Ditch the Diets to Leave Legacies of Health w/Evelyn LaVasseur

How many of you have went through the cycle of dieting?  Now, how many of you have SUCCESSFULLY met the goals of that diet? We always talk about relationships with others, but what about the relationship with your body?  Even more, how has the relationship with your body defined your self worth?

In this episode, I am joined in The Oasis Space with Evelyn LeVasseur, where we discuss body image and the effects of childhood can carry over into our adult lives,  overall physical health and the improved mindset required to actually yield the desired results, changing our relationship with food by eliminating deprivation that comes along with dieting, the willingness to be vulnerable when chaotic events disrupt in our lives and manifest in our bodies, and how our health behaviors influence and indirectly teach our children when we may not realize they're paying attention.

The Oasis Space Rapid Value Questions

What is the one thing you like to do to sustain or reset your peace?
- Log off social media and get outside.

Name one book or song that's helped you to define peace.
- Untamed by Glennon Doyle
https://www.amazon.com/Untamed-Glennon-Doyle-Melton/dp/1984801252/ref=sr_1_1?crid=IY3NQWQIXNBP&dchild=1&keywords=untamed+by+glennon+doyle&qid=1622512038&sprefix=untamed+by+g%2Caps%2C180&sr=8-1

How do you define peace for yourself now?
- Loving myself for who I am regardless of anyone else's opinion.

Fill in the blank:

- My name is Evelyn LeVasseur, and without peace, I would probably be in a dark place, but with peace I am living the life that I'm supposed to be.
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LINKS:

Engage with Patrice:
www.sociatap.com/ThePeaceCurator
Instagram: ThePeaceCurator
Email: theoasisspace@patricegrimes.com

Join The Oasis Space - PEACE PURSUITS FB Community:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/theoasisspace

To advertise on the podcast:
Email: TheOasisSpace@patricegrimes.com

If you have questions about booking Patrice or sponsoring the podcast:
Email: TheOasisSpace@patricegrimes.com

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Connect with Evelyn:
Instagram: evelyn_levasseur_fitness
Facebook: Evelyn LeVasseur Fitness

Website:
www.evelynfit.com/nomorediets

Transcript

Hello, hello, hello, welcome to the Oasis Space, where we disrupt your current chaos with curated peace, I am your host, Patrice Grimes, a.k.a. the peace curator. And you guys, I just want to start this episode again. Just thank you all for joining me here in the Oasis space. I know I've said it before, but I feel like it bears repeating because, listen, I will be real, which, all right, time is very valuable in something very important to me. So for any of you that was spend your time listening and tuning into these episodes, I do not take it lightly. And I am so grateful and so honored that you would share this time in this space with me and that you have found some value in these episodes. So again, Shaltiel for showing up and shout out to all of the regular police pursuits that, you know, tune in weekly that are always anxious to hear the episodes and always provide feedback. I hope you truly can hear my heart through this and know how greatly appreciated you are in the interest of time. And you know what I was saying of how I value time and I value yours. I am not going to have a super long introduction because lithium is Aveling. She is soft-spoken, but her words are mighty. OK, so I do not want to waste any time getting this information to you all. OK, so just a little bit about.

And she is the owner of Evelyn Levasseur Fitness, a company that focuses on helping busy, overwhelmed moms reach their body goals without dieting or deprivation. After almost 19 years of dieting on and off, Evelyn realized that focusing on food and exercise was just a Band-Aid to the real issues that brought it on weight gain. She teaches her clients to eat in a way that keeps their bodies healthy and feeling satisfied. No more restriction. She wants every woman to know she can want to change her body and love it at the same time. Most importantly, Evelyn knows that if we want our children to grow, to be strong, self-loving, and confident, we must be willing to live that for ourselves. Evelyn is sure to focus conversations around the idea of leaving legacies of health for our children in the generations that follow. Evelyn is a transformation speaker, nutrition coach, certified group, and personal trainer and has a specialization in behavior change. She also has a B.A. in psychology and a master's in education. All right, you guys. So like I said, you are in for another good one, another treat. And without further ado, I like to welcome you into the Oasis space with Miss Evelyn Levasseur. OK, and we are here for another episode in the Oasis Space with Miss Eva Levasseur. And I am so excited, you guys. This is going to be another great episode. And I know I say that every time now, but I don't belie it.

I feel like you all know by now I'm not lying to you because every episode ends up being so bombed. And this is not going to be any different because Evelyn is she is coming to us today to speak about health and wellness and, you know, probably some more jewels, because that's just how our episodes go. We come in with the mindset to talk about one thing and then we end up dropping some other jewels along the way. And I know as we speak about being police pursuits in this community, some of the pillars that we talk about in some of the specific things that we discuss is are one of the things is being relationally far-field. Right. And I know a lot of times we talk about that from an emotional perspective, but we oftentimes fail to talk about it from the perspective of the relationships we have with our bodies. Right. And the relationships we have mentally. So I want to kind of talk about that and what Evelyn does. So, again, welcome, Evelyn. Thank you so much for being here. I'm so glad to have you here in the Oasis space. I am very excited to be here and so honored that you invited me. Yes. Yes, absolutely. So I want to kind of talk about this. Right, because when people get into health and wellness, I know you have to have a passion for the work you do. And so I'm always interested.

