The Life Of Bryony - How to Stop Hating Your Body and Start Loving Yourself with Jules Von Hep

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

If you have ever looked in the mirror and immediately apologised for the body staring back at you, then today’s episode is exactly what you need. This week, Bryony is joined by the radiant Jules Von Hep: spray tanner to the stars, founder of the cult beauty brand Isle of Paradise, and author of The Confidence Ritual. With two decades spent in a world that likes to airbrush out every blemish and dimple, Jules knows a thing or two about the myths the beauty industry sells us and the reality of how every single body has its own insecurities. They talk all about the conditioning that teaches us to hate our bodies, the tricks companies use to profit from our insecurities, and—most importantly—how to start unlearning all of it. Brimming with charm and heartfelt honesty, Jules shares his own journey from deep self-loathing to loving life, and the practical confidence rituals that can help you glow up from the inside out. Whether you’re a bronzing pro or a self-tan novice, this episode has a whole lot of gold for you. Jules Von Hep’s book, The Confidence Ritual, is out now. Get ready to glow up, from the inside out.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode of The Life of Briny is sponsored by Asda, with thousands of prices rolling back across the store and online. That's good honest value. That's Asda price. Welcome to The Life of Briny, the podcast where we explore life's messier bits. Today, do you wish you had more confidence? Well, today's guest is going to show you how to start feeling good about yourself. Jules Von Hepp is the self-tanner to the stars who's been described as human sunshine and his new book, The Confidence Ritual, promises to show you how to give yourself a glow up from the inside out. I think lots of people think that confidence is about putting on a red lipstick and a body

con dress and walking into a bar. Confidence is so, so linked to joy. All Jules's top tips, welcome to The Life of Brian E. Thank you so much for having me. My cheeks hurt already from giggling with you. So I don't even know where this interview is going to go, but I'm excited. What I want to do is I want to use your presence and your book in this studio today to inspire the Life of Bryony audience to feel comfortable in their bodies this summer. I want them to like, I want us to get naked. Yeah, I want everyone this I mean, we don't have to get naked, obviously, but I want

metaphorically everyone to get naked. And this is about getting people comfortable with their bodies. Okay, let's do it. I've got you. Is that okay? Yeah, this is what I'm all about. So you've written a book called The Confidence Ritual, which is all you tell me what it's about instead of me telling you what it's about

because it's your book. No pressure. Okay, so The Confidence Ritual is essentially my career has been about getting other people ready. So whether it's getting ready for the red carpet, getting ready for a night out, getting ready for a graduation, a big moment in your life, but it's been so heavily focused on externally getting ready. And through my journey, which I'm sure we're going

to go into, I've had to realise and learn that actually the true glow up and the true getting ready comes from within. And the confidence ritual is essentially, it's a step by step guide to giving you those tools, those tricks in a practical format to giving you the best glow up of your life honey. Amazing. So let's talk about you Jules. So the first time I met you, I was naked in my house. I didn't buy you dinner did I? How rude of me. No, it was fine. You don't need to buy me dinner to get to see me naked. So you founded

an incredible brand called the Isle of Paradise. Yes. So it's a self-tan brand. Yes. You were a self-tanner to everyone from pop stars to princesses to politicians. Yeah. I really want to know what politicians you spray tanned. You can't tell me. I can't tell you.

No, because there's a thing when you're working with people in the public eye, some make you sign NDAs and some don't. And I've signed a lot of NDAs, so a lot of the things I can't talk about. But what I can tell you is I've worked with every type of person you can imagine. And often when you open a magazine, the chances are I've turned that person on the pages. But I've also worked with people outside of the public eye. And what I've realized and learned is that everybody, whether they're famous or not, whether they're a supermodel or a mum of four, has some form of hang up when it comes to their body. And this was, this was this massive learning for me that I realized that

everyone is conditioned to hate how they look. Everyone is apologizing for something on their appearance. And while I was in this place of deep rooted body hatred as I started my career as a spray tanner, which I must say is a career that found me, I didn't, my career as advisor at school wasn't like, you're going to make a great spray tanner. It was just a job that found me and I started doing, and it felt good. Um, and I, God, I worked on everything from Strictly Come Dancing, the crown, the X Factor.

Who needed a spray tan in the crown? I tan Matt Smith in the crown. Oh, the Duke of Edinburgh. Yeah. Um, because it came from a place of, I think lots of people think spray tan is about glam, high glam, and actually it can be used in a way to skin perfect and even skin tone and give a healthy looking complexion rather than this massive shade change. So while you might think that

tan is everywhere or tan is only for one certain type of person. Actually, it's for everybody and it's just working out how to use it. What I realized was that actually, why are we apologizing for how we look? Why is everyone when they get inside a spray tan tent or when they go for a treatment or when they take their clothes off, their first reaction that they're going with is an apology. Well, let's unpack that. Why? Why is that? Because we are conditioned to hate how we look in order to sell product for brands to make money. They need to make us think that there is a perceived problem out there.

We then see a problem that really doesn't exist, but we think exists. And then we start buying the product. And actually, when you stop and you think about how you're being communicated to from the beauty brands, from the fashion brands, from all these companies, actually they're telling you you're not good enough because if you already love every inch of who you are, well, they can't make money off that.

