Core Confidence with Loni Markman

I sat down with Loni Markman this week on The Raising Wild Hearts Podcast. Loni helps women with listening to their bodies, nervous system regulation, and the mind body connection. If you’ve been wondering how to get rid of shame, get ready for a powerful journey back home to yourself.

This conversation is a healing journey from body shame to self love. We talk about:

• Confidence for moms

• The Wisdom of the body

• Emotions in the body and feeling your feelings

We explore the profound difference between "surface-level confidence" and true "body-led confidence," and how to cultivate the latter through "micro-moments" and sacred rest.

This episode is a beautiful invitation to honor your body, feel your feelings, and celebrate the messy, gorgeous process of becoming your most sovereign self.

This is a conversation you'll want to listen to twice.😉

Listen Here:

In this episode, Loni Markman and Ryann Watkin talk about:

• Dismantling body shame at the core: Loni shares how we've been conditioned to believe our bellies should be a certain way and how we can dismantle that for ourselves and our children.

• The power of neutrality over perfection: We discuss leaning into a place of "neutrality" instead of striving for the "good" or "bad" of life, especially when it comes to our bodies.

• The difference between surface-level and body-led confidence: We explore the difference between "fake it till you make it" confidence and a deep, sovereign confidence that comes from listening to your body's truth.

• Micro-moments and sacred rest: Loni explains how to create safety in the body through small, intentional moments of pause and why sacred rest is a non-negotiable for building self-trust.

• Feeling your feelings to heal: We dive into the concept of "feeling it to heal it" and how avoiding emotions through numbing behaviors like emotional eating prevents us from transmuting them.

Chapters

00:00 The Essence of Core: Understanding Our Center

02:50 Body Image and the Journey to Self-Love

05:25 Breaking Generational Conditioning: Body Love and Shame

07:56 Feeling Our Feelings: The Connection to Core Power

10:21 The Power of the Pause: Creating Safety in Our Bodies

12:40 Catalysts for Change: Personal Growth and Healing

20:47 Creating Safety in the Body

25:58 Building Self-Trust Through Listening

29:51 Understanding Body-Led Confidence

32:58 Navigating Dopamine and Intrinsic Motivation

35:41 Reparenting Ourselves for Safety and Growth

Up Next: Turning Your Pain into Purpose with Crissy Florio

Resources: The ‘Best Books of All Time’ Curated Booklist for Mindful Moms and Conscious Parents

Full transcript of this conversation with Ryann Watkin and Loni Markman:

Ryann Watkin: 01:12

Loni Markman has nearly two decades of experience helping women live and thrive in a body that love. Lonnie guides her clients to reconnect with their bodies, regulate their nervous systems, and create a deep mind-belly connection. Her work focuses on the belly as the body's competent, helping women to tap into their emotional, physical, and energetic core to find true alignment and body-led confidence. Yes. This conversation, as to be expected, as you hear in Lonnie's bio, is so powerful. We talk about dismantling shame at the core. We talk about body image and why so many of us grow up hating our bellies and bodies. We talk about leaning into neutrality instead of the good or the bad of life. And of course, we talk about feeling your feelings. One of my favorite things to talk about emotional intelligence. So this conversation is really, really powerful. This is even like a listen twice conversation. Lonnie's experience combined with her messaging, combined with her wisdom and lived experience, is so valuable. So I know you guys are gonna just gonna get so much out of this conversation. I know that I did. Um, so let's just jump into my conversation with Lani Markman. Hi, Lani. Welcome to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast. Hi, thanks for having me. Yeah, of course. So I'm really excited. And as I was preparing for this interview, I Googled the word core. I wanted to know the definition. And one of the definitions of the word core, get this. The central innermost or most essential part of anything. Yes. Right? Yeah. And so I was like, well, this is the perfect place to kick it off because we're gonna get to the central innermost or most essential part of I would venture to say life, I would venture to say personal development, being a human, even right, if we want to even make it that broad. So, what's your take on that definition of core from where you're standing? Well, I think wherever you found that definition of core, they really nailed it.

