Goes Without Saying - how to reject external validation: i do my own stunts

Episode Date: July 23, 2023

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Starting point is 00:00:49 The animal kingdom is queer and we are a part. Find a field guide to gay animals on Spotify, Apple. Or wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com It goes without saying you're listening to Goes Without Saying with Sefi and Wing. I'm Sefi. And I'm Wing. And this is an episode about external validation,
Starting point is 00:01:20 about how to stop caring what everyone else thinks and just care about what you think. It's been a really nice episode. I feel like we've talked about social media. We've gone a bit, as you said, analogue, which I quite like, talked about kind of school. We talked about parents evening. We did. Throwback. It's been a really nice episode. And I feel like if you feel like you are stuck in a loop of worrying about everyone else's thoughts and opinions on you and not really checking in with yourself about how you feel about what you're doing this would be a great episode so send this to your most insecure friend go enjoy chef's kiss lovely hey all right let's go down for another one this is fun this is i'm ready for another round two yeah
Starting point is 00:02:06 if all goes well you'll be seeing our faces as well while we're doing this which is a nice a nice thought something to something to hold on to something to keep us going it is we're screen recording we're screen recording our screens obviously today which is kind of scaring me but it's scaring me less than having a phone recording in my face like a camera that you can see yeah so i'm liking this no i just feel because i can't tell i'm recording it just that's a normal face time which i'm loving nice clean game from all of you that's from all of you yeah yeah all of you all of you harry i now speak directly to you should we go straight in yeah let's do it okay can i ask you a question you can do you think
Starting point is 00:02:46 there was a time in your life where your desire for external validation was at its peak let me have a thing yeah go on ponder my desire for external validation do you know what i think there comes a point in everyone's lives but i think there comes a point when you start getting a more external validation that you normally get which i think we started to get i can even i can't really pinpoint the exact moment but there was a point where we went from having no messages no listeners no anything yeah two scraps in their bedrooms to suddenly two scraps in their bed messages every day yeah there were likes and comments and followers and all this stuff and not in a huge amount no but we're still finding it suddenly where there was nothing there's something and I think there comes a point where you kind of have to
Starting point is 00:03:45 make some kind of like either you can get lost in in that even that small amount that you're getting or you can be like right am I doing that for that for like the um validation of it or am I doing something that I love and I think I actually kind of went through a small a few probably a few months where I was like obsessed with ego as a concept I think I was speaking about it a lot as the on the podcast like I was really um thinking about ego as a concept and like what that means to me and like what bits of me does my ego control and all of that and that was probably like a couple years ago but I think you can feel it in the episodes like i'm talking about ego a lot i still think of you when i hear the word ego i think but i still i'm pulled back which is a funny thing to say but
Starting point is 00:04:32 i'm really i remember that time vividly like you definitely i remember that being actually a really interesting conversation like we would have really interesting conversations about it at the time yeah i definitely think i i almost i could feel myself getting in the thing of stuff once you have a little bit of validation or attention you do start to kind of almost depend on it slightly and almost be like say then something that you did um if someone was to say oh i don't like that which no one ever really did but i think i felt the fear of yeah neat the fear of myself needing that um praise for things I said and I think I made a decision quite early on you're not doing this to prove to yourself or prove to anyone who you are
Starting point is 00:05:16 you're doing something that is enjoyable to you and it feels aligned with you and all of that stuff and I think I made that decision quite early on which I really do feel has carried through with my approach to doing this my approach doing most things really yeah but I think that was definitely a turning point of like a bit of a crossroads if like could have gone either way of like you could have continued to depend on other people's opinions or you could just be like look really the opinions are nice but they do not define what you're doing who you are would you say now you have more opinions hurled at you than maybe ever before uh i don't know because i actually tune them out quite often i was gonna then follow up with how is your relationship to people's opinions changed then like are you at a point