So this is about, I'm not teaching you something new, but I'm teaching you how to unlearn what's been pre programmed in you because you're not born hating your body. None of us are but it's learned behavior through as we grow up through our teenagers and into our early like 20s, that then we start to learn, oh, something's wrong with me, I don't look like x, y, Z. And whatever you think you have on your body, whatever you think is wrong with you, I'll tell you now as someone who's stared at naked bodies for literally 20 years, someone else has it, someone else has it worse, or someone else

has a different version. Don't stress about it because actually your body is carrying you through this life. It's giving you every experience, every joy, every moment to be present. You've got to be grateful for your body. You need to appreciate it, don't hate it. This is fascinating. And you really do have an insider's view into just how much we are on a day-to-day basis

manipulated into thinking our bodies are wrong, when in fact they're perfectly right. So, you know, for a start, you have seen hundreds of, and thousands of different types of naked bodies, including mine. Just wait, ma'am. I've seen every nipple going.

Have you seen my nipples? Yes. You did see my nipples, didn't you? I've seen your mum's nipples. What? I've turned your mum. When?. What? I've tanned your mum. When? I tanned your mum for your wedding.

I have not seen my mum's nipples. I have. I love this. I did not know that you tanned. You did, I thought you knew this. When I was at yours, I met your mum and I was like, I did not know that this was your mum. And she was like, hello again.

And I was like, oh. I did not know that she got a spray tan before my wedding. Yes, she did. She came to me. Well, there we go. Right, okay. Wow, gosh, you learn something. Every day's a school day, Jules. Every day. Okay. So you've seen my nipples, you've seen my mum's nipples, you've seen Matt Smith's nipples, you've seen a lot of nipples. Okay. But also, because you have this insider view from running

a beauty brand, so you've also met with some, it would be safe to say, you've met with some of the biggest sort of beauty companies on the planet, you've been stocked in some, like Sephora, Boots, everywhere. So you also know how this industry works. I know both sides. Yeah. And I think, yes, I do come at it from a unique point of view,

because during my time as a spray tanner, I really hated every single aspect of how I looked. So that then made me really relate to the clients that I was in with in the spray tan booth. When I founded Isle of Paradise, I no longer work with Isle of Paradise anymore. I left them earlier this year. But when I founded that brand,

for me, the beauty industry was just so two-dimensional. Tanning, as a category, was about one skin shade, wearing a white swimsuit on a beach, and that's what tan was. Whereas tan, to me, was about empowerment. It was about having fun with your girlfriends on a weekend. And it just everything was always sold around this aspect of sex and sexiness. And actually, I was like, well, isn't fun more appealing? What I don't I want to be seen to be feeling empowered when I'm wearing a product as opposed to feeling sexy. I think there's a massive difference in it.

And then I went from backstage and from lugging this kit around with me in and out of people's homes to then going into this mega corporate side of beauty. And yeah, we were a small beauty brand, but pitching your brand to Sephora and walking on stage in front of tens of thousands of people in LA and sitting at dinners with every beauty founder you could ever imagine, that was terrifying. And I think there's nothing that prepares you for that. And I had to really lean in and learn how to feel more confident in this space. But I also kept fighting hard for the beauty industry to change and the fashion industry to change.

And there's always another way. It doesn't always have to be this. And I mean, look at what's happening now. Thin is in and our aesthetic has never been under more scrutiny than it is now. And it's boring, it's really boring. And actually I wish that people would realize, actually what's on the inside is way more important.

If someone's commenting on the size of my ass or the shape of my thighs when I leave the room, well, it says more about them than it does about me. Totally, I always say this. I would rather have cellulite on my thighs than hate in my heart. But also I think we only judge ourselves as much as we judge other people. Exactly, and there's no point stressing about everybody else.

I mean, there's like a checklist that you have if you're in a place of body hatred, and you might not think that you are. You might think you are a confident person. But if you breathe in every time you look in front of the mirror, if you can't post a picture on social media without a filter, if every time a picture's taken of you, you pinch and zoom and pick it apart,

well, that's not screaming confidence to me. That's screaming insecurities. And actually, if that's you and you're commenting or thinking about the shape of someone else's body, well then maybe we need to take a pause and a stop and go, actually, where am I placing my worth? Am I placing my worth on my aesthetic or am I placing it on my actions?

Because actually, your actions are the most interesting thing about you. Your personality is what really keeps people talking. And that's, I learnt that through spray tanning. I would never remember the shape of someone's thighs or someone's skin texture or if they had a blemish here or there. I'd remember if they made me laugh, if they were feel good vibes or if they were going through something difficult. I remembered what was on the inside. There's two points there that you make. So it's that if someone tuning in does that thing where they do find themselves being judgemental

of other people and their bodies, like to kind of take the shame out of that, because as you so rightly say, we have been conditioned to hate our bodies and to look critically upon other people. And then I would like to go on to your own personal journey because I think it's fascinating how, while you're making other people good,

you're feeling so bad yourself. I think that's also very relatable for a lot of people. But to go back to that, you know, I wondered if you might be able to just like talk to us about some of the things that you encountered within the beauty industry that you tried to push against, to push back on and say, this isn't right and we need to change from within. There's so many different avenues.

