The Culture Of It All: 8 End-of-Year Reflections

Welcome pals, to our final episode of 2024!! In this reflective episode, I’m sharing my journey over the past eight months of podcasting, discussing 8 lessons learned, personal growth, positive shifts in my body image, and the importance of having my own back. 

What a journey it has been. This year started out feeling very heavy as I overcame the end of a friendship, finished a freelancing contract and then found myself at a bit of a crossroads – and that was just the first 30 days of the year 😮‍💨

You’ll hear how I chose my words for 2024 during a wonderful workshop hosted by Susannah Conway. In previous years I had chosen words that I wanted to embrace, but within a few months I’d forgotten all about them. This year, my 3 words have supported me and been on my mind throughout all my moments of “what am I doing with my life?!”

> Contentment

> Knowing, and

> Assurance

My vision board has sat proudly, next to my computer all year as I’ve taken up space and dove into this podcasting journey. So many of the images from this board have been represented in my year, and I can’t wait to create my 2025 vision board with my dear friend Ashley, and the journaling community I’m a part of.

Thank you SO much for being a part of this journey with me in 2024, and I cannot wait to get started on episodes for the next year. I’m full of ideas, and you can expect new content and episodes in 2025 in a segment I’m calling “Confessions of a Fat Gurl”... but more on all of this in January!

Takeaways

• The journey of podcasting has been transformative and fulfilling.
• Reflection is essential before setting intentions or goals.
• Contentment is a valuable state of being, not mediocrity.
• We have the right to occupy spaces that resonate with us.
• Choosing who stays in our online communities is empowering.
• Health anxiety can be exacerbated by diet culture and weight stigma.
• It's okay to let go of past versions of ourselves and our work.
• Sharing personal stories can foster connection and understanding.
• The future holds exciting opportunities for growth and creativity.

Chapters

00:00 Reflections on the Journey

10:22 Setting The Scene: The end of 2023

19:51 Embracing Visibility and Community

26:53 Navigating Personal Feelings on Weight Loss Drugs

31:53 Challenging Fat Stereotypes

35:11 Retiring Previous Versions of My Business

46:31 Looking Ahead to 2025

Come say 'hello' on social media!

You'll find episode content on Instagram

Looking for more conversations around the politics of fashion? Join me on TikTok

Support the show over on Substack! You'll find regular episodes along with monthly bonus episodes in our wonderful fat positive community.

Transcript

Melanie [she/her] (00:00)
Hello friends, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for taking the time to join me for this episode. As you could probably tell from the title of this episode, we are rounding out this season and this year of the show with some reflections. This episode has been planned for a while, yet somehow I managed to completely overthink it, which is why it's coming to you a little bit later than it would normally, but it's here.

It's all good. We are doing the thing. So I wanted to end out this season of the show and also this first year of the show with an episode that is going to reflect on the last eight months. We started this show back in April and by we, I mean you and I collectively, we started this show back in April. The first episode aired on April 16th.

So in just a few days, it will be eight months. It has been the most incredible journey. This year has been a really, really unexpected, interesting, curious, exciting. I feel like I've taken some big steps to getting closer to who I always was supposed to be.

look, I'm very much into the woo as well. And I feel as though I've been on this journey. And I don't always like using the word journey, but we will just use that for the time being. I feel like I started this journey back in 2019.

I mean I started it way longer because you the journey is my life but this specific chapter, this chapter really started six years ago and

It's funny to look back at that time because I was so lost. I was so lost. I talked about this in a bonus episode just recently. I shared a little bit about that time when I had started an online business. I had left online coaching spaces that were, in hindsight, very, very toxic. And I was doing it by myself and I was so scared. I was so scared. I had no idea.

whether I could do this on my own. I didn't know whether I could run a business. And it was just the most wonderful opportunity to see that the spaces I'd previously been in were not the right spaces for me. And it just really started this journey of realizing that my loyalty to people can kind of get me in trouble sometimes. And I mean get me in trouble in the sense of losing myself and losing...

my sense of self losing my goals forgetting what I really want. And it was really a way of getting back to myself, figuring out who I actually am and what I value and what I stand for and what I believe in. So I feel like starting this podcast is a really big statement It is a testament to that part of my journey.