Starting point is 00:06:00 where you don't care as much or is it like the relief of you almost don't anticipate them as much like almost i think they make me uncomfortable in general so i definitely i love getting nice messages from everyone as everyone does so nice i love it i love getting messages i love actually having the real conversations and things like that but i think now i don't go looking for like for example we had got i've actually broken the stool that everything i just like all my stuff is right like the laptop like i've like pulled out all of these things out of it i don't know what that's like one that's like one of the sides i'm holding up there like holding the stool together oh my god put it back i know can you hear this
Starting point is 00:06:42 the last leg of the table um our last shared brain cell literally also can hear my laptop is really whirring away so is mine how bad is that it'll be all right the lap the microphones barely pick up anything anyway there was a message that i got once that someone very like kind of well-meaning but it just is like I just don't need this sort of thing they told me that I looked like someone and that can be so nice but they told me that I look like someone that is quite obviously a joke and I think you will agree that that is objectively like it's kind of walking the line of funny and cute but it's like objectively like it's like it's not it's not something that someone would be like oh wow like i it's not a compliment
Starting point is 00:07:30 basically you'd have to pretend you'd have to like plead naivety and be like oh my god i didn't know that they were perceived in that way like that sort of thing it was it was a public figure it's like a it's a celebrity it's not like um a common it's not our friend off the streets there was a message that we got once where someone said that i looked like someone and i think there was a point to me where i was like right okay your messages are no longer a safe space like it's it's not really a place you go when your friend goes to the toilet you're sitting in a restaurant you've got a couple minutes go check on your instagram messages oh you're going to the toilet you might look at your messages oh i'm a few minutes before the show i want starts if i'm living in some old world where
Starting point is 00:08:14 i watch tv by those sort of schedules it's not a casual place like there is potentially stuff in here that's going to trigger you blah blah blah love getting nice messages it goes about saying but they're lucky they're so divine but i have got some messages before which are so well meaning but things that just like show me that it's like okay you can't put weight in other people's opinions because they if i take on every you look like this you remind me of this you blah blah it's like i don't think i need that or want that because it can i don't want the these things to have the ability to lift me up or bring me down so i don't think i put much weight into someone saying i think it's it's i don't want to give them any more weight than is kind of rational yeah so someone saying you're my queen i love whilst it's so nice i don't want that to be able to bring me
Starting point is 00:09:05 up hugely okay um because i don't want it also someone saying you're just a fucking bitch to bring me right down i want yeah i want to take them all as um genuine and kind of valuable feedback to myself but i don't want anything i don't want to give anything complete power over me yeah because i think that's how you get lost in the ego of it all yeah but i definitely think there's been i've had a huge thing with ego um throughout my life and i think it's from being a bit of a natural show off and having to just be like right what's actually important yeah rein it in a bit rein wilson it in never rein it in actually i disagree but just almost no i don't think but i think you should have um your what is about you i think you should i think you shouldn't be ignorant to the fact that
Starting point is 00:09:54 yeah that like if you're feeling good by getting a load of external validation it does it it does go and it will go and how will you cope then i think that is really an important thing when you're getting an influx of it it's like don't make your um self-esteem and your well-being dependent on these people's opinions because they don't know you and they do change like the wind you've given me so like there's so much that i want to like dig into my first reaction was i was interested that like when i asked about like external validation and stuff i think our minds or like you just you took me to a different place like i almost hadn't even it just on the list of things like times where i've thought about
Starting point is 00:10:36 external validation i think like talking about social media and almost like parasocial relationships and just like the idea of being perceived in general is obviously like so important and like when you say it's so obvious but like it just it wasn't the first thing i almost thought you were gonna say something about school or like being at uni or like one of your friends doing something or do you know what i mean like i almost like i kind of thought this conversation about external validation was going to be a lot more about dealing with people in our lives like in social settings and the people who are like really closely surrounding us which is probably a lot more interesting and relatable so maybe we should do that no absolutely not absolutely not no way redacted immediately redacted I just I think it's
