Goes Without Saying - finding your aesthetic: trends or a personality, choose your fighter

Episode Date: August 15, 2021

are you self-aware, or are you just self-conscious? join sephy & wing for an on-brand convo about whether personal branding is a waste of time, and why your obsession with representing yourself is making you lose yourself in the process. in this ep of Goes Without Saying we're spiralling about our attachments to style and trends, and exploring how the ego intersects with specific aesthetics. from limiting attachments to labels, to finding flexibility in personal identity, we're here to remind you that you're a ever-changing, fluid being that can never be defined by a brand or aesthetic. stunning! join the conversation every monday. speak your mind on the @sephyandwing instagram! you’re invited to our discord group chat: https://discord.gg/EGdz6cq4R8 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hello. Oh, that was nice. Quite tuneful.ic this episode is all about ego aesthetic and personal branding so get your little iced coffee out get your little sunset lamp get your beautiful little dress that you saw on tiktok um it's gonna be a stunning episode we talk about all of our learned narratives the things that we tell ourselves that we can and can't do and if there's a way out of them talk about style we talk about how we can accurately represent ourselves in a world that is obsessed with trends this is sounding good by the way i'm thinking i would listen to this i mean that's my intention trying to sell it to people i don't intend to scare you off i must say

well here you go just listen to it see what you think this is our second go round just recorded something and we thought that sounds like they've never recorded a podcast before and we're starting again yeah my exact words were it kind of sounds like our third episode like and i said that is the worst thing imagine it's literally kind of your life's work we've been doing this for years now day in day out are you new to this this sounds like probably is that your first go it's your third episode the rudest thing so we just thought get rid of it we're talking about flushed away yeah i just didn't love it from me i'm a bit chaotic and we need to get back to balance i think so for context i've moved and i also lost my voice so i'm just coming with a whole new vibe don't know who i am

quite on topic i guess wing has moved to a stunning apartment in brighton she's got the most stunning rug i've ever seen and the most stunning sofa I've ever seen. Thank you. You might have seen them on Instagram. I hope they have. Doesn't matter if not. Yeah, I would agree. I think it's stunning too. Thank you. I love the rug for you. I love the sofa. What about you? You've been on a boat for less than? I've been on a boat. We've just had this convo. I've been living on a boat for two days. And we said, was it a summer fling? And I said, no, it was with my dad and my brother and my granny and her husband just because you were saying you know i was just yeah on a boat like a couple nights and i said if i'm listening to a podcast and they say they've been on a boat in the middle of august

for a couple of nights i'm thinking summer fling yeah it's a romp some salty sea dog some sexy sailor no exactly yeah no couldn't be further but it's ahoy ahoy granny well my granny came to visit for one day and the people staying were me my dad and my brother and we did have a whale of a time but i'm back in my life now back in london how are you feeling to be back in london it's i do think it's weird because it i was very much identified with i think i'm buying a boat i'm a boat girl i'm buying a boat i don't give a fuck i'm sailing the seven seas i'm the only island i'm on a boat get the sea shanties out i'm still i'm gonna buy a fucking boat yeah and now i'm back in london i'm like what a weird two days that was where i thought i was gonna buy a boat yeah well it's still up for grabs well i

also don't really want to live on a boat but i just very much enjoyed that way of life of just doing some yoga on the deck of a boat in the sun it couldn't be better and then going literally 10 meters and you're on the beach and then swimming in the sea couldn't be better so beautiful it was the exact life i wish for you this exact life i wish for me but the universe apparently has other plans just ride out it's fine so back to london you go back on the tube back in the stinking tube stunning in its own way so stance yeah can you talk to us about what this episode is gonna be about well i was hoping you would have done that in the intro because i believe oh i thought it was your turn we record the intro at

the end but no i think it's your turn doing the intro it's me i think so we alternate i don't know if you've noticed that keen listeners will notice that we hate the intros what we're talking about personal aesthetics branding and kind of identity with some expression of yourself like in an external way am i correct oh absolutely you could say anything it would be right it's whatever you wish for we asked on the story and this question kind of was i don't know how this really came to me i guess just in a breakdown probably a lot of people say to us like oh my god you're so self-aware and blah blah blah and i think we think we're really

self-aware sephian wing self-aware right uh yeah i did until you asked me this question yeah which you then posed on the story and i thought oof people are getting triggered tonight well i've been thinking this for weeks it's been a while now yeah like we've been talking about this for a while right yeah so it just kind of hit me i've always thought yeah i'm self-aware i'm self-aware i'm self-aware and then i would often even i would push it a little bit and say i'm probably too self-aware for my own good. But I never pushed through that little glass ceiling and got to what I think is the first crux of the episode and the crux of the point.

