131. Journaling for intuitive eating and body confidence

In this week’s episode I’m going to guide you through the incredible benefits of journaling as a tool for supporting your body positivity and intuitive eating journey. 
Journaling has helped me confront and change negative beliefs about my body and self-worth so I wanted to share some tips with you too. 

I’m talking about,

✏️How writing helps process thoughts more efficiently.
✏️What to use to be able to journal.
✏️Ideas for what you can journal on.
✏️When to journal.
✏️How journaling helps you to question and change external beliefs.
✏️How to keep your writing private.
✏️How it can become a habit that provides comfort and relief.
✏️How journaling can be imperfect and messy.
✏️How it’s ok to be negative in your journaling.

I encourage everyone to give journaling a try and would love to hear about both your new and seasoned journaling experiences. 

Before I get into that though, I’ve got loads to waffle on about. Podcast acoustics, the northern lights, the shockingly high prices in Iceland (the shop, not the country!), and the incredible documentary from Aubrey Gordon, "Your Fat Friend".

Also, a highlight of today’s show for me is getting to read out a heart-warming piece of fan mail that truly touched me, praising the authenticity and realness of this podcast. Your support means everything, so thank you Jo.

Get 'Eat From Within - The 3 Steps To Food Freedom' course totally free!

Transcript

0:09

Welcome to the intuitive eating and body positivity podcast. I'm Terry, and I'll be talking about all things intuitive eating, body positivity, and health at every size and shaking off weight stigma, diet, culture, and food rules so that we can all have a better relationship with food and our bodies. Hello. Hello. Hi. How are you? It's been a. It's been a busy week. I've got things to actually say today. I've got things to talk to you about. Who knew a podcast where I come and talk to you and I've actually got things to say. I wish you could actually see my sound setup, by the way, before we get into this, because I'm in the new office and it's still not furnished properly. It means that the sound is just bouncing around the walls. I won't bore you with the details, but let me just say, plain walls, plain ceiling, and not much furniture that's soft does not make for good acoustics for recording sound. I don't know any more than that, so I can't tell you any more than that. I don't know about acoustics, but what I do know is it's very echoey. Thank goodness there is software that can sort of this stuff out, because I don't know where I'd be without that. It'd be a hot mess. So right now, I've got the curtains closed, the blinds drawn, I've got pillows around my desk, like, actually up against the wall and stuff to try and absorb some of the sound. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I mean, short of getting some actual acoustic panels, which I do not want, I don't know what I'm gonna do about this. I mean, you don't really have very many soft furnishings in an office, do you? If you've got any ideas, send them my way. Send them through Instagram or something, because I could do with some. I could do with some ideas. I'm gonna have to find kind of canvases and things I think, aren't I, to put on the walls? Who knows? Who knows? I'll have a think about it. Anywho, I've been to Iceland this week. Not the country. Nope. Although saying that we had the northern lights here this week, I didn't see it because, you know, I miss out on all the exciting stuff. But I don't know if you've seen pictures online, but we had the actual northern lights shining brightly in our skies, so that was really exciting. We never get to see that here. We're a bit too far away because I'm not south of England, but I am southerly. I'm kind of. Where am I? If you imagine the picture of the UK and you've got Wales on the left hand side. I'm describing it this way, obviously, because there are non uk people here listening. But if you imagine the map and you've got Wales on the left hand side, I'm kind of down towards the bottom of Wales, just on the border between Wales and England. So not very northerly, definitely not up in Scotland. And we never get to see that here. So I'm a bit sad that I missed it, but exciting that people did get to see it. There's some awesome photos online. Anyway, I didn't go to that. Iceland. I went to the supermarket Iceland. Now for those of you who don't know, Iceland is like a big freezer superstore. It's all about the frozen food. And R. Iceland is on a bit of a trading estate. Trading estate? Is that what you call them? There's lots of different shops. So there's things like home bargains. B m there's a dun elm, there's a Halfords, there's a bed shop. There's all kinds of weird. And you know, there's a. Quite an eclectic mix of shops there. Anyway, there's a big Iceland food warehouse. It's only been open a couple of years. It was very exciting when this first opened. Except now not so much because I went in there at the weekend, fancied looking for something different for tea while I was in Dun elm. So pop next door to the food warehouse and everything is so much more expensive. Is this a thing with Iceland all over the country now? Or is it