Starting point is 00:11:24 I think it's really relatable for a lot of people especially like in our generation and younger to think about the awareness that we have over the way that we're perceived is on another level to like definitely compared to previous generations who haven't experienced something like this in this kind of way um and the other thing was that kind of when you were saying like of course we love like nice messages and like oh this person without meaning and like all of these things it goes without saying that like i think as well i think there has to be kind of what you were saying is like striking the balance between taking on other people's opinions as nothing more nothing less
Starting point is 00:12:00 than just somebody else's opinion that they felt for whatever reason that they can share with you yeah good or bad whatever and also kind of stopped recording again but i'm just gonna sorry i'm just gonna just go for it sorry i just looked up i'm like how did that happen okay now it's going again okay let's see how long that lasts um sorry no no never um sorry that like don't be silly i clearly don't have any storage or anything it's fine yeah the idea of like finding a balance between taking people's opinions with a pinch of salt but then also at the same time for me personally and i'm sure in some way you feel the same but i don't want to put words in your mouth the idea of like using where you're at and the kinds of messages that you receive and like a girl in the world feeling
Starting point is 00:12:45 for whatever reason compelled to call you her queen as some sort of signpost yeah it is divine and i think it is like a kind of divine marker and like a signpost is kind of like our internal language it's a signpost i think of moving in the right direction because i do think if you're receiving the equivalent amount of messages and like the response that you get from people that you generally like within your common sense look it looks like you would respect them looks like you might admire them feel positively about them that sort of thing the response that you receive generally is so positive that i think it is a marker in the right direction when you consider what that response would feel like and would look like and what you would have to be doing for it to be a negative response of that way it almost um of course is so important
Starting point is 00:13:44 to like when someone calls you a queen not start walking around like with the airs and graces of her majesty r.i.p kind of yeah you are the queen you are the queen king of my heart queen of dragons but also like oh that's not what she's called who queen of dragons i said mother of dragons mother of dragons i'm breaker i'm getting well confused or whatever yeah it's hard i think to find a balance between using other people's opinions and like the external validation signpost markers response like how do we find like a healthy balance in that do you feel like you've got a healthy balance like a healthy mindset around it right now no okay that's fine no i feel like i'm avoidant of it like i i think because it's all tied into social media which is as we know i have so many people do but i really do struggle with
Starting point is 00:14:37 seeing the good in this thing that we use every day all day i just feel like i have such a conflicted view with it but i think i have a good a nice view of like i feel like when i get messages i'm like oh that's so nice um but i also have i think i'm quite dismissive of um a lot of things that happen on these apps because i just think i don't i don't know if that if they are for me in the long term i think but also should we not do social media because i feel like i've accidentally hijacked the conversation to social media bullshit no it's the same thing it's the same thing that wasn't what i was trying to say no no no i don't think you would no it's interesting you should say that because just this morning just moments ago i was watching a lucy moon video i would highly you love lucy my bestie
Starting point is 00:15:29 my distant friend lucy moon i love her and i really do love her content at the moment just side note it feels like she's really just enjoying like she it just feels like she's come into a really nice rhythm of like everything feels really true to her and like it just feels god i love that it's like a really nice balance of like easy and like beautiful but also really well researched and just like nicely like curated and like considered and intelligent and i love that i really feel like she's in a great place at least from an outside perspective she seems like she's really thriving and i hope she is um i've never felt so strongly about recommending her to you anyway i was watching this oh wow yeah i know it's quite high praise actually it is after she walked out of our event i roll
Starting point is 00:16:15 that's that's i think no it says more about us it does by the way what happened just briefly we were doing an event she didn't know we were talking she doesn't know who the fuck we are and we didn't know where we were to be honest no we didn't know who we were we were walked in we were oh my god lucy moon's here and just before we got on stage hi and then i remember looking around i was like she's gone yeah just before we got on stage she's gone also what was kind of a bit that i didn't want lucy moon to get the wrong idea of us is that we were wearing quite extravagant dresses because we were talking at the event but it looked like we were just the kind of gals that wear these dresses like on a
