TRIGGER WARNING/DISCLAIMER: In this episode, we discuss eating disorders and domestic abuse and violence.
"My comfort zone was struggle" - Victoria K. In this episode, Victoria is open, honest, and vulnerable in sharing her story. I loved chatting with Victoria and I'm so so so thrilled to share this interview with you, you're going to feel strong, empowered, and so inspired by Victoria's wisdom and insights throughout this episode.
In today's episode, we discuss:
Connect with Victoria:
INSTAGRAM: @victoriakleinsmanofficial
WEBSITE: https://victoriakleinsman.com/
PODCAST: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-body-love-binge-food-freedom-body-love-podcast/id1464324636
--------------------------------------------------------------
Staring in January 2023 I'll be releasing a podcast episode every Monday! Here's what you can look forward to in the New Year:
Bria Wannamaker, RP.
@betterboundariespodcast
www.briawannamaker.com
Support the show, buy COFFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
As always, please remember that these podcast episodes are for educational purposes only and are not a substitute for medical healthcare or mental healthcare. Podcasts are available as an educational and entertainment resource and are not advice, recommendations, or suggestions. Please seek out the necessary professional services if you require assistance.
TRIGGER WARNING/DISCLAIMER: In this episode, we discuss eating disorders and domestic abuse and violence.
"My comfort zone was struggle" - Victoria K. In this episode, Victoria is open, honest, and vulnerable in sharing her story. I loved chatting with Victoria and I'm so so so thrilled to share this interview with you, you're going to feel strong, empowered, and so inspired by Victoria's wisdom and insights throughout this episode.
In today's episode, we discuss:
Connect with Victoria:
INSTAGRAM: @victoriakleinsmanofficial
WEBSITE: https://victoriakleinsman.com/
PODCAST: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-body-love-binge-food-freedom-body-love-podcast/id1464324636
--------------------------------------------------------------
Staring in January 2023 I'll be releasing a podcast episode every Monday! Here's what you can look forward to in the New Year:
Bria Wannamaker, RP.
@betterboundariespodcast
www.briawannamaker.com
Support the show, buy COFFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
As always, please remember that these podcast episodes are for educational purposes only and are not a substitute for medical healthcare or mental healthcare. Podcasts are available as an educational and entertainment resource and are not advice, recommendations, or suggestions. Please seek out the necessary professional services if you require assistance.
And I've repeated the same pattern. But not it didn't manifest an abusive relationship. It was eating disorders, right. And what you said what do I feel that I'm worthy of? And my comfort zone was struggled. So whether I was being abused by him or being abusing myself through starvation and and because the anorexia came first like before I then met him. So it's really interesting that it manifests in different ways, but it's still the same pattern.
Well, welcome, Victoria. I'm so pumped to have you. Welcome to the Better Boundaries Podcast. Thank you, Bria. It's nice to be here. I'm excited. Yeah. OK. So I guess First off. I want to open up the floor to you to maybe say a couple of things that you're excited about in your life right now and. What gets you out of bed in the morning? OK, love those questions. The the the kind of the same answer to both those questions. So what gets me out of bed in the morning and what I'm most excited about in my life right now is serving and helping women to overcome eating disorders. So anorexia, bulimia, binge eating like any form of restrictive eating disorder and seeing their transformation and coming back home to themselves to self love. I cannot describe in words how incredible. That feels and so it's such a gift, so that just it's a no brainer. I jump out of bed and I have my client calls and I serve them and it's just such a gift that I get to do what I do. Ah, I love that. I love that you say it's a gift, too, because it really does feel good. Like we know when we're using our gifts that we were put here for. And then I like the ripple effect, too. Not like I love the ripple effect of you using your gifts to help others so that they can go on and do their things. I always thought about that when I was personal training of like, OK, you know, I'm training a real estate agent today, and she said fitness helps her so that she can walk upstairs. And like, show clients this home and this person's a mom and it's going to help her with her kids. So I like the ripple effect that you are having an impact on these women's lives. Yeah, I think many of us, even those who aren't you know, as doing a job that is of service. If you liked the world.
