How to Eat with Full Permission and Set Boundaries with Family During the Holidays

Welcome to The Satiated Podcast where we explore physical and emotional hunger, satiation, and healing your relationship with your food and body. I'm your host Stephanie Mara Fox your Somatic Nutritional Counselor. I’m greatly looking forward to chatting today with Nina Manolson. Nina is a Body-Peace® coach. She helps people end the war with food and body and finally feel truly at home in their body as it is. She is known for her deeply feminist, anti- diet, body-peace approach. She brings her 30 years experience as a therapist, Nationally Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach, Body-Trust® Guide and Psychology of Eating Teacher to helping women create a respectful and trusting relationship with their food and body. Nina’s Body-Peace work is all in service of helping people get off the diet roller-coaster, and into a compassionate and powerful way of eating & living which creates a positive long-lasting change in and with their bodies. Her courses, coaching and poetry positively change the conversation that women are having with their body. She also writes Body-Poems as a way to encourage a shift in the way we talk to, and about our body. Welcome Nina!

Nina Manolson 01:23

Oh, Stephanie, I am so thrilled to be here with you.

Stephanie Mara 01:27

I am as well, I'm just super excited to connect with you today and learn more about your history. You know, I know that we've known each other for quite some time and I honestly don't know how you've gotten into this work and would love to hear a little bit more about your background.

Nina Manolson 01:43

Yeah, absolutely. So the reason that I'm so committed to body peace work is because I was sort of the expert of body war. That was my experience growing up and for decades, decades being in the something's wrong with my body, what am I going to do about it? What's my diet going to be for tomorrow? Oh, I blew that. What am I going to do on Monday then, and oh, my gosh, I can't believe I look this way and she's thinner, and I'm bigger and all the comparison, all the shame, all the blame all the management of next diets, I frankly was exhausted and got to a place where it was literally born with a conversation in my head and knew that there was other things I should be doing with my brain besides obsessing about food and feeling bad. And also just constantly, like suck the life out of me that always feeling like I wasn't good enough, always feeling a little bit self conscious. It was like, you know, like driving a car that has a leak in the gas tank, it was a constant depletion. And so my journey of healing myself also became a professional journey. I started with a lot of embodiment practices, in terms of yoga. I was a body worker for many years helped women really feel safe and at home in their body. And from that work, really touching women literally, and hearing their body's story, I'm moved into, you know what, there's something more going on here and became a therapist, and did body mind work, but I was still struggling with food and body. So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna become a health coach, and learn all the ways to eat. I was like, Okay, great. 100 more ways to manage our body. So I was like, Okay, this isn't working either. And by then I was having kids and I was like, this has got to stop. I am not going to continue this legacy of food obsession and size obsession. And so then I got into psychology of eating work, Body Trust work, intuitive eating work, and all of those pieces together, wove together to become the work that I do, which is body peace, right? I love how all the work that you've done has woven together to become Somatic Eatingâ„¢, like, we've found the words that resonate for us in our story, I come to this work, both from diving deep into it from a psychological academic, clinical way, but also from my own personal struggle. And I've been working with women for 30 years around how to feel at home, really feel at home and at peace in their own skin.

Stephanie Mara 04:27

Yeah, I resonate with so many pieces of your journey. I have absolutely been there with that body war as well. And it's such a process and such a journey. And, you know, we get into this work, what I have found, is from personal inspirations of I can't pass this forward to future generations. Something has to change here.