Loni: 03:30

Yeah. You know, I my work is centered around the core. And I always talk about how it is literally the center of our being and our doing. It is who we are, how we move, how we show up, how we connect to ourselves, our intuition, our higher power, how we birth our babies, how we birth our books. Like you name it, it happens within our belly. I have been teaching Pilates for two decades now, and we call it the powerhouse. So literally, it's the place where you house your power. Okay. So in Pilates, it's not just the belly, it's shoulder to shoulder, shoulder to hip, hip to hip, hip to shoulder. So it includes when I work with people energetically too. We're talking about your heart space, your sacral, your solar plex, your root, like really big energy happens there from a nutrition perspective, because that was my background. This is really, you know, this is your second brain, right? Your gut. So we digest so much stuff that happens in our core, not just on our plate, but off our plate. So for me, the core is literally the center of it all. We don't make a move. Our limbs don't move without tapping into the power of our of our of our core in Pilates, right? We don't take forward action in life without tapping into the power of the core on your everyday, your core values, your core beliefs, the core of who you are, your self-trust, like all of the things. So I'm a little passionate about this. Um, yeah. So I love that. I love that question.

Ryann: 05:12

Yeah. Yeah. So I was also thinking about my relationship with my belly and my stomach. And I was pretty young. I mean, I'm really sad to say at this point, I was pretty young when I started like started hating. I I don't even want to eat. That's such a strong word, but really disliking my belly. And remember, like, you know, just, I mean, God, I was probably only like middle school, maybe younger, when I started feeling like, oh, there's a role. I don't want anyone to see my belly covering up. Like, what a sad thing. Cause I see my girls who are eight and ten, and I'm like, girl, that's like, that's your entire power. You know, like you said, the powerhouse. Like that is your being. That is the center of you. And so I really trying to model that as a 42-year-old woman and re-falling in love with my belly after having three kids is like, holy shit. So let's talk about falling in love with our bellies, Lonnie.

Loni: 06:21

Shame, shoulds. All of these pieces of what you're talking about. We have been conditioned to believe our bellies are supposed to be a certain way. If we look this, we will be X, Y, and Z. My worth is connected to a number on the scale or what my you know genes look like or whatever. So it is not your fault you felt that way in middle school. It is unfortunately what we have been conditioned to believe and to be taught. And you get the beautiful job of now raising two girls to completely change that, dismantle that conditioning. So, yes, right? Yes, yes, yes. This, if anything, you take away anything from this, who's ever listening, that this is the end goal, that we are breaking these generational traumas and these societal conditionings. So our next generation can show up better than we did. Yeah. Right. And that has a lot to do with body love. And there's a lot of shoulds and shames that happen around the belly and around the belly in motherhood. I worked with fertility coaching for a long time. It was a big piece of my nutrition world. And everyone be like, I'm getting fat, or I wish I could get my body back to where it was, you know. And these are things that really always upset me because you're pregnant, you're not fat, right? Not that we call ourselves fat anyway. That's a whole nother podcast. But and we don't go backwards, right? You have, you said three kids, three kids. Your body's not going to look like it did before then. And it's not supposed to, doesn't mean it can't be strong and beautiful and sovereign and all of these other beautiful pieces that come with having a sacred relationship to your core. We just have to work on our permission to let go of the shoulds, to let go of the shame that's been conditioned to us. So these stories aren't ours. And I'm gonna ask you and everyone listening to this to ask yourself, what have you believed along the way that you've been told and thought was gospel that's not actually yours?

Ryann: 08:18

Yeah. I'm gonna tell you right now because when you said shame, I immediately had like recognition. It was like, yep. Like I just felt a yes when you said the word shame. And for me, I was taught essentially and like explicitly and not explicitly to be seen and not heard, not to voice my questions, not to ex, you know, uh command a room. Not, you know, I was kind of told like, get smaller, be smaller, be quieter, don't ask why, don't argue with me, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. Yeah. And so of course, I then didn't want to, you know, have the center of my power be clear.

