Adulting - #14 Learning to be yourself with @jessicaolie

Episode Date: August 19, 2018

This week I speak to Yogi, Content Creator & Ebook author @jessicaolie. We talk about insecurities, jealousy, going through adversity and learning to accept yourself. I loved this chat and I hope you guys do too! Please do rate, review and subscribe as it helps other people to find the podcast xxx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I think I slid into your DMs when I asked for your friend. Did you? Yeah, I think I reached out to you to go for coffee. I'm so easy, I just said yeah. Hi guys, welcome to Adulting. This is the podcast where I try to figure out all the things we're supposed to know as grown-ups but it turns out that we don't know. And today I'm joined by Jessica. Hi guys. Jess is a content creator and yogi and an e-book author as well. Yes, it sounds very official when you say it like that.

So today Jess and I are going to be talking about how to have confidence in yourself to make decisions around friendships, relationships, work because I think that a lot of the things people struggle with as we grow up is realising that we don't have to do what we think we're supposed to be doing and that really life is up to us to take by the reins is that the saying yeah I think take by the horns I don't know I think it's both yeah I remember growing up um I had this idea of how I wanted my life to look like and the older I got the more I realized that there was actually no point in having that plan because everything turned out completely different to what I thought it would be like. And I struggled with that for a long time because I was so hell bent on just trying to make things work, whether it's like friendships, even in school or relationships, anything like that, I just felt like you have this idea of

what you think your life should be like, and you have this plan, and you want to have everything figured out. And you realize that like, actually, no one has everything figured out. And that's also okay. And I think that so many of the good things that have happened in my life lately have been unplanned and I've just sort of let them happen rather than you know having a strict sort of idea of how things should flow yeah I think weirdly some of the best things that ever happened to me have come from adversity so it's been after something really hard that I've gone through and then for some reason I always it's quite a positive way of looking at it because I've then now decided that whenever something bad happens, it means something good's going to happen.

But what I think is, is when you have a low, obviously, then you have like a high. But what's happened is I started to now like, my opinion of it shifted so much that I genuinely, I'm not worried about things going wrong. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And I think a lot of people, and I certainly felt like Yeah. And I think a lot of people and I certainly felt like this before. I think a lot of people are afraid to feel uncomfortable. But I think that's where and it

sounds really cliche. But I think when you start to feel uncomfortable with things, that's where you have so much more potential for growth and expansion, not only like in who you are, but everything around you. But it's when we start to sort of get in the way of that with fear or worry or anxiety that you start to block all of those like fun things from happening yeah I think and one of the biggest fears I think happens to me and loads people and I think when people say they feel anxious a lot of the times because we look around and we compare ourselves to our peers and whether that be you might be the one earning the most money on a friendship group have the best relationship but one other friend is doing one thing better than you and that's all you can see and you'll forget that you know

you've achieved all these really good things and there's there's really no positive in comparing yourself because our everything you do everything every single little action you make has a butterfly effect so like you might literally just go to a different coffee shop one day and that will be the reason why in 30 years time you have the job you have do you know what I mean there's so many small choices you make so you can't just be focusing on other people's lives and journeys because you'll miss so many opportunities in your own yeah I like I literally couldn't agree with that more and it's something that I've had to consciously work on especially with being on social media and I think whether your you know your job is on social media or whether you follow people on

social media and it's not your job I think we all kind of experience the same things of comparing ourselves to people that we follow because um we see we see what they what they post and we automatically um sort of reflect it back onto what we're doing and how we're doing it and what's not working and I think it's really easy to fall into the trap of like oh she can do this so much better than me and that completely detracts the focus away from all the good things that you can do and you're not supposed to do something like someone else can do it because that's not the way that you're designed and you're not supposed to do something like someone else can do it because that's not the way that you're designed you're supposed to do it in the way that you are and I

think when you start focusing on how other people do things it takes away from what you could bring to the table so I always say that there's enough room for everyone to succeed if they're doing things in their own way yeah and no one is going to do everything in exactly the same way and I think I think if you start doing things and you know whether it's projects or you know career choices or friendships anything that you're doing I think if you start doing that from a place of like authenticity to who you are and your values and your integrity and that kind of stuff that's where you start to feel growth I think you can feel really stuck I think you just get stuck when you compare yourself to other people because you're not them

you don't think the way that they think and they don't think the way that you think so you're never going to come to the same outcome as they do so it's kind of like you do you swear on this yeah a lot it's kind of like a mind fuck because you go round and round in this cycle and it becomes a really vicious cycle because you end up getting frustrated because you're not getting the same results as they're getting it's like banging your head against a brick wall and expecting a door to open yeah it's just not gonna happen and I found myself doing that with even people that I follow on Instagram and I'm like well maybe like I should post more photos that look like this maybe like maybe this will be like really good for my career and maybe like this will really help me and it's not true to who I am it's not natural and I think people I think whether they're

