Welcome to TBH – To Be Honest – Capsule’s monthly column with our columnist and old pal, Brodie Kane! This month, Brodie shares her top tips about improving our body image and finally letting go of negative self-talk
And for her previous columns, click here!
Gosh, we women are such funny creatures, aren’t we? And by funny creatures, I mean wow, we are so hard on ourselves. If we figured out how many hours (ok, probably days) (actually, dare I say years???) we have been consumed by issues around body image, we would realise that it is SUCH A WASTE OF TIME.
Now, I’m certainly not going to tell you you must love yourself unconditionally, nor am I going to tell you you can’t have desires to improve yourselves. And I’m certainly not going to tell you that there’s some magical solution to stop sucking up your time thinking about all this. But I will share with you a few of the things that are certainly helping me in the fight to give less f*cks about the things that don’t matter. The things that, ultimately, we will look back on and realise shouldn’t have consumed us so much.
One is to do with your camera roll on your phone, the other is to listen to everything Kate Winslet says, the other is to do with compliments.
1) Do you yourself a favour: Go back and look at photos of yourself from two years ago. When I do that, I think “wow, you look bloody great, and yet at the time you had issues with your body and how it looked”. Then, I think about if I did that two years ago, I would’ve looked back at photos two years prior to that and gone, “wow, look at you there! What on earth were you worried about then?”
And then, go back ANOTHER two years and by then you’ll be kicking yourselves like I did (or do, I carry out this exercise quite regularly when I need an upper-cut) because, shock horror, you looked bloody great. And so the cycle continues, for FAR TOO LONG.
Every time I do this exercise, it really dawns on me that I’m looking back at memories, a life well-lived, and beautiful experiences… so, why on earth did I waste so much damn time worrying about my body?
Mum and I were looking through some of her old photos the other day. When she was swimming the Cook Strait, when she was doing an Ironman, when she was absolutely nailing these remarkable endurance events. Looking at those photos, she too was like, “I remember at the time thinking I was fat, or too heavy. I remember not being happy and now I look back and think for goodness sake Jo, you looked bloody amazing”.
DO THE PHOTO THING, PEOPLE.
2) Next, I want to bring in the queen that is Kate Winslet. I could listen to that stunning woman all day. She just comes out with some incredibly wise and relatable nuggets we all need to hear and tell ourselves repeatedly (not to mention that she finally admitted that indeed, Jack could absolutely have fit on that door).
I will share a couple of my favourite quotes from Kate:
She told Vogue, “for me, the secret to ageing at any age, in Hollywood or not, is actually accepting who you are and accepting that we can’t fight change. Sure, we can do things to support our health and our skin, to feel a little bit better and make ourselves last a bit longer. But for me, it’s about beauty coming from within and not being so self-critical – it’s a big deal.”
Then, Kate told Laura Kuenssberg at the BBC, “I don’t want to look back and go: why did I worry about that thing? And so guess what? I don’t worry anymore. I’m going to live my life, I’m going to enjoy it, get on with it. You’ve got one go around, make the most of it. As women, we so need to be having that conversation and celebrating just being a real shape and being soft, and maybe having a few extra rolls.”
And lastly, she shared this with Elizabeth Day on the How To Fail podcast. “I think women, as they get older, become juicier and sexier, and more embedded in their truth and who they are, and more powerful and more able to walk through the world and care less. And that is an empowering thing.”
LISTEN TO KATE.
3) Finally, this involves a group effort. We need to lean in more to complimenting each other. There is nothing like the sparkle in a woman’s eyes when you tell her she looks amazing, or happy, or you love her top, or whatever it may be.
Compliments feel so good to receive, but they are also such a wonderful way to make us all feel a little better about ourselves as well. There’s nothing quite like the sisterhood lifting each other up to make us all realise that we are, in fact, amazing. A compliment goes a long way and reminds us that we are not defined by the number on the scales, or the way we think we’re carrying our remarkable bodies.
GIVE MORE COMPLIMENTS.
Actually, I’ve got one more little nugget for you (‘buy three, get a fourth free’).
My friends and I often remind ourselves that no one is going to stand up at our funeral and say “look she was a great girl, but, I mean, she did have a bit of cellulite…”
It would never happen because your friends don’t give a f*ck about your cellulite. Look at yourself the way your friends look at you, and the way you look at your friends.
Lots of love xxx
To hear more of Brodie, jump onto her podcasts The Girls Uninterrupted and Kiwi Yarns