I think firstly, the way that we are sold beauty is an interesting topic in itself. And it's something that I try and get myself into this head space when I'm looking at campaigns now. So youth being skinny and having an idealized body, which is your gym body six pack, you know, the traditional body, I'm not saying that that's a perfect body, but I'm saying that's essentially how lots of brands use that body as this place of perfection. If that's

all we're being shown, of course it will be natural for you to compare your body to XYZ. Retouching in itself, I absolutely despise. And I always have hated it. I remember tanning a very famous model. I'm not gonna say her name, but a very famous model for a tanning brand. And she was naked lying on the side of a pool. And I was on the set with my little kit bag running on and off,

moisturizing her thighs and moisturizing her shoulders to make them gleam and make her skin look more glowy. I would look at the monitor coming up and yeah, she looked great in the pictures. Six months later, that image was on the side of buses on TV campaigns, it was everywhere. And I just thought, well, fuck me, her ass didn't look like that on set

and where's all her cellulite gone and her wrinkles have been taken out. And then I looked at my friends and I thought, they don't know that she's been retouched. They actually think that she looks like that and I know she doesn't. And so there was this light bulb moment of going, I know the secret, I know this behind the scenes world

that people need to know. Every image you look at has been retouched. And it could be a fly away hair, it could be one wrinkle. I know that there are celebrities who have it in their contract to remove one wrinkle from one hooded eye in retouching before the image goes out. This is the norm within the beauty industry

and the fashion industry. It's fucking bullshit. People are beautiful exactly as they are. We don't need to be retouching. So pernicious, isn't it? It's just wild how it's the norm and everyone seems okay with it. And there were times when I felt like,

you know in those dreams when you're running in mud and you can't get away from something, it felt like I was screaming inside and I just, whatever I said wasn't being listened to in terms of where I was in various parts of the beauty industry career. All this sort of hoo-ha about Chris Jenner and she's admitted she's had a facelift, you know,

and people, and there were lots of things saying she looks younger than her daughter, that she looks younger than Kim Kardashian now. And I had this moment where I thought, I really hope that as women, my generation takes a deep breath and allows our mothers to look younger than us for the sake of our daughters. Because I can't like subscribe to this where it's like I have to look forever young.

It is so harmful. And then you have Kendall Jenner or Kylie Jenner coming out and saying, Yeah, I've got a new I've had a new boob job and this is the type I had. And all while women are actually losing so much bodily autonomy, you know, like it's in some states, it's illegal to have an abortion in America, you know, so there's this there's this, this is a literal war against women. But the thing is, when it comes to celebrities having facelifts, you can't control it. Celebrity is gonna have a facelift. They are gonna do it.

And also, if you've ever been to LA, that place is everyone's face is up so far, it's on their ass. And that is what it's like. You can't control that narrative. But what you can control is how you feel about your body. Again, this links back to comparison, which is comparison is the thief of joy. Well, you can't stop the thief from thieving, but you can change the locks on where you

are. You can't change everything, but you can change your opinion on how you feel about things. And you can pulse out the message to your inner core and your circle that who you are is good enough. None of us can stop Kris Jenner getting a facelift. And quite frankly, she's entitled to get it. There's nothing we can do to control it.

But what we can control is how we speak to ourselves in the mirror, how we speak to our girlfriends around the table and saying, you don't need it. You like, I think you're beautiful because you never realize how insecure people are. And sometimes people are getting surgery, unfortunately based on insecurities. And this is why I wrote the book, because before you start doing any form of tweakman or changing

how your appearance is, it's so important to A, do it for the right reasons if you want to, because it's your body, you can do exactly what you want with it. But B, make sure that you've really unpacked and unknotted everything on the inside because when you actually like and respect who you are, you know you don't need anything. And it is a privilege to grow old and it's a privilege to be in this life. I don't know, I have such a love hate relationship with it

and I actually see a lot of that kind of messaging being pulsed out and for me, I just think, God, how vascuous. Thank God I'm not involved in all of that. Well, but it's interesting, isn't it? Because yes, you say, like, obviously, everyone has a right to do whatever they want. And I'm, I'm totally judgment free if people want to get Botox, whatever, Tweetments, do whatever they want. But, you know, Cher says, if she wants to get her tits attached to her back, it's nobody's goddamn business.

And it's true. And it is totally true. Um, and so all of that can be said, but it also can be said that it's also okay for me to, um, I think we, you know, we need to stop and just say, you don't need to do this. But this is when it links back to brands and how they communicate that they need to have this level of authority and realize that the people

that they book for these campaigns has a knock on effect to how people feel on the high street walking around. This is what I mean. So, and it's about booking a full spectrum. And so everybody feels represented, which it was, I feel like the industry was changing, but I feel like it's just going back to, you've got to have X amount of followers

and you've got to sell product. And I'm like, even me as a body confidence advocate and champion, I find myself slipping back in and I can feel it on my skull. If someone is dropping weight quite quickly, I prang out and I think, Oh my God, do I need to get on the azempa? Is this what's happening? But then I have to go back to my checklist.

