436. The Truth About Trauma and Emotional Eating

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Lisa Schlosberg, an emotional eating coach and licensed social worker, shares her journey from personal trainer to helping clients heal their relationship with food. She explores how trauma, stress, and emotional well-being shape eating habits, while offering actionable tips for overcoming food challenges, understanding trauma-informed care, and reclaiming your body. Tune in to learn how self-care and mindful eating can lead to transformative healing.

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In this episode you will learn about:

Lisa’s journey with emotional eating and her 150-pound weight loss.
The impact of trauma and stress on your relationship with food.
Tips for overcoming food obsession and disordered eating.
The importance of creating safety and control in trauma-informed care.
How to reconnect with your body through mindful eating.
Why prioritizing self-care is essential for business owners and leaders.

Episode References/Links:

Guest Bio:

Lisa Schlosberg embodies the new paradigm of health and healing from a heart-centered lens. She empowers her clients and global community to use their struggles with food and body image as a path to rebuilding the mind-body connection so that they can access deeper authenticity, exercise personal power, and embody a life of freedom. Having lost and maintained 150 pounds for more than a decade by healing her relationship with food (through emotional healing, somatic experiencing, mindset shifts, and more), Lisa founded Out of the Cave, LLC., where she combines her comprehensive expertise as a Social Worker (LMSW), Certified Personal Trainer, Integrative Nutrition Holistic Health Coach, Yoga Teacher, and Public Speaker to guide emotional eaters and chronic dieters back to physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual alignment. Over the last few years, Lisa’s signature 14-week online group coaching program has served more than 200 people over 10 countries through the transformational process of healing, inspiring a revolution in mind-body-soul health and helping thousands return to wholeness.

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Episode Transcript:

Lisa Schlosberg 0:00

We're not going for fearless. We're going for brave. We're going for courageous. That I can do. So feel the fear and do it anyway. That's something I can do.

Lesley Logan 0:09

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Lesley Logan 0:51

Hi, Be It, babe. You are gonna love our guest today. She is freaking phenomenal. I just, I like, find myself just like, listening to her and like, just, oh, it's my turn. It's my turn to talk. It's my turn to say something. I don't want to have Be It Till You See It be about weight loss, but not talking about that sometimes what we don't discuss is how having interesting ways of not understanding how we fuel ourselves or what the way we eat can affect us can actually keep you from being it till you see it. We had this really amazing conversation with Lisa Schlosberg today, and she is a trauma informed coach, but also, like when you, she'll introduce herself, and her certifications are vast and phenomenal, and one of the few people in this world that I think has such an outlook on bodies and eating and food and all these things in a way that, like, it's not even that, it's no judgment. It is completely like, how do we make you be the best version of yourself and not like on the outside, but on the inside, on the brain capacity? Because you are a brave and courageous human who has many, many things to do in this world. And so I hope you enjoy this conversation. I think it will enlighten you in so many ways. I know it enlightens me. And if how you eat, or your relationship with food is affecting you from showing up in this world in the best version of yourself. And I'm not talking the outside version. I'm talking the inside version, if it's keeping you, if it's distracting you, if you're more focused on that than on the things you want to do, you'll hear me talk about my story, like if I can't do the podcast or find the guests, or think about the future, because I'm busy obsessing with something that has to do with eating, then I can't help the people I'm here on this planet to help. And so I wanted to have this conversation, because I do know that there might be some of you who are struggling out there, and if you're not, I think it's a really awesome conversation to listen to, because there are people in your lives who are and even though we can't change things for them, we can be informed in a way that allows us to be supportive. And you'll hear Lisa's roommates were those supportive people in her life at one point. So here is Lisa Schlosberg.

Lesley Logan 2:55

All right, Be It babe, this is going to be a fun conversation. I can tell you, because I've already talked with our amazing guests, and she and I are our best friends from a different life. I know it and get us in a room, it's gonna be a lot of fun. That's what I'm gonna say. Lisa Schlosberg is our guest today, and I want you to tell everyone who you are and what you rock at.

Lisa Schlosberg 3:12

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Okay, who I am. My name is Lisa Schlosberg, you nailed it. I am these days. I'm calling myself a trauma informed, emotional eating coach in terms of the credentials. I'm a licensed social worker. I started as a personal trainer, became an integrative health coach, and now I work with people who are struggling with their relationship with food and eating and body image in all capacities. So that is who I am, and also what I rock at. And I could, I could tell you more but I guess we'll leave it there for right now.