The last eight months have been unexpected and interesting because by being more present in this space it has opened me up to new content creators, new podcasts. I have been more more aware of what is going on in the Fat Liberation space. I've been more aware of

how we can navigate this space individually and collectively. I've been more visible, I've shared my thoughts, I've consumed more content. And at times, one thing I'm taking into next year to practice is the duality of being a content creator in this space and also needing to sometimes just close the apps, take a break, because I have a tendency to get very frustrated.

And I think as we all do, and it's absolutely valid, but that can be quite a drain. And that can interfere with my creative inspiration.

This year we did a summer series. I really loved our summer series. I felt like that was a really, really wonderful opportunity for me personally to dig in to these topics. And it was fun and it seemed to be really well received from you. So I'm going to probably do something similar again next year. So if you have any suggestions or any questions, please feel free to let me know. We started Stub Stack.

I'm still trying to find my feet with the platform and I'm really looking to create more of a community there for us and continue to grow Substack. If you want to subscribe to the show and get every episode a day early and in your inbox, join us over there at Culture Of It All Pod.Substack.com. I will link to that in the show notes.

And whilst I don't typically set intentions or goals at this time of year, at the end of a year, before I do any intention setting, before I choose my words of 2025, I always choose to reflect first. The reason I don't set goals or intentions at this time of year is only because I can, I'm somebody who needs to reflect for quite some time. Reflection is something that I have to do in stages.

And I also just feel that setting goals in the spring, usually around March time, is just the right time for me. So if you're somebody who also has always found it really hard to set intentions or goals at this time of year, maybe that's something to consider. Like you don't have to set intentions and goals at the end of a year or even in the new year. Personally, I'm very much into astrology.

I love astrology, in you didn't know that about me. I am very much into the woo. And the astrological new year is when Aries season begins in March. It's right around the time of the spring equinox. So it just makes sense to me to wait. I'm also a January birthday. January ends up being a very busy month for me. My son's birthday is 10 days after mine.

We were talking about it this morning and I said to him, I was like, before you know it, it's going to be March. So I have learned from actually all those years of working with business coaches who worked in like 90 day increments and we had to plan out our entire year in November, December time, which by the way, always stressed me the fuck out. I realized once I left those spaces, one of the things I learned is that that doesn't work for me.

So I choose to do a really lengthy reflection, really create an energy and vibe around like my office and my workspace because.

I love to be very creative and very introspective during the 'ber months, right? So right through until January, I'm like hibernating. And I'm an avid journaler. And one of my dear friends, Ashley Looker, has this incredible journaling community that I've been a part of for the past few years and will continue next year in this community. And she always hosts a end of year.

Manifest Your Best Life workshop and it's basically a vision board workshop. I love this workshop. It's, it's like four or five hours. She lives in the Pacific Northwest so it's also usually really late in my day but I am there and I am getting all my craft stuff out and I absolutely love it and I have had my vision board. My board has sat on my wall behind my computer all year round.

I put this up at the end of last December and I didn't know what this year was going to be. But when I look at it, I really see this year reflected back at me. I really, really see stepping into this space, podcasting again, joy, a lot of joy.

creativity but in a very different way than previous years. Less art more conversations And one of the things that really stands out to me and I put on this vision board and it's funny because it doesn't, at the time it didn't feel like something I would think about or say but it says I'm going to make a very beautiful life for myself no matter what it takes.

And I feel like this year has been that.

So yeah, this episode, it is an opportunity for me to reflect, but I also want it to be an invitation for you to take some time amongst the holiday chaos, the December chaos, even next year. Like there is no timeframe or time limit on this. You get to decide when you reflect, when you set goals.

like to be curious because when we're curious, we cannot judge ourselves. So I think it's best for me to set the scene. Set the scene of how we got to these eight lessons because, yeah, 2024 has been interesting. If I accidentally call it 2025, it's just because I have all these like year dates in my head right now. The end of last year.

