Goes Without Saying - self-esteem & body-image: soft girl summer

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

podmothers sephy & wing enter the chat: spiralling on self-hatred, self-esteem, fomo, seasonal transitions, and mourning your past self. ✷shop ✷ www.sephyandwing.co.ukhear more ✷ www.instagram.com/sephyandwingwatch more ✷ www.tiktok.com/@sephyandwing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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So why don't more people know this? I'm Owen Ever. I'm Lane Kaplan-Levinson. And this is a field guide to gay animals. A podcast about queerness in the natural world. The animal kingdom is queer and we are a part. Find a field guide to gay animals on Spotify, Apple. Or wherever you get your podcasts.

Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Goes Without Saying. You're listening to Goes Without Saying with Sefi and Wing. I'm Wing. And I'm Sefi. This is... There's tears here, guys. tears here guys you asked and we delivered this is a really in-depth conversation on self-esteem confidence body image the pressures

that come with summer concepts of gender and also just generally what it means to be a young woman on this godforsaken planet we are as always sending loads of love hope you enjoy being in our company for an hour happy summer happy summer are we saying that it started now is june actually technically maybe the beginning of summer i can't remember when summer technically starts or is it july uh i can't be able to figure it out right now the only reason i can't bother it is i can't be able to say something and then get a couple of really nice friendly messages being like no wing you've got that wrong i just can't be bothered it's not that a big deal so it's not a big deal

is it but i yeah i don't know i don't think it started yet we're recording this on the second of june you're gonna be hearing it on the third of june i don't think it started yet we're recording this on the 2nd of June you're gonna be hearing it on the 3rd of June I don't think it started yet because I remember being really shocked that that May is not summer June has to be summer June July August oh no because I've heard that September is summer yeah till the end of September oh I don't know let's not let's leave it I'm googling it oh yeah the 20th of june 20th of june 20 for ages yeah that changes so much actually because hasn't even started yet i've always said that i'm my siblings both have summer birthdays my sister's birthday 18th of june haha there you go spring baby as it turns out spring gemini queen gemini queen and my brother 20th of may spring birthday apparently spring

birthday taurus king because they've always been like gutted for you winter oh it's iconic well mine's not iconic 27th of december it's famously terrible terrible no i think it is iconic because it's right at the end of the year so it's so it's like yeah you're going into you know it's just winter queen it's yeah elsa yes else it's got elsa written all over it but yeah it also has tiredness exhaustion everyone's over everyone's done with it family is still sort of loitering around also written anyway turns out it's still spring hey it's still spring we've barely even begun we're gonna get prepped for summer oh i can't wait hot spring summer hot spring summer what does that mean that means it means that i've been playing harvest moon and i've been

okay got you but it's a variation of hot girl summer but it's spring and it's hot spring i think we're doing i am imagining that this is going to be something along the lines of a soft girl summer colon blah blah blah or it will be like body image and your friends hate you colon soft girl summer terrible news yeah you hate the way you look and everyone hates your personality. Oh, goodness. Soft girl summer. Hot spring summer. That's my vibe. Well, how are you feeling anyway this summer? This summer that has not...

That hasn't started yet. Or on this day. How are you feeling on this fine second of June? I am feeling like my period is very, very overdue. Yeah, same here. Which I keep having at the moment. Mine's not overdue. Well, I just wonder whether because now that I'm a tracker of my period,

it tells me that I've got a shorter cycle than I am. So I always feel overdue. It's like, God, it should have come two days ago sort of thing. But basically my period feels overdue. I don't know if it actually is, but according to this app, it is. So are you a bit late according to the app? Two days according to the app. Which is horrible because I'm just waiting

and I feel really moody. That little purgatory is horrific, isn't it? It's terrible. It's like the longer I stay here in this limbo, the higher the chance I have of destroying all of my relationships. Everything I have with my loved ones.

Everything I've ever worked for. Truly, truly though. I'm not even joking it's terrible but yeah i'm coming on any minute now yeah i think tonight's the night shortly i was walking around brighton today like really in the sun having the time of my life but i was really getting that achy feeling in my legs do you ever get that like kind of the day before day of starting your period where it's like it just feels like almost like i've got loads of toddlers clinging like clawing at my legs almost they're hanging on to my legs it's like i'm wearing like ankle weights or something do you know what i mean it's like i'm just being weighed down like there's a pulling happening on my thighs i feel like i live with ankle weights on because i wear quite heavy boots just around the town every day carpenter yeah i wear

sort of big boots um i just feel like i live with ankle weight so much so that now when i go out with trainers i'm like god this is freedom is it this is you were feeling the difference the other day yeah it was so nice it's because i'm scared of getting wet feet so i like wear oh i do get that look but you know stunning look um so how are you other than the ankle weight feeling i'm feeling really good i think i'm feeling a bit brain dead yeah um just in the period zone but i'm feeling all right i've had a really nice uh summery day forgive me for the inaccuracy of the term but yeah i feel really refreshed i feel a little bit like fragile yeah i feel generally yeah i could get into fragility if i had to but i feel also