Starting point is 00:16:56 night out absolutely not didn't really want lucy moon to think that of us you know no we wanted to but we just saw lucy moon leave before we got she did she scurried away which is so fair so fair it's like lucy moon is our big shot to show you we are oh it's so sad yeah she i think she would have liked us anyway no she would she would cut to her video this morning that i was watching she was talking about the title was please take women seriously dot or something like that something along those lines and i mean i couldn't agree more with every word thumbs up yeah thumbs up from me lucy subscribe subscribe share like and subscribe um hit the bell to get notified every time i post they say she was basically talking about like some articles that she'd read and just some thoughts that she'd been mulling
Starting point is 00:17:42 over recently as we do as women and talking about it kind of reminded me when you were saying about social media like you don't know if you can see or like you find it hard to see value am i putting words in your mouth or is that right you find it a little bit harder to see the value of stuff on social media i do find it hard to find value yeah and i don't know if it's something for me long term like i don't know if i envision it as a part of my life forever valid goes without saying it feels like it's valid kind of oh yeah no like yeah yeah it's thinking back on that sentence i think it's i wholeheartedly agree yeah yeah well lucy was kind of saying something that i feel like overlaps slightly in some sort of weird warped venn diagram that i'll present to
Starting point is 00:18:20 you now she was talking about the idea of like how we don't take women's for serious seriously so how like creatively things may be gendered in the sense of like not just what we as someone who may create something or someone who might work on something not just the way that we would view it and the way that we would or wouldn't allow ourselves to express our ideas and share them and put meaning behind them and invest in them time and money and all of this stuff but also how we receive them and the idea that like when a woman does something or when a woman does something for the audience of women it's viewed as the idea of like women making things things being made by women things being made for women are often judged as like or just deemed
Starting point is 00:19:05 like she she said quite beautifully she was like a drama or a comedy becomes a chick flick or a rom-com like literally immediately like almost the genres invalidated it completely becomes invalidated and it kind of i was thinking as you were talking about that because of the conversations that we've had about social media and the worth and the um kind of like the struggle like the good and the bad the kind of dichotomy of like the way that we use it and interact with it and share on it and like create stuff for other people but i think more importantly the way that like it impacts us as individuals i just think it's an interesting thing because i do also think it kind of ties into the idea of social media is a space where directly or indirectly we're encouraged to look
Starting point is 00:19:51 a certain way act a certain way show a curated version and all of these things like you don't need me to spell it out for you and so there is inherently like an idea of self-worth and the questioning of self-worth that i think would follow that for a lot of people us included i think a lot of young women when you're being told to look or act a certain way there is a certain level of like judgment and like discomfort that comes with it so i think social media is actually like when we talk about external validation it's 100 one of the biggest like almost arenas that that plays out in and i almost was going quite analog thinking of like the school hall the math i will take you to the assembly like i love the assembly times but
Starting point is 00:20:41 just with the almost the speed at which you were pulled to social media i do think it's telling of the time because we're talking about social media a lot at the moment and the way that we feel about it but also i do think it will be really really relatable to a lot of people that feel like almost a way that i felt and i don't know if this is how anyone else feels but a level of shame and like frustration in myself over the discomfort that i felt around being perceived like i've been really frustrated with like why are you finding this so much harder than everyone else like what's wrong with you sort of thing and i actually think obviously there's nothing wrong with me no from my self my self-love era. There isn't anything,
Starting point is 00:21:25 there wasn't anything wrong with me. I was just naturally struggling with like something, with human feelings that come from, Yeah. like a robot, essentially,
Starting point is 00:21:34 like that come from like, something that isn't human. Yeah. Come from, I don't know, it's like, oh no, I don't even know
Starting point is 00:21:42 if I've got a point there. All right, let me ask you something. Let me ask you a question. Mm. all right let me ask you something let me ask you a question well let me ask you one okay acas powers the world's best podcasts here's a show that we recommend nature i've got a gay rooster named Francois. Is so gay. These rams are gay. I'm studying gay animals.
Starting point is 00:22:09 Does that mean I'm gay? So why don't more people know this? I'm Owen Ever. I'm Lane Kaplan-Levinson. And this is a field guide to gay animals. A podcast about queerness in the natural world. The animal kingdom is queer. And we are a part.
