Today I’m talking to Dr. Hillary McBride. Hillary is a psychologist, a researcher, and podcaster, with expertise that includes working with trauma and trauma therapies, and embodiment. She’s the author of two books - ‘Mothers, Daughters, and Body Image: Learning to Love Ourselves as We Are’, and ‘The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Wholeness, Healing and Connection through Embodied Living’. She is on the teaching faculty at the University of British Columbia and hosts the podcast Other People’s Problems. Today, we’re speaking about embodiment, healing from trauma and loads of other really cool things!

Find out more about Hillary’s work here.

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Here’s the transcript in full:

Hillary: We could look at how convenient it is to assume that we are an image and then try to control that image when it causes us to forfeit the information that might say, no, I don't wanna participate in the system, or yes, I am hungry and I wanna eat that food even if it means that my body is not gonna appear the way that so and so expects it to. That the information on the inside is costly to stay connected to in a culture that is asking us to forfeit it, in order to belong in this kind of flattened, disembodied, two-dimensional version of, of being an image.

INTRO

Laura: Hey, and welcome back to Can I Have Another Snack podcast where I'm asking my guests who or what they are nourishing right now, and who or what is nourishing them. I'm Laura Thomas, an anti diet registered nutritionist, and author of the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter. Today I'm talking to Dr. Hillary McBride. Hillary is a psychologist, a researcher, and a podcaster with expertise that includes working with trauma and trauma therapies and embodiment. She's the author of two books: ‘Mothers, Daughters, and Body Image: Learning to Love Ourselves as We Are’, and that was published in 2017 and her latest book, ‘The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Wholeness, Healing and Connection Through Embodied Living’ came out in Fall 2021.

Hillary is on the teaching faculty at the University of British Columbia, and she hosts the podcast, Other People's Problems. Today I'm talking to Hillary about embodiment, healing from trauma, and loads of other really cool things. So stay tuned.

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MAIN EPISODE

Laura: All right, Hillary, I'd love it if you could start by telling us who or what you are nourishing right now.

Hillary: Well, I am nourishing myself and my toddler, and I am so much more attuned to what that means because, I am breastfeeding and I am always ferociously hungry all the time, and there is something about nourishing and kind of the, the literal transmutation of all the food as it comes into my body, out of my body, into her body, that, uh, shows me how deeply connected those two are, both the nourishing and the being nourished.

Laura: Yeah, I haven't thought about it in that way that, I like that word that you use transmutation, um, and also breastfeeding a toddler I can relate to that. And yeah, just having to be really in tune with yourself, but also to a toddler and their needs.

Hillary: Yes,

Laura: It could be a lot.

Hillary: You know, it can be a lot. It's wonderful. And I feel so privileged to, through motherhood, see and experience that connection of how much my attunement and my self care to my body actually literally supports her to thrive and be well. And there's something about that, even just the way you pose the question that highlights for me, the, the interdependence between us as bodies that I think we sometimes forget when we're just mulling about our days, thinking of ourselves as individuals. There's actually this inherent connection between all of us as bodies, and I think parenthood really, really brings that right up close to your face.

Laura: Mm, yeah. I think a lot about interdependence in parenting. You know, from the perspective that that capitalism keeps us so sort of separate from one another. And prioritizes independence and, you know, trying to parent under late stage capitalism without family an...