Nina Manolson 04:49

Yeah, absolutely. Something has to change. It's and that, you know, I think about that moment of change for people, right, I think about the transtheoretical model for Change, where there's that pre contemplation, I don't have a problem. Nothing has to change. This is the way it is everybody's supposed to diet. Aren't we supposed to hate our body? There's no problem here what problem, right? To contemplation of like, oh, you know, maybe it doesn't have to be this way. Maybe every morsel I put in my mouth doesn't have to be a whole guilt trip that I actually ate something. Right. There's the contemplation. And then there's this preparing. Hmm, could I do something? Would this work? I've tried 500 million things and spent $100,000 on it. Would it work for me? Even though I've done all this, right? And then there's that moment of action. Right? And that moment of action is so precious, right? When we get to that place of like, I can't, I can't be in the struggle. What am I going to do? And that's where actually, our diet culture preys on us. Oh, you want to do something? Here, lose seven pounds in seven days. Here, Paleo, Keto, raw food, Weight Watchers, no, here, do something. And so it's really countercultural in that moment, when we're like, I need something I want to change, to say, you know, what, what I'm going to really change is the relationship I have with my food and body. That's the shift. And it is a big difference from what culture tells us to what to do.

Stephanie Mara 06:28

Yeah, so powerful. Thank you, for sharing that because what I hear in that is really normalizing every single phase. They're all important. You know, it's not going from like, Oh, something that might be a little off here to then just suddenly taking action. And even if you're in the pre contemplation phase of something doesn't feel like it's resonating with my body anymore, and how I'm relating with food and body, you might actually have to hang out in that phase for a period of time just pre contemplating doing something differently.

Nina Manolson 07:00

Yes. And the operative word that you just said, Stephanie, is differently, right? To go back to the management model that our diet culture says, is not effective, right? When people come to, I imagine, your work my work into this work, and they're like, oh, my gosh, do I really? Am I going to invest in something else? And it's going to fail? Well, if it's the same as what you did, which is eat this, don't eat that. Yes, I can guarantee you, it will. Right. The statistics are people who go on diets and two to five years gain their weight back, if not more, yes it will. So to do a differently. Hmm. There's a concept.

Stephanie Mara 07:41

Yeah, yeah. And you're right on that there's this fear that I often find with those that are about to work with me of, am I just going to be wasting my time and my money again? And I think that is a legitimate fear that is also protecting you of like, I've done so many things that haven't worked. And when you're coming also into, like you said, like your work or my work, it's different. And different can actually also feel a little overwhelming, even a little threatening to your body, because you don't know if this is going to be something that is going to be supportive, or potentially going to just put you right back where you were.

Nina Manolson 08:21

Yeah. So it's so amazing when people step into my work, before we even like we'll have a conversation, great. I want to get going and before we do whatever the thing is, whether it's a group, whether it's individual, whatever the the step is, I go, watch. Your only homework is watch what happens now that you've said, I'm going to do something different. And it's amazing, right? Some people are like, Oh my god, I watched my little kid come to the table and go, Oh my gosh, secretly, even though Nina said she wasn't gonna tell me what I could and couldn't eat. My little kid was like, Oh my gosh, I gotta eat this because I'll never get it again. Right? Versus somebody who just this week, messaged me and said, Oh, my gosh, I had the most unbelievable dream after our conversation was that I was in this sort of dream state. And someone proposed to me and they said, I want to be with you forever. She said, I woke up and I knew it was my body, saying I want to be with you. You're gonna do it you're gonna marry me. Me you're gonna be in relationship with right. So there's so much juiciness that comes both in the oh my gosh, I'm gonna fail again. And in that I'm doing something different. Right freakout moment. All of that is, you know, I don't love this term, but grist for the mill. Right? Like, okay, so what's coming up? Right? The sadness, that I have invested $5 million in diets. Well wait, and they didn't work? And I'm gonna just say goodbye? What isn't it if I just try one more? Then I'll do it and I'll do it right finally. and the grief that goes with that, of like, bummer. And I know for me, when I, I'm recently learning a new language, I'm learning Hebrew, and I love learning languages. It's hard, right? It's takes a lot of practice, it's very much like learning the language of our body. It takes a lot of practice. And as I've gotten deeper into it, and I'm able to decode and understand, I'm like Spanish, that's gonna be my next language, because I grew up speaking English and French. So then I was like, Okay, now I'm gonna learn Spanish next. And I had this thought, I thought, gosh, if I hadn't learned the language of Weight Watchers, of raw food, of a million other, you know, kinds of diets Scarsdale, which totally dates me, all the diets, right, I would know six languages by now, I really would. But what I learned was the language of restriction. And that one, I, like, realized I was like, ouch, that is so sad.

