Goes Without Saying - stop comparing yourself: you're built different

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

it's the low self-esteem for me. we're back with another ~stunning~ episode, and this week we're talking all about comparisons. whether we compare ourselves to celebrities, influencers, or people in our lives, we're breaking down how women are raised to pit themselves against one another. join us (sephy and wing) as we get vulnerable with you, discussing comparison, self-esteem, and insecurities. we're building confidence from within and restructuring our self-perceptions once again. it's time to stop hating ourselves and actually live our best lives. speak your mind on our instagram! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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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 Hi guys, welcome back to another episode. I'm Erin, I'm here with Sefi, and I realized the last time I did the intro, I sounded absolutely depped out of my bumhole. I sounded so depressed.

I can promise you I'm fine. Everything okay nothing's going on guys nothing's going on nothing to report so i'm trying to be more high energy this episode is a good one i promise well this one's good we do actually get quite vulnerable in this app yeah we get quite um raw and real in this app which is quite fun it's a very honest episode for us i hope that pays off with you lot fucking hell because we've really been shedding the tears for this app which is really fun actually yeah i hope you love it i had a good time filming it recording it i'm fucking youtube all of a sudden jesus christ get me out of here enjoy so i asked on the story um and i would love to ask you now sephfi, what has been your worst experience with comparison?

What was your comparison trigger? Well, recently, let me actually pull back and give you a second to think about that. Nice. You and I, Sefi, have spoken a lot about, her name's Lucy Sheridan. I don't know if you guys have heard of her. She is the world's first comparison coach. This is not sponsored, even though it sounds really sponsored she she has some really great content on instagram you should go and check her out but she mentioned once well she probably mentions it all the time

in this ig tv she was like if you ever bump into your comparison trigger blah blah blah and stephanie and i were like oh love that yeah a comparison trigger i mean what's your experience with your comparison triggers who are they what is it are you better at not comparing yourself now than you were before when you were younger give us some insight on you well i was obviously really thinking about this for the episode and i was thinking from watching lucy sheridan's like she does like amazing ig tvs and stuff and i guess she's kind of the inspo for this because we're really talking about her and the way that she outlines things with like comparison trigger your i mean we're going to get into this but your pips your proof it's possible like so stunning so stunning i don't think i'd really thought about

comparison in a deep way until i was really watching her things and thought okay there are a few different types of comparison and it definitely came up in our i hate the word polls someone come up with a fun name um for them in our sort of stories i guess with people saying like i compare myself to my family members my friends or like celebrities and like lucy sheridan's whole thing is like whether you compare yourself to celebrities is one style of comparison or if you compare yourself to your friends or family or people in your life is another style she has a name for it right it's like local it's like remote yeah local and remote yeah types of comparison which yeah so interesting and I think I'm a mix of both but when my comparison has been it's most heightened I think it's comparing myself to like localized people

people in my life that are more successful or doing things in my eyes prettier things like that but i think that my general comparison style is like people on instagram um sort of look at a picture of fucking my queen lily allen and just think oh my god why didn't i like that yeah also kind of your doppelganger lily allen yeah she is and that's why she's kind of the better the hotter version we're like we that's the thing in life you just you only are the watered down version of the celebrity that you think you look like or someone told you you look like in your childhood and now you idolize and you're selena gomez yeah and i'll be the ugly version of selena gomez till i die take it to my grave yeah totally what about you i with you. I don't think I really, I don't think I ever really compare myself to people that I know in real life. I don't know why. I guess I think everyone's

fucking loser. Like, I don't, I don't have anyone to compare myself to. I don't know. I don't know why I don't compare myself really to people that I know. I, and I think even when I do compare myself to people remotely, as Lucy Sheridan would say like on insta for example I agree with you in that it's like you never really or at least in my experience never really think about this is comparison yeah a lot of us think about it in a broader sense of oh it's just a self-esteem issue or it's just like oh social media and blah blah blah but it's actually what Lucy Sheridan is doing is really important because she's called herself a comparison coach rather than being like I'm just a life coach or i'm self-help guru self-esteem

help yeah yeah it's like i'm gonna help you with comparison because then that makes you think oh jesus yeah okay comparisons pretty fucking mad like yeah fuck we're all comparing ourselves all the time and that i think is the root comparison is the thief of joy the famous quote by god knows who very true yeah well i just think i compare myself more so to just things that i see on instagram and i almost think i just compare myself to like discourse like narratives like if there's just there's a narrative of what a kind of 23 year old girl should be and like what a girl should look like and all of those things it's more like even if i'm not faced with Lily Allen or someone very specific or yeah I also love Lily Allen like I actually have never felt a negative feeling at her Instagram in my life I just want to

say I love her even if it's not like a specific person I think a lot of us compare ourselves to a general narrative of what we've been told we should be doing i completely agree with that because there's definitely for example this was coming up this was coming up quite a lot with things you guys were saying that it's not like you're watching someone that's got married at 24 but it's there's a discourse that oh my god you're 24 and you're single but shouldn't you have blah blah blah shouldn't you be married or whatever you're getting old your eggs are gonna die you should have kids clocks ticking and definitely people that were getting that around kind of like i'm 26 i'm not married it's like you're not even necessarily

comparing yourself to like celebrities getting married or your friends getting married or your sister getting married it's just an idea that you've always had that you will be married by that age and it's a patriarchal idea i just want to also slip in there absolutely actually i'm going to read out what somebody said because i thought it was particularly interesting so and it kind of links in with that they said comparing my previous self brackets my body and social life with my current self and i think that fits into that thing of like yeah but you're not always comparing yourself to listen i hate to say lily allen again but for example lily allen like you're not always comparing yourself to somebody like that you know

