Be-Friend Yourself with Marla Mervis Hartmann

Do you love your body?

As the creator of Love Your Body, Love Yourself,  today's guest helps women access their yes! to that question.

 Marla Mervis Hartmann joins us on the show today  to talk to us all about loving our body and loving ourselves ... But not in the way that we typically think about loving our body where we try to convince ourselves to love and approve of all of our so called “flaws”.  

Rather, Marla speaks about loving yourself as an action and something we can do even if we don’t like how we look.

Inside our interview Marla shares her own story of body acceptance and eating disorder recovery and how spiritual practices such as reiki played an important role in her journey.  

She shares a simple 2 minute reiki practice that you can try at home to help you cultivate a sense of self love.

Marla’s new book “BE-Friend Yourself” is available now for preorder at the link in the show notes as well as the free emotional eating course she mentions in the interview. 

About Our Guest

After experiencing years of dysfunction in relation to food, exercise, and body confidence, Marla transformed her life through the radical act of self-compassion and friending herself. She has since used her experiences to help empower people as they choose appreciation for their bodies, honor themselves through nourishing lifestyle choices, and cultivate confidence along the way. Currently, Marla lives in Maui with her husband, Olaf, and son, Aspen–where she works full-time as a professional coach,Tedx speaker, author of BE-Friend Yourself and Living Light Reiki Master and Instructor. 

Pre-Order Marla’s Book: Be-Friend Yourself

Follow Marla on Instagram

Follow Marla on Facebook

Emotional Eating Freebie

Marla’s Website

About the Host

Kim Hagle (she/her)  is a Body Image Coach, Certified Personal Trainer, Registered Holistic Nutritionist, and founder of Radiant Vitality Wellness. 

Through mindset and movement coaching she helps women develop a kinder relationship with their body so they can consistently fuel and move it in a way that supports their health without restricting food, doing tortuous exercise or constantly worrying about the number on the scale

Want to feel good in your body without focusing on weight?  Register for our FREE mini course. Learn simple, sustainable habits and mindset shifts so you can feel healthy, energetic and confident without rules, deprivation or willpower

Ready to take the next step?  Book a free consultation call to discuss how coaching can help you reach your goals.

Let’s stay in touch! Kim is on Instagram and Facebook @radiantvitalitywellness.  

Disclaimer.  The information contained in this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice.  Always consult a health care professional about your unique needs.

Transcript

0:47

Hi, welcome back to the Power in Motion podcast. I have a question for you today. Do you love your body? Maybe you do, maybe you don't, maybe you're not sure. As the creator of Love Your Body, Love Yourself, today's guest helps women access their yes to that question. Marla Mervis Hartman joins us on the show today to talk to us all about loving your body and loving ourselves, but not in the way that we typically think about loving our body, where we try to convince ourselves to love and approve of all our so called flaws. Rather, Marla speaks about loving yourself as an action and something we can do even if we don't like how we look. Inside our interview, Marla shares her own story of body acceptance and eating disorder recovery and how spiritual practices such as Reiki played an important role in her journey. She even shares a simple two minute Reiki practice that you can try at home to help you cultivate a sense of self love. Marla's new book, Befriend Yourself, is available now for pre order at the link in the show notes, as well as the free emotional eating course that she mentions in the interview. So a little bit about Marla. After experiencing years of dysfunction in relation to food, exercise, and body confidence, Marla Mervis Hartman transformed her life through the radical act of self compassion and friending she has since used her experiences to help empower people as they choose appreciation for their bodies, honor themselves through nourishing lifestyle choices, and cultivate confidence along the way. Currently, Marla lives in Maui with her husband Olaf and son Aspen, where she works full time as a professional coach, TEDx speaker, author of Befriend Yourself, and Living Light Reiki Master and Instructor. Without any further ado, let's get into the interview with Marla.