aware of it or not people can pick up on that yeah people vibe off of that and they know when it's not you being you and I think for a long time when I was in like my previous relationship I was I wasn't because I was so unhappy I wasn't being who I am today I was always sort of worrying about what people were thinking worrying about you know this and that and it kind of really got in the way of me finding who I was and who I am now and I think you have to go through all of those kinds of experiences to come out the other side but it doesn't work unless you work yeah I think what I think is really interesting what you're saying the beginning about comparing your success or comparing someone else's journey because the other thing is like success isn't linear and I think what we tend to do is on a

really basic level if you're looking at someone's Instagram and they're on holiday the likelihood is you'll probably sat in your pajamas at home eating ice cream on the sofa at nine o'clock so obviously comparing at that moment in time is not helpful useful or conducive to anything and I think we do the same with success it'll be a point when you probably won't when you're really busy doing really well really successful you're probably not looking around to see how your friends are doing but that moment of maybe a little bit of oh what am I doing oh I feel a bit insecure in my work feel a bit insecure that's when you look up and you look around and that's when you start to compare and it's so unhealthy because you've probably had a patch of five months of it being absolute bliss but the

way it's like you know when you get a cold and you're so like I can't believe that I'm so ungrateful for being healthy all the time and when you're ill you just want to be better. But when the whole time you're healthy, you don't think about it. The whole time life's going well, you're not there every day going, oh my God, I've done really well today. Or like, I've really smashed my work today. I do try to realise that it's really hard to do it. But the minute things go wrong, it's so easy to then... Yeah, that's so true.

...rumorate on those feelings. And I think what you're saying about relationships as well is really interesting. I do the same thing where you kind of project from a completely different scenario and you project it into all areas of your life so if one thing's kind of not fit like working in your cog system it will infiltrate into all the different areas like it'll seep into everything yeah and I think that I know I didn't realize that I was doing that at the time and I don't think when you're in it I'm not sure you're ever really supposed to realize that that's what happening I think I think if it happened again I'd be more aware of it now because I learned so much during that

period of my life but during that time I knew something was off but I couldn't put my finger on it and I think um with every experience that you have you start to tune into yourself and understand yourself more like what makes you tick why are you feeling certain ways and how is it affecting you and what you can do to sort of get yourself out of that and that goes back to like comparing yourself to people and realizing um how like destructive it is to everything that you can sort of bring to the table I think that's interesting actually picking on that point about um talking about breakups and making it you question yourself because I've actually found that every time I've

come out of a breakup I've massively grown because it was such a I think not really harrowing experience going through a breakup I think some of the hardest things you ever do because it's like it's like grieving someone but they're also still there and it's like just a weird thing yes oh my yes yes yes yes because it's like they've died but they haven't actually died there's a poem I can't remember who wrote it but it was they basically said the hardest thing to do is to grieve the loss of someone who's still alive and that sort of like stuck with me for a while because it's it's really hard especially when you've been with someone for so long to know that obviously they're still out there they're still breathing they're still doing

that going about their day and they're still you know getting through that and you're just no longer a part of that story anymore um and I think that a lot of people have this idea that when you leave a relationship it's not as hard as when you get left and I think that they're completely different kinds of pain and I don't think you can actually compare them they're just completely different experiences and I've having been through both and I'm sure you've also been through both that like you just can't compare those experiences with one another I think that they have like their own merit of difficulty because when it's almost in a funny way easier to be left because when you're doing the leaving it's in your hands like you're the one that has all the culpability yeah you're causing the pain

your decision what if it's wrong because if someone leaves you like it's not really it's against your will if you don't want you know so it's like in a funny way you're almost off the hook well I think it really like depends on your yeah and your personality because I know that when I've if when I was younger and this guy broke up with me I remember I was absolutely devastated because it wasn't in my control oh interesting and I feel like whenever I've whenever I've left a relationship I've been way ready to leave it before I actually leave it yeah you warm yourself up yeah by the time I've actually left like I'm fine yeah um well not fine but I'm you've dealt with it mentally exactly like I was ready to leave it wasn't a shock whereas when someone leaves you it's it's a huge shock to the system and I think like

that more than anything it takes you a bit of time to sort of come down yeah that's so true but I think yeah I think after a relationship what happens is because when you've had someone be so much a part of you you then have to kind of like build that up again and I think that's when you can start to learn more about yourself which I think what Jess and I really want to get into because a lot of the questions I get on Instagram are around like how do you have the confidence to do xyz whether it's making friends or people actually really often ask me how do you have the confidence to be so feminist and opinionated like in terms of like with boys and like does your boyfriend mind which I found a really a really interesting and maybe slightly problematic question because

that's my person like you shouldn't change if you feel a certain way or you are a certain way you shouldn't adapt that to make yourself more attractive because you'll adapt yourself to make yourself more attractive to someone that isn't right yeah or make other people feel more comfortable yeah and you shouldn't do that because the thing is as much as like I think that's another part growing up is I was such a people pleaser and all that does it's really self-destructive because you're just giving out so much of yourself to all these other people that you don't actually have a personality or just whatever shapeshifter you are that day in order to please whichever people and then when you go home at night like which version of you is the real you so in life I think you need to not be scared of not everyone has to like you yeah that's so true you don't have

