Can our friends influence how we perceive our bodies? Can our self-confidence hinge on the way we talk about our bodies? These are questions that will be answered as we venture into a dialogue on body image, friends, and self-talk. It's a journey that I, as your host, am passionate about, as I believe that every woman should view her body positively. This episode is packed with personal anecdotes, research, and insights that will help us understand the intertwining threads of friendship and body image.
We'll confront the raw truth of how friends can shape our body image - the good, the bad, and the ugly. But, we'll also discuss how to surround ourselves with body-confident friends who can support us on our journey towards a healthy body image. Further, we'll delve into the power of body talk and how it can make or break our self-confidence. Lastly, we'll share some practical tips on how to shift these conversations in a positive direction. So tune in, share your thoughts, and continue the conversation.
Can our friends influence how we perceive our bodies? Can our self-confidence hinge on the way we talk about our bodies? These are questions that will be answered as we venture into a dialogue on body image, friends, and self-talk. It's a journey that I, as your host, am passionate about, as I believe that every woman should view her body positively. This episode is packed with personal anecdotes, research, and insights that will help us understand the intertwining threads of friendship and body image.
We'll confront the raw truth of how friends can shape our body image - the good, the bad, and the ugly. But, we'll also discuss how to surround ourselves with body-confident friends who can support us on our journey towards a healthy body image. Further, we'll delve into the power of body talk and how it can make or break our self-confidence. Lastly, we'll share some practical tips on how to shift these conversations in a positive direction. So tune in, share your thoughts, and continue the conversation.
Are your friends healthy for your body image and, if not, what can we do about it so it doesn't affect your body image? All right, sister, I hope that you have had a dance party already today. I hope you've got a little bit movement going on. You've taken some deep breaths. You are here with me, ready to go all in, because your girl here is on by ya, because I spent a whole day yesterday, at the time of recording this, with a group of crazy, amazing, inspiring entrepreneur women, and I got the pleasure of sharing more about what I do and we had a really great conversation around bodies, around body image, around our, our love for ourselves, our struggles, our you know just literally everything to do with our bodies, our body image, and it set my soul on fire, because this is what I do. I'm obsessed. That's why you're here, hopefully listening to this, because you have a desire to truly live in a body that you love and adore and appreciate and you feel peace and freedom and confidence in your body to live your powerful life Right, like that's. That's why I'm here, that's why I do what I do, but it's not often that I get to sit around so many amazing women who will just be real, raw and honest in a group setting, just about their thoughts, their struggles, their questions, their, their needs and their beliefs around their body. And when you're someone like me, who is just like crazy passionate about this, being in a room like that, I mean goosebumps, chills, excitement, but also frustration and sadness. Because if you would just see yourself the way that I see you and the way that the other humans in the world see you homegirl you, your confidence would shoot through the roof. We all are biggest critic. We all have these thoughts in our heads that just bring us down, that, that have us feeling so many, so many feels about our body that are just so inaccurate. And I share all of that with you to tell you that I hope that you are hyped and excited and ready to go today, because I am and I am fueled and and determined to make a bigger impact when it comes to helping you and the women and the girls in your life show up for themselves and see their bodies as the most magnificent machine that they get to truly figure out how to love and appreciate. So, with that said, today we are I'm going to keep it simple because we're really talking about our friends, because the question is is are your friends healthy for your body?
Danielle La Rose:
You're doing a lot of work. If you're working with me or you're listening to the podcast or you're digging into some of the content that I'm sharing on social media, you are doing the work for yourself. You're shifting your mindset. You're shifting your mindset around nutrition and fitness and your body image and your confidence and you're like, yes, I'm freaking on fire, I got this, I know what I'm doing, or you're getting to that point of knowing that, and yet you might find yourself in communities and environments around quote unquote friends that aren't healthy for your body image. Right, we think that this is such a personal thing, and it very much is, but we think that it's just us. Right, we gotta shift our negative thoughts. We gotta figure out how to love our bodies. We gotta figure out how to make a safe space in our body. We gotta figure out how to have a healthy relationship with our body. We gotta figure out how to fuel our body. That is all facts, straight facts, homie.
