Ep 79 with Amanda WHite

Ailey Jolie: 00:06

Welcome to In This Body a podcast where we dive deep into the pop power of embodiment. I'm your host, Ailey Jolie, a psychotherapist deeply passionate about living life away from the wisdom within your very own body. The podcast In This Body is a love letter to embodiment, a podcast dedicated to asking important questions like how does connecting to your body change your life? How does connecting to your body enhance your capacity to love more deeply and live more authentically? And how can collective embodiment alter the course of our shared world? Join me for consciously curated conversations with leading experts. Each episode is intended to support you in reconnecting to your very own body. This podcast will be available for free wherever you get your podcast, making it easy for you to stay connected to In This Body, the Podcast with me, Ailey Jolie. My guest today is Amanda White, a licensed professional counselor in Philadelphia and the founder of Therapy for Women Center, a group practice with clinicians across the United States. Many of you will know Amanda from the account Therapy for Women, which reaches hundreds of thousands of people. She also wrote Not Drinking Tonight for people who suspect that their drinking is a problem but don't recognize themselves in the word alcoholic. She also co-hosts the podcast Nuance Needed with Sam Dalton. We begin our time together exploring wellness culture. Amanda's argument is that optimization sells you a future self who stop being uncomfortable and that no such person actually exists. We begin our time together exploring wellness culture. We talk about how self-optimization sells you a future self who doesn't really exist. We talk about how being overboundried can disconnect us from our bodies because we lose experiences of learning how to be uncomfortable in our own skin. Throughout all of our time together, we keep going back to the body, which is one of the reasons why I wanted Amanda here. I also wanted to have Amanda as a guest because she's one of the rare people that I find on social media who will say two contradictory things without discrediting either. She can name and we talk about how boundaries can change your life, but also how boundaries can make you hide. This is just one of the many examples of something seemingly contradictory that Amanda is able to weave together in a way that is practical, applicable, and also leads you into a more intimate relationship with your body too. It's my hope that many of you recognize yourself in the topics we explore today, and that through this conversation you find new words and new language for your own experience. I hope you enjoy this episode of How to Be in This Body with me, Ailey Jolie.

Amanda White: 03:04

Oh, I could answer this for a really long time because I feel like there are so many different aspects to this, but in my current life, I have I'm kind of towards the end of like this chronic pain journey and figuring all of that out. And it has been a fascinating process to honor my body, to trust it, but to also recognize when it's panicking and I'm like afraid of being in my body. Um and I just feel like since that journey, since having a child, it has been, it has been just such a fascinating journey of relearning what safety is in my body. And you know, getting older is like this whole new experience, too, of trusting yourself, but also um, yeah, but also like trying to be calm and patient.

Ailey Jolie: 04:06

Thank you so much for sharing a little bit about where you are right now, what's happening in your body, in your life. I'm gonna remind us back to the listener who's new to you. And I know that you've spoken about recovery and your career as a therapist kind of coming from the some same season of your life. And I would love to explore a little bit of that connection and that time in your life if you're open to sharing with us.

Amanda White: 04:29

Oh my gosh, absolutely. Um, so yeah, so I'm in recovery from an addiction and an eating disorder. And um, I would say most of my life's journey, you know, most of that experience was about escaping being in my body. Um, and just how, you know, kind of growing up, I always was told that I think I felt things too much. I was, I was like sensitive, I would have big reactions to things. And I really used food, not eating, overeating, alcohol to moderate how I felt. And, you know, part of the a huge part of my journey to to getting into recovery was being able to like recognize that I didn't have the power to control how I felt in my body. And I had to learn how to sit with it and create tolerance around being in a body can be hard sometimes, right? You have like fullness signals, hunger signals, tired signals, you're sick. And food and alcohol gave me a way to escape that. So so much of recovery was surrendering to being in a body.

Ailey Jolie: 05:50

Before we carry on, I just want to name that Amanda is describing the difference between protection and avoidance. She's not describing someone who's removed themselves from something genuinely unsafe. Discomfort and danger can feel almost identical in the body, and your nervous system will not reliably tell you which one is which if you've experienced trauma. This is why I want to pause here and gently remind those that if a room contains someone who hurt you, or if you are in a place of danger, that those are signals to listen to. That isn't discomfort to try and expand your capacity to be in. Only you know the difference between the two. I would love to hear how that maybe informed or continues to inform how you show up as a therapist today.

Amanda White: 06:38

Oh, absolutely. I think people don't talk about just how it can be hard being in a body. You know, we kind of just talk about, I think, especially with wellness culture, we kind of act like with technology, we can transcend that. That if we just optimize our sleep routine, uh, you know, optimize how we eat, eat perfectly clean, do all of this stuff, even if you think about, you know, we think we can optimize our way out of aging. And there's very little, I think, surrender. And I think a big part of, you know, being mentally well is sort of the acceptance that we will all age, our bodies will change, we will have pain at different points, we will be sick, we will feel things that are uncomfortable. And I think a lot of us orient our lives around trying to run away from that fact versus a more powerful way to orient yourself. And what I what I try to teach clients and work with them on is like, how can we surrender and tend to our bodies and build the tolerance for that discomfort because the discomfort's always going to be there. The choice you have is sort of whether you can like learn those distress tolerance skills.

Ailey Jolie: 08:03

I know that you've talked or I know that you've spoken about wellness language before and it being unhelpful. And I would maybe even just love to start there around some of the language that you have seen or that you commonly identify as unhelpful or has been problematic maybe in your personal life, but you could also speak to clients as well if you'd like.