Each and every one of us has a huge impact on those around us, and we often don't think we do. But a simple smile to a stranger as you walk past, it sounds so small and insignificant, but you know, a smile is contagious, almost. I have smiled at a lot of people who have not smiled back. And that's OK, that's true. Like, why is she? Smiling at it? Well, I think we can have a big effect on those around us and the world through the ripple effect by simply spreading love. But first, before we can spread love, we have to 1st be love and love ourselves, right? In order to give so much to others. Uh, we have to come back to the topic of love. This is something I'm clearly being asked to explore today because literally this morning, like an hour ago I was listening to a podcast that it's this actor and he was talking about like his mental health breakdown and how he, you know, learned all these skills and tools and did all this therapy but literally couldn't apply it and wouldn't have applied it had he not learned self love first. So I don't know, someone's calling me today being like Brian, you don't love yourself truly like, we got to. Figure this out. So let's can we table that and tell the audience a bit about you first? Yeah. What lights you up? What's your day-to-day like? And yeah, just your back story. Yeah. So my, well, my title, if you like, is a food freedom and body love coach. There's the word love again in there for you. Of course we'll go into depth to like what that means in in a moment. That's my title and how I got here. So chocolate nutshell story. Like really Long story short. And I had anorexia as a teenager and from the age of 13 to 19. And then I was diagnosed with binge eating disorder as I was in an abusive relationship for six years and didn't
go to my sister's wedding like my family was caught off like it was. I call it The Cave. The time in The Cave I was like away from life. And then I managed to leave that relationship, found the gym and became obsessed with fitness and started to lose weight very quickly and was very obsessive. They had a very obsessive personality, which every woman that I've worked with with an eating disorder also has that all or nothing mentality. I'm sure you have had it all experienced that. And then I found the gym, started doing some fitness modeling and then became bulimic because the anorexia and the binge eating kind of came together and I was starving myself for as long as possible. And then my biology was fighting back and I was binging, hiding it all, feeling so much shame, purging, taking laxatives. Over exercising, the cycle continues until I was 30. I'm now 35. like lifetimes ago and I met my now fiance valta in Egypt and now I live in the Netherlands, although I'm British. And I started my healing journey and I've studied psychology and then became certified as a coach and nutrition, a personal trainer and I help women fall in love with themselves but ultimately heal their relationship with food and their bodies. But it it's all combined like there's you can't love yourself. Truly, without making peace with food in your body, it's kind of like a both and it's all-encompassing one another, so that's what I do. Ohh, there's so much there. Thank you for sharing all that. OK, I'm wanna ohh. So interesting. I'm gonna backtrack. Can you talk a little bit more about the abusive relationship? Six years is a long time. And know that there's probably so many people. Like I'm sure if you were in a room with five friends, there's like at least one or two people who are going through something like that or something where there's discomfort or a lot of
shame happening in a relationship. And yeah, what was that experience like? And just the isolation. Sometimes people, you know, think it's really nice. Like, I spend all this time with my partner and we love each other. And she's my world. She's my world. Whatever, whoever you are, like, I love them. I have them. That's all that matters. So. And, but that's so isolating, you know, from family, friends. Can you go into all of that? Oh, definitely. So it happens gradually. So when I got in the relationship, I was only 19. And he was 34 time. So he was like, not like way older, but he was a lot older than me. I think that I think that's quite common as well. It doesn't have to be, of course, but I think that is quite common when I have conversations, these types of conversations. And it happened very gradually. So it would be things like, oh, don't go out with your friends tonight. I will take you to London and we'll go in this like really posh hotel and we'll go shopping and you can have whatever you want. And if I'm being honest, Bria, I was like quite shallow when I was 19. And very egotistic, very shallow. And so I was impressed by his money and his cars and this. I was 19. This older man could just take me anywhere and buy me anything, and I kind of fell for that. So I don't really think it was real love. If I'm well, I know it's not because I now know what that is, but that's what I fell for. And then over time I started to choose him over friends. And then my friends stopped asking me because I'd always be doing something else. And I remember the first time. He abused me or well hit. Well what happened was I had horses and we was checking on my horse late at night and it was before iPhone so I had this like really old swivel little phone thing and I don't know why I'm just remembering that so vividly. And one of my ex boyfriends from when I was at school messaged me just saying how are you? And he was really controlling over my phone so he read like
I had nothing to hide and he read like every message that came through and he read this message and. I didn't have the number saved. And he said, who's that? And I said, oh, it could be this ex-boyfriend. And then he just went crazy. And then he got me like, around the throat up against the stable. And then I'd never had that experience or anything similar in my life. So I pushed him away. I was very much, like, very confident in, like pushing him away. I said, don't you ever do that to me? I was instantly, like, absolutely no, that is never happening again. Like, how dare you do that? Because I didn't understand how women could stay in abusive relationships. And just be like allow it to happen. But this, it happened to me. And then after I said absolutely that is not happening, we're done. He started to cry and then like, please help me. You mean you've heard it all before. You're a psychotherapist, right? They're very. I mean, hurt people, hurt people. He was very charming and very smart. He knew what he was doing, but he was also suffering himself. And so then I'd feel sorry for him because I have such a huge heart. And then I remember thinking, OK, well maybe he does need my help because I thought I loved him. So then I thought, OK, maybe I can help help him. But then over time, like the the violent outburst started to get. More frequent and then they'll be starting to become more normal to me though then. Because my self worth was obviously very low for me to accept this relationship. So throughout my own therapy that I've had like during my recovery and all of that, I thought that the relationship gave me low self worth or low self esteem. But it was clearly in place before because I wouldn't have accepted that as a relationship, right? So I did. And then over time it just got worse and worse. But then it became normal to me and one time he I remember he. He never used to hit my face because people could see that. So there was one time though where he went crazy, like hit me everywhere and you could see when we lived in an apartment