quite confident so i don't know really what to make of that mess i feel like that's just the human condition isn't it it's like i feel as we always say everything everywhere all at once all at once link between confidence and fragility is way bigger than is made really go on yeah i think it they're emotions that um that swing love and hate they just sort of they swing between each other really um frequently I think like almost um at my most confident I almost still have an awareness of almost like I can only be so confident because I also am so fragile well can we actually talk about that for a second just confidence as a theme in general and I guess it is a huge theme that we'll speak about generally in summer as well but just the idea of

confidence something I know we've like touched on this before and we've spoken about it and i think about it quite a lot just the idea that hear me out i'm hearing i think as people as you know young women as individuals human beings on the planet it's so easy and natural i think to be really self-critical and to have quite low self-esteem. Yeah. So then when we have these potentially fleeting moments of confidence, I often find it's always kind of accompanied by a real awareness of how rare it is for me to be feeling this confidence, how out of place it feels in my kind of psyche like what's this one doing here kind of inside out it's like i'm going across the panel oh i'm kind of melancholy i recognize you i was overwhelmed i i know you but who's this confidence like you're new

or kind of you don't come here very often and when you do i almost the comp i don't necessarily feel all that attached or like i don't feel that um much ownership over confidence it feels almost like a bit of self like impostery it feels a little bit like surely that feeling isn't really mine that isn't something that i associate with myself confidence really and then also the idea that then god forbid someone occasionally feels confident people are so quick to be like you fucking arrogant little bitch they hate you they hate you they hate you they think you hate you and they hate you themselves and it's well i think just a weird one what it is is it's this they're jealous i think that really is what it is it's such a it is a really rare feeling to feel confident and it is a really um enviable

feeling like i think that's the feeling that really most people are striving for like when you think of all the things that we suffer from in this world yeah boy is the antidote it's the medicine so i think whenever someone sees um someone getting that or feeling that or like just maybe they don't even but displaying that feeling whether they really feel it true um truly or not i think there is like a human impulse to be like well do they deserve it like well the thing they haven't done i i can do that thing and i don't get that feeling that sort of thing so i feel like it is actually um what do you mean i can do that thing and i don't get that feeling like almost if you see someone tell me more if you see someone i'm in a running face so let's use running you see someone running she's a runner oh no marathons

too far actually um i mean it is right now but give yourself a bit of time i can see you doing a marathon no i've never i haven't i literally have no don't say never i've got no desire for it really i do and i i can't run long distance yeah i went and watched the marathon i'm a big sprinter i'm a very fast runner i'm not a long distance runner but i will complete a marathon at some point in my life until unless i die before i will why because i watch the marathon um every now and then and yeah goodness me these people are like um having they're really suffering i see them literally on stretches i have no desire for that and that makes you think i don't desire it um i i think i don't crave i don't also identify

with that kind of running and i don't in community yeah and i don't um i literally don't crave i don't also identify with that kind of running and i don't in community yeah and i don't um i literally don't think i really it sounds really weird i don't think i value that achievement for myself really yeah that running's just not about that to me what's running about for you um the feeling of the wind in your hair freedom you know all right fine okay so go on you see someone doing a thing you see someone running okay a marathon and that for example maybe they say um god i'm so confident in my uh running ability running ability i've used too high of an achievement because it's a pretty big to be able to do yeah you see someone go on a run whatever i don't know what the achievement is that's achievable you see someone go for a run they feel really confident after it

whatever maybe that's something that you also do for example it's like okay so i have also done a run um but they feel really confident after it and i feel like it's the thing that do you know what i mean is that sort of and that person doesn't feel confident i think it's an emotion take me all the way take me to the finish line here because i'm really following you i'm on your i'm on your feet i'm catching up i'm kind of going on two parallel sort of trains of thought at the same time so it's something about confidence stick to the confidence thing as in people get envious of other people's confidence when they see them doing something they could also do i think so but when

they do it they don't get the confidence the way that the other person does yeah i think it's a feeling that kind of you don't necessarily get it from the things that you think you'll get it from okay so if for example running is a thing that you do all the time and then you see someone running and then you have a feeling of confidence from it it might be a thing that's like well why did they get confidence from it it's like because that thing doesn't bring confidence to you it's not a feeling that is universal is there also a part of that that no that didn't make sense sorry it doesn't make sense feeling that is like it's not a feeling that you can there are not universal things that will give you that feeling of confidence

yeah it is actually more specific it's personal goodness me this and it comes in waves it comes in waves it does come in waves yes it's fluid there's nothing that can guarantee you to feel confident you could have just completed a marathon and still feel not very confident in yourself or your own abilities or whatever totally got you we're all following you yeah i kind of lost it halfway through i'm so sorry don't you dare got the lack of confidence right before our very eyes it seems what i mean it's confidence and fragility that everywhere i started off so confident now so fragile you know that you're just swinging um i also wonder if like when you were saying about seeing someone do something and it's like well i do that all the time so no no no sort of thing is there almost a part of it that is like questioning just kind of

the really natural human reaction of jealousy to be like well why do you get um almost the identity attached to it attached to that achievement when i can do that too yeah i think there is that there's a little bit of um yeah jealousy yeah i think so yeah i think you don't feel that with running though do you no because i love running because as i say it's not my um i've got i just don't have much identity in it because it's such a new thing i did see a funny thing that was like uh midlife crisis is xyz and xyz quarter life crisis is going running and starting a podcast or something like that and i was like that is devastating that is devastating devastating news it really is oh no um okay so generally are there things that might give you