It's you know, how people got into that space, like what prompted you to get into that work has is something you've always been interested in, because I feel like there are some people, candidly speaking, right? Some people are in health and wellness and they just have always been above or fine and just like extra fit. And then other people have other reasons that have gotten into it. Right. And so I love to know what prompted you to get into that particular field of expertise. Well, I was athletic as a kid. I was a huge softball player. Love, love. Me too. I love sports. Oh. Would you play what position? I play first base and outfield for the most part. OK, yeah. I was a pitcher. Oh, OK. And I loved it. So I was always very athletic. But the health field came a little bit later for me because I went to college for psychology and I got my master's in education and I taught for 11 years. But during my time teaching, I was also personal training and nutrition coaching part-time work, because I had started that on my I wanted to find a way to get myself healthier during a certain time. And I worked with a hormonal fat loss coach loved what I learned and started to do it for myself. But, you know, going back a little bit, my journey started a little bit because I don't think that I realized how deeply ingrained a negative body image was for me in a very fit, child fit teenager.

When I went to college and put on a little bit of weight, I kind of lost myself because I was so I almost like I identified my body with who I was, not something that was a part of me. So it was like when I put on a little bit of weight, I felt like I didn't recognize myself. I didn't know who I was. And that's when I started dieting. I was nineteen years old when I tried my first diet. And at the time I loved it, believe it or not, because I felt like I could just manipulate my food a little bit in my body to do that because I was nineteen years old. Right. You know, the same is just that cycle. I would lose weight, feel good about what I was eating, gain weight and try another diet. And that went on honestly for upwards of 19 years of life. Wow. Wow. Oh my goodness. And so when you say you realize that you are, I guess you didn't realize how much of this body image was ingrained in your life at such a young age. So from you, do you realize do you feel that this was something that you kind of picked up yourself as a child just because of the sports and things you were playing? Or were there messages being given to you as a child from outside influences, family members, friends, school friends, whatever? I'm just interested in, like where you would have even picked up this type of body image? I feel like it came from all angles.

Like I got a ton of attention for my body. I, I was a great student. I was a great kid. But the thing that I got the most attention for was what I looked like, and that is from family, friends, you know. And there was a lot of I think as a small kid, you don't recognize that body is value message until you start kind of hearing indirectly. I remember a cousin of mine saying, listen, you need to stop playing softball because you're getting too muscular and nobody's going to watch you. He was messages like that, like that, that your body had a value or even looked on as all of the TV shows that we watched when we were younger. All of the commercials that came up, you know, the popular girl that was accepted by everybody was always very thin, very pale. She always fits this mold. And you find yourself as a young kid comparing yourself to that. Yeah. You know, and then as you flash forward, as you're growing up, the conversation continues to turn to body, body, body, body, not commenting on it. People compliment you on it. So you don't get this association about the body just yet. But when people start always telling you you're so lucky to be thin, you're so lucky that you have a small waist, you're so lucky.

And as a kid, you're like. Like what? What is that? But you still start to think that's a good thing. It's a good thing. That's what you're learning. And the opposite would be hearing all the women around you constantly trying. To slim down constantly trying a new program, constantly complaining about their belly constantly, just constantly complaining about what they look like, that you get to the point where you do associate then is good, heavy is bad. I need to try to stay thin so I can be accepted. Yeah. That's so interesting that you bring that up, because when you say things like you heard some of the negative things of when your cousin even mentioned, oh, you're getting a little too muscular, like you probably need to calm that down a little bit. Nobody is going to want you. But then you hear on the other side, well, you're so thin and you're so lucky. Like everybody loves this and you're kind of getting that attitude right. So it's like that positive attention that you maybe don't even know, like, OK, is this OK? But is this OK to receive this attention? But when you receive it, you recognize like, OK, maybe this is a good thing because everyone else is telling me it's a good thing. But did you even acknowledge and realize or did it feel for you to be a good thing at that moment? And I guess I x because I know when I think about some of the experiences I had.

Right, like I, I certainly feel like I had experiences with body images as far as I was chesty. I was someone that was considered a well-developed teenager. And so when you mention things like getting attention for your body, that is something that I'm well aware of. And for me, I had friends and family members, too. There were kind of like, oh, my gosh, look, it's just so lucky like you are. You have big boobs and things like that. And guys would call it out. But it was something to me that felt so horrible. And it,  I internalized it as something negative, even though it was to them perceived as something positive. And so I wonder for you, did you ever feel like at any point it was negative or because of everyone around you saying this is a good thing and they're trying to be thin for you? It was always amplified is OK? Well, this is a good thing. I don't need to change anything. Right. So I think when I was much younger, it just felt weird to be complimented on my body. But as I got older, I don't know that I saw it as positive or negative. Eventually, I started to see it as it was something I had to maintain in feeling like I had value.

