Breaking Body Biases
Navigating Identity Shifts: Closing Pop Fit Studio pt 2 and My Mental Health - EP 95
What happens when your identity is so intertwined with your career that losing it feels like losing yourself? Join me, Christine DeFilippis, as I recount the emotional rollercoaster I experienced after closing Pop Fit Studio. My journey to recovery was anything but smooth. This episode sheds light on the crucial role mental health plays in our lives and the similarities it shares with the intimidation factor many feel in fitness environments. We discuss the need for inclusive, welcoming fitness spaces, and how using compassionate language can make fitness accessible to everyone.
Better Help
SAMHSA
Become a fitness instructor
What happens when your identity is so intertwined with your career that losing it feels like losing yourself? Join me, Christine DeFilippis, as I recount the emotional rollercoaster I experienced after closing Pop Fit Studio. My journey to recovery was anything but smooth. This episode sheds light on the crucial role mental health plays in our lives and the similarities it shares with the intimidation factor many feel in fitness environments. We discuss the need for inclusive, welcoming fitness spaces, and how using compassionate language can make fitness accessible to everyone.
Better Help
SAMHSA
Become a fitness instructor
Welcome to Breaking Body Biases, a podcast about health and fitness that's not centered on your weight. I interview fitness professionals, dietitians and wellness practitioners that take a different approach. I'm Christine DeFilippis, your host, and I am a certified fitness professional, a studio owner and the creator of FitProEd. I've had my own history with eating disorders and very disordered behavior around my fitness, and I want to change the industry to make it much more inclusive and much more accessible to all, and it starts right here on the podcast. Join me every week as I interview amazing fitness professionals and dietitians and practitioners that are helping to destroy diet culture. Let's take this journey together. Welcome to episode 95 of the Breaking Body Biases podcast. This is Christine, your host, and I should actually say welcome back.
Speaker 1:It's been a little bit. I know that I came on a while back and shared an episode of why I closed PopFit Studio and I needed a little break. Quite honestly, one week turned into a month, turned into several months, and that's quite honestly what happens. When there's transitions in our lives. It can feel very overwhelming. Quite honestly, everything in my life was very overwhelming. I put out that episode and I was really not. I was thinking I was transparent, but I really was not as transparent or probably more clearly, I was not in touch with truly what I was going through and what I was feeling at the time and I made that episode, thought I was sharing everything, but it's been hard. It's been a hard time Lots of therapy, lots of tears, lots of work, lots of work that I had to process and go through and, honestly, I did not show up the last six months. So if you were someone that I owe an email to or I haven't returned a call, I apologize.
Speaker 1:I have not been in my best place and I had to really focus on myself, focus on my mental health, and my physical health was getting in the way. I was getting sick a lot and I had to figure out who I was. Quite honestly, without the studio, my identity became so intertwined with the studio what I felt about myself and my life and what I was doing and how I was showing up in the world. It got really dark when that went away and, although I had other things that I was pursuing, I had to really focus on getting myself out of that dark place with the studio and the feeling of failure and shame and just the feeling of my identity being wrapped up into that, and that happens. A lot Like that happens in our careers Like who am I if I, if you lose your job or if you retire or if you get laid off A lot of this would happen during the pandemic. A lot of this is just stuff that happens every day, that people go through these things, and it affects your mental health, it affects how you show up, it affects how you live your life and I had to take that time to do that. Your life, and I had to take that time to do that and in really full transparency and trigger warning, I did experience suicidal ideation. And the only other time that I experienced that was when I was postpartum.
Speaker 1:And again, I'm so grateful for my husband, who is such a great support and understanding and helped me get the resources that I needed in order to be able to be healthy again. So much praise for him because he is, he's my everything and we've had some challenges with Nico as a result and I don't think that these things are, you know, separate. I think he experienced what I was experiencing in a different way, like he felt that mommy was off, he felt that things weren't the same and even though kids bounce back like he misses the studio, he'll talk about it here and there when we drive by. He's like there's PopFit Studio and let's go to the new gym, because you know, I teach at other gyms now and he you just feel like he bounces back, okay, but at the same time I know that he could feel that something was off in all of us. So we've been dealing with him in a different way and that's all new and that was hard to deal with and I am in a much better place now.
