Why Your Changing Body Requires New Skills, Not New Shame

Getting dressed shouldn't be this hard. But when your body changes, whether through perimenopause, postpartum, or just time, clothes that used to work suddenly don't. And that frustration doesn't stay in your closet. It follows you into meetings, onto stages, and into every moment where you need to show up as a leader.

In this episode of The Visibility Shift, I'm getting honest about how body image can quietly dictate whether you show up bold or play small. I share why understanding your body structure matters more than loving what you see in the mirror, and why the skills you need most are the ones that keep you visible even on days you'd rather hide.

This isn't a pep talk about learning to love your body. It's about refusing to let your confidence rise and fall with the number on a tag, and learning to dress the body you have right now so you stop abandoning yourself when you need to show up most.

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3:45 - Why body changes often trigger more than frustration and how that quietly affects visibility

9:08 – A reframe that separates your body structure from your body size

10:25 - How understanding body types and silhouettes can restore your confidence 

11:50 - An example of why discomfort in getting dressed doesn’t automatically mean you’re doing it wrong

15:27 – Two self-sabotaging patterns when you allow emotions to run the show

18:32 – The importance of giving yourself grace instead of criticism or punishment when it comes to your body

20:47 – How the smallest choices in your closet can influence energy, presence, and results

22:22 – Practical tips for “off” days when you feel like hiding or quitting 

25:52 – The benefits of practicing this new mindset daily\

Mentioned In Why Your Changing Body Requires New Skills, Not New Shame

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Full Transcript

Welcome to The Visibility Shift, the podcast where style becomes your most powerful strategy for being seen, standing out, and leading boldly. I'm Ellie Steinbrink, stylist and personal brand coach, and if you've ever thought, "My style just isn't working anymore," take this as your sign. You're ready for your next level. And instead of launching into a panicked shopping spree, what you really need is a strategy. A style strategy that reflects where you're headed, not who you used to be or who you think you need to be to fit in.

Because when your style aligns with your brand and your vision, everything shifts. You lead with more presence, you attract the right opportunities and clients, and you fully step into the woman you're becoming. Because showing up as yourself, that's the most strategic thing you can do. Now let's get visible.

Welcome back to another episode of The Visibility Shift. I’m so glad you’re here with me today. One of the things that absolutely has to be addressed when working with women on their style is how they feel about their bodies. It’s just something we cannot get around, especially in the culture that we live in, especially if you live in the United States. Boy, do we have a lot of feelings, don’t we? And if you’re like me and a lot of my clients, you’re in a time in your life when, because of your declining hormones—hello, I’m in perimenopause—your body is changing again. Some days it can feel like getting dressed is something completely foreign to you. Like you managed to do okay for most of your life, and you finally figured things out, and then things went again and changed on you. To say this is frustrating is an understatement. I know you’re listening and feeling this too.

In fact, one of my clients this year, as an example, told me that ever since her menopausal journey began, her boobs basically doubled in size. Having been a woman who was relatively small-chested and like a runner her whole life, she was like, “I don’t know what to do with these things.” It changed the whole shape of her body.

But today I want to talk to you. This isn’t a conversation about pepping you up or setting a mantra that’s going to make you all of a sudden feel good and better about your body. However, I do think it’s a conversation we need to have because I do see it getting in the way of us showing up, and that, my dear listener, is a problem. I can only say this to you because I have been there, because I’m someone who has struggled with body image my entire life. I know that just repeating a mantra and hoping things are going to change is not going to cut it. That is part of the conversation. There is real retraining of the brain that has to happen.

However, what I want to do here is also just have a reality check and realize where we need to have a mindset shift so that we can be able to ride these emotional waves so much better, because Lord knows they’re coming, right? They are happening. No matter how well you’re getting your hormones under control, this is just part of our life right now.

What I want to do in this conversation is we’re going to talk about the emotional part. Yes, let’s go there, because I think I just want you to feel seen and know that what I experience, what my clients experience, is a part of the game. But I also want to talk about the practical part, which is basically where I’m going to teach you a few skills that will make dealing with these changes so much easier. Then I want to address the mental part, which is where we need to have a mindset shift. All three of these matter.

So let’s dive into just the hard emotional part. Okay, so since I started perimenopause, which I think I’ve been actively in for two to three years now, I’m 45 years old—well, actually almost 46\. It’s my birthday month. But ever since this started, everything just seems out of whack. And all the experts say it, like you just don’t feel yourself. There’s been weight gain, there have been diet changes, there have been workout changes, because what worked for my body once just no longer seems to responds in the same way it once did.

