Episode 100: Why Celebrating Is Important For Healing SOLO EPISODE
Episode 100: Why Celebrating Is Important For Healing SOLO EPISODE
In this episode we sit down with....your host, Katelyn Parsons.
Katelyn Parsons is a Certified Intuitive Eating + Body Image Coach, Speaker, and host of the weekly podcast, Body Truth.
After years of struggling with bulimia and disordered eating, she not only found recovery but recognized a crucial missing link in the wellness industry- empowerment + individual sustainability around health. This inspired her entrepreneurial journey and life mission to shift the conversation toward healing our relationship with food and body.
For the past 4 years, Katelyn has helped countless creative leaders transform their relationship with food and body image through an integrative, evidence-based process so that they can move through each day feeling more present, empowered, and comfortable in their skin, without worrying about what to eat.
You’ll also find Katelyn snuggled up with her cat or strolling the beach in sunny San Diego with her husband and their pup Winnie.
In this episode I talk about:
My personal experience of seeing results in intentional celebration
The root feelings that may be holding you back from utilizing this tool
Practical steps to incorporate more celebrating into your life
The parallels of self care and self celebration
Connect with me...
IG: @katelyn.parsons
Website: katelynparsons.com
Ready to heal your relationship with food + body?
Book your FREE Body Trust Breakthrough Consult
Grab your FREE Intuitive Eating Workshop
Get weekly email support from me to help you heal your relationship with food + body image
TRANSCRIPTION
Episode 100: Why Celebrating Is Important For Healing SOLO EPISODE
Katelyn:
Hi, welcome back to another solo episode, just you and me today, we are going to be exploring celebration in light of our 100th Episode 100 episodes. That's so wild. I've been doing this podcast for two years. Yes, I started in in 2020. So two years, and I can say from the bottom of my heart that it would not be possible without the incredible guests who have shown up. The team that supports the creation of these shows Shayla, Stephanie, so many people contributing to even just questions that we've had challenges that we faced and so many things over the years, and, most importantly, you this incredible community that has created this space and have so genuine, genuinely, generously, genuinely, I'm trying to combine words here, you all have all the things you've just so graciously and just compassionately invited these conversations, and held space for the women who are sharing their stories and their expertise, and also your willingness to just that in these conversations and learn and grow and how you are moving forward in your own life. There's just so many layers to the podcast so far. And I just want to take a moment to pause and thank you truly from the bottom of my heart. And I just have so much fun hanging out with you every week. And I really do always like to pretend that we're all just together, witnessing these women who come into this space who just have such incredible stories to share, and that we are all here with each other, feeling the feelings and going through the art of storytelling and conversation with one another. So I am just like elated . My heart is very full. And on that note, I want to take a moment to emphasize the importance of celebration. And before you hit pause, or you ditch this episode altogether, just take a moment and hang in here with me because truthfully, probably about a year ago, I would have definitely just skipped past this episode. I never really prioritized celebration in my life, I kind of was always the person who was just checking boxes, and more interested in moving on to the next thing versus taking time to feel the celebration of the moment. And to celebrate myself that felt so deeply uncomfortable for me. And when I really started healing my relationship with myself, my relationship with food, my relationship with my body. And my relationship with like I mentioned myself, which was so many areas of my life, my relationships with other people, my relationships with finance, my relationship with rest, my relationship with work, all of these things in my life. I really had to unpack why I was avoiding celebration, and why it was so deeply uncomfortable for me. And I am so grateful for the people in my life who have sat with me in that discomfort the coaches that have worked alongside me in in really supporting those difficult unpacking moments, the therapists that I've worked with and just friends and family who I've also had conversations like this with.