to be good at every job and you don't have to make every friendship work and not every relationship will work but that's when your life's going to be the richest because you're only going to like take the bits the nuggets that are really like sticking yeah and I think those situations I feel like every single situation that you listed there's like that potential for growth but I think a lot of people are afraid of it because it's so uncomfortable and I think like I said before it only works if you work at it so you have to actively like figure out how to sort of wade through that heaviness that you may be feeling or that confusion or that fear or that guilt or whatever sort of emotions that you're feeling

during that time whether you know you're ending a relationship a friendship or you want to change your career path or something in your life is not quite sitting with you I think that it's those times where you really have to sit with yourself and with those thoughts and confront those not so like glamorous parts of yourself and then I think from there like from that rock bottom sort of stage you can start to build up from that and I don't know for me the most useful thing that I ever did when I was alone, and when I say alone, I don't think you're ever truly alone, especially I had such a good support network. So I had my friends, I had my family helping me through my divorce. And without them,

I definitely would have sunk. And I was definitely like struggling emotionally. But I think that the more comfortable you become with yourself and hanging out with yourself and sitting and having those tough conversations with yourself, I think the more self-aware you become. So like I took myself on dates. I took myself to cafes. I went and got my nails done. I went and took myself to lunch and I went and got my nails done. I went and took myself to lunch, and I just asked for a table for one. And you know, like even things like that, when you start to be able to do things that you're so used to doing with someone else there with you all the time, almost like your comfort blanket. And you start doing those things on your own. It's so empowering. And you're like,

I actually can do this. And it's really quite scary at first you know not having that comfort blanket there but it's it is really empowering it's so interesting you say about eating alone because I always used to think that was so not other people I wouldn't care if it's for someone else eating alone but I thought if I was seen eating alone that would be like mortifying like the highest level of shame and I think that must be from school because I think at school if you sat at lunch in a room that would have been like whoa you're a loser yeah and now I eat out all the time and sometimes I look up and someone's looking and I think oh that's so funny I don't think about it now I go out for lunch all the time on my own I don't even think it's weird

no and I forget that anyone else might think that I just don't really think about it I think the more comfortable you are with your own company the the easier things like that become and I think for me when I started to really enjoy doing those things and at first it was a bit like hard I guess but the more that I started to do it the more I started to enjoy it and I think a lot of the confidence that a lot of the places so I think you get to avenues where you can make a decision where you might kind of take the path that looks easy or the right path of the suggested path that people expect you to take or another one that might seem like a big risk and I think the reason that a lot of people don't all feel worried about that is more about worrying about what your parents are going to

think or what your friends are going to think but ultimately if you make a decision based off making everyone else feel better it's not going to help them because you might end up 10 15 years down the line actually really regretting that decision so sometimes you might have to piss off your parents a little bit or make your friends quite shocked and just take a risk for your own sanity because then when you're thriving and doing really well and loving it everyone around you is going to be happy that especially from your parents i think a lot of people feel that overbearing feeling that there's a huge i think it's a really big generational gap gap at the minute between us and our parents especially in our generations i think millennials are just doing things so

differently that it's really hard for parents to understand but you can't not I'm not saying we're like fuck you parents and we're gonna run away but I think you can't live your life they're doing it to protect you sometimes my mum says things and I'm like mum I know you're trying to protect me but it's just not I'm fine like that's you don't it's not the same anymore I can't really explain it but you don't need to always be trying to protect everyone else I think sometimes you've got to protect yourself by letting yourself you know live learn and make mistakes yeah and honestly if I had listened to pretty much everyone around me minus a few people I would still be married I would still be unhappy I would still be stuck in that same repetitive it was like a numbing experience I would I would still

be there and I think that you go back and forth and I think a lot of the reason why we don't take those sort of I guess you could say leaps of faith or you know those little bounds that you take that step you outside of that box that people are trying to put you in or keep you in um it's it's hard but I think that if you live your life for other people you're going to wake up and in 10 15 20 years like you said and you're not going to really have lived your life for yourself and I I knew that when I leaving that relationship the minute I left I felt this weight sort of come off of me and if I had listened to my fear and if I had listened to everyone around me I just wouldn't have taken that that jump and I wouldn't be where I am today so I think sometimes those big decisions that you're making it's really

really important to be able to distinguish between something that scares you um versus doing something just or not doing something out of fear yeah that's so and I think that's really interesting what you're saying about how if you listen to everyone else because you know when you ask someone a question you want to ask them an opinion you know what you want them to say you've already made your decision it's like when you flip a coin yeah you know you you get the wrong one you're like oh shit yeah one of the other yeah and then you know and that because when um oh let's use a really superficial analogy but say someone's taking a load of pictures of you and you're like which one do you like they'll never ever pick the one that you think you look nice in have you noticed that everyone always

picks the other picture and they're like why don't you like this one yeah and they're like you look so nice in this photo and I'll always be like that is just I hate that picture just off the basis of that you can see how we look at things so differently no one knows you better what you think better than you and you might have really close friends who give really good advice but also sometimes you've got to make mistakes so I'm really bad for this I'm really overbearing with advice if a friend comes to me I really try to be like teach them from my mistakes I'll be like no trust me I can tell you he's the wrong guy don't go back there don't do this blah blah blah but I think everyone you have to make mistakes to learn from them you need to realize

sometimes you have to get your heart broken a few times and you need to make the wrong say the wrong thing get told off because that's how you'll learn and grow if you're just always being coddled and sheltered and trying to you you're not moving anywhere you're just kind of like stagnant yeah and I think that's something that's kind of really important and trusting your gut instinct because you always know every decision that you said every single time I made decision based off my own judgment it's been the right one yeah and even if but even if it would have been better the other way because I made the choice it doesn't really matter yeah do you know what I mean yeah and I think like you'll you'll never be able to know what your life would really be like if you'd gone

down another path because you truly don't know um which is I think that that's kind of nice yeah um because you that way I that way looking at things like that I don't think that you can ever regret something no because that's the decision that you made with like the best knowledge that you had on that day and that was right for you at that time in your life so you can never make a wrong decision you can only do the best you can with what you have at that given time and I think that like a lot of people are afraid to make their own decisions because I think that society handicaps us um no maybe not society but I think certainly like in school you know you get told when to eat you get told what to what to what you're learning about you know there's not very

much autonomy in school and I think that gets sort of carried through right through the education system and you want to be spoon-fed things so what should I study at university what do you think I should do with my life and we we seek um guidance from authority figures or people that we admire or people that we feel inspired by but no one really truly knows what you need better than what you yeah you know you know what I'm trying to say you know what you need it's such mentality it's like you know when you're going out with all your girlfriends and you're like you're wearing flats or heels and you really want to wear heels but everyone's wearing flats you're like oh I'll wear flats and then you turn up and one girl's wearing heels and you're

like oh she looks so good I wish I just I wish I just wore my heels and I used to do this all the time and now you've just got to think right fucker I'm just gonna do it doesn't matter what anyone else is doing and you'll always feel better because if you if it's you it's like an outfit you know and someone's like you can't wear that but if it's really you it'll look good even if it's the most ridiculous thing because it's you and it's your personality you just have to own it yeah and I think that being an individual i think that's our fear which is really funny because i think we live in a very individualistic age like we're not religious but there's not many community-based things that people do anymore we're on our own a lot more we kind of romanticize being um introverted and staying in and not that's a really kind of like romanticized idea at this point in time yeah which

is funny because we're not i think people aren't that original or a lot or it's scary to be so we want to go down the path most well trodden don't we like if you see someone's doing something well it happens on instagram all the time yes if someone posts a picture and it does really well even i don't think everyone does it on purposely like subliminally we all suddenly start or like balance it went from that everyone was shredded everyone had a big bum to everyone and it just kind of moves in yeah well there's trends and fads and it goes in waves everything goes in waves but someone started that someone had an original thought and did something obviously i'm talking such superficial love but just because

it's like um an easy way of thinking about it but i just think that that confidence and belief to kind of take a leap and i used to that was one of the biggest things I used to get jealous of people when I was young, was confidence. When girls were confident in making a joke or confident in saying something about themselves, it used to really like make me feel quite like upset. Not upset, what's the word? Like almost annoyed. Yeah.

Because I couldn't understand where they got it from or why they felt like they were entitled to be confident. Because I'd never been taught. I don't know where. I think I was just very insecure. Well, and I think we were talking about this before and I think that when you get upset by someone else's behavior or like you feel you don't feel good enough or you don't feel pretty enough or you just generally don't feel enough for someone or for something I think it stems back to our own insecurities and um someone that I follow on

Instagram did a post the other day about you know women that she feels intimidated by and acknowledging that she feels intimidated by them and um the fact that like this isn't actually a bad thing she's turning that intimidation around to love and like no you actually inspire the shit out of me and yes I am intimidated by you but you push me to be a better person yeah and I think acknowledging that you feel intimidated or not good enough is not a weakness I think there's so much strength in being vulnerable like that and um acknowledging that you you have things that you don't feel so good about and it's not I don't think that no one can use that against you if you if you don't let them you know what I mean especially like jealousy and things I think if you hold that in it's really unhealthy

I think you should you know say you feel a bit jealous like your friend got promoted at work and you didn't get promoted if you hold that inside you and you don't say anything you're gonna end up you should just say something like or don't say it to them but just say oh i do you know what i actually felt a bit uncomfortable that so-and-so has been promoted and i wonder what that is and then your other friend oh no don't don't worry and they'll tell you the reasons why you're doing so well but when you're sitting and thinking on your own you just think oh it'll actually it can turn into quite a nasty spiral and there's no shame in feeling jealous because that's a really interesting thing to pick up on if you let yourself acknowledge it because a lot of the time jealousy

is quite embarrassing thing to feel yes people don't want to feel it's quite shameful so you'll feel it and you'll bury it and you won't accept that you felt it yeah because if you're like I feel really jealous that Jess has done this and then like think about why you feel jealous and you might feel like oh maybe it's because I I know actually that I haven't tried hard enough or something it'll bring up an interesting insecurity or something that you feel like you're lacking and it'll just help to because you might we're so busy we don't often have time to sit down with ourselves and think about like where can I improve what I've done this week or where am I not giving myself enough time yeah and sometimes it's emotions help you

realize those things yeah and I think going back to like sitting down with yourself and having tough conversations I think it's so so important to like actually be kind to ourselves. So people talk about, you know, spreading kindness and being kind to those around you. But I think we often forget to actually be kind to ourselves. for things that we feel that we lack or things that we feel that we're not good enough um in that I think that that that breeds more positivity I think the more space you give yourself to grow and do better rather than saying like oh I'm so shit at this and I'm not good enough I'm not pretty enough rather like change that around and focus on the things that you are doing well and the things that are working for you I think that breeds so much more good than focusing on comparing yourself or it's like self-sabotage essentially and it's really interesting because I've done this before well I'd be like oh my god this year's gone by so quickly I've done absolutely nothing this year and Matt would be like yeah you have and

then I'll sit down and I'll like like if I wrote down everything I've done so much but in my head I've done absolutely nothing everyone else has made leaps and bounds beyond me that is just I don't know why I think that because it's just not true but my automatic default is that like oh it's it's just because also you grow exponentially so every time you do something well you you then do it better and it can never you can always do it better well yeah so you're always achieving more it's like a never-ending spiral of like and I think that it's good and it's also bad at the same time I think it depends on how you approach it but like this is a really like bit of a geeky example but like when I first started practicing yoga and I couldn't hold a handstand, now I can hold it for, you know, upwards of a minute.

And some days I'll get so frustrated with myself because I can't do a particular thing in a handstand. And, you know, if you'd taken me back three years ago and I'd be doing that then, I would have been so like freaking chuffed with myself. And I would have been like, you know, I'm done. Like I can retire. I'm super happy with myself. But now as you start to get better at things, your expectations of yourself get higher. Um, and I think that that's why we often, cause we're always pushing to do more and be more and to progress and to do things better than we did the day before. And I think, you know, there's all these quotes that you see like be better than then be better than the year that you were yesterday and there's always this sort of like movement of progressing and I think that it's so important to

have goals that you know you want to elevate yourself and do more and be more but I think that it's also maybe more important to be content with who you are currently. Yeah. Rather than just sort of focusing on the next thing. Then you just miss out on your life. I find that sometimes if I've got a really busy work period, it'll have been three weeks and I haven't even known that it's just gone by. Do you know what I mean? And you're not present in the now and the now.

And if you're not enjoying everything, you're always looking forwards, you're going to miss your whole life trying to get that next. Yeah. Whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds, I think it sounds cliche to obviously be present. words you're gonna miss your whole life trying to get that next yeah whatever it is yeah yeah it sounds I think it sounds cliche to obviously be present but for me you know I write lists now that sort of outline things that I've done well you know things that I feel like proud of myself

for and it sounds you feel like an idiot at the beginning because you're like why am I writing a list of things I did well and I think that it's so easy to focus on the things that we're not doing more than it is to focus on things that we are doing well and I think if everyone cut themselves some slack um we would we would obviously be kinder to ourselves and then we would just I think that kind of comes full circle the kinder you are to yourself, the more kindness you have to give to other people around you. And I think this whole self-love and kindness thing sometimes can be quite intimidating because it sounds, it's quite like...

Narcissistic. Yeah, but it's also just like, love yourself and be kind, and everyone's like, that's great, but what does that actually mean? And I think a lot of the time, it's quite a British thing, but this idea of spirituality and stuff, especially when you're young, it seems quite cringe. I don't think people are comfortable with it. and even I wasn't that comfortable with certain things I could go things and I hear people speak in a certain way and I was like I can't really like I don't really understand this this isn't I think we were brought up quite stoic as a nation

what advice can we give to people who really feel like they lack confidence in self-belief because I'm trying to think like what those very first steps are to believe to realizing that well first we think it comes from self-worth doesn't it like I think it's a journey and I don't think that everyone like I think we're all on that same journey and it goes in waves so holding sort of space for yourself to know that not every day you're going to feel good about yourself is really important so obviously I think everyone has down days no matter who you are what your job is where you are in the world I think everyone has those days where they don't feel good about themselves but I think making sure that you don't hold on to those days is really important so like acknowledge maybe like something didn't go the way that you wanted it to go but that doesn't mean that everything else that you do is a failure um and that everything else has to follow in that suit yeah so I don't

know for me self-worth or self-belief is like baby steps so just breaking things down in bite-sized chunks and reworking those like neural pathways of you know your automatic response to things yeah i think that's really interesting topic to come on to it's like how if you ever notice yourself have like a negative reaction to something or if you ever notice yourself feel something that doesn't feel like a positive emotion you can actually like rewire that yeah you have to catch yourself and when you catch that thought so say you have a negative thought about yourself like I feel like I look ugly today catch yourself and start to understand it so rather than putting a wall up where I think like with our words we can either build walls or we can build connection and that's

the same with how we speak to ourselves so when you do feel like those negative thoughts come in like invite them in and hold space for them and allow them to come in and then kind of figure out why you're feeling those yeah those thoughts and break it down into sort of bite-sized chunks and start to rework it so start to focus on the things that you do love about yourself on that day and maybe it'll be something like the shoes that you have on maybe it's not even a body part yet but slowly you'll start the more you do it the easier it'll be to find things that you like about yourself yeah I find it interesting especially if it's like if I feel an insecurity about my appearance it's it'll be on a day when I'm it's never to do with actually what I look like I could look the best or the worst I've ever looked and that won't be to do with it it'll always be to do with something else it'll be like