Lesley Logan 3:42

First of all, it sounds like you really like to learn.

Lisa Schlosberg 3:45

I do.

Lesley Logan 3:47

You went to a lot of school, but I love I do want to get into the journey, because I have worked, I'm a Pilates instructor, and so when I started teaching, of course, everyone came to me for weight loss, and I kept going so science is a thing, and I know that all the websites say that working out can help you lose weight, and it's true, it's part of the journey, but it's not the journey, and there's so much to it. So was that the impetus from you being a personal trainer to the all these things, or, like, how did that, how did you go okay, I'm done counting squats. I'd like to and not to knock, not to, like, the little personal training, but you know.

Lisa Schlosberg 4:21

Yes, yes, I hear you. I hear you. Yeah. So my work, very much, like most of us, is informed by my own lived experience. So if we're going according to the BMI chart, I was a morbidly obese child and teenager, so I was over 300 pounds when I was 17, and when I got to college, I really swung the pendulum from overeating to under eating, and then I became very obsessive and controlling and rigid around food, and I lost 150 pounds. And that part felt good for a while, but that's when it got really interesting, because when I had to recover my body from rapid, extreme weight loss and starvation and malnourishment, things got very complicated and confusing, because now I was instructed to eat more and exercise less, when my entire life, I was told to eat less and exercise more. And in that process, I started really feeling feelings. A lot of people who've been through recovery for addiction have similar experiences where you know when you stop drinking, a lot of the feelings that you were numbing with alcohol come up. And I was having that experience, but with food and eating and so part of the long story short answer to your question is at around that time, I was really interested in personal training because I liked working out, and I had lost a lot of weight, and I felt really empowered in the gym, and I wanted to help people, and that was the version of it that it took at that level of consciousness. But as I worked through a lot of my own disordered eating and body image stuff, I learned a lot about the mind body connection and trauma and stress and the relationship that that has on our relationship with food and eating. And so I just kept getting more and more interested in what's going on with my clients, mentally and emotionally and spiritually and socially, because I was realizing that people were not getting stuck in the physical dimension. People were not getting stuck and their answers, you know, they also weren't being fulfilled in the physical dimension by getting a six-pack. And so I just kept kind of getting deeper and deeper into the human experience. And where are we imbalanced? What are we lacking? What are we looking for ultimately, because I had, I got the body that I wanted, and I was, at the same time the least happy and healthy I'd ever been, and also at the lowest weight I'd ever been. So I had a lot of figuring things out to do, and that's kind of how I got there.

Lesley Logan 6:55

Yeah, thank you for sharing your journey. I think one of the things having been around a lot of friends who did the physique competitions, and you just look at these men and women these physique competitions, and not a single one of them was happy. Most of them have a story about crying in their car and eating a potato like a sweet potato that's cold or plain chicken out of a Ziploc bag, and like just sounds miserable, and yet, those are the bodies that people, I thought we kind of got past it, but it feels like we're back to like that. And it's interesting, like, even at my thinnest, my lowest weight, and my God, if we can just fucking grab the BMI, be great? There was no joy. There was no joy. It means there was a lot of obsession. And it was a, like, a there's a lot of planning. And like, when am I eating what? And when am I working out, and when am I doing this? And there wasn't a lot of living. There wasn't like, a surprise in the day of like, who could I possibly meet? Or there was never, you never were like, where do you want to eat? You wouldn't go, oh, let's try a new place. That wasn't happening in that life. I mean, do you mind sharing like, I feel like there's a be it till you see it in here, of like, how did you kind of, like, go, how did you for because we, I'm sure there are so many people listening who have either they're given up. They're not trying to yo yo anymore. They're trying to accept themselves. I do think that there's, I try very hard on this podcast to, like, really, it's not just body positivity. Like, just tell yourself you're beautiful, but like, just loving yourself. But how did you be until you see it to love yourself, because there that's a journey that take, that could take forever.

