oppressed,

Oppressed.

There's a right way and a wrong way.

And it's like,

There's not a right way and a wrong way.

There's your way.

And yeah,

So much more space.

So much more.

Yeah.

I'm very,

Very grateful.

Yeah.

I'm very,

Very grateful that you were interested.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Where can people find you?

Because I know you do one-on-one work and group programs,

But you also supervise other dieticians and all sorts of things.

So can you tell us where to find you in the world?

Yes.

It's just my name.

My website is my name,

Debra,

D-E-B-R-A,

Benfield.

Com.

And on social media,

I'm Aging Body Liberation.

Yes.

So it's pretty straightforward.

Beautiful,

Beautiful,

Beautiful,

Beautiful,

Beautiful.

Love it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing everything you have for our audience and a particular personal thank you for just reminding me why not to listen to that voice that's trying to,

Yeah,

Suck me back in.

It's been really strong lately and I've been like,

Come on,

You know?

And I think it's the same with any sort of recovery when you have that voice that is trying to seduce you back.

It's just time to look more.

But yeah,

Our chat has certainly given me lots to feel into.

Happy to remind you anytime you need a reminder.

Happy to remind you.

I'll be like,

Deb,

Tell me again.

I'll just say one more time,

Remember?

Tell me again.

One more time for those at the back.

Oh,

Thank you,

Beautiful lady.

There was a few different things that we mentioned,

But I'll put everything in the show notes for anyone that's listening.

There's a couple of books that we talked about and also The Wiser Than Me with Jane Fonda,

I'll put in the show notes.

Thank you,

Beautiful.

Bye-bye.

Thank you so much.

Bye.

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I'm Kylie Patchett,

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