Letting go of the opinions of others, especially in relation to our bodies, isn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to be hard either. In this episode, I share my journey as a bit of a rebel, how body image work has helped me form my sense of self, and how that all made me care less about what other people think. There are some amazing mindset shifts that you will gain from this one!
Discovery Call and Enrollment for The Body Image Boost: https://calendly.com/rebeccasigala/the-body-image-boost-discovery-call
I would love to hear from you on Instagram!
https://www.instagram.com/rebeccasigalaboudoir
Letting go of the opinions of others, especially in relation to our bodies, isn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to be hard either. In this episode, I share my journey as a bit of a rebel, how body image work has helped me form my sense of self, and how that all made me care less about what other people think. There are some amazing mindset shifts that you will gain from this one!
Discovery Call and Enrollment for The Body Image Boost: https://calendly.com/rebeccasigala/the-body-image-boost-discovery-call
I would love to hear from you on Instagram!
https://www.instagram.com/rebeccasigalaboudoir
Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Body Image Revolution. I missed you guys. It's been a few weeks. It's been a little bit of a hectic summer, but I am so happy to be back and I have some incredible episodes planned for you guys in the coming weeks, so get ready for it. For some reason, it just feels like there's so much going on this summer. But what has been really fun and creatively challenging for me is the fact that I've done so many boudoir sessions. I had a client who was from Italy, a couple from New York, a client who did her fifth boudoir session with me, her fifth, and some really close friends of mine who finally did a boudoir session after years of being my friends and years of thinking about it, that always feels like such a big deal and such an honor for me. Something that I've found with the women that I've been working with recently, not just boudoir sessions, but also with coaching, is that there are so many women who are stepping into their bad bitch era, just like me. And one of the major themes that I was noticing over the past couple of months is that women really just wanted to stop caring about what others thought of them. They want to be themselves, like they're done with faking it. They want to be real, even if that means that not everyone will like or accept them. Whether that's just society at large and all the ways that diet culture and beauty standards play into the way that we think about ourselves, or just being able to go against the grain of what's accepted in their community or to stop letting friends and family members opinions of them dictate how they live their lives or how they see themselves. It's been a super common thread amongst my clients. I think I've been working on this too in my own way, and truthfully, I've always been a little bit rebellious. Since I was young, I never really felt like I fit in anywhere, not at school, not in my family, definitely not in Minnesota. I was out of there the minute I could. I always had this feeling that I was different, and not always necessarily in a negative way. I think that there was a sense of self-confidence that I had growing up. I knew that I was creative and empathetic and that there was a unique path set out for me. Since I was really, really young, I knew that I had this unique path, or I wanted to do something different than what my family had done or what my friends were doing, and I'm not sure if I had the language to express all of that then, but looking back, I can remember daydreaming constantly about the future, about my future job. I used to go through magazines of like houses and interior designs because I wanted to be an interior designer when I was younger, and I would just like sit there for hours going through magazines. I would dream about my future husband, about moving away from Minnesota, about having autonomy of my own life and about how I wanted to do things. At least just a little bit differently. Part of that feeling of being different, of course, did come from being bullied all through elementary, middle school and high school. Recently, I've been reflecting on my younger self and my self perception, and I realized that I never actually tried that hard to fit in. I never wanted to push my way into a social crowd. It was like I kind of agreed with them, you're right, I don't belong here. Take that however you want to. But even with all the immense pain that I endured during those years, I still held onto this sense of self no matter how broken it felt at the time. And I believe that one day it would be different. It's also very, very clear that it's led me to the life that I have now, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. If I had gone on the path that was set up for me, I can't imagine being fully fulfilled or being able to be fully myself. I can literally picture that version of me in my mind, like working at some random corporate job, living in the suburbs somewhere in the Midwest, married to, I don't know. Who knows? I am evidence of the girl who took the path less traveled. And so here I am and I'm fucking grateful for it. But even taking the path less traveled doesn't mean that I didn't care about what people thought of me. That is something that I had to work on within myself. And of course, some of it did come naturally with time and experience and on my healing journey. And some of it I'm still working on. We are all works in progress. People. I'm not gonna sit here and lie to you on a pedestal and tell you that I don't give a fuck what people think of me ever. I'm a human with trauma, with baggage of my past, with the carnal need to feel loved and accepted. And it's something that for sure comes up for me from time to time. So obviously, you know, I'm out there on social media. I put myself out pretty vulnerably, pretty authentically, and people are always