Kim: 2:46

Marla, welcome to the power in motion podcast. I'm so excited to meet you and to dig into this conversation with you today about your journey with body image and disordered eating and how you found that becoming your own best friend was the key to lasting recovery. So welcome.

Marla: 3:06

Thank you so much for having me. This is such a pleasure to be here with you and with all your listeners. So thank

Kim: 3:11

you. Oh, well, it's truly my pleasure. So why don't you get us started by just telling us a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you

Marla: 3:21

are now? Yeah. So my name is Marla. I am the creator of love your body, love yourself, and I support women to feel good in their body and freedom with food. And and it's been quite a long journey. Right. These bodies of ours, even when you're, when you're considered normal, it's still a ride. Right. And it's so, so normalized this disordered eating and negative body image that for a lot of women has to get really, really bad in order anyone to take like a look at it and to dive into it. And for me, It was like this slow burn of more and more negativity, right? Huh. I think it started at a very young age when I had just had a lot of attention on my body. I was a curvy, sexy little girl, right? So I get comments and I remember thinking, I remember, I, you know, those moments where you remember things like there are these little snapshots. It's like, Oh, my body matters. Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm. Better, better keep this up. Right? So it be became that and becoming a woman, and then being an actor and a dancer and, and just really feeling that my body needed to shrink and be a, a certain size. And then I added that to a lot of emotional stuff and dealing the way that I dealt with emotions. Was through dieting was through over exercising. The answer was control. Oh, yeah. The answer was control. And, and also I was, I, I'm still fighting the good girl. Right. Like I am a good girl. Right. Little child. Don't make waves. That's what my mom always says. Mom didn't make waves. Right. And. And it's that inner rebel. It's like, I am not going to eat that food, or I'm going to shove as much food in my mouth. You want me to eat healthy? I'm going to eat Lara, right? Like the, the, the rebel towards myself, the fight against myself. So, you know, I hit so many rock bottoms. But I would say that one of the darkest nights of the soul for me was when I realized that it had nothing to do with my body and my food.

Kim: 5:46

Do you know what that, what triggered that thought that this wasn't actually about your body? When

Marla: 5:55

I had had a dark night of a soul, and I, this was after like eating so much and going into my bed at night and being like my life is like this. It was like cold night, New York City in my apartment feeling like, This is my life and I will always struggle with food and I will never be free. And I feel that so deeply inside me when I say that. And, and then I was like, and then, you know, it's that moment. I'm sure a lot of people from it, it's like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to pull all the willpower and I'm going to make it happen. I'm going to get my body to this size and I'm not going to eat this food. And I did that. And I hit that number. And I made it happen, and my life was awful.

Kim: 6:39

I don't mean to laugh, but just the way you said that. I get it, I get it, I've been there.

Marla: 6:45

And then I was like, Oh my gosh, this has nothing to do with my body and food. And then that's when I was like, okay, now I'm in recovery. So then I'm in recovery for years and years. And I still wasn't able to get, I still wasn't able to fully let go. And I remember this moment where I heard God speak so clearly in my head, let go, Marla. I've got you. I got your body. I got your food. And I knew that was the answer. I'm like, this is the answer. This is the answer to my, to, to peace. This is the answer. Let go, be at peace. And I still couldn't do it. Kim. What do you think got in the way of you letting go? I was willing to, to have faith in so many parts of my life. I was really willing to surrender. I was willing to let, you know, let God let life let, and this part, I'm like, There was so much fear that if I let go, I am going to be fat. Right. And at that point, having more flesh on my body was like the scariest thing. It was letting go of identity. It was letting go of, of everything.

Kim: 8:01

Yeah. Right. What would it mean about you if you got fat air quotes here?

Marla: 8:06

Right. Yeah, exactly. It means that I wouldn't be loved. Yeah. Means that I wouldn't belong. It me, it meant so many things, so many things I couldn't, I didn't even know until later. Right. The thing about it is it's not like I grew up in a family that was like put, like my mom ate whatever she wants. She never talked about our bodies. You know what I mean? Like it was not an environment. where I ever felt unloved. But, but I got attention for my body. And so it's not about, sometimes it's not about not having attention. It's about having attention. Yeah.