confidence you specifically that you could let us into or not sure even though it's not guaranteed there are things yes but pinch of salt pinch of salt yeah pinch of salt pinch of salt nobody's judging things and if you're judging her get the fuck out you're not invited to the pod no but i just want you to be free to speak speak freely i didn't know they were they're not they're not i've closed the door and i'm gonna kick them all out they're gone no please don't that's really scary people that hate sephie leave it's like no no no it's barricaded they're out of here oh what oh sorry guys go on speak freely there are things that give me confidence but i also think i it's mostly you what it's like the only person judging you as well it's actually just you i'm not even judging me i just am a bit brain dead today that's okay but you're giving me thoughts so just back it just go for it oh okay yeah i think there is an element of me which is

innately confident yes so i don't actually know what the things are that bring me confidence it's like there are loads of things i can do that sort of um enhance my like well-being in life like yeah i'm better off if i'm journaling more being outside more yeah seeing my friends more all of this stuff it's like yeah no i'm a better version of me then but turn it off and on again put it in rice drink some water that vibe exactly but i feel more that my natural state is to be quite confident that's like I on a normal day I wake up sort of 70% confident yeah we know and actually we know that yeah and then I feel like when I know that I'm sort of not doing so well that's when I um feel that dip down to like a lot of 30 40 sort of situation and that more stands out as like okay

i need to do some things to boost this up again which will be those things that i just said but i don't think that it's things that i do that necessarily bring out feelings of confidence like yes when i have an achievement that brings me up for a bit but i do feel like i just sit actually at my natural level um and there's obviously variation within there but i don't know if i am usually bringing that up with activities i feel like it's actually when i'm just lower in mood my confidence will naturally just come down a bit okay so i think i'm someone i was thinking this recently i feel like i am not a very confident person but i think throughout my life and particularly recently like over the past let's even say 10 years i think i've grown a lot of self-esteem i think i have a

really strong self-esteem i think i have like i know that i have inherent value as a human being and like generally i really back myself in quite a strong way I really believe in myself I think I'm talented and great and nice and funny but also I think I'm a good human and you can argue me all you want but generally I'm okay with what I'm doing here before then that's something that you've grown i think i've got more of aware awareness of it as i've gotten older and the kind of markers that i would have used of like validation and stuff have ebbed and flowed throughout my life i've built an idea of like self-worth and self-esteem that's just inherent and dependent on me yeah so i feel like when i was younger

there was a big moment in my life where a lot of the value that i was under a lot of the value that i was drawing was for example from my parents or specifically my mom that relationship was torn down and taken from me and with it when obviously inherent all of the value that i had that i was i'd learned so much of my value so much of my security in life was like yeah this person loves me etc etc feeling the absence of that obviously leaves like a huge space for doubt in myself of like maybe i wasn't lovable enough or maybe there's an issue with me or maybe i wasn't x y and z enough at like 13 for example not true obviously as i've gotten older and older i've realized no that's not the case you're a charming little 13 year old you're charming now a 13 year

old that's a baby exactly and i've learned that my worth is constant and it isn't changing dependent on like who loves me or what people say to me or the things I'm doing or whatever but my confidence generally can be really low so it can play out in different ways like I can be really um like vocal in a room of strangers or like I don't have an issue like going up and saying hi to people or like I can do things on the podcast or like share things share things i've done little things like that which i think people can view as confidence but that to me isn't necessarily just confidence it's also coming from a place of self-worth and my confidence isn't always there and also to be doing things that are that appear confident it's like um it appears confident to people because those are things

that are socially hard or they're like seen as hard but it's like that isn't a hard thing for you to do uh yeah I guess it's almost like it's only a confident thing if that's the thing that you thought you couldn't do when you're sort of overcoming it yeah and I also think I've built a lot of security in myself um I'm really drawing on this today but I guess it's just the theme of the day of like being really young not having somewhere safe to live for example like getting through that surviving figuring out what you're doing having something to say about it learning that you can survive shitty things yeah and like and also still be a very nice loving person like i feel like i have so much love to give my fear would be like in a situation

where people are kind of stripped of all the love that they are given they can become really like bitter and jaded and and like jealous and hateful and evil yeah and you guys might have the wrong end of the stick of me every now and then but that just isn't the case no i am really a loving person and i think the security of like seeing myself go through even little things like anything you guys have done you've you've been through the challenges and you come out the other side and i hope there's a part of you that can learn from that experience i'm durable and i'm cut out for more and i can survive and therefore i will continue to do hard things fun things anything i desire i'll make it happen i'll have a great summer sort of vibe i don't know why i'm taking us to the death sorry no so on my mind because of the um i keep saying nursery rhyme which is really silly but it kind

of is a nursery rhyme diss track that if you follow me on instagram you would have seen i put up a um nursery rhyme diss track about the situation but it's not a poem no it's totally a poem i think give it the credit oh i'm giving it credit by calling it a distract that to me is like way more meaningful it can be a poem to you but to me but to me it's a nursery rhyme yeah because it's like you did all this to a child it makes it almost a little bit scary if it's a nursery rhyme it's a bit haunting yeah um and there's a very intentional like eerie rhyme to it and like silliness but anyway i shared this thing about the situation that i keep touching on in

