261. The Ugly Truth About Visibility, Body Confidence, & Food Freedom
261. The Ugly Truth About Visibility, Body Confidence, & Food Freedom
There is a conversation happening in online business and coaching spaces right now that sounds something like this:
You don’t have money blocks.
You don’t have content blocks.
You have visibility blocks.
So the answer, apparently, is to post more. Show your face more. Be more unhinged. Share more behind the scenes. Become more visible. Get out of your comfort zone. Let people see the real you.
And while that advice can be powerful for some people, it is not universally true.
Because not all visibility is created equal.
For some women, the problem is not that they are afraid of visibility. The problem is that the specific medium they are using does not match their body, nervous system, creative process, or lived history.
That is the difference between a visibility block and a medium mismatch.
What Is a Visibility Block?
A visibility block often shows up when you have not practiced being visible enough for your system to normalize the discomfort.
Maybe you only post once a month and then avoid it completely. Maybe you keep pushing visibility tasks to the bottom of your to-do list. Maybe the thought of sharing your work brings up fears like:
What will people think?
What if nobody likes it?
What if I look stupid?
What if I’m judged?
With a visibility block, the discomfort usually lessens with repeated exposure. You post, feel anxious for a little while, and then the anxiety passes. You may even feel proud, expanded, or more confident afterward.
Over time, it starts to get easier. Maybe it even becomes fun.
That is likely a visibility block.
What Is a Medium Mismatch?
A medium mismatch is different.
A medium mismatch happens when you have practiced a form of visibility consistently enough to know the discomfort should be normalizing, but instead, it keeps making you feel worse.
You might notice that every time you show up on a certain platform, you feel more disconnected from yourself. More performative. More resentful. More exhausted. More angry that you “have to” keep doing this.
You might be able to force yourself to post, but it takes sheer willpower every time.
You might try mindset work, energy work, affirmations, and visibility challenges. You might almost convince yourself that you like it when you’re in a good mood. But when you’re being honest, your body knows the truth.
You hate it.
And not because you’re lazy.
Not because you’re blocked.
Not because you’re not brave enough.
Because the medium itself might be wrong for you.
A Running Analogy for Visibility
Think of it like running.
If someone says running hurts their body, but they only run once a month and try to do a 10K every time, they probably are not conditioned for running yet. That is similar to a visibility block. They need practice, consistency, and gradual exposure.
But if someone has been running consistently for months, built up slowly, stretched, cross-trained, and done everything “right,” and their hips and lower back still scream after every run, we probably would not say, “You have a fitness block. Run harder.”
We would suggest they try another form of movement.
Visibility works the same way.
Sometimes the answer is not “post more.”
Sometimes the answer is “choose a different medium.”
Why Body Confidence Might Not Be the Real Issue
Many women assume their resistance to visibility is about body confidence.
They think, “Once I lose weight, I’ll post more.”
“Once I feel better in my body, I’ll be more visible.”
“Once I look the way I want, this will feel easier.”
But sometimes body confidence is not the real issue.
Sometimes your body is giving you body wisdom.
A powerful question to ask is:
Would I want to do this type of visibility if I looked exactly how I wanted to look and had no hangups about my appearance?
If the answer is still no, that is probably not a body confidence issue. That is likely a medium mismatch.
You may not hate posting workout clips because you hate your body. You may hate posting workout clips because filming your sacred morning routine turns something embodied into something performative.
You may not hate social media because you’re hiding. You may hate social media because it makes your nervous system feel evaluated, monitored, and judged by an algorithmic popularity contest.
That distinction matters.
When Your Body Becomes a Business Card
For many women, visibility is not neutral.
This is especially true for women who have worked in industries where appearance played a major role: personal training, health coaching, modeling, music, acting, dance, real estate, online coaching, sexual empowerment work, or any field where being seen also meant being assessed.
When your body has felt like a business card, visibility can carry a charge.
It can feel like:
Line up and be evaluated.
Look desirable, but not too much.
Be visible, but not embarrassing.
Get picked.
Look the part.
Make your body prove your credibility.
For women with this history, certain forms of visibility can activate old safety wounds and love wounds. Visibility no longer feels like expression. It feels like self-display.
