Nobody Panic - How to Be More Body Positive

Episode Date: April 28, 2020

Everyone wants you to love your body – but Stevie and Tessa both find that hard. Or rather, Stevie finds it hard and Tessa has come through the other side and now demands to be nude at all times. They look at the body positivity and body neutrality movements, offer great people to follow on Instagram that aren’t 90% ab and discuss why Stevie dressed like a Victorian lawyer for most of her 20s.Stevie’s follow recommendations:@bodyposipanda@radhikasanghani@libbyshappyproject@gracewoodward@stephanieyeboah@alex_cameronRecorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive Productions.Photos by Marco Vittur, jingle by David Dobson.Follow Nobody Panic on Twitter @NobodyPanicPodSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Carriad. I'm Sarah. And we are the Weirdo's Book Club podcast. We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival. The date is Thursday, 11th of September. The time is 7pm and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies. Tickets from kingsplace.com. Single ladies, it's coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September. At the London Podcast Festival. The rumours are true. Saturday the 13th of September. At King's Place. Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet. to Nobody. Hello, welcome to another episode.

Coming to you live from the isolation tower. My name's Stevie Martin. Full name today. So formal. Nice to meet you, Stevie Martin. My name is Desa Codes. This is Nobody Panic, the podcast. If this is your first one, then come on in.

Welcome. If it's not, get out. Get out. This is only for first-timers. We do not want you here if you're a long-term fan. No, if your first timers, come on in. we're thrilled to have you. We've had lots of new people joining us. This is, you know, well, I mean, I was going to say, don't start here, but do. Why not? Why not? You've read about

us in the Daily Mail. Why not? Before we get into like anything, we have a some, we have some, we have some light announcements. Oh, Lord, yes, please. So, the first announcement is we did, well, we didn't do, Tessa, or gonna. Oh, I think we did. I very much helped for moral support, but Tess had very much made an only connect quiz on Zoom called Nobody Connect. And we did it. And it was, we genuinely thought four people would arrive. We hit max capacity on Zoom, not 1,000. We had to be one in, one out on a quiz.

It was like a nightclub. It was so, so, so fun. So we decided to do it again. And we're going to do it. We just thought we'd give you advanced warning. On May 5th at 730 and the Zoom link ID will be a drop-in at 4. 4.30. Now there will be a capacity and another cap on the amount of people who can come in. So essentially it's first come first served. If you're late, you've snoozed. I think that's the phrase.

That's the phrase. That will be a Tuesday, two Tuesdays from now, or it could be in the past if you're listening to this out of sync. I'm so sorry. Unhelpful. You've missed it. No, it's going to be a Tuesday again at 7.30. Come on in. For those who joined us last time, obviously I'll be a new quiz. I'm not an idiot. I'll make you a new one. People who joined last time everyone booed me at the end because I forgot to do the missing bowels round and I had to make one up on the fly but I promise we'll be taking the missing valves around very seriously and it'll be you know there's also we're going to try and do a YouTube oh yes we're going to do a YouTube live episode where you can come in watch us we can't comment but you can open it up on your screen watch us record it and then ask questions in real time it's going to be a Q and A Session so essentially we'll be like your like very badly placed poorly placed and poorly experienced agony ants I'll be representing a sort of fun drunk aunt with a history. And that'll be a sort of horrible, mean, miserly aunt. And that'll be Tuesday the 19th of May at 7.30.

But more of that information as we get it. You can be the sort of aunt who just keeps whispering sometimes, like, you're not in the will, you know. Yes, yes. You're not set to inherit the cups. Follow us on Twitter or Instagram or if you're ever, that's probably where the information is. It'll be on Twitter and Instagram.

So it'll be at Nobody Panic Pod or our personal Instagrams at Stevie M, the SSA 5, at Wheat Pray Love. That's Tessus. You're so quick, you're so good. So quick, so good. But today's episode is about how to be more body positive. So this was a suggestion that we had from Lucy. Thank you very much for your suggestion.

Now, obviously the body positivity movement is very, very positive, as you'd imagine. But there are like criticisms of it and elements of it. So it's sort of like just like to be, how to be more. body positive in this period of time. Lockdown is very difficult to... It's actually, to be honest, lockdown is not... It's difficult anyway.

