Skinny Girls Get Bullied Too: How We See Ourselves Changes Everything | Ep. 4

Have you ever struggled with something that everyone else saw as an advantage? That was my reality growing up skinny. While people assumed I had it all together, I was hiding from mirrors, trying every trick in the book to gain weight, and carrying comments that people didn't even realize were hurting me. This episode is my story, and I'm telling it out loud for only the second time.

From being spun around by my belt loop in the hallway to being told I was "too skinny" by every boy who ever liked me, the bullying was real. But what I didn't understand then was that the damage wasn't just coming from the outside. It was what those experiences attached themselves to on the inside that changed the way I saw myself for years.

In this episode, we go beyond my story and talk about body image and bodily awareness at large. Because this is not just a woman's issue, and it is not just about weight. It is about how we all, at some point, have let the outside world inform how we see ourselves from the inside. And what it actually takes to change that.

This one is heavy, but it is worth it. Because the work of renovating your soul is not always pretty, but it is always necessary.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome back to Renovating the Soul Podcast. I'm your host, Alexandria Robinson, and I'm so happy that you have joined me for episode number four. Episode number four, y'all, already. It's been such a fun experience. And today's episode, Skinny Girls Get Bullied 2. It is on a sensitive topic. We're talking about body image and weight and just image in general, but bodily awareness, body image, and weight. And specifically, that starts with my story, me telling my story. And in the last episode, we talked about projecting, and projecting goes directly into what I want to talk about today on this episode of Skinny Girls Get Bullied 2. Now, this started as a blog post. I've already mentioned that I had I still have one active blog, and then I had a blog a couple years ago. That one you can't find online anymore. But the this was one of those blog posts, and it was called Skinny Girls Get Bullied 2. And it was essentially my first time telling my story about how I struggled with being skinny and how I was bullied for it. And I I uh I would say harassed also for it, but just my experiences of struggling with um weight and feeling as if I couldn't come out and say anything about being skinny because of the stigmas and the implications and all of the things that I'd heard for years, and so I was really proud of myself and I was super scared putting that blog post out there, but intention is always important, and my intention was not to continue to my intention was not to continue to push the idea that skinny equals perfection, it was actually quite the opposite that what people saw perfection uh or how they labeled you know skinny as perfect and me being skinny all my life, it was actually something that I saw as one of my big biggest imperfections, and so because of it being an imperfection for me and all of the comments and the things that I've experienced um when it comes to my weight, matriculated and added up to me posting that blog post, and as I was doing planning for the podcast, it came up again, and I thought, wow, what better way to be able to bring that blog post to life. Here I have this podcast and this opportunity to expand and expound upon my thoughts, and so that's what I want to do today, and and in my experiences, right? But it also ties in so perfectly, like I said, with the last episode of projecting and how when someone projects on you, and as we said that that quote about it's not until those things attach itself, it's not until those things attach themselves to you and to your soul that you begin to project onto others or you begin to um uh live it out, right? Because even if you don't project onto other people, the things that people do and say and then projecting onto you, or just life experiences, comments that people make, right? They can still attach themselves to you in a way where it becomes a part of your beliefs, it becomes a part of the way that you think. And as we addressed in episode number one, our beliefs, our thoughts, the way we see ourselves, all of that comes from within. And as I was preparing for this episode, oh man, the resources that I used, every single one just blew my mind. And I'm as always, I'm gonna link all of those resources in the bottom. But the biggest takeaway that I got was this, and I would say that I would say maybe the biggest epiphany that I had was this our bodily awareness, our body image, our image in general, how we see ourselves starts from the inside. We think that the outside informs the inside, but it's the inside that informs the outside. Where does it come from that I'm ugly? That comes from the inside. Where does it come from that no one's gonna find me attractive? It comes from the inside. Like those are your beliefs. My body, my physical body, my face, my weight, my feet, my hair, my nose, none of those things are speaking and saying, You're ugly, you're unattractive, you're never gonna be a model. Like, none of those things are saying that, that comes from the inside. And so how we view ourselves from the inside and how we see ourselves starts with our beliefs, whether it comes from impressions from other people, experience that we live, society, right, and the influences around us, because there are real influences and things that affect the way that we see ourselves, but the way we see ourselves starts from the inside. The way we see ourselves starts from the inside, and there's also a uh there's a misconception that this is just a woman's issue, but it's not. Think about the fact that men are going overseas, and honestly, not even overseas, but remember those barber videos that were going around where men with no hair they were getting the hair put back on with I don't know what the chemicals and the things are called, you know, whatever. That they're their image is is not image, is not what's the word I'm looking for? Image is not restrained to one person or one gender or one race. Image is across every single person. The way we see ourselves affects every single one of us. And for some of us, we've learned to rise above