The Life Of Bryony - The Life of YOU: Can Running Solve ALL Your Problems?

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

Welcome to The Life of YOU, where you share your dilemmas and we try our best not to make things worse. In this bonus episode, I’m joined by the amazing Adele Roberts (yes, she's back!) as we tackle your life’s most pressing issues. In this episode, we hear from Sarah, who's battling the body wash blues (yes, that's a thing), Samantha, who's going all out with the filters, and Rosie, a mum trying to run her way to inner peace... WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU You know what they say about a problem shared? Why not get in touch!  🗣️I’m only a text or a voice note away send your message to 07796657512 start your message with LOB OR if you want to make it a bit more anonymous - you can always email 📧[e-mail]   And hey, don't forget to subscribe and rate the podcast (apparently, the higher-ups say it's vital). No pressure, though. Bryony xx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to, drumroll please, the life of you, which is basically the life of Bryony's bonus episode. Essentially, Mondays we tackle my problems and the problems of my guest, Fridays I pass the mic to you, the wonderful listener. People have been in touch. And as I suspected, you have just as many problems as I do. I'm joined once again by broadcaster and world record holder Adele Roberts. If you missed my chat with her on the last episode, do go back and have a listen. It was a cracking episode. And I'm not just saying that because i'm the host today on the life of you sarah is tackling a body wash battle is there such a thing as showering with

confidence samantha is having a filter fiesta on instagram but her mate emily is absolutely not having it and rosie's on the run or at least she's thinking about it all of your problems solved right after this okay here we go from Sarah hi Bryony and Adeele i'm in a bit of a body blues spiral every morning i drag myself into the shower ready to lather up and start the day but instead of feeling refreshed i just feel well gross my torso is especially getting me down it's like the body wash is highlighting all the bits i'd rather ignore and i cannot look directly into the mirror when drying myself i'm in my mid-40s with a pretty decent diet aside from my not so secret addiction to mini almond

magnums i think we've all been there yeah i'm finally intelligent enough to know that restrictive diets don't really work and just make me miserable there must be a way to feel good and not hate the process so how do i start feeling better about this body of mine especially during those vulnerable shower moments i'm all about body positivity but i could use a bit of a boost and maybe some tips to actually feel it all the love Sarah right okay Sarah thank you for writing to us uh first of all be grateful for your body because you obviously have a body that works yeah you can get it into the shower yeah another thing that I like to do is really activate my senses. So since chemo took my senses away, I now appreciate them even more. So make sure you have top class stuff to wash your beautiful body in.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So now she's got to reimagine her body. It's a Ferrari now. It's a gorgeous car. You got to look after it. You got to wash it in nice stuff. Yeah.

And then I think when it comes to the fuel, it's what you said before about making sure that you nourish your body. So make sure that your body is built with quality fuel from the ground up. And it's OK to have the odd magnum as long as the rest of it is just good, gorgeous food. So that's something that I've started doing, just making sure that I eat natural food. And that changed my relationship with food. Yeah. Well, just anything that you cook yourself. If if you cook your own food you know what's in it also sarah says i'm all about body positivity but i could use a bit of a boost to actually feel it i think that a lot of women would find that relatable how there's this kind of shame of not liking our bodies and then the shame of not being at the stage where we feel

able to like our bodies so it's like this extra big shame sandwich that we're dolloping on ourselves and i would say to you sarah that it's okay that you don't like your body in fact it's entirely appropriate given the society that you have grown up in rome was not built in a day and it will not be unbuilt in a day so it is perfectly normal that you don't like your body because you've grown up with loads of messaging that's told you not to like your body and just because for a couple of years there's been body positivity it doesn't mean that you should suddenly be cured like do not give yourself that extra shame sarah is what i would say and here's the thing instead of thinking of body positivity maybe just be like instead of standing in the mirror and being like i'm gonna love myself just make your aim for the day to not stand in the mirror telling yourself how much you hate

yourself yes i think oh my god you're good at this hi brian and adele i need your magic advice on a tricky situation with my friend let's call her samantha samantha has recently gone full throttle with the filters on her instagram i'm talking the kind that makes her look like a computer generated bratz doll i don't think she's doing this in a fun ironic way either and while i love her to bits i can't help but worry that it's not exactly healthy i mean she's gorgeous as she is but it seems like she doesn't see that anymore how on earth do i bring this up without sounding like i'm criticizing her i genuinely want her to feel confident and beautiful

without the digital tweaks but i'm terrified of coming across as judgmental making her feel worse i want her to love herself as much as i do filter free i've struggled with my own body image and seeing her rely so heavily on these filters kind of hits close to home it makes me wonder if i'm just projecting my own insecurities onto her maybe i'm the one who needs to take a closer look in the mirror any advice on how to have this conversation gently and with love would be a lifesaver also if you've got any tips on how to boost her confidence without making it weird i'm all ears yeah i'm not very good with the whole filter world because I don't really use them I'm not really the sort of person that would but I remember speaking to somebody better not say any names but somebody let's call them Samantha yeah Samantha when I

spent some time in the jungle Samantha said that she also regretted using filters and she now can't post on Instagram without using filters. Really? Yeah. You thought that it was all natural. Yeah. And then you went into the jungle and went, whoa.

