Collective Grief, Embracing Emotions & Building Body Confidence

In this episode, I talk about the collective grief the Jewish people have been experiencing since October 7—and more recently, with the heartbreaking news of the Bibas family. We're often told that being strong means pushing past our emotions. I explore how and why deep healing actually comes from allowing ourselves to feel. 

I also dive into how this shows up in body image: being told to “just be grateful” when it doesn’t get to the root of the struggle and magically make you love your reflection. You’ll walk away with a fresh perspective and a new approach to feeling your emotions, seeing your body in a different way, and building lasting confidence.

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Transcript

Rebecca Sigala: 0:00

Hello, beautiful souls. Welcome back to the Body Image Revolution. If you are Jewish or you live in Israel like me. The last few weeks have been rough. I don't have to tell you this. They have just been so incredibly painful. And of course, the last year and a half or however long it's been since October 7th, I feel like I lost count at this point. We've been experiencing so much grief and loss and sadness, and it's been very heavy, especially recently learning about what happened to the beautiful Bibas family, Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir, those beautiful, innocent, pure, redheaded babies. And at the same time, we learned about Oded Lifshitz and his fate, and it was such a deep heartbreak on such a deep level that we all felt, and we are continuing to feel. Today as I'm recording, this is the day of their funeral, and I'm seeing footage of people all over the country coming together to support each other and support the Bibas family. And it's tragic and so sad. And there's also something very powerful and beautiful about the fact that we are so connected to each other as a Jewish nation. If you're not Jewish, this episode is definitely still for you. I'm going to get to how this all ties into body confidence and the way that we see ourselves. It all ties in. Everything is always so connected. I love that about my work. What I'm gonna be specifically talking about is how feeling these challenging emotions, pain, grief, sadness, whatever it might be. Can actually be the key to your freedom and shifting the way that you see yourself when you look in the mirror. But I did wanna bring this up because as someone who is super into self-development and listening to a bunch of different podcasts, I noticed something as I was listening. I noticed that when they start to give examples of hard times that they're going through. And they're, giving us tools and ideas of how to move through them. It can feel so distant, like, I just don't a hundred percent relate Because it's not reflecting the reality that I have been experiencing for the past year and a half that the Jewish Nation has been experiencing. And it's not that their struggles aren't real or even very challenging sometimes, but there's just so many layers of pain, so much generational trauma that we're experiencing right now as Jewish people. And it feels very unique to us. It often feels like the rest of the world doesn't get it, and I'm sure some people do. We have amazing allies and there are wonderful, empathetic, good moral people all around the world who are not Jewish I know that they're there, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it, especially when you log onto social media and there's just so many hateful and apathetic comments and being in the body positive community and seeing how there's rarely any support for Israel or the Jewish people there. It is just very hard, and I know that. It might not serve us to always think that the world is just against us, and it's not the ultimate truth, but that's how it's feeling right now, and I'm allowing myself to feel that. I was listening to this business podcast. and she was talking about how she was so surprised that there's just so many women who have businesses and just wanna give up because of the political state of the world right now. And kind of saying it in a way, like, How could you just wanna give up right now because of political stuff? And on one hand I understand what she's saying because of her experience and how she sees the world and maybe being in America being frustrated about the state of, the government or whatever it might be, but. For Jews, for Israelis, it's our everyday reality. It's woven into the fabric of who we are and it feels like a threat against who we are at times. And it's not just this idea or this concept, it actually impacts our day-to-day lives like. Living here in Israel, we hear something on the news. Does that mean that we're gonna hear sirens that day and need to run to our bomb shelters? Our partners gonna be called to the reserves. How is the general public gonna be feeling about things? Is it okay to post this on social media right now? Can I market my business? that's been really a difficult thing for me to navigate as well. It's something that affects us in such a real and visceral way. And of course, the recent news of our hostages being tortured and murdered in captivity just hits home in a way that I don't think most people in the rest of the world can understand. That could have been us. That would've been us if we were visiting the South that Shabbat that day of October 7th. We are so connected to each other, and it's not just through our hearts or through our souls. We're usually just a person or two away from knowing every single person in this country. And that's not to say that these podcasts aren't helpful. They are. I still listen to them. I love them. There's still so many tools that I use and share with my clients as well. But there is something very powerful and validating about listening to or working with someone who truly gets it and gets you. And I don't often talk about these details about my Jewish identity and. My Israeli identity on this podcast, but maybe I should start to, because I really want you to know that you're not alone and I see you. This is a time to come together, so I also want you to know that there's strength in reaching out for support from other people. Don't be afraid to reach out