the society standards. For others, body disorders, image problems can lead people to kill themselves. But it's because of the thoughts, it's because of the beliefs, it's because of what's happening inside of them that makes them feel as if they're not good enough because of how they appear. And so that's what we're talking about today. And so I'm gonna start. Well, I already started, I guess, but I'm gonna continue. I'm gonna introduce. Um, I'm going to also I can say that I'm gonna start here telling my story. So where skinny girls get bullied to comes from. So I'm gonna jump in to my story, and it really starts in childhood. I have been skinny all of my life, all of my life. And when I was a little girl, I used to hear all kinds of things like um, you need some meat, you need to get some meat on those bones, uh suggestions, eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every night. When that didn't work, oh just eat peanut butter. Um, I've had people buy stuff for me like protein powder and certain types of food and certain types of I don't know, I wouldn't call them remedies, but I guess tricks to help you gain weight. Um, I you know, when you're going through the buffet line or when you're at your family's house and you're doing the little, you know, uh I guess yeah, I don't know what it's called. Like it's not an assembly line, but you know, you're you're standing in line to get your food, and you don't always get to serve yourself, especially as a kid. And so what people would do was they would put extra food on my plate because I needed to fatten up or I needed to again like put some meat on my bones. But it really felt like everywhere that I went, someone was commenting on my weight, someone was saying something about the way that I looked, and I did not necessarily know it was a problem until people started mentioning it to me. My parents actually never made a big deal about me being skinny, like like thinking back and looking back on that, it did not start within my home. Like my mom and dad were not the ones like you need to eat, you know, you need to do this. My mom is also skinny though, and so I think she understood the struggles, even though we didn't talk about them until I got older. I think she understood not to put that on me, so she never again. I we just I just never had those experiences in my home, which is something I'm kind of realizing in this moment that like my parents were not the ones telling me to, you know, do some of this stuff, and some of the things that I told them people would tell me to do, they were even turned off on, especially my dad. Um, and I and I appreciate because I I think because I'm the only girl in the oldest, he knew that there were he knew to protect my image in a certain way, if that makes sense. Like he knew to protect my image in a certain way that I did not understand then, and I went because I went along with the things that people were saying, and I did try to do the protein shakes and eat the peanut butter and do the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and whatever else they recommended, right? Or trying to stuff myself, like trying to overeat. I I really did try to to do those things. I um I really did try to do those things to no avail. Nothing worked, like I could not gain weight, and I remember I was in a middle school play. I did the middle school play every single year, but this particular one, it was in the 50s, it was in the 50s, the setting was the 50s, and so we had these cute fringe dresses. I still wish I had that dress. I know I can't fit it now, but it was the cutest little dress, and it and I had these three layers of fringe, and I just danced my heart out and I performed my heart out, and I was so proud to show my family like how you know good I was. I wasn't the main character, but I I wasn't in the back, like I had a lot of stage time in this play, okay? And I was super pumped, and when I came down, my grandpa could not get over, and I and this is exactly what he said, my little chicken legs, y'all. I to this day don't remember any other comment made to me after I came off of that station doing that play, except for him telling me and laughing about my chicken legs. And I know that not every person, including my grandpa, meant harm. Not every person who was trying to help or who thought they were helping meant to harm me or cause more problems. But the issue is that everyone else saw a problem in me that I did not see. No one stopped and said, like, do you see your weight as an issue? Are you struggling with your image? Are you I I I wasn't. The the other way that I started I started to become insecure or feel like there was a problem with me being skinny was in elementary school and middle school, you know, you boys, right? For girls, we just boys, boys and and boys, right? And all throughout my diary, it was why don't I have a boyfriend? And uh, you know, I don't like why don't I have a boyfriend and so-and-so has a boyfriend, and I wish you had a boyfriend. And the thing guys liked me, but the thing that um I think every single guy said was that I was too skinny. Talk about a way to introduce insecurities to a kid is when all of your classmates are like, You're the homegirl, but you're too skinny. It was never that my personality was dull or that I was ugly, you know. No one ever really was like, Yeah, she's just she's ugly in the face or she doesn't look that good or whatever. It was always, which maybe saying that I'm too skinny is a way of saying I was ugly. I don't know, but they never said they never said ugly, but they definitely use skinny. Because, okay, let me and let me explain that too. That you all know how it went. You don't go tell the boy you like him, you tell your friend to tell a friend to be like, drop my name and see what they say, and then it comes back, you know, and then they're like, Yeah, he said you're cool, he said you're pretty, but you're you're just too skinny. It's it's really hard to this again. This is only my second time really telling these stories besides that vlog, and this is my first time voicing these. This is my first time voicing this in a cohesive and kind of like one-setting way, and that'll probably happen a lot throughout this podcast because I just haven't I've used my voice sporadically and I've told stories, bit I've told bits and pieces