Starting point is 00:22:25 Find a field guide to gay animals on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAST.com When's a point in your life where you feel like you've needed um external validation like the most my whole life but is there a point that's like in that setting there's a there's a moment that i can remember which i don't know if i've spoken about on the podcast i might have is one of my earliest memories and it's not great and i don't want to paint anyone in a negative light but also this is kind of what happened so sorry that you did this it's your life literally
Starting point is 00:23:17 is my life like sorry that you did something bad like you made a mistake well exactly this is one of the main things it's like if you act like a dick people are allowed to speak to you especially if it impacted them when you were a dick you're not to sell that to tell the truth of course people are allowed to tell the truth i was very young i feel like you might be thinking of a situation where i was slightly older but this was probably when i was like under the age of 10 yeah and um it was external validation in the sense of like you guys know i'm so fucked in the head like i'm an only child like i need you to love me like i want to please you i want to bring harmony everyone's so unhappy i just want to make you happy like please i'm trying to be nice like i'm
Starting point is 00:23:55 a real like victim pisces child just literally not how anyone would describe you you know wing literally not how anyone would describe you you know wing she's like needs literally like who are you talking about i don't know but anyway you know like victim pisces child like you know what i mean oh yeah wing victim pisces child i'm also not a pisces but it is my moon is in pisces but anyway it's like what it's like that makes it so hard i'm actually not even a pisces it's like i couldn't identify you if i said that to someone they'd be like pisces yes like what the fuck um i was really young and it was like a school situation where it was like a parents evening type of thing and i was yeah it is kind of classic actually i guess i was like always pretty smart found it easy to like be smart whatever like i was naturally pretty good at most things i didn't
Starting point is 00:24:53 really have to try um and the conversation was always around like um the work isn't challenging enough or like things like that basically i'm just charging and some prodigy what is out downhill from there no how she fell straight into a podcast like most how did i get here and i remember i did really well like oh my god everything was great and there was one thing that i guess wasn't like good enough in comparison say there's like 40 kids in the class i was 39 instead of like 40 or like as in like this is ridiculous you're not in one lesson you weren't top of the class you were second top of the class and there was one mark between you sort of thing absurd already it really is absurd and i also think that i was so young and like my scope of um like my safety in the world obviously is so
Starting point is 00:25:44 dependent on like how am i being viewed by the people around me and most importantly like as well as an only child everyone around me is an adult how are they viewing me am i worthy am i going to be loved like am i going to be safe sort of thing and i was met with some resistance that night and i feel really bad for myself even now talking about it like i was crying in the back of the car because it was made clear to me you were met with resistance i'll explain i'll explain oh sorry sorry i thought you meant the teacher no no i don't even i don't even know if i was in the room like i think it was like your parents go into the parents evening and you come out and it's like yeah they love you don't talk about me behind my back god fucking weird i was always there i
Starting point is 00:26:25 think some parents evenings i was but some parents evenings it was like wait in the corridor yeah no i do remember these things yeah some i wasn't invited no it's like guys my party it's my event don't leave me like about me yeah don't leave me don't leave me out the door don't leave me hanging at my own event no no you can't so anyway basically one of my parents was really upset that somebody else in the class had like come higher than me it's actually really fucked up when i think about it yeah and i don't know if i can say this because it's like oh it's it's quite fucked up but basically there was one thing where one of my parents was like erin like it's fine you know you did amazing like we're so
Starting point is 00:27:06 proud of you like we love you like it doesn't matter like we love you no matter what like but like you've done really well like you know of course we're proud of you of course we love you and the conversation was kind of around um someone who I was friends with at the time getting this one mark better than me so like being better better than me in this test or whatever in math for example and pretty good of me to come second top in math i mean i don't know i actually don't know if it was maths but einstein honestly einstein i was a classroom of dummies i'm joking if you went to school with me you're stupid i'm lit no i can't say that i'm joking if you went to school with me you're stupid
Starting point is 00:27:45 i'm lit no i can't say that i'm that was literally that was such a joke guys that was such a joke if you went to school i mean that's why you can say it because it's so obvious it was completely a joke i literally don't know my times tables anyway fucking hell jesus basically one of my parents was i don't know exactly what was said but it was the other parent was saying um let's say it's sarah right sarah did better than me in this in this we always use sarah do it so sorry if you listen if you listen to this podcast podcast and your name is either sarah or sally i'm so sorry why don't we change it's more likely you'd be called sarah about amelia it almost would be amelia do you know what i mean she's yeah amelia's thriving no she's she's amazing let's just change the name amelia it's amelia's turn now amelia did really well as did i but she did even she did one up i went to 10 a reef she went to 11 a reef she got the
Starting point is 00:28:34 top marks good for her nice god we can't win everything jesus give it a rest i i knew i was happy with what i'd like my feedback like it was overwhelmingly positive I felt good in it one of my other parents felt good in it and the other parent was not feeling good and kind of had gone silent and was like being quite harsh and like cold all of a sudden on the drive home was really like annoyed on the drive home and my other parent was kind of saying like look no like we love you like no matter what and like you know we don't want Amelia as a child like we want you like it doesn't matter that Amelia do you know what I mean Amelia like you know we we love you we don't like it's okay that Amelia
Starting point is 00:29:15 did better than you in this one thing like we don't care and she was like do we oh and they were like do we like we don't care do we And the other parent was just silent, like didn't really say anything. So if you've got two, you've got person A and person B. Sorry, I feel like I'm really hogging the stage here. Sorry. I'm trying to rush through this. No, no, take it slow.