and it was quite high up. So he would like lock me in for days at a time, take my phone so I couldn't actually get out the apartment. I couldn't jump out the window because it was too high up. I was too scared to like, call for help. And he that those things were quite frequent. And then I actually left halfway through. So three years in this time he locked me in the apartment. He he was on the phone as he went out the door on the third day, and he didn't lock the door behind him. And my heart beats now as I think to the time I was like, Oh my God, this is my chance to leave. And when he drove away, I did leave. And I remember running down the street like I must have looked. I mean, God knows what I would have looked like crying and then. The first building I came to was a hairdressers and so I went in the hairdressers and asked to borrow their phone. This was all this is very blurry right now. And then rang the police. They came and got me. I wasn't speaking to my mom or my dad at the time because I'd caught them out my life. They were both on holiday. I didn't care at that point. Bria. I was like, I literally don't care if I die because what is this? Live had all the court proceedings and he pleaded guilty for battering me, got suspended in sentence, all of that. What did I do after two months? Can I swear? When you know that the relationship, right? And that baffled me, Bria, because I yeah, because I was really happy. Like I'd got away from this abuse after three years, I'd reconnected with my family and my friends again. I kind of saw what had happened to me. Yeah, your mind does this really ****** ** thing where it starts to miss. Not the abuse, because it blocks that out for some reason. We have a we have amnesia about the abuse, but we remember all the good times. And everything else. And it creates this picture of like ohh, you miss that go back to that. And at the same time even though we had the restraining order, I had it on him. He would follow me in bushes and he he cause I had
horses he knew where my horses were. He would basically stalk me and part of me felt sorry for him. He would say I'm sorry, please help me. I've I've been on this anger management course in Spain and that I'm now I'm like OK again. And I believed all these BS lies started to see him again. Behind my mum's back, which was just awful, and ended up getting back with him. And then another three years in, the same thing happened again. And I kind of knew it would. But that was my abuse was my comfort zone by this point, right? And so I stayed from the three years. And then how I really truly left it was it was more of a conscious choice, not in the in an abusive experience. So he had his son living with us and his son was quite young and he must have came downstairs. He was meant to be. Sleeping. He came downstairs. Must have been about 50 times. I'm not exaggerating and I just something inside of me, just like not at the sun, but just snapped. And I just went upstairs and pulled the TV plug out the the the wall because he was watching TV instead of instead of sleeping. And I walked back downstairs and then my partner at the time, he'd never seen me just act the way I acted. And so instead of being met with anger and abuse I was met with well, he was. Confused. Or he didn't have the angry, the angriness and the violence that he normally did. And then something inside of me shifted, like, wait, I'm so much more powerful than I've ever allowed myself to think or feel. And in that moment, I made a decision. Like, in fact, I heard a voice in my head. It was my own voice. And it asked me the question like this. Vic, what the **** are you doing with your life? What are you doing? Look around. I was 24. What are you doing? Will have no friends. You don't go anywhere. You even like him. You literally hate him. You're scared of him. What are you doing? And then I made a decision there and then. And then the next few days
I was messaging my mom in private in the bathroom. Although he had a screwdriver, it's like undo the bathroom lock. And so he would try and like, that's what I was doing. And Long story short, she came on a set day a few days later when he was dropping his kid off at school. And like a soap opera. He came. Me and my mom were like getting all my stuff in the car to leave. He forgot something and came back to the house. It was literally like a film or something. Honest to God, I nearly died. But because my mum was with me, he was crying. I'm so sorry. My mom obviously wanted to kill him. She was a police officer anyway at the time, so she kind of also knew all of what was going on. And then I left and I really left and I changed my number, like got a restraining order again and made that. Decision, but it had to be. It had to come from me and I had to really want it. And I was just so done and I wanted better for myself. And so that was quite, I have so much more to say. Well, that was quite a long God. That's like such strength at the end there. Like thank you for sharing all that. Not at the end, like you said, there's so much to share with it. It's a huge, huge piece of your life that has, you know, obviously led to where you are today and the person that you are. Today and just like from our two second interaction beforehand, it's like you really can't tell what people have gone through. And it just, it's so sad when we judge people just you know, like on social media or on walking down the street. We have no idea what people have gone through and I. So I think that's a huge lesson is like you just presented this morning. Well, it's afternoon for you, but like smiling and happy and it's like you've had this and maybe you are and you've done all this work. That's a huge traumatic piece of life. So thank you for for sharing that story and for allowing, allowing yourself to move through that and to share that with other people. When
you talk about that and there's like I think that some, like you said, I couldn't believe I ******* went back and outside looking in other people say that too. They blame the person who goes back. You know why would you get yourself into that mess again? And you know family members, they friends end up disconnecting from you because you know we're saying oh, like. This relationship isn't good for me and they're giving as much love and advice as they can and then we go back so. I understand. Like there's a biological piece, like our bodies thrive off of, we get addicted to like that chemical reaction, the release of the cortisol, the adrenaline, the no epinephrine. Like there's a biological reason why we go back to those situations. There's also, like you said, the inherent self worth and just based on our subconscious programming, what we feel like we deserve based on what we learned and were programmed in younger years. And I'm curious. Yeah, what would you tell someone, whether it's someone who's in that situation right now or one of their like a family member friend? If they keep repeating these patterns, is there any like a couple tips advice that you would give to those people who are stuck? Pattern is a great word because it is. And I've repeated the same pattern. But not it didn't manifest an abusive relationship. It was eating disorders, right. And what you said what do I feel that I'm worthy of? And my comfort zone was struggled. So whether I was being abused by him or being abusing myself through starvation and and because the anorexia came first like before I then met him. So it's really interesting that it manifests in different ways, but it's still the same pattern. And so