Stephanie Mara 11:00

Yeah. And what you're even pointing to is it all just starts with awareness. As soon as you start saying, I am going to be aware, it all just kind of starts snowballing on itself that you can even enter into working with someone in a very different way. And just that first assignment of like, just notice, because you are committing to staying in connection with yourself. And so that you're not disconnecting, you're not numbing out and you just even get to be aware of all of these habits and patterns that are playing out with my food and body, why are they here? How have they been serving me? How have they been protecting me? Like, you know, you don't even have to do anything. Just saying I'm staying committed to being in connection with myself already starts to change things.

Nina Manolson 11:47

It does, because what you're starting is a relationship. I want to be in relationship when I teach and say, Okay, so tell me what's in a good relationship. And the first thing everybody says, is communication. What's communication? I am listening, I am speaking. And I am listening. Right. And that's what it is, I am going to be in relationship. And we have been trained out of that.

Stephanie Mara 12:11

Yeah. And you just wrote a beautiful body poem, that I'd love for you to share here, just about relationship with our body.

Nina Manolson 12:21

Yeah. So just to give a little context, I write body peace poems, because I'm really interested in changing the conversation that we have with our body. And sometimes, you know, I used to write all these educational blogs. And, you know, we have a lot of information, a lot of information, most of the women that I work with, and I imagine most of the people you work with could write their own nutrition books, right? They're smart, they're capable. We've read all the stuff we know. And so my body peace poems are way to kind of get underneath that and get into sort of more of a felt sense. So my invitation is to listen a little more from your sort of heart and your soul. So this poem specifically is called eating advice for the holidays and every day. What if, instead of following the rules, or feeling bad for not following the rules, or feeling obligated to eat Aunt Trina's pie or feeling like you shouldn't have seconds, what if, instead of feeling tight, around food, you felt spacious? What if you gave yourself full permission to eat? I know it can feel scary at first I'll eat everything. I'll never stop. I'll eat till I'm sick. I get it. Giving yourself full permission to eat can feel like a jailbreak running wild, not sure where you're headed. But trust me, there's great healing in giving yourself full permission to eat. It's about giving yourself full authority, full compassion, full desires, full pleasure, full attentiveness. It's about stepping into a full on relationship with your own body, and fully respecting your own body wisdom. And just in case, it still seems terrifying, giving yourself full permission to eat is not about not caring what you put in your body. It's not about ignoring your full or hungry signals. It's not about treating your body with disrespect. It's about letting go of the shame and blame. It's about feeling free with food. It's about treating your body like she's deeply worthy of the very best. It's about reclaiming the foundational relationship with your body. It's about trusting that your body knows what full feels like. And if you don't know you can learn again. It's about honoring when your body says that's all I need for now, or I need more. It's about not feeling deprived and also not shaming yourself if you feel like you had more than you really needed. It's about celebrating your desires and slowing down to feel the emotions. Giving yourself permission to eat is about making space for a juicy conversation with all the parts of you that come to the table. Your taste buds, your fullness, your hunger, your feelings, your unique biology, your desires, your sensuality, giving yourself full and conscious permission to eat is giving yourself a powerful invitation into trusting your body again. Because even if it hasn't felt like it for you, she is trustworthy.

Stephanie Mara 15:52

Mmmm I just wanna like extend that pause, she is trustworthy.

Nina Manolson 15:58

She is trustworthy. Right?

Stephanie Mara 16:01

Oh, I like felt that just right in my chest.

Nina Manolson 16:07

Yeah, and that's what gets broken, Right? The trust with our body. Over the years of dieting, over years of shaming ourselves, over the years of our culture shaming us, it gets broken. It's a relationship that's had a rupture, and it needs repair.