It has not been easy, but I will just say practicing intentional celebration has created more joy in my life. and also a better relationship with myself, it's given me more reason to just pause and get on Team Katelyn. And that's so important, it's so much easier for me to give praise to someone else than to give it to myself. And being able to slowly become more comfortable with celebrating moments of success in my life has created a deeper relationship with me, which has made me more comfortable in my own skin, and more comfortable with my emotions, emotions, more comfortable with my thoughts, and my dreams, and so many things. So if you are like me, and celebration feels uncomfortable for you, I really want to lend this as an invitation to get curious about why that might be. And if you're into journaling, this could be a great exercise to bring to your journal, the next time really asking yourself the question, What is my relationship with celebration? Or how do I feel about celebrating myself something along those lines and just start to get curious about it. And from there, I really would love to invite you to carve out moments to celebrate yourself and to also look at where the expectation for celebration is, in your own life. For me, personal celebration, when I really started to do this work, it at first meant, like I had to achieve something that was prolific or a goal that I had been working towards for a really long time. And those were the celebrations that I felt the most comfortable with. And if that's where you're at right now, there's no judgment in that. However, I will just give you a little shortcut. When I started to really give myself the opportunity to celebrate the smaller moments in my life, it felt way less complex and complicated than I had thought that it might be. And the smaller moments just started to kind of snowball and add up to a greater, more comfortable feeling for myself overall. And so perhaps some celebrations that you might look at, on a smaller level might be I'm celebrating, just taking breaths, intentionally throughout the day. I'm celebrating, sitting down and doing a quick meditation, I'm celebrating getting dressed in clothes that feel really comfortable. I'm celebrating not reacting to that message that I received right away. I'm celebrating the list that I am revising for myself for today that feels more nourishing. I'm celebrating eating foods that feel really good on my body today. Some ideas just to get started, there is no right or wrong way to celebrate. Like I mentioned before, this is really an invitation to just get curious where you might be able to celebrate more throughout the day. And also an opportunity to pause when you can feel yourself rushing through celebration. I am not perfect at this. But there are many, many times even today where something big does happen in my life, something a little bit more grand, I guess if we're looking at it on paper, and I do catch myself kind of rushing past it. And so that is an example of how this is an ongoing journey. It's an ongoing process. There's always opportunities to check in and see where we're rushing past the celebration, or where we're perhaps missing out on an opportunity to celebrate ourselves and by the way, I also understand that a part of the discomfort in self celebration is the message that the messages that we've been taught, and the beliefs that we have around this that have been really built up over a very long period of time. And this is really related to how we were raised, where we were raised. You know, the environment that we put ourselves in, after our childhood, whether it was the careers that we were friends, that we hung out with just the influences in our lives. And so if you have a belief, or an idea that self celebration is narcissistic, or self indulgent, or is more along the lines of bragging or selfish in any way. First of all, that's really normal. And second of all, that's also an opportunity to just get curious about that belief, and to challenge that belief a little bit more. Because this art of self celebration is really along the same ideas of self care. And if you've been in this community, I probably don't have to repeat this, you know, my philosophy on self care, I really come from self care from a radical point of view, and look at this in terms of how we are taking care of ourselves through boundaries, through communication through emotional awareness, all of these things, but really caring for ourselves with the intention to feel good, so that we can care for those around us.
And so, in that respect, self celebration is, is really parallel in that way to where we can give ourselves the space to celebrate to really feel the moments of celebration, and in return, encourage others to celebrate themselves as well, too. And it just is, it's really give and take it's it's, you know, it really is more holistic than self indulgent, self indulgent holistic on a cultural level. I mean, that's all I want to say about that. I would love to hear what you think. I would love to hear how you feel about self celebration and celebration in general, are you more comfortable with celebrating others? Does it make you bristle when you think about taking time to pause and celebrate your success? And also the way that you quantify success? Do you feel like there are only certain moments of your life worth celebrating versus others? What does that look like for yourself. And before I wrap up, I just want to identify that what we're really talking about here is a pattern. And a pattern that will most likely be applied in multiple areas of life, my life, for sure, and probably yours as well, too. And so where is this pattern of having to earn celebration coming up in another area of your life? You know, around food, especially in this community, I know so many of you will be able to identify with that pattern of restricting or having to earn certain foods or worthiness around certain decisions that you make for your body. And that is very similar to this pattern of earning celebration. And that's just one area of life, because it's relevant for this community.And it's really, really just powerful overall, when we can start to identify these patterns, because then we can start to shift and dismantle them entirely if needed, but really, proactively look at them a little bit more curiously and compassionately to show up for ourselves and our communities in greater, more empowering ways. Okay, that's it. I love you. Thank you so much. Again, I am so grateful for you. I cannot wait to see what the next 100 episodes of this community It looks like talk to you later, bye!