Reclaiming Self-Worth Through Unconventional Holistic Mental Wellness Practices

What if embracing your true self could unlock the doors to grounded confidence, resilience, and a profound sense of purpose?

Join me in today's episode as we explore the deep interconnections between authenticity, body image, and achieving life's goals. You'll discover how my journey through trauma and conditioning inspired the creation of my new self-portrait and creative writing exploration.

My Limitless: Radical Authenticity program empowers you to break free from limiting beliefs and embrace your authentic self through the transformative impact of self-portraits and creative writing. Not to mention, you'll uplevel your ability to look amazing and feel confident AF in photos!

Dig into the episode to rediscover your authenticity and wholeness through creative, holistic mental wellness practices.

✨ Join Limitless: Radical Authenticity (3 Month Self-Portrait & Writing Collective)

How to Work Together

• Free Training! 🔥 Ignite Your Holistic Mental Wellness Transformation
• Join Calibrate 🧬 Become Your Own Medicine by Harnessing the Power of Your DNA & Daily Choices for Optimal Health & Mental Wellness (50% off on pre-sale now!!)
• ✨ Book Your Mental Wellness Breakthrough session! This is for courageous folks who are ready to ditch the physical and mental health symptoms, take their life back, and embody their most flavorful, fulfilled life. (New Client Session)

Links & Resources

• Join the Community & Dive Deeper on the Unforked Newsletter (This is where you sign up to receive my potent AF affirmations & more!)
• More Resources & Holistic Wellness Services
• Full Episode Shownotes & Transcripts

Thank you to YOU, the listener, for being here on this journey together.


With a full heart (but always room for a slice of pizza),

Haley Schroth, RDN, LD, CPT, RYT, CMWC | Founder & Integrative Mental Wellness Coach

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Howdy friend, welcome to Unforged, an unfiltered holistic nutrition and mental wellness podcast for evolving folks that crave a delicious life of fulfillment. Haley, here I am, your host, a trauma-informed functional medicine dietitian, holistic mental wellness coach and the founder of the Fulfilled Fork. On this show we dish up insights and activations while learning about sustainable mind, body, soul lifestyle practices. It's sweet, it's savory and it'll spice up your life. To stay connected, make sure you sign up for our unforked email list at thefulfilledforkcom. Forward slash links. Let's dig into the episode. Thefulfilledforkcom. Forward slash links. Let's dig into the episode. Howdy friend, and welcome back to the Unforked podcast. I am so grateful to have you here. If you are new here, I am equally as stoked for you to be in the Unforked community in the tribe. Now I want to take a second and send out a special thank you to all of you who have left me a little rating or review. That is incredibly helpful and it lets other people know that this podcast is cool. It's cool and it's really helpful, and we're on a mission here to help spread mental wellness, holistic mental wellness and functional nutrition practices across the Rocky Mountains and beyond. We are here on a mission to spread awareness and to spread the guidance that people need to step into their next level of fulfillment. So I thank you for being here and, as that thank you goes, if you would like to get a little special gift, if you would like a special gift from me and you are interested in coaching, holistic mental wellness, coaching with me and nutrition, then you will definitely want to jump on this gift. If you rate and review the show on either Apple or Spotify I know Spotify doesn't let you leave like actual testimonial, but if this is you on Spotify, feel free, in an email, send me a little review. I would love to just have some of your words and, yeah, help other people see that the show is badass and full of insights and activations and guidance. If you write and review the show, either on Apple Podcasts, so you can do both the rating and the review on Apple Podcasts, or if you're on Spotify, rate the show on the little stars and then send me a review via email I will send you back a code to use towards one of my programs my private coaching, whatever it is that would be most supportive to you you are allowed to use that gift. So little discount code for you. I am so excited gift. So little discount code for you. I am so excited. I would love for you to be able to use it as a thank you just for being here and for being a part of this community. So send me an email with that screenshot of your rating and review. Over to Haley H-A-L-E-Y at thefulfilledfork Wonderful.