And the question is, and the question is, such a gross sentence. And the question is, are we on Weakest Link? We're on a game show. The real question is, are you self-aware or are you just self-conscious

boom end of episode let's all take a second turn the microphone off are you really self-aware are you self-aware or are you just self-conscious because look i'll hold my hands up i'll be the first to say oh actually self-awareness does not claim me i am self-conscious well i know for sure i'm self-conscious so can one exist without the other i don't know are they code um are they mutually exclusive i think i if i am codependent sorry that slipped out some would tell me i am hasn't been the first to say that. That was my spirit guide coming through. If I am a weather's piece of shit,

who fucking hates her life and hates herself, I can barely make it out of the house on most days. Oh, that's my doubt. Oh, sorry. Don't know where that came from. Who said that? That's really worrying. I'm codependent oh god on who i may ask spirit guides please tell me my face is on fire if i am self-conscious

then can i be self-aware i don't think so really i don't think so because for me as a third party to observe you i think if you were actually self-aware then you wouldn't be self-conscious because there's nothing to be self-conscious about here looking at you do you mean it's all good but boy oh boy i'll tell you i'm self-conscious so there we go yeah so you can't be like it depends what we mean by self-aware if by self-aware you mean like oh i'm reasonably well read on the internet and i keep up with discourse and i like no i can admit when i'm being an arsehole and i apologize and blah blah blah then maybe but to be self-aware in the sense of aware of what version of you are you aware of do you know what i mean

the version of you that other people see is that the one that we're considering accurate can you be aware of your self-consciousness i'm aware of mine are you aware of yours so but does that make you self-aware to be self-aware of your own self-consciousness oh jesus that well yeah it's a bit a level isn't it well can you be well by a level i mean like philosophy and ethics oh i thought you're calling me damn no yeah i was just gonna say not in a mean way i didn't mean it like that sorry it's a bit fucking gcfc that point sorry it's actually like that's actually a really awful point sorry i'm so sorry that's probably the worst thing i've ever heard i'll come with better stuff next week no i meant like it's kind of a level philosophy being like it's kind of day cards it's kind of like i think therefore i am i am self-aware the end like do you know what i mean like yeah i guess we can be self-aware of our self-consciousness but also when you're in a

tangible sense when you're in your self-conscious moments you're probably not being very self-aware of them because you're just in the downward spiral of like believing the anxiety totally or like believing that in a voice that's an arsehole do you know what i mean yeah the one that pops out and calls you codependent out of nowhere codependent honestly out of nowhere. Codependent. Honestly, out of nowhere. Out of nowhere. Uncalled for. It's like, Jesus, that was brewing somewhere deep. So what do you think? As in, am I self-conscious or am I self-aware?

Because I genuinely think I would answer with like a bit of both. Therefore, you can be both. Yeah. Because I think it's like, yeah, you can be incredibly self-conscious and you can also be incredibly self-aware in that it's like you can understand for example i think like going to therapy is a process of like becoming aware of yourself in a different way or like becoming aware of your issues or what you've got to work with it's like you can go be like okay so i have depression or okay so i have anxiety i'm increasing my awareness of all of these things but that

doesn't necessarily get rid of your self-consciousness because then you're gonna be more conscious of your anxiety and your depression and all of these things that you've learned about yourself but i completely think one of the biggest like flaws in like whoever the fuck made humans was it evolution was it god still up for grabs yeah so one of you put your hands up which one was it it was fucking one of you one of you yes yes nice nice that's a really good joke um thank you if we stopped each other in every episode to say that was a really good joke the episodes would be three hours long i think the podcast would be all the better for it a kind of space a kind of world nice i can't remember i can't remember what i was gonna say who met yeah whoever made the

biggest flaw whoever created humans whoever made the biggest flaw. Whoever created humans, it's the biggest fucking flaw because it's like you created a species that is so in their own head and so filled with neuroses that they actually hinder their own development. Maybe that was the point. That was the point. No, no, I mean, maybe that was God's point.

To create something so fucked. To create people that could never be bigger than God. By the way, neither of us believe in God, I think. I think. Thank you for not speaking for me. Can't speak for Wayne. Well, I'm kind of thinking, I think I don't believe in God. I don't believe in the traditional sense of God,

but I might believe in some kind of thing. Well, I think it's an interesting question, right? It is. What do you think? Do you think you are self-aware or self-conscious yeah i agree with you i think it's a bit of both but i do think in moments or just a big part of it i'd never really considered i think i just identified with being someone who navel gazes a lot and is quote unquote self-aware and just like spends a lot of time reflecting on like okay well i have this behavioral pattern i wonder what that's from and like oh that's not great of me like maybe i could work on that and blah blah blah part of that is self-awareness but i also think if a part of

that is actually just you being like overly self-critical then you should think about your self-consciousness yeah self-detrimental exactly yeah it's um it's also kind of just self-absorbed it's like no one fucking cares. Like you don't have to spend eight hours of the day. I don't know. Is it bettering yourself? If you're spending like X amount of time bettering yourself, are you actually just becoming a fucking narcissist?

