Episode 31 Transcript

Welcome to The Fierce Fatty Podcast. I'm your host, Victoria Welsby. And this is episode a 31. And today we're talking about the lies we tell ourselves, so we can't get to a place of body love. Let's do it

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you're listening to the face fatty Podcast. I'm Victoria Welsby TEDx speaker, Best Selling Author and fat activist. I have transformed my life from hating my body with desperately low self esteem, to being a courageous and confident first fatty who loves every inch of this jelly. society teaches us living in a fat body is bad. But what if we spent less time, money and energy on the pursuit of thinness and instead focused on the things that actually matter? Like if pineapple on pizza should be outlawed? Or if the mullet was the greatest haircut of the 20th century? So how do you stop a negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the first fatty podcast. Let's begin.

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Hello, hello. Hello, and welcome to this episode. So pleased to have you here and welcome back. If you've tuned in before and Hello, if you've never listened to the show before. I'm so pleased that you're here. I'm feeling pretty good today. I'll tell you why. I got to see my sister and her two children yesterday my nibbling. So Finley who's three years old? And Molly, who is? Gosh, What month is it now? Me she's six months old. So I haven't seen them in February, March, April, May, June, February, March, April, May four months. So I haven't seen Molly, since she was two, two months old. And she's grown so much. Oh my gosh, we went for a walk. So we were allowed the guidance in in Ireland is that we're allowed to have for people from a family meet, as long as they're two meters apart, in and outside space. So we went for a walk along the sea. And it was it was so nice. Like yesterday, I woke up and I was like, oh my god, we got runner adventure, how exciting. Something a few months ago, I would just be like, Oh, this is cool. But you know, I wouldn't be you know, being like this happening. So it was it was really nice. And to see Finley who's almost three now, his speech is like, developed so much is mad. Really it's mad how how kids grow so quickly. So yes, and I have got a few more podcast reviews that have come through. Thank you very much. By the way, if you leave me a podcast review, take a screenshot before you submit it. So you can do that on Stitcher and on iTunes, and email me Victoria at first party a.com. And I will send you a digital and Audio Copy of my best selling book called first party or VHS. February, I'll just send it to you no questions asked. Or maybe if you leave a review and you're like Victoria is a massive knucklehead then maybe I'm not like oh, yeah, what's going on here. But I just wanted to share a couple of rules a couple of them a little bit of the reviews that I've got recently. So this one I got yesterday from Karen and she gave it five stars love this podcast. And I just love to listen to this podcast Victoria is very funny. Thank you. Fabulous. Thank you. Thank you beautiful fat positive role model amazing. This podcast is an absolute must here for anybody who wants to love their body. And the next one I have is from Kate and Kate's reviewed on iTunes and said I cannot get enough five stars. As someone who is struggling to fully accept and love my body. This podcast provides an honest and thoughtful insight in to how to reprogram the fat shame that society has taught us. When I listened to her I felt like my big sister is talking to me about self love, which has always been a dream of mine. Thank you. Thank you you so much, Kate. And thank you everyone who has left a review. The thing about iTunes, it's so effing annoying is iTunes, it only shows reviews from whatever country you happen to be looking at, versus all the reviews that exist of that podcast. And so if you're if you live in a weird country, this is my please leave a review. So I say weird country, a country that is not the United States, Canada or the UK, because that's where that's where most of my reviews come from. But if you live in those countries to leave a review, but if you live in a country, which is not one of those countries and leave a review, you're probably going to be the first one to do it. And you will be participating in fat activism when you leave a review, because it means that more fatties will be able to discover this podcast and learn that their body is just a okay, and realize that diet culture is a motherfucker. And like to eat it into space, as the kids would say. So, yes. Okay, so what we're talking about to do is the stuff the lies that we tell ourselves, so we can't get to a place of body love, go and check out