It's difficult to like yourself and it's not just about weight. It's about every element of your body, how you look and how you appear. I don't think we've actually done anything about this before. So, fascinating to know what pops out. It's an absolutely...

I've written here, what a deep and complex minefield. That's what you've written in your notes. Yeah, and that's it. So best of luck for the rest of the episode. No, I think it is. I think it's an absolute mindfield. field to wade into and I think everybody will be bringing such a different experience to it and everybody all two of us all two of us all two of us now it's the sort of thing that you know any

every single person would be able to be like oh here's my feelings on this is what I meant you know a hundred percent yeah I will never forget my friend saying to me that she couldn't wear a particular type of puff sleeve because her head was too small and then she put it on and it was like you are the only person who thinks your head your head looks too small when you wear a particular type of sleeve your experience is valid but don't please don't put too much on us on that you know what I mean yeah imagine to serious you know there's obviously body dysmorphia and things like that but I think so many of us

especially women but also definitely men to have a sort of a hint a little sprinkling a suposon of body dysmorphia oh I think everybody's got it and it's I mean it's understandable where it comes from but there's nobody who got out scot-free or there's nobody who doesn't have you know a particular area of their body that they don't like to show off or something that they wouldn't wear or a particular obsession with like for me it would be cardigans for sort of 10 years what was the what was the cardigan meant to um help you with well my knees of course stevie are you serious no of course not i was obsessed with the idea of like i never wanted to get my upper arms out you know, because I've got that,

and I'm going to pronounce this wrong, but confidently, um, Kalatolin paracis. No idea. It's those red spots on the back of your arm. Oh, yes. You have told me about that. Yes, I remember you saying,

and it's one of those things that I don't have, and I've never noticed on you, and I've seen your uparams, oh, upwards of ten times. Exactly. Because you really, you really notice it. Exactly. And so some people do have it and are like,

oh my God, yes. And some people are like, what's that? and have no concept of it. And it's such, which is such, which speaks so much to the whole body issue. It's like there are some things that you have and you're absolutely obsessed with them. And if you don't have it, you've literally never noticed it in, in somebody else. Anyway, it's this sort of red bumps all up and down your arm. And I was so obsessed with them as a teenager.

And you can like cite it as like one incident in which like somebody when I was 12 said that I had like bingo wings. And then you're like, oh, well, that's, that's going in deep into my subconscious and never coming out again. And so I wore cardigans, you know, for years and years and years and years and years. My God, how much time I've lost and how many events and social events I've felt really awkward. I haven't been able to enjoy because I've just been like, well, everyone, I've got upper arm issues. But my issue is just that no matter what the rest of my body is like, I just can't get away from the fact that my upper arms look like they've been pumped up with a bicycle pump. Like, I look like one of those things outside garages. And it's so frustrating because I've been quite thin.

I've been thinner than I am now, I've been bigger than I am now, and the one thing that remains is that those boys are not toned, and it really frustrates me. But like, I've seen now pictures of myself when I was 25, 24, being like, and I'm like, also like, literally who is looking at them? Nobody cares. No one cares. And I never, ever, like, never wore summer outfits.

And I obviously dressed like, um, what's the word of ring grey throughout most. You wondered what you were going to come up with. And I was going to help you by saying like a goth. No, it was never would have come up with Ringraith. I was going to say like an out and about vampire. Very much. A vampire about town. You were a vampire about town.

And also, but also often like not even a gothy look. It would just be like, you know how in some of those shows or TV is about vampires where they just look like they're wearing normal clothes but for the 1800s? So it's like, it's not necessarily black. It's just very covered in like they've been superimposed onto the situation. That's what, like, in all photos at uni when everyone's out on the field. out on the meadows and I'm in like a full like fully like fully sleeved right up to the neck right down to the knee sort of very thick dress made of like tapestry material yeah yeah a tapestry from neck to toe yeah

people used to court say that I looked like a barrister because I always looked like I was about to walk into a courtroom at any point and that was all stemming for the fact that I didn't want to get my upper arms out because they looked slightly inflatable astounding it was actually the wig actually I think there was a powdered wig that really came. The powdered wig and yelling order all the time. But anyway, we've sort of already, objection, that was it. We've already kind of like, we've got a lot to talk about with this, and not just our own experiences, looking at other things.