Loni: 09:06

And I went, yep. Yeah, you went inward. I know you can't see me on the podcast, but you your shoulders shrunk, your belly went in, and you went down. You literally started to shrink in all the ways. I mean, I'm teaching a masterclass next week called Louder. And that's what it's about. It's about, you know, you know, if you want to say like standing taller in your purpose, in your body, with your belly to be seen, to be celebrated, to be heard, to be loud in your truth, right? So you're touching on my work right here, so big. Um and that is the message a lot of us have gotten over time, no matter how it looks like. And maybe there's even a voice in your head where you're like, okay, that was my mom who told me that, or that was my grandfather, or that was teacher Sally in fifth grade or whatever, you know, like you can even take it back to those memories about that's where I remember the first time someone told me that. And then that message was repeated over time. And that's where the magic of the work comes in. Because you asked me, how do I fall, how do I fall in love with my belly? That's a big statement. Okay. A, we start with that awareness and understanding of how we feel about our belly right now. And then where, what, who, when, all the other pieces have shaped this relationship along the way. Like for me, one of the things that shaped my relationship is when I was in my early 20s, I was bloated all the time. Like I lived in New York City and people would give up their subway seat for me. Like that's how bloated I looked. I looked six months pregnant. And, you know, I wasn't married, wasn't thinking of babies. Like I was like, oh my God, I was so ashamed and so embarrassed. And that's some of what got me on this journey into nutrition and then down this path. Because as I was working with women, whether it was weight loss, infertility, eating disorders, I've done a whole bunch of things with nutrition, the same thing was true. They were disconnected from their body, especially their belly. So I share this because this is the first step to really start asking hand on heart, hand on belly, how do I feel? What does it feel like to touch my belly? You know, so we start to have conversation and create relationship with. And then we remember we are not trying to go from zero to 60. We are not going from, I'm gonna use the word you used before, like I hate or have disdain for my belly, to I'm falling in love with my belly. That's a freaking big leap. So I teach what's called the law of neutrality, neutrality. I do a lot of nervous system work. This is nervous system safety. We titrate you there, little small steps, right? Okay. So think about it as a pendulum and we're here at hate and we want to be fall in love. We're gonna find our way to neutral first. We're gonna love what is. We're gonna be with, see ourselves, respect ourselves here before we can go to fall in love. Uh-huh. And so many of us skip this step. We're like, I should be here. Another should. And now I'm just shoulding all over myself, right? And should happens, shame happens. Okay. So we're wanting to be here, we're here, and it's so hard because we're just we're going too far. Like, we're not gonna go from, you know, wanting to lose 100 pounds. We got to lose 10 pounds first. It's the same thing in creating that relationship to the body, creating that connection with the belly. So to fall in love with your belly is I don't know if it's ever fully possible, to be honest. Okay. It's a big statement for many. You can fall, I'm, you know, almost 50. So perimenopausal, right? Like I'm relearning to love this new belly. Yeah, there was baby belly, and then there was, you know, now there's this belly. And it's different and it's beautiful, but it's a new relationship I'm creating. Yeah. And so I just want to take falling in love with a little bit off the table to learn to see what is, to love what is first. And then we could go into that bigger realm of emotion that comes with falling in love, if that makes sense. Absolutely.

Ryann: 13:22

So, something that's been coming up lately on this podcast is a fear or worry of feeling our emotions and perhaps certain challenging emotions. So, in your work, how are you seeing fear play a part of women blocking their core strength or core power?

Loni: 13:43

Okay, so the the question is really about how do we show up anyway when there's fear? So, feelings are information. They are not wrong or bad. They do not make you good or bad. Feelings are feelings. We have also been taught to not feel. I will never forget, this is probably about 20 years ago. My one of my first mentors had said to me, You got to feel your feelings, to feel it to heal it. And I was like, What? That's ridiculous. Who wants to do that? And it's such a process because, in order for us, so when we talk about nervous system work, a lot of the time we talk about regulation. Regulating your nervous system is a beautiful, they're beautiful tools to regulate your nervous system. My goal with my clients is not to regulate, it's to rewire. Okay. I say this because a lot of the times we use regulation tools as bypassing. I don't want to feel said feeling. So I'm going to shake it out, I'm going to tap, I'm going to dance, I'm going to do whatever regulation tool, yoga, breath work, whatever. So I don't have to feel that feeling. Okay, I get it. Not wrong or bad, but we're not going to transmute that emotion unless we feel it. So it goes back to what, you know, my mentor said years ago, you gotta feel it to heal it. And how that relates to the core is really, I'm gonna take that back to how it relates to the body in general, not just to the core, right? Because we hold emotions in our body, a lot in our belly, some in our hip, in our jaw. You know, there's other parts of the body. So I don't want to just say the belly because if it's not, if you're not finding that emotion in your belly, I don't want you to think that it's not living in your body somewhere. So the first thing is to, again, you create that relationship. Like, how do you sit with feeling something? Where are you feeling it in your body? What does it feel like? Can you be with that feeling for 30 seconds before you regulate out of it? Can you be with that feeling for a minute before you regulate out of it? And then we go from there. Okay. And so that's a big piece of the titration. That's a big piece of kind of that feeling the fear and doing it anyway, you know, motto that it really has truth in it, but it's not just about pushing through, it's about feeling it. So you're really connected to why am I feeling this fear? What's coming up for me? And on the other side of fear is excitement. So we have both at the same time and we get to hold both at the same time. I'm gonna stop there for a second. I'm not even sure if I answered your question.

