106. VM: Body Tawk Intro

Hey friends! We're introducing a new series of episodes focused on The Body. Please don't be scared, we're not going to rehash old bullsh*t or make you feel bad (worse). This intro gives you an idea of what's coming up. We're going to hear diverse experiences and dive into how society shapes our view of self, the expectations to conform, and the importance of reconnecting with all of ourselves. 

Stay tuned for some eye-opening insights and relatable experiences. Let's figure out together how to live more authentically and healthily in our own skin. 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is the Abbey Normal Podcast, here to tell you that you're weird, and that's normal.
The M is all-encompassing. Voicemails, voice memos, vagina monologues.
Music.

(00:24):
Hi, this is Abbey, the host of the Abbey Normal Podcast, And I'm here to share
an update, one which begins with a little about me.
So I have a positive view of self.
Stay with me here. Maybe I achieved that because nature, it's just my general mood.
Or maybe nurture, because my parents loved and supported me.

(00:45):
But I also feel good about myself because I learned at a young age to wall off myself from my body.
And from anything anyone, anywhere would say or think about it.
Music.
And that protective strategy has mostly worked. But then, I had the many sedentary

(01:08):
days of COVID lockdown and remote work, and suddenly this body that I have had
the privilege of comfortably ignoring started screaming at me.
Help, it said. I'm so weak. These grocery bags are too heavy.
Is it weird that I'm talking about my body as distinctly different from myself?
Anyway, point is that this underappreciated meat shell demanded attention.

(01:33):
And I had a whole-ass manifesto on what I wasn't interested in in relation to,
quote, caring for my body, but I had so little around how to connect with it
in a mentally and spiritually healthy way.
So, we are going to do some body talk on this show.
Of course, I've talked about bodies repeatedly on this show,

(01:54):
perhaps not explicitly, but almost every dang episode. I mean,
we've covered the terrible middle school stories that soothe us with camaraderie.
But I want to go more personal, more serious, more grown-ass adult.
More like, okay, this is all f***ed up, now what can we do about it for real?
I have no desire to repeat things we've all heard before, or rehash unproductive

(02:18):
debates, or make anyone feel bad.
There is quite enough around bodies that make most of us feel bad.
So I wanted to give you all a heads up that we're making a
pivot over the coming months we're going to share a lot of different viewpoints
and experiences and what I've already discovered is that the body is not just
about our physical parts what we believe about it how we talk about it and how

(02:42):
we treat it has so many bigger implications for our life and for the world,
I hope we can learn new stuff about our bodies and tactics for connecting more
healthily with them both what we can do inside ourselves and what we can do
in this system that perpetrates our disconnection.
Here's some of what's coming.

(03:07):
The expectation is to self-separate. Squelch the way that you actually feel.
Squelch what you actually think. And then, like, pretend, play along.
You're literally taught that, like, what's most morally appropriate is for your
physical body to be chiefly oriented toward others.

(03:27):
We have been socialized to be human doings. instead of human beings.
Yeah, figuring out what it feels like to be at home in one's body with embodiment,
following one's intuition.
One's intuition knows so much.

(03:48):
I spent most of my time thinking like, what was my mother like?
Oh my God. And then we were walking and I could see our legs.
I mean, I got big hips, you know? But yeah, I look just like her. Yeah.
So I did 23andMe just because they have some medical stuff that they can look
for and I'm like well it's better than nothing and then it came back and it

(04:09):
said do you want to you know put your DNA out there and I was like might as well,
she didn't even know they were Jewish yeah Jewish blood Russian Jew we're Russian Jew,
there's some studies about like your cells like your cells have experienced
the first thing you experience is abandonment you know and I think people.

(04:31):
Music.
My hormones started going a little wacky. I started losing hair.
I started getting hair where I did not want. So I lost head hair,
but then I started getting chin hair.
Fun. Fun. I started gaining weight uncontrollably.

(04:55):
The society we live in has a lot of opinions about how people should look.
All the opinions. All the opinions. And all that shit is internalized.
And as a woman, it is internalized in a different way. There is definitely,
you know, patriarchal internalization of what the standard of beauty is.

(05:16):
They all say the same thing. They go, whoa, skinny mini. Uh-huh.
And I'm like, what is that? And then you look great.
And what did you do? Wow. Wow.
Two years ago, I was jumped into the diabetic category. And so they put me on Trulicity.

(05:45):
It's more just like, I'm so tired of them browbeating me about,
well, if not this drug, then this drug, if not this drug, then this drug.
And I'm like, I don't want any of the drugs with jingles. Like, I don't.
As bad as some of the things are about being overweight, like I like myself.

(06:05):
I don't like some of the limitations that come with it, but I really enjoy my life. Do you?
Music.
That's only half the episodes. I hope that you heard something that perked your
ears up and that you'll tune in next time. Because apparently this is important.

(06:31):
Honestly it's like i don't think there would be war if we were appropriately self-connected.
Music.