And also, like, good people that you could follow as well, that can help you out on social media. But before we do, have you done any adult things this week? Well, like, got through the day and what more do you want, really? No, I have got one, actually. Go on, please. I was quite up for that one, but yeah, go for it. Yeah, well, that's the thing, isn't it? The bar's so low.

Well, due to both my out-of-control late-night shopping and the delay in the postal service, things have been arriving as a constant surprise to what they are. Right, yeah. So it's like a gift from Father Christmas coming every day. Like, what's he brought today? And every time it's a surprise, and it's a real insight into my mental health like two weeks ago. And so the other, like last week, some Soviet Union wouldn't pegs arrived because we did. have any clothes pegs. I was like, I'll go and buy some on Amazon. They didn't have any wooden

pegs. I was like, I'll get some on eBay. And instead just buying the first ones, I was like, entered a four-hour, you know, deep dive into the history of Soviet Union pegs. So they came. And then this week, some copper effect paint arrived. Holy shit. Just to make everyone, like, Tessa's doing DIY. She's doing a flap at the moment. I would say, like, bordering on unhealthy, but still on the side of healthy obsession with copper piping. Everything is made out of copper piping. Beautiful wardrobe made out of exposed copper piping, but I'm starting to feel that we're moving towards a situation

where things are being made out of copper piping that didn't need to be made. That's correct. That's very correct. There's so much copper pipe in this house. And then some fucking copper effect paint has arrived. So you can make a copper wall? Is that you're going to have? Yes.

With this special pantina thing. What's a pantina? No one knows. It's a way to make the copper sort of oxidised. So it looks like it's got this. Basically, like, imagine you're walking into like a beautiful old ruined building in Cuba that's got this, like, amazing. The wall is like years of paint, like, stripped away. And so it's got this incredible, like, plastering pattern on it.

Can you visualize it? I can. I mean, Cuba have not been, but I feel like I'm there now. You feel like you're there in it. So that, I guess, is my aesthetic. And the reason it looks nice is because it's like 200 years old. Can you create it with some paint you got on Instagram? No, the answer is no.

Stevie, what's yours? My adult thing is also online shopping based. I've imposed an online shopping ban on myself because I don't really have enough... I mean, I don't have at all enough money to do it, but because obviously self-employed, some people listening here at work, and I'm like, what the hell is wrong with you?

Why are you buying all this stuff? But I can't stop. It is definitely, as well, like you say, Ted said, like I'll be reading... It tends to be when I've caved and I've read the tweets along to Trump's press conference. I will immediately then like buy some brogues and I don't it's very retail therapy isn't it? Yeah and it happens so smoothly that I don't realise I'm doing it and then suddenly I've done it and

also you think to yourself like oh well I'll spend the money I would have spent on the tube that also very much a thing but then it turns out that I'm spending maybe more but also also because no money's coming in. Oh yes that's the difference there. No one's saying it's a good idea. Terrible idea. So I've put a ban on most. I'm not allowed to buy any more sort of online purchase. And the thing that tipped over the edge was when at 4 a m I bought a pair, well, I bought two pairs of cuffs, just, just cuffs that button underneath. The idea is that you can wear them with long sleeve, as Tessa pointed out earlier to me before we started recording. You will wear them with long sleeve clothes, weren't you? Yes. I thought they were like a gauntlet, you know, like going into the Thunderdome wearing your cuffs.

Oh, Lord, no. There's a post. to be they're like fashion cuffs. So ideally I've got one in black and one in white. I mean, as in one pair and black and one pair of white. Not like a jester. Although you say jester, and that is a very good word because they are, they look like clown slash jester cuffs. So you know how like high fashion when you look at it, it's the detailing that you go,

oh, that's a weird, like a very incredibly puffed sleeve, for example. Or like, or maybe a sleeve that finishes in an incredibly wide bell shape that is, that is so impractical, you can't imagine doing anything. Those are the cuffs that I've bought. So I will look like a court jester slash clown slash, again, but Victorian barrister. So yeah, stopping online shopping. Stopping it. That's ever so healthy of you.