Lisa Schlosberg 8:36

Yeah, it's so great to be asked this question, because, as I was, you know, thinking about being here and sharing this story, when I think about my probably number one, be it example in my own life, was exactly at this point, like your radar is going off, because that is exactly what it was, because I remember at that point, and now, you know, I know a lot about how the brain science works And the neurobiology of addiction and food and things like that. But at the time, all I knew was that I was so obsessed about being in control of food and eating, and so it felt very scary and threatening, and to no exaggeration, it felt like life or death to know every single calorie I was eating, every single step I took, every single calorie I burned. That, to your point, is exactly what my life was like. That was all that was going on in my head. So when I realized that, A. that sucked and I didn't want to live that way anymore, and B. it was not sustainable for me. I didn't want to be 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years old, still counting every calorie, I started really thinking long term, who is the person this is like, where it's all going to wrap up with this episode too. It's like, who do I want to be? Who is the person that I want to be, and what would she be doing? And I remember, like, a specific example, where at the time, I was in college, and I lived very close to a frozen yogurt place, and that was like the thing, right? So all my friends who are not crazy rigid and restrictive about food and eating would, on a random Tuesday night be like, let's go get froyo. And at the time, it was like, absolutely not. I will not join. I will not be a part of that. And if I do, I won't have any, and if I have any, I have to account for every single calorie of it earlier in the day. But then I started realizing I do not want to be doing this five years from now, 10 years from now. So how do I access and embody what the person I want to be would do, and what the person I want to be would do, would go eat Froyo, and she would be scared and she would be anxious. We're not going for fearless. We're going for brave. We're going for courageous. That I can do. So feel the fear and do it anyway, that's something I can do. And so I remember consciously choosing to go live my life and be spontaneous and hang out with my friends and eat some froyo, because that's what I needed to do to actually become that person and feel safe doing it. And I think about a lot of that period of my life was really thinking way long term and realizing and recognizing I don't want to be the person that gets on the scale multiple times a day. I don't even want to be the person that gets on the scale once a day. I don't want the scale in my life. And so where, where am I today, versus where do I want to be in the future? And just starting to identify, what are some of the things that I could do to get myself there. And another specific example that point in my life was I lived with a few roommates who were my best friends at the time, and when I realized I had a very addictive compulsive relationship with the scale. I gave it to them, and I asked them to hide it from me, and I was allowed to step on the scale one time a week, and then I would give it back to them, and they would hide it, and it was like little things like this that were just being it. I don't, I, right now, feel very scared and attached to the scale back then, but I didn't want to live that way anymore, so I identified how I could shift things and just act into it. And then slowly but surely, my brain learned that it was actually safe to release that kind of control. And slowly but surely, I got there. But that's like the number one example I think about. I stopped getting on the scale, I stopped dieting. I stopped counting calories, I stopped, I just, I thought about it like abstinence from the addiction to dieting, and I had to experience withdrawal from that addiction.

Lesley Logan 12:34

Which (inaudible) much time in your day.

Lisa Schlosberg 12:37

Yeah, oh my god. Time, space, energy, resource, everything, everything. So I like to also be really honest about this with people. When they say, you know, if I don't get on the scale, I'm going to be really anxious about it. I'm like, well, yeah, that's the withdrawal. Your comfort right now is getting from getting on the scale. So if you're not stepping on it, you'll probably feel uncomfortable. That's part of it. Just because withdrawal is hard, is not a good reason to keep doing drugs, as I like to say. So that's what I would say to that.

Lesley Logan 13:04

Oh yeah. I have some dear friends who are, like, amazing coaches, and they help people with macros, and I was not having as much energy as I used to have. My strength was also like, not so great. And I was at the gym and I was not able to lift as heavy as I was. And I was like, I am getting older, like I turned 40, but I'm not that old. And it, what is this? And so I, like, you know, inquired, because she's really smart. I see her working out, and, you know, she's home. She sent me the whole packet, and I looked at all of it, and I was like, there is no way I can count macros like this. Are you nuts? Like I, throughout the day, I have to go to this calculator and put it in. Yeah, they've made it easier now. Now you could scan a barcode and it puts all the things in there, but, like, I'm trying not to eat processed food, so there's no barcode. It just began this thing. And I was just like, I have a million emails to write, so I can either write those emails or I could do this. And I was like, and this might not even be the reason why I don't have energy and I'm losing strength. And thankfully, I had this moment where, like, this is going to take me down this other path that is going to keep me from being it till I see it, because the person I want to be in this world does not count their macros. And by the way, anybody who's counting macros, if that is helpful for you, and it's not an addiction, and it's not distracting you from being this amazing person, like, I'm not here to take that away from you. But for me, it is a problem. It is like getting back on the addiction wagon. And so I went and got my blood work done, and wouldn't you know, I just didn't have a lot of testosterone or progesterone. You fix those two fucking things, you have energy and strength again. So the only macro I joke about is, like, I count protein like it is a fucking like, and then once I get some enough protein, I'm like, and now we're having this, but like, not only because protein is so fucking hard to have in our lives, and ladies, we need it, but I just was like, I cannot count the calories. I cannot count how much fat I'm getting. This is not how I want to go because who I want to be in this world is not obsessed with that. It is literally helping propel people's lives forward, and this is taking me away from giving to people like that. So thank you. It's. A fucking journey. You gotta but you have to know. What does it? Can you tell people, just in case, like because a trauma informed coach like you are, what does that mean in your space? Because we've heard it in different types of therapists, but what does that mean in your world?