Stephanie Mara 16:25

Yeah, I think in your poem, you just point out so many beautiful points of everything that when you've struggled in relationship with your food, and body really comes up particularly around the holidays, you know, all that mistrust around your body and all that mistrust around food, and that there's this, but I need to get it right this year. Like even that line of like, even if you don't know what fullness feels like you can learn again.

Nina Manolson 16:53

Yeah, yeah. And there is what you said about that piece about, I'm gonna get it right this year. Right? I hear it so often. Oh, I'm going to be good. Right? What is that? What is being good, right? To really look at what is being? What is that? What does that mean? And whose version of good? And what do you really want? And it gets back to that place of listening to all those parts of us at the table? Right? That's what would be, I don't really like the word good. Like, what would be juicy? What would be fun? What would be engaging? What would let you enjoy the moment?

Stephanie Mara 17:32

Yeah, and even when you mentioned, like bringing all parts of you to the table, every single part of you is going to want something different. And so it's also allowing yourself to choose, which part of you are you going to satisfy in that moment? Because we can't satisfy all of them. Ya know, there's the part of you that's like, hey, right now I want to listen to the part of me that wants to honor my body, and my body is telling me it's full, and it doesn't want to eat anymore. And then at another holiday meal, you're gonna be like, ya know what, my body is kind of full. But I want to honor the the part of me that only gets to, like, have that dessert once a year, because that's the only time that we ever make it. And that part of me is gonna, you know, be satisfied right now. And it wants that extra piece of pie. And so it's never that you're doing anything wrong or bad. It's just that was like what we were talking about before staying connected. And saying, which part of me really needs satisfaction and satiation right now to feel like I can get through this holiday season feeling regulated instead of going through the holiday season dysregulated with all the shoulds.

Nina Manolson 18:39

Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting to also listen to that dysregulated voice also, right. So just like you were saying, like, let's bring the little kids to the table. It's like, Wait, those cookies only show up once a year, I am having those cookies. But then also to hear the dysregulated voice of the diet police. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you're not allowed. Because that dysregulated voice is going to have a consequence later. Right? Because all the restriction of the diet police is gonna there's our inner rebel is going to be like, as we're cleaning plates, says who? Right. And then comes the eating off the plate in the kitchen in secret, and then we feel terrible. And then the shame kicks in. Right? So we want to invite all those parts to the table. But we also want to listen to some of the toxic messages that are sitting with us at the table and sometimes it's within us. And sometimes it's the person across the table going, "you're going to eat that? You're having seconds?" or you know, somebody who's steeped in diet culture who like drops those a moment on the lips. What is it? I can't remember the rest of the moment on the lips a million years on my hips, something like that. I'm sure somebody said it better than that. But that's the essence, right? Somebody who says it out loud, right? Catching those voices at the table too. And being able to say, Whoa, and there's the diet culture sitting right at my holiday table.

Stephanie Mara 20:13

Yeah, I was thinking about recently, just how much kind of like generational trauma shows up during the holidays. And that it gets passed down from generation to generation. And then when you're trying to actually break out of diet culture, and then you go to a family situation or a holiday party, and you're trying to step off of that diet culture wheel, it can actually feel really challenging because you're entering into an environment that is also expecting you to show up a particular way and engage in the familiar ways, in the habitual ways that you communicate year after year, during the holidays.

Nina Manolson 20:54

Absolutely. And the way that I think about that is sort of like, families have scripts, right? It's like a script for a play, and everybody has their part, then you go and rewrite your part. And you walk into the play, and you're saying different lines. And people are like, I don't even know what she's talking about, we're gonna keep keep running our lines. Because if we keep running our lines, she will start running her old lines. And so as we're running these new lines, it can feel really unstable, it can feel disconnecting, and a little confusing, like, wait a second, I'm in a different place. And we can feel a little bit distant because we're running new lines. But I can promise you keep running those new lines. And eventually people are like, Oh, wow, it could take years, but they'll be like, Wow, she's running different lines. Maybe I'll actually engage her in what she's saying. It may take a while. They may be like, I don't even know what she's talking about, and move on to their familiar script. Because it's what they know. And it's not that you're wrong, or they're wrong. It's just what's there.

