You're scrolling Instagram and suddenly - there it is. The beach body pic. The skinny celebrity. Your friend’s sudden weight loss. Body triggers that you’re experiencing every single day.

And of course that voice that says “you should be doing that too” - whether it’s weight loss medication, a new diet or that 28-day bikini body challenge.

The thing is, body triggers and changing emotions about your body image are unavoidable - it’s how you respond to it that actually counts.

In this episode, I'm breaking down the difference between reacting and responding, why your nervous system sees body triggers as threats (fight/flight/freeze), and how to create space between the trigger and your action so YOU'RE in the driver's seat - not your old pattern.

Here’s what we’ll talk about:

• Body triggers are normal it’s your reaction that matters - and how to take yourself away from the “threat” and towards a more empowered approach.
• Performance vs lived reality - because what you think you see, and what’s actually going on may be two very different things. I’ll share something that happened to me recently that highlighted exactly this.
• A practical framework for responding instead of spiralling - to set you up to manage body triggers with more ease.

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Welcome to the Busy Woman's Guide to Fitness and Wellness, where we celebrate you exactly as you are and help you to be the fit, strong, confident woman you deserve to be.

We tackle everything from diet, culture and body image through to how to let go of the hustle, the pressure and the overwhelm and find your balance and energy in a busy life. I'm Alix, women's fitness and wellness expert, therapeutic coach, founder of Life Edit with Alix and mum of two.

And I'm here with your weekly dose of inspiration, helping you to rewrite the rules and live, live life on your own terms. Hello there. Welcome back to the podcast this week and we're going to be talking about body triggers today.

In other words, how are we dealing with those moments where we get triggered into a reaction about our own bodies by something outside of us? And honestly, this is something that is unavoidable.

So when it happens, because it will, however much you've worked on your relationship with your body, it is totally normal. It happens to me sometimes and it's that moment where you see or hear something which makes you question, am I doing enough?

Is my body acceptable enough? Should I be doing more? And the thing is that the trigger in itself isn't the problem, it's our response to it.

And our response to that trigger is where the power lies, because we are going to be triggered. And that's okay, it's perfectly normal, it's perfectly fine.

But how do we deal with our response to it in a way that is more helpful to us, in a way that gives us the power back in that particular situation? So that's what we're going to be getting into today. And the way that I always talk about this is the difference between a reaction and a response.

So this is one of the ways that I work with my clients where we get them to move from reaction to response. Now the reaction, it's that in the moment, knee jerk response we have to a certain thing, a certain trigger.

This is usually the bit where the subconscious kicks in, where our more primitive brain starts to run the show and we take action based on fear, whether we're conscious of that or not. We don't necessarily feel fear, but we have a certain reaction to something and we make a decision based on that.

We're not using reason necessarily, we're using a kind of primitive part of us that is trying to protect us from something. So that's the reaction. A response, on the other hand, is where we have had the opportunity to engage our higher brain.

So we're able to use a bit of reason. We're able to make a decision from a calmer, more grounded place.

And like I say when I work with my clients, an awful lot of the work that we do is around moving from reacting to responding and learning how to do that on a more consistent basis. Because the truth is that for many of us, we lean into reaction. We lean into, I've had a crap day, so I'm gonna eat a packet of biscuits.

I've seen something that made me feel crap about my body, so I have to go on a diet. Because we haven't necessarily given ourselves the space or our nervous system is not in a place where it can actually respond.

Respond is a lot softer. Respond is something that we do with a bit more reason behind it.

But before we get into how to do that, let's talk a little bit about those body triggers and what they might be. Because they happen all the time.

And especially these days, we're exposed to so many more images and news stories and viewpoints we're not even necessarily aware of all the time. We're not conscious that those triggers are happening, but they are. And sometimes we have a big reaction to them, a very noticeable reaction to them.

Other times, they're just collecting away in the background. And all of those reactions are pushing us into a place where we suddenly wake up one morning and go, oh, my God, I've got to sort myself out.

Because we've been triggered by so many of those things. So what are those triggers that are happening for us? So an obvious one, the Instagram scroll.

You're scrolling, people are posting beach pics, or you're seeing the latest influencer with her bikini body out.

You're seeing hot girls summer content, you're seeing bodies everywhere, and suddenly you are comparing your ranking and you're starting to spiral, because maybe you don't look like them. Maybe you feel like you need to work harder. So you do look like them. So the Instagram scroll, definitely a trigger. The skinny celebrity trigger.

I mean, that's part of the Instagram scroll trigger as well. So commentary on celebrity bodies. She's too skinn, she's too fat. She looks amazing after her transformation.

Has she been taking a Zenpic, blahdi blahdy blah, all of that stuff. And then you start to compare yourself to that.

So you might look at, for example, a skinny celeb and think, oh, my God, I wish I looked more like her.

Or you may look at commentary on a celebrity that has gained some weight, and you might look at that and think, oh, gosh, she's about the same size as me, or maybe she's even smaller than me. And yet they're commenting on that, and she's getting criticized for that. What does that mean about me? So there's a lot of that that goes on.

