Shoulders Down
When you live in the diet mindset, you spend much of your time living in your head- constantly tallying, dwelling, and stressing over your food and lifestyle choices. When you become an intuitive eater, you learn to drop into your body and start living shoulders down. The territory below your shoulders contains your innate wisdom and power. Shoulders Down is a podcast designed to teach you how to harness your intuition to govern not just how you eat but also how you live. Shoulders Down Podcast is hosted by Anti-Diet Dietitian and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, Leah Kern, who works with clients to heal their relationships with food in her private practice, Leah Kern Nutrition. Disclaimer: All content in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. The information and education provided is not intended or implied to supplement or replace professional medical treatment, advice, and/or diagnosis.
Shoulders Down
✊ Rage is the Answer: Body Liberation, Psychedelics, & Unlearning Fatphobia with Paula D. Atkinson
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In this episode of Shoulders Down, Leah sits down with licensed psychotherapist Paula D. Atkinson to explore the intersection of body image, eating disorders, social justice, and body liberation.
Paula shares her personal journey from growing up as a fat child, developing anorexia as a teenager, and eventually becoming a therapist, educator, and advocate for body justice. Together, Leah and Paula discuss the history of fatphobia, the limitations of weight-centric definitions of health, and why healing body image requires more than individual self-acceptance.
Their conversation explores the role of systemic oppression in shaping body image, the power of critical thinking in diet culture recovery, and how anger can become a catalyst for liberation rather than something to suppress.
You'll hear about:
- Paula's journey from anorexia recovery to becoming a body liberation therapist and educator
- What teaching a university course on weight, health, and society revealed about diet culture and the "obesity epidemic"
- The role of rage in disordered eating and body image healing
- Why external validation can never replace genuine self-acceptance
- How body image healing intersects with social justice, oppression, and collective liberation
- Paula's perspective on anger, psychedelics, and other unexpected pathways to body liberation
More From Paula:
- Website: https://www.pauladatkinson.com
- Instagram: @pauladatkinson
More From Leah:
- 📚Download your free Intuitive Eating Starter Pack
- Apply to The Embodied Method, my 1:1 coaching program
- Join my self-paced course, The Return
- Subscribe to Leah's Youtube Channel
- Subscribe to my personal Substack
- Follow me on Instagram for more intuitive eating content @leahkern.rd
- Visit my website to learn more about my coaching offerings
- Subscribe to my weekly newsletter to get a nugget of intuitive eating inspiration delivered straight from my heart to your inbox each week.
- Send me a voice message on Speakpipe
- Email me: Leah@leahkernrd.com
