Episode 75: Lessons from Lizzo's Watch Out for The Big Grrrls and Expansion Practice

Podcast

Episode 75: Lessons from Lizzo's Watch Out for The Big Grrrls and Expansion Practice

“Alexa, what’s Lizzo’s new show called?”

After watching Lizzo’s Big Grrrls on Amazon Prime, my self-care has changed completely. I am showing up for myself in how I dress, my makeup, styling my hair, and nails. I feel at home in my body for the first time in a long time.

Lizzo’s show inspired the creation of my Expansion Practice to help you show up for yourself, feel at home in your body, and empower yourself to be everything you’re meant to be.

You can also go deeper and listen to my journey of becoming a Pilates Mat Teacher and my definition of Real Life Body Positivity

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Journal Prompts:

1. What was your upbringing with food? What was your primary care takers (cultural, societal, economic) relationships with food?

2. How did that influence your relationship with food as a child, teenager, and adulthood?

3. What’s your current relationship with food, eating, and your body? Have you have any rock bottom moments?

Please tag me @chefcarlacontreras on Instagram so I can continue the conversation with you. Use the hashtag #showupfullypodcast

Eat Well,

xo Chef Carla

PS: I mention Sakara Life Meals: Believe it or not recipe testing and food styling all day does not always lead to meals in the fridge, sometimes its just sugar cookies, like I tested this past week for a client. Ordering Sakara two days a week is one of my forms of self care. Use the Black Friday code XOCHEFCARLA-BF22 for 25% off your first order.

If this podcast resonates, I highly recommend reading Your Body is Not an Apology, The Power of Radical Self Love by Sonya Renee Taylor. It's really turning what I think is wellness on its head.

About Chef Carla Contreras

For the last 24 + years, I’ve worked as a trained chef in: Restaurants, hotels, as a chef instructor at three culinary schools, and personal chef in New York City.

Since 2013, I have been sharing my gift of content creation with publications and brands like Better Homes and Gardens, The Wall Street Journal, Shape Magazine, justBobbi.com, Nutritious Life, Well + Good.

In my personal brand, I not only show up for the hard things, I own them and then share them with the world, like my $38,000 lesson I learned in my business and evolution of a Digital Entrepreneur over the last ten years.

In my online courses, I bring my years of experience as a trained chef, content creator, health and life coach, and meditation teacher to help you with you shift mindset around cooking & the content creation process. Learn more here

Find + Work With Carla:

Online Courses & Books: Learn more here

Instagram: @chefcarlacontreras

Full Transcript:

00:00.00

chefcarla

Hey, it's Chef Carla and welcome to show up fully. This is a podcast where I share what it's like to show up for your real life. If you don't know me, I'm a food stylist, content creation coach, and the founder of the poppy content lab, you can find me it's Carla Contreras on Instagram, and Tiktok and more information. In today's show notes. This episode, I have been waiting to record its lessons from Liz's big girls on Amazon Prime and the expansion practice. So first in this hell you what does this have to do with Lizzo? Okay, if you don't know, Lizzo has a show on Amazon Prime, where she's in search of dancers to join her squad of big girls. And it's an incredible show that highlights women of a larger body. And there is just so much empowerment throughout that show, through hair through makeup, through clothing through moving their bodies. It's an incredible thing to watch. And if you know anything about me and have listened to this podcast, I live in a larger body. And you may have listened to the episode where I talk about real body positivity, because I did my Pilates Mat certification. And that was a stretch for me that really stretched me in a way that I was really unsure about going for a Pilates Mat certification number one in a larger body. Number two, the fact that I have multiple injuries that I'm working with in my body.

02:00.00

chefcarla

And so watching that show, and especially the women that had injuries, it was incredible to experience them in that way. So my takeaways from that is that and if you've listened to this podcast, you know that I do a ton of personal growth, a ton of healing work, and I'm constantly in this work. But for me, it was such a powerful and empowering thing to watch. Women be in their bodies. And I feel like I started to dress a little differently. After I watched that show, I started to really take care of my makeup, my hair, the way that I'm presenting myself in the world. No, that's not to say that I didn't do that before. I watched the show. But there was deep care that was instilled in me after I watched the show. So that was number one. It's like the deep care of my physical presence of my hair, my makeup, my clothing, the way that I'm presenting myself to the world. And I will say this, people treat me differently. When my hair and makeup and clothes feel amazing to me. Like especially with school. I had teachers comment. Wow, you are beautiful. Wow, you look beautiful today. Wow, you are stunning. Wow, your hair is gorgeous. No, do I need these compliments? Absolutely not. I don't need them in order to feel good about how I'm presenting myself. But it sure is nice to hear that. It sure is nice to be acknowledged and be seen for being in my body for really showing up in a way where I feel good in my own skin, where I feel good about how I am in the world. And the second thing that I want to say is my physical body. I'm talking about my naked body. I'm talking about my body that moves. I'm talking about my injuries. I'm talking about all of the things that are my actual physical body.