I’m also very influenced by all of the talk around menopause and keeping your body healthy for the purpose of longevity, as opposed to keeping your body just at a state of thinness. But with all of those changes to my diet and my exercise, I’ve been lifting heavier weights. I’ve been focusing on strength, whereas 10 years ago it was like lean, lean, lean, run as much as you can, cardio. The things about my body have changed. My body composition has changed, and I’m just not used to it. It feels wrong, actually, on some days, even though I know I’m moving myself in the right direction, and with these changes, it really called me to the carpet. I had to shift my mindset because I know that these changes that I'm making and battling with these hormonal shifts is the right direction for me because my goal is health.

However, it really threw a wrench in the way I dressed and how I felt about myself when I got dressed. So one of the things I had to do in terms of shifting my mindset was reminding myself that different doesn’t mean bad. Yes, my body composition may be different. I may not be the weight I have always been, but it’s not a bad thing. It sounds so simple, but just retraining your brain on that aspect.

The other shift is that I’ve had to realize that having a bad day with my body, or not feeling great in my body on a particular day, wasn’t permanent. And I consciously decided it wasn’t going to have the power to direct how my day went. I learned I can make some adjustments—specific, we’ll get into this—with what I wear and what silhouettes I choose to put on for those days so that even when I’m not feeling great, I can still show up, instead of convincing myself, which is what I used to do, that the train has completely fallen off the track. So basically allowing myself to let the emotions come, but also not let the emotions overtake me.

You may not know this about me, but I’ve been hypercritical of my body my entire life. I hate to think about this, but the truth is, historically speaking, when I felt least comfortable in my own body, those were the times that I shied away. I held back. I didn’t shine like I should have. I didn’t have maybe the conversations I needed to have at an event because I wasn’t feeling great, because I was so over-focused on my body and how I felt that it shifted how I showed up.

In some cases, I avoided wearing what I most wanted to wear because I feared my body wasn’t perfect enough at that time or fit enough to wear it. Or I simply convinced myself that because I don’t have this body, I can’t wear those things. Even now, as someone who teaches this, I am not immune. I swear it is a curse I will live with my entire life.

I saw a photo of myself just a couple of weeks ago. I saw the photo for the first time of me wearing this dress I really loved, the strapless red dress that I picked up for the summer. Sure as heck, guess what? I started critiquing my body. I was like, “Oh, I’m not sure if that silhouette’s really good. I have a really long torso, and I’m sure I don’t have a big enough chest to wear the strapless.” I was like, “Just stop.”

I was also thinking back to our road trip on the West Coast for our family vacation, and we spent some time at the beach. Of course, there are photos of me in my swimsuit on the beach, and I was hyper-focusing on my now very muscular thighs and just how different my body looked from just a few years ago. And again, this is where that mindset shift has to come in for me, because I can so easily go down this really dangerous rabbit hole about how I feel about myself.

It’s totally a story, if I’m being honest. I feel like I owe it to you to share this because I want you to know I have been there. I am there. Whether we’re talking about weight gain or just being at the same weight but shifts in how your body composition is, or how the weight shows up in your body, I know even times when my weight has been consistent, it’s like, “Oh, I feel like my body doesn’t look the same,” or silhouettes that once felt good on me don’t feel as good.

I just want you to know you’re not alone. It’s really normal to be frustrated, so let’s just name it for what it is instead of pretending it isn’t there and trying to shove it under a rug.

It’s in these moments when I feel the greatest level of frustration with these fluctuations in my body that I lean on one universal truth. Your size can change—meaning your dress size, your weight can change—but the structure of your body doesn’t. Okay, this is just facts. Unless you’ve actually undergone surgery, like a breast augmentation or breast reduction, or something that would actually change the structure of your body, those are really the only two that come to mind, your shoulder measurement, your hip measurement, bra size—again, unless you’ve had an augmentation or reduction—your bone structure, that doesn’t change.

So no matter what I do, for me in particular, I will always have very broad shoulders. No matter how many crunches I do or times on the treadmill, I will never have a waist measurement that is way tinier than my hips. I have a really straight body type. I just don’t have curves. I’m very straight.

Now, I’m not like stick-straight like you see on models. But my body, if I were to take my measurements of my shoulders, my waist, and my hips, those are all pretty similar in that they’re within a few inches of each other. So that’s what makes me a straight body type. But here’s the great news, and really, what has saved me and has saved each and every one of my clients who fall into this emotional trap of body changes is that knowing how to dress the structure of your body, how to find silhouettes that naturally complement your God-given shape, is the key to lessening this frustration and riding these emotional waves.