And that matters deeply for food freedom.
How Misaligned Visibility Can Trigger Emotional Eating
When a visibility medium makes your body feel unsafe, your body will search for regulation.
Food is one of the quickest ways many people artificially downshift into a rest-and-digest state. This is one reason forcing misaligned visibility can lead to more cravings, emotional eating, binge eating, and burnout.
It is not always about lack of discipline.
Sometimes the body is trying to soothe the pressure of being constantly evaluated.
When you are trying to force yourself into a form of visibility that feels unsafe, performative, or degrading to your system, your body may start rebelling through fatigue, cravings, avoidance, emotional eating, or loss of self-trust.
This is why food freedom cannot be separated from nervous system safety.
If the way you are marketing yourself is making your body feel hunted, judged, or on display, your eating patterns may begin to reflect that.
Stop Turning Sacred Practices Into Content
For some people, posting workout clips, dance videos, morning routines, or behind-the-scenes moments feels fun and expansive.
Beautiful. That is a medium match.
But for others, turning a beloved practice into content contaminates the practice.
If filming your workout makes you dread your workout, you are not getting the same benefit from that movement.
If recording your dance practice makes you drop out of embodiment and into self-consciousness, you are not experiencing the same medicine from that dance.
If sharing your morning routine makes the routine feel like performance instead of nourishment, you are allowed to stop.
Not every sacred practice has to become content.
Some things get to bless you first.
Visibility on Your Terms
The answer is not to disappear.
Your voice matters. Your work matters. Your message matters. Your art, writing, coaching, music, healing, or creative expression deserves to be shared.
But you get to choose the medium.
Maybe your visibility channel is podcasting.
Maybe it is writing books.
Maybe it is blogging.
Maybe it is Substack.
Maybe it is YouTube.
Maybe it is guesting on other people’s shows.
Maybe it is email.
Maybe it is long-form storytelling.
Maybe it is a faceless account centered on your ideas instead of your appearance.
And maybe social media is a perfect medium for you. Maybe you love posting reels, dancing on camera, sharing workout clips, and documenting your life.
If that feels good, keep going.
This is not about making one form of visibility right and another wrong.
It is about becoming your own guru.
It is about listening to your body.
It is about choosing forms of visibility that feel like self-expression, not self-display.
Your Embodied Activation
Take a moment to reevaluate your current relationship with visibility.
Ask yourself:
What feedback has my body been giving me about this medium?
Does this form of visibility make me feel more connected to myself or less?
Do I feel proud and expanded afterward, or depleted and resentful?
Has this medium activated safety wounds or love wounds?
Would I still want to do this if I looked exactly how I wanted to look?
What form of visibility would feel more aligned with my nervous system, creativity, and message?
Your body is not always resisting your next level.
Sometimes your body is trying to protect your dignity.
And your voice deserves a medium that creates safety, alignment, peace, and power.
Links Mentioned
Episode 230: Food Is Not Love & The Algorithm Is Not Your Daddy
Episode 232: Stop Icing The Knee: How Misdiagnosing Wounds Fuels Emotional Eating
Transcript
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Embodied Writing Warrior podcast. I'm gonna start by giving you a few warnings right off the bat. First, this episode absolutely gets spicy because it's inspired by my own frustrations and also because it makes me a little angry to think of other women suffering in similar ways, all without anybody talking about the elephant in the room when it comes to visibility and self-expression, especially on certain channels.
Second, I have marked this episode explicit with good reasons. I will be sharing something I have not talked about on the podcast before. I have written about it in my book, Your Body Is Not a Weapon, but never mentioned it on the show. I'm gonna talk about it today, not for shock value or to be edgy for edgy's sake, but because this is important context for this discussion.
So if you wanna skip an episode that has dark Kayla lore from when she was an unhinged 20-year-old, maybe wait for episode 262. No hard feelings whatsoever. And third, this episode won't resonate with everyone, and that's honestly the point. I think one of the biggest issues we have in the coaching and the thought leadership spaces is everyone thinking that their views are correct and universally true because what they've done has moved them forwards and gotten them certain results.