Ryann: 16:23

You absolutely did. Yes, yes. And, you know, I think of the word or the phrase gut feeling. Like we say that in our culture, but we don't necessarily like embody it. Like we say, like, what's your gut feeling? But we use our brain and our mind to like analyze the shit out of ourselves, you know? And so, you know, I asked this question to almost everybody, right? In one way or another, is like, how do we learn how to feel a feeling? Do we have to, like, for me, it's like power in the paws. Like, you have to slow the frick down, you know. I'm like a need for speed kind of a gal. And I just like speed through it all. And then all of a sudden I'm balling crying like puddle on the floor. And it's like, well, no wonder, babe. Like, come on. So let's let's break that down even more. How do we feel? Gut feelings, where'd that all come from?

Loni: 17:18

Totally. Well, first of all, I love the power of the pause. I think that is such an important piece. We are constantly going, and life is slifing and chaotic, and it it goes that way. And so to train our bodies to allow for a pause is such a beautiful gift to give yourself. And that will truly help us understand how to feel our feelings. I think the idea with the gut feeling of why it's kind of called that is because, you know, there's so many nerves in the belly and they're connected to your vagus nerve, which is I'll just say it's like the direct system to your brain and belly, the vagus nerve. And so that's where kind of like that gut feeling comes in. And when we start to create these relationships to our ourselves by asking those questions, how do I feel? Is it safe for me to feel this right now? Orienting yourself around the room. Okay, three things I see, you know, two things I hear, something I can feel on my skin, we start to create some safety in the moment. And we are not gonna be able to, you're not gonna be able to tap into your feelings, especially like gut feelings, aka intuition. So we're not answering from a head, but we're answering really from heart, soul, core connection place when we don't have safety in the body. And safety in the body is a practice, it is a learned experience. It is a practice we will practice ongoing. And so the power of the pause is a perfect piece of that because what we do is we pause the noise. Yeah.

Ryann: 18:54

And I have all the chatter, yeah, Lani, too, because this is gonna help frame it. I was born into a very unsafe environment. So I didn't actually have that like that baseline of safety, like starting at birth. And so I had three decades of my life where I numbed. And if you would have said, Oh, there's power in the paws to me in my early 20s, I would have taken a shot of tequila and told you to fuck off. Like because I couldn't. I spent my 25th birthday bar hopping by myself, falling asleep in a vomit, uh, in a puddle of my own vomit. I mean, and that's something I've been reflecting on lately because I'm like, oh my God, like you, you poor thing. You don't know. You don't know what you don't know. Right. And so I think, like, for me, you said titration. It was these very small, like very, you know, methodical ways of like, you know, baby step forward, three steps back, little step forward, 10 steps back, forward, back, forward, back. So I call them micro. I call them yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So let's like, what's a micro moment that's instead of like the power of the pause? Because now I'm like zen, I'm like a decade into myself. I'm like, oh, I got this. I know.

Loni: 20:10

But power of the pause can be a micro moment. That's how I teach it. So for example, we all wake up in the morning, you know, that's our goal. We wake up in the morning, take a moment. Yeah, take one little pause there. Yeah. Before you pop up, before you turn on a phone, before you make breakfast for your kids, before any of that, hand on heart, hand on belly, one deep breath into the body. Maybe even saying how you want to feel for the day. I want to feel energized. I want to feel awakened. I want to feel peaceful, like whatever it is. That's that's it. Power of the pause. One tiny tiny moment, five seconds. Yep. Then I don't know. I drink coffee, maybe you drink tea, whatever. I have my mug. I call them mug moments. You grab your mug, you take another breath, you drink your coffee. That's another power of the pause. We are not talking about, girl, I have never meditated on a mountain for two hours. Do you know what I mean? Like this is not how life works. Yeah. I don't even do it for 20 minutes. I do three minutes here, five minutes here, and I do tons of different sort of moments within. They're not meditation, but they're meditative enough to me in my nervous system to quiet the noise so I could hear myself. Yeah. So I could be with myself.