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the show notes because I've got a resource to to help you with this. It's called the confidence booster book, The confidence booster book. And so it's got like quotes and different things to make you feel good and make you feel like a badass. And it's free, obviously. So go to the show notes first party.com, forward slash 031. And get the confidence booster book that is going to help you with what we are talking about. And the reason why this episode is really important is because people say to me all the time, Victoria, I would love to be confident I would love to accept my fat body. But I would love to feel like you, but I can't do it. I just don't think I can get there. It's not an option for me. I've tried and it's not worked, or I haven't tried, but I just I know there's no point in trying because it's not gonna work. Being like you is not possible, but I admire you for it. And I also want to want it but I am not going to get there. So a lot of people say that, like, I wish I could have your confidence. And I'm just like, cool. Just do it. Just do it. Just do it. And what people hear when I say like you can do it is I don't know. Like, they hear me being like, theoretically you can do it, but you're not gonna do it because you're not the type of person to be able to do it because you're, you know, this is what I presumed people are thinking and what I thought when I wasn't confident, but I'm particularly ugly. Like I'm particularly disgusting. I'm particularly fucked up. My life experiences are particularly bad, so I will never get to a place of confidence like the people around me My family are particularly fat phobic. Have you seen my belly? It's way massive bigger than what we see on Instagram and my tits are extra saggy not like yours and my bomb is flat not like you know big you know what it should be and my cellulite is extra cellulite II and you know, and when I was not confident I would look at confident people and just be like, well, they're you know, they're they have something special or something extra or something about them that I don't have or they underneath their clothes. They might be fat, but they've got perky tits, or they've got a flat stomach or, or they've got some sort of thing that I don't have, which means it's not possible for me. And that my friend is total and complete. What do you think when I say yes, you're right bullshit. Bolted, it is bullshit. But it was also 100% 1,000,000% normal to feel like this. So many people feel like this like that they can't get out there and do certain things. So so it's not possible for them to get there because they have these beliefs that hinder them. And I want to break Some of that down today. So don't feel bad if you're in that position where you're like, I don't quite, I'm not there, I'm worried I can't get there. And, you know, whatever it is that you think is particularly bad about you or your situation. You know, it's normal to feel like that. But let's, let's see if we can turn it around somewhat today, or even turn it all the way around to the end of the episode, you're like, yes, badge, wow. And like flopping your tits out, or traffic lights and stuff, probably don't do that. But you can't have your one. If you're feeling excited. Maybe maybe don't do it while you're actually driving the car. So

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first off, the belief that you can't get to a place where you except your body, or even love your body is a belief. And I've said it before on the podcast of what a belief, it's a belief isn't a fact, a fact, is 100% true 100% of the time, and what makes up our beliefs is information that we've got gathered throughout our lifetime. So you have gathered evidence to that has come to the conclusion of this belief that you can't get to a place of confidence, or you don't know how or or there's, there's some sort of barrier there. There's a belief or many beliefs that are behind that belief, you can't get to a place of body confidence. And remember, these beliefs can feel very, very, very, very real. But they're not set in stone. They're not solid gold fact. And a lot of the times what is happening when you think a negative thing about yourself, or if I think a negative thing about myself, is we are looking at the evidence that we have available to us. And we say, Aha, evidence around me shows that I can't do this thing. And really, we're not a lot of times clearly looking at what evidence we have available to us. Because we're it's like confirmation bias, right. Confirmation bias, Wikipedia says is the tendency to search for interpret favor and recall information that confirms or supports one's prior personal belief or values is a type of cognitive bias. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. So I, throughout my life, I've done this so many times so many times. A big thing, especially when there's very clear evidence to prove that the belief that I have about myself is not true. So for example, I would have the belief that I am bad at my job, I used to be in recruitment, I was in recruitment for 10 years. Now, if you're in recruitment, if you know anything about recruitment. What we do is, you know, you find people and you get them jobs at companies that that type of recruitment I was doing and in house actually. But anyway, that doesn't matter. It is really hard. It is really hard. And so if anyone lost in the recruitment past six months, then they're doing something well. And so not only did I last in recruitment past six months, I was in it for like, almost 10 years. And not only that, I won an award for being the best at my job. And this wasn't on my opinions. This is on the amount of money that I made in my best in my job in the country. Okay, so that is evidence to prove, maybe I might be good at my job. Maybe even if I hadn't won that award and like won a five star vacation and all that type of jazz. There was still evidence to prove that I was good at my job. But still, I would be like, well am I am I though I always you know, the other people that I was competing against for that war award will rubbish and they weren't that good. And that's why I won and only one because I had that lucky break and that thing happened and it wasn't to do with me and only one because this and that so it's not really Based on my skills and, and I would rationalize it a way, which is what we do in humans is when something doesn't align with your beliefs, you either rationalize it away, or you just ignore it. You just be like one award, I didn't win an award. Well, what you don't know, you just ignore it. And, and this is something that people who are intelligent do so studies show, the more intelligent you are, the better you are at twisting data, so to support your beliefs, so