number one is awareness. Like, I mean, we all know we cannot change what we're not aware of, but if we're in a situation or a relationship and we say we don't want it. Our unconscious wants it. It's choosing it. And that's because of our conditioning, our limiting beliefs, all of that. And so we need to get clear on what we say we don't want and then figure out why. Perhaps we want it. So with him, the relationship has him. With him, I say I was in The Cave, right? In a weird way, that was safety to me, because I wasn't. I wasn't in the real world. I wasn't doing anything or going anywhere. And that's where my binge eating developed. I felt safe to actually. Eat and therefore my body would get bigger. I put a lot of weight on in that relationship, which he liked because I had less attention whenever we went anywhere together. So it was very confusing and all compassing. But it was safe for me to be in the abuse because I was. I had no pressure. I mean, of course I've let the pressure off myself now, but at that moment I thought in the world you had to be slim and beautiful to be loved and wanted, so at least someone wanted me. And at least I could eat food. So there was like part of me that wanted that. And so anyone who is perhaps seeing a loved one go through the same patterns. This is so hard, but it it's got to come from that person, not the person supporting all you can do. And this is what my mom did, and this is one of the reasons I'm still alive today. From the anorexia and the relationship, I knew my mom loved me unconditionally, and she was never going to waver with her love. I knew well, the family members and friends loved me too, but the action and the persistence of that, my mum just always waiting for me to come back. Allowed me to go back. And I know that. And everyone's not blessed to have that either. So anyone supporting
anyone, all you can do is love them as hard as you can and let them know as many times as possible that they are there for you. They are there for yeah, you're there for the person when they're ready to leave. If a person's listening to this and they're in an abusive relationship or such like, it's asking yourself the question, is this what you want for your life? Because there's also such a better life that's available for you. And then of course the fear will come in. I'm not worthy of that. How can I have that? That it's alright for you? Because you're this person doing this. It can't happen for me. I call ******** on that because anything is possible. If someone had seen me when I was with him, like I don't even look like the same person. So it's just, it's what do you want? And then having the courage you do need courage to to lead the relationship, but to leave a relationship. The same with an eating disorder, to get rid of the eating disorder, you already have everything you need within you. So whatever got you in the eating disorder, whatever got you in the relationship to stay there, you have the characteristics and the strength to also get out of it. So you already have what? You need. It's just making that decision and choosing you. And I think that I'm very spiritual, I think as a sole aspect of this as well, like my soul obviously chose to go through. Such struggle. Because I'm a fighter, I wouldn't have learned the lessons I've learned if I hadn't have been through that. So that's not to say stay where you are until your soul slaps you around the face. There's a reason why you're going through what you're going through, but you also get to decide. You get to choose. So what do you choose and then get help. Help is so needed. Yeah, I love that. Thank you. I'm like tearing up when you're talking about the love from your mom that was just there
and she's just kind of waiting for you. Think that's so beautiful and I think. It ties into exactly what you're saying about, you know, you get to make that decision. There is another life that's available for you. It's just like things are available for us. Your mom's love was available, a new life, other lives, other opportunities are available. And it's so interesting when you say I wrote it down, my comfort level was struggle because I am right there with you. Like even even now it's and so many people. We are in that same mindset of we think that we have to work very, very hard all the time. You know, I do therapy with quite a few university students and they are so young and they don't know how to relax and have a moment of calm. And that goes for like the rest of our society culture as well. So yeah, can you talk a little bit about struggle? What does that look like? Maybe what do you see in clients that come to you? And how do you help people shift out of the mindset of, like, I have to struggle, I have, this has to be hard. Yeah. Well, it's a cultural thing as well, like you've already mentioned. And people are like, you know, there's quotes like, oh, I'll sleep when I'm dead and there's a reason why they were created and overworking is celebrated like. Bill boss and all, I'm I'm not I'm not saying all of this from a negative perspective, but those things can be seen in negative like to keep going going, going. So a lot of it is cultural. We learn it from the world we live in and mainly our parents as well. So obviously if you want to look at what your beliefs are, take a look at your life and then ask your parents what they believe because you would have got the same beliefs. But as an adult we get to look at our beliefs and think are these
is this belief serving me? So for me there's something my sister said. To me that is stuck with me and this was, this was about, it was about five years ago. As I was kind of starting my recovery journey, she asked me this question. She said, Vic, why do you always have to make life hard for yourself? And I was like it because I was starting my journey. So I was actually being, I was open, I was reflective and I wasn't just so triggered every time someone says something to me. And I was asking myself that question, why do? And this is, you know, your listeners can ask themselves the same question. Why do I always have to make things hard for myself? Because what happens unconsciously if your comfort zone is struggle, if your life happy and easy breezy, you create something to struggle at. There's an incredible book called. Existential kink. I don't know if you've read it. And the tagline for that book is having is evidence of wanting and this goes back to the such as programming right? And so first of all again awareness. Take a look at your life like are you constantly working in order to earn money. I had that belief too after the eating disorders healed, it was I need to work really hard in order to earn money. And then that wasn't serving me because I was almost burnt out, like working like however many hours a day and it wasn't saving my clients either. Because of course, if I'm fully like, if I'm not showing up as my full, authentic, vibrant self, I'm not going to be of service as much as if I'm filling my own corporate first. So I started to change the paradigm for myself. Like, that's not true. You don't have to work hard to get money. You have to work in alignment and follow your passion and use effort to get an abundant amount of like, money freedom. And then that's now my reality. So for those that are in a comfort zone of struggle, take a look around. To see if that is you like, are you always having to work hard at something? Effort is different to hard work, right? We need to take action, we need to take
