The Therapy Edit - One Thing with Alex Light on why you are NOT a before picture

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

In this Friday guest episode of The Therapy Edit, Anna chats to Alex Light, body confidence influencer who is committed to helping women across the world feel better in their own skin. Alex's One Thing is the consistent piece of advice she offers up to women everywhere - You are NOT a before picture! Alex's own fashion range is an extension of her online work, and she has created each piece with the hope it will help women to feel happy and confident exactly as they are.You can follow Alex on Instagram here.You can shop from her range and learn more here.You can also buy Alex's book - 'You Are Not a Before Picture' here.

Hello and welcome to The Therapy Edit with me, psychotherapist, mum of three and author Anna Martha. Every Friday, I invite one guest to tell me the one thing they would most like to share with mums everywhere. So join with me as we hear this dose of wisdom. I hope you enjoy it. Hi everyone, welcome to today's guest episode of The Therapy Edit. I am so excited to help with me today, Alex. I have followed Alex for a very long time now. I can't even remember how long. I think she was a fix. She's been a fixture on my feed for years. And her tagline is, you are not a before picture. And I think we all need to really absorb those words repeatedly sometimes, especially with the messaging that is coming at us in thick and fast from our culture. She shares the journey of recovering from an eating disorder. And she just also encourages people in the same. name. She is co-host of the number one podcast, shall I delete that? It is absolutely amazing. She does it with M. Clarkson, who has actually been on this podcast before to go and find that episode.

They are, they absolutely love diving headfirst into the nuance that is often left out of the polarizing conversations that take place on social media. They literally dive deep as they've written on their little bio on the podcast into the gray areas. is they talk to experts tackle shame, which is one of my favorite things, most important things to do. And they certainly do have a laugh along the way, as do you when you have a listen. Alex is also founder of sustainably sourced and ethically made clothing brand, Light London, which is on Instagram as at Light underscore LDN. Sizes 6 to 30, so incredibly inclusive as well.

So, hey, there's a little bio for you. How about it? That's such a lovely, lovely introduction. Thank you so much. It's lovely to chat with you because as I say, I've followed you. And just I think the wonderful thing about the good accounts that we follow on social media is that kind of like drip feeding of really, really good, grounded kind of narrative shifting stuff that, you know, it starts shifting and challenging that subconscious narrative that many of us have around our bodies and the shoulds and the aims that we've been told to hold. So thank you. for that drip feeding into into my subconscious mind. It is incredibly important. So how are you today?

I'm good. I'm really good. I'm excited to be here and excited to be on this podcast. Thank you so much for asking me. You're normally on the other end of it, aren't you? I know. I know. It's really funny. I'm so much better at interviewing people than being interviewed, which I probably shouldn't admit, just as I'm about to be interviewed. But, yeah, it's fun to be on this side of it as well.

It's really fun. I enjoyed it. You never know what's going to come out or where the conversation's going to go. Whereas I guess when you're hosting it, you've got that. You know the questions that you've kind of lined up. You've done your research on the person. It probably feels a little bit more comfortable in some ways, isn't it? You're in control. You're in control.

And I'm a control freak. So that helps. You prefer that seat. But it is very, yeah, it's wonderful to have you on the other side. So, Alex, lots of our listeners and moms on the school run. pushing babies and buggies around the, you know, the park, hopefully in the sunshine at this time of the year, often in the drizzle, I often imagine as I'm recording this podcast. But I would love to hear what message you have for those listening. What's the one thing that you would love to put in areas? I'm going to hammer once again the message that you mentioned in my bio as well, which is that you are not a before picture and that life is way too short to. live as though you're a before picture. And I think I spent, like I imagine, a lot of people

listening, I spend a really long time like seeing myself as this before picture. So, you know, if you can picture the typical before and after picture, the before, someone's like, they're bigger, they're sad, they're unhappy, you know, their demeanor, they're slumped. And in the afternoon, they've had their quote unquote glow up. They've lost weight. They're suddenly, happy, they're wearing makeup, their hair's done, they're sitting tall, standing straight. And I had just spent so long waiting for my glow up and not seeing my current, you know, myself at the time as something or someone that was worthy of living a truly fulfilling, you know, big and happy life. I just thought I didn't deserve it until I looked like my after picture.

I didn't deserve all the nice and happy things that I just wasn't worthy. And I think that really took a toll on me mentally and physically because it meant that I was constantly on a lot of diets, which is really bad for your physical health. I'm definitely, you know, super detrimental to your mental health, as you know. And I can't take that time back, obviously. But I'm now in a place where I don't, I know, that no matter what my body looks like, no matter what I look like, I am deserving of good things

and a big full life. And that has nothing to do with my appearance. And I really want people, I really want to help people feel like that too, because I just feel like so many of us, particularly women, are kind of just wasting away our lives, thinking, oh, I'll do that when I've lost half a stone. You know, I'll wear that when I've, I'm the dress size down. or I'll go to the beach with my kids when I, you know, when, when, when, it's all when. And for most of us, because dieting is so ineffective, for most of us, that when never actually materialises, you know, we never actually get what we perceive, you know, what we imagine to be our after picture. We never actually achieve that. And so what happens? We spend our lives,