Danielle La Rose:
However, if you are surrounding yourself with friends and communities and environments, online or offline, where you are getting a different message, it is crushing your confidence. It is crushing the work that you are doing, and so you might be thinking but they're my friends, danielle, like they don't have to love their bodies, they don't have to go on this journey with me. Their life is their life and mine is mine, and we are friends and we have different things in common, and that is facts. But I'm gonna challenge you a little bit on that and see if you can make a bigger impact for them and also for yourself. So the reason why this is so important is because research-based evidence shows us that when other people are talking about their bodies right so, and that, remember, you'll go to dinner sometimes. I don't know about you, but I'll go to dinner sometimes and I'll have a friend that's like oh, I really shouldn't eat this. Oh my gosh, how many calories are in that? How many carbs are in that? Oh man, my stomach is already looking like this. Oh, my love handles are gonna grow even more if I eat one more French fry. Right, they're talking about their bodies. Do I look good in this? Does this make me look fat? Does this do this? Does that do that? I don't like the way that I look today. Oh, I can't stand myself. Oh, I wish I could get rid of this. Can I just cut this out, can I just? I wish my legs looked like that. Oh my gosh, it must be nice to have her body.
Danielle La Rose:
And when other humans talk about their bodies or in front of us, research-based evidence shows us that that drastically impacts your body image. Because, as humans, what we do when we hear other people, when we hear other people talking about their bodies, what we do psychologically is we automatically start thinking about our body. So when someone else says, oh my gosh, I have so much cellulite, I need to figure out how to get rid of it, I'm not thinking about her cellulite. What am I doing? I'm thinking about my cellulite. So she's not trying to help, trying to make me have a negative body image. She's not telling me my body's wrong. She's probably looking at me, thinking, oh my gosh, I love her body. I wish I had her body right, cause that's what we do. So she's thinking that about me.
Danielle La Rose:
Meanwhile, what she doesn't realize is, when she's saying those things about her body, my mind because this is how we're wired my mind goes to oh my gosh, my cellulite. Do I need to get rid of my cellulite? Is it showing too much. Should I not wear shorts again? Should I? And, as someone who has struggled with cellulite, that might be a big trigger for me. Or it might not be a big trigger, but it's something in my brain that I'm going to pick up on.
Danielle La Rose:
When someone else is talking about their body, my mind is going to go there. You talk about your belly rolls. I'm going to think about my belly rolls. So you think about how wide your hips are. I'm going to think about how wide my hips are. You think about, or you talk about your stretch marks and your wrinkles. I'm going to think about my wrinkles, because psychologically, that's how we're programmed.
Danielle La Rose:
So when you, my friend, let's say you start struggling with your body image again and you start making these comments around your daughter, around your best friend, around your mother, around your sister, around whoever any other woman in your life, please know this when you say something negative about your body, it's encouraging her, without you knowing it, to think negatively about her body and to question her body, even if she wasn't doing it before. So we know that research shows us that other people talking about their bodies affects our body image, right. Also, if we're surrounding ourselves with people, friends that are talking about other people's bodies. Maybe they're not bashing their own body. Perhaps what they're doing is they're actually looking at someone else's body and they're saying, oh man, they should probably lose some weight. Why would they be? They're looking sick today. They really shouldn't wear that thing. They shouldn't wear that. That doesn't flatter their body. Why would they do that? She should probably fix that.
Danielle La Rose:
If you are around other people that are bashing other people's bodies, it is likely to affect your body image and again put you in a space where you might start questioning do they talk about my body like that? So whether someone is talking about their own body or other people's bodies, we know that it is science. Whether they're talking about your body, someone else's body, their own body, it drastically impacts your body image. So maybe we need new friends right, find new friends. And maybe you don't want to get rid of those friends. That's cool. We'll talk about what we can do about that in a minute. But perhaps we need to find new friends that are body confident, that are about body neutrality, that refuse to speak about another person's body because someone else's body is none of their business. And if you don't have those people in your life. It might be time to intentionally try to find people who do that.