effort in life. But it's different to hard work. So if you're always struggling or suffering, you've chosen that unconsciously due to your past and your conditioning. And so therefore you need to start looking at your beliefs and starting to change them and start challenging them. And you'll find out. Like your parents would have taught you that. Their parents would have taught them that. Their parents, et cetera. But just because they're passed on generationally, it doesn't mean we have to keep them. We can be cycle Breakers. Like I'm the cycle breaker in my family for obsessing about the way I look and what I'm eating. I mean, I'm not having children. I don't want children. But for some reason in this lifetime I've chosen. I chose not to. But I can now help so many other women break the cycle for their family. And so it starts there. It starts with us and noticing first. I love that and. I love that you talk about like the generations and whatnot. And I've been looking more recently too into like ancestral trauma and like that. It's freaky and it's it's hard to. Hard to imagine or dive into that or you know listen to your ancestors inside of you. And I've come to I don't even know how to put this into words right now come come to recently like just being half black there I can feel a small portion of me that is like a gene that was in slavery. Like that literally feels like I can't. Breast I don't deserve things. Um like obviously it's not like logically in my conscious mind I don't think those things. But there is something inside of me that is like 100% from like born from slavery and I can feel that. And then it's just like supported by the evidence of our
hustle and grind culture. It's like ohh yeah you see like it's true. Everyone around you is also doing the same thing. So I love that you say you can be. The cycle breaker, I think that's really incredible. And can you talk a little bit too about spirituality in the role of faith in all of this and in your recovery and? But even when you support women, do you like let that come up for them or are you giving them like ideas, resources? Yeah. Talk about a little bit about faith everyone. So everyone's different. I tend to now like the more in alignment icon with come into with who I am. I'm just attracting clients who are deeply spiritual because I am. That hasn't always been the case and I absolutely help those who aren't spiritual or religious. Well, as I say, more so now I'm attracting that kind of clientele. And so spirituality. I didn't even know what that word meant five years ago. I thought it was some weird woo woo shape that didn't make sense. And I would have rolled my eyes at any of it. Even the word meditation right here. I'm like picturing someone in like the mountains and like a teepee Hut with cloaks on like that five years ago, 100% yeah, right. And isn't it crazy how personal development I started? Where? And that led me it's almost like a natural path. It leads you into spiritual development because there's so much more to us humans than we can even imagine. And so when you start to take a look within and be like, who am I? When you start to ask those big questions, who am I? Why am I here? What's the point in life? That's when when you ask questions, you get the answers right. Whatever you look for, you will find. If you're open to receiving the answers, we can ask all the questions in the world, but if we're closed minded and closed hearted,
we're not going to find the answers. And so spirituality was a massive part of my own healing journey. Because if you think of like my eating disorders were driven from body image, like trying to be the best, trying to be the skinniest, trying to be the prettiest. Like that is most women's story, not everyone's. It obviously comes from trauma and control and all of that as well. But most of the time it's body image. And if you look at it from the spirituality sense of the ego, that's like what you physically look like and wanting to get reassurance and acceptance from outside of you. Whereas spiritual like and the outside world is a mirror, right, mirroring back what's going on inside. So I started to learn that way if I can love myself. And accept myself first. I will live in the reality that everyone else also loves and accepts me. And it took me a while to it's not something you get your head around because spirituality is more felt and experienced than knowledge, right? But it took me a while to kind of have that perception shift of if I change on the inside with my perceptions and my beliefs, my whole world around me changes. And so it goes hand in hand. So even those that aren't spiritual. Self love is who we are. That is the deepest spiritual sense in my opinion. But it doesn't have to be. Self love can just be who you are with. Women that have children know what love feels like to give love to another unconditional love. I say that we're the source of what we say we seek. We want more acceptance. We want more validation with a source of that. So if we give that to ourselves 1st and then give it to others, we automatically receive it for ourselves from others. I hope I'm not speaking in riddles, but it's kind of it all goes hand in hand, right? And it's having that faith that you were not out ego, there's more to life than what you
look like when you shine from within and the law of attraction. Your vibration and everything, like everything gravitates towards you. And then when you have experiences, this is important for your mindset and the ego. When you have experiences in a bigger body and nothing bad happens and you have a good time and people still love you and you and you can connect and be connected with people. Your mind's like, oh, she can not be having to be small and die all the time and she can actually be happy if she doesn't look like how she used to. Look whenever, how? When she was 16. So it's like both and, isn't it? It's all of it together. Ohh. Oh my gosh, thank you. No, you're not speaking in riddles. I love all of that. I love that we are the source of that. I think that's so empowering and. If anyone hears that and feels that that's a weight of responsibility, I would encourage you know a a shift in the mindset of no that gives you so much power. And for me that's a weight lifted is oh I'm the source. I I don't have to keep hunting and seeking and looking for this externally and. I wrote down and circled the ego, and beside it wrote death and identity because. Healing wise, I. Like unconsciously did that. Just like just healing from eating disorder wise. Like I remember the feeling of being in the in between where the like ego piece of I have to like do this workout like every day. It has to be this intensity if I'm not doing this or like the restriction, all of it, that whole package, that whole identity. I remember when it was gone, but I hadn't.
