May 28, 2025 • 30 mins
In this episode, I talk with Jess Wood, emerging coach with Body Trust, who faced her own struggles with diet culture and disordered eating. Jess is currently working on certification through Body Trust to help others unlearn the rules of diet culture, reawaken connection with their bodies, to embrace empowerment and body liberation. In our conversation we defined what is meant by diet culture, how diet culture limits and restricts our potential, how to embrace body liberation, and what unlearning diet culture means and what it can yield.
Some highlights (with timestamps) from our conversation:
5:30--What do we mean by diet culture?
9:50--What does body liberation mean?
20:09--What is the importance of community in unlearning diet culture?
20:48--What does unlearning look like?
23:40--What are the costs of diet culture?
If you want to learn more about Jess' work, you can follow her on Instagram at jessicawood.1
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:05):
Welcome to My Intermission, a podcast
conversation about thetransitions and changes we face
in life and the strategies andapproaches that support us in
taking the next step in ourjourney.
I'm your host, ColleenStanovich.
Somatics invites us to get intoour bodies, our full selves, and
(00:25):
really listen to what it holds,what it's longing for, and what
it wants to reveal to us.
However, in our dominantsociety, there is a message that
our bodies are something to workagainst, or even a sense that
they are not a part of us.
Fear of aging, diet, culture,beauty standards all set a
(00:46):
message that our bodies need tobe changed and altered, that
they are imperfect and they'remeant to be controlled.
How do we challenge thesesocietal messages in order to
remember the wisdom andpotential of our bodies?
Today I get to talk to JessWood, a helping professional,
lifelong educator, mentor, andcoach who's stepping into a new
(01:09):
chapter on her way tocertification with Body Trust,
an intersectional socialjustice-oriented path to
healing.
Jess is cisgender,straight-sized, middle-aged
white woman, able-bodied andstraight, born the eldest of
three daughters to middle schoolsweethearts who've been married
for 55 years.
(01:29):
Jess names that her body carriesgenerational threads of
addiction, mental illness,diabetes, and weight-biased
medical care.
She herself struggled withbinging and purging for a
decade.
She's also spent 30 years as aperformer, event planner,
educator, and mentor who findsjoy in knitting, crocheting,
creating, painting, reading,dancing, and swimming.
(01:52):
She's been with her partner,Randy, for over 25 years and is
raising two teenagers.
Hi, Jess.
Thanks for joining me today.
It's so great to see you.
Thanks for having me here.
I'm excited.
So with the Minor MissionPodcast, it's all about the
changes in our lives and thetransitions that we go through.
Can you start with your ownstory of transition that brought
(02:16):
you to where you are today?
SPEAKER_02 (02:18):
Absolutely.
If I think to really thebeginning, I would say that my
break with diet culture thathappened roughly 30 years ago
was preceded by a prettydevastating experience of of
(02:42):
disordered eating myselfpersonally, as so many of us do,
felt like it was my individualsuffering.
It was unique unto me.
There was no one else who wasgoing through it.
I was really kind of wanderingthrough that by myself.
And I found my way out of thatsuffering through sharing my
(03:07):
story and finding a group ofpeople who really understood
what I was going through andcould shed light on how I came
to find myself there.
And so I think that unlearningdiet culture was really crucial
(03:32):
to how, um, I came into thiswork.
I would say professionally, Iloved theater, I loved
performance, I loved dance.
I had done a lot of theater anddirecting all through college
and just afterward.
I can remember a very goodfriend of mine who, when I kind
of shared what I was goingthrough in terms of recovery
(03:54):
from my own disordered eating,saying to me, oh my gosh, I work
at a program and we work withyoung people and so much of what
you're talking about resonateswith that.
Come see what it's all about.
I did.
I ended up working there.
And that's kind of how I foundmy way into education.
And so I was an educator for areally long time.
I have worked in the nonprofitsector with education.
(04:17):
And I think, you know, bodytrust work for me, my transition
into body trust work and, youknow, my decision to pursue
certification and really feelingcommitted to that comes from
just wanting to help othersunlearn harmful narratives that
I believed so deeply myself.
(04:39):
And so currently, I feel likeI've professionally done a lot
of work in building communityand creating safe spaces or
brave spaces.
And I want to kind of shift thatlens for the people that I work
with and really focus on bodyliberation, embodiment.
And so as I look forward inspring 2026, I am hoping to
(05:03):
launch a series of small grouppractices and hopefully retreats
as well with practitioners thatI've come into contact with who
are working on all of thedifferent kind of connected ways
of healing and unlearningtogether.
SPEAKER_00 (05:19):
That is an amazing trajectory.
All those pieces that fell intoplace to get you where you are
today.
You mentioned a lot about dietculture.
Can you just explain how youwould define diet culture and
how that showed up for you interms of your journey too?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean,
SPEAKER_02 (05:35):
I would define diet culture as not an amorphous
thing, but a very targeted,systemic, broadly funded,
multi-trillion dollar industrythat includes everyone who is
encouraging people to look attheir weight as the usually
(06:00):
primary, but really singulardefinition of their health,
wellness, status, worth as ahuman.
I think the diet industry hasits tendrils in so much of our
lives culturally that for me,when I say diet culture, I mean,
(06:23):
I find it in some of my closestfriends.
You know, we're constantlyunearthing it in each other.
We're unlearning together inspaces.