just that our food warehouse? Because it's a big kind of. It's a big Iceland store, not a little one like we used to have. If they just crank the prices up locally because they've moved into this bigger shop. Or has Iceland now got expensive? It was two pound 20 for a tub. Not a very big tub at that, of coleslaw. That's not right. Go to the supermarket. It's like a pound for the same sort of size tub, honestly. And the. The prices were just not right. They were expensive throughout the shop. So somebody tell me. Somebody tell me, is that the case? Has Iceland got expensive? Is it now not the kind of bargain food shop that it used to be? You used to be able to go to Iceland and there would be all of these bargains. Bargains. Now I'm not saying that the quality was super high. You don't get that for your money, but it was a good place to go if you're on a bit of a tight budget. You could stock up your freezer. You could do it really cheaply. Lots of things were just a pound, you know? And before you know it, you've got a freezer full of food now. Not the case. Not the case at all, really not cheap. So is that. Is that the norm for Iceland now? I haven't been there for years. So somebody tell me what else happened this week. I watched your fat friend, you know, the Aubrey Gordon film, the documentary? Have you seen it? Oh, what a watch. I was getting myself settled, ready to watch it, and I thought, this is gonna be an emotional one. I knew it was gonna be an emotional one because she's just got such a lovely story, and she fights hard for the rights of fat people, and she's taken a lot of stick in her time for it. And I knew that this was gonna be kind of a rollercoaster of emotions watching. And it was so good. So good. I recommend it wholeheartedly. Now, I caveat this by saying, firstly, it's on jolt film. There's a website called Joltfilm, and it's a pay what you want kind of affair. The recommended price is$15, but you can pay what you want. And it's basically supporting independent filmmakers like the lady who made that film, which was brilliant. So that's the first thing. But also, there's a lot, as you might expect, a lot of diet talk, a lot of fatphobia in it, a lot of quite emotionally turbulent stuff in there. So if you're not in a very good place, I don't recommend rushing off to watch it. But if you are kind of fighting the good fight with us, if you are wanting some inspiration, if you're not going to be too worried about hearing diet talk and talk of the behaviors that come along with dieting and things like that, go watch it, because it is brilliant. It's really brilliant. What that woman has done for the dieting industry is or not, the dieting industry for fat people is just insane. She's brilliant. I mean, I've always known that. I've listened to her podcast for a long time. There's a recommendation for you. If you haven't listened to maintenance phase yet, do it. It is brilliant. Aubrey and Michael Hobbes just tear diet plants to shreds, and they do it in a really well researched way, but it is hilarious at the same time. So go give it a listen if you haven't yet. So that's one podcast request and one film request. And what else? What else? Fan mail. Oh yeah. You know last week I told you about the new option to text. The show link is in the show notes. Obviously somebody text in. It was lovely. It was really lovely. It was off the back of last week's episode when I was talking about how I'd taken responsibility for my own actions and my own health and my own kind of well being. And it says this. Hang on, let me find it. So this is from Jo. Thank you, Jo, thank you for messaging. I just adore that. Thank you so much. And Jo, thank you, Terry, for being so real and open and honest in your last podcast episode where you've taken responsibility for yourself. It was really inspiring and motivating and just lovely to hear somebody for once talking about the reality of life and not just pretending. Everything is perfect. Perfect. Thank you. Ah, you are so welcome, Jo. Honestly, I, I always want this podcast to be real. I don't ever want anybody to think that I'm just here going, everything is wonderful, everything's perfect. I just have got it all sorted because I have not got it all sorted, but I can share my experiences and I can share my knowledge and my training and everything that comes with that and hopefully makes you feel better and supports you. So I'm really pleased that it made such a difference. Thank you. Thank you for your message. I really appreciate it. If you want to message the show, you can send me your very own piece of fan mail. Should we have like this mailbag section of the podcast going forward? Let's see how that works. So you can, oh, excuse me, choking over my words. You can use the link in the show notes and text the show, or you can go to the website, to the WhatsApp me link that's also in the show notes. You can go there and you can just send me a voice note on WhatsApp if you like. So send me a text message or send me a voice note and let's see if we can make it a regular feature in the show. That'd be cool, wouldn't it? Don't let me just talk to myself, people. Don't make me come talk to me. Yes, yes. So that is, that is it. I think that's my updates for the week. That's plenty