Amanda White: 08:21

Totally. Um, oh my goodness, right? Wellness culture is such a big thing right now. I just think that we, I mean, I think to answer your question about the different language, I think the idea of optimization, I think the idea that we will be able to, even just if you think about time as like a construct, like I think the whole interesting thing about productivity time management kind of tells us or gives this illusion that we will eventually be able to have more time. But that is like our time on this earth is finite. We all have to deal with that on some level. Even if you optimize your time and you do absolutely everything, you will still be faced with your mortality at some point. You will still have to deal with how there is a limited amount of time. You truly cannot do everything. And I think this like productivity culture kind of sells us this illusion that if you are productive enough, you will be able to beat that. You will be able to have more time. But even if you're the most productive person in the world, you will you will still not be able to do everything that you want to do because it's just not possible.

Ailey Jolie: 09:46

What are maybe some signs that you that someone has gotten lost in wellness culture? And like, what are some ways that we can kind of see it, identify it, and maybe retract ourselves from it?

Amanda White: 09:57

Totally. For me, the biggest one is just like if you are uh if your whole life becomes about wellness, it's not really, you're not really well anymore, right? Like the whole point of wellness culture, you know, TikTok therapy, right? Like all of these self-help stuff, it's supposed to help you and make your life better. And I think that is what's so fascinating about all this, is that if you are creating anxiety for yourself about like your sleep routine, for example, like I talk to a lot of women about they have a lot of anxiety about their sleep routine, their, their um, you know, let's say, you know, water pollutants, right? Like a specific thing, health, all of those things, you can kind of go down such a rabbit hole. And if you are then creating anxiety about all of that, it is sort of the antithesis. And I think again, it is this illusion that if we find the perfect routine, if we eat perfectly, if we sleep perfectly, we will be able to transcend feeling a certain way in our body. And that's just like not possible. So yeah, to me, the biggest thing is if you, if wellness has become your whole life and you feel like you can't be spontaneous, do things that bring you joy, change up your routine, that is sort of the antithesis of what wellness is supposed to do. Um, so that's the big one that I really look for. Wellness is supposed to make you more well, not cause you more anxiety.

Ailey Jolie: 11:37

I'm curious because you did put it in the same category, but if I separate them them out, do you have the same concerns around therapy culture? That's one thing that I oftentimes speak to my supervisor about. It's just the insurgence of more and more people becoming therapists. And obviously, I don't have a like, oh, that's bad and wrong. No, I'm just more of like, this is really interesting. What is going on in the culture that is making this such a uh a growing profession or a preoccupation or an area of interest? I don't know if those are the right words, but I'm curious if you have a similar or if you have any perspective on if we take therapy culture as a separate entity than well in this culture and what you see happening there and what are maybe some signs that you've maybe learned uh a little bit too much language and forgot your authentic voice.

Amanda White: 12:25

Totally, totally. I mean, I think for me, when I think about therapy culture, I try to separate therapy speak and therapy culture from therapy. Um and I think that, you know, I'm just a proponent. I love therapy. Obviously, I'm a therapist. I think that um I think if you have a good therapist, therapy is great. And I kind of believe, sort of like um, you know, I think there are proponents and people who say, we don't need this much therapy. Not everyone needs to be in therapy. And I I agree with that. I think you have to like the hope is, and it's not, you know, I think people use therapy for different reasons too. I think the hope is that um you have periods where you can integrate what you've learned. And I think that's really important. Um, but I I I'm more concerned about like therapy speak, the self-help culture, um, all of the language. I think we are over boundaried in a lot of ways sometimes. I think that again, it is this like belief that we think that if we have the right boundaries, if we are strict with our time, if we know exactly how to say the right thing, if we learn these communication scripts. I think a lot about scripts sometimes and how they can be really helpful. I have done them on Instagram, you know, before. It can be really helpful to learn language of how to learn how to, you know, share what you're feeling. But I think again, it is it can be used as armor also. Like that is the interesting fine line of like, what is the line between protection and then almost like weaponization? Right? Of like, it's really helpful to learn these things, but it you it's not gonna protect you from feeling, it's not gonna protect you, right? Like, even if you have the perfect script, and I can speak as a therapist, I have a lot of scripts and language for talking, and you can probably, you know, relate to this too, Allie. It doesn't mean you're not gonna feel pain or discomfort when you're having a hard conversation with someone. It doesn't mean you're not gonna have misunderstandings. And I think my big concern is with Therapy Speak, with self-help culture, with all of these books, all of these courses. It's not just therapists, it's coaches, it's it's everyone teaching all of this stuff. It is sell, and and because marketing and you know, people need to kind of make a promise to try to tell, like to try to sell you a product. We get these, these like promises or illusions that it will protect us from having to feel discomfort. And that is what I think is so interesting about like being in a body is like I really believe a lot of communication is learning how to sit in this really uncomfortable feeling in your body. Like when I got sober, part of that work was apologizing to people and having to sit in the physical discomfort of hearing how I harmed people without being defensive, without attacking them, all of that. And that was such like a body experience of feeling like I was gonna throw up, feeling like I was gonna die, all of that. That I there's no perfect self-help anything, wellness culture, whatever that will take away that discomfort in your body unless you do, unless you start numbing yourself with like drugs, alcohol, starving yourself, overeating, all of those things.

Ailey Jolie: 16:14

I really love how you identified that piece around taking around feeling and our culture's kind of obsession with not feeling. What are some ways that you have maybe seen people subtly try and decrease feeling by hiding in wellness culture or therapy culture that maybe we can bring some light to today?