It was like I was so used to hearing about it that it became a part of who I was in that I didn't know myself outside of what I looked like. So to me, it became a point of I have to maintain this, I'm going to lose myself. Yeah, I mean, that's what everybody expects me to look like. So if, like, your entire identity was wrapped up into what you look like your outside appearance. Absolutely. And having no idea who I was inside. Yeah. So you say you went through this upwards of 19 years going through these diets, and so was it at that time where you then realized after the nineteen years that, hey, my identity is not wrapped up in these diets or did you figure it out before then but you just still wanted to die? I just kind of get your body together, like talk to me about what was the shift for you. So I think that I feel like my journey to healing happened in layers. When I got married around, I was twenty-seven years old and I married my best friend. Oh yeah. And you wanted kids immediately. And I was like, hold the phone. I'm not ready for a couple of years later, I think that I was in control. We started trying and I got pregnant very quickly and I lost my first baby very quickly. Also, the doctors explain to you this is normal.

Twenty percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage. You give yourself a few months and you can try again. So we did. And the second time I got pregnant very quickly again, and I made it almost halfway through my pregnancy and I lost my second baby. And that went like begging God, just let me do this. I know that I'm supposed to be a mom. I know I am. And, you know, it took us about a year to kind of just heal and feel what we needed to feel and take the leap to try again. And the third time I got pregnant very quickly again, this time I stayed pregnant and I could see my body change and I could feel the baby move. But there was a part of me that wouldn't let myself get excited because I'm so scared that if this happens again, it would break me. On February 10th, 2009, I had my baby girl. I have a little girl, and, my goodness, when the doctors held her to my face, my heart burst open like I couldn't believe that she was real. I couldn't believe that that this pregnancy didn't end in heartbreak. And in that hospital room, I remember telling that, like, I am not going to let you down. I am not just going to be a good mom. I'm going to be an exceptional one. And that's when I started to be intentional with how I spoke about myself, how I spoke about other people, how I spoke to her about health and choices and things.

And she was very intentional. But I could not understand how much of an impact other women were going to have on her as well. This was a few years ago. Now, mind you, during the time I was coaching people nutrition and exercise and exercise. Yeah, but not realizing completely that focusing on food and exercise was a Band-Aid. But I had this very specific moment that taught me that lesson as clear as day. So I was home with my girls, two girls now. And a woman says to my daughter, she was 10 at the time, honey, if you want to keep that figure, you better lay off those burgers or most of the audacity of people. And the thing is, I was so angry at first because I was so intentional in not raising her to be that way. Yeah, that's when it hit me. How deeply ingrained these negative thoughts are around food. I don't think that this woman had bad intentions for my daughter. I damn I just think that we all associate food. Not all of us, those of us with a bad relationship with food, eat food with making us feel and look terrible. We realize it or not. That's what we're teaching our kids to my daughter for that first time associated food with a negative outcome for her body. So that is the moment where, oh, my gosh, it opened my eyes to how deeply rooted our issues with food are, how deeply rooted our issues with body image are.

And I take everything. I stopped just thinking about myself physically and started thinking about my legacy. I want to leave my daughters in a world where they feel self-loathing and confident. And I can never do that if I don't feel that for myself because then I'm going to learn from my words. They're going to learn by watching me live in that moment that I was able to make a huge mindset shift and say I have to be everything I want them to be and I have to feel about myself, everything that I want them to feel. So that's where my healing started. That's where my coaching changed. And that that everything changed from that moment on, because I knew that my purpose was bigger than me, that my lessons in healing myself were going to heal other people, starting with my kids. Yeah. Wow. Oh, my goodness. And I mean, there's so much that we said. You just said they are everything that I also want to make sure that we don't gloss over the fact that you went through you when your husband went through a pretty traumatic time to even get to that point right before your baby girl got here and to go through that experience of losing two babies. And I know you said before, like you, you kind of had to brace yourself because to make sure she was real, that this one didn't end in heartbreak and also kind of want to talk about that, because I think sometimes.

Right, we just kind of move so quickly past the grief process, or we just we kind of move so quickly over the things that break us that we don't fit in the hurt. Sometimes we don't acknowledge it. Right. And so I want to kind of talk to that a little bit. And just how you were able to pivot out of that, how you were able to kind of come to a place of even having the hope to believe that you could get pregnant again, that you would try again? Because I know other women have experienced this very traumatic event and they just want to kind of give up or they'll just say, no, I cannot go through this again. It is too heartbreaking. I can't put my body through this again. Emotionally, you go through this again, I can psychologically go through this again, and so I want to kind of think like, how did you get to that point where you're like, I'm going to try again? The road was difficult. Yeah. Initially, I always struggled with being vulnerable in my mind. The vulnerability was a weakness. So when I was in my darkest moments, I didn't share with anybody. It was it's honestly not until the last two to three years that I even speaking these words out loud, the majority of the people in my life didn't even know what we were going through.

I just kept it to myself because I couldn't handle breaking down so much that I barely even cried in front of my husband. And it's funny that I think about it like that now. I say in front of when what I should be saying is with him, It can be a long time to realize that we are forcing myself not to feel, and forcing myself to keep it together was keeping him from here. And also because even though we see things differently and we feel things differently to him, he just wanted to be there for me. So hurt. I was hurt in the sense that when you get pregnant, you have this idea of hope for your future. You can see it, you can feel it. You make a connection with that baby even the more you do and you love the person that they're going to be. Yeah. So as a woman, you hurt on so many levels. I wasn't looking at it from my husband's perspective. So as a man, he was hurting, thinking about the relationship he would have with his child. So he was hurting more, watching me suffer in silence. And then it wasn't until I was able to finally break down and let him in and let him see me fall apart, that we were both able to start hearing a little bit and that those first steps kind of led to bigger steps.