Stephanie Mara 22:01

Yeah. When I'm working with individuals around the holidays, I often like to recommend of like, taking time for yourself, because when you are trying to practice showing up new your family, your friends, they're not going to be ready for that. And so yeah, they're going to try and pull you back into your habitual way of responding in the way that you show up. And that's not your fault. But you might need to actually walk away and spend some time with yourself to recheck back in, you're like, oh, like, what roles are people trying to, like, draw me into right now? Because that's what they're comfortable with me playing so that you continue to stay connected to yourself, like, no one's in the wrong here. Everyone's just trying to do the best they can with the awareness that they have.

Nina Manolson 22:44

Yeah. And it can sometimes be inelegant, right, I think about when I first started to learn how to set boundaries, because I would always be like, sure I can do that. Yeah, I can do that. Yeah, set boundaries, because I would always be like, sure I can do that. Yeah, I can do that. Yeah, we'll get together. Then you Oh, yes. Like totally people pleasing. And so my sister, which was a good place, because we were pretty, we're pretty close was a good place to practice. And so she would be like, So Nina, can you...I would be like NO. She was like, I didn't even finish the sentence. I was like, Oh, well, I'm just practicing saying no. And she was like, Okay, do you want to hear the rest of the sentence? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. Like, I just was like, so new, right. And it was a little clumsy. And it was a little inelegant. And now I've gotten better. She finishes the sentence, and I say, thank you so much for that invitation. That's so gracious. I'm not available that night. I can do it much more elegantly, but it's okay to be clumsy in the beginning. Right? So it's okay, when people are talking about diets to suddenly blurt out, can everybody stop, stop talking about diet and have it be just like a big like, mess on the table. That's okay, I did it another time. We have some very dear friends. We went on vacation with every year with them and their family and my family. And we're eating. And this is somebody who was quite steeped in diet culture. And she said to me, I can't believe you eat so much. And the rest of the sentence was like, eat so much and look the way you do. And but she didn't. She didn't finish, right. I can't believe you eat so much. And I looked and I said, What I eat is none of anybody else's business. Now, of course, that shut down the conversation dramatically. And in not a great way. But we recovered. And you know what, she never commented on how much I ate again, I had to set a boundary. And so it's okay to not do it perfectly or not to have all the right words at the holiday table. It's okay to say wow, you know, I'm really learning about diet culture, and I just don't want to have this conversation. It feels dysregulating, it feels upsetting to me, it feels like we're buying into the patriarchal diet culture, you can say it any which way. Don't feel like you have to do it well. And if you do want a little bit of support around it, there's three ways that I think about engaging people who are running their old scripts. And one of them is to deepen. And I'll get more into that in a second, the others defend, and the other is deflect. So one is to deepen is bring more depth, more meaning to the conversation. Oh, is that really what you're thinking? Right? Is that, Is that something you really believe, right? Or, or deepen the conversation in a more sort of intellectual way. Like, don't you find as a culture, we focus too much on appearance, I'm so ready for our cultural conversation to shift firmly into how we feel and what we think. Right. And this widens the conversation to the cultural impact, and it sort of shifts the focus off of you. Right? And then my personal favorite, because sometimes people just don't really care is to deflect. So they'll be like, Oh, my God, how many calories? I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I'm watching the most amazing show on Netflix, what are you watching? Like, literally just change the subject, because really, the calories, the grams, not so important, right, so to just deflect change the topic, that's one of my, that's on the top of my list, right. And the other one is to defend, and that we choose that one, if it's somebody who we actually feel like we want to set a boundary with. And that can sound like I'm working on healing my relationship with food and body, so I'm no longer going to engage in this type of conversation with you. Right? That's really a direct communication of this is my boundary, I am not doing this. And you know, you choose the technique that works on the setting and who you're with, right? If it's, you know, Aunt Samantha, who's been dieting since she was 12, and she's 80, deepening the conversation, I'm not sure how well that's gonna go, she may be more, let's deflect. But if it's your cousin, who's at the table who's, you know, really sort of in a similar, or in some kind of personal inquiry, you can deepen and say, you know, I'm really doing this work, I want to talk about this. We get to have a voice at the table.

