The Life Of Bryony - Why Body Acceptance Isn’t Always Easy - And That’s Okay

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

In this bonus episode of The Life of Bryony, I'm joined by author and activist, Meghan Crabbe to tackle listener questions about body acceptance, recovery from disordered eating, and queer identity. With warmth and wit, Meghan reflects on the messy parts of self-image and sexuality - offering compassion, radical acceptance, and permission to be human. Whether it’s dealing with tight jeans on a bad day or wondering if your identity is “valid enough,” this is the episode to remind you that you’re already enough, exactly as you are. Megan’s new book, We Don’t Make Ourselves Smaller Here, is out now. WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU Got a question or a story to share? Text or send a voice note on 07796657512 - just start your message with LOB Use the WhatsApp shortcut: ⁠https://wa.me/447796657512?text=LOB⁠ Prefer email? Drop us a line at ⁠[e-mail]⁠ If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need it—it really helps!Bryony xx CREDITS Presenter: Bryony Gordon Guest: Megan Jayne Crabbe Producer: Henry Williams Audio & Video Editor: Luke Shelley Content Editor: Joseph Palmer Executive Producer: Mike Wooller A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode of The Life of Briny is sponsored by Asda. Celebrating 60 years of great family value. That's Asda Price. Welcome to The Life of You, our bonus series where we answer your questions and try to make sense of life's messier bits. I'm joined again by the brilliant Meghan Jane Crabb, author of We Don't Make Ourselves Smaller Here. You are absolutely valid in your identity. You do not have to have ever had an experience with a woman. There are plenty of bisexuals with male partners.

Your questions answered right after this. This is from Grace. She says, why am I still obsessing over my body? I'm in recovery from disordered eating and I know all the body positive stuff, but I still have days where I'm panicking over my genes feeling tight. It makes me feel like I failed. Is there ever a point where body acceptance is just easy?

Oh, Grace. Grace, give yourself some grace. Yeah, please. Literally, you've been through and you've overcome so much. We are not eliminating diet culture to then be mean to ourselves for not rejecting it thoroughly enough. I think you do not have to aim for loving your body.

Body neutrality, as we've talked about, is more than good enough and a wonderful place to try and land. But please, like, we cannot be mean to ourselves when we don't hit it every day because you're up against the lifetime of conditioning from, you know, when you are old enough to start taking in the images and messages and lessons of diet culture until now. The dolls that your mother, your parents gave you. Give yourself at least that long to try and unlearn it.

Also, I would say I just I've been reading a lot of work by an amazing woman called Tara Brack and she, Grace, go and look her up on something like an app like Insight Timer, which is meditation or something, but she's written lots of books and she talks about radical acceptance. And it's accepting that we don't like we have this ridiculous expectation where it's like, when will I only be happy? When will I only be happy? Think good thoughts? And when will I be Zen and perfect? And that time grace is never. Unfortunately, perfect. And that time, Grace, is never. Unfortunately. And we must radically accept that we every day will have unhelpful thoughts, we will have intrusive thoughts, we will have, you

know, thoughts that are easy, thoughts that are hard. And that's just being human. So when they come, just be like, oh, hi there, you know, and just let them be. And don't beat yourself up. Don't have a bad thought, then beat yourself up for having a bad thought. Like for fuck's sake, like we've got better things to be doing with our time. Absolutely. Have the bad thought and go, oh, look, I'm a human. This is a paid advertisement from Asda.

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or it doesn't count. Can I still claim a queer identity if I'm not ready to explain or perform it for others? Right, so here's the thing about that. People who are straight do not spend their time questioning whether they are gay enough to be gay. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true, yeah gay. You know, you are absolutely valid

in your identity. You do not have to have ever had an experience with a woman. There are plenty of bisexuals with male partners. They are still valid. They still deserve to call themselves queer and to be accepting of that part of their identity. And no, you do not need to like perform or prove anything to anyone else. There's no certificate that prove anything to anyone else. There's not a certificate that you have to apply for. There is not babe. I mean, maybe get a carabiner or A what?

Those like those things that hold your keys, those metal things, they're called carabiners. Oh are they? They're quite a universally queer symbol for women. Oh are they? Okay, I'm obviously not queer enough. I'm too straight. We'll get you one. We'll get you on. We'll get you on. But no, there is no certificate and you are already valid as you are, babe. Yeah. And also, like, I guess, like, it's that thing of, it's like, again, we overthink these things. It's like, there's got to, again, it's that, like, I need to be the perfect

Oh, my, yes. Perfect version of a bisexual. Exactly 50% into men and exactly 50% into women. Oh, it's too much It's just let yourself let yourself be and let yourself explore And again, don't be mean to yourself about it. Hallelujah. Megan Jane Crabb. Thank you so much. Thank you A massive thank you to Megan her book book, and I'm going to say this in capitals, We Don't Make Ourselves Smaller Here, is out now. If anything we talked about struck a chord with you, please pass it on. It helps more than you know. Take care of yourself and I'll see you next time.