We were able to have longer conversations. We were able to share our fears. We were able to discuss worst-case scenarios and how do we handle this. And eventually, you get to a point where we got to a point where we said we are going to release this, and if it's meant for us, it's going to happen. And when we're ready to try again, we'll know. So it was upwards of a year that I woke up one morning and I said, I think that I am ready to try one more time. I feared death, but something inside of me is telling me that I am meant to be somebody's mother. And we were fully prepared to try one more time and then consider other options that didn't work out, but. We were willing to do it one more time, and that's such a good point because it's your point, right? Oftentimes, I find it is so difficult for us to be vulnerable sometimes in those spaces because we are sitting in this disappointment one ourselves and then this disappointment of the expectation of what others may have thought for us or our expectations they may have had for us. And so it's almost like we're taking on two separate her to separate disappointments and expectations. And it was never ours to carry. But the fact that you then opened up because you realized, like, OK, well, maybe part of my healing is attached to my husband and vice versa.

Right. Like you being vulnerable opened up for him to help you because that's what he wanted to do anyway. But he just probably didn't know what to do, what to say, because you are suffering in silence, as you mentioned. And so I think that is so important that you brought that up is something like recognizing that you were kind of holding it all together, trying to figure it out yourself without realizing that this is something that you both are experiencing and trying to, I think, just identify how you could solve a problem but not communicate and how to solve the problem, which was just being there for each other. Right. And so I also I just kind of makes me think of another thing where we talked about as you're going through this process because I know you said you were still at that point, you were a health and nutrition coach at the time. Right. And so was this a point where you were still kind of fluctuating with your weight up and down, or where you still like were you at a point where you were good with kind of your body image at that point or what was your mental state like at that point? So I was maintaining my weight in a very unhealthy way. That's the thing. So would I would fluctuate very little, but I was always restricting and driving.

And I was always I would say to myself, I'm doing this for my health. But, when you deprive so much and you restrict so much, it takes a toll on you mentally, too, because you start to feel like you can't trust yourself. You start to feel like you say these things to yourself. Like I just have no willpower and I have no discipline. I have no self-control. Like yourself. You feel guilty, you feel shameful, all in the name of reaching and maintaining this body that you should have. So yes, I was coaching people in food and exercise and realizing that mindset and intuition were so much more important to be able to maintain a healthy body without ever having to deprive. So it was a long journey for me to realize that, yes, I was helping people at the moment, but they would always rebound because we had the right issue. Right. And that's that is very interesting that you mentioned that you came to realize how much mindset and intuition were important in that journey because and even so, with the with pregnancy and fertility. One thing I was when I was reading and came across is that research shows at twenty-five to 60 percent of people that ended up having infertility challenges or like miscarriages, showed signs of more significant mental health challenges, whether they were suffering from depression or more stress or anxiety, things like that, then more verbal people.

And so it kind of just goes to show you, like you were mentioned earlier, how much mental health plays a part in it, even probably more so than weight where you are, even even though your body probably was fine like you were fluctuating somewhat. But even so, you were within a good range. You were in your normal range. But it was more mentally that you were kind of depriving yourself, probably stressing yourself out. What can I do differently or is this something I should be doing? I don't want it. I don't want to do anything to harm the baby. I don't want to do anything to harm the pregnancy. I don't want to do X, Y, Z, or all of the things. Right that you're psychologically battling with yourself. That may not have been helpful, but when we get to the point of what you're saying, which is a pivotal moment of really recognizing mindset and intuition, and that's what you came to then-coach your clients on, you've got to realize, like, OK, food and exercise are important, but the mind's intuition is the game-changer. Right. So talk to me a little bit about that and what you specifically talk to your clients about how you coach them on. That is how you get them to understand that, hey, food and exercise are cool and all, but if it's not bad, it's not bad. The golf course is about that. So I always start with why do you want this? Like, what is it that you want to feel? Because so many people say, I want to lose 30, 40, 50 pounds and they attach their goal to this number.