Worse. Yeah. That's the thing because now there's a difference between being self-aware in an age without the internet, but now because it feeds into like personal brands and like aesthetics, self-awareness has kind without the internet but now because that it feeds into like personal brands and like aesthetics self-awareness has kind of taken on this new meaning that it's like it's not actually self-aware it's like an over awareness of how you present externally and actually it's not even about who you are and it's about how you can make everyone else interpret your physical

form yeah into understanding some level of who you are internally which is the most fucked thing it's not self-awareness what we have now oh i have an awareness of how everyone else perceives me no you don't you have an awareness of how you've manipulated everyone else to perceive you you think yeah completely that sorry sorry no i feel bad it's gonna be bad for you to edit sorry no it's fine i just feel bad for you never also jack's hoovering but i can't hear that yeah jack come on oh he's like can't be bothered to hoover. That's a man doing two minutes work. I hoovered today.

I've been hoovering all day. Oh, fuck. What was I going to say? Yes. I also think, so this is kind of, I guess, the crux of the episode as well. It's kind of, yeah, it's true. The internet has kind of changed things in the way that before you just had to worry about like okay what does this jacket say about me i

can show some of my interests through my t-shirt yeah versus now it's like have i have i let everyone know that i've listened to that song yet have i let everyone know that that's really big deal to me have i let everyone know that like this this movie is now my whole life like kind of um informing everyone of your every passing thought yeah or only the ones that you think you want to be identified by and also it's kind of i said in a previous episode and i can't remember which doesn't matter probably wasn't very good um and it's not a great point but it is kind of a similar thing of like you can you can literally you can walk into a shop right now and see the most stunning thing and think it represents you perfectly

and blah, blah, blah, and leave it there. You don't have to claim it. And it's the same thing with a brand or an aesthetic or music or whatever, an interest. The same with fucking humans. You don't have to claim someone as,

oh, I've got them and it's my thing. Or like, that's my best friend. That's my thing. Like you don my best friend that's my thing like you have to claim things in this world it's still here tomorrow you can let let it go like these things pass in and come in and out and it's completely fluid you don't have to hold on to the attachment of something for the sake of your ego that's the thing i think ego is the crucial word here because it's not about um anything that's based in reality it's about how you want other people to perceive you two people could love um do you know what actually i was thinking about this this morning in terms of i was listening to i was just listening to

music dancing around and usually my go-to things would be like i would say like a kind of motowny vibe which i think i'm identified with because i love that i've loved that music for so long and that's like my the music i would go for like a 60s music vibe but i was listening to one of my old time favorite bands the white stripes used to love them but no one would know i loved the white stripes so random but i used to listen to them when i was in year nine i loved them so much and i was thinking two people i could love the white stripes the same amount that someone else loves the white stripe but i probably me to be honest never spoken about them that we would never know yeah no i never knew would never speak about them because why would i because i don't particularly care to share that and for some reason it probably doesn't align with

my aesthetic a white stripes i'm not gonna wear that white stripes banty no it doesn't align with what i present but it's like yeah we could probably love them the same amount but we would have never spoken about them versus the amount that we would have spoken about the handmaid's tale together because we both really identify with june osborne or fred blessed be the fruit may the lord open let nick please come back to her please please please oh my god i need it more than anything i need it well a lot of people were saying about how much does someone's aesthetic or like what they share of their identity, how much of that is just aligning with whatever's trending at the moment?

Because I reckon back in year nine, both you and I would have been much more likely to shout about certain things that we loved then than we do now. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, totally. Kind of in 10 years time, if we just found the handmaid or like in 10 years time if we're watching handmaid's i don't know we might not connect with it in the same way well it might feel old as far like yeah i never connected with that book when i mean my friend read that back in like when we were doing english lit like gcse and i remember i had no thoughts on it i never read it but we didn't really talk about it and now we both watch the show and obviously are obsessed with it because

it was made by hbo and it's got an amazing soundtrack and all of it's like yeah okay it's easy now to identify with something it's a whole aesthetic yeah because it's got yeah a stunning stunning look it comes with a whole brand it's fucking elizabeth moss it's like i'm so yeah behind this which i do think is fascinating elizabeth moss i don't i want to get to the bottom of this so bad what you want to get to the bottom of elizabeth moss the scientology thing just scientology in general yeah just scientology and just scientology in general me one tiny person i want to get to the bottom of this massive thing yeah i think i can do it but i completely agree no i completely agree she is fascinating she is such an incredible actress that I'm going to mention the film again.

Us. Our favourite film. Yeah, she's great in that. Just the best thing ever. She's a small character in Us. But she has my favourite moment of the whole film. Yeah. Just one moment where she's looking in the mirror and she's... Someone's getting killed outside and she's pretending to scream.