I have to go through the things in my head and go, actually, no, you are great just as you are. And you're worthy of greatness. Your aesthetic means nothing. Ultimately, my appearance is the least interesting thing about myself. It really is, and I have to just keep reminding myself of that. Pushing back and saying, why am I doing this? Exactly.

And I used to see it so much with brides and weddings in general. And the book was inspired by the run-up to our wedding. And it's not just for bridal getting ready, but when I announced that we were engaged, I got offered so much. I got offered fillers, teeth whitening, Invisalign, like all these gym memberships, personal trainers kept reaching out to me all the time.

Do you wanna shape up? Do you wanna lose that fat? Like literally my DMs, I was reading that. Oh my God, I get those all the time. And you just think, dude, I'm actually really happy with how I am. Yeah, it's a bit offensive. Yeah, actually. But I remember seeing it so often with brides when they'd come for a spray tan, that they'd come in and they'd say, oh my God, I'm engaged. And I'd watch over the course of, you know, two years or a year, their bodies would change, their face would change, their hair would change.

But it's like the light inside their eyes just went. And so often on the final spray tan before a wedding, the bride cries and ultimately, and I never said this to them the night before the wedding because I'm not that guy, but I'd be like, well, it's because none of this will make you happy. And you are placing so much of your worth based on your aesthetic.

And, you know, on our wedding, I said, I just want to walk down the aisle and feeling like the best version of myself. So I took myself on this massive self-love journey. I was like, rather than focusing on the outside, I'm going to focus on the inside so that when I walked down the aisle, I feel the best version of me.

And I was punching my bouquet in the air when I walked down. People were whooping and it was amazing. And that is what really the confidence ritual is about. If you've got this event coming up, if you've got something that automatically your brain would go to, I need to change my aesthetic. Just like you said, sidestep from that. And why don't we change, why don't we unpack what's on the inside? Because once you unpack and deal with all of that, then the actual physical glow up has a lot more worth to it.

And also it's a lot more fun. My God, so much more fun. And you know, listening to you, I think it is really important for people to know that it is possible, it's really possible to go from a place of huge self loathing to self acceptance. And we are both examples of that. And I wanted to talk about that journey, because it isn't confidence isn't like a thing that you can just suddenly get by reading a book or, you know, having a spray tan or following a I don't know, a diet for 30 days or whatever. It is something that every day you have to work at and do and you have to kind of lean it, you have to push forward with it.

Now, if you're anything like me, you're juggling about 17 tasks in your brain at once. So let me give you one less thing to think about. Your weekly shop. Because Asda is rolling back prices on thousands of products this summer, it means less money spent and more headspace for everything else. So next time you're there, keep an eye out. You might end up saving more than you expected. Thousands of prices rolling back across the store and online now. That's good honest value. That's as the price. Selected stores and, subject to availability. I wanted to talk about your journey because, yeah, it's surprising, I think, for people to learn that you are like this ray of sunshine, this ray of light, but it hasn't always felt

that way. No. I hated my body and hated every single aspect of myself for 20 years, from the age of 12 to 32. I just placed every bit of my worth on my aesthetic. I self-harmed all through school. I was suicidal just as I finished school. I used to drink a lot and party hardy school, I was suicidal. Just as I finished school, I took, used to drink a lot and party hard to numb how I was feeling. It came down, you know, when times of intimacy,

I just had no confidence whatsoever. And I think you don't realize that behind closed doors, people are all on their journey. And I think spray tanning genuinely saved me. It was this job that, you know, I kind of scoffed at when someone suggested it to me, but I became so addicted to being around nudity that it made me view the human body differently,

which in turn made me view my body differently. And things that, we've all got these comments that we hang onto, you know, I remember, and I saw a post of yours that you actually have felt something similar. I remember leaving a sweet shop as a kid and this guy saying to me, oh, don't you think you've had enough of those?

And it, what was a throwaway comment to him, that comment shaped how I felt about my body for 20 years, just constantly, every time I looked in the mirror, just going for the faults, always picking on my love handles, always picking on my stomach. It stopped me, I think, from putting myself really out there when I was dating. It stopped me from going for jobs because I didn't think that I had that worth. Yeah, I really know how it feels. And it's hard. And confidence is not the destination. It's the journey. It's about making tiny changes that you might not think. You might think, oh, going and hanging out

with my best friend today, that's not really gonna make me more confident. It is, because it's making you become more aware of how you're spending your time. These small changes will make a knock on effect, and I know this because it's worked for me. And when Isle of Paradise launched, and I went from this life of backstage and feeling crap about myself, but making everybody else feel great, to then,

God, having to like be on camera loads and walk on stage in front of like so many people, be in meetings where I didn't fucking know a thing what anyone was talking about. I just thought, you've got two choices. You can either let this shape who you are and just this lack of confidence is going to make you buckle and it's all going to come undone. You're only going to get this opportunity once or you're going to have to go on a journey. And it's been hard and it will always be hard because I will always have body dysmorphia and I will always have eating disorders in my back catalog.

That is something that is just in my brain, but I have learned coping mechanisms to navigating that thought process each time I get ready. And I've learned how to unpack it with my friends and talk about how I'm feeling. And actually, I've learned one of the best lessons was that the shape of my mind is way more important than the shape of my body. Mm. It's true.