Lisa Schlosberg 15:12

So part of the reason that I use that is because I am a licensed social worker. I've been trained as a therapist, and I understand how the mind-body system works. I say that because I'm not just someone who like read a book about trauma once I know what I'm doing in that sense, but the reason that I specifically talk about it in the work that I do around food and eating is because trauma informed work is really about having people feel safe. That's the foundation of it all. So it means that the client or the patient is in charge. They have control, they have agency. They feel safe. And so the reason that matters to me is because for so many people, myself included, food and eating is a coping mechanism, the same way that dieting and restricting can be a coping mechanism, and these are things that operate to provide a sense of safety and control. So it's very important for me, if the work that I'm doing with someone is to be sustainable and a lifelong approach, which it is, these are not things that you can just take away from someone. This is part of the reason that for me, I'll use myself as an example as a kid, sure, I was put on diet after diet after diet. And the reason that none of those worked, and I would quote-unquote, sabotage them all, was because food was my drug of choice, and without it, I felt like I was not going to survive, and not from a I-need-food-to-live point, but from an emotional standpoint, and that's true for a lot of people. So we cannot do this kind of diet approach of like, just stop eating this way. It doesn't work like that for a lot of people, and it shouldn't. It neurobiologically, makes all the sense in the world that there is a deeper connection there and a way deeper bond there. So it needs to be trauma informed that is, I'm not taking anything away from you. You have full permission you want to keep like, I have people who do my program, and as soon as we start working together, they tell me, you know, because I signed up for this program, I started binging on food because I'm afraid you're going to take that away from me. And it's like, oh, absolutely not. This is a space where I see your relationship with food, however stressful and dysfunctional and quote-unquote disordered it might be, that's serving some sort of purpose, that's making you feel safe in some way. So I consider it a life jacket. And the same way that I would not say, hey, you're drowning, good idea right now to take off your life jacket, I'm going to say I'm much more interested in, how do we get you to feel like you're drowning less, and how do we get you connected to other things that you would consider life jackets so that slowly but surely, gradually, organically, you start to loosen the grip a little bit around your binging or purging or overeating, or whatever it is, in a way that feels safe, so that you can go on the rest of your life without using it like a drug. It has to be trauma informed in that way.

Lesley Logan 18:11

Yeah, yeah. Food is such an interesting thing, and having disordered eating is like one of the things that I think is the biggest culprit to why people can't be it till they see it, why they can't do things in life, because disordered eating puts you on a yo-yo of energy and strength or lack thereof, of these things, and it affects your sleep, like all this stuff. For the person who maybe has does not recognize this, they're like, listen, ladies, I've lived a great life, and they exist out there. Or maybe they don't really know the signs. Maybe they don't know in their friends, you know? Like, I think it's really easy for us to pick up on a friend who's addicted to alcohol, or it's addicted to a lot of things. I think disordered eating can be because we can call someone a foodie, or they can call, you know what I mean? Like, there's these different things. So can you tell us what the signs of disordered eating are?