Stephanie Mara 27:22

Yeah, I love all of those. That's such fantastic tools to engage in, during this holiday season. And you know, I was just kind of like nodding my head and laughing over here a lot. Because I love how you really express beautifully the process of learning how to set boundaries. And I have so been there as well, when you start and they come out like a little bit more forceful. Because it's like this, this is new. And that if you haven't been saying no, for so long, there's also potentially some fear of what's gonna happen when I start setting this boundary. And so it's even that the forcefulness is also coming out for a reason of like, I'm so scared that it's gonna get broken. Because it's been broken maybe so many times. And so just that compassion of it may come out and like, hey, screaming at the table, like, can we stop talking about diets, like, alright, so that happened. And then you will get more and more times to practice. And it might not happen like perfectly this year, it doesn't need to, it's the being engaged in the practice of it. And even you can do like, you know, we're smack dab kind of in the middle of holidays right now that you might even set on your phone, like, January 2nd, instead of creating like a New Year's resolution do like I'm gonna do a holiday check in with myself, how did it go this year? Let me do a debrief with myself. What would I potentially do differently next year, just so that you can use it as the template of where you're starting from and you can grow from there in the next year.

Nina Manolson 29:06

Yeah, that's so beautiful, right? Really looking like so how'd that go? How was that experience? Was it super clunky? You know? Okay, good for you for trying. Good for you for setting boundaries for the first time, or second time.

Stephanie Mara 29:23

Yeah. And even with the, you know, the deepen, the defend, the deflect, you might choose one and be like, you know what, I don't know if that really worked with that person. And then you just have that awareness of you know, what, next year, I'm just going to deflect with them. Like they're not in a place where they can deepen, or they can meet my boundaries. And so you also get to protect yourself during the holiday season as well, knowing who can meet you and who's just not there yet. And that's not about you. That's also you protecting your own energy of I don't need to expend so much energy on this person who's just not there, and may never get there.

Nina Manolson 30:02

Right? It's interesting because when women work with me, and they, they really get the work, they're like, I just want to share it with people at the table. I'm like, don't try, just be yourself. Like, don't put your energy there to try to convince, there's no convincing, there is no convincing that, you know, diet culture is there to make women feel, or any women and men to make them feel disempowered. There's, you know, it's there's no convincing that people have to come to that when they're ready, there's no convincing that it's a good idea to stop counting your everything, calories, grams, whatever the heck they're counting, right? So there's no convincing because people need to get to a place where they're in that place of action in that change, to bring it back to the beginning of the conversation, right in that cycle of how does change happen? Because they may be absolutely in pre contemplation, there's no problem here. But then suddenly, you know, they're feeling uncomfortable in their body, or they have a health crisis, right? And something, keys them into clues them into, wow, something in my relationship with my body needs to shift. Okay, let me open my mind, open my heart, open my ears to other possibilities. And then maybe they're ready. But it's not your job to go out and be Evangelical about how the diet culture has harmed us. You don't have to, you just get to be in your own body.

Nina Manolson 30:02

Yeah, I so agree with everything that you just said. And I had a lot of those conversations as well as it feels like this light bulb has just gone off inside of you of like, I get it. Now I see it. Now I understand my relationship with food and body in a totally different way. I'm really ready to start practicing that differently. But that's where you are. And it's great when that light bulb goes off of like, oh, my gosh, this could be different. And other people around, you may not be there yet. And I often find like, because I was really there too, when things started started going off inside of me and I wanted to share this with everyone and just everyone around me wasn't really ready for that yet. And if we try and move someone else along faster, we're also taking away their journey away from them, like we are where we're meant to be, because there's still things that maybe we need to learn from the habits and patterns that are playing out right now.