That is an inside job. And confidence, I think lots of people think that confidence is about putting on a red lipstick and a bodycon dress and walking into a bar, because that's what we're sold in campaigns. It's not that at all. It's not that at all. Confidence is so, so linked to joy.

So this is a really interesting thing, because it isn't, you know, like I've spoken about this with other guests where, you know, it's still okay to like wear makeup and, you know, and be into skincare and all of that stuff, but it's just like on, it has to be on your terms. Yeah. And you're not concealing, you're enhancing. Oh, like you're having fun with your skin as a canvas and your body as a canvas, like how lovely.

The beauty industry is actually one of the oldest industries in the world. When you really unpack it, touch and self care. Cleopatra was bathing in goat milk. If it's good enough for Cleopatra, then honey, it's good enough for me. Beauty is this lovely moment when you shut the bathroom door and often you're alone and you can either make this

about standing in front of the mirror and just ripping yourself apart and using products for all the wrong reasons, or you can make this fun. Something that I learned recently that I annoyingly didn't put in the book, but it's been a game changer for me is just saying an affirmation every time

I put on my underwear. Okay, so what's the affirmation? I am amazing. I say it in the morning and I put my underwear on and I then look in the mirror and I've already got this positive voice in my head. So I'm getting ready. I'm like, I'm amazing.

Amazing underwear affirmation. I love that. Yeah, and it's just- I'm amazing. But also, I mean, wearing your wardrobe, we're all so guilty of saving things for best. Every day is your best, honey. You don't know when your last day is gonna be. Unfortunately, that is not pre-programmed

and put on a calendar. Your every day is worthy of the clothes that have the tag in, is worthy of the handbag that you maybe bought for a wedding that never used again, get it out. You don't need to keep buying things that aren't giving you happiness. Just wear what's in your wardrobe. It just delivers so much joy. That is something to take away. Like right now, if you're tuning in, like what is the thing that you have in your, I don't know, your beauty cover by the bath or something that you are saving or in your wardrobe that

you're saving for a special occasion. It's just not been designed for that and each week set yourself a target of selecting something in the wardrobe and wearing on the weekend or using it over the weekend or using it. You've got seven days, seven days to use it. Just crack on and go because until you start shifting where you are, you might not realise this place where you are, you might not realize this place where you're at. In the book, I talk about it like sushi. And I have to, when I was writing it, I was like, no, I am, I am actually going to compare people's lives to raw fish. Okay,

let's do this. Let's go with it. But there is, if you've never been for sushi, you sit at a belt, the plates go round and the plates are different colours. Each plate determines the worth. And there's a roll called a California roll. Well, she is a safe bet. The California roll, most people like, she's on a quite cheap plate, happy. Imagine that you are the California roll. You get put on the sushi belt, you go round and round, no one's picked you up. Well, what's happening? All of a sudden, you're getting a bit stale around the edges and you don't look like you did when you first got on the belt.

Then a dragon roll gets put by and you're like, what the fuck, I should be a dragon roll. And the dragon roll is like super exotic and it's on a gold plane, it's got everything going for you. Like, how have I become this sad old California roll? I wanna be a dragon roll. And until you take a moment of going, oh, I've got a bit stagnant.

I didn't realise I'd got like this. Then we need to take it from first gear to fifth and just step it up and ramp it up a notch because life's too short to stay stagnant. How do we switch ourselves from mentally from California rolled to dragon roll? Because that's the thing. Like I spent 20 years hating who I was, hating my body, focusing on how I looked in pictures, focusing on what I wasn't achieving. And each time my mind went to these hateful places, my self esteem would plummet. I feel like I've been on every single diet going, you name it. I've done it. This led to eating disorders, anxiety, depression

and feeling rock bottom in myself. I placed my entire worth on the size of my stomach and my love handles. I based my worth in society on the shape of my body. Yeah. Very relatable. Yeah, I've been there, but I've come out the other side and if I can do it, you can do it.

You've talked a bit about this already, the photoshopping, the airbrushing, all of that stuff. I think it's really important that we just make it clear how absolutely sort of saturated the world is in photos that are essentially lies. Oh, that every photo is a lie. And even if it's not a lie, it's good lighting. Just never compare yourself to a picture. Never. Just don't bother doing it. End of. Don't do it. Well, I was going to say even now, right now,

if anyone's watching this clip on social. Oh, I look like a bag of spanners when I walk off this set. Let me tell you. There's a thing here. Like it's a special light. It's all, you know, it's turned up, it's turned down. But yeah, it's all everything from clips that you see on the internet, everything you watch on television, it's all been up lit. It's all been up lit. And again, we're not going to get angry at it. It's like social media, you control the scroll. So don't get angry at social media itself. Don't pick it apart. Don't be like, oh, social media is ruining the world. It's not going anywhere. So if somebody's not making you feel good, if someone's pictures aren't making you feel good, be like, oh, social media is ruining the world. It's not going anywhere. So if somebody is not making you feel good,

if someone's pictures aren't making you feel good, unfollow, mute, move on. Curate. Curate what you see to be uplifting and empowering. Hang out with people who make you feel great. There are two types of people, energy radiators and mood hoovers. An energy radiator you put a plan in with and you cannot wait to see them.

