In this episode, you will learn 10 FACTS about Neta, what age she would like to go back to, and what advice she would give herself at that age! We also talk about the main causes of body image issues, how they come up, and how she overcomes them. And we discuss what aging means to her and to her body.
You can READ the interview transcript HERE
10 Facts About Neta
(at the time of the project)
1. 45 years old.
2. She is a mother of three. Her oldest daughter is 17 years old. Her son is 14 years old. And her youngest daughter is almost 10.
3. Neta moved to Australia from Israel four and a half years ago and is lucky to call Australia home.
4. In her spare time, she loves playing volleyball, listening to podcasts, listening to audiobooks, meditating, practicing yoga, walking and running. And just chilling out.
5. Neta is a clinical psychologist and a psychotherapist.
6. She has a PhD, so she is also a doctor, but she believes we're all students of life.
7. Neta is leading a team of gorgeous females in a not-for-profit organisation.
8. Also, Neta has her private practice. She sees clients for psychotherapy, counseling, couples, individuals and empowerment, and mentoring programmes. Neta loves working with women and empowering women. You can find her here: https://www.netafleiderman.com/
9. Neta is a big believer in transformation and healing that anyone can actually do with any diagnosis or any presentation at any stage of life.
10. Neta’s favorite quote – “Just because a woman is silent, does not mean she agrees.” - Clarissa Pinkola
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
(auto-generated)
Hi, you're listening to the My Body, My Story podcast.
I do believe we all need mother's mentors. Even virtual mothers that I've adopted throughout my life are powerful women daring to be themselves in the world speak up.
This is the 45 over 45 chapter where we celebrate Rule Breakers and role models, the women who inspire us to live life our way and to show their sensuality beauty, soul, and true essence. Here we talk about what it's like to be 45 Plus, adjusting to the changes that come with time, and we listened to the stories about participants. If you have an interesting story, we'd love for you to participate. You can email us at info@aleksandrawalker.com That's Aleksandra spelled with a K S. Or visit our website aleksandrawalker.com
Hello, everyone, and welcome to my body, my story podcast, and today with us Neta in the studio. And while she's sitting in the makeup chair and Chitra is doing makeup for her, I'll be asking her a few questions. Hi, Neta.
Hi,
welcome to the studio. Welcome to the project.
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Very exciting.
So let's start our conversation and tell us 10 facts about yourself.
All right. Let's start with the obvious I turned 45 this year. I am a clinical psychologist and a psychotherapist. I'm a mother of three. I came to Australia four and a half five years ago. I am leading a team of females gorgeous females in a non for profit organisation. On my spare time, I love playing volleyball, listening to podcasts, listening to audiobooks, meditating, practising yoga, walking and running. And just chilling out.
Sounds like everything to do with self development.
Love it. Absolutely love it. I have a PhD. So I'm also a doctor but not wearing that. Very often. I believe we're all students of life. Yeah.
So what is this PhD in Psychology? Psychology?
Clinical Psychology? Yeah.
So that's nice. And you said you came here for almost five years ago. Where did you live? before?
I moved from Israel. Israel is my home. Yeah. So I'm lucky to call Australia home nowadays. But I was born and raised in Israel.
I always wanted to go there and visit the dead see.
Israel is a beautiful, beautiful place to visit and beautiful places, beautiful people. So family, friends or back in Israel. And coming to Australia. For me, it was really a beautiful adventure that I feel super grateful for.
So you mentioned that you have three kids. Are they adult So how old they are?
Yeah, so my oldest is? My oldest daughter is 17 years old. My son is 14 years old. And my daughter is almost 10. Wow. Yeah.
So you have a mixture like teenagers and almost a teenager?
Absolutely. It's quite a transition. Quite a transition in motherhood to become a mother for teenagers.
That's for sure. Yes,yeah. Chitra probably can relate as well. Yeah,
no doubt. No doubt.