Lisa Schlosberg 18:59

Yeah, well, I think because when it comes to disordered eating, it takes so many different forms and versions. It can manifest in so many ways, right? So the more obvious ones are overeating versus undereating. And then there's more, like the picky eating, the kind of orthorexia, right? Where it's not necessarily anorexia, where it's not you're not restricting to a dangerous amount, but things have to fit a very rigid, controlled criteria of what is allowed and what isn't. So it can be very tricky, because it can show up in so many ways. And then there are a lot of people who, I'm sure many people listening have experienced overeating at night and undereating in the morning. We tend to exhibit a lot of these at the same time, and so I think it's challenging to tell, especially because when it comes to food and eating, there can be, in my experience, there's so much shame and fear, embarrassment and judgment that goes into it, that a lot of people who have eating disorders are really good at hiding it and being very secretive about it, that's usually part of the disorder. So I would be less concerned with how do you tell it in someone else, and more concerned with, like, are you in a stable place yourself? Because ultimately, other people are other people, and we can't do much about that, other than be supportive if and when they know it and want it. But I think when it comes to ourselves, for me, what I would get curious about is, do you have a sense of hunger and fullness? Do you know what your body is feeling? Because for a lot of people, you know, without falling into the really scientific answer, we have homeostatic and hedonic hunger. We have physical hunger, we have emotional hunger. And a lot of people, as life goes on, it's almost like the brain stores food and eating as a coping mechanism, and it knows that, hey, you were stressed out that one time, and then you ate a Snickers, and that made you feel better. So I, the hippocampus of your brain. It's my job to store your memories so that the next time you're stressed out, you eat a Snickers. We've figured it out, like I know how to help you. But so your brain knows that food and eating especially high calorie, high fat, high sugar food that's good for survival. It will help you feel better, because it lights up the reward center in your brain, and it also can bring your stress down. So for the reason I say that is because so many people end up later in life saying, oh, I don't know if I'm hungry, I don't know if I'm full, I just know that I was bored, I knew that I was sad, I knew that I was happy, I knew, right? And so at a certain point in life, we actually completely lose the connection to our bodies, but we're all we're driven by emotion around food, and that's not inherently by itself, a bad thing, but it can be a reason that we're eating when we're not hungry. We're eating foods that aren't nutritious for us. We're not in alignment with intuitive eating. We're just being kind of swung around by the emotional nature of life. And then it has everything to do with how we're showing up around food. So that would be the first thing is, like when you eat, are you mindful? Are you present? Are you tasting food? Are you eating when you're hungry and stopping when you're full? Are you connected to your body in the process of feeding it and living in it? That would be my first question.

Lesley Logan 22:34

So in Japan, they teach kids in school how to know if they're hungry or not. We don't do this here. You know, that's nothing. And my holistic doctor is a dear friend of ours, and she was talking to Brad, and she's like, yeah, just sit and enjoy your food. And he's like, oh, well, I'm working while I'm eating. And she like, could you just sit and maybe don't do anything but eat the food, you know? And it's like this, whoa, what a concept. Like, we could just sit and like, also in Japan, it is rude and weird to be walking around while you eat. They want you to sit down and they take a bite, and they don't just eat only one thing. They pick around their plate. It's a very fascinating thing. And you're smiling and laughing, because it's like, whoa, you know? And it is interesting, like, it can be a reward. Some people use it as some people's parents use it as a comfort thing. There's all these things. And you said the hippocampus, it's like, how you're raised as a kid, you get the Snickers when you had a bad day at school, and so then, you know, it's you're going to the dentist and you get a lollipop. There's these things, right? And none of and by the way, I don't think any food is bad because, just like my habits coach would say there's no bad habit, there's there might be things you don't like about that habit, but there's actually not a bad habit, because it's serving you in some way. Where I get worried about people is like they get obsessed with it, and it keeps them from, like, no one was put on this planet to be obsessed with food. Everyone was put on this planet because they're helpful and integral in how society works and how we create things and the inventions of things. Could you imagine if inventors were obsessed with food? We would have no electricity. None of us would want a leader of the country to be obsessed we have a disordered eating. So I guess, like, my next question is, you mentioned, like, just trying things out and thinking about things in the future. What are your favorite ways to just kind of explore that? What are your favorite ways of just like, tapping into (inaudible) because I just think, like, yes, abstinence is amazing. And I also think some people go to AA because they need a sponsor and they need to say, hi, I'm so and so and I keep getting on this again, like, what are your, what are your tools for people?

