814. THIS Is Why You Struggle With Your Body

0:13Hello and welcome to Almost 30 podcast. My name is Krista Williams, and I am almost 30 on the other side. The podcast was started by my best friend and I when we were almost 30 on our closet floors. We had full-time jobs. We were completely lost and had no idea what to do with our lives and decided to take those conversations on a podcast in 2016 when we launched the show. Then eventually, this turned into a brand and business that I absolutely love and adore. And I'm so thankful to be doing this for over 10 years with y 'all. It's been a dream. We've been on tour. We had retreats. We had merch.

0:49We did membership courses, programs. We've done it all. We released a book in June of this year, and it was one of my favorite things that I've ever done, one of the hardest things I've ever done, and one of the things I'm most absolutely proud of in my career. When everyone talked about doing a book, they were like, it's so hard. And I said, you guys don't work hard, but I do. And then I did a book, and I said, I need help. This is so hard. You guys were right. So it was a very hard experience, but the Almost 30 book is a definitive guide to a life that you love, you know, for this next decade and beyond.

1:22And you can get it wherever books are sold. We've had so many great reviews. It's just been such a dream. So if you feel lost in life, the book is a great spot. So in this journey of Almost 30, I've talked a lot about my body journey. So this is something that I never really thought I would talk about or be able to talk about or express. I started sharing openly about my body journey at the beginning of the podcast. So around 10 years ago, when I was going through some health issues, my hormones were completely out of whack. I had been pushing myself to the limit living in New York City before I was in Los Angeles to be the thinnest version of me that I ever was.

2:00I was going to two SoulCycle classes a day, walking 10 ,000 plus steps, eating only Quest bars, just such a disordered relationship with food and my body. And when I moved to Los Angeles, my body completely rejected the old things that I was doing, the over-functioning, burning myself out, HIIT workouts, energy drinks, caffeine, protein bar eating lifestyle. Got very sick and I put on a bunch of weight. And for someone that's biggest fear is putting on weight. It was a very hard situation and circumstance for me because I had lived my entire life trying to be thinner than the thinnest version of myself.

2:40And when I was in New York City, I was the thinnest I had ever been. You know, It was just a combination of all the working out, all the little eating I was doing, all the stimulants, and living in that city that had caused me to be the thinnest I'd ever been. And then at that weight, I knew I wanted to be thinner. And at that time, that's when I knew I had a problem. But to go then to Los Angeles and then put on all that weight because I had gotten sick was really hard for me. So I started to share openly on the podcast about my journey with my body and how much I had struggled. And in that process opened up a lot about how I had been in this experience of hating and being at war with my body my whole life and spending so much energy on this fear of being fat and this desire to be thin and this desire to change my body and this belief that I was only as good as how much I weighed and I was only as good as how much I looked.

3:31In the book that we put out in June, I did a really powerful chapter and I'll say that just with pride on the body. I was out to lunch yesterday actually, and the server goes, I don't mean to break character, but I'm reading your book now and the body section has changed my life. And for me, someone who struggled so much with my body to hear that from someone is just such a gift. And I shared a lot about that in the book of the struggle with the body journey and how so many of us really use so much of our energy, our creativity, our life force and pulled ourselves back because we feel like we don't look a certain way.

4:10And because we feel like we're too fat because we feel like we're not thin enough, all of these things. And so in my journey with my body, I was struggling so much at the beginning of our journey with the podcast and struggled almost until the end of my marriage in 2023. After that relationship ended, I completely radically committed to feeling my feelings. And in that commitment, I completely committed to a life of truth and honesty and integrity that I was going to be fully expressed, that I was going to choose myself, that I was going to take care of myself, and that I was going to feel. And for someone that was using food as a method of not feeling, that was radically different.

4:52I was no longer using food to numb, to cope, to avoid, to hold back, to restrict, to not express. And that step and that commitment changed my relationship with food, which changed my relationship with my body, which got me on a journey of a complete body transformation from, you know, 2023 to now, where now I feel more strong. I feel more fit. I feel more me. I feel beautiful. I feel sexy. I feel embodied and powerful. And just, I truly am living in a body that I love. And it doesn't mean that it's perfect every single day, but it's a body I'm proud of. And it's a body that I would have never dreamed I could be in.