Kim: 8:44

Whether that attention is positive or negative. Cause I've heard it both ways, right. Whether you receive like comments about your body that it looks good, or it's what people want to see, or they tell you that it's wrong and you should change it. Either way, we're told, we internalize there's a right way to look. Exactly.

Marla: 9:02

Yeah. And I don't, I don't come from big numbers. Like when I was my super skinny, I was, I was skinny for me, but I wasn't like, I wouldn't like make you, you wouldn't walk by me and be like, Oh, she's. She's anorexic or she, something's wrong with her. Like I never got to that point. And, you know, I work at a recovery center here in Maui and, and, and it doesn't matter, these girls are all sizes. It doesn't, doesn't the, the disease does not show up in super skinny or super lots of extra, you know, extra in quotes, flesh, like it, it doesn't matter what the body looks like. The

9:40

craziness

Kim: 9:41

exists. Yeah, and I think that's a common misconception is that eating disorders have a certain look or they're, you know, they must be like emaciated to have an eating disorder. I think that's, that's one of the most harmful misconceptions out there about eating

Marla: 9:55

disorders. Oh my gosh. Yes, for sure. No, I would, I would say that some people around me have made, would make comments around it. And you know, when people ask me like, well, what can you do to support people who you know in your life that are in pain? And I can remember a friend of mine and I completely dismissed her and I completely, and I've known her since she was born, right? We, we grew up next door to each other and I came home from being gone for years and being gone for a while. And she looked at me and she's like, Are you okay? You look really thin. Like, fine. Yeah. I feel great. I don't know. Yeah. Right. And, you know, those things were is even as parents like we like, Oh, my kid doesn't listen to me. I still have my mom's voice in my head telling me things, right? Like, we do hear truth for that. It goes in its slices. It may take some time. But he said that to me. You felt it. I felt seen. I felt my, my pain felt, it felt seen, even though I didn't want to believe it. It's like, no, this is good. This is what I'm supposed to look like. Right.

Kim: 11:08

So this fear of, of letting go and letting your body be the size and shape that it wanted to be, what finally allowed you

Marla: 11:22

to do that? I think it was, I think it's a dance, Kim. I mean, I was doing it. I mean, yes, I had, I had people to support me. I D I had mentors and coaches, but they were like bringing things in. I was in 12 step at that, at that early part of my recovery. And, but I had to piece things together on my own. Like, I feel like what's so great about this time is that there are a lot of people like you and I sharing this message. There, there weren't podcasts or weren't people talking about positive body image. They were just talking about dieting or getting fat, right. And so I had to, I had to go back and forth. I had to go into faith for a while and then go back and then faith for a little longer and then go back. Right. So I had to build a muscle and, and I think that that's okay. It's like, it's working with the nervous system. How does the nervous system feel? It feels safe right now. Oh, now it doesn't. It's Right, so we're really unwinding a lot. So I, I find that when we are struck with recovery, that's when we feel like, Oh my gosh, I lost it. I'm back in the bandwagon. Oh my gosh, it's gone. Right. It's knowing that it's cyclical. It's knowing that it's like, Oh, no, I feel good for a while. And then I'm, I may be back in it. But maybe it's only for a week rather than a year or a day rather than a month or an hour rather than, you know, like it goes slower and slower and slower. And at this point in my life, I am aware that my body and, and food are the way that I know when I am out of alignment. Hmm. There was that. Well, they're, we all have coping mechanisms. Every one of us has them. Mine is food and, and body stuff. So when I start thinking about food too much, when I start looking in the mirror and being like, ew, I'm like, okay, what's going on here, Marla? There's something underneath the hood here.

Kim: 13:33

Oh, I love this. So it's a clue. It's a clue. Something else that's going on rather than a belief that that's something that's true and you need to fix.