Didn't know who I was in the in between and I mean who we are I think is fluid and but we get so attached to that ego piece especially if you have it for years and years as these persistent eating disorders like to stick around. We like to hold on to them and attach to them. And I remember that in between phase of being like well I I do eat ice cream now and like I don't have to do that work out every day like who, who am I? And sort of like an emptiness, but also an unwilling to go back to how it was because I've already been there and I'm like, hmm, no, that's that's also not an option, and only moving forward was an option. So I think that's such an interesting. Peace. Do you have any like memory of the the in between? Ohh yeah I like to quote like the the night of the the dark night of the soul right. Because you get faced with like you said Bria. Your whole life you've had this identity of what you look and it's not like you don't care about what you look like in general. We have we're a soul having a human experience so we also are having the humanness. We're not just souls without a body either. Yeah but you've gone from obsessing and putting all of your. Worth an energy and efforts into what you look like and what people think of you and all of that through conditioning in society to get into a breaking point where I cannot carry on anymore. This is not serving me. But then what the **** do you do? Yeah, well, I remember like when I had my breakdown before I started to reach out and get help. I remember thinking like I I don't know what next, but I cannot fight one second longer. I was fighting with myself. I remember wanting to check myself into a psychiatric hospital because I was scared of my own thoughts. I just couldn't. I wanted to. They want to die, but I wanted to like, leave myself somehow. And
so when I got help and started my journey to food. Freedom and body love. Like you said, it's very confusing and very lonely. Even though I had so many loved ones around me supporting me, I've never felt so alone in my whole entire life. And I had a big realization during that point. My eye was, and this is from back in childhood and with the abusive relationship as well. What I realized I was waiting for someone to come and save me. I was waiting for a man on a White Horse like I was waiting for someone. Or something to save me, whatever that means. I just that just really resonated at the time and it wasn't until I used to in this like great night of the dark night of the soul when I was trying to figure out who might what identity I wanted to have. Now I used to go to the woods, my poor fiance bless and we used to go to the woods and just turn my phone off and just cry in the woods and just listen to music and just cry at the same time as it being lonely. It was also very healing. I just had this feeling one day of like, the person you've been waiting for your whole life to save you is you. Hmm. And I remember thinking, Oh my God. Then I cried some more. But it was different. It was like a different cry. Yeah. And so as I, as I first of all connect, this is a spiritual piece. When as I connected with who I really was, I didn't understand it. But I knew there was something greater and deeper than the identity that I was leaving and the identity that was choosing to be. And so when I felt the comfort within myself, I then felt it was almost like that was the foundation of what I needed to build the next. Version of me. And so the next version of me is the version I am now with which I'm always evolving. The one who eats whatever the **** she wants when she wants. The one who loves herself unconditionally, even if she doesn't like the way she looks in the mirror. The one who walks around like a ball of
loving light and just sharing love to as many people as possible. But that's who I wanted to be, so I wrote that down. I just wrote this big fantasy pages of like. This is the person I want. This is the woman I want to become, and I start to act like I was already that woman. And so I would get up every morning and metaphorically put my crown on like my queen crown every morning. And of course I'm human. Of course I had ups and downs and I never went back to the old identity with eating disorder, but I had moments where I was like, who am I? This doesn't feel I feel like I'm lying to myself and this new identity. So there's a lot of trauma to still process and. Like have my emotions come up and feel them and to do inner child work and all of that. But the more I kept connecting to the vision of who I wanted to become and acting as if I already was her. Before you know it, you are here because you're remembering the future, like if you have a vision. It's already done because there's only such thing as time on planet Earth, like space and time come together. That's why you how we can have a human life. But ultimately in the quantum field there is no such thing as space or time and everything's happened and happening all at the same time. So if you can envision it, it's already happened. You just need to do it and live it. So that helps you as well. That's so good. And I really like that as a. A strategy to get people into that. And just like radiating that essence of, you know, of your dream, of your vision. And if maybe you haven't added a dream in a long time, maybe you had a dream like before you got married and before you had these kids or whatever it is. But I love that exercise for like writing out, even if it seems ridiculous or seems extremely far from who you are now to
