Embodied Self-Compassion

Patty Hlava (00:04): Welcome Dr. Biasetti. And thank you for agreeing to this podcast interview. We are so happy to have you here and sharing your expertise. So thank you for taking the time out to be here today. Ann Saffi Biasetti (00:19): Thank you, Patty. Thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here with you and to be in the Sophia community back in the Sophia community. It really is very heartwarming. So thank you for inviting me. Patty Hlava (00:32): Oh, beautiful. Thank you. Well, your book befriending your body, which is a beautiful book, by the way, I really enjoyed the book itself and the exercises that it offers. It is a wonderful resource for those in eating disorder recovery. But the information that you share could easily be applied to anyone. Ann Saffi Biasetti (00:55): Yes. Patty Hlava (00:56): So I'm wondering if you could share a bit about how you became interested in studying self-compassion particularly as a means to healing and recovery. What drew you to this work? Ann Saffi Biasetti (01:08): Yeah, so you know, I guess it starts with what drew me, even to Sophia, you know, university to begin with because I was a practicing clinician for 20 years as a clinical social worker. And out of those years really spent the primary part of those years, working with those in eating disorder, recovery, disordered, eating trauma and as well as other diagnoses, you know, and my, my way of practice shifted a great deal for me through my own personal journey. As I discovered all alternative forms of healing myself such as yoga and meditation. And as I discovered more within my own body and I started little, did I know at the time acting a lot kinder to myself, right? In my own journey of growth and healing, I decided that I needed to learn more. So it was first through the yoga path that I started went back and, and started not only practicing, but then started to learn to become a yoga teacher and then a certified yoga therapist, which deals much more with the mind body connection. Ann Saffi Biasetti (02:26): That's actually all we do. And from that journey, I went to my mindfulness training. It was a year long certification program where practice was a primary learning. It was experiential learning through that certification program. And it was there that we had a whole segment taught to us by Chris Germer, many of, you know, Christopher Dr. Garmer, who is the co-creator of the mindful self-compassion program. So this is before he even started that research and that program with Kristen F. And this is that many years ago now, I think it was about back in 2009 or 10. And so he was our teacher on the segment of self compassion. Wow. And as, as we sat there with him, I know that out of, out of all of the segments that we learned out of all the areas that we studied mindfulness in that really struck me, it really struck me what we were learning about self-compassion and the practice blew me away. Ann Saffi Biasetti (03:32): The first time that I was guided through meta meta meditation, I really felt such a deep, deep moving, right, such a deep internal shift. And I had to learn more about that. So during that time of the program, I then started attending some retreats some meditation retreats, and I attended one with Sharon Salberg and continue to reach out and look for meditation retreats that focused on compassion and loving kindness and a Bram of a horrors. And I just felt an immediate coming home to that practice like I did when I went from my yoga training too, I felt an immediate coming home to my body. So at that point in time, when the program was over, the mindfulness certification was over. I had a real desire to learn more about what was happening, not just within me, but I was starting to bring all of this into my clients, but there was something that was missing, right? Ann Saffi Biasetti (04:42): Because here I was, you know, full of love and light, you know, with this compassion. And I would try and bring it to my clients, especially those with eating disorders. And I noticed an opposite reaction. I noticed that they became quite resistant to any self kindness or the idea of it. They became kind of flooded at times, almost seemed a little retraumatizing at times, and it was quite upsetting, right? I said, well, my goodness, this is, I know what they need the most. And you know, even in my book, I write that I took this journey, you know, of healing and recovery. When I was, you know, a teenager myself, I didn't have any help at the time. So it was hard for me to say, Hmm, how, what did work for me? What didn't, you know? Right. All I knew is that in my life, at that point in time that coming into embodiment and self-compassion was a primary primary shift in my own growth to take it to the next level, which meant for me, freedom, like real, just freedom in my body, freedom in life. Ann Saffi Biasetti (05:55): Right. Yeah. So that desire to know more is what brought me to Sophia. And at the time it was still the Institute of transpersonal psychology. And I said, you know, I, I wanna learn more. I want to research some component of this. I had no idea still. And that's what brought me there because I knew I could have the freedom to research and look at a person the way I had started to look at a person which is through a holistic lens. I no longer aligned with just looking at someone through a diagnosis. And that had changed a long time before that for me. And so I needed to pick a program that was going to be in alignment with the way I saw a person and the way I believed the, the growth that I believed someone could do, which is more into freedom. Ann