Ryann: 21:19

What was the catalyst for you to allow yourself to feel your stuff, to allow yourself to heal, to allow yourself to realize that you were whole?

Loni: 21:28

Like what was the catalyst for you? Wow. I don't think there was one, there's many. And they happen over time as kind of like as what you were saying. I also grew up in an environment that wasn't that safe and partied a lot. I mean, there's so many like similarities in that sense, right? So I was on survival mode, gosh, probably until my 40s without even knowing it fully.

Ryann: 21:48

Yeah.

Loni: 21:48

Okay. And so there were different moments where I focused and paid attention to different things. There was a period of time in my early 20s when I don't know, it's just so random. I was driving in New York and around the BQE, there was a billboard and it was like some girl in a bikini for Jamaica ad. And I was like, I could never go to Jamaica. I don't like my body, blah, blah, blah. And I started having this whole conversation. And then I was just like, in that moment, I was like, how much time do I spend disliking my body? And what could I do with that time if I started to really reframe that into self-respect?

Ryann: 22:24

Yeah.

Loni: 22:24

And so in that moment, my relationship to my body started to come on board. And that was my first moment of finding safety within myself.

Ryann: 22:34

Yeah.

Loni: 22:34

Okay. So one catalyst, catalyst in a certain area, right? And then, you know, my mom passing when I was in my 30s, that was another catalyst for me to start. So there've been different pieces over time. It doesn't have to be one big thing, but they've all stacked. And then when I got divorced a few years ago, that was another huge piece for me to really step into an identity that I didn't know. I was with someone for 26 years, right? So it's like now here's a big catalyst. So there's not one answer to that. There's many, and they're all beautiful moments of growth and of self-check-in and of, you know, doing the work because this work is a process and you're on a journey. It is not meant to be a one-and-done. There's not a one size fits all approach. And that's why, like in these conversations and who the people that listen to your podcasts, they can pick out the one thing that works for them each time. And now they have their own toolbox because what works for me might not work for you, Ryan. You know what I mean? Like, and that's the beauty of being human. Yeah. Take what you need and leave the rest, right?

Ryann: 23:42

Yeah, exactly. So what would you tell a woman who's on the path to trusting her hunger? And I don't just mean food, like desire, depth, like hunger for.

Loni: 23:58

Yeah. Yeah. I think that there's a huge piece of working through the stories that have been stuck in your body. I kind of already touched on this, but in order to really step into that power, that desire, that permission for pleasure and joy and bigness, there has to be safety in the body. So to me, safety is everything. Creating that safety is everything. And those safeties happen in those small moments where you get to be with you. This is a journey. You are the longest relationship you will ever have. You are with you all the freaking time.

Ryann: 24:33

And you're gonna die with just you, might I add. I my 98-year-old grandma just died. And I was like, She was just, yeah, thank you. But I just one of the things I kept thinking of was like, it was just her. It was, it was just her. Nobody did it for her. Nobody was there telling like it was her.

Loni: 24:50

And she was so I want you to treat your life like a love story. Yeah. Right? Yeah. This is you with you. Yeah. Not you against how you were yesterday, being better than before. Sure. I love that. Okay, yes. And this is you with you. This is you for you. This is this relationship where we're working together. And so I mean, that's why I love this neurosomatic work that I do, because we get the brain and the body to become friends. And we do that by asking simple sometimes questions to the body. My favorite way to answer your question, my favorite way to allow yourself to get into your own spotlight, hand on heart, hand on belly. What does my body need today? What is she asking of me? And then listening. So we can ask the question, but now we want to listen. And we want to listen not just with our ears and our brain. We want to listen with our whole body because our body doesn't speak in sound. It doesn't know English. It doesn't speak like that. It speaks in sensation. So what comes up for you when this happens? Butterflies, tension, softening, warmth. Like, did you get cold? Like, you know, did you get chills? Like what is happening in your body as well is also the message you want to learn to listen to.

Ryann: 26:14

Yeah. Good. You start to trust yourself. Like I was like doing an interview before this, and my feet were cold. And I was like, well, honey, just go get yourself some socks then. And it's like, what a sweet little thing I just did for myself. Like a former version of me would have been like ignoring it, like not even knowing that my feet are cold. How fucking crazy does that sound? But like that's exactly true for me.

