Why People Say Stupid Sh*t (About Your Body)

In today’s episode, we’re talking about something that comes up constantly in the world of body image healing: why people feel so entitled to comment on other people’s bodies. Seriously, people say the stupidest sh*t sometimes, and it can be so frustrating and painful, especially when appearance is already such a tender subject.

I’m diving into the deeper psychological and cultural reasons these comments happen, from diet culture conditioning to anxiety, comparison, power, and inherited scripts that people never question. Not to excuse it, but so you can finally feel in your bones that it was never about you.

And most importantly, we’re talking about what it actually takes to stop carrying what was never yours in the first place, and how real body confidence is built from the inside out.

For more details and to apply for The New Sexy: https://www.rebeccasigalacoaching.com/the-new-sexy

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Transcript

Rebecca Sigala 0:01

Hey, beautiful souls. It's been a while since I hopped on here solo, and honestly, I really miss it. today I have a very important topic for you that I think will be very, very helpful for all of you on your journey. It's a topic that comes up constantly with The New Sexy women, with my friends, with almost everybody I know, honestly, because people really do say the stupidest shit sometimes. And I'm always left thinking like, what were they even thinking? And it's so frustrating, especially when it comes to bodies and appearance, which is already such a tender subject. Like why do people feel it's okay that they can. Comment on somebody else's body like it's public property, like it's something they can just talk about freely and casually without realizing the impact that it might have. One of my clients came on the New Sexy the other week, and she told me that somebody said to her outta the blue, you should exercise. Like, seriously, what the fuck? And of course, that's just the tip of the iceberg from all the stories that I've heard and what I really love about. The New Sexy, is that when people. Have these things, these things come up in their lives. My clients not only have me to support them and coach them through it and help them shift their thoughts and beliefs about themselves and feel confident in their responses, but they actually have a whole community of women who have their back so they don't second guess themselves or internalize the shame, which otherwise would be so easy to do because this is the culture that we live in. So today I wanna do something that. I really think it's going to be very useful for anyone who's navigating this world without that kind of support right now, and I want to explore the deeper reasons that people make these comments in the first place. Not just so that we understand psychology and human behavior, which of course is very interesting, but so that next time it happens for you. You can feel in your bones that this is not about you. I know we hear that phrase all the time. It's more about them than you. it has nothing to do with you. It's just a reflection of them. But truly, the psychology behind this goes deep. And I wanna name something really important here because these comments don't land the same way every time. Often it doesn't because our lives ebb and flow and. Sometimes you're in a more confident season and you might brush it off. Or if you're in a more tender season already second guessing yourself or going through something, it can hit so much deeper. The truth is, and I'm gonna be really honest here, I feel like I'm in a little bit of a tender season myself. Not with my body exactly, but of course that's always connected. There have been some really big things shifting in my personal life and even in my business, and I feel like I'm facing challenge after challenge, and there's gonna be some serious growth behind all of this stuff because there always is. but what I've noticed during this time is that people's comments. They hit me differently. I'm more annoyed. I'm more appalled. I don't necessarily allow it to mean something about me or change the way that I do things, but it makes sense that when you're going through something, people's words will meet you differently, and that doesn't mean that they're not accountable for what they say. It just gives you some information about you and where you're at right now and how you can offer yourself comfort and compassion and. Support in your internal world, because that's really what these moments illuminate. So stay with me because by the end of this episode, you're going to understand why these comments happen. Why they land differently when you're going through stuff, and exactly how you can stop carrying what was never yours to begin with. So number one, this is the core truth, and I know it's probably gonna be annoying to hear again, but I'm gonna say it anyway. It really is about them and it's not about you. People's comments, thoughts, and observations are reflections of how they feel about themselves and the world around them. One of my clients said recently, people can be so insensitive. When we were talking about body comments and. I was like, actually, I know people say that and make sense that you shared that, but I don't think it's just insensitivity because calling it that almost implies that they're saying some kind of truth. They just shouldn't say that out loud because it's sensitive, but it's not the truth. It's brainwashing, it's conditioning, it's pain, it's disconnection with themselves and with others. It's diet culture and it's beauty standards speaking through this person who doesn't even realize it. Most people don't have awareness of that. They don't know. They're speaking from their own insecurities and fears. And if that sounds harsh, I understand, but I