Starting point is 00:29:39 Really? Okay. Let's go into it. Let's go into it. Okay. Well, basically. I'm ready to slam i know i do kind of want to talk to this person about this but anyway because i still think about
Starting point is 00:29:51 it sometimes or the amount that i think about it what like once every six months it makes me think for me to remember this has gone in deep it's a thing it's a huge thing also when i look at some of your behaviors slash beliefs about yourself it does make a lot of sense to have an early quite formative kind of um core memory about someone being annoyed at one mark off the top or whatever well the other parent says so the other parent is going we don't want amelia as a daughter we love you erin we don't want amelia as her daughter do we and the other part and the other parent doesn't reply question mark question mark so that's insane that's insane so now i'm sobbing inconsolable and i run upstairs and i'm like i'm so upset and i'm crying crying crying i'm really
Starting point is 00:30:37 down in the dumps um and i guess it all just went away from there but it does explain why i feel this really um like it kind of as well going back to social media when i found it really hard anything that i find really hard which is most things is because i've put this absurd degree of pressure on it to be a certain way because i have this fear from this core belief my rule for living that i have to be perfect otherwise people will abandon me and not love me and i won't be good enough and i'll die sort of thing yeah you know which is a fair enough thing after i feel like conclusion for a child when you have these early things because also the stakes in that situation seem pretty high it was one of your parents insinuating that they would rather have amelia as their kid they so
Starting point is 00:31:26 essentially the stakes of that are amelia moves into your bedroom and you what go to amelia's family or don't want you no one mark off loser die yeah the stakes are high wild after an evening of being whined and dined by my parent my teachers telling you i'm the star but i'm pleasure to teach god night at the oscars you're my plus one absolutely you're not coming with me it's actually a wild thing to do to a small child so anyway i'm i'm now fucked in the head and that's why um although i'm in a great place now but i do sometimes reflect and ponder on yeah i think you should these little moments that like really shaped me i find it really really
Starting point is 00:32:06 hard when i feel like i've let someone down or not done something good enough i take it incredibly personally um and it just isn't a sustainable way to live actually so i've had to like work around it and just i actually think the way that i've done that is to get more um comfortable with like disappointing people actually something my therapist had me do was like just make intentional mistakes and just what did you do that's so interesting like little things like send an email like when you know like you've sent it wrong or like just little things because i said to her i was like just in the ground like what kind of mistakes are you talking here because i might do something as a mistake and you might not view it as a mistake sort of thing like what sort of things are you looking for um so she was like go out with like a stain on you and i was
Starting point is 00:32:48 like oh i don't care about stains oh i'm covered in stains i'm covered in ketchup and crumbs like it's also something that's a daily experience it's the lifestyle it's a way of living something that we've spoken about is like the idea that like there'll be certain rules that you'll have for your life that will be non-negotiable so for example i have to straighten my hair before i go outside can't go outside without straightening my hair um but i don't care about a stain on me for example these are just hypothetical do you get what i mean like there it's almost like our idea of the standard or quote unquote what's perfect might not necessarily make sense for everyone but for
Starting point is 00:33:25 whatever reason these are the rules that have accumulated along the way and for me largely due to like the need to be validated externally um which is a very human need i often feel like that it's not even the need for validation but it's the fear of getting negative feedback. Yes. More than anything. Because it's like, I'm not leaving the house. Like, say, for example, I need to straighten my hair every day. Which, to be honest, I do.