You're literally like, oh my God, I'm gonna see my bestie. After you've seen them, you feel elated, you feel empowered, you feel like the best version of you when you're with them. Mood hoovers, you dread seeing them. You know that afterwards you're gonna be like, oh my God, that's just pulled every bit of energy out of me. It might be someone you work with, someone's husband.

So it could be anything. They're the people that you've got to be very careful of. And Mood Hoovers often are on their own journey. They haven't started that inner glow up. They're in a place of low vibing energy. And when you start doing the inner glow up and the inner work, well, their energy isn't going to match with yours. So make sure you are very aware of who you hang out with.

This happened to me with clients that I was working with who would constantly bitch about their body, would constantly say negative things about other people. And I just thought, do you know what, you're not the energy that I need in my day to day, regardless of how famous you are, actually, I just don't need to be around you. And I started to look at my own friendship circles and who I was hanging out with, I was like, these people aren't making me feel good. and I started to look at my own friendship circles and who I was hanging out with, I was like, these people aren't making me feel good. Why am I even spending my time with them?

Like, this is not helping me. This isn't giving me inner joy. This is only making me feel rubbish. You're out. See, I love this. This is a very important point that not many people make nowadays, which is that we all have a

choice. We all get to, we don't get to control, but we all get to decide how our day is going to go and how we're going to interact with people. And how you react to things as well. And I think a lot of time with social media. So for example, like you said, when I was talking about Kris Jenner and the Kardashians there, you know, it's again, we can go into a place of blaming them, blaming the Kardashians for all the ills of the world, you know, and actually, it's about and you articulate this beautifully, it's about choosing how to interact with this stuff.

And if you interact at all. Yeah. choosing how to interact with this stuff because- And if you interact at all. Yeah, and also because that, when I put my energy into shaming other people and getting angry with things, and it's okay to get angry, look, I think it's okay, but it's then you've got to kind of take a deep breath and like, how am I gonna move this on so that it's actually helpful to me?

And not just me sitting and simmering in fucking resentment. No, because this actually for me as an alcoholic person with a history of depression, this shit is life or death, actually. Because if I get sucked down into negativity, that's me gone for the rest of the day, possibly the rest of the week, possibly the rest of the month. And I have to say one of the most powerful things I've learned since getting sober is learning to look at what my heart and something is. And that's not how am I bad? How have I done something wrong? Why am I allowing this to bother me? What about this situation is firing something up in me? Because if something fires up in me, there's a message trying to be told. And it's not Chris Jenner's fault.

I don't follow any of the Kardashians or the Jenners. I just don't follow them. Not because I don't like them. I've worked with Kendall Jenner. She's actually lovely. But it's just not my vibe. And that's okay. We hear a lot about manifesting. And manifesting, there are people who've made all big careers out of manifesting. But manifesting, there are people who've made all big careers out of manifesting, but manifesting, when you boil it all back, is actually just prayer repackaged.

Manifesting is one of the oldest things in the world, but there is two types of manifesting, which not many people talk about. There's positive manifestations and there's negative manifestations. Both of them work. I have been on countless girls' nights out because I'm a girls' gay

and collective negative manifesting about bodies is a thing where one will say, I hate my thighs. Someone else will say, oh my God, no, I hate my boobs. I hate my hair. Oh, I wish my hair wasn't so thin. Round the cauldron it goes. I used to chime in with the things that I hated. I used to sit there and go, oh my god, I really hate my love hands, blah blah blah blah blah. But actually, I then realized that if I keep chiming in just for the sake of the conversation, I'm walking away from that thinking that that is reality.

Now, if I hear that conversation start, going back to your point about choice, well, I have the choice to chime in or not. And usually I just won't. I'll get up and leave. I'll go like take a phone call, go to the bar, whatever, go back, or I'll pull someone up. I'll be like, do you actually realize what you're doing? Because this is not

positive. This is not productive. This is not helpful. Like, I'm often people don't even know what they're doing. There have totally been times in my life where my fear of something bad happening has almost like it's worse than the thing happening sometimes. Does that make sense? Fear is often worse than the thing itself. And it can be a case of, you know, if you want to tell your friend that she's negative manifesting or whatever, everything you want is often on the other side of a difficult conversation. So while it might be that, oh, God, I don't want to be this

bitch and tell my friend that she's negative manifesting, actually, if it's going to make you feel better, and it's going to help your friend, then you should say something. And I think often, the conversation isn't opened up enough. You know, I'm one of those people that I kind of don't want to do the surface chat, I want to go straight in and I want to know how people are feeling. It's, it's important to have those conversations. But I don't think a lot of people do. It's all yeah, I'm great. How are you? Yeah, I'm great. How do you

feel? Oh, you look lovely today. And the types of the types of compliments that you give is vital. Next time you pay someone a compliment, think about what you're complimenting you complimenting something on their aesthetic or you're complimenting something deeper. Are you saying Oh, your hair looks nice. Love your outfit, oh, you look great, have you lost weight? Or are you saying, I love how you made me feel?

You've got great energy today, I love how you've pieced that outfit together, I love how you've done your makeup, not I love your eyeshadow. It compliments somebody in a completely different way that's based on their worth, not on just appearance. There is that very simple turnaround instead of saying, you look lovely, you are lovely.