Amanda White: 16:35

I think the big one I see is avoidance. So it is sort of like we lose how we lose the tolerance to maybe be around people or in situations that are uncomfortable. And again, what's so hard about this is that there is nuance, right? For some people, they are drained. Some people are people pleasers, they've been extending themselves to everyone their whole life. So their work is pulling back. And then there are other people who maybe their work is pushing themselves a little more, practicing being in an uncomfortable situation, or maybe there's been an overcorrect where you were that person who extended yourself, said yes to everything, and you course corrected to take care of yourself. But at some point, we also need to exist in the world. We need to also be able to go to things, you know, leave our apartment, our house, whatever. And we can't just only protect ourselves. And I think about this a lot, right? So I do a lot of work with women with eating disorders, substance use. Um, and I think a lot about how, like in early recovery, to give a very clean example or a very clear example, right? They say, like, don't go to a place that serves alcohol for a certain amount of time, maybe it's six months, maybe it's a year, whatever. And that's a very normal, good, helpful thing. You should avoid people, places, and things that trigger you. But after a certain point, if we cannot ever be around anyone who potentially could trigger us, if we can never even, even if you're like in recovery from alcohol, like if you can never ever be in a situation where you see the site of alcohol, you're gonna have a really small life. And the smallness then can cause other problems where then you're not able to, you know, have as deep of connections with people. Maybe you can't go to weddings because you can't ever be around the site of alcohol. So then you're losing family connections or you're losing friends. Like everything is this tightrope of exposure and protection, sort of. Um, so that's kind of how I think of, you know, I think that's where avoidance can come is I think that some of this was a necessary correction, especially for women who up until, you know, a generation ago, really were not given language. Like, really, boundaries were a really radical thing that helped so many people and still help so many people. I think what I'm interested in though is at some point, we have to have flexible boundaries. We have to recognize where the boundaries then can start to hurt. Like it's sort of like a wound. If you, I just got stitches in my finger. And if I were to keep the stitches in and I were to keep this protected for too long, then it would start doing harm. So it is this balance that we have to kind of figure out.

Ailey Jolie: 19:43

What are maybe some signs that there's been enough protection for a while and it's time to start playing with exposure?

Amanda White: 19:52

I think that's a really good question. Um I think if I I think a lot about things in patterns. Like I think if your life is continuing to shrink, if you keep kind of implementing more and more boundaries, if your response to feeling uncomfortable is to be like, okay, this means I need to cut something else, that is a huge sign that I look for. Like if we're talking about trends, I think the other one is if you can't be flexible. Like I think so much about the importance of psychological flexibility, the ability to adapt. We know there's really incredible research on people who are like people who have the best mental health are able to adapt and be psychologically flexible because again, you cannot control life, you cannot control your body, you cannot control some of these things. So we either have two options. We can learn how to be flexible. And obviously, right, if you think about the window of tolerance, I'm not saying flood yourself. I'm not saying do the most extreme version and, you know, go face all of your fears. We need to work within our window of tolerance so we don't shut down. But um, yeah, I'm a really big believer in you can widen your window through careful, slow stretching yourself. And, you know, it's kind of like it's kind of like doing a new exercise at the gym, you know, it and I wish that there was a simple way in terms of right, like after I got um into recovery or after I had a baby, I had to like relearn how to use certain muscles. And I injured myself, pushing myself too far. And that is sort of how I ended up in this like whole chronic pain journey. But at some points, I got so scared of movement, I stopped doing everything. I was so scared. And then, right, doing nothing starts, it's not good to not move your body at all. So it is always this fine line where you have to kind of find the flexibility. And I think some of it isn't a clear sign as much as you have to kind of um experiment and see what works for you.

Ailey Jolie: 22:09

I want to add something to what Amanda has just described. What happened to her in injury and then fear of moving and then stopping altogether and then more pain is something we see constantly in pain clinics. It has a name, fear avoidance. And for most long-term pain, she is absolutely right. The way it is movement introduced slowly in small amounts until the body stops treating it as a threat. There's one group of people for whom that same advice is actually quite dangerous. And I want to say so clearly because I'm someone who's lived that experience. If you have ME, chronic fatigue syndrome, or long COVID, or other autoimmune conditions, your body may respond in a negative way a day or two after you exert yourself rather than in time. That delayed impact has a name and it is diagnosable. And so if that's a pattern that you know, I invite you to be really generous with yourself, to allow yourself to have the rest that you need and to not make up a story in your mind that rest is avoidance. Rest for you is your treatment. And one more thing before I go, for those of you with a history of an eating disorder, movement is a good way to practice sitting with discomfort right up until it's not. I share this now because we get into this later in the conversation. So the question for you is not how much you're doing, it's what happens on the day you miss it. If missing movement of any form it makes you feel guilty or makes you feel like you want to make up for it somewhere else, then that's absolutely worth exploring. It's been present in all of your answers so far is your capacity to hold the nuance, but also just like push the conversation or just kind of push the edge or the boundary of like what the the expected answer would be. And you do it in such like a gracefully provocative kind way. And thank you. And I've seen this in your writing for a really long time. So when I said I was really excited to spend time with you, it was very sincere. I'm curious where that came from because it would be quite easy to just kind of keep the status quo or be like everyone should boundary, or you know, boundaries are applicable here and not add in the other piece there of playing with flexibility. And so I'd love to know where that comes from and you, why you think it's important, because I I know that sometimes pushing the edges or the boundaries or adding nuance isn't always well received. It can can be activating. And so I guess I'm asking a question to get to know you a little bit better and also what gives you the capacity to really challenge people in a really helpful way.