in real life or a celeb it could literally be yourself it could literally be you writing down sephie in your fucking diary at eight years old like if you're not in doctor who by the time you're 10 yeah you're not acting if you're not um the doctor's new sidekick companion you're a failure or whatever if you are not billy piper by age 12 then you should give up yeah i definitely think that and also this whole idea of like would your childhood self be proud of who you are now things like that it's like well that's quite a hard standard to hold yourself to because your childhood self thought you'd be miley cyrus and your childhood self had a very skewed and minimal scope and perception of the world like my childhood self didn't know anything my childhood

self fancied Ryan from High School Musical yeah and boy was she wrong boy did I not know what was going on there yeah it's not to be trusted a seven-year-old is not to be trusted and that should really go without saying honestly it goes without saying and i actually recently well maybe not that recently put something on the instagram saying stop romanticizing your teenage body because there's so much pressure that we put on women to not age to have like an infantile body yeah that you thought you were fat when you were 16 and now you look at pictures when you're 16 and know that you were so skinny and now we're jealous of your 16 year old self the toxicity of this earth and it's because of a fucking pedophile culture

absolutely it's telling women to look like children because then you can control them yeah stay small so fuck that bullshit stay small shave every bit of hair on your body keep the keep the authority in my hands yeah keep your skin don't show a fucking wrinkle on there i'm the authority figure you're a child you need me yeah you fucking need me bitch so that's the thing stop putting um any trust in your childhood self to come up with any of your dreams and i mean if you compare yourself to your younger self i think that's probably one of the more healthy styles of comparison ah okay well interesting because i put on the story saying do you think comparison can ever be healthy absolutely yeah and then i

thought here we go everyone's gonna pile in saying maybe but yeah yeah i'm not sure but oh and you did pile in and and you did and you had great insights you made some points were made you came through in hordes i think they it can definitely be healthy and i think if you'd asked me this before we fell together down the lucy sheridan comparison coach the first uk's for the world's first comparison coach hold um i would have definitely been like absolutely not but then we found her and we were like oh my god you're a genius because let's talk about pips okay go so pips stands for proof it's possible stunning let's take a moment you know we love a fucking acronym we love an easy to understand bite-sized nugget of info and that is so clean and tidy and I love it so your proof it's possible your

pips could be anyone so I think she said hers like it's like sting yeah and his wife I don't know why but like it's basically somebody that has a similar sort of lifestyle to you that you would want in the future or something that you have in the future but you feel a positive feeling when you see it and you um can compare yourself in a positive way to be like okay that's that's proof that this can work for me there's proof that i can get to a point that i can overcome and i think it's such a powerful way of comparing yourself and flipping the narrative of like comparison is so negative and it's so dangerous and like draining to be like wow it's actually an empowering way that you can see yourself through somebody else's eyes and

see um potential yeah it's stunning she had quite an interesting it was quite formulaic almost i don't i'm not sure if it was in that same ig tv possibly where she talks about like writing out and like making note of it's almost quite miley cyrus i can't remember what episode it was that i was like yeah going on and on about miley cyrus who i love by the way about writing down traits that you think are important and then adding them up and multiplying them by the root of pi or whatever to find all the qualities that you want in somebody else in yourself etc etc and Lucy Sheridan was saying to identify your pips and make note of exactly what it is that they have done to get to where they are that you can do the problem though i mean it's great but the

problem that i can hear you all screaming is well if your biggest thing is your kind of um nose and your pips is someone with a gorgeous fucking nose that you love and your proof it's possible now is someone who was born with this perfect nose and the way that for you to get that nose is either surgery or isn't maybe it's not possible for you and so do you know what i mean like it's a beautiful idea but but then it's like don't pick them as that's not your pip then that's your comparison trigger i think it's about identifying what it is that you're insecure about what it is that you're struggling with and thinking like is this my own insecurity or is this or is this my own issue that i want to work on or is this what society told me wasn't good enough about myself because if it's something that you can't change and it's

something that society has told you that isn't good enough and doesn't really impact your life you probably shouldn't be spending much more time thinking can i googling nose jobs and i also think with that though the whole concept of her pip concept is that you don't pick someone that has the one thing that you want. It's about picking someone that maybe has got a similar nose to you or a feature on their face that society says is unconventionally attractive. And picking them because they have the same features of you and work it and look great. I think that is what it is. It's not about picking someone that if your trigger is your nose, don't pick someone that has had a nose job or a stunning little nose don't pick your um your comparison trigger your pips and your comparison

trigger are opposite people not the same yeah no no your comparison trigger we're literally giving all her tips away for free yeah we are for free definitely go and actually follow her also she'll really fucking help you this This is really like, should we just, like, should we have reached out and said, come on the podcast? But like, the idea of a comparison trigger is someone, so that, so you're walking down the street and you bump into someone that went to your school

or something and was always like the popular one who stole your fucking boyfriend or something like that, that you've always compared yourself to. So there'll be a specific person that if they're coming to mind right now of someone that you're envious of have felt jealousy towards or um tend to compare yourself on whether they're whether they're localized or remote the terms whether they're in your life or you see them on the internet or tv they're your trigger they're your comparison trigger but it could also be like if your comparison trigger is you're insecure about your bum for example anytime you meet or come into contact with someone see someone on instagram or bump into them in the

street with what you think is a great bum yeah that is also your comparison trigger because now you are triggered so interesting out in the streets and you need to make a getaway. So have you ever had to avoid a situation because you know you're going to get like comparison triggered? I haven't. Just because, again, I think I am more of a remote comparer. I'm more kind of taking in what I see like through scrolling and stuff like that versus people that I encounter in my real material life but recently I had a conversation with my friend and she was saying well it's the exact situation that I would have said there's gonna have to be some sort of

I don't know boundary in place or like get the fuck out or I don't know what could happen there so my friend was explaining to me that recently she was with a friend who has a baby. And I'm just trying to be careful. Yeah. She's with a friend who has a baby. And the friend who has a baby was saying to her things like, you know, when are you going to have a kid? Because, you know, you've been waiting for ages now, blah, blah, blah. Bear in mind, my friend is 23.