Lisa Schlosberg 24:50

Yeah, so I think the number one thing that has become kind of a mantra in everything that I do and coach is you're uncomfortable, you're not unsafe. And the reason this is so important, and I'm going to talk about it, is, A. because I've seen it be such a major breakthrough moment for people, and also because it's really the answer to your question of, like, okay, but how do I do it? Okay, but how do I do it? Okay great. I can, like, envision and visualize and say all the mantras and all that shit, and that's great, but at the end of the day, you're fighting your brain. So I'm gonna back up a second and explain like brain science 101, really quickly. Here's how I like to talk about it. You, as a human being, you are a spiritual being having a physical experience. Most of us have heard that before. Okay, let's make it a little bit more complicated. You have an animal brain, and you live in a social context, and you survive on food. So there's a lot going on. If you feel like your relationship with food is confusing and complicated, that's why there's a lot going on in the human being at any given point. But the reason I'm saying this is because you're a human being, but you have an animal brain. What does that mean? Your animal brain is only designed to keep you safe. It doesn't care. It doesn't know if you are happy or healthy or wealthy or successful. The only thing it knows is, are you moving towards safety and survival or into danger and threat? That's it. So all the stuff that's going on in your human life, in your human brain, if you will, is filtered into is this safe or is this dangerous? Okay, so when things become familiar and habitual and comfortable, when you've been doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, right? What your brain perceives is that this is what's safe, even if it's not comfortable, even if you don't like it. Your brain thinks this is what kept us alive this long. We have to keep doing this and doing something else might put our life in danger, which is why, when you start to think about implementing a new habit or doing something different or getting out of your comfort zone, it feels like you're fighting something. You are. It's your brain saying, for all I know, you could die out there. I have to keep you safe on the couch, not ever moving your body like I have to keep you here. This is what you've been doing forever, and this is where we're safe. So in that moment, whatever that moment is, that when you start to move out of your comfort zone. This is where your brain, your body, your physiology, start to contract and react as though they need to save your life. Now we're doing this kind of like fight or flight freeze reaction because we're out of our comfort zone, because the brain thinks that you might actually be in life-threatening danger, but you're not. You're just outside your comfort zone, and those, your animal brain doesn't know the difference. So what I love to leverage is the power of your conscious input, and when your conscious input is hey, I know that this is scary, I know that this is uncomfortable, but we're not going to die here. We're uncomfortable. We're not unsafe. This is something that we can actually survive. We're going to breathe through this. We're going to come out the other side. Because I can tolerate some discomfort. I can't tolerate life, life-threatening tragedy, but I could be a little bit uncomfortable for a bit, if that's what I need to do, and very often, whether it's stepping out of my own comfort zone in my own life, or I'm just sitting with a client and having them breathe through, you know, the tightness in my back and the pit in my belly and the headache I'm feeling because I'm so uncomfortable when we practice breathing through that and saying, okay, so you're uncomfortable, you don't need to react like you're going to die. Then something shifts and it's like, it's like your animal brain gets the message that you are here and you are safe and it's all going to be okay. So that, to me, is like the integrative nugget of wisdom that I would like to share, because it's really us and our own fear of discomfort that gets in the way. It's not the actual discomfort, it's the fear of discomfort.

Lesley Logan 29:13

Yeah, isn't that like the thing for everything? Like, yeah, we're talking like we've mentioned food, because you're the expert in this, but also like, it's the thing on every all of it, no one wants to actually be uncomfortable, because that's the scariest thing that has ever happened for them. Your passion for all this knowledge is, like, freaking contagious. Like, I really do love it. And you need a TED Talk someday. I hope you have one. You should, if you have it, you should be applying, especially on that little nugget right there. I could listen to 18 more minutes of that. However, one of the things that I know from our listeners, they are very passionate about things, and then that passion turns into them like self-sacrificing. So how do you prioritize yourself while also helping so many people?

Lisa Schlosberg 29:53

Yeah, it's an ongoing journey and challenge. Because I do, I mean, I really love what I do, and I am super passionate about it, and I also have to just be very mindful of my own self-care. And one thing that I've learned to do is kind of the inverse of what I used to do, because what I used to do was like, I would schedule all my work calls and all my clients and all my stuff, and then if I had some extra time, maybe I would prioritize myself, and that sucked, but so now I do my best to insert myself first, like, okay, I know that I'm gonna need this two-hour block to go to the gym or whatever else, take a walk or take a nap, whatever. It changes every day, but I will be very mindful now of if I'm scheduling something. And this just happened a lot this these last couple weeks have been very busy if I'm scheduling something, and I see that I'm starting to do that thing where I'm getting into my own time. It's like an absolutely not, non-negotiable time block. I need to, I mean, I'm the business. I am. I'm the CEO of the company like I, it is my job. And that has been like a a mindset shift that has been really helpful for me too, is it's actually my job to take care of myself, because I cannot do my best work if I'm not at my best, and everyone that I work with is worthy of that, and so it's part of my job to insert myself in my day. It's not negotiable.