But one of the things we're talking about today is the importance of nuance. We're also gonna cover the danger of medium mismatch and why it's better to be your own guru instead of outsourcing wisdom to others when maybe your body is potentially giving you very different information This episode might be for you if you are a woman with big goals, a big mission, something special to bring to the world, whether it's your art, your music, your coaching, your healing, your writing, and you know that you can't be a best-kept secret because then you can't help anyone.
You've maybe also heard about visibility blocks, and you're like, "Yeah, more visibility. I need to get out of my comfort zone and show up more." But then maybe the visibility channels you're using feel dysregulating, draining, and maybe even painful, and this happens even after you've done the mindset work, the energy work, and put in the reps to build your tolerance for discomfort.
Maybe you also find that the more you try to force visibility through certain mediums, the more chaotic your eating becomes and the more your body seems to rebel. This then creates a cycle where you have even more resistance to showing up and being visible because now you're missing the self-trust and the clarity that comes when you're taking amazing care of yourself.
So today, we're talking about the ugly truth about visibility, body confidence, and food freedom. Yes, these are deeply related for many women. So we're gonna cover the difference between a visibility block and a medium mismatch. We're gonna talk about why body confidence might not be the actual thing stopping you from being visible.
Your body actually might just be giving you body wisdom. We're gonna talk about why your personal history can change how some types of visibility feel. We're gonna cover how forcing misaligned forms of visibility can create struggles with binge and emotional eating, and we're gonna finish by talking about what it looks like to choose visibility on your terms in a way that matches your preferences, your nervous system, and actually feels good.
Let's start by talking about the difference between a medium mismatch and a visibility block. Because right now, you've got all the internet marketing gurus with their six-figure followings shouting about how, "No wait, it's not your money blocks getting in the way of your success. Now it's your visibility blocks.
So put yourself out there more. Be more unhinged. Show your face everywhere. Let the world see your authentic self." But the conversations I've seen on this topic never seem to include talking about the reality that not all visibility is created equal, and not all visibility feels the same for every single person.
The forms of visibility that feel like play and self-expression to one person can feel like performance and pressure to another. Then the ones who can't seem to get themselves to love showing up on certain mediums feels like there's something wrong with them. They must be blocked. They must be terrified of visibility.
And from what I've seen, 99% of the visibility block breakthrough stuff you see is almost always about posting on social media specifically, when that is actually just one form of visibility that might not be the best match for every single person. So let's break down how you know the difference between a visibility block and a medium mismatch.
When you have a visibility block, it's likely that you haven't practiced a certain type of visibility long enough to normalize the discomfort in your system. So if you only do your chosen form of visibility once a month, then avoid it the rest of the time, that's most likely a block. It's keeping you from doing it consistently in the first place.
If there's procrastination, it might feel less charged than a medium mismatch. You just kind of forget to post, or you get busy, or it just always gets bumped to the bottom of your to-do list. If it's a block, maybe you feel some anxiety, some activation when you think about posting. You notice that there's fears around, "What will people think of me if I share this?"
Or, "What if nobody likes this?" All those usual fears around putting yourself out there. A visibility block is also something that lessens with repeated exposure over time. So when you do make a post, you feel a little ra- anxious or rattled in the aftermath, but then the anxiety passes and you then feel proud of yourself, expanded, more confident.
The process gets easier over time. Maybe it even starts to become fun. That's a visibility block. A medium mismatch is different, and I have some unfortunate news. Unless you find a really good psychic or are a very good psychic and can save yourself the trouble, the only way I know how to distinguish between a visibility block and a medium mismatch is to practice a certain form of visibility enough times so you can distinguish the difference.
Once you've practiced a form of visibility for a while, here are some signs that you actually have a medium mismatch. First, you've practiced the form of visibility enough that your system has gotten used to the discomfort of sharing yourself in this way. But then you still feel worse every time you show up instead of better, so more pressure, more disconnection from self, maybe even some anger that you feel like you have to keep doing this.
And then maybe you also try some mindset strategies to make yourself like the form of visibility. And then when you're in a good mood, you can almost convince yourself that it's true. But then when you're being honest, deep down, you know you still hate it. And it's not so much about procrastination anymore.