you know, not allowing ourselves things. And it just, it's incredibly sad, I think, and it's just such a waste of precious time and precious energy and capacity. So that is that is 100% by one thing that whole aim and mission is just to relieve people, particularly women, of this sense that they're not good enough until they look a certain way because it is not true. Yeah. Yeah. And I think exactly what you're saying about, what do we suspend, what gets held back in the meantime. what are we not allowing ourselves to have by ways of good things and appreciation and self-respect and self-kindness and yeah while in that waiting for something that will probably never happen and it's not it's not always i mean sometimes people do reach their goals but i can personally say

that when i've historically i've got a history also of eating disorders in my younger years and i've reached some goals but i didn't feel how expect to feel. I wasn't okay. And I think I had it my mind that everything would fall into place when I looked a certain way and things didn't. In fact, they were, I felt worse. Right. So then I was thinking, well, do I then need to try harder? Do I need to move the goalposts when actually, you know, I look back and I feel so sad. We put so much of life and the good things that enrich our lives on pause and we deserve so much more than that. Yeah. For, That is something that's so important to bring up as well, that I, similar to you, you know,

I've had a history of eating disorders and that for me was really something really confronting and horrifying was that reaching these goals that I'd set, like, when I reach this on the scales, I'm going to be happy, I'm going to wear this, I'm going to go out there, I'm going to do this, I'm going to be happy, realizing that when I hit those goals, I wasn't actually, you know, this happiness didn't come flooding in. That was really, you know, I say horrifying because that's how it felt at the time to be like, okay, so what now? Yeah.

Like you said, do I, do I then, you know, set myself a different goal? Do I go lower? And then maybe when I hit that mythical number, maybe that's when I'll feel it. And the truth is, you know, that for most people, that's just not how it works. Because hitting an arbitrary number on a scale or fitting into a, arbitrary dress size like that doesn't that is that is not what you know humans that's not where humans derive happiness you know that's from like connection and like engagement with other people and community like and I don't want to minimize anyone's because I know that plus size people have a

really you know difficult time and they're treated badly because of their size and so therefore you know in some instances it can be it can increase happiness to lose weight but on the whole this idea of having this specific goal where we're going to feel like nirvana this is it like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow there isn't a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and I think it's so important to know that rather than just just wasting or wasting away like chasing this chasing this thing that we're probably never going to reach yeah and all self-acceptance being pinned on that success when actually, you know, if I, if I translate this often as I do to think about behaving this way towards someone that I care about or someone that I love and I think about

my partner, I think about my children. I think what would it be like for me to say, I will only treat you kindly if you get this mark in your schoolwork. I will only treat you with respect and gentleness when you've achieved this. You know, it's pinning all of that which which we deserve along the way. And I think even when we're trying to, sometimes we, you know, we want to make changes in our lives, perhaps and our bodies, perhaps we want to grow stronger, perhaps, you know, for health reasons, we need to address weight when actually we can accept ourselves. We can find ways to accept ourselves along the journey, can't we? Yeah. And I think what you just said then is such an important

reframe and one that was incredibly powerful for me. in how I spoke to myself was that switching or applying how I spoke to myself to someone else and applying the rules that I had for myself to someone else was really shocking, you know, because I would never treat anyone else the way that I would treat myself in regards to weight. And, you know, if you think about all the people that you love, the people that you really love and you really cherish in your, really special to you in your life, Does that have anything to do with their appearance or their weight? Is it because they're thin?

Is it because they've got a flat tummy? Is it because they've got a thigh gap? Like I can almost like 100% guarantee you that the answer to that is no. It's nothing to do with how they look. It's what they bring to your life. It's your interactions with them. Like how they make you feel. That's what's important.

And yet I just feel like we're placing that society really. like we're programmed culturally to to expend our energy elsewhere, you know, in a place where it actually doesn't really matter. But I think what you said is really important, that reframe of catching how you're talking to yourself and the rules and the goals that you set for yourself because they're just, you would just never apply it to anyone else. You just wouldn't, you know, often we do, you know, I think it's so revealing, isn't it, that we tend to find it so much easier to have respect and compassion and kindness for other people

than we do for ourselves. And I think also putting on hold the acceptance of other people's love and care towards you until you get to a certain place in life or a certain weight in life. You know, I have definitely found that the more entrenched and the more driven I have become to get to a certain place, the more space that's taken up in my head space, you know, the more self-critical and perfectionist I am in myself. And then you almost feel like an imposter in your own life. Like you feel undeserving of the love and kindness of other people. And everything in your mind hinges on this one place, this one goal.