Danielle La Rose:
I promise you, if you go to dinner with me, I will not talk about calories, I will not talk about carbs, I will not talk about my body. I've worked very, very hard to take my body conversation out of my mouth. It's not welcome there. We have more important things to talk about, right. Like we got to talk about some reality TV. We got to talk about Britney Spears. We got to have some dance parties. Like, I don't care about any of that right Now.
Danielle La Rose:
That's not to say that you can't share with me that you're struggling with your body. There's a difference, right. Especially in my world, where that's what I do, people share with me every day about their struggle with their body, and that is okay, because they're seeking help. They're seeking to make improvement. They're not wanting to bash their body for just the sake of bashing it or talk about someone else's body. They are simply sharing that they are struggling and we need friends who are empathetic, who are great listeners, that we can share those things with confidently. So we get to recognize the difference. But it might be time to find some new friends that are in that space, in that mindset, where they're like okay, we're not talking about bodies, we're committed to not talking about our bodies, to not bashing our bodies, to not talking about other people's bodies Then secondly, I would encourage you, if you find yourself where you're like man I do have a lot of friends and people that are in my circle that constantly they don't shut up about their body, about calories, about changing, about shifting, about all the things right that's wrong with their body or other people's bodies, and I would encourage you maybe it's time to clean up your social media.
Danielle La Rose:
Are you following body neutral? And body neutral just meaning that we're not really talking positively or negatively about our bodies. We're literally just saying it's a body and it's there and there are more important things to talk about. So are you following body neutral social media accounts? Are you following body positive social media accounts that make you feel good? Are you following body confident people? Are you following people that bring you joy and energy and don't talk about or bash their bodies? Are you following people who, when they show up on a video, constantly start by saying please excuse the way that I look? Or are you following people who show up and be like, hey, girlfriend, Because they don't have to, they choose not to bring attention to a negative aspect about how they feel that they look. And again, all of us are work in progress. I constantly find myself randomly saying things and I'm like, oh my gosh, I promised I wouldn't talk about my body like that or talk about bodies in general like that. And so I'm not saying that we got to follow people that are perfect in this situation, but it's just becoming more aware that are the people that you're following on social media adding to your body positive, confident journey? Or are they making you think more about your body, when you already think about your body a lot, and perhaps not helping you see your body in a positive light? Perhaps it's time.
Danielle La Rose:
If you don't have body confident friends like in person, you can find them on social media. We exist, yay, okay. And then, finally, I want to encourage you because I've been in this situation many times where I'm like, okay, but I love my friends. My friends are great, they inspire me, they motivate me, they're so supportive. I don't want to get rid of my friends. That sounds terrible just because I'm trying to be on a body confident journey and they're not. That's not their fault, that's not my fault. I don't want to break my friendship. So what can we do instead? And so I want to encourage you to do some of the things that I try to do.
Danielle La Rose:
Not that it's easy, depending on the friend and their personality and if they're willing to be open minded, but I like to, when they start saying things like that Number one, try not to entertain it. Like okay, how about we talk about what happened on banner pump rules last night? Right, shifting the conversation to show them that, cool, you got that out. Now let's move on. Sometimes it's even simpler. Instead of trying to shift the conversation, just saying, sister, come on, we don't need to talk about our bodies today. We're not doing that. Like, let's focus on XYZ and just calling that out or perhaps sharing.
Danielle La Rose:
Hey, sister, I made a commitment that I'm not talking about my body, and I'm really trying to be around people who aren't talking about their bodies either, because we're, like, smarter than that and we have more things to talk about. So would you be down for that? Would you be down for like, like, cutting this conversation short, because the way you see your body isn't the way that I see it. I see your body as perfect as it is. So how about we roll with that and we get back to, like the fun stuff that we're here to talk about and there's no right or wrong way to approach this. There's no fun, easy way to approach it either, because we've been so conditioned as women to talk about our bodies, like it's one of the first things that we say when we see someone.