She's screaming, she's screaming. And it just turns to a laugh through the scream. And it's like just one moment in that film is my favorite bit just because she's so so talented yeah but yeah she's fascinating and just like the casting of someone that's a scientologist in handmaid's tale where scientology is a religion that has like famously exploited women and to be honest murdered women where's his fucking wife i watched a documentary about it i don't understand it's insane the casting of that is so um odd i don't under i literally just don't understand i love her

well just her existence in general i don't i i almost just feel like this can't be true i know it's shocking i can't believe what i'm seeing like no like i don't know i don't know i'm not i'm not gonna judge. Someone actually said in response to like, the question was like, is kind of curating a personal brand and aesthetic and identity publicly a waste of time? And they said, no, but I think being inflexible

with what things that you associate with, that is self-limiting. And I just feel like, God, if you don't have a podcast, you should consider it. That's a great point, right? Being inflexible with what you associate with, that's self-limiting. It's like, yes, you're right.

You say that again. Being inflexible. No, I'm joking. Being, one more time. Inflexible. Because that's the kind of pack lightly thing. Take what you need. Everything is fluid.

Take what you need and just let it be. Let it go. Nothing to prove i once met a girl i once met a girl when i was camping with my family and i must have been like seven or something and there was a girl there that she was like probably seven as well um her by her granddad was fishing by a pond it's a love story she was like to me every day i wear a different trend of clothes like today i'm wearing like girly clothes like pink and like she's wearing a skirt and stuff and then she's like tomorrow when you see me i'm gonna be wearing a tracksuit and the next day you see me i'm gonna

be wearing all black and the next day you see me i'm gonna be wearing um like um fucking i don't know some other style what a seven-year-old's wear that a kid would wear yeah and i remember thinking that's quite cool like that's quite a cool thing to do like every day i'm not when i was seven and i went camping i said to this girl today i'm wearing girly things but just you wait and the next day you're gonna see me in this because i think that was my first introduction to like trends it was like style in that way that i think i just wore fucking t-shirt shorts every day just random shit that my mom had given me every day um and that was kind of an introduction to like oh okay like there are different styles of clothes like yeah if you wear all black choices what does

that say about you rather than you wearing a tracksuit like what what am i inferring from you from that but then i do think there's like something quite that has a flexibility to it but it's also like you're still attached to like the sort of social conditioning we've had around like someone that would wear girly things it's like okay well you carry yourself differently on that day than the day you're wearing a tracksuit so it's like yeah you could be flexible with it you're like okay i'm not actually attached to a particular one of these but you're still like fitting within molds rather than i'm gonna fit in this i'm gonna fit in this like what do i like like i'm just gonna have some whatever's that i like and then going from there so what did you do how did that change the way

that you thought about like expressing yourself like did you then start wearing different things did you like different things like no i think i forgot about her completely until like now. Oh, right. Just remembered her. I literally haven't thought about her in like 15 years. How long ago was I? Seven? I don't know. If you build your idea of yourself from looking at like external things,

so like external trends. So do you remember when like peplum? Oh my God. Yeah, boy, do I. Peplum things were like, oh, it's trendy to like wear like culottes or like it's trendy to like Ariana Grande right now. Oh, I miss culottes.

Can we bring back the culottes people? Yeah, where are culottes when you need them? I'm talking about the 2016 Topshop pleated black culottes with some little Stan Smiths and a little choker. I need that back. Yeah, just so comfortable. Well, just the culottes. But the most comfortable thing.

But it's like building your personal internal identity and therefore your like personal aesthetic your brand whatever from what is like hot right now whatever is going on on the magazines whatever's going on online but to be honest what's going on on instagram let's be real rather than building from like your building your external presentation from an internal place i think is always fucked but yeah sure take influences but i do think it's like when you're forming your like not even style but like you're forming your own personal opinions based on the general consensus yeah you're heading down like quite a nasty path at that point did you have anything in your life that you had that you now looking back you're like fuck like that wasn't

really me i don't know who i got that from but oh my god yeah oh my god well there's so much that I was just influenced by like just the immediate circles of like my friends at school and things like that but I also think like the sphere of the internet that you're that you find yourself like occupying as like a fucking 16 year old is influencing you way more than you thought like I remember I I had like blue hair when I was like 16 and I had like pink hair and purple hair and all of that but I loved doing that like I thought oh my god this is so exactly what I want to do and actually I did have a whale of a time doing that but it's also because I was following kind of girls that were doing that as well that was definitely a trend at that time to be doing that it's like yeah I don't feel like it wasn't me to have blue hair to have pink hair whatever but it also you

can't deny the influence of if my friends were following those influencers they would probably have also felt like that was an expression of themselves to be doing that yeah what about you do you think like there's something that you've looked back on and being like was that me well everything but then i also think i also hate the pressure on people to feel like they have to know who me is and not just me i think for themselves and also that that should be unique yeah i just so many people said that actually so many people wrote in saying um about how like personal branding and aesthetic and all of this shit is just such a pressure to be an individual and what can that really mean yeah i don't know i just i also kind of think people

should be free to imitate others entirely on and on and on yeah until especially in your youth as well it's like oh my god you have to try on some things for size before you find you well i kind of what's the alternative i find it baffling i just can't relate to like anybody feeling like they really knew definitively who they were from the start. Because I've got no fucking clue now. And like, I'm getting on. Like, I'm not in my youth-est of youth. I mean, I am, but like, I'm not like 16 anymore.

