On this episode of the Single Mom Stories podcast I’m diving into a topic that many listeners—and yours truly—find challenging: body image, the relationship we have with our bodies, and how to positively change this in our culture. In North America, 85-95% of women are either extremely dissatisfied with or flat-out hate their bodies. That’s an epidemic of poor self-image and self-worth, one so widespread that there’s no single cause.

During a recent girls trip with two other  moms, we talked about body image - specifically as it relates to motherhood. The pressures of returning to our pre-baby bodies, changes we face as we age and the challenges in finding the time to care for ourselves. So for this episode, I’m going to discuss how body image can be an intergenerational issue, explain why body positivity can backfire, give you some tools to improve body image —and leave you with some powerful parting words from Mirna Vilero

The Finer Details of This Episode: 

• Changing the expectations around our bodies
• Hating your body
• The disguise of diet culture
• The challenges of self love
• Setting social media boundaries
• Radical self compassion

Quotes: 

“If you've had your own kids, or if you've adopted, we feel pressure to look the way we did before having kids, right.”

“I correlated shrinking myself with success. It just made sense.”

“And using food to control what our body looks like gives us an illusion of safety.”

“You don't have to wait for something to change to accept yourself… Your target will always be moving, if you're always waiting.”

“I think one of the best ways to shift this is to move out of focusing on how your body looks, and instead, what your body can do.”

“Your body, whatever it is, whatever its size, whatever its hair color and hairstyle, however its height, whatever its age is acceptable. Your body is acceptable.”

“I delight in seeing people's looks when I tell them that I finished a 22-mile run.”

Links:

Kelly Travis 

​​Kelly Travis on Instagram

Single Mom Stories Homepage

Single Mom Stories Instagram

On the 16th episode of Single Mom Stories, Kelly introduces the audience to enneagrams.  The Enneagram of Personality is a typology of the nine different personality types, and, as many of you may know already, Kelly is an expert. She uses enneagrams with her clients to highlight their strengths, parenting styles, and where they might have opportunities for growth.  The nine enneagram types in total, and, as Kelly demonstrates today,  we have every number in us.  

In working with Kelly or any other legitimate Enneagram personality expert, clients will find that they might see themselves in multiple types, and there’s a reason for that.  Through the assessment, Kelly helps her clients discover what type they think like, what type they act like, and what type they feel like.  When working with enneagrams, however, the goal is never to change who we are or our personality. Enneagram personality tests help us understand how we behave, why behave that way, and that those around us view the world differently than we do. It’s all about using the tools in your own toolbox, and Kelly introduces it all to you here today. 

The Finer Details of This Episode: 

• Enneagrams
• The Reformer
• The Empathetic Helper
• The Goal-oriented Achiever
• The Individualist
• The Investigator
• The Anxious Loyalist
• The Enthusiast
• The Challenger
• The Peacemaker
• Holding different identities

Quotes: 

“So it gives you these opportunities to go for some milestones in terms of growth and change. Never in using Enneagram is the purpose to change who we are, to change our personality. It's to understand our personality, identify how we can get better, but never to change.”

“Now, the growth here, which probably won't be a surprise if you're one, but it's really to work on becoming less rigid, right, trying to be more spontaneous, learning how to process and express anger properly.”

“So twos tend to neglect their own needs, it doesn't come natural for them to put themselves first to ask for help. And this can lead to burnout, frustration, not allowing time for yourself. And as we know, as parents, we have to have that to be able to show up for our kids’ triggers.”

“What I often say about sixes are they are the ones who bought up the toilet paper at the beginning of COVID. They prepare for the worst case scenario. So as parents, what strengths a loyalist brings is with their trustworthiness, their protection, their loyalty, their skeptical nature, and a healthy sense of responsibility.”

“So of my six clients, and I have quite a few. We do a lot of work around getting out of our head into our body, a lot of breathwork, meditation, and anything that kind of just brings you back to being present.”

“We all have every number in us. So if you take an assessment, you'll learn how different numbers show up in your life and in your personality…when we take an assessment, you'll find out what type you think like, what type you act like, and what type you feel like.”

Links: 

Kelly Travis 

​​Kelly Travis on Instagram

Single Mom Stories Homepage

Single Mom Stories Instagram

On this week’s episode of Single Mom Stories, Kelly welcomes Avigail Gimpel to the show to talk about her work, both personal and professional, involving children living with ADHD. She starts off by addressing the recent spike in prescribing medication and attributes that to people incorrectly using medicine as a form of discipline. Avigail notes that when you really start to listen and pay attention to kids with ADHD, you will find that helping them is about so much more than a dosage. In fact, her own daughter was diagnosed with ADHD only after transferring to a much more pressure filled school. What Gimpel found was that there was an incredible lack of accommodations for children like hers, so she took it upon herself to do the work. 

Gimpel learned that people with ADHD tend to be all or nothing. They may have intense reactions to otherwise minor issues, but if you start to break things down into manageable chunks, you and the child will be able to identify their trigger. Together, she and Kelly draw this episode to a close by talking about the importance of structure, feedback, and boundaries for children living with ADHD, and how Avigail details this and all of her valuable findings in her book, Hyperhealing.

The Finer Details of This Episode:

• Medication for the sake of discipline
• ADHD behaviors in the classroom
• Avigail’s daughter
• Lack of accommodations
• Creating manageable segments
• The value of feedback and boundaries
• Finding comfort in structure

Quotes:

“The most intriguing were the students with ‘special energy’, the ones who were trying to drink from a waterfall instead of a glass. I love that. The ones who dreamed all day but then said something that no one else thought of. The ones whose engines ran on instant gratification… They were creative, funny, out of the box, and struggling.”

“The minute we moved back to Israel, that was a crash and burn. And that's when I went for her diagnosis, because suddenly I put her into a classroom of 28 students and a much more high pressured school where they were not tolerating.”

“It never occurred to me that this amazing kid was a bother to anybody.”

“I just started reading and just dragging information from everywhere in order to help my kids, and that's how the book started taking shape.”

“They're all or nothing. So if they don't get part of the morning right, they wake up a little bit too late, and it all goes in the garbage. ‘Forget it. I'm not getting out of bed’…So we divide that up.”

“I didn't realize that kids with ADHD and adults really too, are more sensitive to others and about things happening to them.”

“A lot of times we look at the kid and say, ‘Just respond normally. What is all of this tantruming? Why are you crying in the supermarket?’…But they're not able to because we didn't help them break it down and really understand what the trigger was.”

“We're not psychologists. We’re moms and dads. So I give the parents the tools to ask the questions a certain way, be patient, and tell your own personal stories. There are things we can do to get the child to be less shameful and to be able to share what they're really feeling.”

“The reason I did it was, because I feel like parents do not have informed consent when it comes to their kid’s intervention program. So the first book really gives the parents an alternative program.”

Links:

Kelly Travis 

​​Kelly Travis on Instagram

Single Mom Stories...