This is fascinating because I've encountered very similar. And the friend with the baby is younger than 23. Oh, maybe that's it. Nah, it's fine. It's fine. No one's listening. That's the thing. It's like, please, if you know me, just scrap.

Like, throw your headphones in the bin. Just get the fuck out of here. This is not for you. I don't know what made you think this was for you. It is not for you i don't know what made you think this was for you it is not for you abandon the space so the the friend with the baby started saying things like well you know if you're gonna have a baby in like three years that makes you like nearly like 27 like say you're 24 like this year then add three years that's 27 that's nearly 30 so then you're 30 years old you're

probably gonna be infertile you're probably not gonna be able to have a baby it's like okay trigger warning first of all fucking fertility my fertility is none of your business why are you so scared of infertility you in the hammock truly but those those conversations make you feel like you're in the hammock's tail it's like shit well that's my purpose yeah i am nothing more than a biological clock that is ticking away until my untimely demise that is so irresponsible of the friend. Also considering the friend is a mother. But it's not even about...

The fact that she is a mother is the thing that's making her say it because she's trying to validate her own decisions. Exactly. By projecting, why aren't you doing this? You should start doing it because I've done the clever thing. Don't you find my life attainable? Don't you find my life admirable? Desirable.

Yeah. I definitely have had very similar conversations with people that are very much trying to validate their own decisions in life by trying to force you to compare yourself to them by by them comparing themselves to you absolutely and it's like i'm not interested thanks for the pitch but i'm out that's also my problem with like social media versus in real life i I think on social media, it's much more heightened and amplified kind of realm of everyone overcompensating, including me and including you and including everyone. Because so much of social media is bizarre and that it's not tangible and it is curated, no matter what you think, you've curated this, you've chosen this post for a specific reason

and whether you think that've curated this you've chosen this post for a specific reason and whether you think that's harmless or not i think that's why social media is more of a comparison trigger to me than my real life ever could be because you can't avoid people trying to show you that their life is perfect and i'm really i don't i'm just permanently between the spectrum of consistently unbothered and permanently rattled and it's going somewhere even when you think oh yeah yeah i didn't feel an immediate feeling of being triggered or like we always say like you've got a hook on it like i didn't feel a hook on that specific thought but it's gone somewhere and later in my day i might kind of skip lunch because or have a smaller lunch

because i saw someone else blah blah blah it, blah. It's the horror movie thing. It's the thing of just because you know it's fake doesn't mean you're not still scared and your heart's beating a bit faster and you're kind of, your skin, you're sweating and you're clammy and nervous. Yeah. Even though you know it's a whole movie production, you know it's fake and you know social media is curated and yet here you are taking it in and embodying it as your own you can literally see it's an edited photo but you you can still then see your double chin reflected

back in the black screen and think oh well i look nothing like that yeah i think the whole thing about um we know it's fake we know it's fake yeah we do but our brains are not wired like that to be able to identify oh it's fake therefore i do not need to emulate it it's fake and we do but our brains are not wired like that to be able to identify oh it's fake therefore I do not need to emulate it it's fake and I need to be able to keep up with that level of fake production clearly okay another message that we got which I wanted to say because hard relate was was this they said comparing university offers I couldn't help thinking that I should have done better even though the university I was going to was brilliant and I loved it I had a slightly different experience but it made me think of what we were speaking about I think in the last episode Sefi about your experience with Exeter and Sussex and

university in general and the nightmare of university the pressure that's put on you it's interesting because it's kind of the first time it's like you're it's the first time that you and your peers at school are splitting off are splitting off and um making essentially waves making big moves in the pathway of your life for the first time apart from the i would say still very very difficult and obvious um but more minute comparisons of they got an a star and i got a b like oh blah blah you know those types of things but university is like fucking hell our lives are going to be in different cities now oh it's huge lifestyle changes or oh you're not going to university i like and etc etc you and i had different experiences because i

applied to university knowing that i really wanted to go to sussex and knowing that i really wanted to be in brighton spoiler alert that's exactly what happened. But during my application and like post getting my results and stuff, if you, I mean, weird flex, but I did an access course and I essentially got full marks across the whole, like every, I basically just fucking killed it. Now, and even at the time, like even though,

so obviously, I mean, I had the pick of the bunch. Like it was not, it was like, but foolishly, but also not foolishly at all. The kind of the bunch like it was not it was like but foolishly but also not foolishly at all the kind of the the little argument in my head that I have with myself even now is like you should have applied to like fucking Oxford or something just to get in and say no and go and do your bit at Sussex like just to have the ego your the ego just to pad your ego out a bit just to massage your ego in the way that we would have like and if you don't do this you should and a section on your notes in your diary on your laptop whatever of nice things good feedback you've had in life yeah you look nice today

this essay is great those types of things it's nice to have a record of actual proof evidence that you're not a shit person basically a proof list i do think this is one of the most powerful things you can do and so that would have been really nice proof but it's also like it's very unnecessary and that only comes from a place of like psychological weakness of looking for you know validation from an institution as well which you know we're against if you listen to last week last week's app exactly and also you know with my actions I very much was against it like I had amazing grades and I mean Sussex is a good uni but I could have academically got into far more prestigious universities and didn't as an active choice of like almost rebellion I think as well because when I was 18 I was very much like or

during that time I like left home I had to move out and really for the first time be my own person make my own decisions and it was very much like I'm choosing Sussex because I want to live there not being put in anywhere else out of someone else's decisions I was very much actively seeking that lifestyle I was living with intention love it and yet even though I was living with intention still now I'm like oh it would have been nice to give a big fat fuck you to Cambridge like wouldn't it but anyway well I totally relate to that because that's what i did when i reapplied my second year so i did a gap year i don't even know if i told the end of the story so i did a gap year they've been hanging on for a week best year of my life gap year gap