to be going on with, isn't it? I think so. Right. I wanted to talk to you about journaling this week. Right. We're looking for lots of different ways to help ourselves, aren't we? So we can learn all about the intuitive eating, we can learn about food, we can learn about body confidence, we can learn about all the different ways to boost that and encompass it and live it and try and make our lives a little bit more pleasant, a little bit happier, a little bit easier. And something I've done for quite a while now is journaling. If you don't know what that is, journaling is basically just writing your thoughts down. It's just taking some time out to write down your thoughts. And what that does is it helps to process the thoughts and your brain kind of kicks into this different gear and starts to pull it apart and think about it and rework it and stuff. So there are lots of studies and things out there that show that when you write things down, the process of getting it from your brain through your body out to through a pen onto some paper, actually helps to process stuff much more efficiently than just thinking about it. I mean, thinking about it is good. We can just think about our thoughts. We can recognise these things. We can catch ourselves in the moment and mull it over and kind of think about it and be like, oh, what did that mean for me? But there is absolutely nothing like spending a little bit of time and allowing yourself to write it down. And I cannot tell you how much when you get into it, it just starts to flow. I know you might not believe me right now. I would not have believed me either, because I was a person who just didn't like to write. Right? I don't like writing. I'm not a writer. I will write things as short and succinctly as I can. I don't enjoy writing. I never did at school. I hated, absolutely hated English and lessons like that where you had to write, you had to write actual pieces of work, stories. Oh, my goodness. Going into these exams and things where they're like, write a story about a time when you blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, oh, no. And I think part of the problem is that my brain works faster than my hand because I'm so used to typing. I'm so used to typing, so I can type a lot quicker than I write. And I think this is a little bit of a problem for me when I have to write things down. I'm also very particular about mistakes and things on paper. I hate things being scribbled out. I hate it when your writing looks a mess. I hate mistakes and all that sort of thing. But the beauty of journaling is that those things don't matter because you don't have to revisit it if you don't want to. You know, you can just write things down, see what comes out, and never read it again if you don't want to. Now, the good news is also, if you don't like writing, you can do it other ways. Right? Writing really is the best way to do it. So I'd encourage you to try it and see if you can do it that way first and enjoy it. But there are lots of other ways you can do it instead. So I have now found this really nice mix between handwriting and electronic devices. I got myself a remarkable. Have you seen them? It is basically an electronic notebook and it is incredible. And it's like writing because you use a pen, but it's also a device, and that just works for me. It's really, really good for me. So you might like something like that, but you can type your journals if you'd like to. You know, maybe you've got a Google Doc, maybe you find a journaling app, something like that. I haven't looked into them. There's bound to be journaling apps out there. Maybe you just use, like Google Keep, which is a note taking app, or, you know, an equivalent, and then you can just write your notes or type them. Rather, you could voice note them too, so you could think about what you're going to journal on. And then you could get out your voice recorder on your phone or whatever, and you could just talk into your phone the whole time. It doesn't really matter because it isn't for anybody else. You can keep them and revisit them if you want to. You can just keep them and leave them there and never let them see the light of day again. You can go back to them and study them and get interested about the thoughts that are coming out. You can do whatever you want to do with it, but getting your thoughts down is the ultimate goal here, and how you choose to do that is really up to you. So what are you going to journal about? Well, there are a million and one journal prompts, maybe even more on the Internet. You can find journal prompts for everything. You can find journal prompts for well being, for mental health, for physical health, for eating, for intuitive eating. There are journal prompts out there for intuitive eating, and you just pick something and write about it. These prompts can be as deep and meaningful or vague and just fluffy and light as you want them to be. So I've done a quick search, and there are a couple of different options. Straight away, I searched for intuitive eating journal prompts and there was a range of stuff that came up for me. There were prompts about, what does your body do for you today? Or what is your body going to do for you today? Or what did your body do for you