write that. And get it on paper. And even like, little shifts that you can make to grasp onto, you know, that new, that new essence, that new person and that new queen. I love that. OK. Do you have like, yeah, just a little bit, please, in each moment. So it's like, this is like a tip for life in general. When you created this vision for the woman you want to become in each moment, let's say, let's talk about eating disorders, let's say. Were faced with your fear food and you're the fee is so real and obviously the fear sends emotions of disgust, shame, guilt to avoid that. So you stick to what that wants to do. Ask yourself what would the food freedom version of me do right now and run towards that fear and do that action. Because fear only works if you're running away from it. Fear cannot exist if you run into it, because you're not running away from it. So only over a short period of time. Like you in the mirror getting undressed or dressed and you, you have these thoughts of like, oh I'm disgusting, I'm fat. Like I'm unlovable weight. So acknowledgement first, like awareness. I'm noticing I'm having this body image trigger send love to yourself like you're in a child. Like whatever you need to do with the emotional stuff. What would the version of me do now who genuinely loved herself and accepted her body? And then I would do that. And that's literally I kept doing that over and over, like during intimacy with my partner having sex. If I was like, I want the light offer and I'll be like, stop. What would the confident, sexy as **** version of me do that exists in my mind in the future girl, she will be there and obviously there's a case of feeling safe as well, like with the person you're doing and the situations. And I would act it that way and then when nothing bad happened and only good came out of it. You're building, or if you imagine like the new belief, you're creating
like a table, and you've got a table with only two legs underneath it, so it's a bit rickety. The more experiences you have, when nothing bad happens, you get more legs under that table. So that belief is rock solid and that's how you change. It's going to be rickety at the beginning, of course it is. You're going against everything you've done for however many years. But the more you ask yourself that question, what would the Queen version of me do? And face the fear and do it. To no brainer. You'll literally be living the life of your dreams. What's the worst that can happen? My heart started beating so fast there when you started talking about just doing like running into the fear because I remember doing that too. And now it's. I don't even have to think about it. So it's interesting that you say it becomes like rock solid, but it just brought me to a flashback of. Mornings where and this was this was my thing, like had to get the workout in. It had to be intense. It had to be fasted in the morning before I started the day. You can't do anything else because anything else you do is a ***** ** **** if you haven't done a workout before it, so. Like and then I would always be late to everything. I mean I'm still like a little late most things but like but the workout came first. That was the priority that my world revolved around. And so starting to shift that looked like saying you have 20 minutes till this thing you could get in the shower. You could like I don't know, wash your hair. You could have a cup of coffee, you could make something to eat and. Like, that's what the higher version of myself would do. That's what the self love version of myself would do. And making the choices to identify with that version is so hard. It literally makes your heart pound. And I
like tears too. Like I would be like, OK, I'll go shower and you're like in the shower crying and you know, that's the right thing for you to do, but it doesn't make it any easier until you practice it more exactly. I'm, I love. Able to. It's hard. I'm not going to pretend this **** is it. It gets easier the more you do it, but what you're doing is you're creating. You're not only running into your fear, you're creating new neuropathways. And so it feels like. So it feels wrong, yes. So it's so easy to go back to the to the old version of you, because that feels so right or comfortable. But what do you choose? Because you can literally be anyone who you want to be and whatever feels right to you. Because you said deep down you knew the self loving version of you would not try and fit a 20 minute hit workout in again. Because you actually need to rest and it's feeding the eating disorder behavior anyway. And so to have a shower instead and crying and everything of course is fine. But I bet now you can shower without working out without crying because it's best for you. It's crazy. It's honestly. Insane. Because people, I think, and I'm sure you see this with clients, is like, it doesn't feel like there's recovery. It feels like that's the rest of your life. But the amount of trust that builds up, it's like, yeah, of course, of course I'll go shower and make breakfast. That's fine, I'll go for a walk later, whatever. It's so cool how we can develop, like you said, the new neuropathways and build that self trust and it's so damn juicy. Do you have a final like self love? Tips or words of wisdom or anything, and then also tell people where they can find you and connect with you. Of course I have loads of tips I'll try and write it in. But before I go into tips I have one question for you if you don't mind because I had some, you know, with like you made it a little bit of a joke about being late. I used to be all the time and
I reflected on that and I was like, why? Cuz that is a choice, right? We say it's not. Well, it's a choice. And I was like why am I always late? And it's because I didn't like. Waiting. So if I was to be visit my shadow self, let myself honor that I would choose my time over the person that was waiting for me. And so once I called myself up on that. I'm still not always on, but at least I'm aware. So I just wanted to share that just in case it's helpful to you or in any way. Do you know it's true? And growing up, my mom always said that it was like, it's rude and selfish to keep people waiting because you're not respecting their time. And I like, definitely, yeah, like, that is somewhere in the shadow. So thank you for bringing that up because I've been doing shadow work lately and it needs to be like brought to the surface. And I think, yeah, so many people struggle with that is like squeezing this thing in here and this thing in here. And it's all of our priorities and our **** that doesn't have to come first. But for some reason we feel like it does when, you know, meeting someone else, connecting with somebody else, being there for somebody else is also a priority. Yeah, no, I love that. And like when you have an eating disorder, you're in bed with the eating disorder, right? In eating disorder is, I think selfish is kind of the wrong word. Views. But it's all about you. Like it was all about me. All like everything was all about me. And so when we go from the me to the Wii, that sounds a bit corny, but it's true. Things start to shift as well. So OK, tips for food freedom and body love. I'm gonna give body love tips because in my opinion, 99% of the time the food freedom comes when you love and accept your body anyway, because you're not trying to control your body, which is like where most of it stems from. So mirror work is really key. Again, it's not going to be easy, especially at the beginning, but this is