Marla: 13:41

Right. And I call it my flag. So, so what would happen is all of a sudden red flags, right? Like, oh my gosh, like I'm being so mean to myself. I'm so how I can't stop these thoughts. I can't stop that. That's red flag to me. Like something's up, but I like to catch them when they're pink. I love that when they're not so intense that I can be like, okay, this right here needs to be taken care of. Because if it isn't, it's going to come so full, it's going to be so much in me that I'm going to be like, where did this come from? It's like, Oh yeah, there were signs all along the way I was, you know, I was either, you know, not able to stop eating or, I mean, it shows up in so many different ways for me. It's like overeating or not wanting to eat or, you know, comparing myself to others or, you know, all these little things. It's like it in check. Get in check, right? And what

Kim: 14:32

do you find are some of the triggers, like when the pink flags start coming up, other types of things are going on in your life that are the, behind these thoughts?

Marla: 14:46

I find that they're, they can even be like, I mean, of course has, it usually has nothing to do with it. It's usually like something in my relationship or something in my work or me putting myself out there and then feeling like vulnerable or feeling like maybe not seen or like a failure and they're not, but they're not huge. They're not like huge things. Lots of times it could just, you know, I feel like people will say, well, I don't have, I've had a lot of people say to me, well, I don't know why I'm like this. I don't have any huge trauma in my life. It's like, it doesn't matter. We have all these little moments. If we don't know how to deal with them with love and compassion for ourselves, they just start to build up.

Kim: 15:32

And we're often not taught how to handle our emotions, right? So yeah, they might seem like little things, but they trigger emotions in us that we're not exactly equipped to handle or we, we don't handle in the moment. So we fixate on our body. We fixate on food.

Marla: 15:49

Yes, exactly. And I was just think flashing on a moment with my son in the car and he came back from a really long play date that didn't go the way he wanted and he just was like, you know, and I'm like, I'm like, you know, sometimes it's good to just cry that out, like get that out of your body. And it was kind of funny because he was like, no, I'm okay. I'm like, no cry, cry. Right. We're laughing, but it's just like the acknowledgement that giving him permission, like that's important. Like if you don't let that go, that can build up. So let's just let it go. Right. So it is so important. I'm such a believer of leaning into those moments where it's like, I think we bypassed those moments so many times. Don't make a big deal out of it. Don't make a big deal out of it. I'm not going to get angry about that, or I'm not going to be upset about that. And I'm, I'm a firm believer in like, wow, that really affected me. I'm going to get in my car and cry for 30 seconds and I'm like, okay, now I can let it go because the charge is still there. So it's not about not allowing the charge to be an emotional experience, allow the charge and then move forward. Don't buy us that step because that charge stays there and then that's when you're going to want to shove your face full of food. Yeah,

Kim: 17:11

and we tell ourselves we shouldn't feel that charge, like, don't be so silly, there's no reason to be upset and like, just get over it. And we say all these things to ourselves, but that just keeps it in.

Marla: 17:21

Yeah, it's okay. I mean, that's what we have to learn how to do it. Right. And we have to have support around these things. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Someone to share all these silly things that we think are silly, right? That's sometimes connected to really old stuff.

Kim: 17:38

Yeah. Yeah. Now I know that that's, that's part of what you do. And so do you, do you have any tips or tools to help with emotions and, and emotional eating as a, as an adjunct to that?