The thing that I am eternally grateful for is that I know how to dress my body type. I get that body types are a whole conversation on the internet because “I don’t want to be labeled as this, that, or the other. I don’t want to be pinned into saying I’m one body type or the other.” But the reality is that understanding these basics, it’s like I often will say, understanding your body type is understanding proportions, understanding balance. Much like here I’m sitting in my office with a wall full of art, and my mom is an artist, it’s much like creating balance and proportion in a painting. This is what it’s like, except you’re doing balance and proportion through clothes on your body.

So when I started my business, I already had some knowledge of how to do this, how to create balance and proportion with my own body. But now, after working with all of these women over these last five years, I’ve learned how to do it so much better and at an even deeper level and for all body types.

Let me just give you one example of my client who was coming off of maternity leave. What happens after we have babies is our weight shifts. Sometimes we’re not back to our pre-baby weight. But after analyzing, going through and taking her measurements, and looking at her photos so that I could assess what her body type was, I let her know she is, in fact, an hourglass shape. To which she said, “Yeah, there’s no way. I have this baby pooch still.” But indeed, this is what her measurements showed.

So based on the measurements of her shoulders, her waist, her hips, and then also looking at the visual of the pictures she shared with me, when I do work with my clients, the part of the foundational work is really understanding how to identify what your body type is and then which silhouettes actually complement what you naturally have. So we went through all of that—which shapes to lean into, which shapes to avoid, what would really make her feel just proportionate.

I remember one of the key things with an hourglass is really being able to highlight your waist. She really hesitated when I told her that because she’s like, “Are you sure? I have this belly fat from having the babies, and it just feels like I shouldn’t be emphasizing that part of my body.” But I insisted, “Trust me on this. This will create balance in your body.” So she agreed to try.

We had her tucking in her shirt. We had her adding a belt to certain pants or jeans. We shifted her into a higher-rise jean that then would sit at the smallest part of her waist, not below the pooch, which is often what we want to do when we feel like we have a belly. We looked at proportions in her tops and different silhouettes and pants that would then balance out her body. So, for example, having a wider-leg jean is nice to help emphasize the small waist that you have as an hourglass, and then tops that naturally highlight the broad shoulders that you have. Those are all little tricks and techniques you can use to create balance.

It felt uncomfortable to her because it wasn’t what she had been doing. She had never known these tips and tricks. And that is often the thing. It does feel uncomfortable, but there’s a moment of trust that has to happen. I’ve got to tell you, I wish I could show you here—we’re just in audio now—but the before and after photos were incredible. I want to remind you that nothing had changed about her body, but the pieces we chose and the way we styled them to create more proportion made all the difference. It was like the before and after photos were looking at two different bodies.

For the rest of our work together, I remember every time we would meet, she’d be like, “You’d be so proud of me. You know, I tucked my shirt in,” or “I wore a belt, and it still feels weird, but I’m trusting you.” And I’m like, “Good. This is how we start to make the shift.” She started getting compliments. She was feeling better. She saw herself differently. It was a total game-changer.

This is what understanding your silhouette does. It’s a tool you can go back to that gives you back your power regardless of your size. It can meet you through those different waves. It really does allow you to see yourself differently without the need to go on a drastic weight loss plan.

It’s worth repeating here what I so often say to my clients, which is that your body isn’t the problem, which is often what we think. Your body isn’t the problem. The clothes are the problem. It's just that if you're struggling with how you look when you see yourself in the mirror, it’s probably not your body. It’s just the way we’re putting things together on your body that makes you hyper-focus on things that don’t need to be.

So one of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation with you today is not just to give you tools for how to navigate your body changes that seem to happen on a whim these days, but this is a conversation meant to help you see the danger in allowing your emotions to rule the show. There are really two self-sabotaging patterns that I see in women, and it happens all the time.

One pattern would be—and it’s kind of like opposite ends of the spectrum, okay?—so on one end of the spectrum, this pattern is that when you are at your "preferable size," I see women indulging in their style. So that means they take risks. They might try something new. They shop more. Hello, how many times when you’re feeling good in your body have you just wanted to go on a shopping spree? They feel more confident. That’s even when they start to look for and seek out style help, like working with someone like me, working with a Nordstrom stylist. They start up a subscription box because, guess what, they’re excited about how they feel in their body. They feel good.

