TW: Disordered eating, body image
In the first episode of "Wellness, Community, Magic," Liz and AB, co-founders of the pro-donut, non-diet, anti-racist wellness company, TRILUNA, discuss what brought them to the wellness industry and their effort to break up the industry norms that often do more harm than good. If you find that your pursuit of health and wellness often makes you feel not-well-enough, this episode is for you. Listen through to the end for some practical tips on breaking out of the cult of wellness and finding your balance.
This is just the beginning. The next episode will focus on community, and Liz and AB's core belief that you are only as well as your community. After we've covered our bases in the first three episodes, we will launch into interviews with subject matter experts across a wide range of topics.
Resources and Links:
The Circle of Life Exercise - finding the balance that works for you.
[00:00:00] We would like to open this episode with a trigger warning, as it contains discussion of eating disorders, body image issues, and or weight loss or management. If this does not feel safe for you at this time, please skip the episode and come back to it if and when you're ready. The wellness industry has put this importance on health in a way that moralizes it, but it's not a moral choice to be healthy. Slow down, take the time to unlearn some of the patterns that aren't bringing you joy and then find things that feel good to you. Hi everyone. I'm Ashley Brooke James and I'm Elizabeth Moore, co founders of TRILUNA. And this is the wellness community magic podcast; a podcast where we settle in, get cozy and talk hard truths about the wellness world.
[00:00:56] We're here to take on diet culture by making self-care [00:01:00] realistic, sustainable, and inclusive. We have a pro donut, anti-racist, Glenda-the- good- witch agenda. So join us on our journey to build community and redefine wellness. Let's get started.
[00:01:15] Hey y'all! Welcome to episode one. So what you want to talk about today? Today, we are going to talk about what wellness is and what wellness isn't. So this podcast is a wellness community magic podcast. So the first three episodes are going to be about wellness, community and magic, respectably, and then we will break into our normal format where we are interviewing SMEs, subject matter experts, friends, friends of the pod.
[00:01:46] But for the first three, we want you to get to know us. It's going to be a lot of truth speaking, um, and our opinions on what we [00:02:00] feel the world has made wellness feel like and look like, but before we get started with that, we want to just to share how we found wellness and how it started and where we are now.
[00:02:15] So Liz, I'll let you go first. Yeah! Wellness has evolved for me over time in pretty dramatic ways. I started with a relationship with food early on that wasn't great because food used to make me sick a lot as a kid. Headaches, stomach issues, all kinds of things. And as I got older, that turned into an interest in healthy eating.
[00:02:39] My dad is a big healthy eater. And so for whatever that means. I started an interest in what traditional health meant and from a food standpoint, and that relationship got complicated and it turned into an eating disorder in middle school, high school, college, and beyond, and was coupled with some pretty bad body dysmorphia; [00:03:00] feelings of inadequacy of my body that really controlled a lot of my life for a really long time. And then I really fell into the cult of wellness, pretty hard as I was trying to claw my way out of an eating disorder. I did a lot of things that were disordered, like cleanses and whole thirties. And I, those, maybe those things have their place, but for someone with a history of eating disorders, it was a way for me to really quickly get back into bad habits that were destructive for me and for my body.
[00:03:31] And I realized through yoga and through honestly, my relationship with Ashley and then through finding not the body positivity movement, because I think that is largely been co-opted by diet culture, but through like real, genuine self love and self awareness and through things like intuitive eating, which was a jumping off platform for me, but, but not an end all and certainly not the answer for everyone. I was able to [00:04:00] find a version of wellness that was less centered on my appearance and more centered on my relationship to self and the universe and relationships and my community. And that's where I've landed now. And I'm sure that will continue to evolve over time.
[00:04:14] But for now I feel like wellness is a very, very different thing for me than it was when I first found it. We're a non diet company, so we don't diet, I don't diet anymore. I don't cleanse, anymore. Any of the like very diet heavy, diet culture heavy things that I used to rely on so heavily are no longer part of my life at all.
[00:04:38] So it looks different now than it ever has in the past. And I think that goes for a lot of us. I know for me as well. When I started out, I think it, for me, it was more of being active again. And I started with Zumba and it was never like a thing where I was just like, trying [00:05:00] to go like workout. It was fun.