Well done, Stevie. Let's see what happens next week when I tell you about the other things that I've bought. Right. Body positivity. So I don't know about you, Tessa, but I didn't really know that much about the movement in general because I just sort of like go along the whole like, oh, yeah, that sounds nice. but there's a lot of infighting within the body positivity movement. And if you're not aware of what the movement is,

very, very simple set up to just celebrate the brilliance of the human body, basically regardless of what shape or size you are. It's often very much focused on people who are bigger because they've been very not visible in, you know, magazines, in films, in they're not represented or they haven't been represented. And to be, to be, to be years and years, they're still not. And so it's trying to undo years and years and years of feeling like we all have to be whatever size or shape is kind of hot right now,

which when we were growing up, Tessa, imagine. It's the, it was, for me, anyway, it was the double zero. The sort of, I just always remember there's an image of Nicole Richie running along a beach. And she looks, like, look, being thin is absolutely fine, but she very much starved herself down to that. And she, and I remember looking at it and being like, right, it was very, very sick way of thinking, but it was put on me. I remember reading it, the article. And rather than going, oh, my God, she looks awful. I was like, oh my God, right, I look so different. How am I going to, how am I going to even attempt that? because no matter how much I'd starved, I would never look like that.

And I think it causes a lot of long-term issues. And now, even though we're living in a much more diverse place with more diverse imagery around us. It's very much sold as this illusion of like, that's just who I am, I guess. I guess I do a few squats every day and I've got this butt. It's like you bought that butt. That bus costs tens of thousands of dollars.

What if I'm very interesting is, so I would have thought, oh, right, well, body positivity, that's just, that's great. what could possibly go wrong? And I'm not going to go deep into all the criticisms, of course. But there is some criticism leveled at the movement because some, I would say, I don't like saying more extreme followers of the movement because that doesn't quite sound right,

but I hope you don't know what I mean. And there's sort of more staunched. There's like a spectrum. And on one side of the spectrum, people are very like, well, you're not fat enough to be involved in this movement, you know? And then the other other being like, well, actually it focuses on kind of acceptably pretty people who are also fat. And then it was like, well, it's fine for you to accept your body and be positive about your body because you're on a beautiful face.

And there's lots of these sorts of arguments that go along with people being like, well, what about very black bodies? What about, is it ableist? Like, is it like there's lots and does it involve enough people? And then the, I mean, also, please message me if I've got it all wrong and that's not. But that's what I've sort of seen from various debates and things like that that I've read about. But then the other thing as well, underpinning all of it, is that sometimes it's actually really hard to just, it's exhausting to just love your body all the time. You actually, that presents this whole other thing of like, oh, you failed because you don't love your thighs. And it's actually really hard if you don't, like, I still don't like my upper arms and they're fine.

But if I, and it's, it's so hard to then be like, oh, God, what's wrong with me, you know? why can't I just wear a little tank top and a crop top and guys, why am I so shit? Why can't I love myself? Like all these people are on Instagram and being so, so, so confident. So it can make people feel a little bit lesser. But I'd say overall it is still very much a positive thing. That's why there's been an offshoot of it.

The body neutrality movement where you're basically, if loving your body feels too hard, it's more of an attainable goal. So the movement is all about sort of literally like apathletal. about what your body looks like and focusing on what it can do, which I feel like could be more achievable, and is possibly as well, probably what the body positivity movement is kind of, you know, like they can all live together, you know? Yes, absolutely. I think there are so many articles that I'll say things like how these inspirational women learn to love their bodies. And it sort of gives to the thing that like their bodies are inherently unworthy of love. Yes. They

managed to learn to love them and it gives this like the discussion around it is this like well how did you learn to love that totally unlovable dog shit thing you're so brave you're so brave you're so brave yeah you're so brave for learning your your terror learning to learning to love you know and then and therefore it feels like a constant failure if love is not you know immediately there whereas I think it exactly what you're saying of like I think really it's this realization of being like, oh my God, my body's incredible. And it's not learning to love it. It's learning to, it's unlearning the many, many, many years of quietly consumed information.