like, oh wow, she's so brave. Like, how could she do that? She must not care what other people think of her. And I don't think that it's, that I don't care what other people think of me. Well, not entirely. I think it's that I care more about what I think about myself, and that is what has helped me so much over the years. I do not betray myself. I am loyal to myself, to my values, to my body, to my desires, and my dreams. I won't sacrifice myself just to be accepted. And I never have. When I think of, not betraying myself, it reminds me of many times in my life, but something that comes up right now there was an anti-Semitic incident at my high school and I got a couple students together and I gave a presentation to the entire high school faculty. I'm not even joking. Or like other instances when my dad told me that there was no way in hell that I was getting married at 19 and moving to Israel, or when my neighbors in Efrat started gossiping about my boudoir work, but even at that time, even at the beginning of my business 10 years ago, I knew like deep, deep down that my work was so incredible and powerful and it was way more important than what those people thought of it or me. So something that I've been asking myself is how can I be so in my power, like even as a child, but still so incredibly affected by the things that people said to me or about me, especially about my body, and I've been called all the things fat, ugly, weird. Someone could put me down for being Jewish or supporting Israel, and I don't think I would care that much. But when someone said something about the way I looked, That felt terrible. I felt small. I felt powerless. I felt worthless, like there was nothing I could do, and I'd never be beautiful or desirable or worthy of love because again, maybe I agreed with them. We're also taught that we couldn't possibly decide on our own if we're beautiful. We are taught that we need to wait for that confirmation, for that validation from someone else to tell us otherwise. And if not, tough luck. That's just not your lot in life. You're just not one of the hot girls. This doesn't only manifest like this for people when we're younger. It carries on through our adult life, whether it's consciously or subconsciously. we bring these pieces of our identity with us, especially if we're not working through the stories and the messages and limiting beliefs that formed so strongly during our childhood. So what I've really noticed is that when we struggle with our body image, we are also deeply invested in what other people think of us. And I think that's a really hard reality to face because as an adult, no one wants to admit that they actually care about what other people think of them. But I'm here to say again and again, there's nothing to be ashamed of here. It's so, so normal. It's a combination of our nature as human beings and also how we've been conditioned to constantly compare ourselves to other women and wait for the validation of men in society to tell us that we are enough, as we are. This is a timeless struggle that women face. And just because we're cool and self-assured and successful does not mean that we're immune to caring about what other people think of us. Just think about it. When we're struggling with the way we look, we wonder what are other people going to think? If I go to this party, will anyone think I'm hot? I can't wear that because someone's going to see my stomach rolls. Or I wonder if anyone will notice that I gained weight. Or I cannot deal with another comment from my aunt, or I know that I'm gonna be lectured about exercising and eating healthy by my parents. Or everyone is so much prettier than me, so much thinner than me, and I'm not going to be accepted, or that person just gave me a weird look. I know. I know they're thinking how fat I am, or I just cannot be that fat or curvy girl in my group of friends. I just don't wanna be that person. If you start to get into any of these thoughts, you'll realize that the common theme here is being deeply affected by how we are seen in the eyes of others. And the truth is, there's no step-by-step formula to stop caring about what other people think of you. But the first shift really is what is happening right now as you're listening to this podcast. You're becoming aware of it. Once we understand ourselves more, when we're more aware of our inner workings, it's so, so much easier to implement change. We can come to ourselves with kindness and compassion and move forward intentionally. My new therapist said something so beautiful recently. She said, it's not really about whatever thing you're struggling with. It's how you meet yourself in your struggle. I thought that was so profound. How we see ourselves, how we speak to ourselves, and how we treat ourselves in our darkness will define the path that we go on. So here is your permission to own that you care, maybe even just a little bit about what other people think of you, and that's okay. And literally the most normal thing in the world. And guess what? It can really shift. It can really change, and that is the most liberating thing ever. Take it from me. It feels so good. I think it's something that does come naturally when we start to work on ourselves and intentionally improve our body image. Just having the thought that we know ourselves so much better than anybody else. That in itself is very empowering. So when someone says something mean or negative about us, we can either be like, Hey, yeah, I see that and it's not really that big of a deal, or maybe that's something that I wanna work on, or No, I absolutely do not agree with you. That's a you thing. Separating what other people think about us and what we think of ourselves is so key. Oftentimes I'll be coaching someone on something body image related. And the thought that they were having about their body didn't even come from them. This happens a lot when they just sit back and take a moment. They realize that the voice they're hearing was never theirs. It was their sisters or their best friends or their parents or a random guy in fifth