year gap year oh went to japan went around japan eating sort of japanese ice cream eating sushi best time of my life reapp reapplied. But I still definitely had the petty kind of ego thing in my head that I reapplied to Exeter, knowing that I was going to Sussex this year, knowing that that is what I wanted. And I was like, right, okay, I know I can get into fucking great uni. So applied to like all these ones and so that I could turn them down and I turned them all down like, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch bitch and it was purely that ego fuel but almost like so fun to turn things down it is fun yeah it is nice because it's also quite rare like you're not often also as a young woman you're not often in a scenario where you can say no and reject people

in safety and take something that other people would encourage you not to take yeah but also it's like the last time i said no to something was a man on the street and I thought he might beat me up or rape me. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? It's quite a beautiful thing to just press no on UCAS and think, okay, no one's going to come and kind of beat me up for that. Other than sort of your grandparents saying, well, you absolutely should not have done that.

Yeah, exactly. Because if you don't know what Sussex is, the uni that we went to, I mean, if you're thinking of going to uni in the UK, we highly recommend. It's a very new uni. It was built in like the 60s I think yeah and it's very like left-wing liberal in Brighton which is a very like liberal place kind of by the sea so stunning and it kind of is very opposite to other kind of institutions that are built on like tradition and its modules are very like kind of quite chaotic in a way quite radical but also it's functioning within the scheme of capitalist uni business charging

international students like 30 000 pounds a year to go to uni which is fucking disgusting and that's this is why uni is dying but if you are looking to go to uni would highly recommend doing whatever is good for you always a little disclaimer but isn't it funny how we use we spoke about this in the last episode but how we use like markers of success to like compare ourselves to others but it's like that's all in your head there's no there's no social ranking you're not going to sit with jesus christ at the end of your life and say and you got 10 points for that university well done all your friends only got only got seven and a half. You's a treat for you and your wallet. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts.

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ACAST.com There is no ranking. The only sort of Jesus Christ that you're speaking to jesus christ is um the person in your head that is telling you well that one's better that one's worse or kind of i mean i hate that i hate this if this is happening to you but if you do have an external force being like actually that was the decision you should have made actually you should do that then that person has their own issues going on i.e we got a lot of people saying that their parents were quite critical of them

and that makes them compare themselves to like their siblings, which is so toxic within a family dynamic anyway, because that's like, what you're going to try and turn someone against their family. So much trauma there. Like it's kind of the most deeply horrific.

One of the, I honestly think it's one of the most deeply horrific things we do as human beings. And I 100% think every individual should have like a long-term therapy course ran out before they even consider being parents because you are going to bring a human being into the world and socialize them to be an absolute nightmare because that was was what was done to you and now the trauma is in your dna did you ever feel any comparison growing up or

did you ever feel that you were being pitted against someone else um sort of competitively i think you and i had a similar experience sephi and i know actually that lots of you listening will have a similar experience too because you told us because i'm psychic no because you told us on the stories because we have it in writing. In that when you, I don't know, are what, like the smartest in the room, the prettiest in the room, the cutest in the room, as a child and as a young girl. By the way, when we say smartest in the room, we are referencing Hamilton where he goes, why do you assume you're the smartest in the room?

Assume you're the smartest in the room. Which is kind of a good life skill and a good tool but also very dangerous i think everyone feels that they've been compared to someone on some level so we've just had a bit of a convo kind of off the record whilst we were like in between takes i guess and we were just saying like it feels quite embarrassing to talk about comparison like it's quite a mortifying subject and how it's like usually when we're talking about like sex or dating or like boundaries or any of these things it's kind of like harry potter harry potter shrek all of the things we love to talk about it's almost like um it feels quite non-embarrassing it's very easy to talk about like oh my god i like sucked

his dick that's so easy to talk about it just flows off the tongue but suddenly it's like what I've got to say who I compare myself to I've got to go through my Instagram scroll through well this post triggered me yeah it's very vulnerable and intentionally when I was doing the stories I was like I have to what would be interesting to know is how many of you have actually said to the person you're comparing yourself to especially because lots of you are comparing yourself to your friends. Or people close to you in your life. And I just thought. There's no way in hell.

That the majority of people are saying. Having an upfront conversation with people. And being like. I've been comparing myself to you recently. X, Y and Z. Here's the deets. A, B and C. Because it's so difficult.

Because it requires you to be so vulnerable. It's so difficult. And we're conditioned to feel so much shame as well especially as women i think yeah to just internalize any grief we would feel especially around friends and family and almost the idea of like you don't want to be the jealous friend like you're supposed to root for other women's success it's like well i'm also being told that i should hate women like i don't know what to believe yeah i literally don't know which way to look because on some way, some days I'm supposed to be women supporting women.

Like, oh, there's that quote that's like, um. Empowered women empower women. Yeah. Things like that. That's like, yeah, we know in an ideal world, empowered women empower women. But we're also socialized to hate women. At the same time, I've been looking at pictures of stick thin girls my entire life with perfectly symmetrical faces and then we look at ourselves in the mirror and it doesn't align and we feel fucking confused. We feel resentful. So what are we supposed to believe patriarchy?