Yeah, since the day we were born. Like, you were literally born. And the moment you start ingesting culture, you are ingesting ideal of what a woman should look like. And also for men, what a man should look like. A man is musely and broad-shouldered and slim-hipped. And a woman, depending on what decade you live in, but a woman looks like this, and it's so damaging. Yeah, I think it's so damaging.

This makes me laugh. The very first time I think I realized that sort of beauty was an inherently cultural idea, which is not something I had the words to vocalise, but I did have the thought process. I was in year four, and we were learning about the Tudors, and we learned that... And of Cleaves!

And we learned that it was very fashionable to have a massive forehead, and that you had to... Women in the court plucked out all the hairs in their fores, head and I was like, well, that is, that's absurd. Like, what an insane thing to do. And I think it makes you realize that like what we understand beauty to be is not an inherent feeling.

It's, it's completely cultural. Even what, in the last 10 years, it's completely changed. And if you had been alive during the reign of Henry the 8th, you'd have been at home crying because your forehead wasn't big enough, you know? And so it's, whatever you think, oh, I need to be this or I need to be X, X, Y, Z. is like, well, do you? Or is that, you know, like we only very, in human memory, we used to do Chinese foot binding.

Like, the most beautiful thing was to have the special lotus flower feet and to have these tiny feet. And everyone was like, yeah, that's, that's it. That's the, that's the sexiest thing you can be. I don't know if it was like sexy, but it was very, it wasn't supposed to, I can't remember, but I'm not, like, sexy small feet, but it's supposed to show, like, it's all that thing about being feminine, isn't it? And that's the unfortunate thing about, and exactly like you're saying, it's not the men got a waist, got free with this.

Absolutely the ideal for a masculine body is there. But the female body is like, can you be less, please? Can you have smaller feet? Can you take up less space? Can you be thinner? Can you be size zero? Can you literally be wasting away? And then our instinct is to be like, can I cover myself up?

Can I cover my arms? Can I cover myself from head to chin? You know, so that I'm less and I don't, you know, it's all about this like this less thing, which makes me so furious. Yeah, and also there's a whole different thing as well that obviously as two white ladies don't have, which is how black women feel in the space as well, that they are too much, that they are looked at in this kind of like overly exotic way that their bodies are sexualized when they're not even like all, like they're just going about their daily business. And the way that they have been portrayed in pretty much everything throughout the ages

has been so much worse than how, you know, we've been portrayed and they've got an even bigger fight. And so that's why it's so great that there are now so many people who are fighting and fighting just to be able to exist and look like they look and just like go about their day. The other day, my boyfriend was sort of mentioned that he's seen quite a lot more of like male-oriented products being like, get rid of those horrific greys and like male moisturise products and male anti-aging products being and it was like I've really noticing that. And it's like, yeah, I mean, this is, I've been noticing that for women since I was like five.

Like you are told that there's so, it's the body positivity and feeling like your body is so much more than like how much you weigh. It's about like how old you are. What you're like, like do you have freckles? Do you not have freckles? The size of your nose like your ears like every single element of your body as a woman is like picked apart. And a product has been created to make it more acceptable, whether that's skin lightning or skin toning or skin de-aging. And the whole thing is such a mind field that you can't be down on yourself.

I think the main thing to take away from it is you can't be down on yourself for having off days. Because it's not your fault. It literally isn't your fault. If we were all living in like caveman times, like there'd be, you know, obviously there'd be like a caveman who was attracted to a cavewoman because she had like wide. child-bearing hips and that meant that she could push out more kids or something. But it'd be a lot more simple than what it is, you know? I think it's that ultimately it comes back to that idea of capitalism, if I may. Oh, here we go, ding-ding!

Here we go, ding, ding, ding. The capitalism wagons rolling into town and saying that quote about how nobody can sell you anything if you aren't sad. Famously, famously spoken by Henry Ford. I think it's that. The father of capitalism. It's like nobody can sell you anything if you don't believe something is lacking. Yeah.