So well. You mentioned that you have you work for nonprofit organisation. Do you have your own practice like your private practice?
Yes. So aside from my management role and you know, contributing to non for profit, which I absolutely love, I have my private practice. I see clients for psychotherapy, counselling, couples, individuals and empowerment, mentoring programmes. I love working with women, empowering women. So that's where you can find me so You're probably by my website https://www.netafleiderman.com/. That's my website you can read more about me my background, my approach who I am and feel a bit of my vibe. I'm actually here across the streets in the CBD. So for face to face sessions, I have a practice here in the CBD Sydney.
That's great.
And online, obviously, in today's world, I do yeah, I do zoom. So I see people from all around the world actually.
So what's your favourite? I know every psychotherapist have their favorite themes. So you said you like empowering women? And so is that like you work with? Because I know that some are specialising in teenagers, with women or couples counselling or like, what's your specific?
so my favourite area would be differently adults, couples and individuals. So my approach to mental health is a bit different than the conservative medical model. So I see symptoms of mental health, whichever symptoms were there that can be diagnosed in various names like depression, anxiety, and so forth. So these symptoms are just an expression of something deeper rooted in our upbringing in our life circumstances. So that's, you know, trauma is my language, trauma informed. Counselling is what I specialise in. And I think the word trauma has pretty bad public relations. So people assume that trauma is the big event that happened to you. And actually trauma is something a little different trauma, I can say more about that. But you know, that would take us somewhere else. But I do believe we all are experiencing trauma impacts, we're just not as educated around what our trauma impacts and how can we navigate and heal from that. So I'm a big believer in transformation and healing. So that's my favourite work and that type of work, you can actually do with any diagnosis or any presentation at any stage of life. So my favourite part is to see the transformation happening in the therapy room or outside of therapy room, because I work with groups as well. So that's with female coming, females coming together nowadays, such as your beautiful project and and other initiatives around the world, this is a very exciting time to be living.
Yeah, that's true. So it is you know that our project is about women, after 40, in their 40s 50s 60s, etc. And it's the age when we start feeling some changes in our body, mental changes. And we see, we notice that we are not, as we used to be, like, in a good way in the bad ways as well. And so, but what does ageing means to you?
My personal experience with ageing includes a lot of growth and journey of learning how to love myself, and how to look after myself, and how to put boundaries and how to actually go inside and seek my answers and paths inside myself. So for me, it's a journey that is very much connected mind and body. I know we are we live in culture that is obsessed about body, but the image focus on the external and how we look and how we show up externally. But this is not really a disconnected. As I see it, its body and mind are connected. So the journey for me is an internal journey. I find myself loving my body much more than I love my body in my 20s and 30s. So my relationship with my body is much more caring, loving, compassionate, so I can have so much more fun with my body as a result of that so true that our changes but what I feel is as I grow, I can embrace much more self love toward the changes and see them as well. The wiser me, more powerful me, which is the personal experience with with ageing, and with monopoles kicking in very early for me. These are really China challenges of transition and how can we embrace changes and not hang on to the never moving scenario? Yeah,
I love this question, which is very psychological. So if you could go back to any age, what would it be? and why? And what advice would you give yourself at this age?
Oh, I love that question. I love it, because it has that therapeutic vibe of actually going back. So I wouldn't, I would answer from a place of, I wouldn't want to go back to any age with how I was at that age, I would take the wisdom of today with me. So if I could go back to let's say, 25 years old, me or 30 years old me with the wisdom that I have today, I would go back and just let myself know that the validation is not going to arrive externally. This is a journey of going inside and agreeing to celebrate my gifts and my uniqueness in the world. And no need to wait for that. No need to wait for the external validation, external relationships that would make me feel that I can make me feel that it's a journey. It's work. It's hard work. You need to do the emotional work to get there. But yeah, I would tell them, let's do it. No need to wait.