Speaker 1: 3:22

Today's main course is a chat all about authenticity, body image, how that translates over into actually achieving our goals or not, because, believe it or not, how you feel in your body and in your experience as a human does translate into what you do or do not achieve as far as goals go, manifestations, all the things. So, yes, self-portraits in creative writing are tools for holistic mental wellness. They're incredible tools for holistic mental wellness, and so that's what this episode is about today. We are diving into those topics. You're also going to hear a little bit more about my story. So my journey, specifically in terms of body image like feeling shame, procrastination. Like feeling shame, procrastination. A little bit about acne, and like my journey with not allowing people to take my photo after traumatic events happened Not diving into the trauma, so no warnings there, but we will be discussing how trauma impacts body image and how the work that I am doing with folks in Limitless Radical Authenticity through self-portraits and creative writing can have a massive impact on how you feel in your mind, in your body, in your soul, and help you feel powerful, feel amazing or just feel good, depending on where you're at in your journey right now. But no matter what, this work helps you feel more at home in yourself. So that's what we will be chatting about today More on the creativity side of mental wellness versus what I had planned on talking about today, which was far left field in the nutrition and sustainable results in the nutrition world.

Speaker 1: 5:41

That's what we were going to talk about today. So, anyhow, I hope you enjoy today's conversation. I really loved it. I think you are going to love it as well and I hope you find some of those nuggets of gold in there, because they're there, my friend, wonderful. Let's dive in to the main course of today's episode. I want to spend just a little bit of time and talk about what the hell even is authenticity and why it matters. So authenticity is, in my opinion and my personal and professional experience, a crucial foundation of mental and physical wellness.

Speaker 1: 6:26

Why Authenticity? When you feel aligned with your authenticity, it leads to greater self-esteem, greater resilience and ability to cope with life, because life is life sometimes right with life, because life is life sometimes right. It helps foster a sense of purpose in your life and when you're authentic you're more aligned. And what does that mean? You know we talk about goals and like manifestation and stuff around here all the time. That is one of, like, my specialties is helping people reach their goals in health specifically, is what we do here at the Fulfilled Fork, but also it trickles out to all areas of life, because you just become a more solid human when you are more authentic.

Speaker 1: 7:14

When you are more authentic, then you are more aligned because you have the boundaries. You can stand up for yourself. You can share your thoughts, your vision, your views, your opinions. You can be you. You can express yourself. Thoughts, your vision, your views, your opinions. You can be you. You can express yourself in the ways that feel authentic to you. So on the flip side, a lack of authenticity you might have feelings of shame, of guilt, of negative self-esteem If there's a little bit of a lack of authenticity in your life. So we've established that authenticity is having a congruence with your innermost values, your innermost beliefs, your vision and your personality, because your personality is definitely important too. We're all very unique, and with that I want to say that authenticity is fluid throughout your lifetime. It is so fluid it will change throughout the different seasons of your life. Like what was authentic to me even last year is different than what's authentic to me now, because I've just become more of who I am, more comfortable in my skin, more comfortable being me.

Speaker 1: 8:26

So I want to ask you a couple of reflection questions. Are you feeling unsafe or stuck in your ability to show up as your authentic self in public? This could be at work, in your home life, with your friends, in just like in public in general, like dressing the way you want, etc. And this can also be in your business. So are you feeling unsafe or stuck in your ability to show up as yourself in those areas? The next reflection question is to notice if you are craving growth in this area. Are you craving a space, a container that will not only help to give you that undeniable permission to be yourself, but also, in that, to take care of yourself first and nourish your soul? Are you craving a space to foster that, a safe space to foster that? And my last reflection question for you is do you have a desire to become more photogenic and actually feel like yourself in photos, whether you are taking them or not, whether it's you, whether it's somebody else?

Speaker 1: 9:44

Most people when they have photos taken of them, when they take photos of themselves, they don't feel like it's them as a photographer. This is a very, very, very common thing I see with people. I was talking to someone this last weekend and she was reflecting back that there are certain photos that a specific photographer took of her that actually felt like her and she had never felt that in her life Never. And so that is really, really an important piece, in my opinion, is being comfortable to have photos taken of yourself. Like, do you want to document your family trips? Do you want to just be comfortable when you're out in a group and they're like, hey, let's take a photo and yeah, like creating these memories?