Danielle La Rose:
I used to all the time show up somewhere and I'd be like, oh my gosh, I didn't get myself together today. I hope it's okay that you're seeing with me in public. Like they probably really don't care what I look like you know, like they don't care that I just I took a shower but I didn't dry my hair. They don't care that I didn't put on makeup. They don't care, they're my friend. They're not my friend because of how I look. And if they are, then they're not my friend.
Danielle La Rose:
So I just you know, we've been conditioned to have these conversations and make this the top priority in our conversations and we think we have to address the way that we look with people and I'm just encouraging all of us to shift that a little bit and see if we can, for ourselves, pause some of that, try to stop saying some of those things and at the same time, just asking our friends, girlfriend, like do we really need to talk about that? Do we really need to talk? Like I don't care about your cellulite, I don't care about your wrinkles? Like if I can support you in loving your body more, sure, let's chat about that. But like you're perfect as you are and I'm really trying to have a positive outlook on my body and so I'm just trying not to think about it much at all.
Danielle La Rose:
So can we like stop that Because we're smarter and we can talk about more important things? So again I look, I'm like the most real, down to earth home girl like having this conversation. So I'm not saying, and so I want you to know that like this feels weird, it feels odd to have that conversation with a friend. But if you are really serious about that, let me also say this and then I'm gonna go because you have things to do. I want you to also remember that when you start doing things and you shift your language, you start showing other people that, without you having to even say it, my friends, for the most part, know that I just don't talk about my body. I'm not gonna complain about it, I'm not going. I might say, oh, I'm not feeling well, like my stomach has. You know, last night I ate a lot of dairy and now my belly hurts and you know, I know that, you know I shouldn't have done that, but it tasted good.
Danielle La Rose:
So it's okay to have those conversations, obviously with friends, but the more that you choose not to say certain things about your body, choose not to have the conversation about other people's bodies, our friends and our communities and people pick up on that, and so if they realize that you're not entertained by talking about your body or other people's bodies, they're gonna realize that that's not a conversation that you're really caring about. And so you'll realize that they stop talking about those things as well, just naturally, because they realize you don't do that. It's kind of like, you know, when you're with someone and let's say, one person loves football and the other person doesn't like sports at all, if the person who likes football keeps talking about football and the other person is just sitting there like I don't know what you're talking about, eventually the person who likes football is gonna get the message right. Okay, you can keep talking about it, but like they don't know what you're talking about. So you'll probably shift the conversation because you realize that's not their thing. It's similar, anyways.
Danielle La Rose:
Okay, this is going on longer than it needed to, but I just want let's go back. Are your friends healthy for your body image and, if not, what can we do about it so it doesn't affect your body image? Can we find new friends that have a body neutral or body confident aspect viewpoint? Can we clean up our social media and can we really help our own friends that we have currently realize that shifting the conversation is beneficial for them and also for you, I don't know. These are just some thoughts and ideas that have really helped me and supported me as I've gone through my body confidence journey.
Danielle La Rose:
That is really important for us as adults, but also if you have little girls in your life, whether you're a mom and a teacher, whatever that maybe this could also really support little girls to help them realize we don't talk about our bodies. We don't talk about our bodies at dinner. We don't talk about our bodies when we look in the mirror. We don't talk about our bodies. It's just not what we do, and hopefully that would also support them growing up to help have a healthy body image. All right, that's all I got for you today. I hope that you have the most powerful day ever and if this supported you in some way, shape or form, sister, help a girl out. Share it with some friends because, again, the mission is that we live in a world where every single girl and woman looks in the mirror and loves who she sees, and this is one small aspect that hopefully can help with that. So share it. Send me some DMs, tell me your thoughts. I am here for it. All right, I'll talk to you next time. Bye, friends.