Amanda White: 24:47

Great question. Um, yeah, I think for me, a lot of my experience has really been shaped by recovery. And I think recovery seems really black and white, but it is actually incredibly nuanced. And not only do I have that deep personal experience, I worked in recovery. Uh, you know, I worked in all types of treatment centers, long-term treatment where women were there for six months. I worked in detox, I worked in rehabs, then I did outpatient. Um so I think that kind of shapes a lot of what I've done. And a lot of recovery is sort of this balance between taking care of yourself, but also that avoidance and pushing yourself a bit. Um, but I guess I also just never felt like I totally colored in the lines. I just feel like I've always straddled worlds, straddled things, even just like a lot of the, like specifically, my most uh like my biggest strength in terms of clinical work is this overlap between eating disorders and substance use, which is just an incredibly nuanced, you know, incredibly niche and nuanced space to play in. But it's actually really common that people um struggling with substance use have eating disorders, have struggles with food, end up with struggles with food. Um, so I think that, I mean, my first book and all my work in substance use is really about the nuance of um drinking isn't good. And I want to help challenge the idea that we should all um that you either have to be an alcoholic or you should drink. Obviously, I think that conversation has changed a lot since my book came out five years ago, six years ago, five years ago. Um so yeah, I guess that's sort of where it is. And and I think for me, like I was very sensitive. I saw a lot of therapists who weren't great for me. And I really think that like compassion, like you can push people in a compassionate way. I think that there is a lot of value to um what was I gonna say? I think there's a lot of like when I'm writing things and when I'm thinking about it, I I think a lot about myself five or not five years ago, 10 years ago, 12 years ago, before I got sober. Um, and how I would receive things and how people best pushed me. So I'm a really big believer in sort of this like salty sweet where I'm with you. I I get it, I still fall into these patterns, and I think that there's like more for us.

Ailey Jolie: 27:38

I really love how you described it as salty sweet, and that's something I really admire, but also really appreciate because I know how how much inner work has to be done to be able to hold that position and to and also sometimes it's not very comfortable. I want to go back though to you and naming the intersection of substance abuse and eating disorders because you're absolutely right. It's like not a very common area that most people are in, usually, at least in the centers I've been aware of in the UK or Canada, you either can have one or the other, but you cannot have both active at the same time. And so I would love to even just like start there, maybe with you exploring or explaining why those two commonly go together. What are some of the similarities? What are some of the differences?

Amanda White: 28:25

Totally. Um, and I agree. I I mean that is sort of where my interest came from is I was working in substance use facilities, and people would act like it was not possible to have both going on at the same time, or they would refer people out if they seemed like they had, you know, too many like eating disorder symptoms. Um, yeah, I mean, I think for me, where this all like how I fell into this niche is that was my story, obviously. And I really see them as sort of different external solutions to the same internal problem. And for me, a lot of that problem, and I think for a lot of us, is that discomfort in the body, not just, you know, maybe physically in terms of like like hunger or fullness cues or or things like that, or discomfort of like physically, I don't like how this looks on me, or I don't like um, you know, the feeling of my body in this clothing or something like that. But like I was talking about, just the discomfort of your body reacts if you're in a hard situation. Your um, right, if you're having a hard conversation with someone, your body is gonna react. And I very much am just kind of like a believer in when you numb, like like we all want to numb. And I felt that way similarly, like when I first found bulimia. It felt like this incredible tool that I got that was allowed me to transcend feeling hunger and fullness in my body. It allowed me to transcend, um, you know, it was able to numb me and allowed me to transcend maybe having like difficult conversations. And then alcohol did that too. It allowed me to transcend feeling socially uncomfortable in situations and stuff like that. So I really just see the root of all of that. And um, I think my specialty also really comes from I didn't just a lot of people I think recover from alcohol first, and then they may discover they have an eating disorder where the opposite happened for me. Like my eating disorder was much more prevalent. Um, and I kind of bobbed between the two and went through periods and ultimately I stopped drinking because I recognized I wouldn't be able to stay in recovery from my eating disorder if I was continuing to drink. So I did a lot of like step work and work in actually uh an eating disorder, like a 12-step eating disorder group before that. And I think for me, what really clicked also is I think a lot of people treat food as just like food is the addictive substance. When where to me, and I think when you look at a little deeper at what's going on and you look at like the people that can stay in recovery versus not, it is really like my eating disorder and even my substance use was like I was addicted to the feeling of being able to transcend my body and the feeling of being able to control like how I looked and how I felt. Um, so I think if, and then when I was working in treatment centers, I really saw how a lot of times that, you know, people either began their their addiction actually with like eating struggles and then they moved into alcohol or they moved into substance use, or um, they would develop one after they got into recovery. And to me, the root is is really the same there. Um, but people don't like to look at it because it's much easier to just focus on the substance or the food, the external thing as the problem rather than getting under getting to the root of it, which is again like dealing with that discomfort and surrendering. And I really, especially when I moved from when I started my practice, um, I moved from obviously like more serious cases of this to outpatient. And I really had to work in the nuance of I came from a pretty strict, this is what you do to get sober treatment facility. And that was what my work was around to how do I adapt this to people who maybe don't have a problem with alcohol or they don't actually officially have an eating disorder, but I can see how their behaviors are like negatively impacting them, are causing these avoidance patterns. How can we talk about how their alcohol might be a problem, or some of their like food behaviors might be a problem, or wellness behaviors might be a problem, but um they don't necessarily make like meet the criteria for an eating disorder or an alcohol use disorder.

Ailey Jolie: 33:39

I would love to maybe spend a little bit of time there because at least in a lot of the spaces that I've been in, or yeah, in my master's degree, therapy culture, I would say there's oftentimes a little bit of negative judgment passed towards 12-step programs or like really harsh, fully absent and only programs, which does feel a little in my brain was always a bit like strange to be in the presence of that, knowing that I had engaged in those programs like a decade before I found myself. So I was like, that was okay, but whatever. And so I'd love to just maybe spend some time because you have engaged with those programs. If you feel comfortable speaking from your own personal experience of like, what are the things that you can really gain there? I gained some really wonderful skills and tools, and it was a part of my life for definitely a solid two years. And then it was a moment I had a therapist where they were just kind of like, yeah, maybe you don't need to do that anymore. And I was like, Oh yeah, maybe I don't. And that was that was that was the end. Um, but because it does have a little bit of a negative connotation or there can be some judgment, I would love to just spend some time exploring what are in those programs, what is really helpful there, what can you gain? What can you gather? Maybe what can you not gather there as well?