this episode so i feel like it's really fresh in my mind i just think generally whatever you are going through in life at the time it might feel like it's teaching you that like you are not good enough or your life is shit or you are doomed or oh no i'm never gonna get to the other side of this but in the long term hopefully if you allow it if you give yourself if you allow yourself more time on this planet you will hopefully learn that the long-term lesson or the long-term meaning from that situation is i can get through that and i can also get through anything else you've got so keep it coming and the and boy will it keep coming that's the warning and they keep coming and they don't stop

coming they keep on coming but also you do build such such resilience like you do yeah you do but i think that's the next thing feeding into my confidence and also my fun and just my energy for the summer is just the ownership over like i'm a young woman and it's june what a fun time to be alive like it doesn't really get much better than that like i'm a young woman and i have a silly little podcast and it's june yeah and i can and i've got a coke zero and what more could i want and it's so not much more imo yeah what about you what are your thoughts on self-esteem i'm just so sorry like i just am so not um not here with it yeah yeah so sorry you're doing this with a bit of a ghost today that's all right i love to be

haunted everyone out a little bit it's a little bit spooky actually if you don't mind but that's fine that's fine today actually i think i do just i think that's what i'm going to identify as just kind of spooky ghost just the ether i just like i love for you to be the ether just like the void just however you want to come to me as however I'll take your arms open wide. I think that's how I feel, truly. It's like this period is not here and I am reduced to the ether. We can blame it on the period for sure. That's me today.

Oh, so funny. No, it is. It is the period. I do feel that. Yeah. I also haven't taken my antidepressants yet today. My lips keep getting really tingly. Oh, is that a symptom?

Yeah. You know, like when I always say I feel like I'm made out of electricity yeah my whole face is tingling yeah it's kind of thing from monsters inc um not monsters inc um scooby-doo to monsters unleashed oh do you know the guy that's made of electricity and that oh god you're testing me there i don't think so you you will know him if you see him he's like hello okay well that's me yeah i was thinking um it could let in a child he goes it could let in it could let in a draft he goes it could let in a child who the hell is that that ugly spider man who scuttles around everywhere in what in monsters inc also speaking of monsters inc do

you guys know what my dog looks like don't you i always call him randall from monsters inc um just a little bit of law for you l-o-r-e this is who you are that is so me the vault ghost no ten thousand ten thousand thousand vault ghost and i am the ten thousand if i haven't taken my medication i'm tingle tingle tingles i'm ten thousand volt ghost google scooby-doo two once unleashed ten thousand volt ghost that's way it saved my life but also like i feel like i'm made of electricity it's fine so fine price to pay, but... 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. Does that mean I'm gay? So why don't more people know this? I'm Owen Ever. I'm Lane Kaplan-Levinson, and this is a field guide to gay animals.

A podcast about queerness in the natural world. The animal kingdom is queer, and we are a part. Find a field guide to gay animals on Spotify, Apple. Or wherever you get your podcasts. to gay animals on spotify apple or wherever you get your podcasts a cast helps creators launch grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere a cast.com yeah um specifically about summer so i'm just gonna throw things at you you can throw it back or whatever we can we can do a bit of i'll serve badminton yeah would you still serve in badminton yeah okay so i'll serve and you can just pop it back over to me exactly yeah i right yeah that's

what i've got in me great input from the ghost all right well what are your thoughts on this i know you've got thoughts but you don't have to share them but just anything about visions of body image self-esteem around the way that we look and awareness of the way that we look in summer that change of season can i start us off maybe go for it would that be helpful i feel like sometimes the switch in temperature the switch in weather also like anyone in england or surrounding areas the weather recently i hate it what a waste of time on a podcast to be talking about the weather it's like small talk but it's absolutely also i keep saying like spring summer's really blue balling me like i'm going in i'm going out i'm going in i'm going out i literally don't know which way like it really

can't make its mind up and i can't settle into i'm definitely the kind of person that i end up settling into a bit of a uniform like which i think most people do rotate the same kind of five tops or like the same kind of three dresses like whenever do i mean haven't been able to do that haven't been able to like get into the rhythm or like feel comfortable in my clothes or like what I look like because I keep going in and out of literally the highest heights of winter I'm in Elsa's frozen land to the next day being like by the pool it's majorly fucked up it's really weird I also feel like I'm having a weird version of that because it seems to be that every time I'm at home like

in my family home because I'm moving around so fucking much in this sort of phase of my life every time I'm at home it's like raining miserable drizzle which really is sort of pathetic fallacy of like my life here and then I leave and it's I check the weather before and I'm packing and it's like oh my god it's like summer dresses like summertime like I'm getting dressed and I have a really fun amazing time and then I've come back home and it's like drizzle again yeah and it's like it really creates um the most horrendous like whiplash um sensation in my life like not only is the weather so dramatic but it really feels like um i can't get comfortable yeah it just creates it polarizes the two two um sort of states of my existence at the moment so much i also just i generally really struggle with getting ready