I'm upset because I've had an argument with my sister or I'm annoyed or I'm worried about something else and it always would like make an appearance in my appearance that was always my issue that was where I never used to get I would be like if I could get skinny this is my thing when I was young I just thought if I was skinny then all my problems would be fixed but that my weight wasn't my problem it was the thing that I was blaming yes and it always comes out like that so if I feel unattractive because I could look so ugly I could be covered in spots no makeup like really greasy hair and if I'm happy I'm like I feel great like I'm not embarrassed I don't care about what I look like yeah it's not relevant because really what you look like is always the

most superficial yes thing but I think it's especially as women I think it's one of the first things we blame yeah we really scrutinize our looks as like because they're held up to such high esteem we're told in society you know that's your worth is your beauty yeah and I think that that again like going back to comparing yourself like comparing your appearance as someone else's is just like I think it's the most destructive thing yeah any person regardless of like whether what you know what gender you are um regardless of that I think it's the most destructive thing that you can do to yourself um and I think that's just where like you owe it to yourself to catch those thoughts and you know figure out why you're

feeling those ways and then start to rewire it yeah and it's funny because you compare yourself to someone else and you might be like there's a thing it's like you don't have to be pretty like her you can be pretty like you yeah but if you look at anyone's face it genuinely sat on the tube instead if you really everyone's face is beautiful because like it's like art you know if you look at you could look at a painting of someone that is viewed as like not being pretty but it would be beautiful because it's art but that is a face in real life yeah do you know do you ever like study people's faces and what i think is really sad is that everyone wants to look a certain type of way or like look the same but it's the same with everything else we're talking about there's no

beauty in in trying to emulate something else like they've done it well because it's their face that's why it looks nice yes your face looks great on you yes and I think like that's where when you start to truly feel comfortable in your own skin people see that yeah it's really attractive yeah it's like that Roald Dahl thing when you smile the sun shines out of your eyes something like that I know what you're talking about but yeah no I I think that that's so true and I've been getting like comments on my Instagram lately and it's so interesting people actually seeing the physical changes that you feel within yourself yeah it's like you can read it yeah and you know people like I can

see the change in your face and the way you carry yourself and I I always knew that I've changed in through like what I've been working through with my dad's health and you know the divorce and things like that but I don't think that you actually realize how much of a change it's been until you look back. Yes, I agree. Until you're out, completely out to the other side, I think. I remember going through some of those things. I literally couldn't see three feet in front of me. It was just like pitch black.

And I was like, I have no idea which direction I'm going in. I just have to keep like baby steps. Baby steps, just keep moving forwards. But that's what's really interesting. Because when you're struggling through the baby steps baby steps just keep moving forwards but that's what's really interesting because when you're struggling through the really hard parts you're moving you're moving forwards but you all you can feel is a struggle yes you don't realize it by the time you got to the other end you've literally come so far I think that's what I found like every time it was an adversity or something difficult yeah but I've also found that now I'm uncomfortable

being comfortable so you know when things are really hard you're like I just want a break and then it finally all the hard times over like you've done all the work the stress is all done and then suddenly I'm like no then I get worried you know yeah it's almost like I need that I think I did I did this like I wrote something in my notes section on my iPhone the other day and it was about you know you get used to feeling a certain way and you know when you're working through adversity or something something heavy you almost get used to being on edge all the time and work and having to work through things that when things are finally like settled you know the dust sort of settles and everything is like calm and you feel happy you're kind of like this

feels weird yeah it's scary yeah but I think people I've heard people speak about I can't speak so I haven't had issues with my mental health, but people when they've had depression, they're like, I'm not ready to come out of it because depression has become my friend. It's my home. And they get so used to being in their depression that it's like, I don't really want to come out. Yeah.

So that's like a really interesting, it's so much to do with conditioning and position and where you're at. Yeah. And you can change you really not in terms of mental health but like i can't really speak on behalf of that but in terms of the way that you look at things like if you feel like you're quite a negative person that if you're always thinking like feeling like you're the victim or feeling like things are really hard that's just the way you're looking at life yeah well it breeds it so yeah i think the more that

you reinforce a certain kind of thought process or behavior the more often it's going to happen and then you know 10 or you know a year 10 years down the line you're still reinforcing that behavior you're doing it without you even realizing now so it just becomes part of you and it's like so deeply ingrained that you don't you're not even aware that you're doing it anymore and And that's where, like, with every, I think with anything in life, everything sort of stems from awareness. The more aware you are, the more you can seek to change a behaviour or a situation.