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it means you're skilled. So there you go, you've got some skills. If you do this, okay, so are you looking back in your life and say, Okay, well, you know, I am I am. I mean, I'm just a bit of a loser. I'm a failure. My whole life, I've hated my body, therefore, I can not really love my body in the future. Well, have you ever experienced any type of success in your life? Yeah, of course, you fucking have, like, ELO, you're a human being, like, from the time you were a baby, you have done so much stuff, right? So you learn to do things, for example, like walk or feed yourself, or speak, or know how to work the internet, or you know, so many things, know how to make yourself dinner, be able to get a job or be able to play, be able to brush your hair, you know, these are all skills, these are all achievements, right? When you think about it, a little kid was was learn how to, I don't know, braid their hair up, like, you don't have to braid your hair. That's so good. But you know, as we as we get older, we're like, well, whatever, it's not a big deal. And even our day to day, experiences of getting out of bed, brushing our teeth, maybe you don't brush your teeth, having a shower, maybe you don't have a shower, whatever. Whatever you do in a day, it's success. It's straight up success. And as well, I bet yeah, I betcha. But yeah, you've done other things, like, gotten the job above other people. Like if you ever gotten a job, you were chosen over all of the other applicants. You were the one that they picked? Wow. That's an achievement. them. Have you ever maintained a relationship with fucking Relationships are hard no matter what, no platonic, romantic family, that shit is hard. And you did some amazing things to continue to make that happen or made that happen. And I bet you have other like, you know, really brag worthy things that you've had happen in your life. So we're able to look at those and kind of be like, long, well, even though it's now how you're like, well, that doesn't count. It's not that cool that I learned how to do like, this, like amazing trick on the skateboard or, you know, loads of people can do that. Notice how you're rationalizing away your skills and abilities, or ignoring it, right, because that's the other thing we just poopoo it, which is, you know, whatever, that doesn't count. So you have the skills to be able to get to this place of body acceptance, or body love, you have the skills. They exist within you. And have you ever had moments where you felt good about yourself? Have you ever had moments where you stood up for yourself or you felt like you had more self esteem than you normally did? Did? Have you ever times had times where you've been brave and you've done things that previously you thought that you couldn't do? Well, that's what getting to a place of body love or acceptance is is doing those things. It's having those small moments of Holy shit, I'm doing this thing and I'm scared and holy shit, I'm having a moment where I'm setting a boundary with someone or whatever, like, that's it, you're doing it. So the belief that you can't do it is a belief. And you need to really look at the reasons why you think that you can't do it. And how you're not that type of person or you're so particularly ugly or you're so whatever and you're but you're you You know, fat in the wrong way or whatever it is because I've heard these things like so many times.

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And I get it like, I used to be like, Well, my tits, but then my tits are really just unattractive. Like, I can't ever flush my tits if I'm on holiday in Ibiza, which is I thought what you had to do as an adult, when I was when I was a kid watching like night and late night TV and always be like, you know, I beat the, you know, teenagers go into Ibiza, and then people like women, flushing the tips on camera and being like, I can never do that my tits are not like those women's tits. And, and so, um, that's not for me. That's not what confidence is. It's not, you know, flashing. My tip is not to say that I wouldn't flash my tips. But that is, you know, I thought that that what was what confidence was, was feeling like, I wanted to flash my tits, because it was so amazing. But that is not what confidence is. And on that note, too, you might be looking at me and my style of confidence and being like, well, I can't strut around in a bikini and take videos of myself being a knob the pool or stand on a TEDx stage and, and take my dress off and, and jiggle my fat and sing quote unquote, dance, I say dance, I was just flailing my arms around to a liaison. Well, that's fine. That's my version of confidence. And that's very, very, like, particular, to me. That's my expression. And the reason why is because I had a list when I was 30. Before, like, when I was like, 22, I had a list 30 things to do before that. And it was things like, I don't know, have sex outside and the whole go to a meet Kate Nash or go to a Yann Tiersen concert. And one of them was wear a bikini. Now, when I wrote wear a bikini, what I meant was become thin enough to wear a bikini but I didn't need to write become thin enough because that was the obvious because clearly, I was not going to be wearing a bikini the weight that I was in my brain at that time. And so it was this goal always wanting to wear a bikini. And my condition of doing that was that I would become a supermodel. Miraculously, something would happen, I would lose, you know, in my mind, like 95% of my body weight. And then I'd be like, Oh, look at me. And I'd finally be able to be quote unquote, allowed, like the bikini police would give me a license and say, Okay, you are now allowed Ms. Welsby to wear this string bikini now that you are thin enough. And so for me being able to wear a bikini now as a fat person. I'm just it's it's my kind of like, Fuck you too. fat phobia and diet culture is just particular to me. Now I know loads of fat people who were super confident, and bikinis aren't their thing. dancing in front of a camera isn't their thing. Public speaking isn't their thing. It doesn't mean that they're not confident. It's just not their thing. Right? And maybe they do things that is not my thing. Like, for example, posing nude. Like I would pose nude for like an art class or something, but only if I knew that those images wouldn't be on the internet. And for me, the only reason is I just want to keep something private. You know, my flaps want to keep my flaps private. And doesn't mean I'm not confident. I don't care if people see my flaps. It's just you know, I know. It's just something that I'm just I just don't want, right? I'm just not interested in. I have like a new, like a new illustration that that will be coming out soon that someone has has done of me. I don't want to say who Yeah, because it's going to be surprised. But I've asked them to cover my nipple, just so that there's like that, that level that I don't you know that level that I don't want to cross on the internet.