And I think that when we aren'taware of it, it is this like
foundational bias thatintentionally sets us against
(06:45):
ourselves and teaches us to hatethe bodies that we live in and
to hold them to reallyunrealistic Eurocentric beauty
standards.
SPEAKER_00 (06:54):
Yeah, I hear that.
That resonates with me in termsof the world of somatics as
well, of how we are trained tonot be in our bodies for a
variety of reasons.
I also heard you link the workthat you do to liberation.
And so can you draw that outmore too in terms of the
societal messages around dietingand diet culture and why
(07:17):
unlearning can lead toliberation?
SPEAKER_02 (07:20):
Yeah, I think, you know, One of the visuals that
has been really grounding for mein body trust work is the visual
of a tree.
And that tree has roots.
And the deeper the roots, thebetter that you as an individual
and then collectively as acommunity, we can withstand when
(07:43):
the winds of body shaming blow,the deeper your roots, the
better you can withstand that.
Because those winds are going tocontinue to blow.
I mean...
Maybe not forever.
What do I know?
But certainly, you know, for mylifetime, I think that some of
those roots that have been mosttransformative to me are really
like finding community, findingother people, like-minded
(08:06):
people, an idea of kindness andcuriosity, of self-preservation.
you know, this idea of doing Cminus work, which I mean, I'll
just be real.
Like as the, as the child of twolifelong educators, as an
educator myself, like that wasjust really transformational for
me.
I was like, C minus work.
And we're striving for that.
(08:27):
Amazing.
Like, it just like takes thatperfectionism out of the, out of
the equation in a way that hasbeen so helpful for me in my own
learning and unlearning.
Other roots are like, you know,locating yourself with as a
cisgender, straight, like personidentified as female at birth,
(08:49):
solidly middle class, likeknowing all of those things,
being able to identify myprivilege and bias and how I
come into spaces, how I show upwith all of that is incredibly
important just as a root and asbeing a good community member.
And then I think like knowingthat like we all have a comfort
(09:11):
zone and finding the edge ofthose, that, that comfort zone,
all of those roots that like,that's where you can like really
ground yourself is incrediblehelp, incredibly helpful.
And then, and this is not mylike, um, work of this tree, by
the way, this is like firmlyfrom like body trust work, Dana
Sturdivant and Hillary Knavey,who like wrote the book on body
(09:34):
trust.
Like they came up with this.
it was when I came upon theirwork that I was like, yes, those
are all the words and ideas forall the things that helped me
come through into myself.
And so body liberation is reallyabout finding your way out, not
only as an individual, but as acollective, as a member of a
(09:56):
community, knowing that grief isa part of that, that you have to
grieve all of the time energy,money spent chasing this ideal.
You have to grieve the fact thatyou believed all these things
that told you that you weren'tenough.
I could continue on.
(10:17):
These are like the ideas thatreally fuel this idea of body
liberation, which I think for alot of people, when they hear
that, you know, it can be linkedto this sort of happy woo-woo
like body positivity, which is Idon't mean to say that with such
a note of mocking.
It's just, for me, it doesn't gofar enough.
For me, being positive...
(10:39):
or being accepting doesn't gofar enough.
For me, it's been more aboutlike digging into the systems
and finding the community andlearning and unlearning
together.
SPEAKER_00 (10:51):
Well, and that idea of unlearning coupled with
intersectionality that younamed, that it is about when you
think about body trust andunlearning our relationship with
our bodies and that diet culturepiece.
The intersections that younamed, whether it is like having
curiosity instead of shame orfinding community instead of
(11:14):
living in isolation, steppinginto grief instead of denying
our emotions, like all thosethings are also such strong
messages.
And you can see how they theywork in collaboration to keep
system structures that areoppressive to individuals and
communities.
people in our society andcultures, they keep them in
(11:34):
place.
And so when you think about theintersectionality there, like
what is the goal, if you will?
What are we striving for interms of body trust?
SPEAKER_02 (11:49):
I mean, I think like foundationally, it's just this
idea that you can trust yourbody to sort out the weight,
which is like...
to the vast majority of peoplewho've been raised in our
culture.
I think it's that you canreconnect with your own desires
(12:09):
and needs, one of those beingaround food, but not all of them
around food, and that you cantrust yourself to really honor
those boundaries and desires andthat you won't completely go off
(12:30):
the rails.
I think one of the things that Ilearned really early on is that
folks who struggle withdisordered eating, which by the
way, the whole part of diagnosisin and of itself is a really
kind of like, I don't know,thorny issue.
It's very expensive to getdiagnosed.
(12:51):
It's very expensive to haveofficial treatment.
It's really a privilege toaccess all of those systems.
And a white cisgender woman inthe mid-90s, the mid-1990s,
early 2000s, that system was...
And as a straight-sized person,that system was...
(13:15):
Yes.
Okay.
You may come in.
We accept you.
We see you.
We honor what you're goingthrough.
What I learned early on was thata lot of my community members
who didn't live instraight-sized bodies, who lived
in fat bodies, were denied thatcare, were never asked if they
(13:35):
had disordered eating, any typeof struggles around food.
The assumption was that ifyou're coming into the doctor
for whatever type of, of ailmentor issue that like, we're going
to talk about your weight firstand foremost, and that's going
to be something that you'regoing to need to solve.
And then we'll go on from there.
And so like this, like tacitagreement that thin is healthy,
(14:01):
you know, it's, it's really allwrapped up in that same, like
sort of diet mentality thatlike, weight stigma that so
many, especially in thehealthcare industry, people
carry around.