[00:05:01] I was just like, Oh, this is fun. I can do this. But then, being a part of the Y and walking through and seeing everybody I'm like, well, I need to work out. Like I need, I want to look this way. Like at that time, Sierra was like my high. And she had this like body that was just like, wow. And I'm like, I want to look like that.
[00:05:25] And so that was the image, right. And that was like the driving force. It was nothing for me personally. So I was the, I was that girl, wake up at six o'clock. I'm working out. I'm only eating this. I mean, I remember one time they had donuts in the office and I was like, I'm not eating those, those don't fit into like my meal plan.
[00:05:49] I was eating things that wasn't bringing me joy. And I remember one of my coworkers made the comment, "you're basically eating rabbit food. Are you even [00:06:00] happy?" And so fast forward a little further in life, I was working in a very high demand sales job, and I started getting really bad migraines. I've always had migraines, but these were like chronic migraines, like take you down for weeks, months at a time.
[00:06:20] And I was traveling a lot and I would get these migraines and going to boot camps or like those types of classes were just not appealing to me and I wasn't working out anymore. So it went from being very, very active to nothing. And I was in search of something. Something that made me feel good and I went to my first hot yoga class and I enjoyed it because I can't remember what I was thinking about in that hour, which now I know I was being present in the moment, but I wasn't a fan of hot yoga.
[00:06:55] I was like, there has to be another way. So then I did a lot of research and I've [00:07:00] found regular yoga. Just regular, getting your body yoga and I, I became, uh, addicted to yoga in the sense of, I like where it brought me mentally. I was able to connect spiritually. I was able to start to feel the stress that I was carrying in my body.
[00:07:19] And now I knew things and poses to help me relieve that stress. So I went from very quickly from trying to look a certain way and be a certain image into understanding my body and then giving my body what it was asking for. I don't do high intense workouts because that doesn't bring me joy. What brings me joy is being out in nature, doing yoga.
[00:07:44] As far as eating goes, I eat what I want because that's what brings me joy. But I also feel like everything in life we do with intention. And I feel like if we put more intention into our meals, [00:08:00] And every bite that goes into our mouth and really understand what, what that food choice is bringing to us in that moment, I think that that is also a part of our wellness. So everybody's trying to tell us what to eat, what not to eat. You should eat clean, you should eat this. I think it's more about listening and being in tune with your body. So that's where I am. Just like you, Liz in the beginning looked a lot different.
[00:08:24] And then right now I'm going to say that I've grown into my body and my body tells me the type of wellness that it needs. Yeah. And one of the main reasons we started this company from a wellness perspective is that we really felt like the cult of wellness as it exists now was doing more harm than good.
[00:08:43] The world always makes us feel like we're not well enough. I mean, there's always these, like you said, diet programs being shoved to us. You should eat this. And everybody has this fixation on healthy eating and cheat days [00:09:00] and it should look a certain way. And what we're not realizing is it's triggers for people who come from disordered eating. It's triggered for people who have health problems. It's just added stress on us that we really don't need. Yeah, and make no mistake that the diet industry is a billion dollar industry. It is making money off making you not feel well enough. There is a very intentional reason you are being targeted by ads for weight loss.
[00:09:31] It's playing on all of your insecurities for profit, for money. And I'm going to say, especially during this pandemic, remember at the very beginning. I mean, everywhere we looked, we turned on the TV, we, you know, open our laptops. It's everywhere. Like don't gain the quarantine 15. You should be doing this every day.
[00:09:53] You should. No, we shouldn't because we're stressed the F out and I'm trying to [00:10:00] be good here. Well, I mean, we're stressed out. I mean, people are dying. People are losing their jobs. I mean, we have social justice issues that we'll get into, you know, but it's a lot going on in the last thing I need to be worried about is if I'm going to put this donut in my mouth or not. Or if you're going to gain weight, there is no moral failure associated with gaining weight.
[00:10:22] There's not. There is no moral high ground with health. And that's the thing that we're going to talk about quite a bit is like the wellness industry has put this importance on health in a way that moralizes it, but it's not a moral choice to be healthy. You still deserve respect. If you are not healthy, you still deserve respect if you have cancer, nobody's arguing against that. It's the same with weight, but we have so stigmatized weight that we now associate weight with health or being overweight with being [00:11:00] unhealthy. And those associations just don't exist. They're not real, they're completely fabricated. Right, because when people think of wellness, they think fitness.