Loni: 26:36

Exactly. And so when we ask ourselves the question, we create this connection to ourselves that we matter and we're talking to ourselves. It's important. And then when we listen, we again we're taking out the noise of the other people, the shoulds and all the stories and the the information we're getting from other people constantly. And we can start to tap in, tune in to our own body's language and what our body needs. And then when we actually do the thing, like your perfect example of like my feet were cold, my body's telling me my feet are cold. I am gonna listen to what what my feet are telling me, whether we could talk about more of what that might mean or not mean, but that doesn't matter. But then now your body gets the gets the message. Oh, she listens to me. She's on my team. And we can do that over and over for little things. Like for me, one of the biggest things to create self-trust, there's two rest. I know it's so hard. Who's got time for that, Lonnie? I can work. I mean, literally client after client. I've been teaching since, you know, drop my kid off, teaching since eight this morning. You know, I'm back to back. And I still have to have a conversation with myself. It is okay for me to take a moment and sit. It doesn't make me wrong or bad. It doesn't make me lazy. It doesn't make me all these other stories that I have been told, but this is what my body needs right now. And so that is a big one to create that sort of self-trust is allowing yourself sacred rest. And then the next one, it's also very hard, self-celebration. Self-celebration is regulation at its finest. It is rewiring the body, rewiring the nervous system to say, I matter. And these are the things that create self-trust in the body. These are the ways that we can feel the fear and do it anyway when we celebrate ourselves and not just anything like, phew, you know, I could celebrate having a good hair day. I mean, it doesn't matter really what you're celebrating. It doesn't have to be big, but we get in the habit of rewiring. And now we're looking for all the good things that are happening to us. We're looking for all the glimmers that are happening to us and not the triggers and not the things that aren't going right. And so those are two things that we have control of that we can start to work with in our own body and in our own being about how to be more seen, how to go after our desires.

Ryann: 28:58

Yeah. I wonder if this like whole kind of like body loathing thing that a lot of women from where I'm standing seem to be going through or have gone through, right? Let's say that. I wonder if that comes from the fact of not, you know, in in my case, perhaps, and maybe in your case, like not feeling that safety. So of course we're loathing our body because it's constantly sending signals of, you know, danger to our brain. And it's like, so we're got we're like, okay, enough, body. Like, I'm we're gonna put you in a box and we're gonna shut you up and we're gonna stop listening, you know? And that is like loathing, like the definition of loathing, just ignoring. I mean, it's the same kind of thing. I wonder if that's like where it comes from.

Loni: 29:42

I think it's a mixed bag, right? Because I think that again, like I've said, I mean, diet culture, weight loss culture, like all of these things have taught us the body is bad unless it looks like XYZ over time. However, oftentimes when we are in survival mode, we're looking for control of things. When things life feels out of control, we're looking for control of things. So we can control the body. We can control what we eat. This is a big piece of where eating disorders come from, right? It's not about the food necessarily. It's a control piece. Um, we can control the body. Whether this is um in a way, like our brain might say, I'll use weight loss, for example. Our brain might say, I want to lose weight, but then we're doing the opposite because there's a safety, like that extra layer of weight gives us protection from something else. So the body is a mechanism that we can control. And when life feels really chaotic, we as human beings like routine, we like control, we like that safety. So we're looking to figure out how to fill that.

Ryann: 30:48

Do you think emotional eating is an unconscious way of kind of layering on that extra layer of safety that you just hinted at? For most people, yes.

Loni: 31:00

Not everybody. I mean, that's what was my specialty for years was emotional eating and binge eating. Um, because people eat for all kinds of emotions, right? So we eat because we don't want to feel. So what we do is we stuff it down quite literally. Feelings and emotions come up. We're like, no, no, no, no, no, let me eat whatever I can, and I'll stuff that emotion right back down. Wait, it's a I'm gonna stuff something else back down. So emotional eating is a big piece of not being able to feel our feelings and to have that even awareness or understanding sometimes that that we're feeling something so big, right when that happens, we look for something. Oftentimes it's to avoid a feeling, numbing. So be it alcohol, TV, food, shopping, gambling. I mean, it could go on, but like those are the big three. So, yes, I do think emotional eating is both a, you know, a learned behavior from society because oh my God, we're celebrating, we're eating, oh my God, we're so sad, it's a funeral, we're eating, you know. So it's a learned behavior from society, but also it is really like in nutrition school, there was the concept, and I won't digress too far, but a concept called primary foods. Primary foods are things that nourish you but don't come on your a plate. Love, sunshine, relationships, fulfilling career, you know, things of that nature. And when we're fulfilled in these pieces, we turn to food, the secondary source of nourishment, a lot less. Yep. So true.