Marla: 17:51

Yeah, well, so if we're talking about the emotional eating and we're talking about emotions and so we've already kind of alluded to some of these steps, which are when you are feeling emotional, you feel it. And when you notice your emotional, emotionally eating or you have, and I say emotional eating, but that could be emotional dieting as well. Good point. Yeah, that could be emotional obsession about your food where you're always. Spinning about what you're going to eat and you can't stop thinking about food. So emotional eating is a large, depending on how you cope with food, right? What's the underlying layer? What's the underlying layer? That is, that's the emotional piece, but I also feel that the way that we. Can deal with emotional eating is really setting ourselves up with a lot of self care. And I know that self care term gets so thrown around and it's just like, Oh, bubble baths and whatever. No, but I mean like moments, moments of connection with myself, moments of saying yes to myself, moments of taking a breath. Pleasure slowing down, looking around, right? I've been recently I'm, I'm doing the artist way right now. I don't know if you know that from Julia Cameron, it's a, no, your listeners may know what I'm talking about, but it's a whole 12 week program. But anyway, in the program, there's a week where you're supposed to Stop listening to all media books and clear your head. I feel like I am like this, like, just, I just want to bring in more and more and more information. And it's like, sometimes we need to hear our own thoughts. Yeah. So when we're quiet, when we're in the car and we're not talking to anyone and we're not listening to anything. And we're allowing for our own wisdom, for our own way. I think that our emotional eating comes up because there's so much chaos and so much stress. And sometimes it's being with ourselves and that can be scary. Well, I was

Kim: 20:00

going to say, for those of us who have body image issues, being with ourselves and caring for ourselves can be hard because often we think we're not worthy of, you know, Love and care in that way. So maybe kind of expand on how, how body image affects our relationship with ourselves and maybe even other people. And what steps can we take to, to nurture a more compassionate relationship, one with, and also with others. Well, one of the

Marla: 20:29

things that I like to do is I like to think about the fact, the difference between liking and loving. In, in this world of body, love body image, there's this like, love your body. Right. I mean, my business called love your body, love yourself. I mean, how triggering is that? Right. But it's like, can we, okay, so here's the difference. We don't have to like our bodies. We don't have to look in the mirror and like what we see. We don't have to like it all the time. Sometimes we may. But there's opportunity to still show up with love. To still be kind, to still not say mean things, to still befriend our body, become friends with our body. Be respectful, not shove food in our mouths, not be just be mean, not, not listen to our hunger cues. So if we think about it, we do this a lot, right? And if, and if, and this may help you in your relationships as well, like think about the closest person in your life. You don't may not like them all the time, but you do love them, right? Like think about your parents. Sometimes you may not like them, but there's still a way there's still a love. There's still this innate care that you can't almost help to have. And that's what we're nourishing. That's what we're nurturing to be able to differentiate, like, Okay. It's true. Like the acceptance, the body acceptance, maybe today, I don't like my body at all. Like not liking it, feeling uncomfortable. And when we can get into that truth and allow ourselves to have that truth without making it wrong or right, you know, it's not even about like going, and I'm not saying like now you can get, now you have permission to go and make yourself, to put yourself down about it. I'm talking about base level. This is how I feel today. Yeah. Done. Now, how are you going to show up with that? How are you going to love yourself and care for yourself? And you want to jump in there? No, carry

Kim: 22:46

on, carry on. I'm, I'm hanging on.

Marla: 22:50

Yeah. So that that's really helped me. That's helped me in those moments where I look in the mirror and I've said, I don't like that. I'm like, the voice in my head is like, well, what are you going to do about it? Marla? You're leaving. Oh, Right. This is your body today. Right. Or like the, the other voice is like, what are you going to do? Diet. Right. And that's,

Kim: 23:13

I was going to say that, right. When you said, what are you going to do about it, Marla? Like, that's what we're taught is like, you have these thoughts, fix it, fix it by fixing yourself. Right. But you can just go, I'm allowed to feel this way and show up and be nice to myself. Yeah. And

Marla: 23:31

for me, it's like, what are you going to do? Diet? Like that's ever helped. Right. Yeah. Like it hasn't ever really helped, right? Like it may help for a month. It may help for two years. It may help for a day because you feel like you're in control of something, but it's a slippery slope. It's not the answer. And the more we're on this road, the And we're really looking at it and we really want to see the truth. I mean, if you're listening to this podcast, you must be on the road for wanting truth. Otherwise you would be on some sort of learning about your calories and all of that. Right. So we're, you know, preaching to the choir here a little bit, like, you know, that there's another way there

