EP 46: How to Develop a Kinder, Compassionate Relationship with Your Body Featuring Pilates and Movement Instructor Helen Phelan

This week, I’m speaking with Helen Phelan, a body neutrality pilates and movement instructor who believes that everyone deserves to feel good in their body. Helen’s approach to fitness and health is one centered around how exercise makes you feel, versus how it makes you look. She uses conscious breathing techniques to enhance bodily intuition and high repetition sequences that encourage body awareness and mindfulness. As a former professional dancer, Helen developed disordered eating and exercise habits that caused a lot of self-criticism and harm. It was in her recovery that she realized just how often the boutique fitness industry subtly encouraged disordered eating and body shaming. She believes that the healing impact of the body neutral movement on mental health is the most important result exercise could give anyone.

This conversation is so important because body shaming and disordered eating are outcomes of a society that profits off of people feeling like there’s something fundamentally wrong with them. When we connect with the natural world, we experience our belonging, our wholeness and our rightness. I hope Helen’s work and this episode reminds you to be a bit kinder to yourself and your body.

“My whole goal is to make movement something you look forward to, something that helps you practice taking care of yourself.” - Helen Phelan x Our Nature

Resources

Show Notes

Helen’s relationship to nature as a child
Helen’s unique perspective and offering in the fitness world
How capitalism fuels our lack mentality
The personal experience that led Helen to her work as an inclusivity advocate
The many root causes of a disordered relationship with food (Alyssa shares her own story)
The mindset shift that can help us relate to our bodies differently
Why Helen chose pilates as the main modality she teaches
Ways that we can incorporate more natural movement into our daily lives
What we need to believe in order to heal our relationship with our bodies
What we can learn from nature when it comes to connecting with ourselves
Helen’s experience of living upstate
The Last 5 Questions

The Last Five Questions

What is your favorite place in nature?
Avalon, New Jersey (a beach town).
What is the animal, mineral or plant that resonates with you the most?
Black cats.
What is one thing we can do right now to connect with the natural world and bring more harmony into our lives?
Walking.
What’s the greatest lesson nature has taught you?
Imperfection is natural
Complete this sentence: Nature brings me…
Peace.

Connect with Helen:

Connect with Our Nature Podcast: