Your Body Never Meant You Any Harm: Body Forgiveness with Dr. Ann Saffi Biasetti

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Ann Saffi Biasetti — transpersonal psychologist, somatic psychotherapist, certified yoga therapist, mindfulness teacher, and author of Befriending Your Body.

Ann has spent more than 35 years in clinical practice walking people through disordered eating recovery, and her new book, Your Body Never Meant You Any Harm (releasing July 21), distills two decades of thinking into a framework that quietly challenges much of how the field still operates.

She brings a perspective rarely voiced in eating disorder recovery spaces: that real healing doesn't happen when we think our way back into our bodies — it happens when we stop treating the body as something to be fixed or fought with, and start meeting it as the partner it was always trying to be.

Here's what we cover in the episode: Ann's path from sensory-sensitive child to somatic clinician — and the high school yoga class that gave her, for the first time, a way to be in her body without judgment

How an autoimmune diagnosis at 30 sent her back to the mat, and the moment she realized no therapy she'd ever done had taught her what one hour of practice had Why she let go of teaching active vinyasa classes after 17 years — and what real somatic healing requires that flow practices don't have time for

The difference between mind forgiveness ("I did something wrong to my body") and body forgiveness ("neither of us asked for this") — and why that subtle shift reframes the entire recovery process

The autoimmune diagnosis Ann received while writing this book, the shame of being "the expert" who was also unwell, and how self-compassion changed what she did with it

How to separate the mind's reactivity (memory, prediction, self-criticism) from the body's actual sensation in the present moment — the skill almost no traditional therapy teaches directly Why self-compassion isn't a soft add-on to recovery — it's the load-bearing wall that keeps the critical mind from dragging you back into disconnection

The "muddy water regrets" of chronic illness, and why the embodied path doesn't bypass grief — it makes room for it Where to find her work, her eight-week Befriending Your Body program, and the practitioner certification pathway that grew out of it If you've ever felt at war with your body, suspected that thinking harder about recovery wasn't the missing piece, or wondered why self-compassion keeps getting recommended in eating disorder spaces but rarely actually taught — this conversation is worth your time. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Connect with Ann Saffi Biasetti here:

www.befriendingyourbodyprogram.com

www.anembodiedlife.com

https://www.shambhala.com/authors/a-f/ann-saffi-biasetti/your-body-never-meant-you-any-harm-9781645474418.html

00:00 – Opening

00:52 – Meet Dr. Ann Saffi Biasetti: 35 Years in Somatic Psychotherapy

04:19 – First Yoga Class at an All-Girls Catholic High School

06:20 – Autoimmune at 30 & the Yoga That Became Medicinal

08:10 – "No Therapy Ever Helped Me With That"

13:51 – From PhD Research to Befriending Your Body

15:20 – "You Don't Look Like a Yoga Teacher"

19:41 – Mind Forgiveness vs. Body Forgiveness

22:35 – "Your Body Never Asked for This Either"

26:12 – Eating Disorders & Chronic Pain: The Same Sense of Betrayal

32:52 – Autoimmune & Shame

38:13 – The Shift From Striving Mode to "I Got You"

43:49 – Why She Won't Chase Down a Prescriptive Diet

45:43 – New Book: Your Body Never Meant You Any Harm (July 21st)

46:00 – Where to Find Ann

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Disclaimer: The information on this channel is for educational purposes and is not intended to be a substitute for medical advice or therapy. The views and opinions expressed by podcast guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Kristina Dobyns or Beyond Binge Eating.