But I think that's the point though, isn't it? I think that the more time we spend away from our screens and the more time we spend in real life, as you look around, you'll realise what people actually really look like. And I think it's just

readdressing the balance of how much time we spend online. Yeah, down internet holes. I also have something I would like to say to Emily which is that it's none of your damn business what Samantha does with her face on Instagram yeah I really do think it's interesting and I kind of feel like Emily not her real name does kind of hint at this in her letter by saying maybe I'm the one who needs to take a closer look in the mirror and I just think if we all spent less time policing other people and more time with ourselves we'd all just be a lot happier like Samantha is at a stage where she feels that

she has to do this and that's where samantha is on her journey right now emily is not on that bit of her journey and she is anti-filters and that's okay for emily but what is right for emily right now may not be right for samantha right now and we have no idea what's going on in samantha's life and i should she talks with her because no i don't think it's anyone's place to talk to sam about her Bratz doll filters. Like, you know, it's one of those things. But I think what you could do is instead of like criticizing her or going at her and having a conversation with her where she feels awkward, which I can guarantee you is not going to make her feel like she wants to ditch the filters and be seen for her real self

all warts and all i can guarantee you emily it will have the opposite effect so maybe what you could do instead of judging her for her use of filters is maybe just let her know how much you love her however she shows up you're amazing do you know what though like if my sister started using filters like maybe if you saw a change in someone would you like maybe try and help them you know if you were like all of a sudden ask if they're okay yeah like are you okay but i think being specific and being like i've noticed you're using filters and i just think it's not a cool look i just think it's not i don't think that's a cool look i think you're right and I think maybe it's like oh I just wanted to let you know I think you're amazing however I don't know like I think yeah if you notice a marked

change in someone's behavior like it's worth just checking in with them to see if they're all right yeah well I just want to say Bryony um I've noticed you've been using I was saying I don't I don't use filters in fact i'm like the anti-filter and i i have to say it's i you know some people say that they use instagram as like a highlight reel i was saying this earlier my instagram is like a low light reel like the i go through i go that's a really bad picture i'm gonna use that one because i'm like all about like being real you know and then the other day i was at this festival and this woman said god you're much more beautiful in the flesh

than you are on instagram and i was like thanks i'm not rosie and i'm brian but i'm pretending to be rosie i'm rosie a knackered mum of one who somehow convinced herself that running will be the answer to all life's problems i don't know why you're writing to us rosie wine and chocolate got me through my 20s but my metabolism can't keep up anymore so i've had to bin them off i hope that's a little bit you can have a little bit no i think that's yeah i just think metabolism schmabolism yeah here's the thing i'm working part-time and parenting full-time so i'm both time poor and money poor also the last time i ran was probably to catch an ice cream van so i need your expert advice are there any free tools or

sneaky tricks i can use to start running and what's the best way to fit it around a busy schedule i think um plan plan plan commit put your kit out the night before start off walking and build your way up so that you don't immediately dislike it and then give up yeah yeah don't bite off more than you can chew yeah people do that they're like commit to running a marathon and it's like you don't need to do that get couched to 5k because they are brilliant yeah run walking that i always um start off there and then secondly i trained for my first two marathons whilst being on early breakfast so i used to have to get up at two in the morning what still yeah still managed to fit my training in around it so so rosie so we're gonna shame you to train for her two marathons you've only got one child it so so rosie so we're gonna shame you all i was gonna say is get up at two in the morning

to train for her two marathons you've only got one child rosie some people have four or five and they still do it spencer matthews three children ran 30 marathons in 30 days i was just gonna say sometimes you can change your commute for a run so that's what i started to do yeah so right lazy rosie get out of the bus i stopped before and and you can do things as well like you know chase your children they'll keep you going see it as you time yeah like as well like i think it's like we've got to stop seeing it as like like it's an investment and i sometimes think that if i give an hour of my day to running, it will give me 23 back because I feel so much better after I've done it.

It's like a sift through my head. So I think it's changing. And also, I really think that if you do it for the way it makes you look, you're never ever going to love it or commit to it long term. Like, it's got to be about the way it makes you feel so like try and shed that whole thing about how running is about making yourself thin or making yourself small it's not that it's about I think I mean we said this on our main episode but like it's about making your life bigger yeah and you know and expansive and just enjoying yourself and getting

fit and healthy and like you say if you set time aside to enjoy yourself so for example me and kate will watch things on tv together at night and we might watch three episodes of something whereas um yeah you'd only watch two episodes rosie and then use that third hour on yourself yeah running yeah working out watch less telly that's what i was basically saying watch less telly also do it with your partner because me and Kate do yoga together on a Monday night now and I love it I used to hate yoga but now I get it I'm like oh right I do go on dates with my husband exercise like we don't have anything in common other than exercise since I got sober burpees yeah so we do enjoy we do enjoy

we do like crossfit together or we go and run a half marathon around cornwall but that's beautiful time spent together it wasn't i he was so annoying because he's like you he's like he's like you he's like you and that's why it was so annoying no he's like you and then he's really fast but you know when people are really fast and they try to be like they think they're being helpful by like slowing down and and be running next to you and i'm like don't patronize me fuck off go you go to the front and wait for me and i'll catch up with you like he's like oh i just thought i was being helpful i'm like well you're not i hate you goodbye oh rosie i don't think we've helped very much in fact we may have made things significantly worse so this is the really awkward bit of the episode where i

beg you to like subscribe and rate because it makes a massive difference to me but you'll probably not bother and that's okay. I still love you. My love for you is completely unconditional. Do you like and subscribe? Let me know. I don't think I do. And I should.

I feel bad now. Details of how to get in touch, share in the show notes. You can voice note, text or email. I'm very contactable. Frighteningly so. On Monday, I'm chatting to the lovelyames middleton about how important dogs have been for his mental health if you've subscribed i'll see you in your podcast feed again on monday and if you don't subscribe who knows when we'll meet again i'll

leave you with that tragic and sad thought goodbye