Nina Manolson 32:42

Absolutely. Right. It's letting people have the agency to be in their personal journey at the pace that they can integrate it. And at the pace where they can actually take in new ideas and try new things. But when you're like, this is what you should do. This is the new way. Right? We've run so many. We know that feeling of like, I don't really believe you.

Stephanie Mara 33:13

Yeah, I'm curious, what have you found be supportive where, okay someone goes into a holiday situation, they tried to deepen, they tried to deflect, they tried to defend, everything just kind of feels like a disaster, they come out of that situation, feeling just really overwhelmed and dysregulated, what have you found kind of in the aftermath has felt supportive to individuals to kind of come back into connection and regulation?

Nina Manolson 33:40

Yeah. So one of the first things is getting in your body. Right? Because there's nothing like family that can disembodied us. It's really remarkable. It still happens to me. And it's interesting when I host I actually don't eat very much sitting there because I'm not in my body. I'm like, Oh, do you have everything you need? And where do the coats go? And what about this? I am not in my body. I have left the room I have left the building. I am like in how can I take care of you mode. Right? It's normal for us in our family systems to kind of like check out a little right and that's what you said like there's like little check ins, how do we come back to our body? One of the powerful ways and it's something that I've integrated into different holidays is let's go out for a walk together. Because it helps me I get back in my body, right? Moving often can help people be like, Oh, yes, I have a body. How does that body feel? How do I activate this body in a way that helps me connect into sensation and into feelings into emotions? Right. So you know, I know I'm preaching to the choir with you, you know around somatics, but our body holds all of that information. So if we can come back to our body in a gentle way, I'm not saying crash land, I'm saying like, go for a walk right for me after I've posted or I've been somewhere where I'm like, oh, and I'm out. There's two things. One is movement that really works. And for me water, I get in a bath, I get in a shower. If I'm somewhere I can swim, I will swim. If I'm somewhere I can do a isolation float tank, I will float, I will do something. And if nothing else, I will drink water, like water for me is like, Oh, come back into the flow. That is my body. And that's not everybody's technique. Right. So it's so important to go well, what does help me kind of tune back in listen to sensation in a gentle way?

Stephanie Mara 35:58

Yeah, I love those suggestions. And I really hear that it's yeah, it's everything that also I teach with Somatics of like, our body has wisdom to offer us. And that even like you said earlier, like listen to also the dysregulated voice because dysregulation actually isn't the problem. It's when we stay disconnected and dysregulated that kind of pushes us further away from ourselves. But we can be dysregulated and actually own Oh, I've just dysregulated right now, I totally connected with myself in this dysregulation and get curious. What do I need right now? And yeah, physical movement, absolutely, completely agree with that. I'm a big proponent of physical movement as well. And I think we have to be clear on that, that is not necessarily exercise. Ya know it's like physical movement could literally be like, Oh my gosh, that was so intense, I just need to stand up and jump up and down five times. We're talking about following the impulse of your body and what it feels like it needs to move something through.

Nina Manolson 37:03

Yeah, I have a very dear girlfriend, who whenever we're together, and she recently had a big birthday, but whatever it is, if it's just the two of us, if it's just a small group, if it's a big giant birthday party, at some point, you're guaranteed she's gonna put on her dance playlist, because for her, it's a lot of people. And, okay, let's dance, let's stop talking. And let's get in our bodies. And then everybody's moving and grooving. And even if they're just sort of swaying in their chair, Oh, we're back in our bodies. And so it can be like dancing can be so potent. And also a cultural, like, fun, sort of shift in energy for a whole group. So I often think about her when I'm like, oh, you know what, I'm feeling a little disconnected. And I love how you're talking about, you know, the dysregulation, you know, like, it's not the end of the world that when I host I'm not there, I'm there. I'm present, emotionally, I'm just not so connected to my body. Because I'm expert getting into everybody else's body. What do you need? Oh, you're out of water? Oh, you're out of this. Right. And in that, let me take care of everybody else mode. That's okay. For a few hours, then I can need to come home. Right.