And it means so much more. Yeah, it's so much deeper and so much more powerful. Again, you have the choice in how you pay somebody the compliments. This is, it's the ultimate thing where you actually realize that you have the power to get in the driving seat of your own life and how you operate and who you are around and the energy that you command within a room

is based on you. So stop waiting for someone else to do it. Stop waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel. Light it up yourself. Yeah. Up light yourself. Up light yourself. That'll be my next book. Up like yourself. So the confidence ritual, it has a day by day ritual. So you can implement it every day of the week. Let's talk about Mondays. So Mondays have such a bad rep.

Oh my god, terrible rep. And I hate that. Monday is actually a day of opportunity. It's a day where the week really opens itself up. You are totally in control of how your week's gonna be. I used to be so prone to the inner bitch on a Monday morning. I'd look in front of the mirror,

I'd be like, you look shattered. You know, your outfit's rubbish. Your skin looks crap. And it would just, that's how I'd start my Monday. So before you've even kickstarted Monday off, I love doing a Sunday night spa night where last night, oh, the hair is freshly washed. I put my tan on. I made myself feel better.

So that first thing Monday morning, the inner dialogue is lovely. I never hit snooze on a Monday morning. And I think that is game changing. Even if you don't do this on every other day of the week, just have a go at doing it on Monday. Just Monday. Or if you're listening to this on a Monday,

try it tomorrow morning, don't snooze. Just one morning, that's all I'm asking. One morning, and then just get up and see how different you feel in that day. Can I confess something? You can confess anything. I never hit the snooze button anymore. Me either.

Isn't that amazing? I've never even thought about that. The snooze button used to be, it was like, ah, ah, ah, ah, I'll text someone and I'll explain why I'm gonna be late. And now, this is even more incredible, Jules, I wake up before my alarm most days. It's the best, a morning culture, I just love it.

Yeah. But also it's about setting yourself tasks for the week that you know are gonna make you feel good. Remember Monday is not this, oh, I hate my job, I hate my life, I hate everything about this day. It can be, what can I achieve this week? Can we plan a workout this week? And I'm not saying drop and give me 20. It can be, can you walk back from work? Can you spend more

time in nature? Can you hang out with a girlfriend that makes you feel amazing? All these little tick lists, Monday could actually be the day that you completely align your week. If you are struggling on a Monday, remember the underpants theory, say something lovely to yourself, but also uncoreographed dance routines in front of the mirrors you're getting ready is the one. It will just make you feel so much better. Dancing in the mirror. Or around your bedroom, uncoreographed. I have a playlist on my phone of just feel good anthems that's for me and me alone. If I need that boost in the morning, then I'm gonna do it.

Monday is not a day that should be treated with a sluggish attitude. And if it is, and if there is something in your life that isn't making you feel good, well, let's have a think about that. Why are we doing that? Why are we going to a job that we hate? What's the point?

It's so true. It's so true. It's so true. It's like we don't think we're allowed happiness. No, but you absolutely are. But the thing is, the reason I split it into the days of the week is because I think a lot of personal development books that are out there, which I've read, it's all, everything is just given to you without any practical alignment. And actually you don't have to do everything on one day. You don't have to do it all on the day that you're reading it. You can decode it and chop it up into bite-sized chunks. And actually when you do it on repeat,

because each week repeats and it's not, there is no switch that's gonna be like, Brian, here you go, here's the best go up of your life, switch on, done. It's like, there is no, there is no switch that's going to be like, Briny, here you go. Here's the best go up of your life. Switch on done. It's like, actually Briny, we're going to have to do a little bit each day. And then ultimately this is going to make you feel better. It takes time. Self-help and self-love is, can get gritty.

It's like peeling off an onion, each layer. There might be tears. It might stink. It might be hard, but when you've chopped that onion up and you've cooked it down a bit, well, quite flavoursome, actually. It's like gratitude, right? When people say do a gratitude list, I used to think fuck off. Yeah. And it's only after sort of two or three years of doing them more or less every day, not

not every day, like I'm not going to pretend I'm perfect. But I realised what they do, it's about changing the way that your brain functions, which is looking for the good in everything as opposed to automatically defaulting to how bad was your day. Because that's essentially what, when people say, how are you, do you know what I mean? We either go, I'm fine, or we kind of sometimes go,

oh, you know, I'm a bit tired., I'm fine, or we kind of sometimes go, oh, you know, I'm a bit tired. You know, it's like we always have to tell each other that we're not feeling great, because if we told each other that we were feeling good, then I don't know, maybe they think we were full of ourselves or something like that. But you control the narrative,

and gratitude is so closely linked to happiness. And if we are constantly focusing on the things that we hate and being a pessimist, well, pessimism is only a form of protection, and it's concealing how we really feel on the inside. Gratitude is very powerful, and it doesn't have to be, I'm grateful for my job, I'm grateful for my house,