Amanda White: 34:50

Okay, great question. Um, totally. And I think this is the important thing to talk about is there are things that you can get that I think are really great and there are like limitations to it also. And I think we fall into right, like all good, all bad so much that we miss the nuance here. Um so yeah, I think for me it was super helpful in the beginning. I mean, I really, especially with eating disorders, like I didn't have um, I had so much shame around my bulimia. Like bulimia is something I think that obviously, you know, we talk about in the media and stuff like that. But when you get into details about like purging and making yourself sick and all that comes with um binging, there is a lot of like shame and disgust that comes with it. And I had so much shame about it. So being able to talk openly with other people about it was made a huge difference. And I don't think I ever would have been able to really face all of this if I didn't have other people who I heard of or talked to. And I think maybe you could get that in reading some books in online communities, things like that. But it made a huge difference for me in cutting through shame. Um I think also, you know, so I think some of the great things about 12-step programs are that you get community, especially if we're talking about, you know, there is such a culture in 12-step programs of service, of helping other people. I think that's one thing that I see online as like really missing sometimes from one thing that can help people is I think we can get very fixated on ourselves. And we forget that it is actually like, even if you think about dialectical behavioral therapy, one of the skills in DBT is like go help someone, get out of your head, you know, make a difference uh with someone else because it can be, you can feel good from doing that. So I think that is a really that the the idea of service, the idea of sort of like showing up sometimes, even if you don't feel like it, was so helpful for me because by the time I got sober, I really had burned so many bridges. I didn't really have any friends left. I was extremely flaky. Um, I was chronically late to everything. I had been like fired by two jobs because I couldn't show up on time. So I really had to like go back to basics and relearn how to be a reliable person. Um, in 12-step programs, they often talk about how it's like you have to learn how to be a functioning member of society. And I had to do things that were that were hard and that I wouldn't have picked. Um and I think that I'd been so focused on myself. So, like, why me? I can't believe this is happening to me. I'm the worst. Like, I think people, this is spicy, but I think some people forget that you can have low self-esteem, but you can also be overly focused on yourself. Like I had really low self-esteem, but I was also very self-centered because I thought I was worse than everyone. So it really prevented me from being able uh to like connect with other people because I was like, I'm the worst. I will, no one will understand me. No one can help me. Um, so I think the 12 steps do a good job of kind of talking about how um we all have that a bit and we all have this like terminal uniqueness.

Ailey Jolie: 38:35

And what are some ways that one, if they identify with the statement you just said there of being the worst or I'm so bad that no one else will be able to help me, what are some ways that you can slowly move yourself out of it? Because I acknowledge, yes, it can be a bit of a spicy topic, or it's just maybe one that isn't named as much that it can actually be. Um, I had a supervisor once name it to me in this way, and I really liked the language of calling it inverted narcissism. It's inverted. And I was like, okay, yeah, I can I can get behind that. Yeah, it like clicks out, you know, they're psychoanalytic. So it that's the language that fits their tradition. But what are some ways that if you identify with that, you can start to move out of it?

Amanda White: 39:15

Yeah, I think one of the best things to do is to to try to think about um showing up for like I think there is sort of this idea of like showing up for someone, of doing something maybe you don't want to do, being able to help someone else. You know, there's there's incredible research too about when someone asks for help, like the person who helps feels better than the person who asked for help. The person who helps uh feels closer even to that person than the person who asks. So I think thinking about how you can be in community, how you can be helpful to someone else. Um, I think also really like perspective taking of zooming out and thinking about how you fit in the world, thinking about, you know, if you're getting super, super focused on everything that's wrong in your life, if you can try to zoom out and think about other things that are going on, you know, in your family, in your friends, things like that, um, that can make a big difference. Cause I do think self-narcissism or inverted narcissism, love that, is it creates this like isolation. And so I think you have to kind of work against isolation to work through some of that.

Ailey Jolie: 40:38

Quick note on the 12-steps rooms because I asked about them a lot. Therapists can have lots of opinions about 12-steps, and the evidence doesn't really support that. A large review published in 2020 found that Alcoholics Anonymous and the therapy built around it did better than other established treatments, cognitive behavioral therapy included. It's a serious result and I think it deserves honoring. It's also not the only type of step recovery program that you can use. There's Smart Recovery, Life Ring, Recovery Dharma, and Refuge Recovery. These are all of their programs that exist. The last thing I want to name that many people don't know is that there are 12-step programs for yes substances, but there are also ones for eating. So if anything in this conversation sounds interesting to you around step programs, I encourage you to look at all the different variations that exist out there. I would like to go back to something that I said a few minutes ago. I used the phrase inverted narcissism, and I had a supervisor give it to me a long time ago, but it's not a clinical term, and I want to be really explicit about that. And the only place that you would probably find it online is deep in psychoanalytic theory. The other places online are probably using the word in a way that I didn't mean it. When shame is the overarching emotional experience, your attention turns inward and it stays there. Everything that happens gets read as information about you, about how badly you're doing, about how bad you are. And that is not self-importance, of course. It's a well-documented feature of shame and depression, and the research is consistent that the more time you spend focused on yourself in that state, the worse you feel, which is why you can't think your way out of it from the inside. The 12-step rooms that we talked about earlier have their own phrase for this, and they call it terminal uniqueness. The belief that they you are the only person that nobody can reach, that you are the only one who's this bad or done things that big or crazy. And again, it's not narcissism in the way that we would understand narcissistic personality disorder or the way that narcissism is commonly used in our uh culture around us. This is deeply embedded in shame, and its whole kind of function is to get you to believe you're the absolute worst person there is and that no one could understand, keeping you more and more isolated in your shame. There's so much more that I could say on this word and this topic. So I just want to acknowledge before we go back to listening, that this isn't everything that could be said, but I wanted to pause here and give more context to some language that I used. From your perspective, why is community so essential to well-being?