like that's my kind of i'm going back to bed that's that's we're always kind of three and a half minutes from a panic attack getting ready is like the danger zone and i also think just to mention like this isn't for me like for me personally it's my issue is not about the way that my body looks in the clothes but i feel like that's a huge element of summer for people is getting used to wearing one sort of thing and then the expectation that in summer you're going to be looking different feeling different having to wear different things feeling exposed whatever just a whole new awareness of the way your body looks even without that i just have such an

awareness of the stress of getting ready feeling so uncomfortable in the way that you look, but still not wanting to miss out. And I feel like that FOMO, being attached to feeling not good enough in your own skin and existence is so devastating and huge. Yeah. Just really would like to give that a lot of space and time for everyone to really almost let the screams out because it's absolutely devastating to be honest

really infuriating and disgusting on like a global level that mostly young women who are already struggling with x y and z also then have to think about like i'm seeing people say like the way their arms look in something or now they're getting their legs out or now i have to be in a bikini and just the whole ways that people talk about their bodies in summer is so horrifying that this is the yeah state yeah no literally i weirdly my heart rate is kind of really high right now just even i'm literally like i'm gonna cry i'm so sorry oh i'm sorry no just it's just one of the most horrific conversations ever it is we don't have to go there no no i actually really want to like okay

this whole subject though it was the word you said which keeps coming to my mind so much at the moment but like i keep thinking at the moment like i am actually devastated about like what um my relationship with my body has like robbed of me for like my entire life it is devastating i think summer is such a horrific time for it but like it truly is a feeling of like the disjointedness that i feel between like my body it's just it's so like actually devastating to think it's so devastating as also the way that this is also kind of and you're not gonna like this but why I love tattoos so much just generally yeah I was thinking this recently of like just the idea of the ownership over your body and really claiming it as your body in however that looks and dressing

up however you like and like really enjoying the vessel that honestly you've been gifted in and like god forbid we can walk around and generally be pretty healthy on this planet and it's so so actually horrifying yeah when also like all i do is look around and see stunning girls who are so hilarious or like so intelligent or like so generous with their time and yet the focus is so much on the way the x y and z looks in the summer for example it's just really really really scary and i also think like the hyper awareness or just like the hyper vigilance that we have towards our the way that we look and the way that other people look via social media as well i am obviously it goes without saying it's not like a new insight to bring to a podcast but i'm actually really really scared for the younger generations as we get older and like more distant

from the conversations and like i start to outgrow the spaces and like not know what's going on anymore i feel even more almost scared to like get so distant from young people because it's like i want to be there kind of holding like an 11 year old's hand and like kind of covering their eyes or like steering them away or bubble wrapping them and protecting them from the ugly state of like what we've done to reality it's just really really horrifying and i find the i think anyone who's grown up which i'm imagining is most people if not all of us here grown up with like like just an insane level of importance placed on the way that you look like a huge emphasis from other people adults when you're a kid about focusing on what are you bringing here as as a

little girl it's the way that you look that's that's a marker that we're going to use against you that's a marker that we're going to place value on it's absolutely horrifying horrifying horrifying horrifying and all i want to do is pick everyone up and throw them in the pool and and pour wine over you and have the best time but i can't because no one wants to leave their houses because we hate the way yeah i think it's mainly for me the thing of like the wasted time that's what gets me when i look wasted um fun wasted relationships waste opportunities and when i look when i look back actually at like i think the thing that

frustrates me the most is the thing of being able to look back now and see all of that wasted time and all of that wasted energy and then still at times not being able to break the cycle i think that's the bit that i find so jarring and i have like fixed so much like or not even fixed but I have I really really have such a different relationship with my body now but I do find it literally devastating to think of what the fact I've even had to go on that journey is so so heartbreaking actually to like be to genuinely be 14 years old and feel like divorced from your body like that is such a strange feeling to be like i hate this thing like that is so horrific because that thing is the thing that allows you to be like be here it's the thing that i don't know i had i'm i'm so hormonal

and also i'm just emotional but i'm gonna talk about something even sadder oh god i'm so sorry it's your call so i just don't want to want to fan the flame sort of thing but please give And also I'm just emotional. But I'm going to talk about something even sadder. Oh God. I'm so sorry. It's your call. So I just don't want to want to fan the flames sort of thing. But please give whatever you want to give. The flames are. The house is literally burning down. The house is on fire. Okay.

Take it away then. The fan the flames. Like you can't be fanned anymore. But this is a very sad thing. Oh God. You know it's bad when you introduce a subject like that as well this is a very sad thing so this is very sad go on then so my grandma is in hospital at the moment as has been discussed on this podcast and when i went to go visit her i was just struck by like

the overwhelming like just the undeniable truth of your body being everything your body is everything here really like it's so sad to see someone's body failing them like someone especially that is so like huge so much like literally like biggest personality in the world and when I came out of the hospital I was had this feeling of like god it is so sad what we have done to our bodies like in our minds this this horrific feeling of like you spend or so many girls that i know and god i mean literally i think maybe every woman i know has had to just go on this like horrific journey of like making peace with the one thing that actually keeps them alive and i find that making peace with the one thing that actually keeps them alive and i find that truly dystopian and truly like horrific that that is even um one of the aspects of being a woman is