[00:11:07] Fitness is only a, a smidget of your overall wellness. Wellness is your health. And you can be fit and unwell. Like the bodybuilding community has to do extraordinary things in order to achieve the bodies that they have. And it is often unhealthy. What do we say? You can eat all the kale in the world, but if you have a ton amount of stress, it does you no good. Yeah. And that ties back into the idea that we genuinely truly believe that wellness should benefit your life and not take away from it. Like if you are sacrificing your joy in pursuit of some ideal version of health, What is the effing point? Really? Like what is the point if you are sacrificing joy for someone else's version of health in your body? If [00:12:00] you have been stuck in the cult of wellness for a long time, there's some things that we recommend.
[00:12:04] This is a long journey and the lifetime journey, and I do this for a living and I'm, I still struggle with it on a regular basis. There are lots and lots of people doing this work that are incredible and that you should follow. The first thing that you should do is stop following people that make you feel bad about yourself.
[00:12:23] Social media is hugely impactful on how we feel about ourselves. That's the first thing you can do and start following people that look like you. Start following people doing work to unlearn what the world has told them they should be and that are living in their own truth. Because it starts with unlearning all the things that has been engrained. And it's a long, long journey. We're still, like Liz said, we're, I mean, we're still learning. I mean, even being business partners with Liz, coming from the background that I come from, I didn't know a [00:13:00] lot about disordered eating and things like that and I'm learning a lot because a lot of the people in our community, I need to know how to address those.
[00:13:09] And not only address, but how to listen and be able to respond in a way that is not triggering. So it's work on every end. So it's unlearning is a big part of it. And then I agree with Liz wholeheartedly. Those people who make you feel a certain way, you got to let that go. You'll hear us all the time in our yoga classes, like let things go.
[00:13:32] Those are the things that we're talking about, those things that you're sending you're strolling at night, and you're looking at who's ever Instagram, you have to be able to let that go. Yeah, and we're not talking about some sort of like evaporation of letting go. It is a very intentional process that takes a long time.
[00:13:54] You know, when we say, let it go, what we're saying is give yourself permission to release it. Yep. [00:14:00] Absolutely. And that can look different for everyone. And you're allowed to define that for yourself. And everybody's journey is different, right? Like there are going to be the people who are in the gym and who'd lived this certain life.
[00:14:15] And that's when we say finding things that work for you. Those people have found things that work for their lives. But if you're a person who's continuously trying to make that your life and it doesn't feel right, again that's listening to your body, that's listening to yourself. Yeah. We really do believe in movement as a practice.
[00:14:36] We're not, we're not saying that, that we don't believe in that. We're just saying define for yourself what that is. Like my little sister. I say little she's 30 she's so she's a grown woman, but she's still my baby sister, but she loves high intensity class workouts where she is lifting heavy shit. That is my personal hell to be totally Frank, but, [00:15:00] gimme some hiking boots and put me on a trail and I am totally at peace.
[00:15:04] That is just what feels good in my body. It does not give me a moral high ground because I like to hike or because I like to run. It's just the movement practice that feels good in my body and that genuinely helps me connect to nature, to source, to, you know, like whatever you, you want to, to put there.
[00:15:25] To self, like your sister does that to connect to herself, to relieve her stress in whatever way that's her activity. But for you, this is what feels good to you. And like, again, everybody's journey looks different. And so what we're just encouraging is slow down, take the time to unlearn some of the patterns that aren't bringing you joy and then find things that feel good to you.
[00:15:56] One thing we hadn't talked about in a long time is [00:16:00] when we first started this company we used to live and die by it, but we always talked about primary and secondary foods, and we really feel like your primary foods are the things that bring you joy, like your creativity, your recreation, your sex life, your travel life, like all of those things that take up so much joy in your life that is feeding you what you need. And then the secondary foods are the actual foods that you put in your mouth. We do believe in eating all the greens. We like eating all the grains, but we also like eating all the donuts. We like staying hydrated with water. I mean, we were doing those things and it is about just being intentional and I didn't even want to use the word balance.