Honestly, I see myself in this extreme. I mean, this is definitely the past me and the version of me that I’m actively working to say, “You know what, we’re not living in this mindset anymore.” But when I feel good in my body, it’s like, hello, yes, I want to shop.

The other end of this spectrum is, and it's another pattern I see, which is quite sobering, actually, is that when we, as women, don’t feel at our ideal or preferable size, we just want to disappear. We hide. You might even find yourself buying slightly oversized fits because it feels like we just want to cover everything. Or you might start wearing black because it’s always classically known as the most slimming color. Or maybe you just don’t allow yourself to shop anymore because like you don’t deserve it.

I’ve actually had women decline working with me because they’re like, “I just don’t think it’s worth investing in myself when I’m at this size. It feels like a complete waste.” The sad thing is that when you feel the least confident in your body is when you need these skills the most. They actually become your lifesaver. They become the reason you still show up and remain visible, even when you feel a bit uncomfortable or in a highly critical state. They are the reason you choose not to abandon who you are and your style because everything in you wants to hide.

That’s why, even after learning the skill of how to dress your body, there’s still a need to address our mindset in this matter. As I tell my clients, these body image issues and feelings we have about our body aren’t going to be solved in a day. They take time. Just think about how long your current mindset came to be. For me, these feelings about my body—feeling like thin was best, thin is the most valuable—that started from an early age. So we’re talking like 30 to 40 years of that groove being developed in our brain, that mindset.

So learning to accept our bodies as they are through these changes that we now live through, and being in a healthy enough mindset to not let that stop us from living our lives or showing up as our best selves in these most visible moments, it really requires two things. One is what we just talked about, understanding your body structure and how to create balance using certain silhouettes. That is a skill you absolutely need. But the other thing you absolutely need is training your brain to give yourself grace instead of criticism.

Because, as you’ve been hearing from me this whole podcast, even as someone who is teaching this, I still critique myself. My personality type, Enneagram One—if you know anything about Enneagram Ones, you know we have a very strong inner critic. But not only just my personality type, but my upbringing, which really taught me that thin is best, thin is valuable, thin is the goal. This programming doesn’t disappear overnight.

But what I’ve come to realize and what I want for myself is that I refuse to let these thoughts run the show like they used to because I see the damage it does to my confidence, to how I allow myself to show up, to what I allow myself to indulge in, and to my self-acceptance. While I will never stop these thoughts from coming—they’re just going to keep coming—I am learning how to silence the unhelpful ones, or at least say, “Hey, thanks for feeling the need to keep me in line and keep me safe, but I don’t need you to work so hard to keep me safe anymore.” This is also a practice of grace over punishment.

In those moments when I feel not my best, my knee-jerk reaction is to take extreme measures. The old me would definitely decide that I need to cut calories or do an extra-hard workout, or completely change things up because, like, things have got to change now. But now I remind myself that it’s actually pretty normal to have these fluctuations. I remind myself that they’re not going to last forever. I remind myself that all is not going to hell in a handbasket. I have tools to lean on, and I now have a different mindset that keeps me grounded.

But I think, amidst all of this, the more important thing that’s at stake here is something I mentioned briefly earlier in this conversation, and that is how we feel about our bodies has the power to change how we show up. You and I both know that as business owners, we can’t let our confidence and visibility fluctuate based on our weight or our changing bodies. That just can’t be how we operate if we want to succeed.

On the days you don’t feel great, you might put on clothes that feel—well, clothes that hide you. But I’m here to tell you that that actually is such a subtle thing, but it does impact your results. It affects your energy. I know this because I’ve talked with women—tons of women now. We go through this exercise where we talk about great days in your closet and days you don’t feel so great in your closet. So I know that what you decide in your closet every morning impacts your results by your energy, how you show up at important events, networking events, speaking events, how tall you stand on stage or in a meeting, whether you initiate a conversation or whether you decide to be a wallflower, whether you feel like a magnetic person or you feel just blah, even just on the daily of whether or not you tackle the tough, needle-moving items on your to-do list for the day.

This effect that your small decision in your closet every morning has on the rest of your day, and ultimately your results, is what I call the closet effect. The great news is that you have the power to impact the trajectory of your day simply by the choices you make in your closet daily.

So I want to leave you with a few practical things you can grab onto and walk away with today. Because if you’re like me, I love a good tip, especially when I feel overwhelmed or don’t know where to start. This is a conversation that can feel very overwhelming.