that you feel this like weird relationship with your body and i absolutely hate it makes me feel like so sick to think that that's the state of the world when actually like the day will come when our bodies just like fail us and god you're gonna wish that yeah you're not really gonna be thinking about the shape of your stomach or the shape of your arms or anything at that point and i think to be honest we're all gonna wish that we hadn't spent all of that time hating the thing that we need like it's absolutely horrific it's there's no other word for it absolutely heartbreaking horrific state of things and i think the most jarring bit of it all is that because of it's so built into our brains like we were literally raised with this messaging that

even with all of that knowledge like i've had the knowledge of of that of this being bullshit like all of these beliefs being bullshit for as long as i had the issues like that is they go together the idea that you know that yeah it's a waste of time and it's stupid and also but you still have the instinct to skip lunch or all of that like they kind of exist in this same bubble or compare yourself or whatever your um symptom is or not want to wear the clothes or want to wear the bikini whatever it is they exist together and i think that is one of the most heartbreaking bits that um it's so hard to break because it almost goes against your instinct of knowing that the whole thing is fucking bullshit anyway two things actually three things first thing thanks for sharing the flames the flames on

behalf of everyone we received it extinguish anyone got a fire extinguisher i wouldn't mind 999 um second thing kind of a separate note but maybe in honor of pride month and when you were thinking it i was when you were saying that i was really thinking about like when you were saying about just learning to feel really disconnected and divorced from our bodies and also focusing on your body being a certain looking a certain way when the reality of it is to like keep you here on this planet safely and like functioning. The idea that there are people in this world who feel such a disconnect from the physical body that they were born into. feel such a disconnect from the physical body that they were born into like the idea of feeling disconnected from your body is one thing and then adding gender on top of it and feeling really trapped in your skin is just a harrowing experience that i think so many people probably listening and also just generally um in the world are going through really really horrific and then also i wanted to say what was

the other thing i wanted to say just something else really miserable and sad it was also making me think of a conversation that we had recently about some body in real life but also just generally like on a societal level if we're speaking specifically about like i feel like i use body image just generally of like people having an awareness or a level of discomfort with the way they look from head to toe for example could be anything could be your ankles could be um your fucking eyebrows whatever anything in there specifically about weight we were talking recently about someone who was saying that it was like a kind of let's say like 50 60 year old woman five zero slash six zero year old woman and the concept of them being on a diet since they were

like 20 or something and we were talking about the idea of like fighting your appearance for years and years and years until you're fighting the way that you look for your entire life until you're it's your dying day and it fought you back and you lost it's absolutely everything as well you lost everything you lost the entire life but also i think it's really important to think about like in terms of time wasted i feel like this is something we all think about every fucking day of like i know in the other episode i was like i didn't go to school for like literally weeks on end like i was literally on a report like i was going to be suspended like they were going to expel me like they were like if you don't go to school if you

lose one more day you're being kicked out which is crazy it's like so if i lose one more day i lose all my days is that what you're saying mr grignard anyway great um great way to teach children isn't it it's just mr grignard actually told me i was too old for panic attacks when i was 17 by the way it's like oh honey i've got there's a lot more where that came from i'm 17 like this is my prime panic attack time thinking about it's just really the crux we can probably offer is a little bit of company in the pits that it is to wake up and look in the mirror and think yeah no don't like that not happy about that and i won't let it exist something else go on go on i think i would offer the truth which is that it will change like you're a pit you're the only thing that you can really count on in this life is things changing which means that one your body

will change this thing that you sort of have all these feelings about it will change and I think the the biggest piece you can make is that it's like you cannot control this thing really like there are so that you're going on a whole fucking journey in this life and you cannot control this thing to your mind will change it just will like i i think when we when you look at these people if you're a smart person that sort of which you are which you are and that you have this sort of hope to live a good life which i think if you which is this podcast i would assume that you do yeah you may be not going about it the right way but but you do i'd yeah i think looking at these people that the generations above that yeah we say wasted their lives worrying about their bodies and literally did it was what they say themselves yeah i think you can actually use these things

as motivation like every single time i see one of these things i do try and view them as like a lesson that okay so i can't change these these deep core beliefs they will keep coming up but i can keep challenging them i can keep um choosing the things that fit in line it's like okay so if i still feel like i can't do that thing i can't do that thing well i will do that thing even if the feelings whilst i'm doing the thing come up saying oh you're not good enough blah blah blah it's like no I will still do the thing and I think that's all you can do like just keep keep fighting it like I really um I'm so shocked at um the like literally leaps and bounds that my mind has changed upon these things and like to be honest my behavior has changed like I think if I look back at how I felt throughout pretty much my entire teenage life it was diabolical like like actually

horrific like I had no concept of um my body being even mine to be honest I just literally thought it was a thing to control and punish and starve to be honest like and now I do not feel like that really at all like when those thoughts do come up it's in a sadness of like the past self and also of the like small ways that it sticks around of like okay I had that little thought there and things like that or like summer maybe yeah that's a hard transition but i don't i do not feel the way that i felt and i think the ways that teenage girls feel literally yeah at the most sort of pinnacle fucking time as well when they're getting introduced to things like sexuality and huge huge fucking life changes living alone maybe for the first time all of these huge things you're dealing with this like feeling of your skin not feeling yourself feeling like your your own and all of this stuff i think