to a friend or a family member or even email me. I'd love to see you in my inbox. Obviously choose somebody that does have the capacity to support you in the way that you need, but this is what this time is for. Leaning on each other and building each other up and getting stronger through all of this. Part of the getting stronger part is actually allowing ourselves to go through the shit and not avoid it. So that's another reason why I brought all of this up today because it has a lot to do with this topic at hand. This all came up in the community of my mastermind, The New Sexy, if you're new to the podcast, the New Sexy is my 12 week virtual mastermind to help women love their reflection and feel sexy af without having to change their bodies in order to feel that way. we're in the fourth round of The New Sexy, and we were talking in the WhatsApp community and I actually brought up some journal prompts and ideas for the members to move through this grief and connect to our bodies at this particular time. And one of my clients said, I'm just trying to be grateful and keep going because that's what I have to do. And when she said that, it reminded me of what we've always been told about our bodies, when we're struggling with our body image or we don't like what we see. We're always told, oh, come on. Don't think about that. Just be grateful. Be grateful for what your body can do. Look, your body birthed these beautiful babies. You can breathe, you're alive. Make a gratitude list. Stop thinking about all the things that you don't like about your body. Just be grateful. Ah, it's so frustrating. This idea that we should just avoid all of these challenging emotions that are coming up to push them away in order to get what we need to get done or be positive and just keep going. I think it's really an example of how society sees strength or quote unquote strong people. Like, wow, that person went through so much and look what they're doing. Look how successful they are. Look how happy they are. They didn't even cry. Look, they're so strong. When really all of this is a facade of trying to be strong, but really being afraid of our emotions and not willing to go there. And honestly, I get it. I've been there because that's what we've been told works, and it's not comfortable to face those emotions, but facing those emotions is actually what gives us the strength and freedom that we're looking for. It also gives us confidence because we know ourselves better and instead of letting things just like bubble under the surface, all of those emotions and Subconsciously letting those things control our lives. When we allow ourselves to feel all those feelings, then we more easily move through them. And when we do that compassionately and with love, we can actually process them. I know that emotions can be intimidating, but we are so capable of feeling them. You are so capable of feeling them. You're not gonna die from feeling your emotions. It's not going to make things worse. It's the opposite. Facing ourselves with that love and with that compassion, it's exactly how we heal, and we're not doing that to just fix things or get rid of something. Lately, I've been thinking about this a lot. I've been thinking about how healing is so much like, so much of healing is about acceptance and peace for where we're at or for whatever's happening. It's not about getting rid of it or just like fixing something. It's that peace because so much of our suffering is pushing up against the reality and not wanting to be where we are, not wanting the circumstances or the emotions that we're feeling in our lives. But we can allow things to just be. And when we do that, there's a healing and a peace that comes to us. And that's exactly what allows us to actually then move through it and see ourselves differently and continue evolving to that next place. So going back to body image, when somebody looks in the mirror. And they don't like what they see and they're told, just be grateful. It does not work. Right? Like think about it for a second. I'm sure if you tried it before, you know exactly what I'm talking about. it might feel nice for a moment to think about the gratitude and all the things your body can do, blah, blah, blah, but it doesn't. Face the feelings you're having about what you're seeing in the mirror. So then you just keep brushing it under the rug and telling yourself that you're okay. You're pretty confident you resign to this like blah level of acceptance. it just is what it is, right? Or you convince yourself that appearance doesn't matter and you tell yourself not to focus on all of that, but doing those things, none of that actually makes you love what you see when you look in the mirror, and that's why the work I do and the approach that I have is revolutionary because what I help women understand is that it is actually important to love what you see when you look in the mirror, how you feel about the way you look. Does matter. Of course, it does not matter how other people feel about the way you look, but you, of course, that matters. It deeply matters. So we have to identify and face these emotions to like even know what we're dealing with, and that's the first step of my method with my clients is to meet yourself where you're at. It's half the fucking battle. Just doing that opens up so much and helps you start to shift things because you know exactly what you're facing. Think about it. Let's say, let's give you an example. Okay? Let's say you look in the mirror and you despise your stretch marks. You think they're ugly or disgusting, or whatever your thoughts might be about it. It would be so easy to just brush that under the rug, put some clothes on and not think about it, or you could face them. You can understand them and yourself more deeply. And then instead of, I hate my stretch marks, they're ugly. You could ask yourself, what is this feeling that I'm feeling? What emotions and sensations are coming up in my body? Maybe it's sadness or embarrassment. Maybe it's anxiety, a lump in your throat. Maybe it's anger and your cheeks are like flushed. And then you can be like, oh. I, I know this feeling. When have I felt this before? Maybe it reminds you of the life that changed so much from before you had your babies