Set some clear guidelines. Well yeah what do we do? How do we get out of this mess? You know how we get out of this mess Lucy Sheridan. I think she gets us out. She's leading the movement. She's the mockingjay. With the idea of telling your friends though I definitely think I've been in conversations before where someone has said that they're jealous as in I think it's easy I think I have a top tip for how to do this I think approaching a conversation saying I've been comparing myself to you for ages like blah blah that is so fucking difficult like that is a lot of pressure to put on yourself to do that like it's your stuff like that's your business at that point like that's mental stuff that's going on about you it's probably actually nothing to do with the person other than they

trigger things that are going on inside your own mind but i think you could say stuff like in the moment if they say you could i think there's a way that you can say oh i'm feeling really envious of that and it not be the most intense thing in the world well it's funny actually funny you should say that because as we always go on and on we're amazing communicators but I don't know if you lot have noticed we are two girls two friends doing a podcast there's two of us and we spoke actually about this in a very meta way as we do oh you wouldn't believe the conversations we're having when we press stop recording which is absolutely useless to them about how bizarre it is for us to be doing this and so as a young girl and as two young women you are obviously being compared and then we too would fall into comparing

ourselves and i think i mean i don't think we i don't think we really you and I Sefi compare ourselves now no but months and months ago we both were like oh I'm feeling like it's the Sefi show and I should just not do this anymore because they all hate me and they love you and those types of things and immediately then when you've got it out and have the conversation you're like well that's ridiculous because even if they did hate me then what so what nothing happens the what the earth continues to spin my life is still fine well this is the thing that we've been very aware of from the very beginning we're putting ourselves up on the internet to a load of fucking strangers who now have become our loves we love the we love you so much favorite people and we put ourselves up on the internet and right next to each other and you know that

what happens when you see a picture of two guys is that's the pretty one. That's the skinny one. That's the fat one. That's the funny one. That's the one. I like her hair. Don't like her outfit. You know what's going on.

That is exactly what happens. Yeah, we're not dumb, guys. We're not idiots. We've done it ourselves. We're not stupid. We've done it ourselves time and time again. And I think we very much knew that was going to happen. And we kind of thought, oh, we can handle this. Like, this like it's absolutely fuck that like we know we know we're hot

but also no one actually has no no one compared us overtly i'm sure you're all doing it in your group chats but to our faces it's very quiet which is nice yeah i think we are comfortable with that in the same ways but i definitely think a few months ago so we had a conversation when so for a very long time we were doing this and kind of speaking into like the void and recently it's become like the opposite of the void like we get too many messages yeah it's like a void yeah we get we can't read all the messages these days which is amazing it's what we wanted but i don't think we were ready for the level of growth in the the level of like i don't know i i feel like i'm fucking kylie jenner eyes on me people i'm i'm in the public i'm a public figure fucking fame i'm a kardashian i can't move for

fans step out of my house paps galore but that's the thing it sounds but you do feel eyes on you and that sounds like it would be fab you sound like oh my god but where are the paps send them in where's my sponsored stuff like i feel like do i have a chef yet where's my driver my limo driver but no it's not that and realistically it's me and you on the phone going i think we did have a very honest conversation when we're like we were both saying like i think they prefer you and it's like no i think they prefer you like you're the you're the one you're the one and it was it's but that's the thing that invalidates the whole thing of course two women that are chatting together think well you're obviously saying everything better and the other one's saying well you're obviously saying everything better and it's like actually yeah fuck that as

if fucking pewdiepie and his fucking weird mate whoever do a podcast i'm sure he has a podcast not that i would listen to it having that conversation there's no way you're the hot one fuck off that combo did not happen yeah it's true it's just two women it's two women that cannot exist in their own right and both be amazing and both be pretty and both be well that's why i think the conversation because i haven't felt that way since that convo since that convo and i don't really know when that convo was maybe even before that convo because i think i said it to you first and was like i had a weird day where I was feeling like I should go I'm the weak link not I should go and could you imagine the response of just like what I had a day where I thought log off but I had a day where I was like fucking hell like it

should be the Sefi show like I need to get out of this like they hate me to be honest it's the most offensive thing I've ever heard and that I don't yeah, I mean, that was pre-coronavirus. That was another world. It really was another world. And I think it's really important that it feels so emortifying. And it probably, I don't know, I feel like that would make people view us differently in the sense that we get these messages that say like, you guys are so empowered. You guys are this.

I think we are really empowered though. We are. But I think there is an assumption that empowered women can't be vulnerable and a little bit insecure at times yeah stunning and it's like actually you can be empowered and think you're the shit and also think you're the garbage of the world like you can yeah literally that i think that is empowered and of course it would be insane for two women to stand up together both speaking both very visually present on the internet and not feel like they were both being compared right next to each other because they're literally on a screen next to each other it's insane what an assumption to make no no yeah it's not happening

here it's not happening by us and actually it's not really happening by anyone decent really no and we've never ever got a message that was like um that one's pretty or anything like that never in our lives but i think we're so terrified of it because also i'm secure enough in myself that i would never message anyone else two girls and be like blah blah blah even if i did prefer one i'm just not a fucking loser i could imagine like i'm not psychologically inclined to make someone feel bad on the internet i think we've just got to quite a good point with this thought in that that oh my god if they prefer someone and you prefer the other one and i think we've realized that it's like everybody is allowed preferences and preferences shift if you prefer

wing or you prefer me that's encouraged and it's great should be encouraged we we live for that i mean we were having this conversation as well the other day i think this was yesterday we were talking about how we're not palatable anymore we were saying that if we're doing our job right the right people will hate us yeah and it's a weird thing to go into the world knowing that you are going to make a certain group of people or to be honest quite mainstream groups of people dislike you because we are not palatable anymore like we're really gonna stand there and say that we're stanners and not be ashamed yeah yeah no it's so true a lot of people weren't ready for me to open my mouth oops i walked into a room the other day and you know when you walk in somewhere and you just think everybody here is trying to rape me

absolutely it was sort of a bar and i just thought this group that i'm in you're all fucking trying to rape me like i'm not gonna leave my drink with any of you and then i said that to someone and they were like god i've never thought that that's so cocky and it's like cocky no i actually cocky to think you're gonna be raped jesus oh god yeah it's like jesus christ you have low um expectations for your life oh my god but also you have an obscure understanding of what it means to be raped it's not a compliment i said i really feel like every single person here is um aggressively sort of pursuing me in a way or pursuing some kind of thing or i don't trust anyone here let's put it that way i don't trust these fucking people with my drink

but then i said it again and it's like no no like i'm not i just think i'm not palatable anymore i just don't think either of us uh have the patience to be like i i walked in and i got this weird feeling from the group it's like no no you're all fucking trying to rape me yeah yeah so true it's so true like i definitely stayed quiet and small for a long long time and the luxury it afforded me was a bit of safety but it also meant that i got nothing i have nothing to show for that i have nothing to show for trying to be quiet and nice and liked. And actually going back on our last episode about being liked and knowing that, you know, you don't like that person. So what does it matter if they like you?