You've probably gotten to a point where you have figured out how to force yourself to show up, but it always feels like it takes sheer will and effort, and then you're more tired and angry after posting You also might feel more disconnected from yourself after every post. You feel less authentic and less self-expressed.
You feel like you've done one more performance. And also, your body is probably giving you some clear feedback. It could be low energy, more cravings, more emotional eating, maybe some weight gain. Often, this happens because the form of visibility you're choosing is activating two of the deepest blocks in a person's system, both the safety block and the love block.
More on that shortly I am gonna use a running analogy here because I think it really drives the point home. If a person says that running makes them sore all the time and it's not good for their body, but they only run once a month, and when they do run, they try to do a 10K even though they're not conditioned for it, that's like the avi- the equivalent of a visibility block.
But if someone has run consistently for months on end and they've done all the right things, so they've built up their mileage slowly and steadily, they make sure they're always stretching after, they cross-train, and still after every single run, their hip flexors are screaming and their lower back is aching, that's a medium mismatch.
Their body might not be s- best suited to running, and we would never tell this person, "Wow, you've got a fitness block. Get on more runs. Push yourself harder." Most likely, you'd suggest that they try another form of fitness that doesn't cause them pain every single time they do it. But yeah, everything is a visibility block, isn't it?
This conversation gets even trickier as we bring in the subject of body confidence and visibility. Honestly, this was one reason why I decided to do the 100 Days to Slay challenge on Instagram, which is this challenge where you post a story of yourself and you're working out every day for 100 days. And I love the spirit of this challenge and can see how it would get a lot of women moving and create that accountability and help them be more consistent.
It's a perfect medium for many people, and that's why it's so popular and why it helps many, many people. I personally wanted to do this challenge because I had gained back some weight after our move to a new town, and I wanted to prove that I could be visible even in a larger body. This was super important to me because I believe worthiness and visibility and showing yourself should never be contingent on a size or a weight But this challenge taught me something incredibly important that I didn't expect.
Sometimes struggles to show up for certain forms of visibility aren't about body confidence or lack of it. It's more about body wisdom. Even if your mind is in denial about a medium mismatch because maybe you see all these influencers talking about visibility, and they're sharing their intimate behind-the-scenes and making you feel like you have to turn your Instagram stories into a reality television show, your body often knows better, and it's gonna give you information.
So if you're chronically exhausted, you don't wanna get out of bed, and your eating habits are wobbling hard for the first time in months when you're doing a certain type of visibility, that's important data to notice. For months on end, I was getting clear data on how much of a medium mismatch my approach to social media was, and I ignored it until I didn't, until I was like, "My creativity, my mental health, and my physical health deserve better.
I want to see what happens when I take an extended break from social media." So I'm about two months into a break at this point, and here's what's happened so far. Binge eating disappeared. So much more presence and mindfulness. My energy and fitness are returning again, and I'm actually excited to get out of bed because of what I'm working on.
My creativity and productivity have been on fire without force, extreme effort, or hating my life. And yeah, I am also down about 15, 16 pounds at this point, not because of some crazy diet, but because my body could finally exhale after being evaluated and monitored for months on end. This brings me to my next point about how much nuance matters.
Not everyone is gonna have these challenges with social media. Some people genuinely love these platforms, and they thrive on them. And I love this for them, and I've often wished this could be me, and I've tried to force it to be me, and it isn't, and this is not for lack of trying. So if this isn't you either, then I fully get it Everyone's relationship with mediums like social media is deeply personal.
Everyone comes in with their own unique lived experiences, their own unique wounds. Some people have wounds that get deeply activated by social media, while others do not have the same thing happen. So I started the conversation on why social media can be such a painful medium for a lot of people back in episodes 230 and 232.
So I'll include links for those in the description. For me personally, I have spent years feeling like my body had to be a business card. I very much felt like this while working as a personal trainer and health coach. Now, I was blessed in that I worked at a beautiful studio where there wasn't any of the diet culture, and it was very focused on holistic health versus just everyone must be skinny or else.