Saffi Biasetti (06:54): And with eating disorder recovery, there's a big divide out in the field on the clinical lens, there's the, we, we look at it much more as an individual diagnosis that unfortunately someone is always stricken by this disorder, right. Mm. And on the transpersonal through the transpersonal lens, as we know we, we don't see it that way, you know? Right. We see that there is suffering here. But we also know that there's a whole other realm of consciousness that can be tapped into for freedom. Yeah. So, you know, when coming to Sophia, it was it was lovely invitation to be able to start to explore what I wanted to research and for any of the folks that may be in that research process. Now this is a, a really great question that one of my professors had given to us at the time when we were in our, it was in our very fir one of our very first classes where we were deciding what to research and, and we were using so many experiential methods to get there. Ann Saffi Biasetti (08:12): Yeah. My who ended up being the chair of my dissertation was Dr. Dore Netzer and she, yeah, I can, I can talk about the whole podcast just about her <laugh>, but it was incredible. And one of the invitations that she gave us was through through creativity, through art to begin to explore our topic. And I'll never forget, she said to us at the time, not when, when, as we were dropping into meditation and then express expressive form of what we noticed from there, one of the invitations she had for us was to consider that this is going to be a topic that you will marry, you know, that you will embody, right. That you will take in, that you will be thinking about constantly that you will be living with, right. You will be breathing, you dreaming, it you'll be dreaming. Ann Saffi Biasetti (09:14): It you'll be right. Yeah. I, on what method you choose you know, if you're like eating or goes a grounded theory, you'll have posters of it all over your walls and everything else. So there was one point I came into the program and I knew I wanted to research something with eating disorders, but at first I was going from, I'm gonna call it my old brain, which was, oh, let me pick a very clinical topic. So as anxiety and how anxiety, you know, manifest, as soon as she asked us that question, and then how us express it through the art form, everything that I saw in that piece of paper was softness. It was soft colors. It was, it was actually my, one of my animals. It was actually, my cat showed up. It was all this. And the, and the, the, the meaning making behind that for me, as soon as I saw that picture, I'll I never forget her come around saying, what do you see? Ann Saffi Biasetti (10:20): What do you feel? I said, it's everything that brings me light and compassion. It's everything that brings me compassion. <Laugh> yes. And I knew because I had been in, in a very strong practice by this point, both with meditation and especially compassion based meditation, I knew what that felt like inside, you know? Yes. Yeah. So when I saw that that's when I said, wait a minute, that's what I need to know more about. I need to know more about how come my clients can't receive this, the way I am receiving this. And I wanted to know the role. I St. That was my research question. Right. And my grounded theory was, can you share with me the experience that self-compassion played in your recovery process? So that was my central guiding question. And when I created my flyers to gather my participants, I had an overwhelming response. Ann Saffi Biasetti (11:30): Cause the question was, do you relate to self compassion, playing a role in your recovery and, you know, self kindness, being kinder, being gentler, you know, do you, you know, did you do you relate to this in any way? And if so, would you like to participate in this study? And I had, I mean, grounded theory, you gather quite a number of participants for quality study. So I I reached a saturation by about 15 participants, but I continued on to 21, I believe it was wow. To, you know, until I, I really, really explored the depth of the experience. I kept hearing repetitive, repetitive themes, you know? Yeah. Probably about 15, but going to that 21 was just really beautiful and picking a topic that I could marry that way. It was life changing. It was life changing to be just immersed in the research, the science of self-compassion to be immersed in the the, the whole Buddhist lineage of self compassion, the bra of the horror to be immersed in the practice of it. Patty Hlava (12:50): Yeah. Ann Saffi Biasetti (12:50): And then with these participants and listening to these stories that were just beautiful to hear, and I knew about halfway through, I knew it had to be a book because what I was receiving and, and from each and every person that shared their journey and what self-compasion did for them was just so rich. And so deep, I said, this can't, you know, not that I'm against journal writing. I think it's just that, that I knew that this was for the people. Patty Hlava (13:25): Yeah. Ann Saffi Biasetti (13:26): And my fear was that if I just went to write to put it in a journal, that it would never get out to the people, you know, mm-hmm <affirmative> so, and I think that's an interesting take, right? Because if we look at the three components of self compassion, right. There's self kindness is mindfulness, but the third component is common humanity. And that's, if I look back on it my own experience of the research was that it brought me into such common humanity, the practice of common humanity. Oh yeah. Which was, Hey, we all suffer. This is the way we, we all suffer. This is how we feel