So that was really important.
(14:23):
As I continue to learn to divestfrom diet culture, to recognize
that the community of humans whoare really working on this, that
it benefits all of us, that weall look different, and that
that is just a part of Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (14:44):
the merits of diversity and why that isn't
just a nice thing, but it'sactually an essential thing and
how that benefits all of us.
I was thinking of something thatyou said, oh, in terms of
getting support for disorderedeating too.
You know, in somatics, I talkwith people about how our brain
is one thinking center, ouremotional center of our hearts
(15:08):
is another thinking center.
operating center for us.
And then our guts hold a lot interms of intuition.
And it's another operatingcenter.
When I think of disorderedeating, I think a lot of people,
obviously, they think about howit shows up in a person's body.
But then there's also thatconnection to mental health.
And so through your work withbody trust, and some of the work
(15:30):
that you've done with people,how do you describe or unravel
that relationship between mentalhealth, physical health?
SPEAKER_02 (15:38):
I think that the ways that you're naming it are
really helpful for a lot ofpeople working through body
trust as well, because I thinkthat thinking is so loud.
It's just so loud, especiallybecause so many of us were
taught at a very young age thatthinking is more important than
(16:04):
And so reading of labels, youknow, orthorexia being for
anyone listening who doesn'tknow, just like an obsession
with how healthy and clean foodis, is orthorexia, you know, um,
That's my layperson'sdefinition.
I'm sure there's a much morescientific one.
(16:24):
But that idea that you have arunning commentary in your mind
that is constant, like thatticker tape that runs below
anything you see on the news,just about everything.
not only the nutritional valuesof different foods, but the
morality of different foods aswell.
And so I think it's reallyimportant for people who are
(16:47):
finding their way back from thatto be supported in knowing that
when things bubble up fromwherever in your body you feel
them, that you can first learnto hear it then learn to value
it, then learn to act on itversus just only listening to
(17:10):
this complex warning over andover and over.
Like, no, that's bad for thisreason.
Or like, all fat is bad.
All carbs are bad.
Whatever it is that has beenassigned this moral value of...
(17:30):
bad or bad for you or you knowmost of that under the guise of
going to make you
SPEAKER_00 (17:36):
fat those words that you just said to to hear it in
your body to value it and thento act on it
SPEAKER_01 (17:43):
one
SPEAKER_00 (17:43):
of the things that's striking to me about those words
too is it's about going in
SPEAKER_01 (17:47):
and I
SPEAKER_00 (17:48):
think there is this relationship you talked about
the multi-million dollarindustry around diet culture
that feels like a very differentmindset and so is there part of
your body trust work that thatmakes that adjustment.
I mean, you talked about theunlearning piece, but how do you
begin that unlearning process, Iguess, is my big question.
SPEAKER_02 (18:06):
Yeah.
I mean, I can speak to my ownjourney.
I began with the roots, withreally leaning into finding
community, with really lettinggo of trying to be perfect, even
about the unlearning journey, ofreally giving myself time and
space to figure out where Whatis it that I desire?
(18:32):
What is it that I need?
What are my own boundaries?
That kind of work, I think, iscrucial because at the end of
the day, it's not about thefood.
And people say that, and Iremember hearing that, you know,
30 years ago, I had a mentor whojust talked about like, okay, if
(18:56):
there was some magical gas thatlike permeated the entire planet
and meant that no one could everlose or gain a single pound
again, that their body wouldremain exactly as it was, how
would that change what youwanted from your life?
How would that change how youmoved through the world?
(19:16):
And, you know, I never forgotthat because I think to your
previous question around bodyliberation, there is a
reclaiming of your own livedexperience when you're actually
able to be in your body and nothave that ticker tape, not have
(19:39):
the constant berating voice inyour mind.
that promises that life will bedifferent once you achieve this
thing that says, oh, no, youneed to go back to the plan.
Like, let's have a project.
And that project is your body.
(20:00):
Let's do it.
You know, like, because we aresold that over and over and over
again.
And so I think like, theliberation, knowing that And
again, for me personally, it hascome down to community.
Being able to interact withpeople who have found their way
(20:21):
out showed me that that wasactually possible.
And
SPEAKER_00 (20:30):
that made all the difference.
So that idea of showing peoplewho have shown you the way out,
can you give some examples ofwhat it means to leave diet
culture behind?
How does that show up inday-to-day practices?
SPEAKER_02 (20:47):
Yeah.
I think there's some that areinteractive and then there's
some that are individual andthen there's some that are
systemic.
So I would say on the individuallevel, that shows up as for me
personally, as my first thoughtin the morning is not reviewing
everything I ate the day beforeand planning everything I'm
(21:09):
going to eat that day.
And there were years of my lifewhere that was absolutely the
first thing that I thought aboutfor absolutely for sure.
Um, and I think, you know, on anindividual level, I'm a big
reader.
I love books, like books, likeshaped my childhood.
I spent an inordinate amount oftime reading and, uh, as I
(21:30):
became like an adolescent andthen certainly like my twenties,
I was just fascinated by like,but this can't actually be real
because none of these people areobsessing about food all the
time.
Like this is like the narrativein their life, but like, where
is that undercurrent of like theticker tape or like the constant
playing like of that?
(21:51):
So like recognizing that thathad become such a part of my
experience, like I now realizethat it's not there all the
time.
And when it pops up, I know thatthere's something else happening
that I need to address in my ownlife.
I think that that's how I cansay it shows up on the
individual.