[00:16:48] You know, it's just being intentional about what you're choosing to feed your soul with. Yeah. We have this one particular exercise where we put primary [00:17:00] food in a circle. This actually comes from my health coach training with the Institute of integrative nutrition, so I've got to give credit where credit's due.
[00:17:06] We've adapted it a little bit for our ourselves, but it has primary food. And then it also has like one segment for secondary food. So it's like home cooking, joy, home environment, relationships, sex, intimacy, like all these different things and it's a circle. And so whenever we do this exercise, the first thing people try and do is, is get it close to a perfect circle.
[00:17:30] You know, they're trying to create the shape that they want. But what we always say is like the point of this is not to create a perfect circle it's to create the shape that best fits your life. If it looks like a star, because you just like not focused on travel right now, because we're in a global pandemic.
[00:17:44] Great. You don't need that to be a circle that does not need to be the shape that you're you're working towards. So when we talk about balance, we're not talking about perfect balance. That's a very different thing. Like you can be standing and tree pose, which is, you know, the one where you have one foot on your calf, never to [00:18:00] the knee, and you see it in every yoga glass, but you can be in that balancing pose and leaned really far over to one side and still be standing and you are technically still balanced. If you are not falling over, it's still balanced. And so I mean also like fall over, like that's where we learn. That's the space where we grow, but trying to create a shape that fits your life rather than trying to round out all your edges to create a perfect circle.
[00:18:23] I'll never, I was having this one breakdown five years ago or so and my, one of many, and my sister sent me this thing that said "if you round out your edges, you lose your edge." And that was like, I was like, Oh yeah. Like if I spend all of my time trying to be so well-rounded that I fit society's mold of me, I will lose the sharp corners. I will lose the edges that make me unique and that make me good at what I do. And ever since then, whenever I think about a perfect circle, I think about having [00:19:00] to create it by cutting off or shaving off the edges that make you unique. So when we talk about balance, we're talking about a very different version than probably people are used to in the wellness space.
[00:19:10] Right, and it shifts. We love doing this activity. And then we love asking people to go back and do it, you know, three to six months later and just see the shift in the balance and where the focus is. And it's always shifting. We're always going into new seasons, you know, things in our lives change, no one predicted this year.
[00:19:30] So everybody, I mean, if you've got a perfect circle, right, I bow down to you. I mean good for you. My, my circle is pretty messed up. Yeah. And we can actually put a link to that in our show notes so that you can do the exercise on your own. I want to tell a story about, well, what wellness has become to me in the pandemic, because I was thinking about this last night, grace, our producer, has asked us last night to come up with a wellness story, what it means to [00:20:00] us.
[00:20:00] And I started thinking about that and I have kind of a tenuous relationship with wellness right now because I'm frustrated with our industry to be Frank. So I was trying to think about what wellness really felt like to me right now and I was thinking about a month into the pandemic, it was grim, grim.
[00:20:19] It was, this was like, end of March. My, I have a group of best friends that I've grown up with. And then some we've added on later, but they've been my friends my whole life. They know me inside and out. Half of them live in Chicago and half of them live here in Nashville with me. But we don't see each other.
[00:20:34] One of them has a high-risk mom. We're all trying to do the best for our friends, our family, you know, so we're not gathering. And that was really hard about a month in. And so we decided to get on a call every other Thursday. It was every Thursday in the beginning. And that first call we all got on. We drank some wine.
[00:20:53] We were like, let's just like chat for an hour and catch up. And I think that first call ended up being like, Four hours. I think [00:21:00] everybody's was like that. Me and the girls, the porn story. Yeah. It was the same, yeah. Long conversation. And I hadn't connected with them like that in a long time. And I, we laughed and we cried and we drank way too much wine and it was so cathartic.
[00:21:17] It was an actual cathartic process for me. And I, when I think about what wellness feels like right now, it feels like getting off that call at like 11 o'clock at night or later, being a little bit buzzed, having laughed my last off for four hours with my best friends. And that was wellness for me. And that has been wellness for me for a while now.