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Whereas other fat people, they fat confident people, they're like, yeah, man, I can get right in my crevices and that's wonderful. That's great. That's perfect for them. Right? So if you're thinking looking at me or other confident people who you think I would like to be like that, but I don't want to be exposing my bumhole Well, guess what? You don't have to expose your bumhole right, your bumhole can just be for you and your significant other and your doctor or whatever. Whoever else you want to show it to but if you don't want to get on the internet and like bend over and be like, have a look at this fellas, it doesn't mean you're not confident. What is confidence for you, it could just be not thinking about your body all day long, it could just be wearing something that feels good for you, it could be telling that one person at work to maybe not talk about their diet. It could be telling them to fuck off, you know, it's guess what is individual to you? Because we're all different. And so what confirmation bias? Have you got going on when you're looking at the evidence to support the idea that you can't do it? Is it possible? Is it possible that you're wrong when it comes to your limiting negative self beliefs? Is it possible that you're wrong? When it comes to your limiting negative self beliefs? Is it possible that they are not based in reality? Is it possible that those beliefs were implanted into your gorgeous brain in nefarious ways, by people and companies that don't care about your well being? And you have internalized them to be true? Is that a possibility? Yeah, of course, of course. And so that's a wonderful thing. Not that that happened. That sucks. Let's you know, not be teaching people that their bodies are bad, but it's a wonderful thing, because it is not a truth. It's not a universal truth that you are the most disgusting human that ever walked the earth, or whatever version of that, that you you currently might believe.

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So another thing that stops people is that they look at the mountain that is the journey that is ahead of them. And say if you if there was a confidence scale, and 100 is like, Uber confidence, like the most confident you could be without being like a knob. Comp, good confidence. When I say when I say like, you know, good, high confidence. I mean, self compassion. I don't mean that you're like, your mobile phone guru. I'm the fucking best thing. Ever. I am the best human in the world. All of you else, other people can plug in suck my tits. No, that's not what, what governance is. That's being a knob. So confidence for me was like, 100% not the confidence on the scale, but feeling confident for me is is being having self compassion. And saying that I am a human being I am totally imperfect. Obviously not me. I am perfect jokes. That I'm imperfect. And that's okay. Right. So that for me, that is what confidence is, is self compassion. And so, on a scale of like, one to 100 like one being like, you think that you're a piece of shit, like literally like you're a magnet or whatever. And 100% is, is 100 is, so I felt really deep self compassion. Like, if you were at a lower number on that scale, and you see confidence and getting there as you know that you're at 80% away from getting to that goal of feeling confident. Is that overwhelming? Does that seem like something that is achievable? Does that seem like you know some fairy tale pipe dream? Like Why be so ridiculous to think that you're gonna get there? Yeah, of course, like shit. Of course. It is. Like I use this analogy is like imagine you've if you've never done any mountaineering before, and someone said okay, right. Tomorrow, we're going to climb count Mount Kilimanjaro. Your brain is gonna be like, Bitch, no, that ain't gonna happen. What I can't do that I've never I've never climbed anywhere I am going to die. And that is a write reaction to probably have. But if someone said right, tomorrow, we're going to Google where to find a snow snow snow, shoot snow shoot. us know shoot a snow suit, a snow snoot or snow suit. We're gonna Google where to find a snow Shun. Suit. Fuck you try setting that. See if you say snow snoot. Okay, so we're gonna go Google find where we Fellas no snoot. Can you do that? Well, yeah. Have you used Google before? Probably, unless you're in one of those countries that you aren't using Bing, or, you know, you're a weirdo that uses Bing. Why are you doing that? or Yahoo or something? Anyway? So yeah, you've probably searched for something on the internet. Okay, so you can do that. And so you're like, I can do that. And so then day one searching snow, find your snow snoot. Day two, let's Google and find a mountaineering instructor in the area. And oh, let's just watch a video on how to mountain climb. You can do that easy, right? So when you break it down like that, of course, you can do it.