also think that we can have compassion for that place that people are in because we're all impacted by that very same conditioning. We know how that is. We know how it feels, but. what is important to understand is that this means that a comment about your body or your appearance is just not an objective observation. It's self-perception and their own worldview speaking out loud. So if somebody says, oh my God, do you really want that second piece of cake? They're not actually talking about you. They're talking about their own diet. What they allow themselves, what they crave, what they feel guilty about. All these rules that they live under their entire internal dialogue. or if somebody says you've gained weight, that's also not neutral. That's how they perceive bodies. That's what they think health looks like. It's what pressures they hold onto for themselves and what that could mean about them. And again, this is not excusing it. Understanding. It doesn't make it okay. It just makes it less personal. It's about freeing you because you don't have to carry somebody else's distorted truth. Okay? You don't have to carry somebody else's distorted truth and conditioning. So secondly, another reason why people say stupid shit is diet, culture, and diet. Culture is a system of beliefs that worships thinness and it keeps us invested in managing and controlling our appearance. This is the exact culture that has made commenting on bodies seem like a natural and normal thing, but it's not. It never should have been like, think about how young this starts. When was the first time that somebody commented on your body? Think about it for a second. Even before puberty, usually women's bodies, girls' bodies are treated like something to notice, to comment on, to measure. It's so fucked up and it becomes so normal that people don't even blink twice. I've had my body commented on from everyone, from my own grandfather to complete strangers, and I know this is the norm because I've listened to thousands of stories and most women I know right now are listening to this and nodding along because unfortunately, this is the reality of the world that we live in. And because of that, reality bodies become this default conversation when nobody has anything else to talk about. Or they might have other things to talk about, but it just defaults back to this about diets, bodies, appearance, comparison. People don't always know how to connect authentically, so they go to what's visible, the weight and the food and the appearance, and it becomes this casual small talk. And another thing about diet culture is that thinness and food become about morality. Okay. And this is actually very powerful. Not in a positive way, but it, it really impacts us, This good foods and bad foods mindset that thin equals healthy and good and discipline and fat becomes the opposite. Most people don't even have this conscious awareness that they're operating from those deeply ingrained beliefs, but. They are there and they genuinely think that they're saying something that's, you know, known or neutral or even helpful, but it's not the truth and it is almost never helpful. It's almost never helpful. It's conditioning and that's exactly what diet culture does. It keeps women distracted. Keeps them busy, keeps them thinking about their bodies and managing them, and second guessing themselves instead of living embodied, instead of taking up space, living their purpose. Honestly, I see this as one of the worst and most time consuming parts of diet culture. Besides, of course, this internal narrative that it leaves us all dealing with, right? It's so unfortunate that these conversations started so young and became so normalized. Now women end up feeling like they don't even have a choice. Like this is just how things are. Like, I don't know if this is how you feel, but so many women feel this, like your body isn't fully yours. And that's what we're talking about when we talk about reclaiming our bodies. It's this, it's ours. It's no longer public property, not just physically, but in our minds and in our hearts, right? Like it's no longer somebody else's to comment on, to control, to manage. It's actually ours. And that just feels so freeing and empowering, and exactly the kind of healing that we all need. So beyond diet culture, there are also just like very human psychological reasons why people comment on bodies and appearance. One is honestly anxiety. Like some people are genuinely uncomfortable around bodies and food and aging and change, and they don't most likely realize it, but a comment kind of becomes this way for them To like deal with their own discomfort. it's like their nervous system is activated and they just speak. They just say what they think. Right? Again, that doesn't make it okay, but it helps you realize that there's not some objective truth being delivered to you. It's somebody's internal world just spilling out. another one is comparison and jealousy. And I wanna be careful here because I did not use to love when my mom would say, they're just so jealous of you when I'd come home crying about what somebody said about me at school. Like they're jealous of you. And it didn't feel good. It felt so dismissive. but sometimes it is true that people are comparing or they do feel jealous because sometimes when a woman is embodied or changing or visible in her power, taking up more space, it touches something in other people that longing or their own insecurity or desires they might have or shame that they haven't worked through. Your freedom can activate somebody else's unfinished business. that isn't so that you shrink or change or don't live. In your fullest, truest self. But it's just something to note. and then sometimes these comments can be about power. A comment could be a way to consciously or unconsciously. Feel above somebody else