grade. And when they take that moment, they realize that they themselves do not even believe it. And that's really powerful. It's a really powerful shift that can help us turn around our limiting beliefs and not let those beliefs drive in the front seat of our lives anymore. Cause when we believe that we are beautiful, that there's nothing wrong with our bodies, that our bodies are strong and resilient, and that all the versions of our bodies are incredible and worthy of love. And that we can actually trust ourselves. That allows us to stop thinking about our bodies as much and start being exactly who we want to be without that nagging feeling in the back of our minds that we're not pretty or thin enough or enough in general. And then when that happens, you'll start to realize that what other people think about you just means so much less to you than it ever did. In my group coaching program, the New Sexy, I always talk about this. Most of the time it's not possible to just wake up one day and say, oh my God, I don't care about what anyone else thinks anymore. It is an ever evolving journey. As you trust yourself more, accept yourself more, and ultimately love yourself more, it will happen naturally. But actually what is so cool is that last night I asked the members of the New Sexy, what is one thing that surprised them over the course of the last, almost five weeks that we've been coaching together, and one of the members said that she was just really surprised how easy it was like once she had the knowledge and the tools and the space to just give herself the permission to listen to her body, trust herself more and love her body in a way that she never had before. It happened. So it's not that you just wake up one day and everything is perfect and life is perfect, but sometimes these things really can happen fast and they really can happen in a moment by just giving yourself permission to do so. Because I think that with diet culture, we. have always believed that we cannot trust ourselves and we have never liked our bodies, so we cannot imagine a reality that is different. But once we can imagine that it doesn't have to be hard. It can be challenging when you're alone on the journey like I was. I started learning more about body image and body positivity literally on my own. And even to this day, I think my husband is probably the only person close to me who is fully aligned with my approach. If you're not confident in the work that you're doing, you're probably gonna be easily swayed when someone says something that contradicts your new way of thinking. Even people who you really respect, like my past therapist was pretty skeptical about it. My family, my best friends, like not just random people. People who I would normally consider their opinion, and apparently my approach is pretty radical. And it's crazy to me. It's crazy that it's so radical because what my approach really is, is that all people deserve to feel good in their bodies. And other people have a lot to say about that. They always are like, oh, well what about health? Or what about obese people? That's not healthy or what, you're just going to eat whatever you want. Or everyone knows that that body type is just not attractive and that sounds really mean when you kind of isolate it like that but because it's become such a normal way of speaking in our culture, it doesn't even necessarily sound mean or out of the norm. It can slip into conversations in such a natural way that we barely notice them and we barely see the ways in which these conversations and points of view are damaging to the way that we see ourselves. I had to be like, wait, hold up. What do I think about this? Are these beliefs serving me and can I stand in my confidence about my beliefs? Or is it gonna be that every single time someone says something that is really enmeshed in diet culture, I'm going to. Go down that rabbit hole of not feeling confident in myself and second guessing myself and thinking maybe I should go on a restrictive diet once again. Am I going to care so much about what other people think? That I become vulnerable to their judgments and opinions about my body and bodies in general, the answer is no. And it's not that it doesn't bother me. Okay. It definitely can. Sometimes, I wish I could just shake people. I wish I could give them a taste of how I see the world. And I definitely do that through my podcast here and my writing and my photography, and expressing myself and sharing my message with the world and the way that I can. But I know that at least in the moment, it doesn't really work like that. And it's also not my job. My job is to protect myself, to protect my inner work, my energy, to keep myself in environments that are as body positive as possible so that I can give myself a chance at evolving and deepening my relationship with my body instead of just being at the whim of everybody else. These boundaries are so important, and we are important enough to make them even with the people that we love. So to sum it up a little bit, when it comes to caring less about what other people think about you, the first thing is awareness, then normalizing and giving yourself love and compassion for exactly where you are at. Then learning, processing and implementing body and self-image work while you create physical and energetic boundaries to facilitate your growth. I promise you, you will notice that you care less. You'll start to notice that you're able to brush off body comments so much easier. You'll notice that you'll actually start to feel compassionate for people who are so deep into diet culture and trying to live up to all those beauty standards and just societal standards in general that make people feel like shit about themselves. Because through this journey you'll understand that the way people are speaking and acting is a direct reflection about how they feel about themselves. And I know that sometimes we hear that and it doesn't really get internalized because we're like, okay, yeah, that person's judgmental, but they actually think they have a great body. Or I, I