Speaker 1: 10:33

I have noticed for myself that through self-portraits, I've been able to be more comfortable in my own skin, be more comfortable in front of the camera, because the camera is it's a vulnerable place. It's a vulnerable place. Okay, I know you know this, I know you've experienced this, and so when we're thinking about that, I just can't express enough how incredible it feels when you actually feel like the person in the photo is. You Like it feels great, it feels like you're being seen, it feels like you're being valued, whether, again, it's somebody else that took the photo or yourself. So I know many, many people have this story that they tell themselves, like, oh my gosh, I am not photogenic and it doesn't have to continue being true. And so what I've also found through self-portraits is that when I allow myself to even be seen by myself in the self-portrait, it for me as a very self-reflective, observant person, I'll a self-portrait exercise where it was online and we were to take a photo of somebody else, like take photos of somebody else and that like a virtual photo shoot.

Speaker 1: 12:14

As a photographer, I had no fucking problem taking photos of somebody else. None, zero, and I loved it. I was having so much fun and when it came my turn, we switched and so she was supposed to take photos of me and it went okay, but oh my gosh, I like clammed up, I just did not feel open and like I could fully express myself. There were so many stories that like came raging in my head and these stories that came up in this experience for me were stories that kept me from relaxing. It kept me from truly feeling like myself in these photos and not to say that that's wrong, but it was something that I observed and then I got curious about it. Afterwards I was like, huh, why am I not feeling comfortable when being photographed by literally almost any other person? But when the photo or the camera comes out, the walls go up and I learned so much from it.

Speaker 1: 13:24

So photographs whether it's being photographed by somebody else or like a safe person, right, or it's being photographed by you through a self-portrait there's an opportunity for, and an invitation for, self-reflection. And this self-reflection is wonderful because when the camera comes out, all of a sudden, yeah, all those stories start coming out. And then what happens? We can either get stuck in those stories and have shit photos or like photos that don't feel like us, that we then don't want to go use, or we can get comfortable in front of the camera expressing ourselves, feel really great about ourselves, how we look, our, our um, like our, our body language in the, in the photos, because, man, it can just be so hard when you see a photo of yourself and then you just start picking yourself apart. That is something that I see. So many people do. Whether you have great body image or not, it is still something I've seen.

Speaker 1: 14:29

So that self-reflection opportunity comes because of all these stories and shadows and just old ways of relating to ourselves. They come out, they are now being shown to us so that we can notice them, get curious about them and, if we choose to, to move through them. And on the other side of moving through those stories, those beliefs, those shadows, on the other side is a feeling of lightness, it's a feeling of being free, it's a feeling of being yourself, cultivating better self-esteem, better self-image, better confidence in your own body. Like, our bodies are our homes, and if you are not comfortable in your home, what kind of life is that? What kind of life is that? I want you to be more comfortable in your body so that you can go out and live your most fulfilled life.

Speaker 1: 15:35

Like I know, we're here on the Unforked podcast as a part of the Fulfilled Fork, but this is just such an important piece of the work that I do with people is being a photographer, and so I want to be able to help more people do that through self-portraits, because I've seen the healing power. I've seen the impact and influence that doing self-portraits can have on oneself and the creative writing and the collective group aspect of that. There is just so much power in being seen by others, being valued by others and being able to move through those old stories with support. That is the biggest thing. And so that's where the group piece comes in. That collective aspect comes in, and also the creative writing, because how do we move through stuck feelings, stuck emotions, stuck stories? How do we move through that? We move through that with the creative writing. So, whether that's journaling prompts, whether it's like creative story writing, whether it's journaling about dreams, oh my gosh, there's so much opportunity to be able to heal and to let go of what no longer serves your vision, your values and your most authentic, fulfilled life.