And so if you aren't, you know, if you aren't constantly told that this thing is bad about yourself, then you won't be forced to buy a product to make it better. And so if you're a happy person, they can't sell you anything because you've already got all the things you need, you know, because you don't need, you don't know there was a problem. So you've no need to fix it. And that's what the entire beauty industry relies on is like, fix those wrinkles, tighten that skin, get those bright eyes. like cover those grades, like fix everything about you.

And if you don't believe there's anything to be fixed, then you can't sell it to you, you know? Because you're happy, and so you'll just be buying the things that you need rather than things that people are desperately, like, forcing you to need that you don't. I wanted to, if I may, just list a couple of people that are on Instagram that I really like,

because I found it really helpful to, apart from obviously now, anyone who's listened to the podcast before will know that I only follow ducks and tortoises and dogs and memes, But before, when I was following people, I very much tried to follow all different types of people. And I think it's so important to follow people who are bigger than you, who are smaller than you, who have a different type of body to you, who have completely different from different backgrounds. It just undoes some of that, like, horrible programming that we've all had sort of slightly different versions of.

The people that I really like are, number one is body posy panda. So follow her. She got millions of followers. That's Megan. She is body positive, sort of activist, and lots of just lovely, joyful photos of her in her pants. All of her captions and all of her Instagrams are just really, like, lovely messages. They go like, yes, yes, yes, please, thank you. Then Radhika Sangana, I hope I'm pronouncing that right,

who started the hashtag side profile selfie to help people with beautiful big noses feel better, because my lord, I've got a friend who's got a larger nose, and she was telling me about how, like, every single single. person who you see on TV in films, but they've all had nose jobs. Like everybody, and I 've, I'm, I'm, and noses aren't something that I'm particularly sensitive about, so you don't really

notice, you only really notice the things that you're sensitive about, don't you? But once you're talking about that, I couldn't get over how, like, frustrating that must be, to have, like, a normal nose and not see a normal nose anywhere and constantly be like, my nose is wrong. It's, so demoralizing, anyway, so she's started this great thing where

she's, it's just, like, just basically normalising normal noses. Libby Phillips, who creates illustrations. I always like a bit of an illustration break on my feet to help the kind of Bopo movement. And it's also, you know, like she deals with body hair as well. And there's love underscore disfigure, which is run by Sylvia Mac, who's a burn survivor. And again, just beautiful normalisations of all different types of people. Again, not just weight.

Grace Woodward, who's a fashion stylist and TV presenter. And I like her because I think it's important to follow people that look a bit like you as well. Like so I, she's like a size 12 to 14, which obviously is a. and, you know, particularly large. She posts like unretouched photos and sort of photos where she looks softer and more kind of, you know, like basically what we don't see in

ething magazines. And so that is, I find that quite helpful. Stephanie Yuboa, who's a, like a very sort of well-known body positive activist and she sort of come out against the infighting as well. But just essentially she just wants everyone to have a nice time and just accept, she's very, very

into the fat acceptance. And I was also very aware that you will have down days but the whole process is about making the percentage of your good days more and the percentage of your bad days less, which I think is very helpful. Yeah, they're, they're my, they're my favourite that I like. Amazing, thank you. And I think we'll put all those in the description of this, of this episode, if you want to go back and follow those. May I share, I think the sort of transit, I don't have anybody that very nice that I follow to add to that list, but can I share the sort of transitional moments where I decide my, my,

my active decision making to be like, oh, this is a fucking waste of time. Yes, 100%. So I think I get, I, I err to the side of, um, quite nude quite a lot these days. As in, okay. As in I have absolutely no qualms about wearing anything. And, uh, if needed to take my clothes off, I wouldn't, wouldn't hesitate for a moment. And I think I do that like I would happily go to a nudist beach or, you know, I wouldn't mind at all not having any clothes on.