I think even when I was 16, I didn't realise how much I didn't know about who I was then. Now I feel like I really don't know. I don't know if what I connect with, if anything, I get that. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Nature. I've got a gay rooster named Francois. Is so gay. These rams are gay. I'm studying gay animals.

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ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAST.com and monetize their podcasts everywhere akast.com we were touching on this in the last episode but like i definitely think that i've lost a certain amount of my like authenticity with age like the more social conditioning has been put on me throughout my life and also like becoming a woman and becoming um sort of a sexy being in the patriarchy's eyes of just like you've got boobs fucking perform bitch all of that shit that has changed me in a way that i can't undo i can't get i'm trying to get back trying to excavate this version of myself to get back to like who i was as

the core person but i do also think there was a time when i did feel very true like very pure and like okay no i the things i like yeah sure they've been influenced by the fucking tracy beaker that i've been watching and all the jacqueline wilson books i've been reading but it's also like this is a very pure form of a person that has then been given a load of fucking bullshit and now it's like right okay who are you and it's like okay well now i don't know but i think there was a time when i did know but is that pure or do we just think that like childhood and children are pure that youth is pure yeah that's what I was thinking I guarantee when you were watching Tracy Beaker and reading Jacqueline Wilson you were still

like performing in your own way like I definitely remember as a child just the whole thing was a performance of like being a kid and then also i feel like when i was like five i was probably performing what it is to be nine that's true and then when i was nine i was like i need to perform what it is to be like 14 like yeah that's very true do you know what i mean i don't i don't think it is like i don't think i was necessarily purely me because i had no concept of who the fuck that was and I definitely was living without the certain pressures of like patriarchy and capitalism. But I was definitely also still not free.

Like I was still under different pressures. Do you know what I mean? Like I don't think kids are free and well, I guess they are pure and like innocent and lovely. They're great. Blessed be the fruit. I don't think they're free and like liberated and pure i just think they have their own struggles of the perceiving so much in one go like it's so

confusing it's not this idea of like purity and that it's like you haven't been influenced by anything and then it's like you're born as yeah the tabula rasa the blank slate and then it's like yeah okay the world corrupts you I do believe that to a certain extent. But also, yeah, of course you have your own shit. And that is definitely a level of performance that's put on kids in that it's like, you're six, but it's like, is that your boyfriend? Is that your boyfriend?

But you're performing Tracy Beaker. Yeah, totally. You're acting like Tracy Beaker at school. You're telling everyone to bog off. Yeah, yeah. So, but I also think I was gonna say in the way that part of you is trying to get back to that purity which i also completely agree with i also think part of you a big part of you will be

coming into your own in a new way entirely well that's what i think what i mean by trying to get back to it's not that i'm trying to regress spend my days playing tamagotchi and watching tracy beaker and being like i love crash from tracy Beaker it's not that I'm trying to undo myself back to that but it's like I'm trying to access a level of confidence and like self-assuredness and like on it's essentially um a lack of awareness of capitalism and the patriarchy and just the systems that fucking literally get us down not even a lack of awareness a lack of influence over how i perceive myself and then yet continue that forward with the lens of an adult woman because i think that's actually what i mean by purity it's not even that a child is pure in their beliefs or any of these things

i've met some fucking evil children you're just at peace with yourself as a child in a different way it's just um getting back to a place where systems aren't the things that fucking stop you from being yourself yeah definitely okay so how what is your relationship to like personal branding right now um how does that feed into like ego and shit and like all of that like identity like mess i was gonna ask you that i was gonna say like well sorry oh you're just a bit too late i'm annoyed because i wanted you to go fast can you maybe go first little bit too late i was just you just picked me to the post this focus is kind of slightly a game between us maybe it's your turn

just throw the ball quickly imagine having a podcast when neither of you want to speak um what's my relationship right now okay let's try to answer a different question how do you think the pandemic and being in isolation also leaning into that then being like on your phone and online a lot more and in a different way and then also leaning into that having more eyes or ears on you online in a new way than you did before how has all of that over the past like year changed your relationship to like identity personal branding ego aesthetic all of that shit how what's that journey been like my god it's been huge that is literally the whole fucking thing like i do think the pandemic with everything being stripped away from you you're back to your like rawest form of