Speaker 1:But again, I had to figure all this out and one thing I want to share is that therapy is so important. If you don't have a therapist, might I suggest you looking into BetterHelp. Betterhelp is a great resource. It's something that I've used in the past and continue to use that it's so welcoming and accessible and much like I talk about with fitness that a lot of times people get stuck in this place where they're nervous to go into a fitness or gym setting because they've either been traumatized in the past, they've had terrible experiences and there's just a lot of toxic fitness culture that if you are going into a fitness setting and you're already struggling with your body image and struggling with movement. It's not something that you do regularly. It can be very intimidating to go take that first step and go to a class or go to a gym intimidating to go take that first step and go to a class or go to a gym. And I work really hard and it's part of the point of this podcast and the work that I do at conferences and conventions and with my online work, with coaching and with my courses.
Speaker 1:My goal is to make fitness less intimidating and to make the settings like in gyms and in studios, to make those spaces more welcoming and to help trainers and instructors to be able to use different language in order to connect more to clients and to really make the experience so much more enjoyable than what many people have experienced in the past. Let's face it a very small percentage of people go to gyms and fitness studios because of intimidation. So, in the same way, I feel like mental health, there are some barriers that stop us from exploring treatments that could very much help us, and that is therapy, and a lot of people, there's shame and there's a stigma around it, so people don't seek out therapy, and I think that even when you're feeling great and you have everything going for you. Therapy is just going to help you. It is not something to be looked down on and, again, my whole point of sharing this is to help someone that may be in a place maybe not as dark as I was, or maybe even worse, and I want you to know that there's help out there and that there are a lot of resources, too, that are low cost, because another barrier is not just the intimidation Like you're, like I don't want to go to an in-person session. Someone may see me, it may take time and there's so many barriers in the way to this. And another barrier is cost, and BetterHelp is a great resource in that way, because they do offer assistance and there's also insurance. There's various different platforms that accept insurance as well. So I'm going to put some of these resources in the show notes and if this is something that you've been kind of on the fence about, I encourage you to explore it and just see if it's something that will help support you and your journey and just be happier and healthier, and just be happier and healthier Again.
Speaker 1:My health was not good, and my mental health, my emotional health but I'm in a much better place now. So I'm very grateful for the team of people that have really helped me get to a better place, that have really helped me get to a better place and in doing that I really realized now what a great decision closing the studio was. I hate to say that because I think in the back of my mind I kept thinking like, okay, maybe someday we'll reopen. And I don't think I never will say never, because you just never know what you want to just have an open mindset and be open to different opportunities and possibilities. But at this point I'm very happy with the decision that we've made now. I wasn't very happy for many months because I was just sad.
Speaker 1:Again, my identity was wrapped up in the studio and I wasn't sure who I was. Without the studio I also had quickly realized who were friends and who were clients. And that was hard because I think during the process of opening my studio and running it for several years, and even before I had the studio that I closed, I had subletted another space. So I had a couple years of that doing that. But at the end of the day I spent so much time in the studio working, teaching classes and just putting everything into it, like it was like another child for us. We opened the studio and then I was pregnant with Nico when we opened and everything was just put into Nico and the studio and sadly, I think I was putting a little bit more into the studio than into, you know, my relationship with Nico, because I thought like, oh, I just got to get this going and then I could pull back a little bit.
Speaker 1:And then when the pandemic hit, it's like oh, I've got to put everything into this because the only way we're going to survive this is with so much hustle and I am not about hustle culture, but I was in it, I was in the thick of it hustling, hustling, and it's really not a great. It's not a sustainable way to run a business or to live your life. So I'm very happy with the decision that we've made now. I'm very happy with the decision that we've made now. One thing that was really hard for us our decision is that we did put everything into the studio and it felt like a child and we wouldn't be putting Nico up for adoption if we started to struggle monetarily. But that's what made it hard with the studio, because the studio really felt like an extension of us, so releasing that was hard.