Speaker 1: 17:06

So, in Limitless, radical Authenticity, with this self-portrait and creative writing exploration, I want you to be able to practice feeling confident as fuck and safe enough to be yourself and embody your life's purpose through self-portraits and creative writing. And the sharing is optional. I say that it's a group like there is no forcing of anything of any kind for somebody to share anything. Like you don't have to share your self-portraits, you don't have to. You can be as active and as open with sharing as you would like to, or you can be more turned inwards and just experience it for yourself, and then, if someday you're ready to share, great. But if not, that's okay too. That's totally great, nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 1: 17:55

And so, inside of the container, we will also, of course, through that self-photography or self-portrait photography piece, I will be providing you with some education, including prompts like prompts for self-portraits, lighting, posing, editing, all of the technicalities that can just help advance your skills. Because who doesn't want to take better photos? I don't know a lot of people who doesn't want to take better photos. I don't know a lot of people that don't want to take better photos. To be honest, people say that to me all the time, and so, with that also, I mentioned those journaling prompts that we will use to deepen your self-awareness and self-trust and, of course, help you move past those old beliefs, stories, conditioning, etc.

Speaker 1: 18:48

Wrapping all of that up, I just want to say that this is not your average self-portrait and creative writing course. It is not. It is not. It is going to be so potent, so powerful. You are going to come out of it feeling like a completely different person. I know this because self-portraits and this journaling, the creative writing, have changed my fucking life, and that's to put it lightly. That is to put it lightly and it has allowed me to step into my authenticity, which is ever evolving, and my personal power so that I can show up in my life to be my most authentic self, to live my most fulfilled life. So that is the Limitless Radical Authenticity Program. We are starting the collective journey in July. The group will open up in June, but we are having our first call in July. So also, you don't have to be there, live by any means. You can watch replays etc. Like you. Yeah, you use the container however you would like to use it. There is no expectation of how you use it.

Speaker 1: 20:08

I want to dive a little bit deeper into why am I even facilitating this? So you know that I'm a business owner, obviously, and so I know firsthand how important it is to feel safe enough to be seen by other people and share my work and embody my mission in life purpose With that. Before I was a business owner, it was also very important for me to be able to be seen, be heard, be a leader in my position as a clinical dietician and manager at this hospital, because I'm on the leadership team, I'm having to communicate with other people on a regular basis, whether it was with patients or whether it was with co-workers. It's very important for us to be able to feel confident in our bodies, feel comfortable and be able to have that ability to be authentic in any situation in our life. So it's important whether you are a business owner or not, but I do want to say that as a business owner, it is especially important because you have a higher level of needing to put yourself out there. It's a new level. So when you are able to use self-portraits, you can use them for your promotion materials, whether it's your website, whether it's your social media.

Speaker 1: 21:50

Having that cohesive, powerful brand image is so crucial if you want to attract the people, the dream people, into your work and feel super fucking confident when you're spreading the awareness and selling to the people. When you're marketing and selling to the folks that are out there already wanting your services and your products. People are out there waiting for it and you are not bringing it to them because you are not able to show up as yourself. You are not able to show up in your authentic self. Or maybe you're just desiring to get to that next level. Like, maybe you feel comfortable but you, like, you want to feel super solid, you want to feel really comfortable. You aren't just settling for being okay at something, you want to get really good at it. That's amazing too. Like we're here for going from good to great at something. Mastery, that's amazing. I love that.

Speaker 1: 22:49

So, outside of business, outside of work, I have found, as I said before, really deep healing, expansion and release of the honestly trauma patterns. Like this work has helped me transform my life, not just because I'm doing like self-reflection and those sort of things. I have used it for trauma and like moving through some really traumatic shit in my life, and so I don't put it lightly, I don't say it lightly that this has changed my life. The creative writing has changed my life. The self-portraits have changed my fucking life. Like I'm getting teary right now thinking about this because it is just so profound what this work has done for me.