And that's great. And that was definitely an epiphany for me. But actually, I think an even bigger epiphany for me, or like something that I've acknowledged and I think is really helpful, is it's fine that I want to be liked. Yeah, it is absolutely fine. Of course, I would want to be liked. Yeah, it is absolutely fine. Of course I would want to be liked. Like, I do not feel bad about wanting to be seen as a good, nice person.

You can't make me feel bad for that. Is that not the most powerful thing in the world, though, when you're being told, fuck what other people think, fuck this? It's like, no, fuck what the wrong people think. I think I'm just honestly loving myself these days. I'm going to sob. It's stunning. But in a different way like recently I had a thing you know what it is it's because I've been living with intention

also the more I love myself the more everyone else hates me like can't stand me like shut up get away but I think that's the best thing if that's the trade I have to make I mean consider it a traded consider the deal done but it so true. And recently I was thinking like, I love that I am like reduced to tears by small things. I loved that I am moved by other people and stories and stuff so easily. I'm not sad about, I'm not mad about that. Like I don't have to be, I don't know.

I just, I'm so vibing with myself right now. Oh my God, I'm loving it. I it i'm obsessed yeah it's just the best i really feel like this i don't know this is such a vulnerable app turns out yeah who knew who knew this is what we say we never know where they're gonna go in any episode and who knew we would start talking about i thought i did think we would talk about how how we had to break through the barriers of like comparing ourselves to each other because almost we were a bit dumb because we i mean i don't know about you but when we made the account when we were fucking logging into instagram for the first time i never thought we're going to be comparing no i just didn't think we're going to be comparing ourselves or people

will be comparing us and then it's only when it becomes very real and the audience starts to fill out and the seats in the room start getting full you think oh god they've all got opinions chances are they've got opinions on both of ours yeah and they're not gonna be the same yeah i think that's really nice though because it's like you're both like whoever you listening right now now harry i speak directly to you directly to you you have one hour one hour we've made the same joke in two podcasts running now and we make it probably in every phone call we have harry i now speak directly to you um but it's literally like you're actually allowed to like just one of us like both of us hate both of us things that i say will resonate with you more things that i say will piss you off more and you won't want to hear my voice you'll want to

hear sephie speak for 45 minutes that's so fun you're a human being and so are we that's the stunning bit that you're allowed to you're allowed i give you now full permission harry i speak directly to you i give you full permission to hate my guts yeah we signed a permission slip you can hate us it's fine my guardian has signed the permission slip that you are allowed to hate us both i know know, but it's true. And I think that comes back to the same thing of external validation. Listen, if you're looking to be fed by external validation, you'll go hungry for the rest of your life. It only can come from you. So comparison tip.

Well, apparently for me, it's start fucking journaling. Vomit. It is though. Yeah, it is though. So Erin started a journal. Well, the thing is, I've done it for a long long time and i look back on when my life was most organized and it was always when if you're familiar with the bullet journal system that's a variation of that is what i do don't youtube that because you will absolutely be in the rabbit hole if you like like aesthetic organization stuff

wave goodbye to your social life wave goodbye to your responsibilities because you're going to be watching fucking amanda r Rach Lee for four hours. Nice. I've got no idea, no interest in this kind of organisation. It's not how my brain works. Honestly, I honestly think you'd get sucked in. I can't be organised like that.

It's so neat. But it's, oh, it's just such a vibe. Anyway, so I've really got back into writing everything out, writing everything down. And I've gone a bit Miley Cyrus with it in the sense that I'm writing down, like I said to you earlier, Sefi,

I've written down explicit boundaries that I want to make even on this podcast. I love this. Things you will not be hearing from me, details you will not be receiving from my mouth that you will have to infer through deductive reasoning, not by me. And it turns out I have no boundaries.

It turns out I have no boundaries and it's all up for grabs. But it's like, if I want to live as pleasantly as possible, I need to be very intentional. Like I'm going to actually be quite explicit with myself. I think that's so amazing. Yeah. I've also started journaling in that I've definitely always been the person that keeps a diary, keeps like kind of in a very

messy way like just constant like documentation of life a scrappy do kind of way yeah honestly scrappy scrappy do like kind of it's mad writing times if something's happened like almost like if I um kiss someone I'm like let me write that like the whole experience down like I just need to document it it's kind of Tom Riddle's diary it is can you show me can you tell me no but i can show you yeah there we go and it's the book pages are flapping the lights coming out spoilers spoilers for chamber of secrets do you know what i always think with that film his collar you know there are like some when he's in the chamber it's quite harry hill wasn't what i was thinking but yeah there's like very specific stains on his collar whilst he's in the chamber i don't know what it is about it like makes me feel a bit ill i think it was that i watched it once when i was ill oh but he's got really specific staining on his

collar whilst he's in the chamber if anyone knows what i'm talking about that's really niche you know what that reminds me of robert pattinson saying that they very specifically and intentionally crumpled his collar of his shirt with a wire through his collar for twilight and it was like the most pretentious and obnoxious thing he'd ever seen that they kind of put a wire fed a wire through his collar and rumpled it so it was perfectly rumpled that is awful oh my god what the hell great great role for the costume department in twilight yeah exactly but yeah with journaling i've definitely i've started doing it in a bit more of a structured way in that i will write like gratitude and then i've got a section that's like gratitude and then like intentions for the day using our intention thing like not even a