But really, you don't care about the scale, what you care about, how you feel when you reach your goal, or the goal that you think you should have. So what is confidence? Is it that you want to feel sexy? Is it that you want energy to play with your kids, your goal? You're saying that there's this number that you're chasing, but it's a feeling so we can identify the feeling first. You're way more inclined to reach your goal, but then also you have to be able to uncover where you learned the things that you learned to unlearn them and learn new habits. So think about it from when you were born. Babies knew exactly what they wanted, right? They cry. They get fed. When they're done drinking, they turn their face on a bottle. Or if you're breast, they are done. So naturally, you are born knowing exactly how to feed your body to satisfaction and come back for more when you're ready. Yeah, until adults come into the picture and start giving you rules around food that you start to not trust yourself anymore. So I'll give an example. When I was a kid, the rule in our house was you did not get up from the table unless you finished all of your food. Right? That’s So true.It's not intentional, but that was the beginning of me ignoring my hunger and mindfulness, cuz I didn't sit down because I was hungry, I sat down because I was told to. I am just eating because I was still hungry. I finished eating because I was told to matter what my body told me. The lesson I learned was I needed somebody else to tell me what was best for me. Right. So when you have that foundation, it's easy to fall victim to dieting because dieting is full of rules and we feel like we can trust the diet because it gives us a small sense of control. If I just do what they tell me, I'm going to get the results is that diets don't address what you feel or what you learned, or how you're going to feel when you stop following that plan. They don't mean to be sustainable. So that's why we kind of like fall off or get on and fall off and get on and fall off. So I work a lot with first addressing the mindset. Second, serious tools to reconnect to that intuition. And then we get into we don't get into food until much later. Right now, coaching programs that we don't talk about food until weeks, four or five. Oh, yeah. So we get into a lot of learning about being mindful and then we talk about moderation. And the entire goal is to teach women how to eat for their body, the foods that they enjoy.

The whole premise of my program is that if you can eat and be satisfied every meal, you will never binge with me, that the binge eats or overeat because we don't have self-control and we don't have discipline and all these things we tell ourselves. But the real reason that we binge is that we deprive so you can eliminate the deprivation, you can eliminate the danger and overeating and your body will naturally find its healthy sleep and stay there. Yeah. So that's so good. And I mean, that's interesting that you even go over the mindset for that long. Like that's half of the program which tells you how important that is to sustain that, their weight, their weight journey. And so I guess like what. What and I'm sure that you've probably had clients this, but what do you do for clients that come to you? Right. And they may say, well, Evelin, you look amazing. You don't know what it's like. You know, like all of this sounds good, but I've been struggling with this my entire life. And I know you had a different experience. Right. And I, I don't want to diminish it and act like it's not a problem because everyone has I think body image has had probably somebody image challenges at some point, maybe whether it is maybe they thought they were too thin or maybe they thought they were too big or whatever.

Everyone has their battles to face. Right. And so with you, it didn't seem like you were maybe the chubby kid, which this seems to be. Those are the people that get teased or something like that that are coming to you. They may come to you for assistance. So what do you do for those people that are saying, well, you don't get it and you didn't have my experience right? You can't possibly know what it is that I've been through, what it like, how do you help those people? How do you kind of break down their barriers? I tell those people that we may not have the same journey, but the pain is the same. Feel the same. Pain is the same pain to feel uncomfortable in your skin. It is the same pain to look in the mirror and be saddened by your reflection. It is the same pain to associate your value with. How you look is the same pain to walk in a room and feel uncomfortable because you feel like people are looking at you and judging you. I don't have your experience, but I have felt that pain, and I always tell them that a lot of people will say, I just let I don't need the mindset work. I need the food work. And I tell them the clearest metaphor I can give is if you bought a house that was falling apart, would you hire an interior decorator to make it beautiful? No, you would fix the foundation first so that housing demand and the same goes for your body.

I don't I could give you a restrictive eating plan and I could give you intensive exercise. And I can promise you that you're going to lose weight quickly. I can also promise you that you're going to gain it right back and you're going to an even worse. So what I would do, just like buying that house, I'm setting you up with a strong foundation first so that when we work on that food and we work on that exercise, you're going to stand strong. And your results are going to stay with you forever. Yeah, yeah, and I bet you they thank you so much for it afterward because they're thinking they don't need it. Everyone thinks, oh, no, I don't need this mindset. I'm fine. I know what I need to do. Just get me to the finish to the basics. I had a call yesterday with a woman who was saying we started I started that very question. She's like, I need to lose 30 pounds, OK? I said, Why? She says Because I'm fat. And I'm like, OK, well, what does it mean to be thinner? Does it mean I would be fat? OK, if you weren't fat, how would you feel? She says, pretty. And I'm like, what I'm hearing is that you think fat is not pretty.

And she's like, that is not pretty. So I asked her if you were with a family member, maybe your daughter, maybe your sister, or your cousin, and they weighed the same amount you weigh. Would you tell them that they were fat and not pretty? And she's like, absolutely not. That's horrible. And I'm like, OK, let's start there. Why are you giving other people more acceptance and love and respect than you're giving to yourself? We have to start there. Yeah. You are looking at yourself and saying, I am not pretty because I am fat and you're diminishing everything that you are. You are making yourself about your weight when truly I think about it now and yes, I am strong and I am healthy. But of all the things that I am in this world like, I am an exceptional mother and I am a wife and I am a great coach and a sister and a friend. My body is the least thing about me. Yeah, irrelevant. And I didn't know that until I was able to take power. And knowing that I am more than what I look like. And when you feel that pain, when you start to realize your value, despite what you look like, you feel like this superpower, you feel like this weight falls off of you like this here inside. And I don't know, I feel unshakable now. I feel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I think I think that brings me to my life.