it's horrific what we as a culture have done to girls but i think as grown women you can look back on that person with like sort of love and like yeah even the culture with sadness have been like okay this culture is horrific but all I can do is try and make myself feel good and a huge thing make other girls feel good because it's like I really have no interest anymore in being um perfect I really don't actually and I think that was that was all i ever that was the whole thing just being like okay how can i control this thing and now i just to get to the point where it's like oh shit i can't control my body it's nothing to do with that waste of time all i can do is let it do its thing and turns out its thing is actually just like okay keep me alive perfect literally

i also think like in terms of the concept of like wasting time and looking back and like feeling the frustration is really human an important part of like i feel like there's literally um waves of mourning that people go through i think you just go through it naturally as you get older any human being on the planet will be mourning different aspects of themselves their life whatever relationships relationship to their body things they've lost just throughout life is a given it's a given but i think sometimes accompanying that sense of frustration can be like an anger and i think sometimes it can be misplaced onto yourself so feeling like it's really normal to feel a level of frustration of like why am i still feeling

like this oh i know all the things and yet here i am still feeling this certain way or like i know i shouldn't care about blah blah blah but i do and i think a huge thing to remember as much as possible is to try and let yourself exist as a fucking human being on the planet who's going to be a bit mean to themselves sometimes and who's going to feel angry at themselves sometimes who's going to feel not good enough and letting yourself feel all the things with loads of love and compassion for yourself which i know is like really airy fairy stuff when i start pulling out the compassion for yourself stuff it's the only thing that's real and i think it's really easy to look back and be really

fucking pissed off be really fucking pissed off at the world really fucking pissed off at yourself for like for example not going to school because you thought your face was so mortifying really crazy especially then you look back and it's like that's crazy but i don't have to hate myself now for it i don't definitely hate that little kid going through it god i don't have to hate myself now for it i don't definitely hate that little kid going through it god i don't have to carry all of that anger with me now i can feel the frustration let it go and carry it with loads of like love rather than fuel it into like you fucking idiot you're still fucking struggling in summer boohoo like all of this stuff i think that self-hatred can take so many different um like forms and i think it would be really nice if we could all be really

aware of that be very nice to ourselves there's enough shit going on let's not add to the fucking pile yeah i think it is what my remember that everyone does remember and it's the thing i can't even send people a link to the thing oh i mean for painful feelings but it hurts me so much i've told you guys his name they can't get it i'm so sorry i literally don't have a link to it or anything but don't you have it on your google drive yeah the thing that's in my google drive and how have you received it on your google drive is that a file i must have downloaded it on my google drive okay it's called it's coming to you they can't get it they can't get it you it's on the internet guys i found it from somewhere

making no but didn't you get sent it by a therapist so that's what i'm thinking is a website so then go through your emails and find that website and then post the link to the website on our stories yes and on this thing on this thing i can see on your face you're not doing that in one ear and out the other no look she's gonna call it again russ harris blah blah blah go find yourself and i'll tell you what he says this is my point they're never gonna find it go they don't need to find it because i'm gonna tell you okay right now yeah the upgraded version here's what russ says at the end of the meditation which i think is truly perfect for this he says all of so the whole way through you're thinking what here's the negative emotion on and on and on

and he's from new zealand so he goes like here's the painful oh my gosh okay i think it was a bit australian that was a bit of a hate crime i think really well i'm gonna keep doing do it again that's kind of mad max furiosa vibes it's a painful emotion whoa and we're making room for it right now okay and here's what he says i'm definitely feeling a painful emotion he says this go let me remember the this feeling that you're feeling is just shows that you're a human being on this planet it shows that you're alive and that is the feeling that human beings feel when they're having a hard time oh my god and it's like actually you know what i said about myself so true russ bestie boy it doesn't mean like the feet the feeling of like okay so i feel angry at my past self or whatever it's like yeah maybe in russ's kind new zealand words yeah maybe he's from

australia i'm not actually sure what he's saying there is like yeah okay so what he was trying to say yeah he's saying and the thing you will never appear because i can't work it out but i will try and post a link he's saying you're a human you're human this is angry yeah of course you feel angry at your past self good luck trying to find another way through it of course you feel angry at society like it is angering like of course you look back and feel devastated about the relationship with your body like this is what human beings feel and it's the human the thing that i love that he says is he says it's not a sign of like illness or there's something wrong with you that is what it is to be human it's a sign there's something right with you

in fact it's it's so true like i'm a big fan of russ it's just so fucking you're the only one unfortunately i think maybe it was a voice note that was sent to me like maybe he came to you in a dream who is ross i've never heard from before i've never heard from him ever before or since his meditation or whatever it is it's fucking great oh and i'm gonna find it well look you've given the kind of it's the trickle-down economics of ross harris we've got the diluted version you know what i'll do i've got a good idea go on i'll post it in our crux club very good i'll post it in our crux club so we have a group chat on our instagram called crux club and i'll post the link in there sorry importantly a group chat that we're the only people that can speak in it oh well no one they

can't comment which is devastating i thought they could reply no they can react i have seen though god they can only speak via it's a group chat with steffi and wink so you can kind of you can look into what our texts might look like it's just us two so wait what so they can react with emojis but they can't comment they can't like put words in do you know it's kind of club penguin where it's like you have to click an automated response it's like hey there how's it going oh this is sad yeah i mean do you get that reference did you say club penguin yeah yeah but you know when you can like only click a certain i know it well kind of pre-made no neither i wouldn't remember more than anything same but i wasn't allowed obviously i wish i was a member like i wish i was a member you'd see those penguins walking around with like scarves so many puffles is that what they were called yeah puffles they'd have like 10 puffles that were like pink and stuff