Stephanie Mara 38:22

Yeah. Yeah, I think there's a balance there. And I'm really glad that you're pointing that out. Because I think a lot with like somatic and embodiment work, that there's all this emphasis on getting back in connection with your body. But also there can be too much connection with your body that that you don't feel maybe super in present with your external life. So I think that there's like ultimately, this balance that needs to occur, of staying both connected to self and connected to environment, that you can ebb and flow in and out of connection with yourself that you don't have to say like, oh, my gosh, I left myself again. Why did I do that? It's like, hey, maybe it'd be good to kind of leave yourself for a moment and then come back to yourself again.

Nina Manolson 39:06

But there's also moments to understand what what are the situations that work, right? If I'm hosting something big, I'm out. Recently, we had a dinner and there was just a few people, I was totally able to stay connected, right? I'm like, oh, you know what? This amount of people, you know, five people unless I am great. I am there. I am present with myself. I'm present with them. We get to 6, 7, 8 people at the table over eight I like definitely Whoo. Right in hostess mode. So you know what, for me, maybe most of the time a smaller gathering is a better thing for me. And if I'm going to go into hosting a big one, just know how do I want to take care of myself before and after?

Stephanie Mara 39:06

Yeah, yeah. And when you were talking about water, I'm also a huge fan of water. I'm actually on the East right now. And I grew up going to the beach every summer and got to go to the Ocean a couple of weeks ago, on a somewhat warmer day and was just like, Oh, water, so much water just so regulating to be around. And you know, water may not be your thing if you're listening. So I would say like, go through all of the elements, kind of choose the one, you know, if it's Earth, if it's air, if it's fire, if it's looking at the flicker of a candle, like really finding the element that kind of works for you. But, you know, it's, it's that you can be co-regulated with these external things around you. And I'm also a fan of choosing water as well.

Nina Manolson 40:38

Yeah, yeah. And it is like my son fire. You know, there's a bonfire. He settled. Right? Barbecuing. He settled, right? It depends. Depends who you are.

Stephanie Mara 40:51

Yeah. Well, this is just such a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom today. I think this is just an important dialogue to have around the holidays of how do we be in the holidays with this much connection as possible, because it is a time that does call for a little bit of dysregulation and disconnection sometimes. And so just appreciate everything that you shared today. And I would love for you to also let our listeners know, you know, how can they keep in touch with you? Where can they find you and your work?

Nina Manolson 41:23

Thank you. So the best place to find me is at my website body peace with Nina. And there you will find a free practicing body peace journal. And the journal has 20 questions really to engage you in your relationship with your body. It also has five of my body peace poems as a way to just inspire and to start the conversation with you and your body. But the directive of the journal is, let's start your conversation with your body. That's the most important thing. So you'll find there that there and it's a great place to start. I'm also on Instagram, I'm on Facebook as Nina Manolson, so you can find me in those places, too.

Stephanie Mara 42:08

Yeah, I'll put all of these links in the show notes and just love the poems that you also share online so definitely, highly recommend following you and, you know, following along with just the beautiful words that you share there.

Nina Manolson 42:20

Thank you, Stephanie. Really a delight to be with you.

Stephanie Mara 42:24

Yeah, well, thank you so much again for sharing everything you did and to everyone listening, if you have any questions, I'll leave our contact information in the show notes. And thanks so much for being here today and I'm wishing you all a smooth holiday season so far. I will be in touch with you all again soon. Bye!

Keep in touch with Nina here:

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FREE Practicing Body-Peace Journal: https://ninamanolson.com/body-peace/

Contact: nina@ninamanolson.com