yesterday that you can be grateful for that sort of thing. But then there are some very deep prompts that you can find on the Internet as well, which are things like, how has dieting affected you and your eating behaviours? Or what have you given up or not done because you were dieting? Lots of different questions on the Internet that you can find to write about, but also you can just see what comes to mind and journal on that. This is free flow writing, right? You're just going to see what comes out. You're not going to overthink it, you're just going to see where it goes. So you might choose to journal first thing in the morning like I do, and some days I'll look for a journal prompt and other days I'll just sit and I'll think, and I might start writing something like, I've woken up in such a good mood today, what will this mean for my day? And then I'll journal on that and out of it will come how that's going to affect the relationships with people that day, the way I tackle my work that day, how it's going to affect my coaching sessions that day, that sort of thing. Or I might equally get up one day and feel rubbish. And so my journaling might start with something like, I feel low this morning, what could that be from? And then maybe my mind will take me into what happened yesterday and was there a knock on effect? And have I just had a bad night's sleep and I've got up feeling a bit cranky and how I can be kind to myself that day and allow for that tiredness, you know, that sort of thing. I don't always journal on food issues and body issues, I just journal on whatever comes to mind. But for you, you can use this journaling in intuitive eating in your body confidence work. It is so, so powerful. So you can get up and search for these journal prompts on the Internet. That might be a really good place to start. Maybe. Maybe you could look for some body positive affirmations on the Internet and start with one of those. So I've googled now, body positive affirmations. I found a website. There's a really nice list of ones that I could pick from, and maybe I choose one that says, I appreciate my body for its strength, resilience, and function. That's the first one I've just read on the webpage. So I might start with that affirmation. I might write that affirmation at the top of the page. So I appreciate my body for its strength, resilience and function. And then I'll just sit there and I'll think about it for a bit, and I'll start to write, and I'll be like, I do appreciate my body for its strength. Even though I've got some health issues. There are many ways that my body gives me strength. There are many ways that my body is still resilient despite the struggles that I have with it. Sometimes the things that it does for me, the function. And you can just see what comes out through the pen when you start thinking about that line that's in front of you, that statement that's in front of you. Another one I'm looking at says, my appearance does not determine my self worth. That's a great one to journal on because you can then start writing about your beliefs, your thoughts around that. How does that show up in your day? How can you take that line into your day? Maybe you end each journal prompt with, or each journal entry with a line that is like, today, I choose this for myself. It is for you to do what you want to do with this journaling. It is absolutely brilliant. The thoughts that come out, you will not believe. The things that come out that are embedded in you that you hadn't realized were forming. Your thoughts and your beliefs, they're all in there. You just need to coax them out, and then you can get really interested in them, and then you can start thinking about how you change them. You know, out of these journal entries comes thoughts that you didn't really know you had or that you just buried away somewhere. And it doesn't have to be perfect, right? This journaling doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be anything. It's just writing. It's just thoughts. Maybe one day you'll write, and you're right, and you're right, and you're right. And then maybe other days all you can muster up is a few bullet points. That's fine. It's not a problem. There are no expectations here. I do my journaling first thing in the morning because I like to get up. I like to do a few things while the house is quiet. So now I've got my new yoga, right? Remember from my, from last week's episode? Still loving that so I get up and I've got my yoga and I have a shower. And then I sit and I have a drink. And not a glass of wine, no, I have have water at the moment, or squash because the weather's really warm. And then I sit and I chill out for a bit. And that's when I do my journaling. And it's really, really lovely. It's really peaceful and calm. And I feel like then I'm in the right headspace to just start letting things flow. And it sets me up for the day. So I typically spend 20 minutes, half an hour maybe journaling, just sat writing and seeing what comes out. But it doesn't have to take that long either. Maybe you've only got a few minutes to do it, that's fine. Maybe it's a case of because you're forming a habit, you're going to just put two or three things down on paper. Just thoughts, just little notes, intentions for