Maybe my last point. I'm not going to lie. But how does this work now, I guess influences your daughters. Right. So you have two girls and it makes me wonder how you shop for them and the work that you're doing. Right. And are you super-mindful now of how you speak to them? And I guess I'm asking because. Right. I think sometimes we have our own experiences that we go through. And so then we become hypersensitive to making sure that they're not. Because you were you realize you were conscious about your body. You try to do the opposite with them, or maybe you focus more on it. Right. Like we all have different ways that we deal with it based on our experiences. So, like, how do you now operate with your daughters based on your experience and in recognizing that you had had some of those body image challenges? So I make sure to never compliment their body. I have never said anything about your thing or your you have a small way I compliment their character. I focus on who they are and how they treat each other and how they treat other people and how loving they are. And I make sure that we have in our bathroom mirror some affirmations. I am I am worthy. I am kind. Yeah, kind. This is my superpower. And they recite it because I know that they will forever be influenced by outside factors.

And I know that diet culture is everywhere and they are constantly exposed to diet commercials and even the TV shows the girls are always talking about, like, I don't want to get fat, so I know that they're going to see it. I can't prevent that. But I can hopefully raise them to be self-loving and confident. So those things impact them in that way. And I love seeing like I have a story this year. My youngest daughter is nine now and she is still in school virtually. Yeah. They were doing some type of an English assignment with like a fill in the blank. And then they said something like, the mom stared blank. The wall was longingly at the cake because she was on a diet and my daughter raised her hand in class and she goes. That mommy should call my mommy so she can learn she never has to go on a diet. I lost my mind. That was so funny. I love what we do. We talk very we don't talk in detail about food or health or anything else. The only thing we talk about is some foods are healthy and help us grow and there are some delicious foods, but they don't help us grow foods that grow, that help us grow. And we can eat the food sometimes and that and we have no rules around.

I do sit down and I make the same dinner for all of us and they're not hungry. OK, put it in the fridge when you're ready to check it out. But other than that, I try not to put too much stress around food. And I don't talk about my body. I don't know about a body. Go. They watch me eat a variety of foods. They watch me exercise. So I hope that they learn from my habits and not from my but not from the negative thoughts I used to have. Yeah. And I think that brings you to bring up a good point, Evelin, as far as just kind of learning and I guess and I don't know if you're even able to answer this, but when we talk so much about our mindset and how that affects us and our body overall in our overall health, it makes me think about X amount people that maybe have had a different challenge in their body that that's different from yours. But it also makes me think of, you know, maybe it's people that maybe had like a certain health condition. Right. So maybe they were recently diagnosed with a specific health condition or, you know, a lot of what my podcast deals with is when I talk about being a pursuit, the way I defined it is peace in being able to pivot even as chaos ensues. Right. So when there is some type of chaotic event that happens in their life, some type of conflict that happens, they're like, how are they able to pivot out of that situation and change the trajectory of their life so they don't fit in that tragedy sit in that conflict or chaos.

And so, as I think through that right, I'm thinking through and I'm like just kind of hearing someone that could have either as I say, had been diagnosed with some type of medical condition or maybe someone that has gone in, God forbid, a car accident. Right. And so then they are disabled or something like that may prevent these people then from being able to exercise regularly. Maybe sometimes we know medications cause weight loss or weight gain. And so I'm thinking about those people that we’re saying that, hey, we know that food, nutrition, mice and all these things are important. And maybe these people were doing all of these things before. But now I've had a life-altering event kind of shift, all of it. What do we say to those people? Like how do we also help them kind of embody this piece, given that their situation isn't the same as someone that's fully able and capable, that I guess the next person, a normal person to be? I think we have to have a shift in perspective because when you have a life-altering event, it is a way of helping you re-evaluate what you prioritize before.

And I think that in it if it were an example of an accident of some sort, I would help that person understand that their life is a blessing and there is a blessing of loving yourself for who you are is your first step. And sometimes it is a life-altering event that is here to teach you that regardless of what your scale or your pants size says, your value doesn't change. I would work as hard as possible to help that person understand that they have value in who they are at this moment and that when they reach a goal and they don't have or have to reach a goal to feel valuable, for example, about true health, I think that true health starts with self-acceptance and self-love. So we get there. Then, of course, we can talk about food, we can talk about the impacts of sleep and stress, and hydration. But your body is going to function differently now. And we have to meet you where you are, where there's some idea of where you have to be. And I think gratitude is a superpower and start where you are. That's so good. That's so good. I think you're right. Sometimes we get so caught up in just the idea of. Where we want to be or the ideas we had for ourselves, the goals that we have for ourselves instead of starting at point a right, we want to jump to a point already.

And it's like point A is that God's spirit is for a reason. Right? We're here for a reason. So let's start there and figure out what's the value? What value do we have here? What do we still have to offer? What impact do we still need to make? Because it's something that because we're still on this earth. And so, as you said, the scale is not telling the story. The pant and telling the story of our very existence is what still telling the story. And so it all ends up shifting back to the mindset as you said. And this is why you see the four weeks look like I feel like I was I had a shift also years ago, my mom was diagnosed with dementia and my mom is the strongest woman I know. And her being diagnosed like, oh, it broke me in a way that I didn't realize. But in time it was like her suffering manifested in my hearing, only that I realized so deeply that I had been living in gratitude, truly living in gratitude for my husband. We have an amazing relationship for my children that I prayed for, for my business, for my home, for my family, and my friends. Grateful that my mom is still with me. She's very young and she knows this illness has progressed very quickly. Oh, my gosh. I realized as a lightning bolt hit me that I had been living my life in gratitude for everything that I have and everyone that I have.