of stories, but I haven't really sat down and put the pieces together and you know tied everything all together. Um, and so this a lot of these things that I tell you all in the podcast world, and I guess the world at large, is it's a first time for me. And you hear and see me in the moment still processing a lot of that pain and a lot of that hurt because though I've thought about it and though I've dealt with it, it's so different actually telling people, it's different actually, even for the first time, telling those people who were trying to help me then, even for them to hear that some of the things they may have said or done had a negative impact on the way that I seen myself. It's hard, it's it is hard. That's why I don't come down on people who share their stories because there's so many people who live in silence and who uh hide behind a mask still and don't stand up and speak up and speak out. It is really hard to put yourself out there, and so I commend those who do it, and I sit here as one who's doing it and again trying to process as I go, but it was super painful to be called bony and somebody to poke your elbows, and kids would lift me up, like they would pick me up and pass me from person to person. Um, I was too too small, like okay. So, high school, I was too little to get into like ones, so I wore double zeros. Guys probably have no idea what I'm talking about right now, but that's okay. Just know double zeros the smallest size you can wear in juniors, and I could barely fit double zeros when I got to high school, okay. Um, that was something that I never revealed. So when we talked about our weights, when when the girls would we would compare our weights and stuff or gene sizes, because you didn't say your weight, you just said like your gene size. Like, I'm a two, I'm a four, I'm a six, and I would be like, I'm a two. No one get away. I'm lying because I was a double zero, barely that. I was still in the max kids size for girls, and I don't even remember what that was. Um, but I remember one day the these girls I hung out with, I think it was middle school, these girls I hung out with, I had to, I couldn't fit belts. Okay, could not fit like a regular belt. So I had a kid belt that I had to I had a kid belt that I had to put on the last notch that I had to then loop around my waist, and then I would have to tie it in the back in order for it to not hang. And so I would always have this knot back there, so I hid my I would always keep my shirts down. And anyways, it came up one time and they saw it, and they took the loop out and they swung me around in the hallway by my loop. These were girls that are supposed to be my friends, and they laughed, and that was one of the most humiliating days of my entire life, and the one of the reasons why I to this day say that I absolutely hated middle school, hated middle school. The same girls that made fun of me was the same girls that I still wanted to be friends with. It's such a confusing time, but that was so embarrassing and humiliating for them, and I could still see their faces like in tears laughing at me, and I'm in tears crying. Like it wasn't until I got super frustrated that they stopped. You know, you laugh at first, but you are you're like imagine me just seeing myself spinning, and these girls are bigger than me. I don't fight, they both fought. Like, I I'm not a you know, I I just I was defenseless, and that was one of my biggest struggles with being skinny. That as I started to get older and people would pick me up. One time this boy pushed me, like let go of my hands and pushed me on the playground. I hurt my back, like y'all, so many physical things that I have uh gone through from you know being the smallest, being one of the smaller kids in class. Um, all of these experiences, you know, of course they're happening in the moment, and I so I'm not like reflecting and processing then, but it did start to become it so wait, how can I say this? All of these experiences, I'm not processing in the moment, but what's happening is that experience after experience, time after time, comment after comment, suggestion after suggestion, weight became one of my biggest insecurities. I remember another thing that was probably the second most second most hurtful thing was going to dinner with my friends and her family, and I had got up to use the bathroom. I got up to use the bathroom, and I came back, and my friend was kind of laughing, and and I was like, I was like, you know, I think I asked her. Maybe I asked her. I don't remember if I asked her if she volunteered, but she leaned over and she was like, my cousin or friend, whoever was the other person with us, um, thought that you went thought that you went to the bathroom to throw up. And she's like, and I told her no, but they were they were like laughing, and she's like, and and um the friend or the cousin, whoever it was, was saying, that's how I was able to stay so skinny. This is I was in high school, like that's that's how it wasn't even like a concern for the girl, like it wasn't like she was saying, Oh my gosh, I'm concerned. Is she going to the bathroom to throw up? It was like, oh, she's going to the bathroom to throw up, that's how she stays so skinny. When I tell you guys for years after that, I did not go to the bathroom while eating. I'm not even kidding. I if I got my plate and I ate my food, I did not get up and go to the bathroom afterwards. I didn't. That that is the god honest truth because I was so scared that someone else would imply that I was going to the bathroom to throw up so I could keep my weight down. Cause I was the furthest thing from the truth. The truth is that I hated being skinny. The truth is that I the truth is that I wanted to gain weight and I wanted to put on pounds. People kept insinuating that I was working hard at being skinny, that oh, you're not eating enough, and oh you're doing stuff, even encouraged, don't exercise. Y'all, I have so much uh I have so so many other things that I I want to talk about, but I I I I can't do this episode without telling my story because I don't want to make it about someone else or try to point a finger or even try to talk about something so sensitive without you all first understanding why I wanted to talk about this and how it has affected me firsthand. Whether it was people projecting on me