And I think I feel so passionate. nude these days because I wasted such an unbelievable amount of time fearing that above all things. I'm in that stage now. Like I still, I would never go to an endu speech. I would never get my, I get really nervous about showing my skin. So this is great to hear. But you... Okay. Well, I do truly believe for you that there is a point where you're like, oh, okay, that like, like, you will be like, yeah, I could go to a new to speech. Like, no, no problem. And I think it's about realizing that like, oh, nobody at the nudist speech is. really looking at you. Nobody really cares. I got really into sort of walking naked around the

changing room, which I never, ever would have done at the gym. Because you always think, like, do those old ladies, do they know that they're naked? Because they're really walking like they don't know. And it turns out they do know. They're just like, yeah, fuck you. I've lived a really long life and I'm tired of being not, of told I can't be naked or that something in me should be covered up. And it's the very first time I did it, I was like, okay, okay, okay. Put down your towel. walk across the room get that other towel that you don't need

this is a pointless exercise and then walk back without covering up and I remember being like honestly I was like counting and I was like okay here I go and then I did it

and I was like ha ha so alive and I walk back and I was like no one's even looked up nobody cares like it hasn't nothing has happened

and you know it genuinely was my nightmare as a teenager that like I would I would have these like terrible fantasies that I'd be involved in some kind of sort of

try wizard tournament and it would be compulsory to like it would be nude you'd have to be nude yeah and i would be like what will i do because i won't be able to be nude you know it was the worst thing i could possibly imagine and now i'm like who gives a shit like nobody cares nobody's looking at you it's just a it's just a body and i think if you are somebody who's listening and you're thinking yeah i'm nude all the time then just check out emotionally for a second if you're somebody who's like i would rather die than be nude and if your instinct when i say oh i love it and it wouldn't I would walk down. Honestly, I would like walk around the park. If the police wouldn't be like,

please, madam, get back in your house. You look great, but again, no one's saying you don't look fantastic, but please go home. If you're thinking, well, of course you feel fine about your body, I want you to know that I have, this is exactly how I looked when it was the worst thing I could possibly imagine. So the actual, my physical appearance has had no impact on that mental state. It's not like I suddenly looked incredible and then I was like, oh, now I'll be naked, you know, I look exactly the same as I did when I was, like, lying awake, being like, what will I do when I'm trapped in the TriWords of tournament? And I have to get naked to save my family. And those were like genuine, panicky thoughts I would have. And so it does just, it is just a

decision. It's a decision. Number one, the first decision is like, this has been a fucking waste of time and I am bored of carrying this around. And then it is exactly like you're saying, it's tiny, middle steps. It's like, can I take my towel off and walk to the shower in the gym? Can I walk five steps naked? Then can I walk 10 steps? Then can I just walk around? can I get my boobs out on holiday on the beach? Can I walk from the bedroom to the bathroom if that's something you can't. Butt out. But out. Can I have a, yeah, can I just be like, oh, my butt, here's my butt, you know. Can you start with a low level mooning?

Yeah, can you start with a moon and then work up from there, you know, can you? So it's those tiny, it's tiny, tiny things. You don't just go, you don't just wake up one day and be like, oh, now I can be nude. Is that like, okay, I'm going to, yeah. Yeah, 100%. And it's like, there's, I read a nice thing that was like, your body can wear, a nice skirt and look nice, that's one thing it can do, but it can also learn to rock climb. It could also learn to roller skate. It could also learn to skateboard. It could also learn like you did how to do the splits, like picking goals that are about like, oh, what, what's the, like, what, a, what sounds fun and, or B, like a challenge that's got nothing to do with aesthetics at all. It's like, oh, I would

like to learn to do a cartwheel. And then you could, that's an achievable goal that you could do. Absolutely. Like, so again, another thing that really, shifted everything in my head is this um improv an improv class i took hello hello daily male readers check out now this this improv class with this amazing a woman from california and it'll sound all sort of hokey and hippie but it really it genuinely changed my life and we did a sort of eyes closed like you know warm up at the beginning that sort of wanky thing that you would do uh sorry because you like moved in this way i think you're going to say an eyes closed wobble no no And I was, sorry, I don't know if this, I was just wobbling around, but it was actually a warm-up, Stevie.

Understood. It's the sort of thing that you'd do at the beginning of like a team bonding class where someone's like, just walk in your own space and like move your vertebrae up one by one. All that's so bullshit shit that people say. And we had her eyes shut and she was like telling us to move our arms about. And then she was like, just be in your body. And then she said, your body is incredible. It's amazing. And I distinctly remember thinking in my head like, well, mine's not, you know.