Another big trigger at the moment is the. The weight loss drug trigger. So a friend, a colleague, someone in your circle mentions they're on it, they're losing weight, it's working.

And of course they are. They're telling you just how freaking amazing it is that happens. It's like when people discover the Atkins Diet back in the day.

Like, oh, my God, it's so easy. I get to eat all this meat and all of this stuff, and I never feel hungry. And it's just. It is the thing. It's the latest thing. I found the secret.

So you'll get a lot of that going on. And this is not to do down weight loss drugs. Okay? I'm not against weight loss drugs, but what I'm recognizing is it can trigger us.

When we're looking at other people who are doing that and who are talking about it and who are saying how amazing it is, and they're losing weight and everyone's telling them they look awesome, and you're suddenly questioning everything. Should I. Should I be on it as well? Why have I not done it yet?

And you're going home, doing a little bit of research, finding out how much it costs, if it's something you want to do. So that for sure is a big trigger at the moment. The diet talk trigger. So you're at a family gathering.

Somebody's talking about their new plan, their fasting window, their macros, and you feel the old pull. You're looking at them thinking, oh, God, I should be doing what they're doing. Oh, they're being so disciplined at the moment.

Why am I not doing that? So you start to feel the pull towards that. And then there's the changing room and wardrobe trigger. Now, this is one of my personal ones.

You go out shopping, you're all excited about buying a few new things. You take your stuff into the changing room. And the damn lights. I don't know what they do with the lights. They really need to sort this out.

But suddenly you're looking at cellulite you didn't even know you had. And so all of a sudden, it doesn't matter what you put on, you're feeling rubbish about yourself.

So that thing just doesn't look as good as it might have done. Or you're getting dressed and nothing fits, right? So all of those things are triggering us. And these triggers, I think, are pretty universal.

Some are going to feel closer to home than others, but we, we all have them. So I think first of all, let's remove the shame from that because it's normal.

We will all come across situations where we think that we should be doing better. So in that situation, what do we do instead? Because like I said before, we can react.

We can allow our primal brain to overtake in these situations and trigger us into a knee jerk response, or we can learn to respond. So first of all, it's noticing that response that we have. It's noticing what we're feeling in the body.

It's noticing what's going on before the brain has had a chance to catch up. Because sometimes we just can't help it. We've conditioned ourselves, we've learned a particular reaction to a particular trigger.

And so it's kind of inevitable sometimes that we will just react before our brain has had a chance to catch up. But it's just allowing yourself to actually understand that rather than going, well, that's the way I've reacted.

So that is the truth of the situation. Being able to go, oh, okay, right, interesting. That made me feel like that. It's then knowing that the nervous system sees that as a threat.

Not a physical threat, but a threat to your status, a threat to your identity. And so it responds initially in Fight, Flight, Freeze, either I feel really shit about myself or I need to do something about this.

That reaction is your system doing its job because it is reacting to the trigger as a threat. And so what we do is we immediately go into, okay, and how do I neutralize the threat? I go on a diet, right?

So understanding the trigger and knowing that your nervous system is just doing its job. But this is the bit where we get the choice. Do we go with the first reaction? Do we take that as truth? Do we take that as our cue for action?

Do we choose to stay there or do we move into a different response? So, for example, your friend has turned up. You've not seen her for three months. She's lost two dress sizes. She feels amazing.

Your initial response to that or your initial reaction to that is, oh my God, I'm less disciplined, I'm less attractive, I'm less worthy. You start to compare yourself to her and you come out wanting.

And then you jump into the spiral where you start to question whether you should be doing the same things as her, whether you need to go on A diet, because you also want to lose the same two dress sizes and feel amazing and for everybody to be commenting on how fabulous you look. So that's the reaction.

And we get to choose if we stay in that reaction, we get to choose if we make somebody else's result or somebody else's body or somebody else's action means something negative about us. And when our nervous system is on alert and trained to see that thing outside of us as a threat, then that is what we are going to do.

Or do we lean into the response? Now, in order to respond, we have to give ourselves space.

Space between the trigger and reaction and our decision on how we respond to that situation. Do we allow ourselves to navigate that situation with more intention? Was I making that mean something negative about me?

Like, just understanding, what did I make that mean about me? Oh, my friend turned up two dress sizes smaller, and it just made me feel a bit less worthy.

It made me feel that she was doing better in life than I was. It made me feel like she was more attractive than me.

And am I gonna make a decision about myself based on that reaction, or do I start to lean into awareness? And this is, for me, one of the most important things we can do for ourselves.

I often have this conversation with my coaching clients where we'll be talking about the stories, the beliefs, the triggers. We'll be talking about, what are you making this mean about you? What does this make you feel about yourself? All of those kind of things.

And sometimes they will say to me, but what do. What do I do about it? What is the practical thing that I do?

And my answer always is, it's not necessarily about a practical thing that you do, but it's about creating awareness about those situations. It's about creating enough space that you can start to understand, why is that happening? What is happening?

Am I reacting in a way that's become a habit for me? What's the fear that's coming up as a result of this?

Because when you start to ask those questions, it gives you the opportunity to respond and to actively choose what comes next for you.