or just the nastiness of kids, all of those things have had a negative effect on the way that I viewed and still view myself, that I have fought so hard not to be the skinny girl with the glasses, which is literally how I was identified in high school. There was years of my life, probably up until like up until before I left for college, I loved mirrors, but there was a time in my life where I would hide from mirrors, I would hide from mirrors because I didn't like the way that I looked. Uh, people, you know, laugh like laughed. I I laughed with people when they made fun of me, but I was really crying on the inside. I so I started to gain weight. I gained the freshman 15 in and when I went to Atlanta, fried chicken Wednesdays, wings, fries. It it was beautiful, and I was so happy that I finally got some hips. Like everybody was mad at the freshman 15, and I was celebrating. Atlanta really changed my life, and that was one of the ways that um it did was being able to put on weight and keep on weight. Um, but it still didn't make the insecurities go away. Then when I was able to gain weight, it made me want to prove like show and and show off my body, and and so it's it just it it goes from you know one like an insecurity grows, right? If you don't really tackle it and address it. So Then it was no longer like, oh, I want to hide. Now it was I want to show my body, even when it's a little too much. I never went too crazy, but because I was so proud to have boobs, I blossomed super late. So because I was so proud to have, you know, breasts and I was so proud to have some hips, like it made me um it it made me um dress to please people now because I wanted the attention. I wanted people to see like, yeah, your girls in here now. I'm keeping up with the other or the other girls, you know, still smaller than than most, but um, you know, finally got some weight on. So I because I did not address that insecurity, it just kind of it just kind of what's the word? Like it hmm because I did not address that insecurity, it I don't want to say let's see, because I didn't address that insecurity, it rolled over into new things. Now I'm insecure because no one's looking at me because he didn't want my number. You know, it just it just kind of rolled over into new things. So but more than just gaining weight in college, and even though I didn't um even and even though I didn't address my insecurities with my weight head on, the other thing that started to change about me was the inside of me. I started to become more confident, I not just in how I looked, but in who I was, and that confidence really aided me because I did start to see that I bought into this misconception that there was something wrong with me all the while. It's genetics. I didn't learn until later on that my I get my weight and my skinniness from my mom who gets it from her dad, you know. So then I that was kind of like a relief too of oh my gosh, I've been trying to do this all this time, and it's just genet, you know, and it's and it's genetics, and I needed the South because the South there is a beautiful place, obviously. Um but it's hard to shake off opinions and thoughts from other people, and it's really hard to shake off the opinions and thoughts of other people when they are actually directing them to you. No one was really concerned with my daily struggles, no one was concerned with my heart and my soul, but they were most concerned with my outer appearance when I wasn't, which made me start to become concerned with my outer uh uh appearance, and so I found my voice as I got older to speak up against the um the voices and quiet the insecurities of others, which is the an exact line in my blog post from a couple of years ago, is that I wanted to quiet the insecurities of others, that while people and still to this day, people comment on my weight quite often, and and it came back up when I started having children, and I I gained 50 pounds in my first pregnancy and loved it. I wanted to keep that weight. I lost it all from breastfeeding, which I did not know was a thing that happened. I would not have breastfed had I known because I really wanted to keep the weight, so you can see this is still something that affects me. Though my weight is still something that definitely um affects me, but I wanted to keep that weight so bad and I didn't, but when even still like losing the weight, then you get the comments of wow, you didn't look like you didn't have a baby, or what did you do, or um uh people just and I and I try to tell people all the time like I wanted to keep the weight, I love gaining the baby weight, I loved having the weight, I try to keep it every time. Like, I just don't want my weight and my image to be such an insecurity for me that it starts to shape my entire life, and that's what happens quite often. What we see as another person's advantage can very well be the thing that keeps them crying at night, and that's exactly what was happening to me. That while everyone kept thinking that I was better than them, oh my gosh, I can tell you the number of times that people just insisted that I thought that I I was better than them and and and and treated me as if I just put myself on this pedestal. That you're thinking that because I've been given some sort of advantage, right? Some sort of advantage that I just am living the best life ever, and really I'm every day, every day struggling, hiding from mirrors, trying to eat more than I can, uh try trying to do all the tips and tricks, trying to eat certain things, trying to not eat certain things, like really trying to shape myself so that I can fit what the people around me wanted me to look like so they could stop commenting on me. And a lot of those people's standards were coming from their insecurities, but also coming from the things that society has placed on us, right? And culturally, being a black woman with no hips and no boobs is not fun. It is not when we are known for being curvy and you know voluptuous and and you know, having that, and then here I am, I'm straight as a board, just straight down. Like it's it it's so the community, right, and how you grow up and and how people see certain people or what even what they expect, right, is the things that will shape other people. But I think those people who really had the more ill intentions, like the people who