to feel in control to make someone else a little bit smaller and. Other times it's not even malicious. It's just a complete lack of boundaries. Some people genuinely do not have the awareness to understand that Not every thought needs to become a sentence that not everything they say needs to be said. Just because they notice something doesn't mean that it belongs in the air and for everyone else to hear. And a huge one, a huge reason why people. Are saying the stupid shit is because they're simply repeating what was done to them. They grew up in homes just like most of us, I know I did, where bodies were talked about like this. So they're just speaking from this inherited script That they never really questioned. And we're questioning it now. So it becomes so obvious to us. But for them it's just not. So there's that, and then there's also like this weird attempt at intimacy. Not even so weird because I'm thinking about hanging out with my friends when I was a teenager and complaining about our bodies and we got this false sense of like connection or closeness, but it's not real connection obviously. It actually keeps people much more disconnected than in connection with themselves. When people are complaining about their bodies, they're focused on themselves, and nothing anybody else says is gonna help them actually feel better. So everyone is in their own heads just sharing and venting and complaining and not creating that connection. But sometimes it's about that they're just trying to connect and they don't know how to do it. So they'll say something Also, sometimes people can just comment because they need to categorize like they feel. If they can put you in a box, they feel more in control, but it actually has nothing to do with you. It's just their discomfort with uncertainty. And I wanna say this again, none of this excuses it. Understanding it does not make it acceptable. It just makes this way less about you. It frees you from carrying somebody else's stuff as if it is truth about you. Okay, so now the most important part of all of this, Because you can know this logically and intellectually, all these things that I mentioned and still not feel it in your body. You could still feel embarrassed or ashamed or upset by something someone says about your body or your appearance. And I wanna say this with a lot of love and compassion, but when you're feeling that way, a part of you is thinking that what they're saying might be true. Or it might contain something true and you're not okay with it being true because of whatever you've made that mean about you. And even still, it's not your fault because we've all had this conditioning. The most powerful way to overcome body comments is to actually change how you feel about yourself. Like for real, not just repeating affirmations over and over, or trying to be grateful and trying to be positive or just avoiding it and thinking it's not so important. All of those things are like band-Aids. They don't actually change the root. In The New Sexy, which is my signature program. We have a couple of first steps that women go through. So that they can get to the place where these comments truly have less of a hold than they ever have before. The first step is meeting yourself where you're at, and the second one is letting go of the societal bs. That's where we unwind this conditioning, where we see where our thoughts and our beliefs came from in the first place. Where we separate how we really feel about them from what was placed inside of our minds. And then we expand our own personal definition of beauty. I literally teach you the skill of seeing beauty, whether or not somebody fits the beauty standard. And once my clients move through these steps, it feels like seeing for the first time, like being in love again. you walk with your head, held a little higher, these comments. Roll off your shoulders a little bit easier. You don't spiral, you don't collapse. You can access compassion for other people and also stay grounded in who you know yourself to be. It's truly life changing. One of the coolest things that I've noticed for myself over the years is that people comment on my body so much less. Because, I don't know, I guess they know what I do. They know what I stand for. I've created boundaries both in speech and energetically. Honestly, I don't even remember the last time someone commented on my body, and I know that might sound hard to imagine because it's so common and it's all around us, but something really shifts in this work. People do meet you differently and treat you differently when you shift the way you feel about yourself. But I know someone's gonna comment on my body again someday. Like I'm not immune to it. It's inevitable. But what matters is what it does inside of you, because body confidence, like cultivating unwavering body confidence isn't some. Fluffy, nice to have kind of thing. It's the groundedness and embodiment that you walk through the world with. It's not, I don't give a fuck in a performative kind of way. It's actually not allowing somebody else's comment to penetrate your sense of self, because you truly know yourself better than anybody else. And if this is the season you're in, if you've been ready for this next level for a while, I would love to invite you to apply for The New Sexy. It's my five month virtual experience for self-aware, badass women all around the world, from Australia to Mexico to the United States, and they are just so incredible. Stepping into their next level of confidence and embodiment and radiating the self-love that they want to pass on to others. The link to apply is in the show notes and in the meantime, I hope this was helpful. Even if one thing sticks with you, the next time that someone says some stupid ass shit, then I will have done my job. And just remember, it's not truth, it's conditioning.