or a really difficult birth or anger that you feel, or maybe it brings you back to a memory where you just felt completely ignored and unworthy. And then you realize oh, whoa, this is actually so much more than just these physical stretch marks and the way they look. And if you somehow were able to get rid of those stretch marks, if that's even possible, it wouldn't actually get rid of that emotion that's in your body of unworthiness or anger or sadness. So then when you get to look at that unworthiness. You have the opportunity to move through it. And when you look at your stretch marks, again from this place of understanding yourself more deeply and feeling more empowered and having even a tiny bit of shift of feeling more worthy, they don't feel the same anymore. They don't hold the same meaning. if you just would've ran to I just need to be grateful because my body held my babies or because I'm alive, or whatever it might be, you would've never had that opportunity to see where this is really coming from. And even if things don't shift or change immediately. Like you don't do a 180 in your beliefs. Just recognizing this, it changes something because you're understanding these parts of yourself and you're knowing yourself better. It builds a deeper relationship with yourself and with your body, and just because of that, you feel more confident and it's very freeing. People think that it takes so much energy and emotional effort to face your feelings, but I'm of the opinion that it takes more energy and effort not to. you either live with this consciousness of who you are and your emotions and where they came from, and you know how to better navigate your emotions and your challenges or. You still live with those emotions, but you're working overtime. You're working really fucking hard to try to avoid them, and they unconsciously drive your life and your decisions and your emotions and everything, and it causes so many more challenges and it chips away at our relationship with ourselves, our self trust and our confidence. So when my clients go through The New Sexy or the healing boudoir experiences I offer, they actually feel lighter and more energized because they feel that they've taken their power back and they have, they're no longer just living on autopilot and trying to be self-accepting and grateful, but not feeling successful at it. Facing your emotions is part of self-acceptance. It is part of loving yourself and seeing the whole of yourself. And through that you learn to live fully and joyfully with all of these emotions that inevitably come up. I was actually coaching my client recently exactly about that. She's like, I feel so sad about the Bibas family. how do I feel that? And then also do all the things I need to do, get my kids ready for school and move through my day. And when I was coaching her, what we actually realized was that. The fact that she was telling herself that she couldn't feel it was causing her to not show up in the way that she wanted to. She was feeling very much out of her body and anxious, and she described her morning as just, going through it on autopilot and not really showing up in the way that she wanted to for her kids. Like not sitting there and putting on their socks and being loving and kind and patient. She was just like, okay, get out, everyone, get their clothes on and let's go to school. And so the fear that she had of oh, if I feel this emotion, I'm not gonna show up the way I want to. It was actually the opposite. The fact that she wasn't feeling her emotion was taking her out of her body, out of the moment and causing her to not show up the way she wanted to. So how do you actually live with all of those emotions? Because feeling alive, being alive is not just about all those happy, joyful, incredible feelings. It's also about. The challenging ones. If you think about what it means to really be alive, to live intentionally, to have a higher purpose, to be motivated and inspired, that doesn't only come from positive emotions, it also comes from sadness and grief and hard things that we've gone through. And that's why I was saying earlier in the episode that the fact that we're all so connected to each other is so powerful, and that's why we're feeling all this sadness. That's why we're feeling all of this grief and that can help us transform the pain and the grief into something beautiful, into coming together, into helping other people into doing the next, crazy, beautiful thing that we wanna do in our lives and impact the world in a positive way. And it might actually come from that grief and sadness, and that's part of it. That's part of what this life has to offer us. So next time an emotion comes up in your body, maybe it's about the way you look. Maybe you're looking in the mirror, sit with it for a little longer. you don't need to delete the picture right away. think about it. So many people will see a picture they don't like of themselves and delete, delete, delete. I don't wanna see that. I don't wanna feel that. Or they quickly get dressed because they don't like how they feel when they look in the mirror. Or they start quickly reciting the affirmations they know or they run to their journal to write a gratitude list. But what you actually need to do, if you want to change the way you see yourself, if you want to look in the mirror and love what you see. First, you have to accept it and understand it and process it and love it and move through all of it. It's okay to feel how you feel. It's okay to be where you're at. Actually, it's amazing to be where you're at because if you're here, you are opening the doors to unwavering acceptance and love for your body because if you're here and you're listening to this podcast, you are on the path. Maybe you've just opened the doors, but you are on the path to unwavering acceptance and love for your body that most people don't even think is a possibility, but it is. And it starts with you starting right here, exactly where you are at. That's all for today my loves. I hope this helped you. I hope this inspired you. I hope that today you can find ways to be a little more loving and compassionate to yourself. You are so worthy and deserving of all that love and all that care that you give to everybody else.