really have the deeper insecurities with their image, even if it wasn't weight, were the ones that went a little harder on me to insinuate that I was throwing up or to swing me around right by my belt loop. And when I was doing my research on this, I was looking up, I read this article on bodily awareness, and bodily awareness does not start. This article, this is exactly what it talks about. Like, it does not start from the outside. Your bodily awareness starts from the inside, and this is not have as much to do with weight as it does with just our actual physical bodies. Essentially, what that first section of this article was trying to say is that while everyone else's bodies appear to me from the outside, only my body appears to me from the inside. I know what's happening to my body because I am in it, but I okay. Let me tell you like this too. My body is a physical thing, a rock is a physical thing. But what makes my physical body different than a rock is that I am self-aware. A rock is not aware that it is a rock. But I, Alexandria, am aware that I am Alexandria and that I have a body. We talked about this, I think, in the last episode about self-awareness a little bit. But that's another indication that we have a soul because I'm not just a rock sitting there as a physical thing, right? I'm not this cup. This cup is sitting here, but this cup doesn't know it's a cup. I, Alexandria, am aware that I have a body because I have self-awareness, because my awareness does not start from my body. If you took everything out of me, so basically, if I died, my body is no longer aware that it's a body. Why? Because it needs the spirit, the soul to be connected to it. And so this bodily awareness starts from the inside. That's why it's not so much about how we look, it's about how we think we look, what we believe we look, what we believe we should look like. It's about what starts on the inside of us that informs how we see ourselves. So people could have said all they wanted to about me, but if I would have seen myself as just beautiful and and strong and and beyond, defined more than just my weight in my image, those things really wouldn't have affected me. But the problem is, I, as many of us do in society, did see myself as my physical experience, um, excuse me, as my physical appearance. I did see myself as my image. I did define myself by whether I was a four or whether I was a double zero, and not by what truly defines me of like who I am on the inside. It didn't matter that I was a caring person, that I got good grades. It didn't matter that I performed my butt off in that play. It didn't matter that I memorized all my lines, went to all the practices, and that Mr. Domingo was proud of me. All that mattered to so many people was the way that I looked. I have more comments in my mind about my weight and my image than I do about my heart or my character. And that's not to say that I have a bad one. Like, yeah, girl, they probably didn't comment on it because you no, no, no. I I but I know myself, I was a better kid than I am an adult, honestly. Like I, you know, I was more focused and determined and a pretty good kid, right? I stayed out of trouble, so there was no reason for people not to comment on those things that really mattered about me beyond the way that I looked. There, there was just genuinely no reason. And when I was um, I was reading this article from Vox. Um, it was called The Past, Present, and Future of Body Image in America, and it goes through kind of like a timeline, and it's really important. It goes through this timeline because you have to remember that back in the day, skinny did equal perfection, like skinny equaled these, you know, models. You couldn't get on America's Next Top Model as a plus size, that was like an exception, and plus size was like a size six. My goal weight, okay. My goal gene size is a size six, like size six, I think, was too big to be on America's Next Top Model. I'm almost wanting to say I couldn't find, of course, they don't have the requirements up, but I looked at them one time because I really wanted to be on America's Next Top Model. How I know it was small was because I fit the weight requirements, but I did not fit the height requirements, which then introduced a new, I don't want to call it insecurity, but then I was really sad that I wasn't tall. I've been sad about that for a long time too. But it just again, image, right? That's why I said it's not just about body image, but it's about image, whether it's your hair, whether it's your teeth, whether it's your nose, whether it's your knees. I've heard people insecure about their knees, your your fingers, whatever it is, we struggle so much. Everyone struggles so much with image. But again, I think we we miss the mark in looking at ourselves and thinking that my image informs how I feel about myself, when really it's the inside that informs how I feel about myself. That's why now you have so many women even take um Cardi B. For those who may not be familiar, she had like crooked teeth for a long time, and people laughed at her for her crooked teeth. And when she would say that her teeth didn't bother her, that she was confident, people just couldn't believe that. I believe her. She said she only got them fixed so people would stop talking about her, and I believe her. Why? Because her image didn't need to inform her insides, her insides is what informed her outsides. And if she knew that you know what, I am more now. Obviously, I don't know the girl, so I'm just making this up. But if she knew that I am more than my teeth, right? And that I have all of these characteristics again. I I know when y'all heard Cardi B, you're probably thinking I'm not I yeah, but just roll with the example for now. That I hope you are getting is that the inside is what informs the outside, and we have to stop. Part of becoming a healthy person in our soul is that we stop defining people by the way that they look, and we also stop defining ourselves by the way that we look, but even bigger than that is that we stop projecting what we think should be an insecurity onto other people. I do it to my to my kids too. My kid, my oldest son was sucking his lip and he was getting this mark that started to develop, and I was so hard on him, I don't remember how old he was, but that's because I was scared that he