Was a doozy. I was dealing with the end of a friendship.

And it was fucking messy. It really hurt my feelings. I take full responsibility for what I did or didn't do in that friendship. But for a long time I also took full responsibility for all of it and realised that it wasn't actually my... it wasn't all on me. But this end of a friendship happened in a really, really ugly way.

and it's...

was used to attack some of my deepest insecurities and my business, my creativity, and it essentially led to me losing some really solid and consistent work that I had.

And I knew that was coming. I knew that it was going to happen. So I was trying to prepare myself for what that meant.

And I spent a lot of time in reflection at the end of last year.

get all of the feelings out, get all of the thoughts out, try to process it as much as I could. I came to the conclusion that there's only so much I can do because I do not want to have anything to do with this person ever again and also I'm never, so therefore I'm never going to get answers and I'm never going to get the answers I want anyway so I needed to just let it be.

And I remember so clearly at that time just feeling like I was never going to recover from it, feeling like it was never going to become any easier. It became easier. Time is a wonderful healer in this case. And whilst it will always sting a little bit, it will be something that's always there. I can move through it. I'm not going to move on from it, but I can move past it.

And so one of the things I did at the end of last year, I did this whole like workshop on picking out your word of the year. I'd never done anything like that before. And to be honest, it was really, really fun. There was a lot of it that was muddied by the end of this friendship. So I felt like I couldn't quite reflect on anything other than the previous few months. So I felt a bit stuck in that way. But the process of choosing my word of the year was actually really interesting.

I really enjoyed that. I actually need to see if I can do that again this year because yeah, it was really, really, really powerful. And I ended up coming up with three words of the year for 2024. Kind of had a main word and then two supporting words. So my words for this year were contentment. And I wrote down, contentment is the vibe of the year. My overall vision, both personally and professionally.

And was interesting because when I wrote the word content, like that's how I want to feel. I want to feel content in my work. I want to feel content in the way I'm living my life. I remember writing that some people will see that as average, mediocre, boring. But to me it was like everything I could possibly want. Being content with what I'm doing felt like a breath of fresh air.

I had been hustling.

for so many years trying to build a business, create a business, be successful, whatever that meant, burning out, I was exhausted. And I was also exhausted by the end of this friendship. And so I knew going into 2024, I needed to heal from all of that. I needed to...

feel as though I could be okay with being content.

And then my two support words were knowing and assurance.

Knowing myself, learning who I am and getting really comfortable with myself. And I feel as though I've really been able to do that this year. And I'm going to share a bit more like how that's kind of transpired in the eight lessons. But again, I'm saying the same. And assurance. It was a promise to myself, a vow, that I've always got my back and that I can trust myself.

When I tell you that not only have I proven that to myself this year, it's also been like an anchor. It's been so, so important for me to have that assurance for myself. Like despite everything I've read, despite everything I felt, despite all the feelings I've had as I've navigated this space and started this podcast and consumed this content and read the stories and listened to stories.

I've known through all of it that I've got my back and that's been really, really helpful. So there I was, starting 2024, I had my vision board on the wall, I was doing journaling, I had my words of the year, I was ready. And then the first couple of months of the year were a bit unexpected.

I lost my freelancing contract in the first month of the year. That was spectacular. And I was in a very, and am still in a very privileged and fortunate place that I was able to take some time to decide what I wanted to do next. Because I deep down knew that I wanted to podcast again.

I had a previous podcast called The Entrepreneurial Outlaws and I'd loved doing that so much. But at the time I had a team helping me do that. I had somebody managing my podcast and editing and doing all that stuff. And so the idea of podcasting by myself was a little bit terrifying. But again, luckily in 2020 I had purchased a course, a podcasting course from a very dear friend.

and I'd never done anything with it because I'd then hire somebody to do all the editing for me. So I spent my month of February kind of dipping my toe back into the online space, seeing what was going on, what was everybody talking about, what's the strategies, what's the tactics, what's everybody doing in the social media content marketing world, and also learning how to edit a podcast. And so I deep dived into that.