5:32And the important thing about me saying that is that I was someone that my entire life, I was never satisfied. I mentioned the story when I was in New York City and I was the thinnest I had ever been. And as soon as I got on the scale and saw that I had been the dream number, and my dream number was dictated by a magazine I had read where a Sports Illustrated model who was my height said how much she weighed. And so then my mind said, that's how much I should weigh, which is insane. And at that time I got on the scale and I was like, I need to be thinner than that. And I was never satisfied. But at this point in my life, whatever weight I am, I'm completely satisfied in that piece.

6:08And I never thought this would be my reality. And today what I want to talk about is something that I teach in the metamorphosis method. So the metamorphosis method was really derived from my butterfly season, from my coming out of cocoon of my divorce to reclaiming my sensuality, my pleasure, my empathic nature, my voice, my expression to becoming this version of me, this glowed up version of me that I would have never dreamed was possible. I am more beautiful, radiant, confident, free myself than I have ever been. And I can say that with 100 % confidence. There's no one that can say that I'm not completely different from that version.

6:47And in this method, I really take a psycho-spiritual approach to body transformation. And in addition to that, we also have a very tactical blood work. We do peptides. It's this really beautiful melding and method. But today's episode, I really wanted to focus on one of the pillars of the metamorphosis method for body transformation that I teach, which is about the mother wound and how it impacts the body. What is so interesting is that when I first started talking about my body and had so much pain and struggle with it, I talked a lot about my mom. And my mom and I have a great relationship now.

7:21I'm very grateful for her. We've struggled quite a bit in my lifetime. And if you've listened to the show, you know a lot about our journey and our process. And you know a lot about the pain that I've been through, and I'm sure pain that she's been through. But at this point in time, I have peace and I have reverence and we're in a great spot. But that does not mean that my mom did not impact me and my relationship to my body. So the mother wound and its impact on the body is great and deep. So the mother wound is really the inherited patterns, the pain and the conditioning we receive from our moms.

7:53So anything that our mother doesn't heal can oftentimes be passed along to us. So for many of us, this means that our mothers have these unhealthy relationships with our body. And that means we get a lot of that body conversation, that body drama, that body hate, that body disdain. almost every woman that I know has firstly struggled with her body and almost every woman I know who struggled with her body would also say that her mother has struggled with her body the things that I've heard my mom say about her body are just absolutely

8:30crazy I don't know a different word I'm trying to think of like a better word for that but it's painful. It's bullying. It's cruel. It's just, it's hard. And so many of us have gotten this inherited message from our moms about our bodies that we're carrying today. So it's really not about blame. It's not about blaming the moms. This is the 2.0 version of you. That's not blaming mom. 1.0 version is like, mom sucks. Mom did this to me. No, 2.0 doesn't blame. It's about understanding how this unresolved pain around our bodies and our power and our sensuality and our pleasure gets passed on.

9:07This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. February can bring up a lot around relationships. There's so much talk about love and dating, and it can feel like everyone else has it all together, whether they're married, coupled, or moving effortlessly through it all. But the truth is most of us are still figuring it out. Hi, I'm definitely still figuring it out, and I've been married for three years. and wherever you are, whether you're dating, single, or focused on yourself, you're not behind. Therapy can really help you take some pressure off. It's a space to understand what you want, what feels heavy, and what may be weighing your relationships down so you can start to feel clearer and lighter again.

9:47BetterHelp makes it easy to get matched with a qualified therapist through a short questionnaire. And if the fit isn't right, you can switch anytime. They make it super easy. So sign up now and get 10 % off at betterhelp.com slash almost 30. That's B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P.com slash almost 30. Revolve is honestly my go-to for everything. I'm wearing all Revolve today. We can go through it in a minute. Everyday outfits, date nights, weddings, even those I want to feel more put together days, I go to Revolve. Now that 2026 is officially here, I've been doing a little wardrobe reset and Revolve makes it super easy.