you in your fucking childhood bedroom potentially and it's like okay who are you when no one's watching it's like oh it turns out it's pajamas and then re-entering back into size into society is like this new opportunity to be like right okay so who am i like what do i wear what do i look like what do i fucking smell like what do i what makeup do i wear all of this shit what do i believe what do i want to do like almost the emphasis on we we have like a certain level of space goes without saying we're not kylie jenner we've said it before but there's a certain number of ears on us now that there weren't pre-pandemic and that you might think would like increase the almost the self-consciousness or self-awareness or like the level of critique you have on like

your external performance which it certainly certainly has goes without saying goes without saying but however i have met people in my life that have the just the average fucking 200 followers just like your normal level of followers um and it's just like your mates and it's just your personal instagram it's just like your friend instagram i've met people that are more obsessed with how they present without a quote-unquote audience or like the audience being just like people they know at school so i actually think it's it's not just a trick that people fall into when you get a little bit of attention or whatever like i do think you're trained to have that attention when the room is fucking essentially empty it's the you're monitoring yourself more than people are monitoring you or like you're you're consuming influencers

the whole time you're consuming influencers fucking movie stars you're consuming celebrities and all of this stuff and you just replicate that even if you're working at the supermarket like you're just trained to present this and i've met people that are more obsessed with how they present that i'm sure fucking molly may is do you think though then having first of all i think two things having the space that you have is very much a space that talks about like well you are an authority here and you're treated like you're an authority here so that in a sense will make you feel a little bit more confident or a little bit more like run for the hills guys these people don't know what they're doing just a little bit more maybe then

that pushes you to present yourself accurately because you feel like that is your space to do so but then also having that different relationship with social media that you have now than you did before is it that people who don't have a following are just like so preoccupied with how they come across and blah blah or is it also in part that because social media now means something different to you you're forced to confront those things because that is not sustainable it's not sustainable if you're going to be spending more time on social media if you're going to be having a different relationship with social media than you had before you now have to change that relationship in order to sustain it whereas

if you didn't have the audience there's no there's no one there's no there's nothing forcing you to like not be nervous when you post on instagram whereas now you cannot be nervous when you post on instagram because it will just fall apart yeah and that's i think the entire oh my god i just had seagulls through your thing oh sorry if that's going on and on sorry no never apologize that's absolutely stunning the girls um but i think that is the whole thing that we've been speaking about in the last now three episodes of the recovery plan the quote-unquote recovery plan mine's out the window is it only because i'm so distracted with well i've got a sofa to distract me so it's

great totally and a rug do i mean like if the if a rug is turning up on your doorstep it's like oh i don't who needs a recovery plan when i'm already feeling okay skip the recovery plan for the day but give me a couple days exactly, mine's still going strong. Good. Actually, I did abandon on the boat. I agree. Who needs it when you're feeling great? That's the thing.

It's kind of having an activity or just a life shift of perspective is giving you the recovery plan anyway. Because it's nothing to recover from. You woke up thriving. Yeah. Although I do think that's exactly when to continue it because then it's like you need those times for when it starts to slip again and that's the whole point of well

one of the elements of the recovery plan was like relaxing into um speaking freely on a podcast is like okay we're going to strip back the pressure that we put on ourselves to be perfect in this specific way and just speak in like a free way and be fine with it um and i do think that is that changes absolutely everything and is so necessary but i almost think it's hard then to translate that to like visual elements like it's easy to not be a perfectionist or it's not easy it's easier to be not a perfectionist with audio if i don't make the perfect point that's fine but if i don't have the perfect photo it will haunt me forever it's like this needs to be perfect this visually needs to be great right i think there's a different pressure

put on like the visuals especially the visuals of women yeah but it's like if there's one thing you don't like in a photo the photo is not gonna be posted but there's one thing you don't like a podcast it's fine how how has your relationship changed to that like visually i don't know can i ask you something it changes every day right yeah it changes every day changes yeah constantly is that the answer yeah what about you same changes every day but like what's your relationship with like personal branding and a personal um how you present to the world with you editing these podcasts i feel like i let go right at the beginning because i have no control on how i'm

i could be saying calls will sucks in every episode i honestly i edit her up so she sounds like a fucking twat every episode chop me up i just think like just letting go yeah of that you've just you've just got no control there and i trust you obviously but like it's it's a good thing i think because it stops you just i don't know you've just got no control over it and it's kind of yeah like if there's if there's something slightly not how i would have done it then great because i kind of it's just a perfect it just it's kind of the most meaningless do you know what i mean like it's a meaningless like challenge it's like oh you can be heard how everyone else is probably going to hear you anyway like no one else is going to hear the

difference anyway it's only you totally that is holding you to that kind of standard no one else would know so just being forced to live through that i think is good but just in general i think it does change every day in terms of how you feel about how i feel about how i am expressing myself but i do feel it's hard as well because i know we struggle on the podcast when you say something when you answer a question that becomes your answer so that becomes how it becomes definitive that is how wing feels about identity that is how wing feels about personal branding she's never connected with personal branding great oh that's she's just never connected with that and that's the story and i think you know like even though part of it is letting go by doing this because you just have to accept that whatever's out there