the day, maybe that sort of thing. And maybe other days it'll just flow out of you because you've got more time. And it's okay if you can't do it daily as well. You will get the best results with journaling when it's done very regularly, when it's part of your daily routine. But you know, life just gets in the way, right? Sometimes it's just not possible. And you don't have to worry if you miss days. There's no pressure. Remember, there's no right, there's no wrong. Just go with what works. For some people, that's daily writing. For some, that's getting up and doing it in the morning. For others, it's sitting in an afternoon in a favourite place, when it's quiet once a week, you know, maybe an hour on a Sunday afternoon in the garden. And then you just spend some time writing. And maybe you only do it once a week. Whatever you do, ultimately you have to do what suits you best. But it is lovely. It's a really nice habit to get into. You don't have to catch up. You don't have to worry about, you know, getting anywhere at any particular time. You just do it. And there's no particular time of day to journal either. The best time of day is the time of day when you can sit uninterrupted. There's the word of the day, uninterrupted, calm, quiet, space to think, space when you're not going to be interrupted by the kids because it's their tea time. And you know, you've got to cook and they're getting hungry and they're nagging at you, that's not the time to do this. So maybe that quiet space is 1520 minutes sat in bed at the end of the day with some nice calm lighting all cozied up in your bed, jotting down your thoughts from the day. That's quite nice. You might schedule it into your day. Maybe you've got a break at work, maybe you've got an hour lunch break and that's the only time you've got. So that can work too. It's nice to be able to switch off from what you're doing, and it's nice to be able to really spend some time thinking about your journaling while you're doing it. But you know, if for you, it's really nice to take yourself off on your lunch break, even if you go sit in your car and you write some stuff down, you put some calm music on, whatever it is, you know, whatever that suits you, that can work too. There's no right or wrongs in any of this. You can just do, do what you need to do, do what works for you, do what works for the time of day you've got. It's fine, just do what suits you. But whatever you do, give it a go, because this can really help you. It can really help you with your body confidence, work, with your intuitive eating work. And the way it works is, you know how all your beliefs are given to you by the external world. All the messages that you've heard growing up, all the people around you, all the environments you're in, it all comes together and it forms all these thoughts and beliefs. Thoughts and beliefs you didn't come into the world with. You saw them, you heard them, you adopted them. And journaling works because it helps you question why you feel the way you do. And when you start to question them, when you start to write your thoughts around a subject and you start to get a bit critical of them, you can then start to ask if they're helpful and they're correct, and then you can change them. So if you go back to those journal prompts that I searched for for this episode, the thoughts about me appreciating my body for resilience and strength and functionality, well, maybe I get up one day and I choose to journal on that because I feel rubbish about my body. I feel rubbish about the way it feels today. I feel rubbish about the size it is, the shape it is, the way that, you know, I move in the world, the, the way my illnesses affect me, that sort of thing. It's okay to write in a negative way because that also does the work. So if I got up in that kind of mood and thought about that journal prompt, my responses might be along the lines of why I feel like that, why I feel the world is difficult moving, why I feel my body's let me down. And then I can question them, and then I can ask myself if they're helpful. Are they correct? Do they help me in my ultimate goal of feeling happier about myself, healthier and more relaxed with my food and my body? I can use them to reframe it. Maybe I don't have to do it in that same day. Maybe I just get all this anger and frustration and all of that down on the paper. Then maybe tomorrow I come back to it and my journaling tomorrow is, oh, I felt so awful yesterday, but I was glad I pulled all that stuff out of me, because now I can start to think about it. Now I can question why. Now I can think of a way to reframe it. Now I have some clarity. Now I have some understanding of why I felt so bad yesterday. It doesn't have to be a one and done thing. You're journaling for that day. It can flow across days, weeks, you know, use it for what you need it to. But this is all based in science, right? It's all proven journals. Journaling helps to process this stuff. And when you start to see these moments coming out on the paper, it feels a little bit like magic. You know, when you're suddenly going, oh, interesting. Then you start to realize the beauty that is journaling. And something that often comes to mind when people think about journaling, this is something