Lesley Logan 31:34

Oh, my God, thank you. I swear. I did not ask her to say that everyone I swear, but it's so true. So I like go, so I go around and, you know, I get to, I get to teach. And around the world, around the country, and you guys, one of the things I hear people go, oh, I would love to take your class, but I have to go teach. And I was like, okay, when was the last time you took someone else's session? And they're like, I'm just too busy. And I'm like, you know, the thing is, the thing that makes me the best of what I do.And so many people just assume I'm very busy, and I am, like my schedule is full, but the reason I don't feel busy, and the reason I, you know, can do all these things, is because my morning time block, that's non-negotiable, that's all about me, is the reason I can do all of this, and you are, can only be so you will not be the best teacher or wife or mother or partner or dog mom or best friend if you don't take care of you and your brain and your mental health, because you will be exhausted and distracted and eventually resentful, especially if the thing that you do is the thing that you're offering people, and then you don't do it for you, you're gonna be like, this month, this person gets to come four fucking days a week, and I didn't get to go once. And it's like, yeah, but who's whose fault is that?

Lisa Schlosberg 32:54

Yeah. Well, that's also, that is what I was thinking. Was like, I remember years ago, I was so called out because I was a personal trainer at a gym, and I had back to back to back to back to back clients, so that when I got home, I was completely out of control around food. I was just out of whack. And I remember saying to my therapist, you know, I have no time during the day. I can barely make it to the bathroom to pee in between my clients. And at one point she just looked at me and she said, Lisa, who makes your schedule? And I was like, I do. And she was like, okay, well, why is it that you don't even have time to go to the bathroom if you are in charge of making your own schedule? And it was really eye-opening to me, of this moment of like, personal responsibility is the foundation of self-care, it was like, oh, no one else is going to take care of me. No one's coming to save me. No one's going to make sure I take care of me. And that was a really tough pill for me to swallow at the time. So, yeah.

Lesley Logan 33:55

Yeah. When I first started teaching the job that I had, like in all the people before me, they all had 55-minute sessions. So I had 55-minute sessions. And then I went to the UK to teach, and everyone's like, oh, it's an hour, right? Because I ended five minutes before. And I was like, oh, no, no, I teach 55-minute sessions. Like, oh. And I was like, you teach an hour. When do you pee? When do you wash your hands? Like you're always late. Are we just hoping everyone's late? I was like, No. And then, and then I got to the point I was like, they should be 50 minutes. I need 10 minutes. What if I have a bathroom emergency, like when my husband and I finally met, I've been teaching for a long time, and he was going to a yoga class, and I was like, I want to go this yoga class. And I was like, oh, I'm just going to change my schedule. And he's like, What about the client? I said, well, they'll move or they'll go to a different teacher. And he's like, what? I'm like, well, I'll just be a better teacher if I go to this class and I'll pick up another hour, another time, like, like, this is I'd gotten to that mindset, and I there's so many people who just want to, like, hold on to being busy. Hold on to this thing. It's not even just like a people, it's like this thing. Like, I am this. This is how important I am, only I can do this. You are correct. The more you care for yourself, the more you can actually care for so many people. And it does start with you. It's still, it totally does. It has to be, I think, more and more I'm hoping people are changing how they raise children, that the world doesn't evolve around you, and that, like, I don't eat and breathe to like, take care of you, but you need to take care of you, so you should revolve a little bit about you. But. What are you most excited about right now?

Lisa Schlosberg 35:29

Oh, wow, that is actually super easy for me to answer. Long story short, I've been guest teaching at a retreat center for many years, and as of a couple weeks ago, I have landed my first five-day event for myself and my own work. And I will be at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, September 7 to 12 2025 and the reason I'm so excited about it is because this is like a total be it moment, because I, year after year after year, like I have memories of me sitting in that hall in like 2016 mapping out the retreat that I thought I would one day be giving. And year after year after year, that's pretty much what happened. And next year is my year. So that was a couple weeks ago, but I'm just still riding the high, like there's I'm having this experience of, I feel very excited, but also really grateful and proud of all the versions of me that had to go into this, actually manifesting into reality. So yeah, so it's like, oh, that's, that's actually super easy. I have been super excited about this for days now.

Lesley Logan 36:46

Oh my god. I love that. I love a be it moment like that. I love the visualization, manifestation. And then it happens, you know. And I thank you for sharing that you're proud. I think more of us need to say I'm so fucking proud of the work that I did.