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But when you look at it, like climb Mount Kilimanjaro, which is for some people, the would be easier than loving themselves. It is not possible because you're looking at it as a whole, you're looking at it as a final destination versus okay, what is the first thing that I can do? What is the easiest, what is what is a way like the weather isn't a barrier. And let's not think about getting to the top of the mountain yet, because it's a way off. Let's just try and improve my situation by 1%. Let's just try and make things just a little bit better for myself. And then before you realize you look back, and you're like, Holy fucking shit, we're on the double the amount then. And, you know, it was the same for me. Because obviously, you know, we might not know that I haven't always been confident, I used to have really low self esteem. And so if someone said to me, Victoria, how about giving a TEDx talk and at the end of the TEDx talk, and do you dress, drop it to the floor, and you stand there in a bikini, shake your tits around to some music and dance for like, 1520 seconds in front of an audience of 2600 people? I would probably straight up and do do a poo. I just poo? No, not even close. I wouldn't even wear a bikini in my own house on my own and look at myself in the mirror. Never mind. Like any any of that whole thing like not in a bajillion years, a you, there's something wrong with your brain, if you think that I can do that. So when I had low self esteem, if someone said like that is your final destination? I would just be like, I? No, no. Don't be silly that I'm not the type of person who can do that. Why would I want to do that? Why would I want to show this disgusting body to the world. But, you know, when I took one step, and the next step, they know that someone when you've taken so many steps, and you've become so strong and resilience in this area? Someone you know, didn't someone didn't tell me I had no idea myself. It's just you know, it would it was another step of growth. Like before I did it, of course, I was like, what are people going to think? You know, in regards to the act of me taking my clothes off? Not like, what are they going to think of my body? I probably didn't think about what people are going to think of my body. But I just thought, well, people are gonna think, you know, she is a goddess to she is horrible. And that's fine. But yeah, yes. So you have to just break it down into the easiest thing. And before you realize you're going to be flapping your tits out everywhere, or not, whatever it is you want to do, and your own version of confidence. So here is a fact for you. There are tons of resources out there to help you love yourself. You're listening to one right now. But obviously, through the podcast, I can't give you personalized one on one coaching. There's no one in this room with me. I'm talking to myself right now. Now, I know this is not like personalized one on one coaching. By listening to the podcast, you're not doing something like going through my first fat Academy, which is my E course where I teach about this stuff and we go even more in depth. And I coach you one on one

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you know even or you know reading my book, you getting more information. But there's tons there's so many resources out there for you to get to a place where you love and accept yourself. It could be going to a therapist, it could be you know, everyone is everyone's journey is different, right? So why haven't you or why do we generally not take the action to get to that next level? Why do we not take when we hear advice have, you know, you should do this or that or whatever? Why do we not listen to advice? Why do we think we can do it all ourselves? like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro? Could you do it on your own? I don't know, probably probably not actually. Probably someone has done it on their own, or I don't know, I don't know anything about Mount cleanup. Kilimanjaro, I have no idea that maybe people don't even climb that mountain anyway. Could you do it on your own? Yes, probably very, very, very, very difficult. Would it be easier if you had someone to guide you to someone to ask questions and say, like, should we go this way? Should we go that way? Which is like, you know, common mistakes that people make? What about that crevice over there? Is it safe to walk over? What about this ladder? Like, what? How do I use it? You know, would it be easy if you had someone to help you along? Well, of course. And so we know this, right? We know that it's, but a lot of times, we try and do things on our own to try and for whatever reason, we're going to get those reasons. Now. I have done it many times. Like when I started my business, I was like, I ain't gonna pay for no coaching, like no dummy. I'm gonna, like, see how other people do it by watching them online and, and just copy them. And no, that didn't work. My business only started working when I paid for coaching when I bought e courses. And I remember, I remember this E course I was listening to this like this, this person, super famous in the online online business world. And she had an E course. And it was $97 a month for 12 months. And I was like, Oh, it's so expensive. And I could afford it at the time I could have afforded it like no problem at all, literally no problem at all. But I was like, No, I'm just going to reverse engineer everything and like work it out myself, instead of spending that $97. Like, if I could go back to Victoria, then I would have been like Victoria. Stop trying to make it harder for yourself here as an expert who knows how to do it, just give them the money, and learn how to do it without making it harder for yourself. And nothing is like, you know, I had the money so. So why do we choose not to take action? Well, the reason is, there are benefits to not doing this work to not working on loving our body. Benefits being it's really fucking scary. So it's easier not to do this work. It is really scary. It is actually dangerous. It is it could be harmful for our health, for our mental health. Especially for a topic like this, going against the majority of the world and saying, I'm going to love my fat body, I'm not going to try and lose weight. Holy shit, that is hard, hard, hard, hard. And so of course, it makes sense that we don't want to take action when it's hard. Because we could literally we could be in physical danger. You know, you're probably going to face criticism. What are you going to say to the people around you? You know, if you say Oh, well, I'm I'm doing I'm going into therapy to learn how to love myself, or I'm taking this ecourse learning how to love myself or I'm doing this one on one coaching with this person who's an expert in it and have learned how to love myself, people around you are going to have opinions, right? And so some of those opinions might be criticism. I've seen it so many times people might go well how are you know, my families think this a family, my family think, or people around me think that, you know, I've gone mad or something because I'm doing this. Another thing about it is you you're gonna have to let go of old stories. And you have to change challenge, long held beliefs that you have about yourself. And it could be challenging your identity of who you are.