But I treated myself like an outsider looking in and I realized that true gratitude has to also be feeling grateful for me and realizing that I don't just have blessings, I am one. Oh, and I think I learned that my whole heart changed and I feel like I can see people differently now like I have. I can now look at a woman and think about her physicality. I want to know your soul. I want to know what's inside of you. I want to know what you feel and how you treat people and how you show up and the impact you're leaving on this world. And yes, I want to help you get to your health yourself, but I want you to love your insides before we change your outsides it. Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. So good. Ellen felt good. Oh, my goodness. It's just amazing to have been in a place where I would look at myself and critique myself so harshly how I looked, where now I wake up and I am grateful for my life and I am grateful for I am for me and to be able to say that and that is an incredible distance from where I was. Yeah, it's beautiful because to your point. Right, I think a lot of us get so trapped in that space where you say you're grateful for our parents.

We're grateful for our husbands. We're grateful for our kids. We're grateful for our friends. We're grateful for all these other people surrounding us. And then we don't stop to think, wow, these great people want to be around is like they must mean. We're pretty great, too, right? Like you would think logic would tell us. And so we should have some gratitude and thankfulness for ourselves. That obviously must be some great human beings as well. But we kind of stop there. We just think that that can't be it because I don't look a certain way or I'm not showing up the way that I maybe could have before or that I used to show up in whatever ways that I may be restricted or things like that. And like you say, kind of how we place value on the way we look, how our weight may fluctuate, how our appearance, a luxury, whatever the conditional things. Right. And we place value instead of just being grateful for who we are and just saying, hey, I am the blessing, you know, when I walk in someone's life is my favorite because I walked in. After all, I am in someone's presence. I just made their day better because I spoke to someone, you know, their life just became a little bit brighter today. And we kind of diminish our value that we have on people because we make everyone else is so much more significant.

And not to say that they're not everyone is significant. Right. But we tend to just forget that ours is also significant. It's. As well, and also we love other people for who they are, but when we talk about ourselves, we only focus on what we're not. And I think I started to I started to have so many like I said, mindset shifts where every time it was like, oh, my God? I started to keep a gratitude journal whenever I got a text from a client. And I'm not talking about, listen, clients do not message me about how their bodies have changed. They don't. They message me about how confident they feel. They know, wow, I got a client message just a couple of weeks ago. She emails me and her email just one line, said, thank you for making me feel beautiful. And listen, it's all right there. There's the other part of me that says I am living the life that I've prayed for, a strong marriage to amazing daughters like I pray every day and I cannot recite a Bible verse. And I'm not that well-versed. I say to myself, and I teach my children that God doesn't make mistakes. So how could I be who I am and believe what I believe and still feel like there's something wrong with me? If God thinks I am perfect as I am and my children and my husband think that I am perfect as I am, then who am I to question? That is there's just so much to let.

Little have you got to open up a whole can of stuff up in here, Alana. OK, well, so listen, I know that we could go and we can keep talking and we could just we could keep talking and probably just starship in some the mindsets up in here, you know. But I want to be mindful of your time and I want to just thank you because this has been so, so helpful. And I think what I love about doing this is because I feel like it always gives me little jewels and reminders when we always need those little reminders for ourselves to remember who we are. Remember to be grateful for your self-worth again. It's always these little things that you kind of guide me, gives you these little friendly reminders, these little gatherings over that you meet sometimes. And this is just been so, so, so good and so helpful. As I said, we sit here, we said we won't talk about health and wellness. And then I say we always we kind of go down another pet like, you know, we just never know what you're going to get in your space. But I do know it was always consistent that they'll be good. That's the one thing like I'm always going to get something good. You always going to give them value, always going to get something to just nourish you.

So what I like to do, Evelyn, at the end with all my guess is what I call rapid value questions. And this is just kind of like this cherry on the top because again. Right, like you guys always provide value in these calls, but it's like a little extra value for the listeners. So it's for questions. It's just whatever you think of at the top of your head is nothing too harsh that everything's OK. All right. The first question is, what is the one thing you like to do to sustain or reset your piece? I live off social media and get outside. Yes, I went this past weekend hiking and to my favorite part, which’s by my house, by the water, like anybody who an instinct-depth knows in-depth in-depth, knows I love the water like it is my happy place. And when I tell you every my it just was everything for my soul, like some things that you just don't realize you need it, you know. And it was like, oh my God. Like I've been kind of slipping on the health care, candidly speaking. And it was just like I had to kind of just racing who myself because I was just so happy just realizing, like, I just really needed that reset. So, yes, I didn't think that we think, like, self-care is going to get your nails done in a massage. But sometimes self-care is like an instinct, opening up the back porch and drinking my coffee outside.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. You are so right. So right. OK, question number two, what is May one book or song that's helped you to define peace? OK, last year, untamed by going. Oh my gosh, listen, I feel like Glennon's oil is my spirit animal and she doesn't. But she's like my soul sister. Yeah, but her book is all about unpacking how you work as a human, you had an instinct-depth to just go with who you were and who you were purposed to be. And the outside world came in and kind of put you in a box. Well, her whole book is about breaking out of that box, healing from the inside, focusing on your legacy for your children, passing those lessons. And then it was almost like we were living in the untamed racing who like I have. I'm going to add that one to the list. Yeah, that sounds good. OK, number three, how do you define peace for yourself now? Peace for myself now is loving myself for who I am, regardless of anyone else's opinion. I love it. I love it. Starts with yourself. Yeah, OK, last question. This is a fill-in-the-blank. It's three blanks. The first one is easy because of your name. OK, so it is. My name is blank and without peace, I'd probably be blank, but with peace, I am like, all right.