Amanda White: 43:17

Oh, well, I mean, I think in terms of research, we know that we are meant to be around other people. Like co-regulation is a huge thing that makes a difference. We know our nervous systems are wired to be around each other. This doesn't mean that people aren't more introverted, that people don't need more space than other people. Um, but I do think, you know, even if you look at uh evolution and and the neuroscience of things, we evolved to be in community. I think one of the biggest, I think one of the biggest struggles we're facing right now is that. You know, you don't get scale of doing things together. I think about even in a family, when you used to live with other people in a community, or you had a community of neighbors, or maybe you lived with, you know, um multi-generations, the work of a household was spread out through all of those people. And now individual people, individual households, like you don't get those economies of scale because everyone is responsible for everything. So I think I think about that a lot too.

Ailey Jolie: 44:35

I ask this question because one thing that I know is that you have created a really beautiful community online. And so my question was kind of twofold because I know that you're offering this alongside the therapeutic education that you provide online. But I one thing I have noticed in the therapy space is that therapy, culture, and community oftentimes don't go together, or community isn't a component of what's being shared as being an important part of mental health. And I would love to maybe spend some time around why you think that piece is missing. You've named why it's so essential there. We are biologically hardwired to connect and regulate from each other. Um, but yeah, I would love to know some of your thoughts on why that's been missing.

Amanda White: 45:17

I mean, I think being in community requires doing things that are uncomfortable. I think, you know, it's not always convenient to help someone. I think it's not always convenient, you know. I I have neighbors in my neighborhood who I don't agree with things on. Um, and I think online, you know, with algorithms, we can really curate spaces where we never have to interact with people we don't like or we don't agree with. Um we don't have to kind of push ourselves to to see things from different perspectives all the time. I have even more concerns these days with if you think about AI and you think about the fact that you can kind of really create these spaces so much where things disagree with you, reinforce your beliefs. I think of it as a tolerance. Like we have to practice that tolerance of being around people who aren't like us, who, you know, people just like in general, like showing. I don't know. I think about it in a from a sensory perspective, showing up to an event is like annoying sometimes. You have to park, maybe you have to go in, you have to talk to people, maybe you don't want to talk to, maybe it's too hot in there, like maybe you don't like the food that's being served. Like there are all of these things that you kind of have to deal with. So I understand why people opt out, or if they've been, again, like we said, in these spaces for so long where they never felt like they had power to say no. They are in, you know, they kind of can overcorrect. Um but I guess I'm also just of the belief that like friction in our lives is important. Um like it is, it is not that um, you know, we kind of think about optimization and trying to get rid of friction and be as seamless as possible as like the meaning of life, or not the meaning of life, but we think of it as um the goal and that we'll all be happier the more efficient we are, the more we can get done, the quicker life happens. But really, if you if you talk to people and you talk about what matters to them and what the most important moments of their life are and what is important and and you know what they remember, it it often isn't predictable. It often does happen in these moments that you didn't predict, you didn't plan for. Um, you know, you you don't know who you will connect with. And yeah, I guess I'm just kind of of the belief that like friction creates a lot of meaning in in our lives. So we have to learn how to tolerate that.

Ailey Jolie: 48:08

What are some skills that can help us tolerate friction?

Amanda White: 48:11

Hmm. I mean, I think you have to practice starting to go. Like, I think one of the things I try to do is, you know, I'm someone who doesn't love small talk. And I've kind of had it as this thing of like, you know, probably I feel like a lot of people feel this way too now. It's like, we're like, we don't like small talk, we want to just talk about the deep stuff. And I've had to really be like, but not everyone is capable of that. Not everyone feels comfortable with that immediately. And like small talk serves a purpose. And I used to walk my dog around my neighborhood and be like, I'm just gonna try to not run into anyone so I don't have to engage in small talk. And what I started doing over the past couple of years is being like, what positive interaction can I collect in this process? Like, this is like, you know, I want to feel good where I live. I want to feel connected to my neighbors that may not look like I'm constantly, you know, I have these deep relationships with them. But if I get to talk to them about their dog, or even if we just talk about like the weather, that is a positive interaction that I get from that. It's a little, I have to tolerate the friction. I have to deal with maybe someone who talks too much, right? Like that's always my concern is I'm like, I'm gonna be trapped talking to someone. But I can learn the skills of what to do to remove myself from that situation. So instead of like orienting so much of my of my life around avoiding interactions with people that I don't want to engage with, I could learn those skills and then I can have positive interactions and feel genuinely more connected and good about where I live.

Ailey Jolie: 49:56

What you just described there, I'm imagining, ties into overcorrecting. And you've previously named it twice, but something I'm really passionate about because it's something I can absolutely see in my own life. And I have definitely been a pendulum of like, oh my goodness, it doesn't work. So I will swing all the way over here and do the opposite and be like, oh shit, we're having the same results in the opposite direction. Okay, maybe we have to try something in the middle. So I would love to just spend a little bit of time talking about what overcorrection looks like, how we can know that it's something we're maybe engaging in it. Um, because I don't feel like it's something that's often spoken about so honestly. That's such a good point.

