The School of Greatness - 717 Love Yourself Authentically with Lindsey Stirling

Episode Date: November 9, 2018

YOUR NEED FOR CONTROL CAN HURT YOU INSTEAD OF HELP YOU. A mental disorder is like an unhealthy relationship. You have to love yourself enough to know that you deserve better. Otherwise, you’re depriving yourself of living a full, abundant life. But it’s not easy. Admitting that you or someone you know is struggling with an eating or mental disorder is scary. That’s why, for this Five Minute Friday, I brought back a powerful conversation I had with Lindsey Stirling where she shared her journey to overcome her eating disorder. Linsey Stirling is an American violinist, dancer, performance artist, and composer. She presents choreographed violin performances, both live and in music videos found on her YouTube channel, which has over 11 million subscribers. Lindsey’s memoir The Only Pirate At The Party is a New York Times bestseller. She has been named in Forbes magazine's 30 Under 30 In Music: The Class Of 2015 and was a quarter-finalist in America’s Got Talent Season 5. Lindsey says that she combatted her disordered thinking with logic and “coached” her mom on the best ways to communicate with her. If you or someone you know is struggling with a mental disorder, help is available. Learn more ways that Lindsey learned to retrain her brain and helped the people around her know how to support her journey to overcome her eating disorder in Episode 717. In This Episode You Will Learn: When Lindsey realized her eating disorder was an issue (1:14) How Lindsey’s disorder affected her relationships (1:50) The gameplan Lindsey created to overcome her disorder (3:30) The best way to support a friend who is struggling (4:00) How you can retrain your brain (5:00)

This is 5-Minute Friday! Welcome everyone to this episode. I'm super excited. Lindsey Stirling is our guest today and I'm super pumped to bring her on. She is one of the biggest artist development breakthrough stories in recent years. A classically trained violinist, she has entered a futuristic world of electronic big beats and animation. Leaping through the music industry with over 7.5 million YouTube subscribers, over a billion views on her channel,

billboard chart-topping hits, and sold-out tours worldwide, this woman is sensational. And I'm super fortunate that I got to spend some time with her and I'm so pumped of what she shares. And when did you realize that, okay, there's something I need to let go of, or I need to move past this challenge or the struggle you're facing? When did you realize it was an issue for you and it was hurting you as opposed to helping you? Yeah, gosh, I was probably 23. It came to my realization when I looked at the relationships I had and I've always been a very much a people person and you know, relationships have been huge for me and especially my sister. She's been my best friend growing up and we shared

a room together and like, you know, just we laughed together so much. And just one day I realized I looked over at her and she was studying. We were roommates in college. She was studying on her bed across the room from me. And I just looked at her and I was like, she's a stranger to me. Like really? Why? I don't know her anymore. And it was because I had become so self-consumed by like my thoughts had completely been controlled by my eating disorder. And slowly I just became this kind of a shell of the person I used to be. Where all I could think about was myself and my worries. And what food is in this room?

And who's here? Who's skinnier than me? Those are the thoughts that kind of had slowly crept in and become normal in my mind. They started very subtly in high school. And then that became all I thought about and all I cared about. And it became all I talked about. And so it's like, I just became this very one dimensional person. And you know, they, you hear a lot that you can't love someone else until you first love yourself. And I learned that firsthand. I didn't love anybody else. I didn't really care about anybody

else because I was consumed by these selfish thoughts of worry about myself. And then also talking to my mom on the phone. My mom kept saying, I think there's something wrong. Moms know everything. They notice. They have this sixth sense. And I kept saying, no, I'm fine. I'm just eating healthy.

And then one day I just kind of confided in her. I cry for no reasons. I can't get out of bed in the morning. I don't even, you know, and she kind of just said the way, you know, the thoughts you're thinking aren't normal, Lindsay. And my mom had dealt with depression in her life, her whole life. My older sister dealt with depression and she explained to me like, what you're talking about is depression. And that just really took me back. Like, that's not my battle. That's, that was your battle. That was Jennifer's back like that's not my battle that's that was your battle that was jennifer's battle that's not what i like i'm not depressed but then i just started

to realize i started to recognize that this isn't the way i was i just i was ready to fight to be happy again because i was so miserable yeah i think it was the memory that i wasn't always this way finally woke me up and i was like if i if I was once different, I can get back to that. Yeah, of course. And I realized I needed to work for it, though. It wasn't just something that I could, it wasn't where I was. Put the switch right away and back to normal. Right.

And so what did you start to do? Did you create a game plan for yourself? Were you like, okay, I need my mom to keep me accountable. I want my friends to call me out on this or what? It all started first with I kind of researched a little bit. Like I wanted to be aware of when I started to finally admit to myself, like, cause my mom was like, you think about food all the time. Like that's not normal. These things, you know, it's all leading up, you know, I was told you have anorexia and I was like, Oh, that's such a terrible word. Like, I don't want to believe I have that. But I started

researching about it and I went to therapy. Like I went to both group therapy and I had an individual counselor. And then I did let my mom help keep me accountable. I kind of gave her that because I didn't tell anybody else. It's a very scary thing to admit, first of all, yourself, then to other people. And so my mom was like my confidant and I kind of taught her the things that were good to say to me. Cause you know, when she'd see me, she, if I was gaining weight, she would say, you look really good. And to me that was like, Oh no, I'm gaining weight. And so I, you know, I coached my mom on, these are appropriate things to say. This is a good way to comfort me. This is not, but also I started listening to the voices in my head and realized that I was so mean to myself. I was really mean to myself. And so I kind of started

to divide almost, this sounds weird, divide my personality. There was really mean to myself. And so I kind of started to divide almost, this sounds weird, divide my personality. There was the eating disorder side of my brain and there was Lindsay and I wanted, and Lindsay had become crushed and covered with this eating disorder side. And so I had to like work on the muscle of Lindsay again. And so I would like talk to my brain and I, when it would tell me really mean things about myself, like you're ugly or you're worthless because you ate that cookie or, you know, I would like talk to my brain and when it would tell me really mean things about myself, like you're ugly or you're worthless because you ate that cookie or, you know, I would then talk to it and combat it by logic. Just actually talking reason and your mind can't argue with reason.

And so I became stronger and I was in. So this eating disorder side of my brain, it's still there. It's extremely small though. And it doesn't come up very often when it does start to come up, like when I get extra stressed or when I start to feel out of control, it tries to like come back and, you know, quote, comfort me in its unhealthy way. It's like an unhealthy relationship, but I know how to talk to it now and I know how to tell it to go away. And I feel like I live a very normal, happy life. I'm back to the Lindsay that I want to be. And as long as I

continue to work at it, I will stay there. And what I think was important that you said is that you coached your mom on how she can communicate with you. And if you don't support the person by telling them what you need and you just expect them to figure it out, it's really challenging. Right. Well, cause it's such a delicate issue when someone's going through any sort of mental disorder, whether it's depression or self-harm. And someone who hasn't gone through it, it's impossible for them to know the triggers.