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And that's difficult. That brings up a lot of emotions. So of course, it's easier to not take action and not take that next step. Like if your goal is to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, it'd be way easier just to not, wouldn't it? Wouldn't it be way easier just to not. But if you knew that climbing Mount Kilimanjaro really you knew it was going to make your life so much better. It was just going to make you feel really good and it was going to have lots of positive outcomes that far outweighed the negative ones. Then you No, you have to do it. Right? And it's the same with body love, do you know that there is going to be a load of shit? You know, when you're in it that you're probably going to be like, Fuck this, why am I doing this, this sucks, I just want to go home, go to bed, have a nice warm bath, fuck the mountain, you know, you have to decide. Like, for me, man climbing Mount Kilimanjaro ain't interested, the benefits for me are not going to outweigh the negative, like, I'm not interested in sleeping in a 10. I don't do well with a lack of oxygen because I have asthma and, and so I know I wouldn't enjoy that. And now I say that, like in 10 years, I'm like I'm climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. But no, I'm just not interested. And so some people are not interested in learning to love their body, it's just not their thing. They're just not interested in you, they know it's not going to be have any benefit to their life. But presuming you if you're listening to this podcast, that you know that this is an issue for you. And you know that a lot of areas in your life could be better if you had higher self esteem. So. So another thing is, is people think that they think that they're giving up on their health. Now, this is something that I've covered a lot in previous podcast episodes. So look at anything that has health in the title, to talk about how you're literally doing the opposite. And so people are like, well, I don't want to give up on my health. Well, that's not true. But one thing that is true is that you're having to give up on the dream and the fantasy in the hope that you will finally become thin. And that is super painful. The reason why it's painful is because we have tied a lot of outcomes to what will happen when we become thin. Most of them are magical thinking, one in particular that I can think of that is not magical thinking is being less oppressed. So being in a bigger body, there is marginalization, right? There are outcomes, the people who live in bigger bodies experience, that people who live in smaller bodies don't experience those medical fatphobia there's, you know, every, I'm like, every single area of your life, like buying clothes, finding a date, going to the doctor, having friends, like everything is affected when you have a fat body. And so that is one way that, you know, one barrier that people are like, Well, I have to give up on the hope that one day, I can move myself out of a marginalized group into a group that has privilege. And that is as someone who has a smaller body. Now, that's a complex issue in of itself. But that is a reality of having to let go of that fantasy. And that is one of the outcomes that having a smaller body will give you the rest of them, you can get them living in a fat body. So feeling more confident, or getting a date, or moving your body in certain ways, or whatever it is you want to get or feeling you know, sexy, you're you're going to, you can get that living in a fat body, but the the ways that fat people are oppressed, and that comes with as well like, being able to go to a clothes store and buy, you know, find something off the rack. Like, so many of us can't do that. I know all of us have things that correlate with that as well. So there are some real things that we have to let go of. And the truth is, you know, there is no chance that there's such a small chance that that if you're fat that you're going to get into that

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privileged group for any length of time anyway, so, you know, the reality is you're not really letting go of it. It's just letting go of the hope. Right? So on the flip side, what are the benefits for for loving yourself or feeling more confident? Well, increased self esteem, happiness, self compassion, able to either know go on vacation and do those things that you've been putting off or, or you know, do those things that you think oh, I can't do it because I have a fat body or or you know, date people that are worthy of you or ask for a pay rise or wear that bikini or whatever it is. There are so many benefits Is to loving your fat body having a healthy relationship with food, not continually continuously dieting. So for me, now, I can see how life is just so much easier, like my brain is free. So I don't have to constantly be like body checking or, or ruminating on things or playing things over in my mind because, you know, I am shy or lack confidence or worry about what people are thinking to think of me. Everything is just easier. Like, it's like, the volume on my life has been turned up and, and I've been able to let go of these chains that have been holding me back and, and, you know, before I ever like, oh, we know, I could think of like a couple of things I wanted to do, like, oh, maybe I can wear that bikini or whatever. But you know, that's just one tiny part of it. And it's really is a massive, like, just everything is just easier when you don't think that you're a piece of shit. Like, this is not news Wiktoria Of course, everything is easier. But before I couldn't, I couldn't I couldn't get to that that place because, you know, I've shared in previous episodes, you know, some of the shit things that have happened in my life and, and the shit things that happened in my life is no fault of my own. But what happened after experiencing those shit things, which is totally normal to happen is that I was like, oh, whoa, whoa, me. I'm, I'm a victim. And absolutely, I was a victim. And it's absolutely normal to be like, Whoa, me, and important to be in that stage. But I was letting it define me. I was like, You know what, I'm just such a loser and Oh, my life is so short. And and that's normal. Again, that's normal, by the way. But I was getting to a place and a time where all of these feelings of my life is shit I'm such a loser was so bad at my job. And it just got boring. It got old and, and I was like, I don't like this anymore. I'm not into being like, you know, woe is me for so many years because it was it was not like 10 minutes later on, like my cup, you know, it's years and years of feeling like this and and believing that I wasn't good enough. And I read a book called The Happiness Advantage by Sean Aker. There is a he's got a TEDx talk, too. It's really funny. But he is Is he a doctor is a doctor. He was what I Yeah. I think is, you know, it just like psychology and stuff. Anyway, he studies he studies happiness, happiness, and satisfaction and all that type of stuff, Brain Stuff. And something that he talked about in his book, really good. I've met the guy he's amazing, is something called the third path. Now when we experience bad things in our life, when we experience trauma, human beings do three things. First, the first path is exactly what I did. And what exactly what most people do is experienced trauma. And then they go on a downward spiral. Totally normal, that's to be expected, right? Bad thing happens. Oh, this is shit. Oh, and then we kind of get stuck. The next is so you go on a downward spiral. The next is status quo. So a bad things happen. And you know, you don't necessarily make it mean anything about you good or bad. Nothing really changes in your life