Collectively, part of the workthat we do in Body Trust is
(22:17):
writing and sharing bodystories.
And figuring out how to actuallywrite the narrative of your body
from the beginning, from as farback as you can possibly
remember, all the way throughyour life.
Hearing those stories of otherpeople, it is one of the most
(22:37):
moving parts of my work becauseeveryone has a part where that
relationship with their body isruptured.
In some way, shape, or form.
And for some, that's trauma,yes.
For others, it's just dietindustry coming through.
(22:58):
For a lot of people, it's like,how did you learn that?
And it's from people we love.
It's watching our own mothers.
So like hearing body stories inthe collective, I think is
really powerful for liberation.
And then I think likesystemically knowing that, I
(23:21):
mean, there's a lot at stakethere.
People
SPEAKER_00 (23:22):
financially benefit.
One of my favorite questions inthe realm of somatics is like,
what would that make possible?
And I think that's the otherpiece.
Like you're talking about howmuch money people make off this
as well, but there's also themental toll Like you said,
waking up in the morning,tracking your food or
considering, will you wear thisor that based on how big your
(23:45):
thighs are?
Or how do you compare to otherpeople?
When our brains get busy withthat, there's a cost benefit
there.
Like it comes at the cost, notjust of dollar signs and time,
but it's also like, what elsearen't we doing with that?
And that idea of like reallyliving into our true selves.
(24:05):
I think diet culture also is, isreally good at suppressing
creativity, curiosity,individuality, passion, purpose,
like all those, all those piecesthat can feel very vulnerable
when you're so focused on theshell of your body and what size
it is and how it shows up in theworld.
And so I'm just thinking aboutlike who benefits from that as
(24:26):
well when we're not living intoour full purpose as well.
SPEAKER_02 (24:29):
Yeah, well, it's definitely not us.
(24:59):
political times that we areliving in, you see an increase
in pedestalling the anorexic.
You see an increase in dietculture coming out.
And that is just historicallyunder authoritarian regime.
(25:19):
That's what happens.
You get that more.
So it makes perfect sense, Ithink, that people are feeling
that, I think we get pulled awayfrom the truth of what it means
to be fully embodied and fullyin community with one another.
(25:40):
And I think that is intentional.
SPEAKER_00 (25:44):
Yeah.
Well, the more we can other eachother, whether it is by language
or culture or size or age orgender, the or sexual
orientation, like all thosethings, if we can other each
other, then we are much easierto control.
And so I think the body piece isa huge part of that as well.
(26:07):
Okay, you talked about yourbackground in education.
You are also a parent.
And so if we think aboutshifting this paradigm about our
bodies, trusting our bodies andthe wisdom that they hold, What
are the implications for thoserealms of education and
parenting if we really want toshift this paradigm?
SPEAKER_02 (26:31):
I would say both as parents and as educators, we
can't do the work until we lookat our own bias, until we look
at ourselves.
So it is...
absolutely, 100% for certainthat you will recreate and
repeat all the mistakes that gotyou and others to a place of
(26:54):
suffering if you don't look atyour own stuff and heal it in
some way, shape, or form.
And so I think as parents, Iknow when things get really
hard, it can be tempting to turnaway and think, oh, this is a
teenager or this is a middleschool age child.
(27:15):
And like, yeah, it's really hardand sticky and I'm not quite
sure what to say.
So I'm just going to not.
And I'm going to trust that it'sa phase and I'm going to trust
that we're going to come out theother side.
And I promise you in myexperience and the experience of
all the people that I haveworked with, that is the way to
find yourself in the same placeof suffering.
(27:37):
And so I think that like one,recognizing that it really is
something that you can unlearnand that you can unlearn at the
same time you're teaching.
or the same time you'reparenting and that it's messy
and sticky.
And it's just not cute.
It's just not cute.
(27:57):
I remember sitting at the mallwith my daughter, having a whole
conversation about my past withdisordered eating and my whole
body was like hot.
And I just want, I did not wantto do it.
And I knew it was imperfect, butI had to just be honest.
honest about how hard that hadbeen for me just to like open
(28:21):
the door to the narrative sothat we could have more frank,
honest conversation.
And I really wanted to pretendthat I had it all figured out
and it was totally easy.
And I could hand her this likeneat package that would save her
from suffering.
And that's just not how it goeswith teaching or parenting in my
(28:43):
experience.
SPEAKER_00 (28:45):
Jess, if people want to learn more about body trust,
and you mentioned some of thoseofferings coming up in 2026, but
if they wanted to learn moreabout your work, what are the
opportunities to do that?
SPEAKER_02 (28:57):
Absolutely.
So I would say if you areinterested in body trust, I
would highly recommend gettingthe book reclaiming body trust
and digging into tons ofofferings.
They have short courses, longercourses, the year long
certification that I am nowloving and in the middle of.
(29:19):
So I would just really recommendtheir body of work.
I think it's an incredibleintersection of, you know, like
a social lens and an individuallens as well, which is what drew
me to it.
For me, you can find me atjessicawood1 on Instagram.
I hope to be offering both localsmall groups and then possibly
(29:46):
being involved with largerretreats in 2026 and they will
all be there.
Instagram's the best and theeasiest for me.
SPEAKER_00 (29:57):
Great.
Well, I will add your Instagramlink to the bio, the show bio
notes so people can find youthere.
Thank you so much, Jess, foryour time today and for the work
you're doing in the world.
SPEAKER_02 (30:08):
Oh, I loved being here.