10:25I love their curated edits and the recommended for you section. It actually helps me find pieces that fit my vibe without endless scrolling. I don't like to be on there forever. And I've been loving brands like Lovers and Friends, A. Goldie, and Amanda Uprichard lately, and everything just feels like very high quality and effortless. I'm obsessed. So between inclusive sizing, new arrivals daily, and fast two-day shipping. It's the best with easy returns. It's truly a no-brainer. Whether it's a weekend away, a big night out, or just a much-needed wardrobe refresh, your dream wardrobe is just one click away.

11:03I hope you're watching on YouTube. You will see my full Revolve look. The theme is brown. We have an incredible sweater, these swishy pants, and some Nike. Are these... These are dunks? They're cool, right? They're brown. I love them. Head to revolve.com slash a30pod, shop my edit and take 15 % off your first order with code A30POD, A30POD. Fast two-day shipping, easy returns, the easiest of all time. It's literally the only place you need to shop from. That's revolve.com slash a30pod to shop our favorites and get 15 % off your first order with code A30POD. Offer available for a limited time. So happy, happy shopping.

11:49when i think about pregnancy prep there's already so much to hold physically emotionally mentally all of it and honestly i don't want supplements to be another thing i'm stressing about that's why in my first pregnancy i really trusted ritual their essential prenatal feels very intentional and well thought out the ingredients to how it's designed and i like knowing it's clinically backed and made with traceable ingredients like choline folate and omega-3 without unnecessary extras. I've also really appreciated the experience of taking it. It's hard to take pills in pregnancy, especially in that first trimester.

12:22The capsule is designed to be gentle and it's one of the few prenatals I've tried that feels easy to incorporate into my routine, especially during those sensitive seasons. It has like a citrus essence that really makes it easy to take. And Ritual focuses on bioavailable nutrients and thoughtful delivery, including a delayed release capsule designed to dissolve in small intestines. That attention to detail really matters to me and I appreciate. So don't settle for less than evidence-based support. Save 25 % off your first month at ritual.com slash almost 30. That's ritual.com slash almost 30 for 25 % off your first month.

13:02So how this mother wound connects to body issues and eating habits. Again, we go all into this in metamorphosis, which is so incredible. First, with body image. So many mothers pass down this dissatisfaction with their own bodies to their children. I heard my mom say so many times, I need to lose weight. I can't eat that. I look fat. I am fat. All of these things. And from a young age my entire life, I was hearing my mom say these cruel, sad things about herself and her body. Children absorb this as truth about how a woman's body should be. So whether my mom was fat or thin, I'm taking on this belief that my body needs to be thin.

13:46My body needs to look a certain way, that I can't be fat, that it's bad for her to look fat, that she needs to lose weight, that I need to lose weight. We're all fat. We as children are looking and mirroring our mothers. We do not have a prefrontal cortex developed to process things consciously. So I am taking in this pattern and this voice. I need to be thin. I cannot be fat. I cannot eat that thing. I need to eat less. Being thin is good. I need to eat less. Being thin is good. So there's so much that is unconsciously passed down from our mothers and the dissatisfaction with their own bodies.

14:27I had an experience a few years ago and I'm healed at this point. but, you know, where my mom came to visit and we were, um, it was over a holiday and we were going to a dinner and she was just unwell, you know, with how she was looking. She's like, I'm so fat. You guys are thin now. You got, you know, just kind of going on and on about how she was fat and how she needed to lose weight and all of this stuff. And I was just really in this process of really seeing clearly how hard it had been, you know, to be involved in the dialogue around your body and worth all the time. And how painful it is to only judge your value in life on your weight.

15:07And how there's no other really curiosity about what your soul came here to do because you're so focused on how much you need to weigh. And it was heartbreaking for me. I was like, dang, I have, as a little girl, just really absorbed this, lived in this and experienced this unconscious judging and critiquing of the body. And a belief that my body needed to be a certain way to be loved because my mom was not loving herself for the way her body was. So why would I love myself for the way my body is? I never saw the example of a woman loving their body as it was. Many of us have not. Please message or DM me if you had a mom that was amazing and body liberated and body loving.

