Episode 38 - Beauty Beyond Size

In this deeply personal episode, I dive into my own journey with body acceptance and learning to love myself despite the pressure we all feel to look a certain way.

I talk about a day out shopping for a dress, seeing a mum and her daughter struggling with their reflections in the mirror, and how it brought back memories of my own battles with weight and self-esteem.

This episode is all about getting real with the tough stuff—how tough we can be on ourselves and the journey to feeling confident in our own skin.

I'm here to share some understanding and hope with anyone who’s feeling down about their body. We've all been there, and it’s okay.

Through everything I've gone through, I've learned that showing up for yourself is powerful and loving yourself as you are is even more so.

If any of this hits home for you, just know you're not alone. Let's kick those harsh judgments to the curb and celebrate our bodies together.

Transcript

 Happy New Year. Welcome to 2025. I didn't show up as much in 2024 towards the end of the year. I just didn't feel called to share. And I just had a lot going on with everything that's going on around the world. But this year I've really, really honed in on working more on myself and realising that I need to show up.

I need to show up for my business. I need to show up for you guys. And if I have always said this  it can impact a person's life and someone gets something out of my podcast or my story or something that I share, then for me, that's everything. So this is what I wanted to share today. I really felt called.

I'm going to a wedding tonight. And as I was shopping yesterday for  📍 a dress I  saw a mum and  📍 a daughter looking , for a dress.  And today's podcast is going to be about weight. And where does that hold you back?

Right? So I know that so many of you can relate because me seeing this girl reminded me of where I used to be  And sometimes we can forget where we are when we've grown.  And I'm not that person anymore. Like I remember how stressful it would be for me if I had a wedding and you know, I'm overweight if you want to call it overweight because I'm a medium to large.

I'm over my weight. I was 55 kilos and now I'm 77 kilos. So I'm 22 kilos over. what my usual weight is. When I say usual, it's like pre baby. So I've gone through that whole story of getting depressed about what I look like and not going to weddings and not showing up. And I would never ever have shown up doing reels or doing comedy or anything at this weight, had I been the same person two years ago.

This is why it's so important for me to really, really get through to women. And one of the reasons why I want to help women    📍 through baby sleep consulting, because I know that mothers need  therapy just as much as the child, not for the sleeping, but for their mental health, but they won't go and get it.

So I want to be able to coach women through that because yesterday what I saw really actually got me very sad and I got really emotional and I spoke out to the girl.  She was trying on all these dresses and every dress she tried on, she was like, I can't, I just kept hearing the same thing. And my daughter was listening, my stomach, my stomach, and I kept coming out.

I was bigger than her. I kept coming out. Confident in the sequence, large dresses with a split, no sleeves. I don't care. I show my arms, you know, I'm not, these aren't my arms that I would love to have, but these are my arms. This is what my body is for now. So I still have to love it. So I'm not saying you got to , stay this way, but you're not doing yourself any favours if you're gonna bash your body and not do the thing.

So  ask yourself where is it holding you back feeling this way and thinking the way that you do. around your body and this excess,  weight that you may have.   For this girl, I think it might've been a christening or something for her daughter because she was really, she was talking about how she has to look good.

And  here's the story.  And here's the thing, her mum, who was half my size, who looked amazing and everything kept saying, when I complimented her, she kept saying, Oh, I need to lose another five kilos. And I was like, what? No, you don't. And I realised in that mument, I wasn't going to get through to her. She's like, no, if I lost another five kilos, you know, maybe I could wear it. 

It's a story. This was her perception of what weight and what she should look like and all of that All of it, all comes from old patterns, old stories, conditioning. So when I say that, what I mean by that is like, how did your mum feel about her body? How did your mum show up? What did your mum say to you about your body growing up?

Did you tell you don't eat too much? You might get fat. Or did you have a grandma? Did you have an auntie? Or did you have a teacher? Or did you have a boyfriend? Or did you have friends? It really, Really has everything to do with that. And if you're not aware of that, it's something that you can work through. 

And it's something that I work with a lot of my clients and they realise that, wow, we can change our perception of ourselves by changing the stories   📍 that we stick to because if we don't do that, this mum has now passed this down to her daughter and this girl, the daughter had a little daughter that was like maybe a few months old cause the grandma was holding her.

She'll pass that down to her daughter as well. What my daughter was seeing, and I'm not comparing, I'm just sharing,   📍 my daughter was daughter was saying after what she was seeing was, mum, you look so beautiful mum, in all of the dresses, everything looks amazing on you. Why? Because I came out with confidence.

I came out  generally feeling good in the dresses.  Because you don't have to be a size eight to wear a tight fitted dress. Was my stomach sticking out a little bit? Like, did I have like, A little bit of back fat. Yes.  And who cares? I'm still going to dance my ass off tonight at the wedding. And I'll probably have more confidence than most of the girls that are a size eight and size 10 because it's my energy.

And that's what my daughter could see. And I know, and I'm so glad, and I'm so grateful that I was able to change this thought pattern that I had about my body  before it was too late so that my daughter  doesn't see that old patterning of, Oh, I can't, I have to lose weight. Because if I had been bashing my body. 

that I'm going to teach my daughter not to accept herself and bash her body too. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes I can say stuff like I need to lose some weight, you know, but  there's a big difference between wanting to change something and not showing up. So if you're someone who won't show up to a wedding or not buy the dress because they're overweight.

And then I've got clients that I've heard before that won't go to the beach because, and their bodies are amazing. They won't go to the beach because of their body. They won't wear bikinis because of their tummy. They won't wear no sleeves because of their arms.  It's like, I want you to look at it like this, like in this whole universe, right?  

In this infinite universe,  how big of a deal are your arms or this little bulge that you've got?  It's not, it's really not. And when you look at it like that, or, you know, another analogy I always use is that  If the world was to end, or you had two weeks to live, or you were on your deathbed, would you sit there and go, I'm really glad that I wore the long sleeve dress, or that I didn't buy the dress that showed my stomach.

I'm really glad that I said, no, you'll be like, I, I'm glad that I just got out there and, and just, I was, I was myself. I enjoyed what I had. For the moment, because this is what you've got for now. This is who you are for now. So if you can't embrace it and show up.  You're just, you're, you're playing small and you're holding yourself back, maybe from opportunities like meeting somebody because the confidence, the confidence doesn't lie. 

People can wear the mask all they want. And when I say the mask, I mean, the whole pretending that they, They're confident in their body, but you can see it. You can see it in the eyes. You can see it in the way they talk. You can see it in the hand gestures in the way they walk. You can see it. I see it all the time.

And I tell women, and I said to this woman,  I sneaked over and my, my daughter said, I feel emotional actually remembering this because my daughter said to me, you're such a good person, mummy. Cause I said to this girl.  I thought, you know what? I'm going to bash myself if I don't. I said to her, you've just had a baby and all you're talking about is this bulge.

This bulge was because you had this beautiful baby and she teared up and I said,  you are so lucky that you've got this baby who cares about your stomach? Who cares?  Don't worry about it. Your body's going to change. You've got this baby and she got emotional, but she probably also thought, who's this weirdo.

That's like coming to the changing room and talking to me. It doesn't even know me, but I just knew that I had to say something. And that's when I thought I've got to do a podcast on this because I hear it all the time. And I know that women are going to resonate with it.   There's so many other things that women, like they don't want to leave the house without makeup or women that don't embrace their curly hair. And it's like, it's crazy. you're not showing up because of your external, who cares when we work on ourselves internally,  everything changes externally.

Because when you work on yourself internally, you are watching life through a different lens.   Thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed the podcast.