Lisa Schlosberg 36:46

I am, I am.

Lesley Logan 36:48

Oh my gosh, Lisa, okay, well, I could talk to you forever but we're gonna take a brief break and find out where people can find you, follow you, and work with you.

Lesley Logan 37:06

All right, gorgeous. Where do you like to hang out? Where if people are like, hold on, I, maybe, I'm a little addicted to a couple of these things, and I would like to have time in my life to do other things. Where can they work with you?

Lisa Schlosberg 37:18

Thank you. So the best place to find me would be on Instagram. It's Lisa.Schlosberg. I am the host of the Out of the Cave podcast, where we have an episode as well. There are over 120 now. So if any of this is resonating with you, there are many hours of content that you can absorb there. And then my website is outofthecave.health. There are a lot of things there. There's an ebook of journal prompts, there's a meditation library, and then there are five different recorded workshops that you can get on all, all sorts of things, disordered eating and healing. And you can always just email me. lisaschlosberg@gmail.com I'm super open to that, and I hope to talk to you soon.

Lesley Logan 37:58

Yeah. Well, before I let you go, you've given us so much, but bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted steps people can take to be it till they see it. What do you have for us?

Lisa Schlosberg 38:07

Yes, so I love teaching this, because I really live by it. I think of it as a three-step process. So the first is who is the person that you want to be? So as I mentioned before, and I like to clarify, because I know sometimes if you're very in your head, like I am, you can get kind of particular about that you're not thinking about, like, what is she wearing and what does she like to eat? Who is the person that you want to be in quality, what is the energetic blueprint of the human being? And so some of those things are brave, compassionate, patient, right? Who do I want to be? The second part of it is what would they do? So, okay, I know who I want to be, and what she would do is X, Y and Z. You can think of any example. So you're not thinking about yourself, you're thinking about the person you have in your mind's eye. And with that energy and those qualities, what would they do in the situation that you're in or trying to navigate? And then the third is, how do I do that? And what does that like for me right now? And that's exactly like I said earlier, it's like, okay, the person that I want to be would go and eat this frozen yogurt, even though she's really afraid of it. That's what I'm going to do right now. I can give you a million examples of how this shows up, but that is the three-step process that I very literally walk myself through when I'm struggling or questioning or confused and trying to navigate how do I want, how do I want to show up in my life in this moment? Well, I try to outsource it. I always think of that this as like outsourcing to the higher self. I'm not outsourcing like someone else tell me what to do. I'm not giving my power away. I'm saying, hold on, I can connect to the highest, wisest, most resourced version of me and have that kind of guidance. So it's a little bit for the spiritual woo-woo folk out there. But it also, really, I think, supports me in a lot of decision-making. So that's what I will offer.

Lesley Logan 40:08

I love that, because it can, the be it till you see it in that is like, it can be the filter you need when you're like, I don't know how to make this decision. It's like, okay, well, if I was this person down the road, how would they make this decision, and then you can go do that, and you get closer like you start to bring it all together. Oh my gosh, Lisa, you're just amazing. Thank you so much for your honesty. Thank you for sharing with us. I think it's such a good topic, because I do think, I do love that the world is thinking a little bit more about being body positive. But what does that actually mean, and how do we take the people who want to be that way and help them feel it on the inside too, you know? And I think it's so easy. It's like, okay, well, then I just won't talk about the thing that I'm doing, because then they don't, people think I'm not body positive. But really, you know, there are steps we have to take along the way, and it's complicated when it comes to food, it's complicated. So you are just so incredible.

Lesley Logan 40:59

You all, how are you going to use these tips in your life? Make sure you tag Lisa. Tag the Be It Pod. Share this with a friend, even though it's not your place to worry about, if you have someone who's like it seems to be concerning them or their child, things like that, let them know, because there are wonderful experts, and not just an expert, like there are nutritionists, but a trauma informed person who comes from a place of understanding and kindness and helpfulness, and if anything, I think it's really good to understand, like, business comfort is a safe place to be. So I, that's my take. I just like, oh, my God, we try to make things more comfortable and it's like, you know, live a little bit in discomfort. That's where the good stuff is. That's what they say in the memes, anyway. Life happens outside there. So until next time, everyone, Be It Till You See It.

Lesley Logan 41:42

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 42:25

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 42:30

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 42:34

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 42:41

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 42:45

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.

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