Do you think that the now they generation, they're more confident or they still need this? The oldest they pretend that they're more confident that they still need this validation? Because it's to do with wisdom, like you have to go through certain stages of life? What do you think about that?
That's such a good question. Such a good question. Having you know, being a mother for teenagers, you can see that they live in a different world with a world of more options. For women. We can do things today that we couldn't not so long ago. So it's a different world. And the discussion around diversity. And power is is very explicit. So I think from that angle, they're much more educated and free to speak up. But at the same time, I think we still live in a world even more so with social media, Photoshop, editing cetera. That's pretty difficult. And we're prone to professionalism, and really be quite obsessed about appearance and the illusion of that's how we're going to get, that's how we're going to feel happy. That's one big fat illusion.
So it just like we think that we are more confident, but still, it's the reason why to go raise a way to go.
I think they have more access to power information, education, that is the pathway and coming together. So social media also allowed us to reach out to each other, connect and empower each other. Which is amazing.
That was one of the reasons why we started this project in hope that maybe we can reach some at least some of them and they can hear us and learn from our mistakes. Yeah. I heard somewhere that women develop faster if they learn through other women's mistake, and men develop faster when they do their own.
Wow, that's a wise Yeah, I do believe we all need mothers, mentors, and my best mentors and even virtual mothers that I've adopted throughout my life. are powerful women daring to be themselves in the world speak up and show up with their vulnerability. Yeah, yeah.
So let's move to body image conversation, which you already touched on that. And so if your body could talk, it's all So very psychological question. If your body could talk, what do you think it would ask you? Or tell you?
I love this question. If my body could talk, it would tell me, why did it take you so long to notice me? And look after me? Oh, my God. But thank you for finally doing it. I think that's that would be my authentic bodily response to your question.
Great answer. Great. So, but what do you think, are the main causes of body image issues? And of course, you as a psychologists probably know, different reasons for that, and at least main reasons. Yeah, main causes of that. Yeah.
Well, I think it's, it's a part for all of us. It's probably embedded in our personal stories, but also the cultural stories and the cultural lives that we've been told for years. Yeah. So I think we really gave up on our control, we didn't have much choice or around body image as well. So we're looking for the standards externally, we're really looking for how we should look externally. We've been told constantly by media anywhere you look, what's the beauty ideal. And we buy that, we believe that we buy that, and we develop that kind of self hatred toward our own beautiful natural bodies. So that would be one one big reason that I that I constantly see. So relying on external standards, and we believe these lies we've been told. And also, you know, I think we're learning from each other, we're learning from each other. So if I grew up in a house, where my mom is not happy about her body, and I can see that in her body language, and frankly, doesn't matter, if she's going to say all the right words, if her energy is a self loading, and you're not happy inside her body, I'll pick up on that as a young girl, and I will internalise that. And I would need to do much more work internally to love my own body. If it doesn't seek with a beauty ideal, which is rare, who of us really sits with the body ideal. With a sari with a beauty ideal. So that's, that's a big personal impact that you know, mothers to daughters, we kind of we, we've inherited some of that, unintentionally, all the good intentions. But yeah,
it's interesting. I'm thinking about my story in that sense and thinking at my home, mum always .. she was very confident. And the time I lived in, in the family, I never had any issues, thinking that I have something wrong with my body. But the moment I moved to Dubai, I lived there for 13 years, I started filling this pressure, because that's the place where everyone is trying to look great. For one way or another reason I'm not going to go into those reasons. And suddenly, I started feeling this pressure or my nose is not right. My eyes are not right. Or my eyelashes are not full enough on those arms. Oh, my God, you know, and it was so intense. Wow. So the pressure of environment, even though I grew up in a family where we never had this issues, or maybe I had somewhere deep, and it's just bursted in Dubai. But it was just very interesting thing for me.