I could talk forever.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so glad.
SPEAKER_00 (30:18):
If you want to learn more about previous podcasts or
explore somatic coaching foryourself, check out
www.myintermission.com.
This month, I'm featuring adefine your direction five
session coaching packagefeaturing somatic practices and
intentional reflections thatwill help you gain clarity, get
(30:38):
unstuck and move forward withpurpose.
Thanks for listening.
Welcome to My Intermission, a podcast
conversation about thetransitions and changes we face
in life and the strategies andapproaches that support us in
taking the next step in ourjourney.
I'm your host, ColleenStanovich.
Somatics invites us to get intoour bodies, our full selves, and
(00:25):
really listen to what it holds,what it's longing for, and what
it wants to reveal to us.
However, in our dominantsociety, there is a message that
our bodies are something to workagainst, or even a sense that
they are not a part of us.
Fear of aging, diet, culture,beauty standards all set a
(00:46):
message that our bodies need tobe changed and altered, that
they are imperfect and they'remeant to be controlled.
How do we challenge thesesocietal messages in order to
remember the wisdom andpotential of our bodies?
Today I get to talk to JessWood, a helping professional,
lifelong educator, mentor, andcoach who's stepping into a new
(01:09):
chapter on her way tocertification with Body Trust,
an intersectional socialjustice-oriented path to
healing.
Jess is cisgender,straight-sized, middle-aged
white woman, able-bodied andstraight, born the eldest of
three daughters to middle schoolsweethearts who've been married
for 55 years.
(01:29):
Jess names that her body carriesgenerational threads of
addiction, mental illness,diabetes, and weight-biased
medical care.
She herself struggled withbinging and purging for a
decade.
She's also spent 30 years as aperformer, event planner,
educator, and mentor who findsjoy in knitting, crocheting,
creating, painting, reading,dancing, and swimming.
(01:52):
She's been with her partner,Randy, for over 25 years and is
raising two teenagers.
Hi, Jess.
Thanks for joining me today.
It's so great to see you.
Thanks for having me here.
I'm excited.
So with the Minor MissionPodcast, it's all about the
changes in our lives and thetransitions that we go through.
Can you start with your ownstory of transition that brought
(02:16):
you to where you are today?
SPEAKER_02 (02:18):
Absolutely.
If I think to really thebeginning, I would say that my
break with diet culture thathappened roughly 30 years ago
was preceded by a prettydevastating experience of of
(02:42):
disordered eating myselfpersonally, as so many of us do,
felt like it was my individualsuffering.
It was unique unto me.
There was no one else who wasgoing through it.
I was really kind of wanderingthrough that by myself.
And I found my way out of thatsuffering through sharing my
(03:07):
story and finding a group ofpeople who really understood
what I was going through andcould shed light on how I came
to find myself there.
And so I think that unlearningdiet culture was really crucial
(03:32):
to how, um, I came into thiswork.
I would say professionally, Iloved theater, I loved
performance, I loved dance.
I had done a lot of theater anddirecting all through college
and just afterward.
I can remember a very goodfriend of mine who, when I kind
of shared what I was goingthrough in terms of recovery
(03:54):
from my own disordered eating,saying to me, oh my gosh, I work
at a program and we work withyoung people and so much of what
you're talking about resonateswith that.
Come see what it's all about.
I did.
I ended up working there.
And that's kind of how I foundmy way into education.
And so I was an educator for areally long time.
I have worked in the nonprofitsector with education.
(04:17):
And I think, you know, bodytrust work for me, my transition
into body trust work and, youknow, my decision to pursue
certification and really feelingcommitted to that comes from
just wanting to help othersunlearn harmful narratives that
I believed so deeply myself.
(04:39):
And so currently, I feel likeI've professionally done a lot
of work in building communityand creating safe spaces or
brave spaces.
And I want to kind of shift thatlens for the people that I work
with and really focus on bodyliberation, embodiment.
And so as I look forward inspring 2026, I am hoping to
(05:03):
launch a series of small grouppractices and hopefully retreats
as well with practitioners thatI've come into contact with who
are working on all of thedifferent kind of connected ways
of healing and unlearningtogether.
SPEAKER_00 (05:19):
That is an amazing trajectory.
All those pieces that fell intoplace to get you where you are
today.
You mentioned a lot about dietculture.
Can you just explain how youwould define diet culture and
how that showed up for you interms of your journey too?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean,
SPEAKER_02 (05:35):
I would define diet culture as not an amorphous
thing, but a very targeted,systemic, broadly funded,
multi-trillion dollar industrythat includes everyone who is
encouraging people to look attheir weight as the usually
(06:00):
primary, but really singulardefinition of their health,
wellness, status, worth as ahuman.
I think the diet industry hasits tendrils in so much of our
lives culturally that for me,when I say diet culture, I mean,
(06:23):
I find it in some of my closestfriends.
You know, we're constantlyunearthing it in each other.
We're unlearning together inspaces.
And I think that when we aren'taware of it, it is this like
foundational bias thatintentionally sets us against
(06:45):
ourselves and teaches us to hatethe bodies that we live in and
to hold them to reallyunrealistic Eurocentric beauty
standards.
SPEAKER_00 (06:54):
Yeah, I hear that.
That resonates with me in termsof the world of somatics as
well, of how we are trained tonot be in our bodies for a
variety of reasons.
I also heard you link the workthat you do to liberation.