15:47I would like to come over. The mother wound also connects to body issues and eating habits through food as control or comfort. I'm having a spiritual experience saying this to you right now because this is just so relevant and so true for me. I'm adjusting the microphone. I'm getting close. I'm leaning in. I am fully locked in for this because if you had love, nurturing, or emotional reassurance or presence as inconsistent. Food may become a substitute for you, either to fill the emotional emptiness or as a way to self-regulate. So in the example of my unaligned marriage, I was using food to regulate and to fill my emotional emptiness and to hide the truth of how I felt and to stuff down my voice and my emotions.

16:53So when we are little and we do not have parents that are regulating with us from a nervous system level, we will find in a very smart way something to regulate. This can be various addictions. It can be disassociation. For me, I found food. Food is really beautiful because food releases happy hormones in our brain. Food also has a lot of chemicals that support us in regulation. And food is usually always there. You know, there might be people listening where food wasn't consistent for them. They didn't have food all the time. And that's a different experience and story. And in my case, we had enough food at the house.

17:32And when my mom was inconsistent or not present or was not supporting me emotionally as someone that was very sensitive with big feelings, I would go to food to find comfort. I would go to food as my emotional support, as my safety net, as my substitute. And that pattern I had kept with me my entire life. So whenever I felt emotionally empty, whenever I felt unexpressed, whenever I felt I had to hide, whenever I felt I was not able to be myself, whenever I felt unregulated, I would go to food. And when I committed after my divorce to feel my feelings, to regulate myself, to fill the emotional emptiness with God, to regulate my emotions and not use food as my crutch, my whole relationship with food and body changed.

18:23So think about in your life where you're using food potentially as control or comfort. This is huge. And what happens is, is you need to not take it away from yourself immediately because you need to find better ways and strategies and practices to be with yourself and what needs support than using food. So example, if you're someone that is using food to fill emotional emptiness, you feel unaligned in life, unaligned in relationships, you feel like you have no purpose. And when you get home from work, you like to eat tons of food and binge because it fills this void. Instead of just focusing on how you can stop eating after work, you need to find ways to support yourself in feeling emotionally full, in feeling connected, and feeling alive, because then you'll no longer need the food to fill that emptiness.

19:17So it's a two-way street. We can't just remove the food because that's not going to support you. And in the program in Metamorphosis, we do a lot of internal family systems because that's a lot of this work here because I'm talking about a part. A part is using this to soothe, and the true you doesn't need this to soothe. So looking at it that way, that if you're looking to change your pattern and relationship with food, you have to find better ways of regulating, better ways of finding comfort than using food rather than just changing your relationship with food. The mother wound also connects to body issues and eating habits by attaching our approval and worth to our body.

19:52So if a mother linked love or approval to appearance, to performance, or being a good girl, food and body becomes tools to seek validation or safety. Oh my goodness, you guys. Just come closer to me. This has been something for me that I've been struggling with because when you have a family and a home that relates so much worth to appearance, you then relate love and acceptance to appearance. So then I go in the dating world and I'm like, if you, you have to think I'm so hot and so attractive to love me. And I need to be so hot and so attractive to be loved. And I kind of make this association to love, to being attractive, to love, to being beautiful or thin or all of these things.

20:44And so many of us have this belief that we are not worthy of love unless we are thin, that we are not worthy of love unless we are attractive, that we are not worthy of love unless we are a certain weight or size. Because many of us had mothers that linked love or approval to appearance. Oh, you look great today. Oh, did you lose weight? Oh, I love this outfit. You're so pretty. Aren't you gorgeous? Gosh, you're so stunning. You know, like all of that stuff that just trains our brain to think that we have to be beautiful to be accepted or loved. That we have to be thin to be loved. I had many situations in life where every, I mean, it's every time I see, you know, my mom, it's a body clocking.

21:31It's like, what's going on with her body right now? Oh, you look this, you look that, this is blah, blah, blah. Many of us have that where we're attaching the idea of being thin to be loved. The mother wound also connects to body issues and eating habits with suppressed emotions. This is what I've been talking about as well as it relates to my journey. when I committed to feeling my feelings, my entire relationship to my body and food changed because I was using food to not feel. So many of us are doing so many things in life to avoid feeling. Oh my gosh, you guys. Oh, the journeys you will go on to avoid feeling a feeling.