Starting point is 00:33:55 Like, that is, say, well, that maybe isn't so much a fear, but like, let's say that is like a fearful thing. But every day, straighten my hair blah blah blah before i go outside it's not that i'm necessarily needing everyone to go outside and be like god your hair looks so good your hair looks so nice oh my god i love your hair i love your hair i love your hair even though that would be nice i'm not looking for that but i think what the fear would be if this were a fear it would be that if you don't do that kind of safety behavior of straightening your hair whatever you're leaving yourself vulnerable to someone be like god her hair is so shit i wish amelia i had amelia's hair ouch like that's kind of what you're looking for yeah because you built in this
Starting point is 00:34:36 thing that actually is about the threat if you don't reach those things the praise kind of just goes straight fucking through you water fucking ducks back but the negative feedback is like life-threatening not good enough world collapsing one of your parents doesn't want you as their child like that is high level shit that you're dealing with pretty heavy and so i think it's more about the fear of the bad stuff than even what the good validation can get definitely because then you kind of find yourself in this cycle of you either avoid it so you don't go out when you haven't straightened your hair or you change your like your rules for living you change your like musts and it becomes like i must straighten my hair before i go out and so you only ever you continue to like perpetuate the cycle like it continues to like be affirmed and affirmed and
Starting point is 00:35:32 reaffirmed every time because the more you act in accordance with this rule the more you'll continue to find the evidence that like backs up the rule in the first place that your curly hair isn't a threat to your safety yeah because also really all of the stuff all of this stuff comes from like sort of like evolutionary things like you just want community acceptance kind of a mate shelter food your kids safety all of the shit just evolutionary fucking shit charles darwin's coming out of my body right now i can feel him brewing that's all it is but now that our brains kind of don't really know where the fuck we are we're in a world with like things called followers and fashion and lipstick and all of this bullshit boyfriends do you know what i mean you've got jobs what was the fucking thing what was the weird phrase you
Starting point is 00:36:25 said earlier oh my god it was like a taylor swift you were in her queue you're in the taylor swift queue it was in the last episode it was like i don't know it's like a oh it was almost like a term like the lead booker the lead there are lead bookers we're in a very fucking strange world our brains can't keep up and we've got to kind of um they're kind of computing this weird fucking to be honest insane place with like all of these really like primitive needs so no wonder we're just absolutely confused and then it's like your second mark off yeah then gets translated in your kind of ape's brain to mean that like you will not have shelter yeah you will not have food it's like that's really what's going on there yeah totally it's insane
Starting point is 00:37:17 yeah it is and there's which is why i think it's interesting we earlier you're talking about like the balance of knowing how far to take like almost the anxiety around what other people are going to think of you like i saw a tiny clip of michelle obama saying like about growing up she would use her anxiety to like make sure she did well in an exam or like finding which you know i think it takes a lot of skill but like almost finding the limit of like how far you're going to allow yourself to be ruled by like the ideas of like how other people will perceive you because i'm sure like yeah you want to have a nice community you want to feel safe you want to like contribute some good in the world um but when you're convinced you can't go
Starting point is 00:38:04 out without straightening your hair that's not it's completely irrational it's not what yeah your brain is telling you well because you've kind of attached meaningless things to like hugely meaningful themes like if for example if you don't have straight hair a straightened hair every day whatever then you will not what be able to find a mate you'll be exiled from your community therefore leaving you vulnerable like all of this stuff it's like also i think with the thing of using your anxiety to like propel you and motivate you can be an amazing tool and like i feel like when you read back on these like autobiographies of amazing people even watch interviews of people that are like hugely successful a lot of them suffer from like
Starting point is 00:38:45 anxiety depression loads of mental health issues and they've used that to like get to these huge heights because often people that need a lot of validation will like seek it and continue and continue it's kind of an ego thing um but i do think it's worth stripping down to like what is a priority to you like is success in that like huge validation huge thing that we know can never really feed you because if you've ever listened to anyone with a load of validation they will always say it doesn't mean anything is that a priority or is maybe not using your anxiety to like propel you forward maybe a priority like is maybe it doesn't actually matter if you don't get the top grade because to be honest the people with the top 20 percent of