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that is less common. What's really, really uncommon is the third path. The third path is going on an upward spiral. So something bad happens some trauma. And instead of making it mean something bad about you, or you know, your life, you use that as a push to move into something more meaningful and use it as a good experience. Now, if something bad happens, and you're immediately like, oh my god, I'm so pleased that I just broke broke both my legs on this is the best thing that's happened to me this year. I'm going to use this as an inspirational story about courage. And you're like lying on the side of the road with you know, your legs broken. That would be really fucking weird. Right? So don't you know, this is not saying like, you have to be so positive all the time and you know, something bad happens and you just like, oh my god, guess what happened to me? I'm so excited about it. Like no, that would be weird and not normal. You have to go through the no Normal, human, you know, sadness and anger, and all of that type of stuff. And then when you're ready, you can be like, Okay, I'm going to use this and I'm going to go on the third path. So I got to a place where I was fed up of being on that first part of that being like, Oh, I'm such a loser. I always pick the wrong guys. And oh, my job sucks. And, oh, I'm so ugly, and clothes don't fit me. Which is all, you know, that I needed that to begin with. But I got to a place where it got old, right? And I wanted something different. And I learned about this, this, you know, the third path, and I was like, Oh, shit, what goodness comes out of my situation? What is what what lessons have I taken from my life? And loads of lessons? Like pretty shit? How strong did I become? You know, unfortunately, I had to, like, that sucks. But I learned what a fucking badass I am. I learned what I don't want in life, or how I don't want to be treated, I learned what a shitty boss is. And so I'm able to spot it now and be like, Oh, no, thank you. So, so now, I try to live my life with radical responsibility, and radical responsibility, which is really, in life, who can we control? Who can whose thoughts can we control? whose behavior can we control? The only person we can really control is ourselves, we can influence others, we can try and manipulate others and, you know, do things to change people's minds, but really the only person that we can influence and, and take responsibility for is ourselves. And so I like to this is radical responsibility, you can look it up, it's like a thing of saying, What can I do to make things better for me? How could I have done that better? To have a different outcome. And it's not saying, you know, blaming yourself, and sometimes you do blame yourself, but, uh, not that blame is a bad thing. But it's not saying like, Oh, I'm like, I'm such a loser. And it's my fault that I, you know, that someone ran over my legs, you know, it's, it's just saying that I choose to have control over the way that I think, and the way that I behave, and I'm not going to be blaming others, constantly, when I can be also looking at myself. And the way that I show up in this situation, because I am the only person in the world that I can control that I can influence directly. It's only me, it's me, and I love it. I love it. Because it because it gives you me freedom, because, you know, I can say something is not going right in my life, or what is going on? Something that I've been thinking about a lot, because I've been talking to you about me dating is