I'm grateful for my husband. You can go really niche. I'm grateful for my job, I'm grateful for my house, I'm grateful for my husband. You can go really niche. I'm grateful for running water. I'm grateful that I've got food in the cupboard. I'm grateful that I didn't miss the bus today. You know, it doesn't have to be the big stuff. Someone said to me once, every day on your gratitude list,

you can just have, I flush my toilet with drinking water. Yeah, exactly. It's so true. Oh, yeah. But also, I see a lot of gratitude practices of you have to list 10. Well, 10 is quite hard some days. I say just do five, do five and just focusing on the things that you love and the things that have brought you joy and just keep doing it on repeat. And if you struggle, just set them as your wallpaper on your phone. These five bullet points just set them as your wallpaper on your phone. These five bullet points,

put it as your wallpaper on your phone, leave it there for a week and come back to it the next week. It's your practice, it's your journey, you do it your way. Yeah. What are the things that you do every day that are non-negotiable

in your confidence ritual? Flip the narrative in my head. So, if I'm ever going to a place of negativity when I look in front of the mirror, stop myself right there, no bitch, we are not doing that today. I do not hate my love handles.

I love my eyes, I love my hair, I love my outfit, you're amazing. Texting and making sure I've always got plans in with the people that I love, that I know are gonna lift me up. Gratitude practice, absolutely. Dancing in my kitchen, that is like a go-to for me. If I have an email that comes in or something comes in that stresses me out, I just put the laptop down and have a wiggle around my house.

It might sound ridiculous and my neighbors probably think I'm nuts. Who gives a shit? Who gives a fuck? It makes me feel like the best version of me. And even though I don't work for Isle of Paradise anymore, I still wear my self-taught hand to make me feel good. It is just my go-to beauty treatment and it makes me feel amazing. Exercise.

And God, oh, I always thought exercise was for one type of body and for one type of person. And it absolutely isn't. You make a really good point in the book where you're like, maybe just don't call it exercise. Just call it movement. Yeah, that's a really helpful way of reframing it in itself. Because yeah, exercise is like it's Jane Fonda going for the bird. That was such an old reference.

I loved it. I absolutely loved that reference. I mean, you say Jane Fonda to a gay guy and it's like Christmas every time. No, but movement doesn't have to be, it's not going to a class that you hate. It's not doing exercise that you hate. Your body shows up for you every single day

and it's almost like the least thing you can do for yourself is to just move your body in return. You don't have to do the hardest reforma class. You don't have to run a marathon. You don't even have to do a reforma class. You just do something that makes you feel good, that gives you this hour off your phone. I've definitely got to the stage now where it is become, I think it's the most, like along with not picking up a drink and doing 12 step meetings and stuff, the most important thing is that I do exercise. You know, it's not hard, it's not, but every day an hour of just shaking my body around and like almost, it's almost like shaking

up a can of Coke, you know, it gets Coke. It kind of gets me alive. And it gets me out of my head. And the other thing it does is my head is a bad neighborhood when I wake up in the morning. It's full of fear. It's full of worry and anxiety. And it thinks that the world outside is a terrifying place and that it's out to get me.

And if I immediately get up and go and do some exercise and run around the common or you know, do whatever I, I'm right sized and reminded that it's the world is just spinning and everything is fine. You know, I often tell myself, I don't have time to exercise. Do you mean I've got to do this, I've got to do that. And my biggest reminder is if I give an hour of my day to exercise or movement, it will give me 23 back. Preach, I love this.

It's an investment. It is an investment and it's the best investment your money can make because if you can afford to buy four coffees a week, you can afford a class. And even if you only do one class a week, if you do one form of movement a week, well, it's better than none. But it's your body, you are in control of your life essentially.

And if you resist movement, the first workout you ever do, oh my God, it'll be fucking awful. It will, if you don't work out at the moment. And the second and the third. And the second and the third. And do you know what, it's always awful. But actually the feeling afterwards, I remember someone talking to me about endorphins

and I was like, what are they? I've never had them. And it was only like a year in that I was like, oh, to me about endorphins and I was like, what are they? I've never had them. And it was only like a year in that I was like, oh, these are what endorphins are. I've got it. But you have to remember, and there's things like, if you are in this place of body hatred and exercise, you know, putting on Lycra or going to a gym

or doing some form of movement feels horrific because of how you feel in your body. God, I get it. You can go for a walk. It doesn't cost any money to go for a walk. Go for a walk in nature. Don't have any tech on you. Just have an hour off your phone.

Just listen to the sounds. Listen to what's around you. And that's your movement for the week. Start small and build it up. That's why I do the marathons in my pants because there's so much of the athleisure wear, whatever is, about sucking you in. And it's about tummy control and all of that stuff.

And actually, I just find that that's really off-putting and scary for a lot of women and men as well. And so to be able to see a body wobbling around as it does is I think is a powerful message. Do it for the shape of your brain, not the shape of your thighs. Shape of your brain, shape of your thighs. Jules Von Hepp, thank you so much.

Oh my God, I've had a hoot. Well, I don't know about you, but I feel much better about myself after that chat. And I want you to promise me that whenever you're feeling anxious about putting on a swimming costume or a bikini this summer, you're going to play a blast of duels on today's podcast and remind yourself of the absolute queen you are. You belong on the beach in a bikini. Thank you, Jules, for bringing your human sunshine to the life of Briny. To everyone else, don't forget to follow or subscribe, but most importantly, take care of yourself. I'll see you next time.