I think when you're not aware, you're asleep. Yeah, and it's really funny as well because when you're in that obsessive place of, like, kind of watching other people and feeling like you're not doing very well and you'll see they're getting better and better, it's because they're not looking around that person that's doing really well and all I know we've talked about like this self-introspection stuff but that is because that is the right at the core of doing anything well but having a good

relationship with yourself with your family with your boyfriend or whoever it is having a good job having all those things stems from you being the most stable and understanding yeah and knowing exactly who you are and what you're putting out to the world it doesn't mean you have to be everyone's cup of tea like I'm really opinionated and that I used to like hide it and then it would come out in weird like yeah because I tried to be like sweet and like oh my god like the funny cool girl and then I'd like suddenly be like get really annoyed about things because I couldn't I felt like I couldn't have my voice because I was worried about what other people thought and then when I stopped doing that you'll just meet people who like it and some people vibe off you and some people won't and that's really not a problem

not everyone's gonna get on yeah and you're not yeah it's like that quote on that you see sometimes on Pinterest it's like you not everyone will like you're not in a teller jar oh yeah or you could be the juiciest peach yeah but someone won't like peaches yeah yeah and it's exactly that and i think that is the fear because i think we get like there's a massive comfort in thinking that i'm just like vanilla like i'm everyone like i'm used going and everyone likes me but you won't get the most out of that ever yeah because it's just not driving you forwards yeah I agree with that and I think it's just yeah so going with your gut but you have to know you have to know who you are first but I also think that like that's I was like trying to think of what I was gonna say because like I got distracted

but you don't have to know exactly like I think people freak out because like I don't know who I am I don't know and you don't have to have everything like figured out and I think you should always be changing so like you're not who you were sort of five years ago I mean I'm a completely different person to who I was you know even just last year but five years ago I don't even recognize that person anymore and you're not supposed to so and I think like that's where growth comes in like that's why it's so so so important whether it's a relationship or a friendship or you know a career whatever it is you have to be surrounded by people that make you want to grow um and when when you're not when you're not around those people, it's just like, it's suffocating.

Yeah, and we've spoken about this a couple of times as well, talking about how you do, I have, I'm the exact same, I'm so different from the girl that I was five years ago, which is why as much as like, you might want to stay in a friendship or a relationship, sometimes people grow and they grow, and you grow in different places and you grow apart, or some people won't,

and there's no shame in not being able to be friends with someone forever there's no shame in realizing that actually relationship doesn't work I think sometimes we stay in things because we're so obsessed with trying to fix and make everything work like make the job work we'll make ourselves fit to it but actually what do you say don't force anything yeah you can't force anything you can't force relationships friendships you you can't force it because I think I think when something becomes such hard work like that you just nothing good can come from it but also I think a lot of people staying in those things that you mentioned maybe because they're afraid of growth but I think a lot of it comes out of like either fear or just like fear of being alone yeah or going through all of that

again I think a lot of people think like I can't do this again I can't like upheave but actually that will be it'll be so painful it's really bad because I'm I never want to break up that in my head I'm like it would be so hard but I always know that I'd be okay yeah because I think I've done it like and that's that's where like if you if you like are going through a breakup I get so many messages on Instagram like I'm going through a breakup right now and I can't I can't imagine my life getting better like I'm in so much pain and I think that you you have you have to go through that but knowing that like this is a season of life that you have to go through that, but knowing that this is a season of life that you're working through

and that you'll have to go through this as many times as you have to go through it. And you'll take from each experience what you need from it. But I think that knowing that this is just a season of life that you're working through and it's not going to stay like this and things will change and things will get easier is something that I sort of when I was in like the midst of like my anxiety and I would wake up with this

sort of weight on my chest and I I remember sort of having attacks where I couldn't breathe and everything just felt so small and you start to realize when you start to focus on all the all the good things that are in your life everything that felt so big and you felt so small it starts to kind of like level out I think everything we think has to have an end like has to it's all to culminate this goes right back to what you said at the beginning about your original plan when you were little about what you thought your life was going to be and i think subconsciously the minute we meet someone or get a job we go without meaning to we're like the 40 year plan it's kind of like yeah you put them in my life yeah and you put them in and they're like in now that's it and they're done i think we need to kind of dislodge that idea and just try and get

through everything to the best of your ability at that point in time yeah and make love someone as much as you can in that moment don't try and like plan ahead so far because I think that can that can be really detrimental yeah and I think it ruins now yes um I've actually sort of I think from everything that I work through I don't I don't want to know what happens in the future like I don't want to know that because I think that that would change how I feel about today and I don't want what may or may not happen in the future to take away from what's happening right now yeah and especially because as we said like every single little thing that you do will have an impact like there's I just do you not I don't know if I always think about this

but I'm like imagine if I just hadn't crossed the road that day or like done yeah and I'm like what what would have happened because everything in my life seems to have happened from such an to complete like the reason I got into my like Instagram and stuff was because I had a really negative relationship and I was never into fitness and that was so I sat started on Instagram which how I'd end up having this job which is how I ended up having a podcast which is just like but when I went to uni I was like oh I'm gonna do English and before that I wanted my gap year and then I was like I'm gonna do medicine and then I'm nothing I basically haven't done anything that I ever said I was gonna do ever but if you'd been like hell-bent on that then like yeah sitting here today no exactly and I think I'm quite good I