04:45.00

chefcarla

And it's interesting because in Pilates, and I practice at home and I go to a studio, and it's an extreme privilege to be able to go to the studio because this is my form In a physical therapy, this is my form of taking care of myself and my multiple injuries so that I can stand upright, so that I can tie my shoes, so that I can get my kids in and out of the car. So I can pick them up if I need to. And they are not small anymore, they are six and seven. So it's like, how can I have the strength in my body, and I started to look at myself differently because there's mirrors at the Pilates studio. And I will say, I'm going to be honest, I used to look in the mirror and I'm like, Ah, you know, that roll or, you know, that bald, or that whatever. And now I'm like, I love my body. I love my body. And I said this out loud. I went to the Sokar circle, Summit, if you don't know Sokar life, it is a brand that produces fresh meals, I ordered them occasionally as part of my self care, as part of my practice to take care of myself in a deep way. When I feel depleted when I have a ton of food styling to do when I feel extra busy. It's a special treat for me to order secara I love to do that. So I went to an in person summit with them. And they had a live food styling workshop. But they also asked questions, and they had a lot of deep inner work about people's food stories. And I will put some journal prompts in the notes of this show, if you want to dive deeper into what is your food story. And for me, I'm in this personal development and wellness space. And I feel like I've heard a lot about this in terms of the money story. But it's interesting that I've worked with a number of people, and I've never, not once written down my food story. And we're talking about childhood, teenage years and beyond. Of what does that food story look like? And I will share with you. I have binge eating in there. I have restricting calories in there. I have in you heard previously working out excessively to be a certain size.

07:32.00

chefcarla

And so when we were asked these questions, we sat we did it and I feel like it was like 30 minutes. And then we sat in circles and groups and shared those stories with each other. And it was incredible to hear it no matter what the size, no matter what the age of the person, the similarities in the stories. And for me, it was really empowering to share in that circle that right now and I'm gonna repeat this. I am the largest that I've ever been. And I am comfortable in who I am. I am comfortable with my body. And Could she be smaller? Sure, could she be healthier? Yes. And that's where I'm working to feel. What I define is healthy and strong in my body. And that's my goal. That's what I do. And if you've listened to this podcast and you've heard the show up fully challenged, there's like five episodes of rest, deep nourishment, movement, mindfulness and water. That's my deal. That's what I focus on. And I stopped focusing so much on my weight on my size on counting points and counting calories on on food journaling and all the things and this is what works for me personally. I'm not saying that it works for you or anybody else, but this is what works for me. And it's a gorgeous space to be in.

09:20.00

chefcarla

So the two lessons I think really, that if I was going to summarize this from listeners, big girls is number one, the way that I show up in terms of my self care with my hair, my makeup, my clothes that make me feel amazing. My hair, all of those things and also feeling really at home in my body. Every single day. When I get out of the shower when I put lotion on. When I wash my face when I move my body when I walk when I do Pilates when I pick up my kids There's this deep love and respect that I feel like, has not been in there. And watching that show, I know that I do a ton of work, and have done so much work around myself and healing and trauma. That show it was like literally the light bulb, it was the click. And I wanted to share that with you because it was so powerful for me. And so what I created around this was a meditation, because I wanted to share with you, what is it like to expand? What is it like to get bigger. And it's interesting, because during the Sokar Summit, there was a meditation that was led by one of the founders. And she said that her Pilates instructor said that, what would it be like if your butt was bigger, and she like did a shaking out exercise. And I have had this on my mind for a long time having a bigger meditation, but I wasn't sure how it was going to move. And going to the Sokar Summit, when she said that, imagine your butt bigger. I was like, oh, yeah, I remember I wanted to do that meditation around being bigger. And I want to share that we are taught specifically, I have been taught that it's better to be smaller, it's better to be thinner, it's better to really kind of blend in.

11:56.00

chefcarla

And I know this from working through content creation and working through coaching with other people that sometimes and I including myself, I dim my light. And this practice that I created is really about getting bigger, about expanding into who you already are not something you aren't something you already are, and to really shine your light as bright as it can be. And it doesn't matter what people think about it matters what you think about it. And so I'm going to put this in the show notes. It's going to be inside of my social media, meditation and affirmation toolkit. So inside of there are a number of practices, a number of affirmations, a number of meditations that are all around being visible on social media, and also to repair around social media, because it takes so much energy to be out there.

13:09.00

chefcarla

And if you don't use social media, that's totally fine. You can use it in other ways. I've had people text message and DM me, I used this before I did a job interview. I use this before I sat down and wrote today I use this like you can use it in different ways. So I'm sure that you'll find ways and I would love if you would DM me and let me know or send me a message. I'm really excited. I feel grateful to share this message with you. I feel very empowered right now in my body and in my life and I am grateful that I get to share that with you. I'm sending you and yours so much love. If this episode has resonated with you. I would love if you would share it. Send us an email sent as a text message. Create a social media post. I am so grateful for your support. Bye