to-do list just like intentions also the intent for the day can our intention thing like not even a to-do list just like intentions also the intent for the day can literally be enjoy your bath tonight literally that it's always just like walk your fucking dog like just like literally love the love the life that you've got live laugh love live laugh love honestly when did we turn into a live laugh love podcast we are so wholesome but I do think writing is probably one of my biggest tools for like listen i'm gonna say it if you haven't yet seen seffy's poem it is on her personal instagram you need to go and see it i know lots of you have seen it and love it but if you haven't yet seen it i know you're gonna love it and you just honestly prepare

to be stunned so stunning thanks wing it's okay well that wasn't actually where I was going but I saw your mouth open and thought I know what's coming here I know what's happening it's true honestly it's just exactly what if you're listening and kind of somewhat enjoying this podcast you will love that poem because it's everything that we ever try and say, but just so perfectly, beautifully articulated. So stunning. Well, thank you. I'll take my bow now.

My invisible bow. That's going in the journal. Proof is possible. Proof you're not a piece of shit or whatever it was. Well, that's what I was going to say. I think that writing, not fucking poems, but writing just like scraps in your fucking notes of like, I have a very long list of i mean it's literally a list of external validation and we've mentioned this before on the podcast

that we both have them so there's like a proof list that's like things that you have done in your life that you're really proud of and it's proof that you are like capable of blah blah blah and then also like a list of almost like compliments that people have paid you you don't need it on the day-to-day but when you're like about to be like falling down the fucking hole of I'm a fucking useless human being that we literally all fall down. I do think it's amazing to have a list of things

of people, literally their voices, a list of them all telling you the opposite. You know what it is? It's the review section on Apple podcast. I'm not asking people, I'm just, I'm not going to ask you for a review this time, but that's

part of where i go now and it's and it works it really brings a tear to my eye in the best way so if you have not yet curated amazing evidence of why you are fucking incredible that's something for you to do today it really is just start it just literally write down proof list colon and start going i also think because it's very it feels very self-indulgent and it's like why should you not be living your life in the most self-indulgent way you should be especially i mean at any age but i think especially for us young people young women here my gals you're not often afforded the luxury of being so self-indulgent with yourself and being so self-serving you're told to hate yourself you're told to hate yourself and you're told to

put yourself absolutely at the bottom of your list that's why journaling seems a bit ridiculous because it's like what i'm gonna i'm gonna give some time to myself am i like that's so cringe but who's earning money from that yeah how's that productive you're losing weight from that yeah i'm supposed to hate myself but it's like no sit down in your nice peace and quiet however just enjoy your own time with yourself oh i'm cringing but so true i'm cringing but i'm also i think we're gonna cringe at how almost how vulnerable that we've been in this app and that it feels quite like yeah you've got to edit this i don't know how you're gonna get through this it's all gonna be cut i'm gonna listen to it and it's like

it's 10 minutes 30 minutes long we never got emotional like true Capricorn she was like cut cut cut I'm thinking this more and more recently that vulnerability has been needed in this podcast and to hear a little bit more about like when we're getting so many messages a day being like you guys are so empowered you guys are great blah blah blah I think that makes you a weird person I think it makes you weird in your head yeah when you're being told that by information from people. You're great. I love you, blah, blah, blah. But there's nothing that's tangibly changed that much in your own life, in the fabric of your own life. Still wearing the same clothes. Your hair's still the fucking same split and mess.

You're just walking through. You're eating your fucking Cheerios. Like you're living your life. I actually haven't had Cheerios in about three years and that makes me want them badly. Like I need them right now but i think it makes you it makes something a bit weird in your head when you're being told by essentially something that is as like vapid as like water like i mean it's just like washing over you constantly it's like literally thin air going over you saying you're amazing you're amazing you're amazing but in your own body you're like what like where do i look i'm a piece of shit yeah and you're looking at the little proof list and it's just like and then we press record and it's like we don't really compare

ourselves the joke of it even though we do but it's hard to explain like i'm not lying when i say i don't really compare myself to people in real life but i do find social media to be a big mess and going back on what you're saying sephie i we've spoken a lot about the way that this really feels like a performance yeah and we're so aware of what you guys may or may not think of us it's difficult it's like what i'm walking around with my cheerios but i'm also apparently really empowered and and figuring out like am i lying am i a hypocrite am i what am i am i perfect what is this am i the most empowered person in the world but then i also cried last night but an empowered person would never cry it's like actually fuck it yes they would oh they absolutely would and I think that's the most that's the thing that it feels strange to be

coming to you as an empowered voice that gives you empowerment that we fucking love like every single time that's like you like we get messages that like you changed my life and it feels so dramatic but it's like, now we're crying. Like, that is the most stunning. I was going to say I'm crying. Like, that is the most stunning thing we could ever hear. But then in your own life, it's like, well, has my life changed? Have I changed my own life?