know that they think they're beautiful, but we're not in people's minds. We don't understand what goes on like from minute to minute in their brains. And just because someone might be confident about their body, Most of the time doesn't mean that they feel like that all of the time, and just because they like their body right now, it could be very dependent on the fact that they are a certain size, so when their body changes, they might not be confident in themselves and they might be extremely critical of themselves and hard on themselves to try to keep their body the way that it is now, and that is the nuances that I am talking about when I talk about that. This is a reflection of the way people think about themselves because it's also a reflection of the way that they speak to themselves, that they treat themselves, and that they see the world and bodies in general. Once we know that about ourselves and we know that about others, and we feel that sense of not caring as much about what other people think of us, and really being rooted in our own opinion of ourselves, it's so liberating and it seeps into all aspects of our lives. I think it's because when we let go of that one thing that has had this hold on us for so long, this one thing that is so ingrained in our brains and our culture, when you let go of it, you just feel like a goddamn superhero. Cuz like I said before, it doesn't matter what people said to me. About myself, about my identity, about my intellect, about my talent, because the worst thing that they could possibly say to me was that you're ugly or you're fat. So if I no longer believe that about myself and I no longer have these negative associations with fat or larger bodies, and I really do see myself as beautiful, I see the beauty in myself. Then I'm no longer affected by other people saying or thinking that. And when that happens, literally anything is possible. Anything. You can do whatever you please and you can create the life of your dreams without all of these voices in our brains holding us back. And then you can enter that bad bitch era and you can be unapologetically yourself. And I do need to mention this because I believe that we need to be compassionate to ourselves when something does hurt or offend us, because as I said earlier, it's so normal and even when these things do come up, they could actually be helpful for us. It could be a sign for us to go deeper into our journey and again, reflect and let go of what is no longer serving you. This is an ever evolving thing. Things are gonna come up again and again, and it really does give us that opportunity to understand ourselves more and go deeper. And then if we want to hear someone's opinion, we can hear it and consider it, but at the end of the day, we make the final choice about how we want to live our lives. And I actually don't ask people's opinion as much anymore. It's something that I did realize as I've been going on this healing journey, because I trust myself. I trust my body and my intuition and all the magic that comes up with me tuning into myself. And I also don't walk around saying that I don't give a fuck what people think of me, because that is a coverup that invalidates your own feelings. It makes other people wonder what's wrong with them, that they do care, and it disconnects you from other people. So all I have to say guys, is go on this journey towards loving your body, and I literally promise you, you will start to care way more about your own opinions than other people's opinions because you know yourself and your body better than anyone else, and that's freaking empowering. It's liberating, it's revolutionary. Okay guys, I'm about to wrap up the episode for today. But I need to let you in on something really incredible that I'm doing. It's called the Body Image Boost, and it's literally a body confidence boost. It's a way to open the door to your body image journey, maybe get your feet wet, and start to shift. Or if you already started this body image journey, this is an opportunity for you to deepen your relationship with your body. It's something that I came up with just a few weeks ago because I was noticing that so many women were struggling with their body image this summer, and mostly in ways that you'd never see from the outside. I was actually just talking to someone the other day and they said that I'm probably not like most of your clients, like. You know, my body image struggles don't really hold me back from doing things. I still have a great job and I hang out with my friends and like I'm pretty confident in myself. But what I get to see as a boudoir photographer and a body image coach is hearing the narrative that is going on within and when that narrative is harsh and critical and mean. That is affecting us, that is holding us back in ways that we may not even fully understand and we deserve better. We deserve to not have so much of our time and energy focused on feeling guilty. Restricting our food or working out as a punishment or trying to find clothing that covers up our bodies, or feeling self-conscious when you're with friends. Even if you are out with friends, you might be thinking about things in your mind and not being able to be so present. Same thing with intimacy, same thing with anything else in life. It's three weeks. Three coaching calls with me. Yes. One-on-one coaching calls with me. messaging support in between calls and access to my exclusive body love meditation portal. And I'm doing it at over 50% off until the end of July. It's$450, or if you're in Israel, 1600 shekels. And by the end of these three weeks, You're going to have shifted the way you see yourself, and I'm gonna help you create a plan for the next year of your body image journey. I only have a few spots left, and then that's it. So go to my show notes right now and sign up for a call with me to discuss everything and get you enrolled. We really don't have more time or mind space to waste on not loving our bodies anymore. Okay guys, that's all for today. I cannot wait for the next episode. It's gonna be a good one. Love you all.