ouch still well what was your favorite um club penguin game i loved the pizza pizza come on did you switch it to sweet mama mia what sweet oh you didn't know the trick no you weren't a proper club penguin no i wasn't i wasn't i was on the outside looking on club penguin yeah it's a game yeah there was a little lever that you could pull and it would turn it to sweet toppings maybe i do so you would do like chocolate sauce on the bottom yeah it's kind of not the thing i would remember but i appreciate you bringing it to me what was your club penguin called oh i don't remember jesus effie you don't know no what was yours come on take it away then mine was called we all want to know well what i

wanted it to be called was it was a yellow penguin it was supposed to be called cheese head one two three i kind of remember you telling me this. It didn't fit. So it was called Chez Head 123. I do remember this. Chez Head 123. The one that absolutely gets me. This is actually one of my funniest stories.

I remember absolutely crying, laughing. Just the memory of this. My friend Sophie, I was telling her about this in year five or six. I told her about Club Penguin. I was like, there's this amazing game, Club Penguin. You didn amazing game Club Penguin and we spent all day trying to come up with the name of her penguin and we came up with the best name ever we thought is so good felt tip and we were like felt tip so so good perfect and she gave me the next day and it didn't it was already taken yeah I was like so what are you called? She was like, felt tap.

Felt tap. Isn't that the funniest thing ever? Felt tap. Felt tap. So sad. It's felt tap, but kind of with the Russ Harris accent. Felt tap. Felt tap. Felt tap.

Felt tap. Kind of with the Julia Fox accent. Okay, you better put that in the crux club yeah i will i'll be watching ross harris i'll find a way for you guys to hear it because i've been going on about it enough that you guys do just need to hear it you can say that again you can say that again going on about it enough i on but you know i don't talk about things unless they're good guys like i don't just know it's true to bring something up it must be incredibly meaningful to you i only would recommend a good thing and fucking hell, he's pretty good.

Well, Russ is pretty meaningful to you, I must say, because he's also, he stood the test of time. He's been a character in this universe for a while. Yeah, I think about six months I've been liking this meditation. Maybe more. Yeah, maybe more. It's a good meditation, guys, I must say. Because when was that in your therapy? Sorry, I'm going on now. Yeah, which I think ended about six months ago. What, the beginning of the year?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think so around christmas or something all right can you believe it already in june by the way six months into the year um i've been really kind of all over the place zero days since last cried during recording um yeah wow okay so like but almost i was having the thing a bit where i like the tears like almost i was crying but like the the cry was very close but it never sort of came i like that we're debriefing the episode that we're still in yeah well i kind of want them to yeah just and i am sane by the way guys it's almost i am okay but also i yeah god this period better come

tonight i mean it's hormone it's really hormonal it's hormonal times i'm feeling it um sorry to do that to you but you know luckily we're doing two um luckily there's more where that came from well as in like the next episode will be the same topic so maybe a bit bit more eloquent yeah um but yeah i think you're perfectly eloquent i don't but it's fine however you want to come to these things i'll take it i don't really want to come like this but i just did come like that so it's fine i appreciate that i mean i hate to i hate to have the tears flowing but also it is just really sad so it is it is really sad and it is just really sad oh god i could go on i'm gonna look let's keep it brief

now because i'm trying to i'm not trying to keep you guys all freaking day but i do think sometimes it hits the awareness of like i'm sat with like a good few people here and i don't know where you are in your life or where this could be hitting you and i want to help and i want to help maybe more than anything and i can really it's obviously something i think as well like you guys know this but we do this generally because we care like we're moved to speak because we care and we're moved to speak also i feel like that topic it's the topic of body image and like women and weight and all this stuff just means so much to me like to an actually like insane level and i just want i want to find an answer but i haven't even found the answer for myself yet and i also feel like um but don't you remember all those times and i would say to you trust me it can change so much it can get so much better

and i just heard you do the exact same um thing to all of these guys but i think that's because i've lived that now exactly that's what i'm saying there was a way but that's what i was saying i was saying it because i'd lived it and you didn't believe me and now we get to sit here and you can feel oh time has passed and i have put so much in and i am in a different space and like life isn't perfect but i'm in a different space and that is true no yeah yeah no it toasts i think i just um care so much about the topic of course also like oh no i can't go okay all right let's get the fuck out okay cool yeah because i'm literally gonna go on and on cool if you don't hear from us what's wrong go on let's go back quickly before that was it if i was just ending i know but are

you okay yeah fine good don't believe you all right i'm fine okay i'm just so hormonal i'm so sorry what's wrong nothing's wrong no it's just saying just i'm just thinking yeah okay okay but no nothing nothing new okay well by you anything new well i'm just so confused by the look on your face i was just playing with this pen that says don't worry be hoppy with a rabbit's head on it and also even more so, don't worry, be poppy. Sorry. True. Don't worry, be poppy. All right, fine. If you don't hear from us, assume the worst. you