Like, do I feel like a success? I also think we're only as empowered as you lot. Like, we've only changed your life in the way that you are changing your life. You now, all of the different emotions that you feel listening to you are changing your life you now all of the different emotions that you feel listening to a podcast that empowers you is all of your own creation like you are allowed you're the one allowing yourself the space to critically think and engage in new conversations and give yourself the space to grow because you want better for yourself and i think that that really is nothing to do with us it does all come back down to you

that is shivers that is shiverable like that's so stunning you're the one filtering all this info and implementing it in your own life you found us i didn't fucking message you and say hey i've got a podcast you want to listen to it you found it you put yourself in this space you're the one doing this you're mate you're the one putting yourself out there oh well that is the best thing ever this is why i love them i can't cope one message that i wanted to wrap with because i thought it was so interesting and i mean thank you all as always i know i'm extra emotional in this episode but genuinely genuinely thank you like i fully scroll through all of your messages just thinking how much i fucking love you so this

person said i used to make and i thought it was so interesting I used to make a habit of befriending people that I saw myself as inferior to and then most of our friendship was me tearing myself down by comparing myself to them which I think is interesting and also I think people do it both ways they either befriend people that they see as inferior or befriend people that they think are superior to them and both can be destructive etc etc and and and i loved this one because i think this you can see this mirrored within your own behaviors your friends behaviors and people specifically in relationships i think when you see someone get with someone that is very inferior to themselves or very superior to themselves i think this is mirrored everywhere so i loved it yeah i completely think it's a fucking dangerous game when your relationships you perceive there

to be like a distinct hierarchy either way i definitely think people uh yeah perceive relationships to be like an opportunity to add value to your image rather than an actual opportunity to enjoy someone's company and like fuel your own life with love and kind of good times with somebody or kind of balance some some sense of balance within relationships like a give and take and i guess equality well there's that whole narrative about you should look around like your friend group and and feel like they are i don't know the direct quote and i'm really butchering it but you should look around your friend group and think that they are all basically you shouldn know the direct quote and I'm really butchering it, but you should look around your friend group and think that they are all,

basically you shouldn't look around the people that you're surrounding yourself with and think that you are the most successful person there, that whole thing. But that's also a very like capitalist kind of, do you know Gary Vee? Like it's a bit of a Gary Vee. Yes, it's very reductionist as most quotes are to be honest.

I mean, scroll through the Instagram, it's all reductionist stuff. Surrounding yourself with people that are inferior to you so that you then feel confident and great is really specific it was really interesting i definitely noticed this not that i do it with my friends but i notice a difference within myself of how my behavior changes when i'm with a group of people that i perceive to be less than or more than in that i think i step into me and my sister also discussed this that we both do this we very much step into like uber confident uber like performer the the loud one like when we're in a room with people that we're not really desperate to impress but when it's like

a room of people that are incredibly amazing and like talented it's almost like a shutdown like keep your mouth shut this space isn't for you i think that's worrying it's something to note within yourself when you notice your behavior changing surrounded by how you perceive people to be on your hierarchies what about you i'm just letting that sink in it's stunning it makes me think about all of the social climbers that we have known in our time yeah can we talk about social climbing it's my fucking favorite topic it's fascinating it's such a trait that i don't understand no same like i literally cannot network for the life of me because i don't understand small talk like i actually can't comprehend it yeah but it's also about like you you don't function from a place of insecurity

not in that realm like the social the social climbers that i know i mean i'm thinking of one i'm not gonna say yeah i know you're thinking of the same one we're thinking of one social climber we know one specific climber mountain climber it just would never i genuinely think and i'm not shaming i mean this isn't this is absolutely not about the person who sent in that message at all this is honestly this is me bitching about someone that sophie and i know in real life um but i honestly think social climbing can only be coming from a place of insecurity and it's i actually think it's the most counterproductive move you can make in life because you're securing yourself nothing but superficial vapid airy shit rather than actually finding real relationships before you know it

you've climbed to the top of the mountain you're looking around and everything's fake it was a plastic mountain oh yeah brilliant and worth climbing but you've got loads of likes on instagram it's such a silly silly foolish game you're getting loads of likes on Instagram. It's such a silly, silly, foolish game. You're getting loads of compliments from acquaintances. It's funny, I said to Sefi literally yesterday, like people who don't have real relationships and go into, you know, they're proactively living their life without real relationships.

They really don't know what they're missing. I think it really plays into how we perceive ourselves and how we are desperate to control other people's perceptions of ourselves. So social climbing always gets me because it's about getting something, like basically using other people as stepping stones to, so you've got a good basis of friends, but you see, oh, well, I could get that basis of friends that they will allow me to do this and they will allow me to access, they will allow me to access this specific arena, then the next, then the next the next then the next and you're just endlessly

discarding people it's like you're living your life like you're on fucking love island yeah aren't you knackered your head could be turned at any given moment you must be exhaustedoed genuinely it's a fascinating fascinating trait and i would love to speak to anyone that like consciously does this. Oh my God. If you consider yourself a social climber, oh please. Well, does anyone consider themselves it? Because it's almost like a bit of a dirty word.

Like, oh, they're a social climber. But I mean, like you actively network. Like you see the worth of climbing the ranks. You're kind of Jay Gatsby. Well, it's almost like good for for you in a way like you've got the bollock to do that and i guess it affords you kind of some social capital and like it's a great move for your career maybe like there are lots of ways that it can benefit you but ultimately if in my mind the only thing that's real in life is love i don't think it gets you much love

so thank you so much, everyone, for listening. This ep has been raw, raw and bloody, a quote from us by Jordan Peele. It has been raw and real and everything and fucking hell, vulnerable. I hope it's been pleasant. I hope you've realised some things about yourself too. That's kind of a message that we get frequently is like through the convo, you learn things about yourself. And I think honestly, same same so that's nice we can

all do that together go and follow Lucy Sheridan just like realizing things just like realizing things turns out it was the year every year since go and follow Lucy Sheridan before you do anything else because she really opened my eyes to the world of comparison coaching she truly is a coach you walk away from her instagram feeling well and truly coached she has a little dog she walks her dog every day she's kind of and what i like about lucy sheridan is kind of the phrases she used she's like a northern woman but she'll say like yeah oh i got myself in a topsy-turvy and it's like what is what's going on really coachy there's one video that we recommend that i sent that to you didn't i yeah you sent this to me and it's about diamonding she says prepare to diamond prepare

to diamond and we won't tell you what that means yet but watch the one you'll have to go and do your research for yourself prepare to diamond so see you next week guys see you next week thanks once again for being here thanks bye bye