was gonna end up like this little girl that I knew who had that mark and had it for all of her life, and then he was gonna get made fun of, and my family was gonna talk about him, and you you see what I mean? Like we have to then stop, and I'm not saying obviously do things that are safe, it's also safe that he does not mess up his skin. But what I'm trying to say is we as we become healthy, whole people within our souls, we stop putting things on people that aren't even there. Because truthfully, was I more concerned with the way my son was gonna look, or was I more concerned that he had healthy skin? I was more concerned with how he was gonna look and if people were gonna make fun of him. You know, and then we introduced these things into people that they weren't even concerned with in the first place, and as I said before, body image or just image struggles, it's not just a woman's thing. When I looked up some statistics specifically on eating disorders, so that men represent 25% of people with eating disorders. The difference, however, is that a lot of men don't get treated because they think that their symptoms are not problematic. They think that they're un they think that their symptoms are unproblematic, so they don't get them checked out and they don't actually believe that they have, believe or recognize that they have a disorder. But by the time that they do actually go into some sort of healthcare system to have those things addressed, their symptoms are usually more severe. So this is not just a woman's topic. Like I said, men are going overseas and they're going to their barbers and they're getting these pieces put on. It don't, it doesn't even have to be those pieces. Think about toupees. Toupes have been around for so long. Why? Because we want to keep up a certain image, because we want to keep up a certain standard, right, with society, right? Um, so image and body image and these struggles are not just um uh uh again, they're not just severed off to one type of gender or one type of person. It affects both men and women, and it and it starts at a very young age. It starts at such a young age, and it does indeed affect affect women and girls. I believe that the some of the statistics statistics said at when they're younger. A lot of women, us women, we start to define ourselves by the people around us, by society, by men, right? And I want to read this uh statistic that anorexia has the highest case mortality rate and second highest crude mortality rate of any mental illness of any mental illness. It did not say eating disorder. Anorexia is the eating disorder, but it has the highest case of mortality rate of any mental illness. The fact that it is saying that this is a mental illness, and we on this podcast know that our mind, our thoughts, right, is is within our soul, not in the brain that you know we take out, like the mental illness means that it's coming from within that all of these people struggling with their image and killing themselves, and you know, in the ultimate case, in the extreme cases, that is the struggle within that they would label this a mental illness. That's why I wanted to talk about this. That's why I wanted to start with my own story, but really go into how this affects so many and affects society at large and has affected you and me. Everyone has had an image issue at some point or another, even if you're the most confident person now. Now, it maybe didn't stick so hard that it has affected your entire life or made you live out and do certain things, but people are mean, kids are mean. So all of us probably got teased for something, or you were the teaser and the bully, right? Because remember, on here, we're gonna hold you accountable on both sides. We ain't all the victims. Some of y'all was the ones doing the stuff, okay? So we're gonna hold you accountable too. It's probably some people you need to go apologize to right now. Um, so we're not just gonna act like everybody was on the other side, right? Um, but again, this bodily awareness, this how we see ourselves, starting from the inside, points back to the fact that we need to be, it points back to the fact that we need to be looking within. We need to be addressing the insecurities, the the impressions, the comments, the projections that have attached themselves to us. Because I believe that a lot of those things serve as distractions. So when I become so focused on trying to maintain my weight so that society accepts me, I forget to spend time actually developing my mind and my character and my soul, the things that really matter, right? I forget, and my my focus really isn't on reading a book that's gonna help me develop as a better person, or reading a book that's gonna help my financial problems, or reading a book that's gonna help me be a better parent. Instead, I'm looking at Instagram, or I'm looking at a magazine, or I'm looking at an article, or I'm looking at uh an app or something, right? To try to figure out and focus on how do I look better, how do I maintain, how do I get that weight, right? And it takes away from our true purpose in life, which should be focusing within. My husband shared this quote for me from Socrates, and he has a there's a paper on it as well, but he said, but Socrates says this that the unexamined life is not worth living. What is he saying? That the purpose, the focus of life is to be examining ourselves. We have made that such a hard and what's the word I'm looking for? We have made that such a taboo, we have made that such a a difficult task that we we don't do it. But Socrates, this amazing philosopher, the the man who dedicated his life to giving us so much of the information that we have today says that the unexamined life is not worth living. You should be examining yourselves, you should be knowing who you are, you should be looking within. But adding, you know, variety of sizes and companies coming out, it's just the same as um the the beauty company, can't think of the beauty company coming without with all shades of makeup and stuff, just with all of this awareness that we have about any um not inequality, but equality and inclusive inclusivity, excuse me, there's the word inclusivity, and again, this this whole message of body positivity that in 2024 the kids and people around should be experiencing less insecurity, but what's happening