My name is Evelin. With and without peace I would probably be in a dark place. But with options, I am living the life that I'm supposed to be at. Levit Allan, thank you so much. This is so amazing. Thank you so, so much for being a part of the space and just bringing all of these extra jewels to us today. The US was so great and so beautiful. Such an amazing spirit. So thank you again for joining me. So much for having me on here. I love this conversation. Thank you. All right, my love. Talk to you later. Wow, wow, wow. Oh, my goodness. And that's how you guys, Evelin is small and mighty. Oh, my goodness. All of the things that she talked about in that episode, I'm telling you guys, like when I record these, I have to compose myself because I must be just like jumping with all the goodness. And I just think about, like, how it's going to bless you all. And I get so overwhelmed and so overjoyed because I know it's going to help someone, because I know these are thoughts that you've had. I know there are people out there that have been dyed in the same as ever and on and off for 19 years. I know there are people out there that have struggled with body image issues. I know there are, unfortunately, women out there that have struggled with miscarriages or infertility and, you know, struggle with the process of figuring out with their significant others, their spouses, their partners of know how do we get out of this? How do we maneuver out of this? How do we bounce back? And I mean, it was just so many things shared in this episode of how we shift our mindset in the way that we have spoken to ourselves in the past and how that even plays such a significant part in the relationship with our body.

I mean, she tapped into things that I had never thought of before, and it was just it was so good, so good. And I know you all found some value in that as well. And so what I want you to do is if any of this resonated with you, I want you to also think of some affirmations that you can say to yourself as well that can change how you view yourself in your body, because, again, our bodies can go through changes all the time, whether it is due to some significant life-altering event or whether it is due to pregnancy, whether it is due to an injury, whether it's because we've been stuck in the house and there are so many things and how our body reacts and how we respond to our bodies changing. And I want us to all collectively have this mindset, like I was talking about changing our perspective in that we don't view our value any less.

Based on the way that our body looks and the best way and one of the ways I would say to combat that is speaking kind of regularly. So I would suggest that you all start with at least three affirmations, you know, specifically over yourself, your body, your the value of your self, in your heart, things like that, that will change the thought process that you have about your body in connection with your value. I think you should do that. And then secondly, I want you all to consider yourself as a blessing. That was a key there. Right. When she says true gratitude is one thing to have the feeling, to be grateful for things. But I can be grateful for blessings, but also realize that I am one of the blessed. And so that is just so deep. And if that's not one of your affirmations, baby, listen, you need to make that one right now, OK? Seriously. But like I said, so many good things. If you found this to be at all beneficial or valuable, please write and review this podcast. It helps you not only like you said before, does it help me just really get in some good feedback from some of you? All I know some of you are good about sending feedback to me directly.

But for those of you that aren't doing that, you know, and I know you're listening, please write in review because it gives me some good feedback on what you're enjoying, what you know, what you're thinking. And so it's really helpful for others also that may find this useful, that is searching out the apocryphally and to be able to come across this podcast if it is rated and reviewed. So you don’t show up. If you do just one or the other, you've got to do both, OK? And secondly, if you enjoy this or you found some value, you think someone else can find some value, share this. OK, share this with a friend, share this with a family member or share this with a co-worker. OK, I don't care if you share it with the Panera worker, OK? If you say this person is going to find some value, share it, share it. OK, and lastly, I just want you all again to also consider joining our Facebook community. It is the Oasis space peace process. Could be it's an intimate community where we discuss some of the episodes a little more in depth. We discuss some things that are not related to the episode and we just have more intimate conversations.

And if you realize that, hey, I need some community, I need someone to hold me accountable, I need maybe I've had a circle before, maybe I've had a community before. But it isn't the type of accountability that I need. It isn't the reciprocated relationships that I'm looking for. Then come on over to the Oasis Space Peace Process. The community loves to have you there. And lastly, I want to also remind you of all of Ellen's information as well. So I know I am also going to drop that in the show notes, of course. But you can also find Evelin in several different ways. But the main way is to find her on social media. She is on Instagram and Facebook at Evelin and just goes to Levasseur, underscores fitness as well, again on Facebook with the same name Evelynn Levasseur Fitness. And you can also visit her website, Evelin Fit Dot com slash. No more diets where you can check out her programs, get her freebie, all of that good stuff as well. So again, I will place all of that information in the show notes if you're interested and tell me next time I want you all to live your best life and embody peace without ever compromising your authentic identity.