Speaker 1:And then also this idea of sunk cost fallacy and I learned about this a lot during this process and it's this phenomenon where people are reluctant to abandon a strategy or a course of action or, for us, a business, because you've invested so heavily in it and yeah, and it's even more clear that leaving whatever that you're doing your strategy, your course of action, your business, whatever it may be will be more beneficial. But you feel like you've already put so much into it that you don't want to stop, like. You just feel like that investment is worth more than your time now maybe. And if you've ever watched a movie and you get about 30 minutes into it and you're like this is terrible, this is awful, like should we stop? But you continue to watch it anyway because you've invested that time and you think, okay, it's going to get better, it's going to take a turn and it'll get better and it'll all be okay, and we're actually just wasting more time because we don't want to lose that initial investment. It's much like gambling as well.
Speaker 1:I used to love going to play roulette Not that I was a gambler, but I've been known to sit at a roulette table and I love the number nine and I will share this quick story. I used to put it on nine and if I didn't win like two or three times, money's gone, done, walk away, right? Well, I had this feeling like no, no, no. We were in Vegas with Pat and I said no, no, I just know just one more. You give me a little bit of your money, because we each gave ourselves $100 to spend gambling, right? So my money had run out and I had asked Pat and spend gambling, right? So I had my money had run out, and I had asked Pat and he's like we'll let it go, like I don't, I don't want you to lose more money because he, he knows his son costs policy, like it's the premise of why gamblers gamble all the time. Right, so we? He said no, we stood at the table, I don't know why, and it hit nine, not once but twice in a row right after that. But that's not usually what happens.
Speaker 1:When I think about when we were in the thick of it all and feeling like the weight of the pandemic was on us all those months even, quite honestly, like a year or so that we kept putting more and more money in and we just felt like we can't stop now. We've invested not only our initial investment but money during the pandemic, so we can't leave now. We have so much invested and that's actually just a fallacy, because we know that in the other situations where you have the gambler or the movie, like you know it's time to stop, like I felt like I was just constantly hustling and again it's just not sustainable. So that's where we were. And again it reminds me of this movie, the Money Pit, like when we were in this in the thick of it. It reminds me of the Shelley Long and Tom Hanks movie and I'm really dating myself here. But there was a movie, the Money Pit, and they found like their dream home and they just kept sinking more and more money and anytime the contractor was there they're like, oh yeah, two weeks, two weeks and I remember that from even opening the studio about how long construction turned into. But yeah, the Money Pit.
Speaker 1:I felt like I was living that with the pandemic and owning a fitness business. We had to get to a point for our own future, our own sanity, our own health with ourselves and even our relationships with other people and our own family. We had to stop. Enough was enough. But it was hard to make that decision. But we know it's right now and once we made the decision which quite honestly we should have made a lot sooner I had to then figure out who I was, who I was without the studio, who I was without having that space and having that work to do. And it took me a long time this whole six months basically to figure all that out and I still don't have it figured out.
Speaker 1:But it got me thinking a little bit more about identity and how often we're defined by our careers or our jobs and who are we without these things? And it also got me thinking a little bit about, especially as a woman, getting married, for example. We have all these like milestone celebrations and they usually line up with things that are not really milestones that everybody wants or has. Even I know we like celebrate graduations and that's a great celebration, it's an accomplishment, you work hard for something and like obviously people celebrate birthdays and other holidays, but we celebrate getting married and we celebrate having a baby, and those are things that aren't necessarily things that everyone can do or even wants to do, and it's very interesting and I remember being younger and not married, not even wanting a child.
Speaker 1:And that would be the question people would ask me like, in addition to, what do you do for a living, what do you do? It would be like, do you have a boyfriend? Like, like my identity is solely wrapped up into my career a boyfriend, spouse and children, and there's a lot more to life to that. And, honestly, if you choose those things, that's great, like that's wonderful, that's what you want, but that's not necessarily what everybody wants. And I feel like there's a lot of I, what everybody wants, and I feel like there's a lot of our identity that is attached to those things. And what happens if you know you get laid off from your job or you're not liking your career and you want to make a change? Or just say you don't want to have kids, or say you can't have, it's just hard. Or you know, if you lose a child. So there's so much to this picture, right? So I just want to know, like, what happens, like when your identity is so wrapped up in these things?