Speaker 1: 23:46

And, yeah, I just can't say enough how important it is to feel comfortable in your body and not just comfortable. Like comfortable is the first step, but after feeling comfortable, where do we want to go from there. Well, I want to feel powerful as fuck, like. I want to feel like I can really be authentic to myself, I can hold my own boundaries, I can do this and do that. So this is a container set up for you to do that, for you to either start getting comfortable in your body or for you to take it to that next level and help you feel badass, help you feel like a beautiful human, help you move past those stories, the conditioning, in my case also trauma, but this is not like a deep trauma container. If you are needing support with certain traumatic experiences, I would recommend to have a therapist or a counselor alongside of the work that we do in this container. That would be my recommendation and that is how I moved through a lot of this myself back in the day. That's how, when I first started out and I was going through releasing a lot of traumatic experience like sexual trauma, relationship trauma when I was in the thick of it, I had a counselor there to help me. So you use your discernment whether you need to have that extra support or not. When we're not even looking at like the deep traumas, it still helps with showing up as yourself. This work helps with showing up as yourself.

Speaker 1: 25:40

So for me personally, the self-portraits in writing helped me move past the very scared to be seen, procrastinating, self-critical, perfectionist version of me. It helped me insanely move past those stories, those beliefs, like just the identity that I had. And this work allowed me to get curious about those things that I was seeing and noticing and therefore, once I see it, once I had the awareness, I was able to move past it. I was able to break free from those patterns and beliefs that didn't work for me anymore, like I didn't want that to be a part of my identity anymore, as a girl who would never let anyone take her photo because she was so ashamed of herself. Like that was me for a long fucking time, years, like almost all the way through college and past that for a couple years even. And then I slowly started taking photos of myself, allowing other people to take photos of me, and it just went from there and I joined. Years later I joined a group, self-portrait group and I did some challenges and those things inspired me because I was doing it already.

Speaker 1: 27:05

But those two experiences that I had in a self-portrait group took it to a new level. It just took it to a new level to be practicing in community, to be held accountable, to doing this work, to feeling comfortable in my body, to feeling powerful in my body, to feeling like me in my body, to feeling like me. And so that, my friend, is why I even had the idea, even had the thought, to facilitate this badass, super fucking cool journey, this self-portrait and collective writing container. That is exactly why I wanted to do it, and I will tell you, I feel like a completely different person. I am a completely different person.

Speaker 1: 27:58

I know personally how these results have taken me again from that really self-critical the person who was so ashamed of herself and her body, like because of the traumas, because of, um, I used to have really bad acne and I just didn't, like, I didn't want to be taken. Have photos taken of me? Hell, no, that was a no. I didn't want anybody to even look at my face. So I had to move past all those stories, and so that is one way that I went in that journey. And the second way again was then I got comfortable being in my body, but I wanted to take it to the next level. I wanted to go from okay, well, I'm good at it. Like I feel good at taking self-portraits. I feel good about generally how I feel in photos. Like I generally feel good. Now I'm like allowing people to take my photo, whatever Two. Then, like I feel fucking confident. Somebody wants to take my photo. You watch me, you watch me.

Speaker 1: 29:12

I did this event earlier this year it was in February and it was a mini portrait session and there was a large group of girls. We were all there to get our photos taken and there was hair or there was makeup, all the things, and there was hair or there was makeup, all the things. And I hadn't been in a room where other people were watching me while I was having photos done. In a really long time Like I used to do a little bit of modeling and stuff when I was younger and it's been a really long time since I did that. It's been a really long time and, like I said, all of the traumatic shit happened between then. So my confidence just went out the fucking window for many years, many years.

Speaker 1: 29:58

And so when I did this portrait in this group of women, my friends were in there and they were just like reflecting back to me oh my God, haley, you're so good at this, like these poses. Oh, my God, you were amazing. And I was like holy shit, okay, this is how far I've come. I'm like wow, wow, this is absolutely incredible. Even last year I would not have been as comfortable, and so the work that I had been doing absolutely changed the experience I'm having in my body and the fact that I can be in front of people once again and feel more confident than I ever had. Like I was already good at being in front of the camera, like I could do it, but for then to people, for people to be reflecting that back to me and like they were taking videos of me, all of it I was like fuck, yeah, this feels good. Fuck, yes, awesome, and yeah, it just super cool, super cool, and like there's always a. As a photographer, there's always a. It's interesting as you're being photographed by somebody else. It's just a whole different experience on the other side of the camera, and so for the photographer also to be reflecting that back to me was super incredible. So, again, you can go from being good at it to being great at it. You can go from feeling okay in your in your body to feeling great in it. That is another piece of what we do through the self-portrait journey Today.