Kim: 24:13

has to be. Yeah. What I'm hearing is a whole lot of self compassion, right? At the end of the day, like, self hatred and believing that you're wrong and trying to fix yourself just keeps you in this cycle of, like, defeat, right? Constantly beating on yourself and trying these things that are miserable and make you feel awful and, like, just reinforces this belief that you're a failure and you're no good, right? But when we can meet ourselves with

Marla: 24:43

kindness. Yeah. And even in that, right. Even in like, even when I'm in it and I'm being so mean to myself, if I can say to myself, I'm so sorry that I'm being, that I'm so it's like, I'm being compassionate to the uncompassionate part. I'm sorry that I'm doing this again. I'm so sorry. I'm so mean to myself. I'm so right. Because even when we're in that place, like I definitely went through a period of time where I'm like, so I was so mad at myself, like, really, Marla, this is what you did with your life. Like, Evening of time lost. The anger, yourself, you are that vein, right? You're that vein to give up that much energy in your life. And I'm like, I'm like, I wasn't vain. I was sick.

Kim: 25:29

There's a really important distinction, right? And, and even having compassion for that part of you, I remember feeling that way too, when I gave up dieting and obsessive exercise, I was so resentful of all the time I wasted and all of the money that I spent. Spent and like things that I missed out on. And now I'm, now I'm a lot more compassionate to that part of me who just thought that's the only choice I had. Yeah. You

Marla: 25:54

know? Yeah. And for all those, they're like, right. If that's where you are right now, like we get it and maybe it's just an ounce of giving up today, maybe a bit more tomorrow, and then maybe you grip on the next day, but it is that slow unwind of, of this and really letting go of diet culture and really calling out when diet culture is gone. In your face. Mm hmm.

Kim: 26:24

Yeah, see it for what it is marla, I know that Reiki and spirituality have played a big part in your recovery. Can you share with us a little bit about that and how they've specifically helped with your relationship with food and body?

Marla: 26:37

Yeah, I would say that that has been really the pinnacle of my, of my healing my relationship with my body and food. So when I was early on in recovery, I was at a support group and a woman was giving her literally had her hands on herself. Smiling and loving herself. And I was disgusted loving herself blatantly. Right? Like, how dare she dare she literally, but I went up to her afterwards. I'm like, what were you doing? She's giving myself Reiki. So for those of you who are new to that, what Reiki is, it's a, it's a spiritual practice, it's also a healing modality where you put your hands on yourself for others, and it's, it's the energy of unconditional love. So it is, it releases stress physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so that you can heal yourself so you can be who you are. So here I found this beautiful healing energy that had me find that compassion that I wasn't able to give to myself. And it's, it's not like a bang you over the head sort of experience. It's like a slow burn of love. I was a self help junkie where I was like, there's something wrong with me. I need to heal. When I heal this part of me, then I'm, then I can be worthy to love myself. And what I found from diving into this spiritual practice. And I'd always been someone who was very much a longer long longing for God and interested. And this gave me something tangible that I could bring into my body. It was also a way to deal with stress. It's like, Oh, okay. Let me put my hands on myself. Let me just take a moment and allow this energy in. I've been doing this for over, I've been teaching for over 20 years. Wow. And in what I found within myself and within those who I share and teach this is it opens up our capacity to love. To receive. So we, we often say we want things in our life, but we don't actually have the capacity to hold that. We don't have the belief system. We don't have the nervous system. We don't have even the way to do that. And so this system, and like I said, it is the energy of unconditional love. And we, when we know unconditional love is, is that acceptance? Is that compassion? It is what heals. So for me, it was allowing me when I talk about like the letting go of control and through Reiki, I got to see, and through a lot of these practices, the self care breath yoga, and I use those terms kind of widely, like I got to find who I really am. Who's Marla without the idea of what I think I'm supposed to be. And how can I be with myself in this really loving, loving way? So it's, you know, I share a lot about this and I share a lot about these moments where it's like, I can't. I can't, I do not know how to do this. I don't know. I'm down on my, like, I don't know another way. Those are the moments where we can call in something higher than ourselves, right? And so for those of you who do have a practice, a spiritual practice, or you do have a relationship with spirit source, God, nature, right? These are the moments to call that in. And if you don't, that's okay, because you know what love feels like. It is the energy of love. And there is a force, especially in those moments where it's really dark. We know there's a force of love out there, right? Someone's in love. Someone's feeling love. The sun is pouring down on us and that's what we call in. And so there's, you know, there's a whole way of doing that and practicing that and being with that. And I have found it to be. So important for my recovery.