Amanda White: 50:34

Um yeah, I'm trying to think. It's like I'm let me see if I can I think that I think I think correction and overcorrection is a natural thing to do, especially if you are in a situation where you have like experienced trauma, you have experienced pain, hurt. Like I think about it as an injury. There's a natural period where you do need to protect yourself, you do need to heal. I think that, and it's hard to say, right? Like if if you look at your hand and you know that the stitches have come out, you know that it's time to start practicing this. Um, it's obviously much more complicated in our own emotional lives. Um this is such a good question. I think that I think when your correction, your overcorrection is then causing is causing negative side effects in your life. I think that's like a really good sign, right? Of if you've overcorrected and now you're losing that capacity uh to do things that are important to you. And I really think about the pattern too. If it keeps shrinking, that is a really good sign that you're overcorrecting and we need to work to keep that capacity open.

Ailey Jolie: 52:00

And I think it could be really helpful for the listener because I haven't heard a lot of people speak on this, but I really started to notice this pattern in myself after going through recovery for very restrictive anorexia. I then ate everything under the sun. Kind of, I don't know, consciously, unconsciously forgetting that I've been diagnosed as celiac. And, you know, yes, I went to a treatment center. That was like you have anxiety around bread, you have to eat the bread. And, you know, also didn't really encourage the gluten-free lifestyle. So I keep on both, but nonetheless went through all of that, was very, very sick, and then had this moment of like, oh, you've like massively overcorrected into this like frame of eat everything and da-da-da-da-da, when actually your body can't tolerate these foods and now you're you're very sick with an autoimmune condition. And I would love to just maybe even focus on overcorrection in the realm of addiction or eating disorders because it is so common, but there's not a lot of language around it or acknowledgement that it happens and it happens a lot.

Amanda White: 53:02

Totally. Oh, I love that example. That's such a good example, Ali. And now I can, now you're unfrozen. So I love that. I think that's such a good example. I see it a lot in recovery communities with when someone's gotten sober and then they it starts bleeding into all these other areas of their life where they're in recovery and then they start being like, okay, I'm gonna take care of my health, and they start being super restrictive with their food. They start being like, My body is a temple, I can't have any negative thing in it. And they start to get anxiety about that. Um, I think in terms of, you know, I think people in terms of addiction also um, and I think it's interesting because sometimes this sort of can manifest as like addiction switching a bit where they haven't treated what's going on underneath. So then they do start doing other things like uh workaholism, right? All of these other things to sort of treat and deal with instead of dealing with the anxiety underneath. I feel like I didn't do a good job of answering that question. Um you did.

Ailey Jolie: 54:15

And I'm for you to describe what is addiction switching.

Amanda White: 54:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So addiction switching is pretty much what it sounds like, where you kind of start to get into recovery from one thing and then you pick up another thing in the process. Um, so a lot of times if you think about it as what is the the outside process that you see someone doing, that is like the behavior, whether it's, you know, um an eating disorder, addiction, switching substances, um, becoming obsessed with something else, like optimization, workaholism, uh, love is a really big one too, where I think people chase that like dopamine and they start to um become very into like having a relationship, or even, you know, some people like cut everyone off. And that's a big thing that can happen too. So I think addiction switching really happens whenever someone is switching their outside coping mechanism to deal with what's still happening on the inside, which is what we talked about earlier, right? Like the shame, the anxiety, the discomfort uh that comes with being a person in the world, being in a body.

Ailey Jolie: 55:33

I love that you consistently named the discomfort and being okay with being uncomfortable, because even though all of therapy and wellness is like aimed to kind of help you with those feelings, you said it so eloquently at the start, a lot of it is just trying to suppress those feelings and not necessarily giving you tools to be in them. And one of the best tools you named was just a the acknowledgement that you're gonna have them and that's a part of being human. But I am also curious if you have some other pieces of wisdom of how do we actually be in that deeply uncomfortable moment once we have accepted that this is actually a part of being human. We can't wellness culture this away, we can't therapy call therapy speak this away. This is this is just it. This is what it means to be a being on this earth.

Amanda White: 56:21

Yeah, yeah. I actually think friction tolerance is very connected to this to me, right? I think waiting in line somewhere is actually like good practice for being uncomfortable. Like you don't have control over that situation. You have to be able to stay there. There may be annoying people, people talking too loud, doing all of those things. Like, I'm not into the idea of I know like friction maxing has sort of come into the lexicon with yeah, with men specifically, are like talking about like raw dogging, being on a plane, and not doing anything on a plane. Um so I'm not, I'm not saying you should just like make your life as hard as possible to develop this skill. Again, we want to work within your window of tolerance, within your capacity. Um, but I do think, and that's really like the 12-step in me too. I think is you were I was taught to like show up and do things I didn't want to do because it was another hour that I would stay sober. Um so I think doing things like that friction can be really helpful. Um, I'm a very big believer in physical movement as like this great container for sort of you can watch your sensations rise and fall. You can kind of show yourself how you can do something that's physically uncomfortable, like maybe you're out of breath, maybe you're like lifting this heavy weight, and you can kind of practice the tolerance of moving through that. And then I think on the other, you know, side of it too, it's like, can you sit? Can you go for a walk without maybe like listening to a podcast? Can you sit in some silence? It doesn't need to be strict meditation necessarily. Um, but I think mindfulness is huge and it really helps you develop the ca capacity to watch these sensations happen in your body instead of being those sensations. Like it is so powerful to be able to observe yourself and observe these sensations instead of being like super stuck inside of them.

