Gemma Speck

Also as a way of relating to your voice is something that is, yeah, a bit of a bully, but also trying to do its best, meaning that you can kind of move past it, meaning that you can kind of put it to rest.

You don't need this coping mechanism anymore.

As we've said, you've got all the evidence you need now that it's not as helpful as you think, but also that you can be

wise, smart, humble, kind, all those things.

You can prevent yourself from embarrassing yourself through self-love rather than just self-hatred.

So we're going to take one more short break here before we get right back into it.

If you want to stop hating yourself or stop normalizing self-hatred, this may be the hardest thing in the episode to do, but you've got to stop hanging around people who think that putting you down is normal or who think that talking about how much they hate themselves is an appropriate conversation, especially when they almost like expect you to contribute.

We've spoken a lot about like what you need to do internally.

your external environment also matters.

Obviously, it's super normal to talk about our insecurities with our friends.

and to get support.

But obsessing over your insecurities collectively without any resolution, almost as a form of social bonding, is not normal.

And friends who think putting you down, especially physically, is fun or banter, I don't know who hurt you.

That's not something that friends are meant to do.

I had this particular friend who was so incredibly

insecure that she would almost include me in her insecurity and in her self-deprecating comments she made about herself if she saw like a really beautiful girl if we were out together she would be like oh my god me and you could never look like that or like wow we could never pull that off or we'd go shopping and she'd be like well people like us can't wear that people like us can't shop at those stores

And it would make me feel like absolutely horrendous about myself.

So much so that even after I'd mentioned it a few times, she didn't stop.

And I just had to stop going out with her in those particular ways and in those environments.

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