The studio itself was not the issue. It was the industry as a whole and my own self-imposed pressure. As a health coach, I very much thought I had to look a certain way because I knew there would be some clients who wouldn't wanna train with someone who was heavier. And this is not in my head. I have heard certain people say that they won't train with heavier trainers because they don't, quote, unquote, "look the part" and they wanna be inspired.
As sad as it is, people will often look at a person's body and make snap judgments about how they might eat or move their bodies without a single thought to genetics, stress, hormones, or maybe just the fact that some people are genuinely their healthiest in somewhat larger bodies. So I spent about seven years trying to look a certain way, and it backfired.
The more pressure I put on myself, the more intense my cravings became, and the more I turned to food to relieve the pressure. That created more shame, more pressure, and the cycle continued But this actually goes back even further than my health coaching days. Back in university, I spent about a month working at one of those massage parlors to pay for my tuition, and obviously this was very much a situation where the body became a business card.
And you were expected to dress hot enough to be desirable, but there was also a dress code, so if police came to check out the place, everything looked above board. Then each time a customer came in, all the women on shift got into this lineup and had to walk out to introduce themselves to the guy on the couch, and then he'd pick one.
So for me, visibility hasn't just been about being seen. It has meant line up and get evaluated. It has meant be desirable, but not too much. Use the body as a business card, but don't get caught being too sexual or turning yourself into a thirst trap. And it's meant hope you get picked, because that means you're good enough.
I had a moment right around day 78, 79 of the 100 Days to Slay Challenge where I finally realized this challenge is making me feel just like I felt during that month at the massage parlor: evaluated, put on display, completely unsafe, and deeply unhappy. So I finally realized I'm done choosing forms of visibility that feel like self-display instead of self-expression.
I refuse to be visible at the expense of my dignity, and I'm sharing all of this because I want you to also refuse to be visible at the expense of your safety, your happiness, and your dignity. Now, I am definitely not comparing content creation to sex work. Very different mediums, unless we get into OnlyFans culture.
And , not everyone's nervous system interprets Instagram as the equivalent of a digital whorehouse like mine sometimes has. But the energetic charge can feel similar to women who have been put in situations where they felt pressure to look a certain way, to get picked out of a lineup, to perform, or to get evaluated on surface-level metrics by a cold, indifferent audience.
And the energetic charge can feel very similar on platforms like Instagram and Facebook, where you see how many likes, comments, and views someone's stuff gets. It's a very visible indication of how often they're getting picked. So this energetic charge could be similar for people in health coaching and personal training fields, also for those who audition for plays, television, casting calls, things where appearance plays a role.
It can also be true for people who've been in music or modeling. Potentially even women who have brands that feature helping people with erotic aliveness or sexual empowerment coaching, and then they feel this pressure to show up in, like, lingerie or sexy outfits. This could even be real estate agents who have to put their faces on billboards.
This is not just a sex work thing. There are so many places where pressure is created to look a certain way as if appearances are everything I truly believe one of the reasons my eating habits and my weight basically stabilized for years on end while at my door building job was because it was the first time in years where I worked somewhere where my body did not feel like a business card.
It didn't matter what I ate for dinner, or what the number on a scale said, could I put the stick in the door? Did I show up consistently? That was enough, and that was a huge relief for a body that had been put under years of self-surveillance and pressure.
As I mentioned, this pressure to get your body to look a certain way or pressure to show up on mediums that feel misaligned or even degrading has a deeply harmful impact on your food freedom journey. You start ignoring how the body feels and the messages it has for you because you're so consumed about what it looks like.
Then you end up in this rigid, controlling relationship with your body, trying to get it to look a certain way. That tightening and contraction often leads to collapse in the form of binge eating and burnout, especially when prolonged for long enough. Not to mention, if you've lived through experiences where being seen also meant being objectified, evaluated, unfairly judged, or in some cases maybe even bullied or shamed, this is going to create a situation where your body feels unsafe, and safety is everything to the body.
If we're choosing mediums that take away our sense of safety, then our body is going to search for something to help us regulate, even temporarily. Eating enough food often becomes one of the quickest ways to artificially downshift into our rest and digest state And a special note on this. Sometimes sharing your beloved sacred practices for the 'Gram contaminates them.