Kim: 30:50

For those who are interested in, in trying this on, is there, is there a simple practice or approach that you can share with our listeners today that they can just experiment with?

Marla: 31:02

Yeah. So what I would say is put one hand on your heart and one hand on your solar plexus or your belly and literally close your eyes. We call this a universal position for Reiki and it's balancing your upper centers and your lower. And imagine and just feel and sense that you're holding yourself and that you're loving yourself and feel and imagine that love is pouring from your hands into your body and notice and sense that the energy all around your body and imagine it or feel it or sense it and imagine that the the space around you is holding you in love and you can expand that to feel the heavens above you and feel the earth below you all holding you and this is how we Become friends with ourselves. Yeah.

Kim: 32:18

Took less than two minutes and I felt instantly calm even just by holding myself, just having hands on your body helps bring you out of your head and quiet those thoughts.

Marla: 32:32

Yeah. Yeah. And what I've noticed is like bringing my hands onto parts of my body that I don't like. Yeah. And it's like, okay, let's bring some energy there because we cut those parts off lots of times. That's our belly, right? Huh. Huh. The energy the most, right. We should be cut. So bringing your hands on there. And bringing some attention there can be helpful.

Kim: 32:57

Oh, thank you for sharing that tool with us. That is really nice. So you were working on a book or you're, yes, I finished the book. The book is done. The book is ready to be birthed into the world. Yeah.

Marla: 33:10

So my book is called befriend yourself and it's finding freedom with food and peace with your body so you can live your life and it's my journey. Along with a lot of tools and a lot of support. So it's real, it's raw, it's funny, it's authentic. It's hopefully gonna meet you exactly where you are bringing in a lot of the components we're talking about today. So love to share that all with you. And for those of you who are listening to it during the pre-order stage, if you pre-order it, we have a lot of great bonuses and gifts for you as well. So,

Kim: 33:42

Ooh. That is exciting. So we are releasing this podcast at the time of the pre order. So that means you need to act now. The link for Marla's book is in the show notes. All the places where you can grab that will be in the show notes. So please do that. Is there anything else that's pressing on your heart today, Marla, that you want to share with our listeners before we sign off?

Marla: 34:06

Yeah. I would like to invite everyone to check out if you are struggling with emotional eating, I have a free course. Oh, have you? Yeah. So it's really thorough. I feel like it's very thorough, right? As much as a free course without sitting in front of me can be right. Which is totally open as well for you if you need that extra support. But it's called breaking the cycle of emotional eating. And so I'll make sure that you have that Kim, so we can offer it to, to the listeners. Oh, you

Kim: 34:34

have just shared so much goodness with our audience today in this, in the practice that you shared with us and in the free tools. And I know your book is going to be highly valuable too. So thank you for your generosity and for sharing so much wisdom on the show today. It's really appreciated. Oh, it's a pleasure. Before we leave, can you just remind our listeners where they can connect with you and follow you if they want to stay in your

Marla: 35:01

world. Yes. Love your body. Love yourself. com. You can also find me on love your body. Love yourself always on Instagram or my name on Facebook, which I'm quite on there a lot too. Okay.

Kim: 35:13

Great. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today, Marla. Thank you.