Unknown Speaker 53:17

I love this kind of like, No, I love it. But I've got this idea, you know, men's arc, and it's so annoying. And, and so I have these beliefs of there's not that many good men out there. Now that might be true. It might not be true. I'm I'm discovering it. Of course, there's millions and amount of amazing men out there. But so me dating and me, you know, going on Tinder and OKCupid, and all that type of stuff and having conversations that aren't fulfilling for me. In what way? Can I take radical responsibility? What am I doing to screen these people out? What am I doing to make the conversation great, you know, things like that. And, you know, it doesn't have to be so in depth where you're just like, it's all about me. And it's all about how I'm not doing well enough. It's about how I can influence my own behavior, to make it more aligned with who I want to be as a person. So you have to look at the benefits of not loving your body. Because there are benefits and look at the benefits of working towards a place of body love and body neutrality or whatever you want to call it and decide what do I want to do. And by not making a decision by default you're voting for if you don't currently love your body, you're voting for not loving your body. So you have to decide, do I want to try and work towards climbing that mountain or do I know and you might say, You know what? I'm not that interested. I don't really want to climb that mountain of body love is not for me. That's absolutely fine. But there could be Be a part of you that's like, this is my calling, I need to do this. I know I've spent my whole fucking life hating myself and wasting so much precious brain energy and not being in photos with my kids and, and just not not going for it because of how I feel about myself. And I know I need to do this. And so that that if you feel like that, then you can make a decision of I need to do this and take that first step. And even if you think I can't do it, what is the first step? What's the easiest thing? Okay, so you're listening to podcast? What might be the next step in your journey? Is it to research therapists in your area? Is it to do my first fatti Academy? You currently when this podcast comes out is the doors are open, by the way, so. But it could just be, you know, emailing someone or messaging someone and saying, I would like to learn how to do this, can you help me, you know, whatever it looks like for you. But take that first step. And when when you've taken that first step, then you can think about the next one. So don't think about the whole mountain because if you think about the whole mountain, you were just like, fuck this shit. I'm not gonna do it. But let me tell you, from my perspective, it is so worth it. It's so worth it. If you know if you know, you know, you've you've spent your you know, a big part of your life, wasting brain and energy thinking that you're not good enough. Honestly, you can do it. Those feelings that you have about yourself, are beliefs. Remember, a belief is something that isn't it's not a fact, a fact is 100% true 100% of the time, and just take the first step. So they are some of the lies that we tell ourselves. We can't get to a place of body love, so that you can't do it. You're looking you have confirmation bias and you're looking to the past of how you're such a loser and how it's not possible for you. You're believing those negative limiting self beliefs that you have. And you're not taking action on taking the next step in climbing the body love mountain body love mountain. So that's the end of our episode, but hey, guess what? Do you know what I really like has been making my brain happy recently. And I feel like I'm such a teenager is tick tock Have you been on tick tock? Oh my gosh, I love a bit of tick tock. I've only been like on it for the last couple of weeks or whatever. But I've been posting them on my on my Instagram. It just like just makes me happy people doing silly dances and people you know, telling jokes to the mum and seeing the mums reaction or this one guy was like his parents were in the whoo I presume his parents were in the in the kitchen listening to music, Mrs. Oh, can I put on one song? And they're like, Oh, fine. And then he puts on

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my neck, my back. Let my pussy and my crack. You know that song I think is by Kia lick my neck map and they're like one of the jokes was like so this girl says a joke to a mum. What's the difference between two decks? And a joke? The answer is, I can't take a joke. Yes. I tell this to my mom. And she's like, well, I don't get it. If you don't get it, it means that I can take two decks. And it's worse if you say to your two parents because it means that you take two decks and so I explained it to my mom. I was like bass, ma i can take two decks and she was like, Well, probably not at the same time. And she understood what I was talking about. So yeah, so hey, why don't check out a bit a tick tock. I don't think you should follow me on tick tock because I'm not done anything on there. It's just my picture. You know, so I'm not gonna tell you to follow me on Tik Tok because there's no point but there's fat people on Tik Tok. Allegedly I haven't found I've only found like one yet. But yes, so far I've not seen any like diet bullshit or any like any bullshit so far. But I bet you're probably on that but it's just you know, it's making me feel good. Or you can just go to my Instagram first off at a and see the tech talks that I've shared. Because here's another one. This guy says to disguise a fart, drop, drop something at the same time you you fart and people won't hear it as so he's in his room room with the parents. He drops a tissue and it gently floats to the ground as he lets out like the longest wet Taste fart and his parents are just like you you're just disgusting just get out of here that reminded me so much of my sister so I said it to my sister and she didn't she enjoyed it so anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this episode so believing yourself okay you're stupid and yet all right believing yourself you can do it and come and join me on this this body love mountain it's pretty cool here yeah on this bottle of mountain we show Tik Tok so yeah. On a on the theme of me hating men. Where do mansplain errs get their water? Where do mansplain is get their water from the well actually get it from the well actually because they say well actually you'll find that normal. I shouldn't be explaining my jokes. No, my jokes. I stole them from other people. But yeah. All right. Well, thank you for hanging out with me today on this episode. It's been a songlines, as always, I really enjoy talking to you and getting your messages and your voicemails on Instagram and if you want to ask a question for the podcast then just message me anywhere email me Victoria at first party.com or even on the if you want to do it anonymously. There's a link on the podcast the show notes and the show notes is facebook.com forward slash 031. And you can do that there and also I forgot go and check out the show notes because I've got a resource to to help you with this. It's called the confidence booster book. The confidence booster book and so it's got like quotes and different things to make you feel good and make you feel like a badass and it's free obviously. So go to the show notes first party.com forward slash 031 and get the confidence booster book that is going to help you with what we are talking about so All right, I'll see you in the next episode you incredible human being you alright see am I fit my