Speaker 1:And I've been through this process and I really think that seeking professional help is a great way to come to terms with, like who you are as a person and do like kind of personal development work, and even without a therapist, you can do this work on your own by journaling and obviously seeking deeper, like a deeper support and more help through a therapist if that's what you need. But if you're just feeling like I just need a little bit of support here, you know journaling is a great way to do that and listening to different podcasts like this podcast and just exploring more of that aspect of you rather than just like what society tells us Because this podcast is not just about our weight struggles I hope that I help people to break all kinds of biases and help people to just live their best lives and to be their best selves. So some of the things that I had to do was create an identity shift. I had to get really in touch with my emotional and mental health challenges and really get an idea of, like how it impacted my sense of self Because, again, my identity was so tied to that studio. So I had to rediscover who I was and figure out the things I enjoy doing, the things I don't enjoy doing.
Speaker 1:And do I want to get a job? Do I want to continue to be an entrepreneur and run my existing business. Do I want to sell that business? What do I want to do? Because the other thing is, when you're an entrepreneur, you have to be self-motivated. What do I want to do? Because the other thing is, when you're an entrepreneur, you have to be self motivated. You have to get up in the morning and just get get shit done. That's what you have to do, because no one is standing over you saying you've got to get this done. I mean, I guess someone is. The bank is because if you don't, if you're not paying your bills, you're just gonna be shut down.
Speaker 1:But I had to rediscover, like who I was, what I wanted to do, because things change too in your own life from 5, 10 years, 20 years, like what you think you may want in your life. That's why people have career changes. That's why people explore new jobs or pursue new avenues of education in order to get new jobs. I just had a friend that recently changed fields. She was highly educated in education, had her master's degree and then she went into nursing. So that took time, it took a lot of work and it created this huge shift in her life, a lot of new education that she had to get in order to get this new job, and now she's pursuing something else, and I think that a lot of times people stay stuck where they're unhappy and where they are unfulfilled and where they're not compensated properly, and then that becomes like their identity and where they're at, but they're miserable. So if you're feeling any struggles at all, I hope that you will seek professional help and again, there's no stigma around that. There's no negativity around seeking help. It is to help you become your best self.
Speaker 1:So, creating this identity shift and really discovering who you are, who I was, that's what I had to do and it's what I see many people do. I'm not the first to have done it. I won't be the last, hopefully and it led me to a place where I'm so much happier now. And it's wild for me to even remember where I was in the early part of this year and even thinking of I won't do it, listening to old like boxes that I've sent people like oh, I definitely was not in a great place, or just looking over my journals, I can see that. But this is so important to do this, have these shifts not just like when you're in these dark places, but when you're in the light, when you are feeling great, to continue to do the work every day.
Speaker 1:This is what I do with diet culture, because you better believe that when I was in these dark places with my mental health and my physical health got bad, like my body image suffered so greatly and it's all intertwined. And that's why I find it so important to dismantle the destructive behaviors and policies, if you will, that our diet culture that influence so many people, that get people stuck in situations, that make people feel bad about themselves because society's ideals, our health and beauty standards, are not attainable. What society tells us is just not attainable and even if you are able to attain it for a brief moment, it's not sustainable. So I do see this intersection of where our identity meets body image and where we struggle. When we have body image struggles, these kind of life decisions and challenges are so much harder, sometimes impossible to even make these decisions because we're already struggling with our body image right. So it's so important to do body image work and to come to a better relationship with your body so you can make the best decisions to make your life the life that it should be. I also feel like it aligns so much with our body image and our identity when it comes to even figuring out our authentic self and when we try to explore that and embrace who we are authentically and taking away society's standards society's, like I said, our health and beauty standards are not attainable or sustainable and same with a lot of our identity struggles, like with career and having a family or getting married.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of people that choose not to get married or have children and there's a lot of people that it just doesn't happen, whether by circumstance or by choice, like these are just different people making different life choices. And again, society tells us that you need a career, you need to have a family and you need to be successful. And this pursuit of accomplishing things or this pursuit of money, or this pursuit of youth or this pursuit of thinness all these things are all intertwined and I realized that when I was in the thick of all this stuff. And I realized that when I was in the thick of all this stuff. So I hope you will explore things outside of what society tells you to explore. I mean, you may line right up, you may decide like yes, I wanted a husband and or a wife and children, like that was my dream. I've always wanted to be a mom or a dad. That's great, like it lines up with society's standards, but you are also just doing what you want to do.