[00:21:41] Yep. Finding a source of community during a time in which we are all so divided. But that goes back to what we just talked about, right? The switch and things, right? It looked different at the beginning of the year cause y'all, she was every morning walking, doing all of these things, not to say, [00:22:00] but times have changed. That circle we talked about, it looks different and we have to honor where we are in that circle. You say that and it made me think, okay. You know of my story as well. It's been somewhat the same, being able to connect. I'm a people person, but I'm not. Um, but a big part of our job is events and being able to connect.
[00:22:24] And that was like yanked right from under us so a big part of the joy in our job like was taken away. And so now I'm finding a new found something that I love within the business. So with that, I mean, it's rediscovering that. Which I have, and it's the really hard work that you don't want to love, right? And then it's also about with all the social justice issues that's been going on.
[00:22:54] It's like redefining my blackness, understanding [00:23:00] things that have happened to me in the past that I might have overlooked, watching documentaries, finding out about black history. And then again, connecting with my family and having conversations that we might've never had before. But that,to me, is what my wellness has been over the last six months.
[00:23:22] And it goes back to that mental part. Like, again, there's so many different things, like you said Liz, and nothing that neither one of us said had anything to do with fitness, which people first think about. But if you think about everything that we listed out, that plays with the mind, that plays with the body, that plays with the spirit, like, which is our wellness.
[00:23:47] And I just really, it aggravates me because when people think of wellness, the first thing they think about is I got to get these walks in. I got to, I got to eat this. I got to, but we're not really [00:24:00] listening and taking a look. Like those things have brought you to a found appreciation of your best friends being away in the communication.
[00:24:09] It has brought me, and I've told you many of times, all of this it's been hard, but I found this new place in my growth as a black woman. And that is a part of our wellness. Yeah. Community is a big part of our wellness. Mental health is a big part of our wellness. That's why I even say now, like when we say who we are with TRILUNA wellness, I often put a qualifier on that now, because I think when people just hear the word wellness, immediately this like sense of guilt, this like frenetic sense of like, Oh my gosh, I'm not doing enough. I should have done this. Or, Oh my gosh, I'm not, I'm being so bad right now. It comes up immediately for people.
[00:24:47] And I don't want that association. It happens all the time. All the time. We go to lunch and people are like, I'm going to be good today. And we're like, well, let me get that biscuit with cheese on it. And tater tots and people are like, you aren't even taking it out. [00:25:00] Yeah. Because food confers no morality on to us so we eat what we want to eat.
[00:25:05] And we're well, very well, not very well, but you know, I mean, we have our days, it's been a rough week. Let's keep it real. It's not always, well, no, it's been a, it's been a tough year and there have definitely been periods where we have been unwell. And we just want to say to the world when it comes to your wellness, don't make it about your fitness, make it about all the things, the mind, which is your mental health, the trauma that we're either, you know, uncovering or finding out that we even had when it comes to the body. It's not all about just going to the gym and working out. I mean, it's understanding our body and being intuitive about our care and being intentional about the things that bring us nourishment. And also, rest, [00:26:00] people! If you're tired, just rest. This has been a hard, hard, hard year on all of us and yeah.
[00:26:07] I don't know about y'all, but at the beginning I wasn't sleeping at all. And it's, it's coming in waves. So when you're tired, that's your body telling you, " I need you to slow down and rest." And then you're soul, finding rituals that work for you. And they don't have to be, like Liz and I, we go in and out of, like, everybody thinks y'all probably do yoga and rituals every day.
[00:26:29] And we're like, no girl, like it comes in in patches, right? And we honor when they come, because we know when they come is when we most need them. Yeah, and we chose the name TRILUNA because we wanted the moon represented because we have this deep connection to the idea that life moves in cycles and every cycle is going to look a little bit different and then it all comes around and it all circles.
[00:26:55] And it's okay if the cycle that you're in isn't your dream [00:27:00] cycle. I think right now a lot of us are in survival mode, for sure. You're probably not your best self in survival mode. So just be totally honest, but this is a cycle. This is part of a phase of your life. Just like the moon has phases. Life has phases and this will phase out and we will phase into something new.
[00:27:18] And so finding some grace for the periods in your life when it's hard, like true grace, like we people say all the time, but that's just take it easy on yourself, okay? We have enough stress that, that is piling up on us from the world. And I am, that is not a strength of mine. Like giving myself grace. I will extend grace to someone else before I would say it to myself in a heartbeat.