And this is not the case for everyone. Some people can share clips of themselves dancing or working out, and they can be totally embodied and comfortable doing so. And if this isn't you, this is your permission slip to stop turning the best parts of your morning routine into content until you reach the point where you dread the things you used to love the most.
You don't have to post clips of yourself working out if it makes you dread your workout. You don't have to post clips of yourself dancing if it makes you drop into self-consciousness and performance. Because here's the thing, if having to film yourself doing something makes you feel stress and dread, you're not going to get the same positive benefits from it.
Back to our running example. If you go on a run after a good night of sleep and a good nourishing breakfast, that run is more likely to feel pleasurable and good to your system. But if you do that same run on two hours of sleep, deeply stressed out and underfed, that run is more likely to do harm. So the energy you are showing up and posting in absolutely matters, not just for you, but actually also for your audience.
I have heard multiple people who are masterful marketers talk about the fact that however you feel about the marketing you're doing is gonna be energetically picked up by the people receiving that content. So if you are miserable and forcing yourself to put out content, your audience is potentially going to feel that.
And that's not gonna serve them as good as if you were to take a medium that you genuinely love and deliver your message that way. And this is where I'll also share a beautiful litmus test to further distinguish between a visibility block and a medium mismatch. You wanna ask yourself, "Would I want to do this type of visibility if I looked exactly how I wanted to look and had no hangups about my appearance?"
If the answer is no, that's a mismatch, not a block. And I realized this was true for me. Even when I did my first 40 days of reels for a dance alchemy challenge back when I was close to my lightest weight ever, I still hated it. It took a ton of willpower and force to get through those 40 days Okay, so this episode has given you a lot to think about.
I hope it's made you feel less alone or less wrong or less like you're just a scaredy-cat with visibility blocks. The solution is not always to just get over yourself and post more. For some women, especially women with histories of body as business card, feeling like their labor and desirability were all tied up together, or found themselves being evaluated for their appearance, their visibility work needs to be trauma-informed, body-led, and medium-specific.
Otherwise, it can activate safety wounds in the nervous system, and it can also trigger old attachment wounds, and the pain of those wounds often has us turning to food to self-soothe. And you get to choose forms of visibility that match your nervous system.
This is why I have leaned more deeply into podcasting and returned to writing books. It's why eventually I'd love to get consistent about posting these podcasts in video format on YouTube, and it's also why I love guesting on other people's shows. These mediums resonate with me because they are so much more about my voice, my thoughts, and my ability to tell a story.
And yeah, you can see my face on video content, which is fine. I am not shy about being on camera. I am resistant to forms of visibility that interrupt parts of my routine I love and want to keep sacred. I am resistant to forms of visibility that feel evaluative, performative, and controlled by the whims of a garbage algorithm.
And I've learned to be okay with this instead of trying to force change Your embodied activation is to reevaluate your own relationship with visibility. I encourage you to stop gaslighting yourself if you've struggled with certain mediums, and maybe ask, "What feedback has my body been giving me about this medium?"
And then also ask, "Has this medium been activating safety or love wounds?" And if you want to get your free assessments to uncover your biggest food freedom blocks, might be love, might be safety, might be one of the other three, you can get my assessment kit at embodiedwritingwarrior.com/gift. Then maybe you wanna make some changes about how you do visibility.
Maybe you move into podcasting or start a Substack, or maybe you still stay on social media, but you decide you'd rather have a faceless account that focuses more on your ideas. Then maybe you are a social media magician who listened to this whole thing because you were curious and maybe just like my voice for some reason, and you're thinking, "But I love dancing and posting my workout clips on socials.
Excuse me." Then those are medium matches for you, and I want you to keep living your most wildly visible social media happy life. You're already following your bliss and accessing body wisdom. This is not to say that no one should do visibility in those ways. This is more a conversation for those who have struggled with traditional visibility ideas and feels like maybe there's more to it, and there is.
And your voice and your magic deserve mediums that create safety, alignment, and peace in your system. All right. I am stepping down from my soapbox for the day. Thank you so much for joining me as always, and I'll chat with you again very soon