is that they're experiencing it more because back in my day, I was born in 1991, so in the 90s, in the in the early 2000s, we had just started coming into social media, but you still could barely go to the internet for like anything you wanted. You started to be able to, but magazines and books were still a thing, and then back in the 80s and the 70s, they really only had magazines, and so that the article was saying when you had a magazine, you can put that down, you can walk away, you get a break, but now with social media and how much we're on it, it's just right there on your phone scrolling, and all you have is a bunch of comparison. And again, if if it's not your image you struggle with, it could be your money that someone has more money than you, or they're smarter than you. Right, it the the whole point is that in a day and age where we are trying to get rid of some of these things that have affected us in the past, like the whole skinny equals perfection thing, which the article says, and and screaming things like body positivity and and all of this that we're doing, all these new movements that we have, that we should be seeing a difference in how people uh respond from the inside of them. That we should be seeing more confident, secure, happy young adults and young people, and yet we're seeing the opposite. Because all you're doing is changing the movement, all you're doing is creating a new phrase and creating a new way for people to buy products, but you're still not addressing the root issues that happen within people. Those people making money off of the industry, they don't care about how you see yourself, they just care about making money. That's why you have to do the work. And it's not about following the movements, it's not about, oh, now they have size 12 jeans. Are we actually going into the schools and talking to the girls and the boys about knowing themselves from the inside, being confident about who they are on the inside? And I'm gonna say we're not doing that enough and not actively enough because us adults are still struggling with the same thing. Like I said, those people going overseas to get their hair done, they're like transplants, this transplants, I believe. It's like an actual procedure that you have to get done. You still have such a and now with social media, we have women who are talking about the BBLs and and the and the boobs, um, I forget the the what the surgery is called, but we're still trying to go for this ideal look. And honestly, it's not too big and it's not too small. Now it's this perfect, perfect, like no wasting, and you know, hips and it, and that's fine. I'm not saying that you can't love yourself and focus on how you look and be healthy. That's not my point, but the my point is that it is not going to do you any good to get your outside fixed if your insides are still messed up. Even when I gained my cute little 15 pounds, I still had inside issues to deal with. It didn't change my family problems, it didn't change my my my my doubts and my frustrations. It didn't, it didn't change anything about me on the inside. Uh well, okay, I can say that it did affect my confidence, but there were still other things that I had to deal with. Let's put it like that. So you can do the things, right? And you can go work out and you can do right, you can do all the things. You can get your hair, you can fix your nose, you can fix your teeth. You can teeth is a big thing that we see too now. Um, and we can do all of those things, but my point is that there's still the insides of us that need to be addressed and dealt with. We shouldn't ignore what's happening on the inside of us to fix what's outside because how we see ourselves on the outside comes from within. There's a quote in the Vox article from a young lady, and she says, These ideal bodies pushed by the media made me feel insecure about my body. And at one point, I even hated my body, the body that does so much for me. And I when she said that it just struck something within me because our bodies are a blessing. Our bodies, the the makeup and the workup of our bodies is so intricate and so beautiful, and yet what I find so fascinating is that with everything going on within our bodies, what makes us who we are is our souls. That I can know the the DNA and I can know the cells and I can produce you know babies as a woman, right? And a man can put the sperm inside a woman to allow a baby to happen. Like these bodies are so amazing, but even more than just being a body, even more than just being a physical object, even more than just being the DNA on your fingertips or the cells within you, you have an even intricate part of you, which is your soul. And we become so disgusted and unhappy with who we are because of all these influences around us that what once was someone else's worry or concern or insecurity now is ours. On the article I read on bodily awareness, it said that and I'm paraphrasing that our that our having bodies is fascinating in itself. But what makes having a body or being in a body even more fascinating and why people want to study it and our bodily awareness is because it's not it's not just let me say this, it's not just that we have bodies, right? Because we see the bodies, we go out and you see body, body, body, you see person, person, person, right? So we're talking about the body, but you see the body, you see the body, you see your body, you see your body. The the fascinating thing, and why it's so intriguing and why it leads many, not all, but many to believe that we have a soul is because there's only one body like it. You gotta think about that. Within my home, there are five bodies. Wait, yeah, it's five of us. And yes, we all have a body, but each body is different. That's why people uh are dedicating their lives to writing these, you know, articles like these and studying and and and getting us to see right things like being like bodily awareness coming from within. And they go back and they have these arguments about but some believe that bodily awareness is only a physical thing, that it is not uh something that comes from within. So that is not everyone's belief. I only addressed it because I I'm obviously on the other side where I do think that your bodily awareness does come from within, right? And there are things about us that are very hard to deny. They