Speaker 1: 31:36

I was not planning on this conversation revolving only around self-portraits and creativity in writing and photography and feeling comfortable in our bodies. That was not where I was going with this. I was just going to talk about it for a little tiny bit at the beginning of this episode, but it really took over in the best way. I immediately knew that I needed to just expand on this conversation. I knew that I had to keep going with it. I knew that I had to tell you more about my story and why the hell I'm even, why I even have this self-portrait and creative writing journey.

Speaker 1: 32:18

Because it abso-fucking-lutely does have something to do with body image and it abso-fucking-lutely does have something to do with how you show up in your life, whether, again, it's work, it's business, it's with family, it's with friends, wherever Like. I want you to be able to show up as your authentic self. I know that you, if you are here, you are somebody that wants to be showing up as your authentic self, and I know that you want to continue fostering that sense of authenticity and removing those layers that just don't fucking fit with your self-image, with the identity that you want to have. Like we have to upgrade our identity. We have to If we're looking at these goals and if we want to grow in our lives. There's an element of upgrading identity. There really is, and so I don't take it lightly that this work can change somebody's fucking life. I would be absolutely honored for you to join me in this exploration of yourself in a container of people that are equally as amazing as you, who are on this same journey to feeling more authentic in their bodies, to also living their most fulfilled life.

Speaker 1: 33:51

And one last thing is I want to say that, again, this work translates. This work translates into not only your work life, your home life. All of that It'll transfer into your ability and your confidence in setting goals and intentions and actually moving towards them and actually achieving them. If you're trying to change your nutrition, your diet, you have to change your identity. There is an identity shift that happens for you to go from being the person who does it this way to then being the person who does it that way. If you are somebody who is working on building more muscle and feeling more confident in your physical body and you want to partially do that through exercise and movement, then this work will absolutely translate.

Speaker 1: 34:57

This work through the self-portraits, through the creative writing, absolutely translates over into your ability to confidently show up as the person who, let's say, to confidently show up as the person who, let's say, is a mountain biker, is a backpacker, is a hiker, is a runner. And maybe if you already are a hiker, a backpacker, a runner, maybe you want to get better at it, and so this work is a mirror for the work that you do in any other aspect of your life, any other aspect. So again, I would absolutely love to have you in this collective exploration. It's collective self-portrait and creative writing exploration Limitless Radical Authenticity. Self-portrait and creative writing exploration Limitless Radical Authenticity.

Speaker 1: 35:53

Visit the link in the show notes to sign up. If you have any questions, please drop them, email me, let me know what your questions are. Also a link in the show notes for that. I'm happy to answer any questions around the program, if it's right for you.

Speaker 1: 36:06

If it's not right for you and also if you are somebody who maybe is not ready to join yourself or you yourself are not interested, I would still be absolutely thrilled if you would share this message, spread the word about this program. I know it will be absolutely incredible, and for it to be incredible there has to be an amazing group of folks in it. And so if you are, if you have any friends, if you have any family, if you're a business owner and you want to spread the word through your email or your social media, whatever it is let me know. I would absolutely be happy to send you the link, like you can copy, just copy the link and send it to somebody, whatever it is. Let me know, I would absolutely be happy to send you the link. You can just copy the link and send it to somebody, whatever it is. You just share it away. I would absolutely love and appreciate that from you. You're amazing, my friend.

Speaker 1: 37:03

Thank you for listening. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I hope you have a phenomenal day, as always, and I really hope you enjoyed today's episode. I really hope you enjoyed today's episode. It was something a little different, but it was a very important conversation about being comfortable in our bodies, being our authentic selves and therefore living our most fulfilled lives. See you next time, friend. Thank you for listening to Unforged. You can find all resources and links from this episode in the show notes at thefulfilledforkcom forward slash podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, we'd love if you'd send it to a friend and rate and review the show on either Apple podcasts or Spotify. Then email us a screenshot of your review to howdy at the fulfilled forkcom for a one-time credit to use towards our wellness services at the fulfilled fork chat soon.