Ailey Jolie: 58:34

I really appreciated how all of the kind of skills that you named there or ways to build skills are such like subtle and small ways that we can just interweave them into our life. So, this will be my second last question for you. Why do you lean towards the skills that are really ingrained in daily life? They require noticing and slowing down versus um maybe the homework sheet or the cathartic practice or the very challenging physical retreat that you did for 10 days. Because I do I'm projecting that there's probably some lived experience that leads you to side with the like noticing distress tolerance in a line versus, you know, an extreme option of maybe doing an Iron Man or something. I don't know.

Amanda White: 59:20

Totally, totally. So I, in my recovery journey, really got obsessed with yoga, like super hardcore power yoga. I would go to these like extreme retreats where we would be doing yoga for like uh seven hours a day, six hours, it was really intense. And, you know, I think that was my journey. That's what I needed to sort of experience. But I was very obsessed with this idea that if I could do these extreme things, I would then be cured and I could just move on. And I, while I don't think, you know, always going on a retreat, doing something like that is harmful necessarily, I don't think it harmed me. I also think that you're not gonna be able to live your life at a like in a retreat setting, right? Like you're not gonna, the goal again of wellness is that you are well in your daily life. So you need daily life skills and your body, you need skills for your body every day, right? Just because you can go somewhere and log off and be really present or or feel content doesn't mean that's gonna translate necessarily. And I think I used to think that if I healed enough, I could transcend my body. I wouldn't feel uncomfortable. I used to think that if I got so practiced in having hard conversations, I would never feel uncomfortable in a hard conversation again. And you can get better at it for sure. But a lot of what you're developing is the capacity for it. And unfortunately, as a human, it's like use it or lose it. You gotta use it. You gotta keep engaging in it to keep your tolerance up. So if you, you know, if you go do these extreme things and you don't like it, doesn't mean you can integrate them into your life. And I think about that in terms of recovery, you know, working at a substance use facility too, people could get sober there. But if you don't integrate this into your life, you you don't stay in recovery.

Ailey Jolie: 01:01:19

Thank you so much for that really articulate answer. And also the way that you didn't pathologize or shame the extreme things. I'm a person who is very open with the reality that I did a lot of psychedelic assisted psychotherapy and it was very extreme and very intense, and I was very unintegrated and like couldn't do life, even though I was really good at this thing. The rest of my life was the dumpster fire. So I loved that your answer really honored the simplicity and the daily subtle ways that you can practice friction or can put these skills in play. Because when you have that mindset of looking in your day-to-day life, at least my belief, I'm like that's when all of the work really starts working because it's in your day-to-day experience. Um, my last question for you before our close our time closes is I opened by asking you what it means to be in your body. And I would love to know if there is anything that you would like to add to your answer or something that you didn't get to share over the past hour that you would like to leave with the listener.

Amanda White: 01:02:25

I don't think so. I feel like um I feel like I really hit everything. I think it's been a fascinating journey for me to go through eating disorder, you know, substance use, getting sober, feeling really good about where I was, and then I got pregnant and I had a really intense body experience with that and and the recovery process and then the chronic pain. So I think it just has really taught me I have a very like emotional, you know, tolerance for being in my body. And I've had to learn this like physical tolerance for being in my body as well. And as hard as that experience was, I it has made me think a lot more about like aging and how we're gonna all have like aches and pains and be managing stuff from our body, and we all just want to be done. Like that's what wellness culture promises us you will never have pain again, you will never feel uncomfortable again, you will be healed, you will be healed. This trauma will never come up again. And obviously, there are things you can do that help a lot, but it is gonna be a daily process for the rest of your life of managing how you feel, unfortunately or fortunately.

Ailey Jolie: 01:03:39

Thank you so much for that answer and just the real like lived experience that you give and your ability to hold nuance. It's really appreciated. A piece of this podcast really stayed with me, and it was something Amanda said right near the end. You either use it or lose it. She was talking about capacity, and she said it in the most caring and compassionate way, but also not as a throwaway. Because what often gets sold to us in wellness is really a promise about the future that there is a better version of you, a few protocols from here, a few therapy sessions away, someone who's finally stopped feeling uncomfortable. And I really understand the appeal of that. Please don't get me wrong. I totally get it. And I have bought into it more than once, but capacity is actually more like a muscle. You build it by using it. It fades when you stop, and having it once doesn't mean you'll have it forever, which is why a person can come home from a retreat or finish a really good year of therapy and then fall apart a few months later over something quite small and insignificant. I used to think that that meant that I had regressed or wasn't as healed as I thought I was, or or something else that was unkind about myself. All it means is that capacity is something that is continually changing depending on the choices we make. Of course, again, this doesn't mean to stay in anything harmful or hurtful for you. You know the difference between growing and expanding your capacity, just being with discomfort or uncomfortable moments, and genuinely dangerous, painful, or traumatizing situations. I don't live in your body, I don't know your world. Only you know the difference between those two things. Only you know where you can practice growing your capacity and where growing your capacity would actually mean walking away altogether. If any of this conversation resonated with you, I would invite you to check out Inbody. It's my online course where we explore a lot of the topics. You can find out more at inbodymethod.com. And if joining an online course with interactive components isn't for you, you can read more of my writing online at Substack, which you can find at aileyjolie.substack.com. Lastly, if you want to spend some time in person with me, you can join us in Costa Rica this November. Thank you again for listening and for being in the tender, ongoing process of coming home to your body and allowing this podcast, our guest and me, Ali Jolie, to be a part of that process with you. If you found value in this episode, it would mean so much to me for you to share the podcast with friends, a loved one, or on your social platform. If you have the time, please rate and review the podcast so that this podcast reaches a larger audience and can inspire more and more humans to connect to their bodies too. Thank you for being here and nurturing the relationship you have with your very lovely body.