Ryann: 32:33

So true. Love that. Okay, let's talk about confidence a little bit. You said you are special or you're one of your areas of expertise, let's say, is body-led confidence versus surface level confidence. What are the differences? I have an idea, but tell us what the difference is between body-led confidence and surface level confidence. Okay, great. I love this question.

Loni: 32:57

Well, I think most of us, myself included, and I will say it like that, have had surface level confidence most of our lives. This is the performative, do more, be better confidence. This is a fake it till you make it, you know, vibe. Okay, so surface level confidence isn't bad or wrong again. It's just what most of us have known because we haven't been able to tap into anything else. It's like we're chasing something. And when we get there, we'll feel confident. Okay. It's like validation from others or the compliment from so-and-so, like all of these things. This is how we create surface level confidence, right? When you get on a scale and the scale says what you want it to, all of a sudden you feel confident. Well, you could have been confident AF beforehand, and then you get on the scale and it doesn't say what you want. Now your confidence is gone, right? So these are surface level confidences. Now, body-led confidence means it's coming from inside you, as I would say, in your core, right? So body-led confidence comes from I sound like I'm repeating safety in the body. It comes from safety in the body, it comes from sensation, it comes from like systematic, like your system's truth. I know what I know and I know what I know, even when I don't have proof. Yeah. That's body-led confidence. What feels good to me? What feels good to me? And doing what feels good to you is how we create more confidence. Not what I think I should do, what Sally told me to do, you know, so on and so forth. What I think if I will do, I will feel good. I want to be clear though that oftentimes when I say surface level confidence, I don't literally just mean like how you look, right? So that's an important piece. However, if we're breaking it down pretty simply, the surface level is on the outside, the body levels on the inside. So feels. Yeah. Yep.

Ryann: 34:58

I something I think of often in raising my kids is this intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. So like the star sticker chart versus like my daughter's picking up a book to read because she really wants to, right? This paying them to do this, that and whatever versus like them doing it out of, you know, their own free will or their own curiosity or their own passion. And that's what it reminds me of. You know, like, listen, there are no guarantees in life. Like, we're raising our kids, we're doing the best we can. You know, we we're trying not to swing the pendulum, meaning like overcorrecting all the shit that our parents did wrong, making it like a bubble of safety because we grew up so unsafe, right? Like, you know, we have to kind of tow this middle line of neutrality, this equanimity that you hinted to earlier. Um, and that's what I think of when I think of that surface level confidence versus body-led confidence. Is that intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation?

Loni: 35:60

Oh, you know, I think that we chase dopamine and we never get into that full like other hormones, oxytocin and whatever. We'll get into that in another conversation. But there is this really fine line of feeling the fear, doing it anyway, which has a little level of that surface level confidence in it because we don't have proof yet. But when we have safety in the body, we create a confidence that we don't need proof. We need potential. I believe this is possible. We need possibility, right? I believe this is possible. So I have the confidence to try. And I think it's kind of the same thing when we're thinking about parenting too, right? We want to, we all work off rewards, yes. And I don't want to only reward so that you don't have a pull to do what you want to do. I want to give you the freedom and the space to say, how does that feel when you do that? Does that make you feel good? Do you feel scared? Like I use, oh, you're not gonna be able to see it. I'll show you anyway. I use this like wheel of feels. Oh, I love that wheel of one on Amazon. Yeah, yep. All the time with my clients. And it's super helpful to understand that. And I think that those pieces play a part to help somebody say, Okay, yeah, I'm scared, but also that scariness feels like excitement. And so I'm gonna follow that nudge. I don't need my gold star yet. I'm gonna follow that nudge, you know? Yeah, but it's a dance for sure. And we're moving more and more in the direction of these dopamine hits and, you know, gamifying and all these pieces that are coming out for our kids and for us in all the apps we're on and stuff. So we gotta really make sure that we check in with our body, constantly talking to ourselves and asking ourselves these questions because the world will tell us when we're good and bad. Ding the gold star, you know. I mean, yeah.