do, I think they're stubborn, but hey, that's that's their uh prerogative. But but they but they are really looking at the fact that yes, there are these bodies, but each body is its own. What does that mean for you? When we say there's only one you, that's true. There is only one, you have a body just like the next person, but there is no body like you. That that was you know, no, it wasn't a you know pun intended, but but there is there's literally no space body like you, like yours, and only you can be aware of what's happening in your body because the awareness starts from inside of you, not from the outside. If it started from the outside, then I can look at you and be aware of your body. That would also mean that when you crossed your legs, I could feel you crossing your legs because I am aware of the physical things that happen in your body. We're not just talking about image, we're talking about me, I'm gonna, you know, clapping my hands or crossing my leg or stumping my feet. The physical things that I'm able to do with my body, I am aware of because it's coming from inside of me, not from the outside. If I could just see bodily, if I could just have bodily awareness from the outside, I should be able to have it for all of you, but I can't. I can only have it from within me because bodily awareness is self starts with self-awareness, and the self-awareness starts with the self. It's you, it's your body. That means that this is your responsibility to look within, to ask yourself how have the things that people have said, or how has society, how have these images that someone out there created, someone out there had to say fat, skinny, tall, this, standard that. So someone out there had to say that. Whether it's just some are you a standard of beauty in itself, or whether it's again comes from the modeling industry, or and and again, these things date back to slavery days and beyond that. Image has always been a thing, small waist has always been a thing. Looks have again has always been a thing. But how does that inform how we live and see ourselves? The challenge is not to start doing, the challenge is really just to stop and see. I knew that my struggles, and it took me, I don't know how many years, 20-some years, to finally say out loud that being skinny was a struggle, that I hated being skinny, and that I was bullied for being skinny. But I wrote that blog, and I'm doing this episode, Skinny Girls Get Bullied Too, because people don't realize that that many of the people who projected their struggles with their own weight or image issues didn't realize that I also was having weight and image issues. And I want to read this from the direct quote from my blog a few years ago. Every time someone speaks negativity into your life, you speak positivity into your own life. What matters most is how you value yourself, how you see yourself, and how you love yourself. Learn to love who you are, embrace every flaw you think you have, and face your insecurities head on. The only power people have over you is the power you give them. Stop giving people power to tell you who you are or who you should be. These are easier said than done, and believe me, I have to remind myself of these things on a daily basis, but it is worth it. This is hard work, y'all. It is hard to have to admit the things that we've been holding on to deep within ourselves for years, but I do believe it's worth it. When you address your insecurities and you know your struggles, it makes it harder for people to dangle those things over your head. That the thing that was an insult to you before now rolls off of your back. That now I can recognize when someone is putting their insecurities on me when they make a comment about my weight, instead of me having to carry their comments like I carried that comment my grandpa made for all those years. It's hard work, but it's beautiful work and it's worth the work because the unexamined life is not worth living. And the last thing that I'll say is be kind to people. Just because society and media and culture and even our small communities only highlight a few that seem to be targeted of uh targets of bullying or harassment or negativity, you never know who's being talked down to for things that they can't even control. I couldn't change my weight, even if I tried. I re I just couldn't make myself 120 on that scale. There was no magic powers, and yet I fought so hard to change myself so that people could leave me alone. But I'm happy that at 32 I'm much more confident and I'm much more willing to do the work within to continue to address those insecurities and to continue to remind myself that I am more than just the way that I look, and that it's not about looking in the mirror and then seeing myself that's gonna tell me how I see myself, but that it has to start with the inside, and it can be the traits that you don't even see to stop doubting myself, to be confident, to stop thinking that I can't do something on my own, to stop thinking that I'm not strong enough or capable enough, that even though I may not have the same resources as the next person, that because of who I am and because of what I do have, I can use the portion that I have, I can use what has been given to me to make the life that I want to have and to be the person that I want to be. I don't need to look like the next person, I don't need to meet the weight standards of how society thinks that I should look. I don't need to get surgery to try to fix myself. Trust me, I've thought about it. I need to continue to do the work of the inside of me, who is Alexandria, and that'll help me to see myself the way that is intended, as beautiful, as strong, not because of my image or my weight, but because that is who I am on the inside, and I live that from the inside out. I hope this episode has been helpful. Please like, share, comment. You can leave voice messages on Spotify. We should have crossing our fingers and the episode up on YouTube on Friday. So after you listen on your platform, head over to YouTube on Friday. Thank y'all for rocking with me. This episode was a little heavy, it was a little heavy, but you know, we're gonna do some heavy lifting, and I am here to support you all. You're not alone. I am here on this journey with you. So, until next time, y'all, let's keep doing the work to renovate the soul.