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Body shame is pervasive, especially for women but increasingly for everyone, and it gets in the way of much more than how we feel in a swimsuit. It gets in the way of presence, pleasure, and our capacity for real connection. This is the first episode in a series I'm doing on body shame. If you've ever been so in your head about how you look that you couldn't stay present with a partner, or with yourself, this one is for you.

I walk through where body shame actually comes from (spoiler: it's not truth, or you, that's the problem), the business model built on manufactured insecurity, the medical misinformation and racial history behind our cultural obsession with weight, and why shaming yourself has never once helped anyone change. I also share the exact steps I used to move from shame to neutral to genuinely loving my body.

In this episode:

• Why body shame kills presence, pleasure, and desire, and why underconfidence itself isn't sexy
• Where body shame really comes from: family, culture, diet culture, and a patriarchy that built this by design, not by accident
• The advertising strategy behind manufactured insecurity, including research on exactly when women feel worst about themselves
• Debunking the medical myths: why BMI was never built to measure individual health, and why weight stigma itself, not weight, is the real risk factor
• The racial history behind fat phobia and Eurocentric beauty standards, and how that bias still shows up in medicine today
• Why shaming yourself has never once helped you change, and what your inner rebel is actually trying to tell you
• My own story of hiding my arms for years, and finally wearing tank tops without a second thought
• "Point positive," the whitewater kayaking principle I now use to retrain my brain out of shame spirals
• The exact steps for shifting from shame to neutral to genuinely believing you're lovable and attractive exactly as you are

Topics and keywords: body shame, body image and sex, somatic sex coach, feminist sex coach, overthinking sex, get out of your head in bed, weight stigma, health at every size, mindset work for body image, somatic intimacy coach

Resources mentioned: Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight, by Lindo Bacon, PhD https://lindobacon.com/health-at-every-size-book/

Get my free guide: Get Out of Your Head: A Starter Guide to Releasing the Pressure, Shame, and "Shoulds" Around Intimacy at https://laurajurgens.com/guide

More links:
Substack at https://laurajurgens.substack.com/

Pleasure Path Diagnostic here: https://laurajurgens.com/diagnostic/

About me, testimonials, blog, bookings: https://laurajurgens.com/

Wheel of Erotic emotions, go to: https://laurajurgens.com/wheel

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