[00:27:44] And I have to tell her, "Look, super woman. I need you to chill for a minute." And she always comes back and she's on it. You are appreciative of the chill, right? Yeah. Yeah. It is a learned behavior for many of [00:28:00] us. Like, I don't think. The world teaches us to extend grace to ourselves. Like that's not a practice that we have.
[00:28:07] And so it has to be learned. Just like yoga is a practice; terra was a practice; meditation is a practice. Like, grace is a practice. Um, and it's, I think harder for some of us. It's like, if I'm not achieving my, my like value is like all tied up in achievement. So I've been really over the last year having to try and unlearn that.
[00:28:28] COVID has definitely put a little stopper in that tub. Did I just make that up? A little stopper in that tub, you know, you probably heard some other person say that. But Liz has been here before. I swear she's been the old lady that's been here and lived here before. Yeah, that's not my first life. It's not at all. So the next episode is about community.
[00:28:52] Yes. And we'll be talking about everything from race, to the power of community care versus [00:29:00] self care, to building a supportive community to practice your wellness in. We in this together. Again, when it comes to wellness, we just want everyone to take a step back and just take a deep breath and just reevaluate some things.
[00:29:19] And if those things are bringing you joy, continue on on your journey. If you're having some struggles, which we all struggle, you know, make it easy for yourself. Yeah. And we want to hear from you. So if you have questions or there's topics that you want us to talk about, or you want us to interview experts about, let us know.
[00:29:38] We, we'd love to hear from you. Yeah. I want to talk to the people. I know you do. Alright, so we're going to see you out with a couple suggestions and recommendations for your practice for this next week or two, from a wellness perspective. And for me, that is noticing how often you're moralizing your food and yourself as a [00:30:00] result of your food choices.
[00:30:01] So how often are you picking something up and being like, Oh my gosh, this is so decadent. I'm so bad. I can't I'm eating this, or I'm going to cheat today. I don't let myself cheat, but I'm going to cheat, which has a morality to it. So just noticing how often your moralizing yourself on a given day, as a result of wellness choices.
[00:30:27] And for me being intentional about the unnecessary stress and guilt that we put on ourselves. I don't know about you, but sometimes I'm like, I'm going to watch this movie, but then it's like, Oh my gosh, I have these four emails that I have to send. And like this whole guilt weighs over me. So just being mindful of those situations.
[00:30:46] And when we walk away from something like truly walking away from that and the other added stress isn't necessary. We get really angry about things that aren't [00:31:00] necessary. So be on the lookout for that. We really just all want you to take care of yourselves and stop following one person that makes you feel like crap.
[00:31:09] Stop following them right now. Stop them. One, I mean, you could do a hundred really, but start with one. Yeah, my friend Kate, shout out to Kate Moore; said she just found this app that unfollowed everyone, and then she's going back through and re following only the people she really wants to follow. And I was like, that is a good idea.
[00:31:29] That is a good idea. Instagram, I love the gram, but it can, uh, it can mess some people up. It can mess up our journeys. I mean, the biggest thing is. We want to compare, right? Want to be something that is not realistic to our lifestyle so let's find a way to love the gram, but not let it add stress to our lives.
[00:31:57] So with that, I want to take you guys out with [00:32:00] just three deep breaths that you can do if you're driving, cleaning, cleaning the house. You don't have to close your eyes. So if you're driving, please, don't close your eyes. But everybody just take a big breath in through your nose and I want you to imagine feeling the lungs and the chest up like a balloon and then exhale sigh it out.
[00:32:24] Two more. Breathe in through the nose. Exhale, sigh it out. And last one. I want you to take the biggest, fullest inhale you've taken all day long. Taking one more sip of air and hold, exhale. Sigh it out. Let it go. Be well my friends. That's it. That's all. Peace out.
[00:32:57] Thank you for listening to the wellness community [00:33:00] magic podcast. We're excited to share our thoughts with you and bring compassion to the wellness space. Take what you've learned today to a friend or colleague and tune in next time for more tough, but necessary, conversations about the future of self-care.
[00:33:15] Interested in learning more about TRILUNA or pre-ordering one of our wellness gift boxes for a loved one, check out our website at trilunawellness.com.