And you think, when I get there, then I'll feel deserving of all of this, both from myself and others. And we put life on hold. And in reality, we don't have that much control over how long we're here. You know, we think I'm going to wait to live my life when I get to this place. But I think as we grow older, as we grow older and as we get more exposure on social media to other people's stories, we know so well that actually life is fragile. And when it all hangs in the balance and if we ever get that curveball phone call

and our heart skip so many beats, really what matters suddenly comes to the forefront and it's probably not the things that often fill up so much of our thoughts. Right. And it's no one's fault. That's the thing as well. I think I felt really, when I started to uncover all of this,

I felt really, for lack of a better word, stupid for not having challenged all these beliefs and behaviours that I had and not thinking critically about, them, but it's not our fault. It's how we are, like I said, culturally programmed and it's unsacient, unconditioned as well in society. It's just we are, the emphasis is, the emphasis is for women, particularly on our appearance. Like, that's our social currency. That's our value. That's what gets us far in the world. That's what we have been taught. So it's very normal that we

end up feeling like this and end up striving to reach a standard of beauty, you know. So it's not our fault, but I do think that the sooner we can dismantle that and debunk that and challenge that in our own heads, the sooner we're going to be able to actually fill our lives with what feels genuinely meaningful to us and fulfilling. So I'd say, like, that's, I think that's like an important thing, not to blame yourself and not to feel like, God, how did I miss that? Like, how, you know, we just, we don't know, you don't know any different until you know different, right? It's the power. There are means way beyond our control that, you know, as I was saying about your Instagram

feed and how much it kind of has drip fed into my subconscious narrative, like that bit of us that is just there in the background, that we don't realize quite how much affects our behaviours and the way that we think. You know, the media has been plowing a very different narrative into our mind. So it's understandable. And I think if we struggle with self-worth and self-esteem, like, many of us do. And then we have a culture that says, I know the way that you can fix that. I know the way that you will, this will get you confident. This will make you feel deserving

of love and good things. So we then pin it on that which we're told is, you know, where it all hangs. So we're going to go, we're going to want to go after the thing that promises us that we'll find confidence and acceptance in ourselves. And I think, I don't know about you, but as I address my own attitudes to us food and my body and as I've done it with clients along the way, you just don't need to peel back many layers to realise that actually we need to start working on our self-esteem and self-worth in and of ourselves regardless of where we are, what we've achieved, what we look like. And our self-compassion. Yeah. I think that for me was one of the biggest things, you know, like harnessing that and cultivating that. And I mean, it was like

when I first started my recovery for eating disorder, like it was, it was such a foreign concept to me that I couldn't, you know, initially, I wasn't able to tap into any self-compassion. And as I've managed to foster that along the way, that's been one of the biggest things that has brought me some kind of peace.

Yeah. So, as I'm sure you are too, I'm huge on self-compassion. Yeah. Something that we're all lacking, really heavily lacking. and something that, you know, if we can work on it, will just bring so much peace to our lives, for sure.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, such powerful words. So thank you so much. I've got a couple of quick, five questions just because we're nosing we love to hear a little bit more about you. What's a high for you in life at the moment? What are you really enjoying? Oh, my God.

Put me on the spot. Yeah. What are I enjoying? I am, this is really basic. I feel like everyone kind of went through this like five years ago, but I'm like the ultimate people pleaser, so bear with me, okay? I am enjoying putting boundaries in place and doing them in a really kind and gentle way that feels, that feels right for me.

And I've really struggled with that a lot. It's taken me a long time to come, to be able to put any boundaries in place and say no when I need to say no. but I am enjoying that right now I'm taking pleasure in it. It's kind of like a panic that turns into pleasure so oh yeah you start feeling really sweaty when you start doing it and you think that everything's

going to fall apart and people are going to say how dare you and run away from you but actually you realise that people can handle you and people can you know a lot of people will respect you and actually it's really honouring for the relationship because you're being more wholehearted with your yeses so I love that and finally what's something that makes you feel good that you do in the day to

say you like oh i love breathing but not just the air of breathing i love guided breathing i find that you know i am actually really trying meditation once again um i i find it difficult um but guided breathing is something that kind of keeps my mind occupied and i feel this like euphoria afterwards it's super powerful for me in reducing anxiety so that is amazing i loved And do you use apps or what do you do? Where do you get the? I use the app called breath work without breath work. Yeah. Right. Breath work. Amazing. Well, that's definitely one to look up. That sounds so good. Yeah. I I never realized. I know we breathe all the time, but never realized quite how shallow I breathe sometimes and how brilliant it is just to recognize and learn how to breathe deeply and in a way that can

energize you and relax you. There are so many different ways to do it, isn't there? So thank you for that little reminder and the app recommendation. But it's wonderful to have you. Alex, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. I encourage everyone. Head to your page. And also just have a listen to the podcast. Shall I delete that because people will love it if they haven't already discovered it. So thank you for your time. What a treat. Thanks, Alex. Thank you. much for listening. Please do take a moment to subscribe, rate and review as it really helps get these words out to benefit more juggling parents like us. And head to annamartha.com

to find my resources on everything from health anxiety to people pleasing, starting at only £20. And finally, don't forget to pre-order my new book, Raising a Happier Mother, how to find balance, feel good and see your children flourish as a result. I can't wait for you to have that. Take care. And we'll chat. soon.