And so can you draw that outmore too in terms of the
societal messages around dietingand diet culture and why
(07:17):
unlearning can lead toliberation?
SPEAKER_02 (07:20):
Yeah, I think, you know, One of the visuals that
has been really grounding for mein body trust work is the visual
of a tree.
And that tree has roots.
And the deeper the roots, thebetter that you as an individual
and then collectively as acommunity, we can withstand when
(07:43):
the winds of body shaming blow,the deeper your roots, the
better you can withstand that.
Because those winds are going tocontinue to blow.
I mean...
Maybe not forever.
What do I know?
But certainly, you know, for mylifetime, I think that some of
those roots that have been mosttransformative to me are really
like finding community, findingother people, like-minded
(08:06):
people, an idea of kindness andcuriosity, of self-preservation.
you know, this idea of doing Cminus work, which I mean, I'll
just be real.
Like as the, as the child of twolifelong educators, as an
educator myself, like that wasjust really transformational for
me.
I was like, C minus work.
And we're striving for that.
(08:27):
Amazing.
Like, it just like takes thatperfectionism out of the, out of
the equation in a way that hasbeen so helpful for me in my own
learning and unlearning.
Other roots are like, you know,locating yourself with as a
cisgender, straight, like personidentified as female at birth,
(08:49):
solidly middle class, likeknowing all of those things,
being able to identify myprivilege and bias and how I
come into spaces, how I show upwith all of that is incredibly
important just as a root and asbeing a good community member.
And then I think like knowingthat like we all have a comfort
(09:11):
zone and finding the edge ofthose, that, that comfort zone,
all of those roots that like,that's where you can like really
ground yourself is incrediblehelp, incredibly helpful.
And then, and this is not mylike, um, work of this tree, by
the way, this is like firmlyfrom like body trust work, Dana
Sturdivant and Hillary Knavey,who like wrote the book on body
(09:34):
trust.
Like they came up with this.
it was when I came upon theirwork that I was like, yes, those
are all the words and ideas forall the things that helped me
come through into myself.
And so body liberation is reallyabout finding your way out, not
only as an individual, but as acollective, as a member of a
(09:56):
community, knowing that grief isa part of that, that you have to
grieve all of the time energy,money spent chasing this ideal.
You have to grieve the fact thatyou believed all these things
that told you that you weren'tenough.
I could continue on.
(10:17):
These are like the ideas thatreally fuel this idea of body
liberation, which I think for alot of people, when they hear
that, you know, it can be linkedto this sort of happy woo-woo
like body positivity, which is Idon't mean to say that with such
a note of mocking.
It's just, for me, it doesn't gofar enough.
For me, being positive...
(10:39):
or being accepting doesn't gofar enough.
For me, it's been more aboutlike digging into the systems
and finding the community andlearning and unlearning
together.
SPEAKER_00 (10:51):
Well, and that idea of unlearning coupled with
intersectionality that younamed, that it is about when you
think about body trust andunlearning our relationship with
our bodies and that diet culturepiece.
The intersections that younamed, whether it is like having
curiosity instead of shame orfinding community instead of
(11:14):
living in isolation, steppinginto grief instead of denying
our emotions, like all thosethings are also such strong
messages.
And you can see how they theywork in collaboration to keep
system structures that areoppressive to individuals and
communities.
people in our society andcultures, they keep them in
(11:34):
place.
And so when you think about theintersectionality there, like
what is the goal, if you will?
What are we striving for interms of body trust?
SPEAKER_02 (11:49):
I mean, I think like foundationally, it's just this
idea that you can trust yourbody to sort out the weight,
which is like...
to the vast majority of peoplewho've been raised in our
culture.
I think it's that you canreconnect with your own desires
(12:09):
and needs, one of those beingaround food, but not all of them
around food, and that you cantrust yourself to really honor
those boundaries and desires andthat you won't completely go off
(12:30):
the rails.
I think one of the things that Ilearned really early on is that
folks who struggle withdisordered eating, which by the
way, the whole part of diagnosisin and of itself is a really
kind of like, I don't know,thorny issue.
It's very expensive to getdiagnosed.
(12:51):
It's very expensive to haveofficial treatment.
It's really a privilege toaccess all of those systems.
And a white cisgender woman inthe mid-90s, the mid-1990s,
early 2000s, that system was...
And as a straight-sized person,that system was...
(13:15):
Yes.
Okay.
You may come in.
We accept you.
We see you.
We honor what you're goingthrough.
What I learned early on was thata lot of my community members
who didn't live instraight-sized bodies, who lived
in fat bodies, were denied thatcare, were never asked if they
(13:35):
had disordered eating, any typeof struggles around food.
The assumption was that ifyou're coming into the doctor
for whatever type of, of ailmentor issue that like, we're going
to talk about your weight firstand foremost, and that's going
to be something that you'regoing to need to solve.
And then we'll go on from there.
And so like this, like tacitagreement that thin is healthy,
(14:01):
you know, it's, it's really allwrapped up in that same, like
sort of diet mentality thatlike, weight stigma that so
many, especially in thehealthcare industry, people
carry around.
So that was really important.
(14:23):
As I continue to learn to divestfrom diet culture, to recognize
that the community of humans whoare really working on this, that
it benefits all of us, that weall look different, and that
that is just a part of Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (14:44):
the merits of diversity and why that isn't
just a nice thing, but it'sactually an essential thing and
how that benefits all of us.
I was thinking of something thatyou said, oh, in terms of
getting support for disorderedeating too.