think it's when the youngest child and I am just quite like disorganized, but also very happy to kind of fluid, fluid. Yeah. So I'll just kind of do things and it stress, it stresses my mom out. No, she can't. Cause she's like, but what do you like some people, you know, some people really need structure and really need, I'm not, I'm so like, it does, it makes other people feel, I know know but it's my chaos yes and it's like function organized chaos yeah and it's funny because if i compare myself to say like my boyfriend or some of my friends who are really really organized i'm like like that that's one thing that why i'm not i'm doing it wrong and the matter is like no you just you do you just do it how you do it like you get it all done you just in a really fucking weird way like no one would do

anything how you do it but it's how I function it just makes sense to me and I've tried I it makes me really overwhelmed I've tried to do things like how other people do it and it completely boggles my brain it like it just doesn't work no so I think like I don't know if if I was to give any sort of piece of piece of advice to someone that was like struggling to like move forwards in their life I think it would be just to like really zone into who you are and what you want for yourself and what's that little like intuition telling you yeah because usually we let fear or something else get in the way opinions of others get in the way of what we actually need um or we want for ourselves and I think there's a difference

between need and want obviously I think that sometimes the things that we need to do aren't always the easiest um and they don't always feel the best but sometimes they're just that that's what's necessary and i think it's um i think it's like the oxford mask and you know on a plane they're like put your oxford mask on before you help everyone else i think it's that idea i think we think that doing things for ourselves is selfish and it's self and i've done this before why i think i'm being selfless but actually i'm just it's not helpful you need to make sure that you are sorted and and able to give out care to other yeah you need to make sure that you are sorted and and able to give out care to other people and able to do that because you've looked after yourself yeah and until you've done that I think it can be really redundant so I think what we need to

stop thinking it as selfish and actually think of it as like if I could get myself sorted and happy then I can look around you have more of yourself to give yeah and then and then if everyone was doing that as well though it would just be so much easier yeah we all did that yeah and then we did that but yeah yeah so I think that's just a big thing to take away with growing up is just realizing that you have responsibility of yourself as well rather than we seem to give a lot of responsibility away yeah but also like try to be with i try to like it's like you know the whole thing about giving all your friends the advice that you never take yes yes yeah yeah so yeah taking your own advice sometimes sucks yeah yeah so just yeah following your instinct following your gut and realizing that sometimes those decisions because just even following your own gut just for the sake of it being your choice is really empowering. Even if it's the wrong decision, you did something because you wanted to.

And I think that can be a really powerful... And also taking responsibility for it, you know, as an adult. Like, you can't be like, oh, like, you told me to do that, you know. And then, like, you sort of offset the blame onto someone else. But, like, you know, I'll hold my hand up and, like, I've done some... Like, I've said the wrong thing. I've upset people. I've acted in ways that I know that I am not proud of. But as long as you own your decisions and you take responsibility for them, no one can take that from you, you know? And if

you start to accept that as well, it'd be very hard to make the same mistakes. Because I would do that. I'd speak out in ways I shouldn't or do things that I wouldn't want to do now. But I can only stop doing them because I recognize that behavior to be negative. You're aware of it. Whereas before that, I'd be like, no, I have nothing wrong with me. I didn't do anything wrong. And then you'd keep repeating that behavior. And that's what, I think that's the really painful bit is like.

That's what hurts you the most. Looking at yourself and being like, oh my God, that was really horrible. I shouldn't have said that. That was really nasty. And that's really not fair. And I need to not do that. That's the hardest bit I think yeah and also knowing that you're not responsible for how other people perceive the things that you have done or said I think we can only really understand what people

do from our level of functioning rather than like what their intentions were so I think like there can be some like miscommunication especially like if you've ever upset someone and you know you've you've you've said sorry and you've tried to patch things up and things just don't they're never the same and you try and force it you try and fix it because you want to get back to that same place and I think sometimes you can be so sort of like stuck on like, oh, no, no, no, but like we can fix this. And sometimes you just have to let it go and know that like some people are not supposed to be there for the full chapter. Yeah, that's really nice. Just reminding me, I read something on Instagram when you said about like you're not responsible for how people perceive you that's another it's the other thing the only

thing that you can control is your actions and your reactions yes that's it that's all you have control over so if you do something with the best intention and someone takes that the wrong way that's that there's nothing you can do yeah and that's that's i think one of the most powerful things i've ever learned is that action reaction thing. Because I was like, I can't change. Someone might be doing something you hate. You might think that's awful. All you can do is change how you. View it.

View it and how you react to it. You can't change someone. Yeah. You can't. There's just no point. And it's like, it's literally as if you were just going to like bang your head against the brick wall. And, you know, expect something, someone to change. And they're not, they're not going to change.

Yeah. It's like that thing, change the way you like that thing change the way you look at change the way you look at things and the things you look at change yeah yeah I like that it's a cute note to end on yeah thank you I found that really like calming I felt really tired before we did this but that's like energized me really maybe I've just taken all your energy you're tired no I love that thank you so much for listening where can we find you Jess you can find me on Instagram it's Jessica Oli just with one L okay I'll tag you in the bottom thanks so much for listening guys and I will see you next week bye Thank you.