Speaker 1:So I hope that everyone that's listening will take this in and really see the parallels between identity and body image and really focus on being your authentic self and finding support systems that will help support you through that. Because if I wouldn't have had a good support system, I would have never been able to A make it through all the struggles Because, again, I was in a very dark place and having that support system having a spouse that understood and supported me and didn't judge me or feel shame around things he was so supportive, having therapists that are so supportive and helping me do the work to get forward and family and friends because this community that I created at the studio was so important to me that I had to make sure that I still have community, and that's one of the biggest things that I'm pushing now in the future, like in everything that I do right now in my work, it is to build community, to support people in this space. So, whether you're a fitness instructor and want to be supported because you want either some new ideas for your classes or you want to be supported in a way that's like authentic and feels good, that you're not traumatizing people in fitness spaces, that you're really having a greater impact for people, having that support as a fitness instructor. That's what I do for FitProEd. Fitness instructor, that's what I do for FitProEd and supporting just anyone that just wants to have a better relationship with their body and to feel their authentic self and to live largely big. Live your big, best life without feeling like you have to shrink yourself, figuratively or literally, that you are shrinking yourself. We don't have to do those things. You can live your best life on your own terms and disregard society's standards and ideals and do the things that bring you joy, do the things that fill you up and how you can add more of that into your life. That's what I want to do.
Speaker 1:I am doing the work with FitProEd, so expect a lot more resources if you're a fitness instructor, and I'll be launching our new online site. I know I said I was going to do that in January, but I was not showing up, like I said, so a little explanation there. So new workouts will be online shortly. I'm excited to be offering more dance and bar and trampoline workouts online, and those are the modalities that I train people in how to teach. So if you're thinking about becoming a fitness instructor or you're wanting to learn a new modality, I'm excited for all that. I have coming up for you because I have a lot of really cool workshops and in just a few weeks I'm going to be in LA talking about breaking body biases. So I'm super excited to be able to talk to fitness instructors and hopefully help more instructors to take this weight neutral approach and to understand how their own body image affects how they teach a class. And if you're a fitness professional and you're going to be at IDEA, I hope I'll see you at my session or at least meet you at some point over my time at IDEA. I'm also going to be over at Podcast Movement in DC in August. So if you live in the DC area or if you're going, especially if you're going to Podcast Movement I am still looking for a roommate. If you're female and going to Podcast Movement, let me know. Tickets are still available and it's going to be a great event.
Speaker 1:I look forward to really working on this show and making this podcast as best as it can be. I really want just to deliver content that will be received well and that will be valuable to people and that will support those that are listening. So that's my goal for that and, like I said, just local classes in the area. If you live in the Philadelphia area, you can check out christinedefilippiscom and, if it is a hard name to spell, check out the show notes. I have all the links there. If you're looking to join me for an in-person class or an online class, if you're looking for resources to be an instructor, I've got all that for you.
Speaker 1:And one more announcement for you, a little tease for next week. I have an announcement for our sixth annual Smile Train event Wedding for Smiles. It'll be in September and I'll have an announcement about the date and the location, which will be in Havertown next week for you. So tune in next week. And if you have any ideas for guests, I have a few guests already lined up ready for new episodes coming at you. I'll be back next week. I promise not to take another six month hiatus, so I'll be back next week with a new episode. If you know of someone that would make a great guest, please have them.
Speaker 1:Go to breakingBodyBiasescom, and we can't wait to feature more and more people doing this work and sharing more episodes with you, more resources and just so that you can live your best life. So have a great one. Have a great holiday week if you're in the US. We're approaching July 4th, so I want you to enjoy the holiday without any shame or guilt or judgment or restriction. I want you to enjoy time, get in the picture. I want you to eat foods that nourish you and make you feel happy and joyful, and get some movement in. I know it'll be a hot one where I'm living, so I'm going to be doing some workouts inside, but maybe get some fresh air, go for a walk today. I can't wait to see you next week.