Number one, I don’t want you to let the bad days derail you. What I would encourage you to do, and what I now have learned to do, is to have go-to silhouettes for days when you feel bloated, you feel puffy, or you just feel off. For me, I know that’s always like a high-rise, wide-leg jean that cinches me at the waist, that does a really good job of balancing out my body. I love full skirts that just skim over my thighs and tummy and butt instead of hugging it really tight, like a bodycon style. That is not the day that I wear a tight-fitting dress or a tight-fitting top. It’s definitely not the days that I wear the jeans that don’t give you that little extra cinch-you-in-at-the-belly technology. You know what I’m talking about. You’ve got jeans that are great for when you’re feeling bloated and gross because it just sink everything in. You have the jeans that just feel like they accentuate everything at the belly.

So remember that just one bad day, or a week here, doesn’t have the power to overtake you. You have tools in your back pocket that you can grab for.

Number two is to ask for help. One of the things that I’m most proud of in my work with my clients is that I am a mirror to what they see. I know from my own personal experience that there are times when I look in the mirror and I realize that what I see is distorted. Years of body image issues and being taught that one way to be is the right way, it has really created that distortion when I look in the mirror. I see it in my clients too. However, sometimes all it takes is an outside perspective to help you see something in a different way.

If you’re asking me to love your body when you are someone who hates your body, that’s not work I can do. That is not my role. However, if you realize that there are some things that frustrate you and you feel like you look in the mirror and it’s hard not to see it every time, and you’re just not really sure what to do to get rid of this because it’s driving you crazy and you want to move forward in a different way, then that’s what we’re here for. That’s what I can be of service for.

Don’t let the bad days derail you. Number two, ask for help. Number three, remember that discomfort doesn’t mean it’s wrong. So when I talked about my client earlier, this is the perfect example of this idea. New things are going to feel unfamiliar because we haven’t done them that way. New things are going to feel uncomfortable because it’s just not what we’re used to. However, it doesn’t make it wrong. It just makes it new. It just makes it a new skill we’re learning.

So if you’re sitting here and you’re feeling like, “Wow, I feel so seen. I’m resonating with everything you’re saying,” I just want you to know that I’m with you in this because I am you. I feel the same things you feel. I feel the same frustrations. I’m here to remind you, and myself, do not let your confidence and your ability to be seen as a dynamic, magnetic person rise or fall with the size of your jeans.

You have so much power available to you when you learn how to dress the body that you have right now, how to give yourself grace, and how to stop letting your inner critic make these style decisions for you. What I think you’re going to discover when you practice this daily—and yes, it is a practice—there are plenty of benefits. You’re going to have more confidence, confidence that is steady, that doesn’t rise and fall with how you feel about yourself. You’re going to find, and this is something my clients have told me time and time again, it makes it easier to shop because you know what silhouettes and shapes to look for. You’re going to experience the benefit of greater self-acceptance. You’re going to feel like yourself again. And ultimately, you’re going to get some freedom from these thoughts that are working so hard to take you down.

If any of this resonated with you and you’re feeling like you’re ready to move forward in a stronger, more empowered way when it comes to dressing your body with confidence, I’d love to support you. There are two ways you can work with me. You can either work with me one-to-one. I have a Standout Style Kickstarter program, which is a one-on-one experience where we go through a lot of what I’ve just talked about today, and then we actually bring your vision to life in the form of outfits. Then I also have a group program where this is a key component of what we talk about. So if either of those sound of interest to you, there are links in the show notes where you can go learn more or join the waitlist.

But in the meantime, I hope something in this episode resonated with you. I hope it was the kick in the butt that you needed to remind yourself that you are more than your dress size, you can ride these waves with more confidence, and you don’t have to be taken down by these fluctuations that we know are going to continue to happen. If you’re like me in midlife, I just want you to know I’m here for you. Come back to this conversation as often as you need, because again, it’s a practice. It’s a daily reminder. I love you. I’m sending all my love from the bottom of my heart. With that, I’ll see you in the next episode.

Thanks for joining me on The Visibility Shift. If something in today's episode made you pause, rethink, or gave you permission to stop playing small, it would mean so much to me if you'd leave a review at ratethispodcast.com/visibilityshift.

If you're ready to stop second-guessing and start showing up as the leader you are from the inside out, The Visibility Edit is where that shift begins. Head to elliesteinbrink.com to learn more and join the next round. Because the next version of you, she's not waiting for permission. She's waiting for you. Let's make it visible.