what it takes to to fully recover. So it's not avoidance, because that doesn't work it it relieves anxiety, short-term, but avoidance just perpetuates the fear and makes it even worse long term. And so if you can those listening, if you just dedicate three days a week with a date for yourself for 10 minutes a date with you in the mirror. So start. If you can start naked, perfect. If you can't, close and then underwear. And then naked light some candles. Like, put some soft music on, purposely go to the mirror and you probably will cry and you'll probably hate the reflection. And that's OK just know that that might come up and start the top of your head and then work all the way down your body, apologizing to every part of your body that you've criticized or wished were different, and then send love to that part. So let's say, for example, my first one will probably be my arms. Like, I've always hated how big they are because they're not only mostly, but. They have short arms and they carry fat there. And all the things that society told me were wrong with my arms. I would say I'm so sorry for, like always covering you up when it was hard, because I did. I was embarrassed of you and I'm sorry and I love you and I'm grateful that you get to hug my dog and my family and you get to eat. Like if I didn't have arms, I couldn't eat. So every little thing that you're sorry for and that you're grateful for with everybody part, it's not going to magically make you love yourself. But over time that is very healing. And creates acceptance. The other one is the word acceptance. But I like to use the word surrender when you notice your fighting reality. Wishing your body was smaller, wishing your hair look different, wishing your face was different, you can either continue, it comes back to choice again. It's kind of a theme with this. You can continue wishing that your body was different, or you can choose to surrender and accept that your body is the way your body looks in this moment. Just like this guy is blue.
If you want the sky to be purple, we'll go ahead and spend your whole life trying to change it. There's nothing you can do about it. Your point, right? Our bodies in each moment. If we practice surrendering and accepting in the moment, not next week when you're on holiday or whatever now, and just accept and let go, that creates a space and a relaxation that most people haven't experienced before. Yeah, other things. But I I have loads B like in nature. This isn't like a body image thing specifically, but we are nature like just because we're human and we live in houses like we're part of nature. So spending time with Mother Earth reminds us of the fact that we are part of nature. Like before we press record like me and Bree, we're talking about our menstrual cycle and we've just started bleeding like at the same time like hers last night and me today, and it's the day of the new Moon. I'm synced up to the new Moon. Like the moon, magnetic pull of the moon controls the whole ocean. In the whole world, like, there's more to wars than what our body looks like, how sexy people think we are with. There's so much more to us than that. And one other tip for body image, I would say it was it'll give a mindset shift. So if you're in bed with someone or out at a party or whatever, and you're worrying about what people think about you, understand that people don't see you the same way you see yourself, we think. People are judging us the way we judge ourselves. So therefore we're scared to go out into the world, or we're scared of judgments from others. And that's if. Also if we're honest with ourselves, that's because we're also judging all the people the way we judge ourselves. Because everything starts with us, right? So no wonder you're scared that people will judge you. One, because you're judging the **** out of yourself every day, and two, because you're also judging other people. That doesn't make you a
bad person. It's just inviting you to take a look. At what? Who's healing within? It's like if you imagine body image as a wound, like a physical wound on your arm, body image wound like it's an emotional wound, but imagine it as a physical wound. If you pour salt in that wound, it's going to sting like hell. If someone says something to you that might trigger you and think, Oh my God, I'm fat, I'm horrible. It's like pouring salt in the wound when you heal that wound, that emotional wound around acceptance and self love and body image when someone the outside. World pours salt in the wound. The wounds healed up. There's no it doesn't hurt anymore. And therefore you don't judge other people. Ohh my gosh, OK you're a wealth of knowledge. I I hope that after listening to this people come work with you or like at least DM you and like say thank you and chat with you and all that good stuff. Yeah. Where can people find you? Yes I would love that and I'm, I'm at the end of my DM, so usually I like to send voice notes back. So I like to be very personal. And so Victoria kleinsman everywhere. So Facebook. Victoriaclansman.com is my website. Instagram is Victoria Kleinsman official because unfortunately my original one got hat so I had to start again. I have a podcast called the Bodylove Binge. On most platforms and I work with clients, either one to one or in a group coaching environment that's called the body Love Buffet, my group coaching container. But I give tons of content and advice away for free because I genuinely love everything that I do and if I can support someone then I will. So just reach out to me and let's connect. Thank you, thank you for being here. This has been so amazing. Thank you for having me on Bria. I really appreciate it.