is out there or whatever it also makes you yeah like aware of yourself in a different way and i think everyone has that you just are aware of yourself in a crazy way because you think because it's the story that you're telling everybody yeah and that is people just believe they don't they'll fill in the blanks with whatever's going on in their story completely there was a reel that we made and it was a clip of me talking and it was like it's on our instagram somewhere but it was like i i think i was saying like i think the most damaging things we do is get attached to the story of me the story of my life or something that's exactly what you say you go the story of me the story of my life prove me my life and you

know what i agree with past me yeah i agree with you always because i do think one of the most damaging things we do is get attached to the story of me the story of my life because it's like the idea of personal narratives and i think that also translates to your personal aesthetic like okay so i identify as um i identify as like carefree and that might translate into a bit like a bohemian aesthetic and that might translate into like oh i yeah i want to live on a boat for example or like whatever it translates into things start like once the ball starts rolling on like how you want other people to see you before you know it you're dressing like you've got your haircut like it you but are we just too fragile yeah or like too maybe dynamic then but even just the good old tales of likes and dislikes

it's like even that i have a problem with and i thought was probably is that normal like you have a problem with people saying i don't like this no no not people me me i'm everyone else can do what they want but someone said like oh what are your likes and dislikes what are your interests you're playing sims 2 i find even that hard because i don't want them to believe what i'm saying like yeah like i don't want them to believe i don't want them to take my word for it do you know what i mean because i don't fuck it who am i to say what i like and decide i don't fucking know i haven't done half my shit yet like and also i change my mind all the time and maybe that's just so pretentious it's like just say what you were interested in and go

like no i don't think it is at all just say your favorite color and go like it's not a big deal maybe it's not but i don't know i do think generally most humans are much more dynamic than like that static narrative of likes and dislikes allows for and just the general construct of then social media added to that making everyone's likes and dislikes quote unquote pretty plain to see for everyone else to try and pick through and decipher as they like i guess if you're self-conscious or self-aware whichever like me then that is even a problem completely i completely relate to that because i think that is something that you're trained to do from early early childhood what's your favorite color what's your favorite animal what's your favorite um fucking song even when like you're a teenager

what's your favorite t-shirt what's your favorite band like it's just all of it is like what's your favorite what's your favorite what's your favorite and then that starts translating into one of our most hated things that we always talk about you've got attached to i'm a morning person i'm an extrovert i'm an introvert i'm a people pleaser i'm a all of these things it's like you're actually really limiting yourself with these with these like i guess it's my issue with labels once again which it they are so useful well i also think labels are fine it's when they're harmful like if being a morning person only benefits you and gets you out of bed and starts your day off great and you end up having like these amazing times because like

you slowly learn that you were a quote-unquote morning person and that's great and even like extrovert and whatever but if it's something like i just really struggle with public transport and then all of a sudden you haven't left your town in three years yeah you and and i'm sure you absolutely do struggle with public transport but you also could have a version of you out there that exists that doesn't struggle with public transport but we'll never know because we just can't slightly push you out of that self-limiting belief that you've learned yeah and that brings us right back to what um the lovely individual at the beginning wrote in saying like it's about um

being inflexible because i think yeah sure be a morning person if that even if that helps you and that benefits you have a lion though or if it just means nothing to you i do think there's an idea of you can identify as an introvert but have the awareness that in certain situations that will shift and you will be showing extroverted behaviors and that is just that is just what it means to be human that you are flexible you are ever-changing you are moving it doesn't mean that you're like okay so i was born an infp and i'm an infp till i die my love language is gifts and i'm a capricorn that's it no fucking questions asked and i will always rise before 6 a.m and go to bed before fucking 10 p.m yeah no like what is that as a life what is that

yeah and i'm a cat person fuck dogs i'm a fucking cat person i know this is an extreme example but it's like that is the that is an example of like quite an annoying person i would say i would be surprised at the amount of people that i've spoken to that just like for example like just someone i spoke to recently i'm gonna change what they said but they were like i just hate um i hate pizza i just hate pizza i've always hated pizza i'm never eating pizza i hate pizza i hate it i hate it i hate it i've never liked pizza and it's like what what is that what happened here what is that i'm so sorry like what like you're saying something to me that you've clearly been saying you've practiced saying this now for like over 10 years clearly there's like a thing for you

but it's like you do realize like you're the only person holding you to that standard there's no one here telling you like if you ate pizza tomorrow it wouldn't matter yeah yeah like the only person telling you that you do not like pizza you hate pizza is you but if you tried it and you like it your narrative of yourself would be shifted yeah and that is a bit of an issue i even think like it's true what did you say the worst things our biggest detriment is humans it's the story we tell ourselves the story of us the story of my life story me and story my life my life but um kind of one direction maybe narratives and labels and all these things are fine but typically it's not even typically the problem