Wow, that is so interesting. And that's exactly what I mean - internal and external constantly, and there's so much pressure that can come from inside and outside. And that's why I'm a big believer of this is a term that Elizabeth Lazar, one of the mothers I've adopted through the years. Her wonderful book, as Sandra speaks is one that I keep on recommending every female I mean Eat, but she says we, you know, the work is around inner vism and activism activism and inner vism. So we do the work internally, and then we do it in the world. And I think that's how we grow most. So just noticing what you shared with me is so powerful to realise how much external pressure, we have to be something who said that's the beauty ideal. Yeah,
in Australia this pressure is not there. Like it's the moment I moved here. It's I stopped feeling Oh, yeah. Very natural environment here, though women look. Yes. And I can see also some try to do artificial looks. But it's not that that bad. So how do you believe the negative body image affects relationships? Do you believe it can affect
Oh, yeah, I think we're bringing that to relationships. And I think we're putting, if we're going to the arena of talking about relationships, we bring so many unrealistic expectations, to our relationships, expectations, to fix our body image to fix how we feel to make us feel whole and worthy and validate ourselves. Which that's, that's again, putting, putting those unrealistic expectations on something external, as much as relationships can be profound, powerful, and supportive. That doesn't come from there. The work is internal. So if I live with body shame, and trauma that I haven't touched upon, and I haven't healed, from my relationship is not going to really make me feel better. That's a one big illusion that I think we, in these modern times, we've put, we're putting everything all expectations on relationships, for love for passion for feeling better for fulfilment, feeling excitement, feeling safety, it's just all practically impossible. So we're setting them for, you know, big conflicts and sometimes failure by doing that, and being unaware that this is actually an internal work.
Yeah. And also, it's not our look, what can change the relationship sometimes when we have problems and the other way around as well? When we have problems in our relationship? I will look has nothing to do with that. We don't need to boost ourselves with the artificial leaves oops, and whatever. Because relationships broken, then it's nothing to do with look
No, nothing to do with look really nothing to do with look
How do you usually overcome body related insecurities? Because everyone has them? And sometimes they come up? And do you have ways of bringing yourself into the body shape you want or state? Let's put it this way? And also, the question has it changed with age, these methods?
absolutely change with age. So in my household, my mom was like, constantly dieting, fighting her body weight. So when I was in my 20s, that would be my immediate go to thinking like, oh, I need to exercise more to look better to lose way to shape my shape. That would be my automatic thinking. Well, nowadays, I would never go there so I could recognise the automatic patterns, automatic thoughts that will come up but already knowing that that's not leading to feeling better about myself. What I would do nowadays is find kind, loving, fun, erotic way to connect with my body. I'll go dancing. I'll go free dancing. I'll take a bath. Go for a run. I will use my erotic energy to feel great. Move energy in my body. Yeah, I would go in words. I wouldn't choose any of the techniques of changing The way I look or transforming myself externally. Yeah.
Excellent. And my last question, and I always love it because we have so sometimes similar and different answers to that. What is your favourite quote about being a woman?
Oh my god, that was a hard one, because I keep on reading and probably have a lot. I have so many but definitely the one that I knew immediately that I want to share, as you know, maybe it would reach a wider audience of women is a quote by Clarissa Pinkola STS which I recommend any woman to at least read the woman who run runs through the wolves, but in there are a few of you that I love. But the one I chose was that just because a woman is silent, does not mean she agrees. And that's from the dangerous Old Woman by Clarissa Pinkola Astaire so that's relevant for sexuality for speaking out for living your purpose, the fact that we stay silence doesn't mean we agree. And this is a time for me personally and calling my sisters to show up and speak up and have a voice. And thank you for this opportunity.
Thank you for coming here and sharing your story and such a great quote and such a great finale of the episode and I hope you will enjoy the rest of your day and the photoshoot and you'll have a great experience with us.
Thanks so much very excited.
If you have an interesting story, we'd love for you to participate. You can email us at info@aleksandrawalker.com That's Aleksandra spelled with a K S. Or visit our website aleksandrawalker.com
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