Not let your nervous system not let your fight or flight response choose what's next for you, but allow your higher brain to choose what's next for you so that instead of your stories working against you, they start to work for you instead.

This is why, when I'm working with my clients, we start by working on the very stories that are running the show right now, because we then get to use them in a positive way rather than in A negative reaction based way. So knowing what that story is, seeing my friend having lost two dress sizes made me feel less attractive. Right, Great. Now we know what was going on.

What was the fear there? Why did that mean a bad thing about us? And how can I use that to have a more positive reaction in future?

How can I use that to respond in a different way? So, yeah, creating that awareness is really, really important. And I am going to give you a practical part to this as well, because that's the thing.

It's not just noticing, but it's about actually applying this in a practical way. And I think the first thing you need to do is when the reaction happens, just notice that reaction in your body.

What's happening is your tummy dropping, does your jaw clench? That kind of thing. Then thinking, what's the story? Is the story. I should be doing that too. Why does she have it so together and I don't?

I wish I had the discipline. It's not fair. She's more attractive than me. Now, what's the story? Then? Give yourself the space you need.

Step away from the conversation for a moment, take a few deep breaths, shut down Instagram, and then wait to respond. Do not react in the moment, because that first reaction is just that, that first reaction is protective.

It's not necessarily true, and it's not necessarily what you want to create.

So wait to respond and then choose something that you're going to move towards that you actually want, rather than moving away from the feeling that's been created. And I think that this is so, so important. I really want you to take this away, is that when something triggers us, we want to move away from that.

We want to move away from that feeling that has been created by that trigger. But what if instead you start to think about what is it I actually want? And that you started to move towards that instead.

So this is about putting you in the driver's seat, not your old pattern, not your nervous system, not your habitual reaction to something, but you.

You, who has had a moment to digest you, who has had a moment to process you, who has had a moment to see that that is just a reaction that that has made you feel a certain way, but that thing is not necessarily true.

And I also, just as a little side note to this, I also want you to remember when it comes to being triggered by things, that we need to also allow ourselves to recognize the performance versus the lived reality. And what I mean by that is what we see is not necessarily the truth anyway. We see that image on Instagram.

And it has been posed, we see that friend who's lost the two stone, who's saying, oh, weight loss, drugs are amazing, but we don't know the lived reality underneath. She's miserable because she can never eat the things that she wants to again. So what is going on?

And actually, I had a very real moment of this, a very real experience of the idea of performance versus lived reality lately, where I'd gone out with a friend and she was saying to me, she was like, oh, you know, I've been looking at your reading your content on Instagram, really enjoying it and stuff, but you've talked a lot about your. Your dieting past. And she sort of said to me, are you sort of playing that up a little bit for your business?

Are you making that more than it actually was at the time? And I sort of. I looked at her, I thought, what are you talking about? No, I'm like, this is. This is the truth.

This is the truth of what I experienced and what I went through. And then I later realized I was like, oh, okay, this is the point.

Because what we put across to other people is often very different from what we're living in reality.

So what I was living most of the time was tracking my calories and doing weight watches online and saving myself for going out at the weekend and eating the lowest calorie breakfast I possibly could and feeling hungry a lot of the time. I wasn't talking to all of my friends about that. I wasn't coming out there going, oh, my God, this is so flipping hard.

I'm having to do all of these things and I feel hungry all the time.

What they were seeing was me going out to dinner with them on a Saturday night and just eating and drinking whatever the hell I wanted because I had worked hard all flipping week to allow that to happen. So what they saw was, oh, she just. She enjoys a dessert. She's having a few glasses of wine. Like, she's super chilled about food.

This isn't a problem for her. And it really. It was a real moment where I thought, my gosh, like, I hadn't even thought about it.

Like, that what I was living was not what other people people were seeing because I wanted them to see, hey, this is easy. This is just the way I am. This comes natural to me. And so that's what they saw because that's what I wanted them to see.

So I also want you to remember, this is, like I say a bit of a side note to this, but always remember when something is out there triggering you. Even that is often not the truth of the situation. So please, please, please remember that there is smoke and mirrors involved here, too.

But, yeah, when we're talking about those triggers, just remember it's not a perfect art. You won't always respond the way that you want to.

But the more that you keep interrupting that pattern, the more that you put your nervous system in a place to handle it in a more gentle way, the more you create awareness around those triggers, the more those triggers are going to start losing their power over you. So you will still be triggered, but it's going to be a little bit milder. You're going to get past it a little bit more quickly.

You're going to have the reaction and going to step back two seconds later go, oh, whoa, hang on a minute. So give yourself that space. Try and move from reaction to response.

See if you could put that into place next time you notice the trigger and let me know how it feels as well. I always love to hear from you via DM on Instagram, so head over to lifeeditwithalex and let me know. But for now, I'm gonna leave it there.

I'm gonna love you and leave you and I'll see you back here again next time. Thank you as always, for joining me. If this is this episode has hit home, share it with another woman who needs to hear it.

And come connect with me on Instagram at Life Edit with Alix for more real talk, mindset shifts and daily inspiration.