You know, in somatics, I talkwith people about how our brain
is one thinking center, ouremotional center of our hearts
(15:08):
is another thinking center.
operating center for us.
And then our guts hold a lot interms of intuition.
And it's another operatingcenter.
When I think of disorderedeating, I think a lot of people,
obviously, they think about howit shows up in a person's body.
But then there's also thatconnection to mental health.
And so through your work withbody trust, and some of the work
(15:30):
that you've done with people,how do you describe or unravel
that relationship between mentalhealth, physical health?
SPEAKER_02 (15:38):
I think that the ways that you're naming it are
really helpful for a lot ofpeople working through body
trust as well, because I thinkthat thinking is so loud.
It's just so loud, especiallybecause so many of us were
taught at a very young age thatthinking is more important than
(16:04):
And so reading of labels, youknow, orthorexia being for
anyone listening who doesn'tknow, just like an obsession
with how healthy and clean foodis, is orthorexia, you know, um,
That's my layperson'sdefinition.
I'm sure there's a much morescientific one.
(16:24):
But that idea that you have arunning commentary in your mind
that is constant, like thatticker tape that runs below
anything you see on the news,just about everything.
not only the nutritional valuesof different foods, but the
morality of different foods aswell.
And so I think it's reallyimportant for people who are
(16:47):
finding their way back from thatto be supported in knowing that
when things bubble up fromwherever in your body you feel
them, that you can first learnto hear it then learn to value
it, then learn to act on itversus just only listening to
(17:10):
this complex warning over andover and over.
Like, no, that's bad for thisreason.
Or like, all fat is bad.
All carbs are bad.
Whatever it is that has beenassigned this moral value of...
(17:30):
bad or bad for you or you knowmost of that under the guise of
going to make you
SPEAKER_00 (17:36):
fat those words that you just said to to hear it in
your body to value it and thento act on it
SPEAKER_01 (17:43):
one
SPEAKER_00 (17:43):
of the things that's striking to me about those words
too is it's about going in
SPEAKER_01 (17:47):
and I
SPEAKER_00 (17:48):
think there is this relationship you talked about
the multi-million dollarindustry around diet culture
that feels like a very differentmindset and so is there part of
your body trust work that thatmakes that adjustment.
I mean, you talked about theunlearning piece, but how do you
begin that unlearning process, Iguess, is my big question.
SPEAKER_02 (18:06):
Yeah.
I mean, I can speak to my ownjourney.
I began with the roots, withreally leaning into finding
community, with really lettinggo of trying to be perfect, even
about the unlearning journey, ofreally giving myself time and
space to figure out where Whatis it that I desire?
(18:32):
What is it that I need?
What are my own boundaries?
That kind of work, I think, iscrucial because at the end of
the day, it's not about thefood.
And people say that, and Iremember hearing that, you know,
30 years ago, I had a mentor whojust talked about like, okay, if
(18:56):
there was some magical gas thatlike permeated the entire planet
and meant that no one could everlose or gain a single pound
again, that their body wouldremain exactly as it was, how
would that change what youwanted from your life?
How would that change how youmoved through the world?
(19:16):
And, you know, I never forgotthat because I think to your
previous question around bodyliberation, there is a
reclaiming of your own livedexperience when you're actually
able to be in your body and nothave that ticker tape, not have
(19:39):
the constant berating voice inyour mind.
that promises that life will bedifferent once you achieve this
thing that says, oh, no, youneed to go back to the plan.
Like, let's have a project.
And that project is your body.
(20:00):
Let's do it.
You know, like, because we aresold that over and over and over
again.
And so I think like, theliberation, knowing that And
again, for me personally, it hascome down to community.
Being able to interact withpeople who have found their way
(20:21):
out showed me that that wasactually possible.
And
SPEAKER_00 (20:30):
that made all the difference.
So that idea of showing peoplewho have shown you the way out,
can you give some examples ofwhat it means to leave diet
culture behind?
How does that show up inday-to-day practices?
SPEAKER_02 (20:47):
Yeah.
I think there's some that areinteractive and then there's
some that are individual andthen there's some that are
systemic.
So I would say on the individuallevel, that shows up as for me
personally, as my first thoughtin the morning is not reviewing
everything I ate the day beforeand planning everything I'm
(21:09):
going to eat that day.
And there were years of my lifewhere that was absolutely the
first thing that I thought aboutfor absolutely for sure.
Um, and I think, you know, on anindividual level, I'm a big
reader.
I love books, like books, likeshaped my childhood.
I spent an inordinate amount oftime reading and, uh, as I
(21:30):
became like an adolescent andthen certainly like my twenties,
I was just fascinated by like,but this can't actually be real
because none of these people areobsessing about food all the
time.
Like this is like the narrativein their life, but like, where
is that undercurrent of like theticker tape or like the constant
playing like of that?
(21:51):
So like recognizing that thathad become such a part of my
experience, like I now realizethat it's not there all the
time.
And when it pops up, I know thatthere's something else happening
that I need to address in my ownlife.
I think that that's how I cansay it shows up on the
individual.
Collectively, part of the workthat we do in Body Trust is
(22:17):
writing and sharing bodystories.
And figuring out how to actuallywrite the narrative of your body
from the beginning, from as farback as you can possibly
remember, all the way throughyour life.
Hearing those stories of otherpeople, it is one of the most
(22:37):
moving parts of my work becauseeveryone has a part where that
relationship with their body isruptured.
In some way, shape, or form.