that people often get concerned about, is, what if somebody else sees it? I get it. I know, I know, because I always think that about everything I write. And I think that might be stemming from my dislike of writing. When I was a young child, I don't know if I had a bad experience, maybe I'll journal on it. But I have never liked anybody reading what I'm writing. I'm always a little bit embarrassed by it or, you know, I think it's not good enough or that my words don't make sense or, you know, whatever. Whatever I choose to feel in that moment. So when it comes to journaling, I understand the worry that somebody might see it and read it and judge it. But this is where you take steps to protect yourself here. So choose something to write in that suits you. So I've got my remarkable it works for me because it's pin coded. Nobody else has got the code to that. Nobody else could get in. And let's face it, if somebody did get in, I don't know if they'd know where to find my journal prompts anyway. And would they even want to read it? I don't know, but that makes it difficult. And I feel very safe and secure in the fact that I have written this stuff down on an electronic notebook that nobody can get into. Similarly, you could use Google Docs if you've got your own kind of Google account. Just go in, use Google Docs. That's free. Nobody else, unless you give them access, will have access to those that writing, you know, the same with a notepad in your phone, the same with if you're doing voice notes, that sort of thing. If nobody else can get into your devices because they don't have the codes, they're never going to get access to them. If you want to write on actual paper, then may I suggest choosing something that is specifically for your journaling so it doesn't have to be a fancy notebook. It can be. I mean, I love stationery. I love a really nice notebook. I never want to write in it though, because I'm always worried about making things messy. But I love a really nice notebook that feels lovely in my hands and a really nice pen that writes so nicely. That is awesome. You just then need to find somewhere to put it where you know it's going to be safe and secure, so maybe you don't leave it lying around on the kitchen table. Right? Have you got a lockable cabinet where you keep your private documents, that sort of thing? Have you got, have you got a box with loads of hair and makeup stuff which nobody would dare plunge their hands into for fear of getting torn to shreds by brushes and hair clips and combs and things. Could you put it in there? You know, there's lots of different options for making yourself safe in this space. This is just for you. And you can find somewhere to put that so that it is just for you. There are lockable ones. I had a lockable one when I was a child. Again. Never really wrote in it. Didn't know what to write. Didn't know about journaling when I was little. But the principal is there, right? I wonder, can you get lockable journals now? Have a Google, have a little look, see what you can find online? Maybe there are lockable ones. Maybe you get ones with a little tiny padlocks on that nobody else can get into. Yeah, just find the thing that is yours and yours alone and give it a go. I know that's been a bit of a whistle stop tour through journaling, but honestly, it is just so freeing and so brilliant. And it's a really, really nice part of the day. And once it becomes a habit, once it becomes a routine for you, then you're actually start to miss it when you've got nowhere to put your thoughts. You know, thoughts are not good when they're bottled up. And what a journal can also serve as is a person who listens. If you don't feel like you can talk to anybody, if you don't feel like anybody would understand what you were saying, even if they did listen to you. A journal can be a really nice alternative to that because there is no judgment in a journal. It's just you and your thoughts and nobody to tell you that you're wrong or stupid or that your thoughts don't matter. So why not give it a go? Give it a go and then let me know how it goes for you. And if you already journal, let me know. I'd just. I'm so interested in the way everybody has different experiences in life and factors different things into their kind of support toolkit, you know? So, yeah, let me know what you think of journaling, whether you're new to it or not. I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued. Right. Yeah, that's me. I'm done. I'm done rambling for the week. Got loads to do. I'm gonna go off and prepare now. Got group session tomorrow for the Eat from within membership. We've got open group coaching, which is just an open question and answer session. People come along and chat and sometimes they've got questions, sometimes they need support in a situation, sometimes we cheer each other up to make us feel better about ourselves. Loads of different ways that the open question and answer sessions get used in the membership. And it's lovely. Really nice support group. So take a look at it. The link is in the show notes if you want to have a look at the membership and come and join us in there because we are bloody wonderful, you know, even if I do say so myself. I'll speak to you next week. Take it easy. Bye.