Starting point is 00:39:30 grades still get to all have the same opportunity they'll still get to go to the same university or whatever you don't actually need to be the best of the best to have the happiest life you really don't sure there are certain hoops that if you jump through you get more opportunity and all of this stuff but you there is no actual reason to be the best of the best other than to fulfill like a void to fill a void that you feel within yourself perfect there we go well that was nice yeah something thanks for listening thank you so much thank you so much for talking of course is your screen still recording by the way not my screen oh no it's not because we turned it off so i'm doing both perfect you're doing that i just got a bit all on you all right i'll see if i can figure out no no there's no need
Starting point is 00:40:15 really i just got nervous that i was like oh i should have stopped but i forgot we had an agreement um we have an agreement we came to an agreement um yeah that was nice so nice yeah i've enjoyed this a lot yeah what would be your number one tip how to stop thinking about external validation go i tell you think about how you feel go on you know like when you walk along the seafront there's like so many people like singing like yeah yeah bars and like the outdoor like it's a it's a ruckus there's always a ruckus going on there's always people like singing this say it's like amy winehouse is being sung like arctic monkeys like it's always like yeah yeah and the other day we passed and i said to my boyfriend you're about to go on stage in three seconds what are you singing
Starting point is 00:41:01 one two three and i like put the microphone i put my hand in front of what did he say i can't say it's private but really yeah i don't want to out him like that it's a good song but anyway oh my god that's funny i feel like what i have always pictured him singing fly me to me to the moon he just seems. He could do a great rendition of that. Like, I just know he could. You know what, he has such a good voice. Does he? He's a really good singer. Anyway. God, well...
Starting point is 00:41:31 Also, I always do the 3-2-1 thing. Yeah. When I can't decide what I want to eat, I'm like, right, you have a plate of food in front of you, 3-2-1, what is it? Sushi. And it's like, always sushi. But it always comes out of you what you want.
Starting point is 00:41:44 It's like, there's a plate in front of you, 3-2-1, pasta. The thing is, it doesn it always comes out of you what you want it's like there's a plate in front of you three two one pasta it's just almost like the first thing on top of your mind anyway it is it's a three two one what do you want but then i did i pulled the number on him and i said let's say for example the song was that he said was fly me to the moon right yeah which he could absolutely rock yeah so embarrassing for him that he is now the guy that chose fly me to the moon so then i said you're about to go on stage and the guy before you has just sung fly me to the moon what are you singing one two three like almost you had it prepped but you watch the person in front of you sing your song your go to song act to follow what do
Starting point is 00:42:26 you choose god um so anyway what do you choose you were singing three two one go what are you singing i don't know why this song has kind of been in my mind throughout the whole episode and it comes into my mind and a lot of the episodes is taylor swift's song called dear reader which is such it's actually it's really slow slow wow somber vibes i'm bringing everyone to tears basically i'm we've gone on the bright sea everyone's having the time of their life then i really bring the tone down yeah what would you expect what would you sing three two one breaking free oh wow could i do i actually wasn't expecting to say that it came out really like i knew i really wasn't expecting to say breaking free but i would probably do your try i think i'm almost gonna do it like i'm wearing half and half
Starting point is 00:43:12 the costumes you know i mean like i'm turning around like one side i'm wearing a lab coat and one side i'm wearing like wildcats you're very prepared you know i mean this wasn't that's almost how a spontaneous thing. You came to the seafront with an intention. And you came and you can't do it. I'm waiting. I'm like, fly me to the moon, but hurry up. Dear reader, is that fucking done? I've got my lab coat.
Starting point is 00:43:35 The lab coat. It's like my moustache is falling off. Yeah, literally. On one side, I've got Troy Bolton's kind of hair kind of up. My curls are dropping. Yeah, yeah. And on Gabrielle, I've got a lovely little um yeah lovely beautiful if you don't hear from us assume the worst yeah okay i'm just gonna go in with something yeah it goes without saying you're listening to goes without saying with seffy and wing i'm seffy and i'm wing oh now my mom's walking up the stairs let's see how i go past it goes without saying you're listening
Starting point is 00:44:10 to goes without saying with seffy and wing i'm seffy and i'm wing and this is an episode that tells you alert alert stop thing caring what people think stop it stop it what's the need i'm doing it again that was cool i like that i like what you did there very nice you never know what's gonna come out of your mouth you really don't you really don't you can do it i actually as soon as it's interesting i never know what's gonna come out you can do it

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