it was a collective, you know? And so it made sense to me that it had to become a book to share, to open up humanity. Right. Patty Hlava (14:19): Absolutely. Absolutely. I love this story of this journey to, you know, with your experience when coming into, through art, coming to this realization that shifts the research, how did you come to the realization that self-compassion needed to be an embodied experience as opposed to just a meditative reflective practice? Ann Saffi Biasetti (14:43): Yeah, well, that was really answered by my participants. Right. Because I remember, you know, frantically reaching out to do Reed at the time, because there's nothing like having a central question. Right. And then you'd sit with the first five participants and all five of them tell you yeah, self-compassion was a primary, you know, was a primary piece of my recovery. It was everything, but none of it was there in the beginning. None of it was there in the beginning. And that's what I kept hearing. <Laugh> first person. Oh, no, I didn't relate to it at all in the beginning. So I was taken aback and that's what I was experiencing with my clients. Right. Is that no, none of them could take it in, but I didn't, I didn't know where that went. Right. I was like, what do you mean? Ann Saffi Biasetti (15:33): None of it was there in the beginning. And I remember reaching out to Dore being like, wow, what, what do I do with this? My central question is going nowhere, you know? And she said, well, what are you hearing instead, rather than what you're not hearing, you know, what are you hearing? And because, and this is a, a really important piece, I think, as qualitative researchers, you, we know how important the role of the researcher is. Right. Right. And because I had already done so much healing and so much training through body based practices, you know, my yoga meditation, the yoga therapy training, which really was so many years of immersion. Yeah. I was fearful that I would step in too much and, and, and wonder about the body too much. Right. Because I knew the body was such a central healing component. I was afraid as a researcher that, oh, am I just going to be searching for the body here? Ann Saffi Biasetti (16:35): Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so what happened was the first five or six participants? I wasn't seeing it at all. They kept talking about the body. Everything was about the body, but I wasn't seeing it. So he finally said to me, well, what are you hearing? And I was like, am I allowed to say that I'm hearing about the body <laugh> and she's like, of course you, what are you hearing? And, and that blew everything open. Right. And created all these beautiful questions then that had to do with embodiment. Because what I was hearing was I, I was hearing really intense suffering. I was hearing things like I had no kindness for myself. I had self-loathing I had self hatred. I had self-criticism. But what I was hearing was end, they would say all those statements and they would say end, I knew something was wrong in my body. Ann Saffi Biasetti (17:40): Ah, so it's there it is. So as I started developing question after question about that, what I, what that opened up and what I started to hear was that no one could identify it as self-compassion in the beginning, but really what they were saying was something is wrong inside of me, something is broken. They use that word broken. Every participant used that word broken wow. Severed feeling like they were severed from their mind to their body. So they knew there was a disembodiment happening. Yeah. They just didn't know the word for it. So they knew there was a disconnect, a divide mm-hmm <affirmative> a divide. And they knew that that didn't feel okay. Ann Saffi Biasetti (18:33): And that without them realizing the word around that, right. That, that, that kind of curiosity and distress even really is a form of self compassion. Right. It's a form of, yeah, it's a form of saying what's wrong with me. I have to find out what's wrong. And what I heard was many people reporting. And this is anyone who works with those that are struggling through this disordering understand that many people run to the doctor, they run to allergists, they run to all different forms of help. Right? Yeah. Thinking that knowing something is wrong, something is wrong, but there's a disconnect between, oh, these behaviors that I may be doing are impacting my internal body. And instead what they're saying is my body something's wrong in my body. And the more they feel that something is wrong and they can't figure it out, the more they try and externally control the sensory experience of what's happening within. Ann Saffi Biasetti (19:43): Right. So it was all this this very, very deep you know heartfelt talk about the body. And it was very clear to me that what they were saying was they were disembodied. And that was the experience of disembodiment. Right. The experience of disembodiment was, I don't know what is going on in here. I can't figure it out. So, so if we look at it a lot of my research also, and, and all my work now actually really dives deep into neuroscience around this. Right. Because really what we're hearing someone say is in the disembodied realm, their disconnected from their sensory experience. Right. And that is interceptive awareness, right? Yes. Yes. So on that level, they're saying, I don't know. I can't feel, I can't sense my body. I can't sense what's happening and it's frightening. Right. So they're having a whole internal autonomic nervous system response. Ann Saffi Biasetti (20:56): Yeah. Being disconnected. And if we look at embodiment, we