Craving Food Freedom

In a world that is so obsessed with being thin, it feels like an endless upstream battle to eat without guilt and feel good about one's body. You're probably exhausted, I'm exhausted. I'm also tired of seeing my patients struggle and I'm exhausted hearing about doctors pushing ozempic/weight loss on my patients.

In this ep, I talk about how I feel about my industry, how hopeless it can feel sometimes, and why I'll be pausing this podcast for now.

For 7-8 years of my 20s my self-worth revolved around my body, food was my obsession. Now that I'm in my early 30s, my obsession has transferred over to career and financial success. Living in a big city (Silicon Valley), it feels like all that matters is your job title, career progression and financial status. It feels like diet culture, trying to be better, do more, like nothing is enough. If you want to follow me in this next chapter where I tackle this desire to success and not get left behind financially, then I invite you to...

My new YOUTUBE channel! @elisezliu

Shame causes us to feel less than, different, not good enough. It causes us to feel one degree of separation from the person we think is better than us in some way (success, money, intelligence, appearance, etc.

"I am lesser than the other person or other people, and I am on the outside looking in." - Joanne Kim

"We live in a very cognitive society. We're cerebral, we talk, but there's still this approach of thought forward existence versus listening to what our bodies are actually saying."

-Romi

Today I have the pleasure of welcoming Romi Cumes, an incredible Somatic therapist based out in Santa Barbara.

Somatic psychology - what is it you may ask. It is understanding how the body works and what is happening underneath the psyche that's actually leading to that.

Some of us can have some rigidity and then it manifests in other areas of the body too - tense shoulders for example. With anger, we can start to feel it in the trapezius and in the shoulders, which is really where a lot gets stored. So that's something to notice. How many of you are listening to what your body is saying to you?

Romi helps individuals get in touch with the lived experience of the body in order to identify, explore, and ultimately transform stuck patterns and energy so they become more capable of living happy, balanced lives.

Romi draws from over twenty years of healing arts experience and spiritual studies. She utilizes various techniques that include mindfulness and sensation-focused awareness. By focusing on body awareness, it helps to ground ourselves during moments of tension and reactivity, regulate the nervous system, and to learn from and heal long-held pain and body armor.

Today I have the pleasure of chatting with Molly Zive, San Diego based therapist who specializes in ketamine-assisted therapy.

We talk:

• suppressing younger versions of ourselves
• cultivating trust and deep gratitude for ourselves
• some of our parts that may be more traumatized
• addiction as a coping skill for trauma

It was such an insightful conversation and hopefully you will get something out of it too.

Today I have the pleasure of having on Dr. Marianne Miller, an eating disorder therapist based in San Diego, CA.

In this ep, we talk:

• managing chronic pain
• finding the right eating disorder treatment
• overexercising
• the effects of food restriction as a kid
• creating new pathways in the brain