22:13I had a conversation with a coaching client recently and she has a freeze response because she's going through something. and this is a teaching at a high level. I'm not sharing anything, you know, that's like hidden. She has a freeze response because she's going through something and it's this entire freeze response just leads us on this journey of doing all of these disassociation practices and techniques when if we just took 10 minutes to feel, we would not be on a journey of disassociating for days. So many of us are avoiding feeling and if we just felt, we would move so much energy, we would be so much happier, we would be so much healthier, and we would even be in better relationship to our body.

22:52Many mothers weren't taught to process their own emotions. So we daughters learned to suppress ours. A lot of times we had mothers that were very emotional, that were very explosive, that were very all over the place. I lived in a pretty chaotic household with pretty explosive emotions and feelings and lots of drama and chaos. And so me thinking that was bad to be that way, learned to suppress my own feelings and emotions because there was no space for them. There was no space for me to have my own emotional experience or to be emotional. So I used food to numb. I used food to stuff it down. And I used food to also control.

23:31I'm like, I have so much I'm feeling. Okay, what can I control? Because I can't control how I feel. I'm going to use food to control. If you grew up in a household where the people weren't healthy with their emotions. They weren't expressing them. They weren't in right relationship with them. Chances are you have an interesting dynamic with food and you might use food in ways that don't support you. So us suppressing our feelings, and I believe us suppressing our voice and our sensuality and our pleasure, which I talk a lot about metamorphosis, is also causing us to eat. I'm just going to drop this in the room.

24:02And we can do another podcast on this if you guys want. you also suppressing your desire for sensuality and pleasure, and you also suppressing your voice, your expression is also often done through with food. If you know you have something to say to the world, you have something you want to bring through, you have medicine, you have an expression that wants to come through, so many of you will use food to dull and dampen your life and keep yourself from being fully expressed. So many of you who are not sexually satisfied, sexually liberated in your sexual prime, in your sexual power, in your most sexual experience, and I'm not talking about having sex every day.

24:44I'm talking about being in the truth of your body and your attunement to your desires. If you are not in attunement to your desires in your body, you will use food to numb. You will use food to control, and you'll probably use food to suppress the feelings of desire and of sensuality and pleasure that you really have. This is a whole journey. So we can go on that on another podcast if you want, but I wanted to just kind of bring that in the room there. So from the spiritual and energetic lens, you know, the energy of the mother, the body is also our first home. The body is our home. The body is our vessel for divinity.

25:17It is our home. It is this beautiful, sacred ground for our experience. Like, oh my God, thank you body for dragging me around this lifetime. And our mother is also our first mirror of safety, nourishment, and love. So any fracture here with the mom also imprints energetically on how we inhabit our own body. So the body is our first home and our mother is our first mirror of safety, nourishment, and love. So our mother, if we had a unattuned relationship, she wasn't safe. We didn't feel loved. Sometimes since she is considered our home, in a lot of ways she was our home in the womb, we will then treat our body with the same energy.

25:56We will not attuned to ourselves. We will not respect ourselves. We will, you know, avoid ourselves. A lot of the ways in which our moms were with their own bodies, we will also take that on. A lot of the ways our moms were with ourselves, not safe, unattuned, not present, we will also do that to our own bodies. Our mothers were the first examples and the first people we saw in relationship to their bodies. Our mothers were also our actual source of nourishment. if you were breastfed. Your mother was your first source of nourishment. So if you have an inconsistent attachment to her, you're going to have an inconsistent attachment to nourishment.

26:36I read something recently that completely reframed how I think about aging, and it has nothing to do with wrinkles or energy levels on the surface. Scientists just identified the first nutritional deficiency in 75 years. It's called cellular fragility syndrome. It's caused by low levels of an essential fatty acid called C15. And it turns out that this one nutrient plays a huge role in keeping ourselves strong and resilient. When C15 levels drop, our cells become fragile. They produce less energy, break down faster, and that can quietly show up as poor sleep, fatigue, and feeling like your body just isn't bouncing back the way it used to.