understand that embodiment is the exact opposite. Isn't it? Embodiment is completely being connected yeah. To the internal sensory experience of our body. It's living life and living in the world with a bodily experience, not just a self experience. Right. Right. And, and it's a, an embodiment leads to a feeling of interconnectedness both within themselves and in between. Right. Right. So in many ways, I, what I teach now is I, I teach about how embodiment is actually the healing of the nervous system. Isn't it both within, in between. Yeah. Right. I'm a somatic therapist. So this research really fit beautifully into the work that that I do and I was already investigating. Patty Hlava (22:02): Right. Ann Saffi Biasetti (22:03): And so that was, that was primary. The embodiment was primary. And to understand that we have to start there. We have to start with helping our clients to embody before we can have them begin to experience what self-compassion is Patty Hlava (22:25): That makes so much sense. The embodiment allows someone to hold space for that compassion. It creates the container. Ann Saffi Biasetti (22:33): That's right. It's the first foundation as we know. Right. And my, and everything else. So it really is in self-compasion work with this particular population. It really is. We can look at it as the first foundation, you know, we're starting here, we're getting curious about what's happening in here and, and the biggest piece, right. Because self-compassion in and of itself can be looked at, and I'll say more about this later. But it can be looked at as a responder, right. It's a verb instead of a noun in the recovery process. So it's motivator, it's a responder. So when someone knows that something is not right inside their body and they respond to it, that's a self-compassionate act. Right? Mm, Patty Hlava (23:23): Absolutely. Ann Saffi Biasetti (23:24): They're building that from the body. So embodiment was really the grounding of of the research. You know, it showed that embodiment was the container, the holding the grounding of self-compassion. Patty Hlava (23:39): Yeah. So if someone is moving toward cultivating a sense of embodiment, what strategies would you employ? What does that process look like to begin to become embodied? Ann Saffi Biasetti (23:53): Yeah. So one of the places that I always start, and this is I think really central and, and crucial for the times we live in, especially is I'll always start with people understanding what led them to be disembodied. Right. And we know we live in, in most of us live in, in a very disembodied culture. And I I'm, I'm going to say that this is unfortunately, probably almost worldwide now, unfortunately, because of our dominance, right. Our Western dominance. And and so this duality of mind and body, you know, this paradigm that has been in existence, you know, for hundreds and hundreds of years is I, I wished I could say that it has lessened right through the years. Cause we've introduced practices that are more embodied practices, right? Like yoga, what have you, but, you know, as a yoga therapist, I also understand what have we done to these practices, right? We <laugh>, we have Patty Hlava (25:02): Taken the, Ann Saffi Biasetti (25:04): And the body and we have separated that, you know, even on the mat, even on the cushion. Right. So mm-hmm, <affirmative> so unfortunately we are living in a disembodied culture, right. And we are bombarded bombarded with messages constantly about convincing everyone. Diet culture is a systemic oppression, right? Yes. Of bodies. And it's a disembodied system. So meaning that what I teach my clients all the time is that this system of oppression cannot even exist if we were all embodied. Right. Because embodiment teaches us that I know what my body needs based on what I sense and how I feel. Right. I know what it needs. So I don't need a system on the outside telling me the way I should eat the way I should exercise. What's best for me, the next trend, everything else. So this is a sociocultural impact that is enormous. And I never separate that. The intersection of culture from the disordering of what happens in an individual, in and with their body and in, at the end result, how they're trying to regulate that, how they're trying to cope with that, this embodiment. I really find that for the clients I work with, and this is so many years now, we over 30 years. So, so many clients that they are folks that are longing to come back home. Ann Saffi Biasetti (26:54): They are folks knowing that I want a deeper connection, you know, embodiment in its whole, right. In his wholeness is about belonging. It's about belonging, right. Feeling a sense of belonging returning to that home, the way we were all born. Yeah. Right. So disembody is all around us. And you know, these are clients who, if we can teach them that, so psychoeducation is so important. So if we can start by teaching them about how they lost their way. Yeah. And the very good reason that they lost their way, the immediate thing we do is we open the door wide open for self compassion, because what that statement alone, every time I teach that information, my clients like have a sigh of relief. And because what we're noticing happening there is that they've, they've experienced an internal disidentification with a disorder, a disorder that they believed was all their fault. Ann Saffi Biasetti (28:06): So they've carried around nothing but shame and punishment and criticism. And all of a sudden when they hear the common humanity of all bodies yeah. Now, and not every body will lose their way in the same way. Right. Right. But so not every body that goes on a