is the cracks is when the narrative that you're telling yourself is i can't wear that because i just i she just would always like i wish i could wear things like that like fuck like i'll never be able to wear that like she just can do that and blah blah blah yeah i can never i could never do something like that oh my god could you imagine if i did something like that could you imagine it could you imagine it's like just what who are you asking permission from you can do it i just don't i don't like dancing i don't like dancing i don't take selfies i don't really like myself playing selfies i don't like photos of myself it's like what what is this any any limiting thing you're free you don't need permission for someone to say no you would look

good in that or no i can imagine you doing that or no you should take a selfie because i think you would look really good like no one no one's coming Harry. There is no one here to give you permission but you. So like if you want to pose a ridiculous post, if you want to post a ridiculous thing on your Instagram, post it. If you want to start making TikToks, do it. Like if you want to leave social media, do it. Like if you want to start wearing something you've never identified with before, you can do it.

Because before you know it, you're not going to have the option to do that. I hate to make it somber, but you're going to it somber but you're going to be dead you're going to be dead yeah but to me that's a happy note me too yeah it's all of us the fact that that is seen as a sad thing is the flaw in the narrative of me the narrative of my life the story of me whatever because yeah the floor of humans i'm sorry the like it's it's sad that that is seen as a sad thing because it's like well obviously death is fucked but it's literally like the only thing that's guaranteed at the end of this life your life can play out in a million different ways the only thing that's guaranteed is that you will die at the end of it that's not i don't think

that's me bringing the tone down that's true i'm sorry no it's true so it's like you you have to find a way to navigate this in the small amount of time that you have that you can live your life as freely as possible, freely the banana girl, as free and as loving and as like clear from all of the shit that you've been taught as possible. And that is not an easy task. But as soon as we start going like, oh, I just hate bananas.

I just fucking hate bananas. Oh, just bananas. It's like, when was the last time you tried a banana? Was it in fucking 2002? Because it sounds it sounds like it sounds like something you're you're saying sounds like just something you've learned to say or like oh i just really i hate pantomimes oh i just fucking hate pantomimes oh they're so cringe i hate pantomimes i hate pantomimes like why don't you just go to fucking pantomime seriously sounds like you kind of want to be in a pantomime actually yeah maybe you need to be a pantomime star i think you do but that's the thing as well with saying like look your life is going to end

one day is not to say like well you need to go full steam ahead and blah blah blah the problem is you're already living with so much pressure on yourself now anyway so what we can do is take that pressure off live in a little bit of peace and then just go at your own pace it doesn't mean like oh my god you're running out of time scramble like shit you're not doing enough you're not there you're like you're not gonna make it you're not doing anything blah blah blah it's actually just relax just relax can we just take a second we just relax yeah today right now right now out pressure off roll those shoulders back guys whoa unclench that jaw literally drop that tongue from the roof of your mouth oh right okay let's get comfy let's get comfy in this space let's get comfy in our days is your ponytail a bit tight right now take it out drop Drop. Drop? To be honest, maybe take your clothes off.

Let's get naked, guys. Me and Wing are doing it right now. Take it off. Honestly, is your bra a bit uncomfy? Are your jeans a bit tight? Fuck this. Just take the second. What does your day look like?

Have you got something at three that honestly could just be cancelled? Oh, I can't be bothered to do that thing at three. Can you be bothered to do that thing at three? I can't. I, for one, cannot be bothered. i'm fucking cancelling i'm not doing it cancel that meeting can't be asked are we done here take the pressure right off yeah we're done yeah we're done i mean i don't know what this episode has been me neither i think i've said a lot of things i don't believe in i think i've been lying i mean i guess it's kind of the point yeah sometimes we get into the it's a habit you have to slowly break the habit of performing what it is to have a podcast totally and like just imitating the last carousel you saw on instagram and the last tiktok

you watched on your phone and like the last podcast that you listened to that wasn't ours it's just hard to get out of that cycle sometimes but i hope you enjoyed this anyhow same do you know what i don't agree with that i said just quickly yeah just fine clear it up now yeah just gonna clear the air just gonna clear the shit just clear that i don't agree i'm trying to get back to a child version of myself no it's fine also i didn't mean like i hope it didn't sound like i was saying no no that's a silly point because i do get what you're saying it's just hard to like articulate you know yeah it is no you're right though you are trying to get back you're trying to unlearn trying to unlearn but not in a deep way i think bringing up two episodes in a row makes it sound like i'm on a mission to like no it's not deep it's not deep everything everything

is taken with a pinch of salt honestly take, take it with like a spoonful of salt, maybe some sugar as well. Spoonful of sugar helps medicine go down. Is that something? Nice, yeah, I don't know how we're gonna get that down. Okay, shall we? Let's go. If you don't hear from us,

assume the worst.