Ryann: 37:48

It's so true. It's so true. And when you were talking, when you pulled out the wheel of feelings, you know, something that I think of is reparenting ourselves a lot. And I think ultimately to get to that safety, which is like the through line, the beautiful through line of this conversation is that we do need to reparent ourselves. And I started like gentle parenting my children, but still like talking shit to myself behind the scenes. It's like it doesn't work that way. It comes from us first, and we really need to be that for ourselves inside. So if you ask your kid, how does that feel for you? You know, it's like asking ourselves, how does that feel for you? So think about that. Everybody out there, when you're reparenting yourselves, because I think we're all on some path of this journey or some some point in the path of reparenting, think about that. What you would say to your kid. Say that, say that to yourself.

Loni: 38:38

Yeah. I mean, that's that's beautiful. And I think that that is one of the biggest things that we can do is lead by example.

Ryann: 38:46

Yeah, it's so true. Okay, Lonnie, how do we find your work and follow you and learn more about everything you're doing in the world?

Loni: 38:54

Yeah, awesome, amazing. Well, for starters, uh, you can find me on Instagram. I hang out there pretty often. It's powerhouse underscore by underscore Lonnie. So it's my name, L-O-N I, Powerhouse by Lonnie. And I have a free Facebook community called Body Love Rewired, where I do all kinds of things all the time. Like this Friday, for example, I'm doing Ask Me Anything hot seat coaching. We get on, I do free coaching for the hour. Um, it's been core month all month long over there. So we've done free classes every month. We just finished a challenge. Like, so that all kinds of things happen in that group. And really, it's about rewiring the body from body shame to body love. Because when we are tapped in, tuned in, and turned on by our own self, our own body, everything changes. How we show up in our body, in the bedroom, in the kitchen, with our kids, you know, like is with our spouse or in our relationships, in our business. Like it all changes when we feel really sovereign and connected to who we are at our core. So that's the like biggest piece of my work. And yeah, I mean, I have a couple of things that I could share you and drop you some links. I have a body, uh, it's called the body's blueprint. It's a seven-day DIY little guide, all somatic nervous system work to help you do everything we were talking about, to help you create that safety in the body. Um yeah. And I run all kinds of things. Like my next program's called Permission to be seen, which is funny that we you brought that up earlier. So that'll happen in September. But yeah, that's all my stuff. Amazing. So follow me, you'll see it all.

Ryann: 40:35

Perfect. Okay, we're gonna link all that down below too. So go down there, follow Lonnie, and yes, get in her orbit because I love the work you're doing in the world. This is, I always say it, the ripple effect is real. Like, peace begins with me, you know, like you're you're starting that ripple effect and it's beautiful. So thank you. Now I'm gonna ask you, yeah, the three questions I ask everybody at the end of the interview, kind of rapid fire style. And the first one is what's bringing you joy today? My business is bringing me joy today.

Loni: 41:02

Being able to have this conversation and like nothing gives me more joy than knowing that I can help somebody change the relationship to their body. I mean, truly fuels the shit out of me.

Ryann: 41:16

Love it. Amazing. The next question I have for you is what if anything, are you reading?

Loni: 41:22

I am reading um There's No Bad Parts right now, which is I'm studying IFS, which is internal family systems and it's parts work. So I'm reading no bad parts. It's fascinating. Um, nerding out on it, but yeah.

Ryann: 41:35

The last question I have for you is who or what has taught you the most?

Loni: 41:38

Who or what has taught me the most? Grief. Wow. Yeah, exactly.

Ryann: 41:44

Yeah.

Loni: 41:44

Grief has taught me the most.

Ryann: 41:46

I just interviewed a grief expert yesterday, and her episode aired a couple weeks before yours. And we dive into that. And I Yeah, well, I can't wait to listen then. Yeah, it's so good.

Loni: 41:56

Feelings are your teachers. And for me, I've had a lot of loss in my life, loss of both my parents. I mean, without getting into the whole thing, but grief um has definitely been my biggest teacher, my greatest teacher, to be honest.

Ryann: 42:10

Yeah, what a gift. Thank you so much for this conversation and your presence in the world and your work and everything.

Loni: 42:16

Yeah, thank you for having me. This was so fun.