diet, let's say will turn into an eating disorder, but mm. I think the statistics are about 70% will high it's very, very high. And so many of my clients have been this has been infiltrated into their lives since they were babies four years old, five years old, six years old, you know? So so when they hear that and we dis you know, they have a disidentification with the suffering immediately by saying, wow, I had no idea this wasn't just about me. I had no idea that this is all around me impacting me. And that this is how I've been responding to all of this along with things that went on in my life, genetics and biology, family history, and any trauma and things like that, mood disorders, whatever else may be in the mix. Right. So we open up self compassion through teaching them about disembodiment first. Yeah. And then about how we were all born a total opposite way. Yeah. And so really the recovery journey in the, in the transpersonal view is journeying back. Patty Hlava (29:50): Yeah. Ann Saffi Biasetti (29:51): <Laugh>, it's just a journey back. Patty Hlava (29:53): It's so beautifully. You're describing just this opening of understanding and seeing the bigger picture and saying that they're not alone. And that experience invites self-compassion naturally, rather than having to say, this is what you have to do. Ann Saffi Biasetti (30:11): That's Patty Hlava (30:12): Right. That feel it Ann Saffi Biasetti (30:13): That's right. Exactly. They actually start to express curiosity about their body and about, you know, oh, I see oh, I've been doing that. Like I've had so many clients that come to discover, you know, they were running, running, running, you know, they happened to be running joggers, whatever runners, and all of a sudden through this journey, they're like, wow, I hate running. <Laugh> they're like, I never liked it. I never liked it. My body doesn't like it. So what's beautiful is I, you start hearing, I know when folks have crossed in my book is the nine phases of, of what's how self-compasion impacted along the phases of recovery and about FA around chapter four is the embodiment chapter, right? Yeah. And the words you start hearing when people learn what has been happening right. In, within and with outside of their body and within their body, when they start learning that you start to hear different language, people start to say, well, my body didn't really like that. And so a lovely relationship that starts to form, and what we're hearing is we're hearing the difference, and this is embodiment. Again, we're hearing the difference between the subjective experience of being in a body, right. Versus the objective experience, Patty Hlava (31:49): Such a difference, such a difference. Ann Saffi Biasetti (31:52): It has to happen. What, you know, my, my gripe with short term recovery work, unfortunately, and we know that not everyone is privileged to have longer term recovery work, but I'll also say it's, it's not just a financial aspect. That prevents, right. Because I think if we're looking at a systemic interplay here as well, because research has continued to focus just on cognition, right. As a way to resolve and recover. And when we focus just on the mind, well, then what we prescribe is six week treatment, right. For eight week treatment, you know? And so the reason I say that is because we could do this work short term, we could teach people this embodiment work, no problem. And self-compassion work short term. It's just that we have to break through. As we know, even in our research, we have to break through the divide, right? Ann Saffi Biasetti (33:01): Yeah. The reductionism, right. We have to break through the mind body divide and, and start to have more research done on methods, you know, on interventions that actually are extremely effective for helping our clients longer term. So even if they're only with us short term, how can we help them longer term? So someone crosses into that subjective view or ownership of the body. Now we're talking self agency. Yeah. You know, now we're talking empowerment. So it allows them to move to the next step, which is okay, now that I have this base, now I can turn toward this suffering. And that's where the self, Patty Hlava (33:52): What would you say and are the most common obstacles that people face when they're really stepping into this work and what would you recommend for them? Ann Saffi Biasetti (34:03): Yeah, so the greatest obstacles are definitely unfortunately what they believe their body should be according to the standards that that our culture has set, you know, especially diet culture, the, the thin ideal. And, and remember that it's a, it's a system that attaches morality and value to size, right? So that's where it's such an oppressive system. And we can really delve very deep into that too, when it comes to race. And and when it comes to gender and everything else, because that value system goes across the board. So we know that there are so many bodies that are marginalized even ready, right. So, so the greatest obstacle is going to be fighting. What they start to feel inside, which is, I know what is healthy and strong internally for me, but I'm so scared to face, you know, the repercussions of a changing body, and then take that body out into the world where it may not be accepted or it already hasn't been accepted my whole life. Ann Saffi Biasetti (35:27): And how do I say that I now know better, right? Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> when I have believed that I am wrong, you know, my whole life and that's body is wrong, my whole life. How do I now get over that? So, you know, really it's an interplay between, you know, we call it body image, but I like to make it much wider than that. It's so beyond body image keeps it stuck on the surface. It keeps it stuck on objectification, which I don't want teaching a different, a different angle here, right. Through embodiment. So it's much larger than body image. It's, you know, it's a Bo the lived experience of a body is what it is. Yeah. And that's really we're looking at. So so I actually have it's, you know, again, probably beyond our talk today, but I have a whole piece that I'm working on now called body forgiveness. Ann Saffi Biasetti (36:28): And cause of this because this is what clients are up against. This is the obstacle that they're up against. Once they start recovering through non harming, right. They're not harming themselves anymore, but now they're left with, I don't know how to live in this body, out in this world, especially based on the messages I've received. Yeah. So body forgiveness as a whole practice that I'm working on now that helps our clients move into a deeper connection, a more sustained self-compassionate connection. So that's one of the greatest obstacles I'll say that we face and really, it takes a lot of grieving. That's why it's <inaudible> practice. It takes a lot of grieving of what they've received out there. It also takes a lot of grieving of what they've done cause they know they've harmed their own body. Yeah. And and now they are friends with their body right now they've developed a relationship with it and that grief is intense. Right. That's Patty Hlava (37:35): Big. Yeah. Ann Saffi Biasetti (37:37): It's big. It's a repair. Yeah. It's a repairative relationship now. It's like, okay, how do, how do we come to repair this now? Yeah. It's tough. Oh yeah. It's a tough one. Patty Hlava (37:52): And you've talked about, you know, this work that you're doing, what are the trainings and programs that you do offer so that people can find this support. <Laugh> really important work. Ann Saffi Biasetti (38:05): Yeah. Thank you. So after the book came out, you know, the I noticed that people were working the book together, you know, they were working with therapists with dieticians, with each other, as friends and all that. So there was that common humanity, again, mm-hmm, <affirmative> Ann Saffi Biasetti (38:20): Very quickly I think the book was released in August and by September I had a small group going, I had a small eight week befriending your body group going. And that small little group turned into a year long pilot study that I did where I collected qualitative data. Again, thought I'd never go back to it, but Patty Hlava (38:43): <Laugh>, Ann Saffi Biasetti (38:43): And I did some quantitative as well because I, I gave them pre and post tests on self-compassion and interceptive awareness. And I studied three different groups. And what came out of that was the formation of the befriending your body program. So now I have an eight week program of making peace with your body food and self. And it's an eight week program where people learn the skills of embodiment. They learn how to embody based on somatic practices that that I offer to them and guide them through. And then self-compassion skills as well for emotion regulation and the continued embodied practicing. So that's an eight week program that I offer virtually. So I've had people from all over the world it's, you know, been running strong now for a number of years. I also train therapists and dieticians and eating disorder, certified coaches in the work as well. So I have professionals training in it. So that's one way, the other way is on my website at www.anembodiedlife.com. I have a lot of free resources on there. I share a lot of these practices, the meditations share any of the podcasts that I've done, things like that. So people can gain information and I will be creating it's in the works now a whole separate website just for the befriend in your body program. So that is Patty Hlava (40:15): Beautiful Ann Saffi Biasetti (40:15): To have a lot more resources and practices that people can tap into. And for people that can join the virtual program, I have an eight week online course that they can self lead. They can do on their own. It's with my instruction. It's just not live obviously. Patty Hlava (40:35): Yeah. Beautiful. That is wonderful. As we start to wind down here, are there any last minute or closing thoughts that you would like to share? Is there one thing that you would like our listeners to really walk away with understanding about embodied self-compassion? Ann Saffi Biasetti (40:58): Yeah. I think the statement that has become a really, really central statement to the program and to this practice of beginning to embody has been this reflection on the statement that whatever it is that you may be blaming your body for, and we all do, right. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> to know that your body never meant to cause you any harm. Hmm. Patty Hlava (41:30): Yeah. Ann Saffi Biasetti (41:31): Yeah. Patty Hlava (41:31): That's beautiful. Ann Saffi Biasetti (41:33): Yeah. That, that if we could just take a breath, you know, together with that, that, yeah, I know it's hard, but your body never meant to give you a hard time. So, So we start there. Patty Hlava (41:50): Thank you for that offering. Thank you. And thank you for sharing your story and your experience and your work and your beautiful book, befriending your body. I can't recommend it enough. It's wonderful. Ann Saffi Biasetti (42:04): <Laugh> thank you so much. Thank you. Patty Hlava (42:07): Thank you so much for being here. Thank Ann Saffi Biasetti (42:09): You. Thank you for.