And for some, that's trauma,yes.
For others, it's just dietindustry coming through.
(22:58):
For a lot of people, it's like,how did you learn that?
And it's from people we love.
It's watching our own mothers.
So like hearing body stories inthe collective, I think is
really powerful for liberation.
And then I think likesystemically knowing that, I
(23:21):
mean, there's a lot at stakethere.
People
SPEAKER_00 (23:22):
financially benefit.
One of my favorite questions inthe realm of somatics is like,
what would that make possible?
And I think that's the otherpiece.
Like you're talking about howmuch money people make off this
as well, but there's also themental toll Like you said,
waking up in the morning,tracking your food or
considering, will you wear thisor that based on how big your
(23:45):
thighs are?
Or how do you compare to otherpeople?
When our brains get busy withthat, there's a cost benefit
there.
Like it comes at the cost, notjust of dollar signs and time,
but it's also like, what elsearen't we doing with that?
And that idea of like reallyliving into our true selves.
(24:05):
I think diet culture also is, isreally good at suppressing
creativity, curiosity,individuality, passion, purpose,
like all those, all those piecesthat can feel very vulnerable
when you're so focused on theshell of your body and what size
it is and how it shows up in theworld.
And so I'm just thinking aboutlike who benefits from that as
(24:26):
well when we're not living intoour full purpose as well.
SPEAKER_02 (24:29):
Yeah, well, it's definitely not us.
(24:59):
political times that we areliving in, you see an increase
in pedestalling the anorexic.
You see an increase in dietculture coming out.
And that is just historicallyunder authoritarian regime.
(25:19):
That's what happens.
You get that more.
So it makes perfect sense, Ithink, that people are feeling
that, I think we get pulled awayfrom the truth of what it means
to be fully embodied and fullyin community with one another.
(25:40):
And I think that is intentional.
SPEAKER_00 (25:44):
Yeah.
Well, the more we can other eachother, whether it is by language
or culture or size or age orgender, the or sexual
orientation, like all thosethings, if we can other each
other, then we are much easierto control.
And so I think the body piece isa huge part of that as well.
(26:07):
Okay, you talked about yourbackground in education.
You are also a parent.
And so if we think aboutshifting this paradigm about our
bodies, trusting our bodies andthe wisdom that they hold, What
are the implications for thoserealms of education and
parenting if we really want toshift this paradigm?
SPEAKER_02 (26:31):
I would say both as parents and as educators, we
can't do the work until we lookat our own bias, until we look
at ourselves.
So it is...
absolutely, 100% for certainthat you will recreate and
repeat all the mistakes that gotyou and others to a place of
(26:54):
suffering if you don't look atyour own stuff and heal it in
some way, shape, or form.
And so I think as parents, Iknow when things get really
hard, it can be tempting to turnaway and think, oh, this is a
teenager or this is a middleschool age child.
(27:15):
And like, yeah, it's really hardand sticky and I'm not quite
sure what to say.
So I'm just going to not.
And I'm going to trust that it'sa phase and I'm going to trust
that we're going to come out theother side.
And I promise you in myexperience and the experience of
all the people that I haveworked with, that is the way to
find yourself in the same placeof suffering.
(27:37):
And so I think that like one,recognizing that it really is
something that you can unlearnand that you can unlearn at the
same time you're teaching.
or the same time you'reparenting and that it's messy
and sticky.
And it's just not cute.
It's just not cute.
(27:57):
I remember sitting at the mallwith my daughter, having a whole
conversation about my past withdisordered eating and my whole
body was like hot.
And I just want, I did not wantto do it.
And I knew it was imperfect, butI had to just be honest.
honest about how hard that hadbeen for me just to like open
(28:21):
the door to the narrative sothat we could have more frank,
honest conversation.
And I really wanted to pretendthat I had it all figured out
and it was totally easy.
And I could hand her this likeneat package that would save her
from suffering.
And that's just not how it goeswith teaching or parenting in my
(28:43):
experience.
SPEAKER_00 (28:45):
Jess, if people want to learn more about body trust,
and you mentioned some of thoseofferings coming up in 2026, but
if they wanted to learn moreabout your work, what are the
opportunities to do that?
SPEAKER_02 (28:57):
Absolutely.
So I would say if you areinterested in body trust, I
would highly recommend gettingthe book reclaiming body trust
and digging into tons ofofferings.
They have short courses, longercourses, the year long
certification that I am nowloving and in the middle of.
(29:19):
So I would just really recommendtheir body of work.
I think it's an incredibleintersection of, you know, like
a social lens and an individuallens as well, which is what drew
me to it.
For me, you can find me atjessicawood1 on Instagram.
I hope to be offering both localsmall groups and then possibly
(29:46):
being involved with largerretreats in 2026 and they will
all be there.
Instagram's the best and theeasiest for me.
SPEAKER_00 (29:57):
Great.
Well, I will add your Instagramlink to the bio, the show bio
notes so people can find youthere.
Thank you so much, Jess, foryour time today and for the work
you're doing in the world.
SPEAKER_02 (30:08):
Oh, I loved being here.
I could talk forever.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so glad.
SPEAKER_00 (30:18):
If you want to learn more about previous podcasts or
explore somatic coaching foryourself, check out
www.myintermission.com.
This month, I'm featuring adefine your direction five
session coaching packagefeaturing somatic practices and
intentional reflections thatwill help you gain clarity, get
(30:38):
unstuck and move forward withpurpose.
Thanks for listening.
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