I wouldn't just call mine incredible. And she says, I know in your head you're thinking, well, mine's not. And I was like, oh, fuck. Yes, I was. And then she's like, but your body does everything you ask of it. It walks forward when you need it to walk forward. It picks things up when you need it to pick things up. And I was like, oh, holy shit, yeah.

My body does everything I ask of it. It is an incredible body. And it was a genuine transformative thing of not being like, oh, but it doesn't look sexy. It doesn't look incredible. It doesn't look this way. It's like it's phenomenal. And even if your personal body does not do all the things that you wanted to do, like you might have mobility issues or sight or hearing or any number of things that your body can't do for you.

But like I bet that you can do something that is somebody else's dream. We have to come to the end. I feel like this is something that we could talk about for several more hours because it's such a massive, massive topic. But we do have to finish for, you know, people have got things to do. No, people have got things to do. People have got past to eat. people have got passive needs and lives to live and people to feel good about themselves

because their body does it all you're amazing you're amazing if you are a teenager listening to this like Godspeed and good luck and like I know what it's like to go through to try and be positive about a body that is changing by the hour

and you're just you don't you really just like the best you can do just sort of like just get through this bit you know and don't don't take on any of the things that make you feel you should anytime that the word should pops into your brain, just try and remember that that doesn't really need to be there.

Yeah, that's like a disembodied patriarchal society telling you that rather than you telling you that you shouldn't have to do anything. But yeah, focus on what you're watching and looking at, like, look at your Instagram feed, are they all kind of, is it just loads of apps because that's not going to help you? In which case, get rid of them. Get rid of them. You don't need it.

Like, you go and, you know, just be aware of what you're consuming and how it makes you feel about yourself. Yeah, and focus on, in terms of your body, try and focus on things, if you can, based on how they make you feel. So try and do, like, try and make your body do do something that you've always wanted it to do, like, like, rock climbing or like, I mean, maybe not never, like, yoga, something that you're like, I could never, like, I can't, I still can't touch my toes. It really bothers me. So I really want to try and, my, one of the moment is I want to be able to do a single press up, not on my knees. Like, 10 years ago of going to the gym, still can't. That's about one.

and it's nothing to do with what my arms look like. It's just because I just want to be able to be like, I can do a press up. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Be about what your body can do, not about what it looks like. And get nude, like Tessa's saying, start small. And get nude.

Start small. This is a hill I will die on. You must get nude. If you've never been nude before, you can message me if you've never been nude before and I will become your sponsor. That's how passionately I feel about the nude issue. Also, I'd like to do a quick shout out.

So I shouldn't be doing it now in lockdown. But if you listen to this post lockdown, and there's an excellent photographer called Alex Cameron. She's Alex underscore Cameron on Instagram, and she basically does confidence shoots, which are in the buff buff, and she makes you look powerful and the best version of yourself. And yes, I did one.

And I don't regret it. It was one of the greatest things I've ever done. Completely nude? I didn't, it's not full frontal, so it's like lying on a bed. Basically, I had a very bad... Oh my God, let me see. 100% no.

Let me see. see it? Maybe I will. Yes, maybe I will. You should send me your nudes. Right. So while I'm sending Tessa, my nudes, you get your own nudes, John, and send them to Tessa as well. I want your nudes, send them. I imagine if this was just a long game for me to just be a real perver on the internet. Send me your nudes. Send your friends your nudes. Like, and also have friends in your life who are like, yes, please, I want to see the nudes.

But yes, please do get in touch with more episode suggestions. And nudes. So crucially, nudes at Nobody Panicpod or email us. Nobody Dupanicpodcast at gmail.com. And as we said at the start, I'll say it again. I'm on Twitter and Instagram at Stevie M. The S is a 5. I'm at Tessacote and at We Pray Love.

But yeah, thank you so much for listening. And guys, like, we'll see you next week, okay? And just try and do one thing this week that's positive for your body. You are amazing. Your body is incredible. It's so great. Bye! See you next time.

Bye-bye.