And it was the end of February, I believe it was the very last day I went to see the Your Fat Friend film, Aubrey Gordon's documentary. I watched it at that time at the theatre and I just left thinking this is what I'm supposed to be doing, I'm supposed to be having these conversations, I want to share this. I'm terrified, I'm still a little bit scared.

of speaking up and saying but it's also an opportunity because I know that I have the privilege to be able to do that.

And I also know that I don't want to stay quiet. It's not, it's not easy for me to be quiet. yeah, I ended up in end of very end of February, just knowing that I wanted to get back into podcasting and that I wanted to be talking about fat visibility and anti-diet work and navigating the space.

So as we go into March, I kind of fast tracked all of my thoughts and my ideas. I came up with the name of a show. Here it is, The Culture of It All. I just, I love sometimes how the inspiration can just hit in the most random times. I was literally here in this office, procrastinating by deep cleaning and decluttering. And I said to myself, huh, it's just The Culture of It All. And that was that. Here we are.

I had the name of the show. I of course didn't trust myself to start with. So I then texted my friend who, Naomi Katz, who we had on the show. And I said to her, I was like, hey, I have this idea. And she was like, my God, I love it. So that was that. I was like, that's all the validation I need. And off I went. And so it's been eight months, eight months, wonderful months. So much has happened in this time. And I'm so, excited for next year.

before we get there we need to reflect. So let me share with you the eight lessons that I have written down in my journal from eight months of podcasting, eight months beyond the diet, eight months taking up space. Let's get into it. So the first one, and it's the only one that's about podcasting, as I said I was really afraid that I was gonna find this really hard. Mostly the tech stuff, editing, things like that.

So my first lesson is that I can do this. I can do this by myself. I can do this on my own. I have the skills to do it and I have started an Instagram account from scratch. I started Substack. have been times when I've freaked out about tech. Not gonna lie, but I can still do it and I figured it out and I figured out how to do on my own and I have to remind myself of that because

very easy for me to forget that this is something I've accomplished this year even though I was really afraid at the beginning to dive in and start this all by myself. So some of the other lessons I have from this year, obviously when I wrote them down I wrote them from a personal reflection and then I realized that these aren't just things that I have learned but they're lessons or things that

think we all need to be reminded of at times. So yes, they are things I've learned, but I've changed it from I to we in most cases. The first one is that we belong in these spaces too. We belong in these spaces too. Which spaces do you mean? I mean things like fashion spaces. Now not everyone cares about fashion and I get that, but for me, as I've probably said a million times in the last eight months, it's a form of self-expression for me.

you may follow me on social media, TikTok or Instagram, and you've probably seen me share outfit videos and things like that. I have really been able to play around with fashion this year, mostly due to thrifting clothing. That has been a real breath of fresh air, Being able to like try some new brands that I've never tried before and look there's been some fails, there have been things I've bought and they haven't fit.

or they just haven't been the right, you know, the right pieces for me. And there were things I've bought where I've worn them and gone, eh, that wasn't really what I was expecting. Where I'm like, why did I buy this? I've re-sold them. Like, that's the great thing about Vinted If it doesn't fit me or I don't like it, I can re-sell it, which I've done quite successfully this year. But it's also allowed me to see things that I like. Ooh, that's really cool. I think I'd really like that. How would I wear it? It's allowed me to be more thoughtful.

And what I've realised is that there's sometimes there's this hesitation specifically in the fashion space. I feel as though I'm kind of late to the party. Like I feel like I'm late to this, but I'm reminding myself that that's not the case and that I belong here too. I belong in this space. If I want to be in that space, I can be in that space. And so this is a reminder for all of us that we belong in these spaces.

We're allowed to be in the podcasting space. We're allowed to be creative. We're allowed to run businesses. We're allowed to be in the fashion space. We're allowed to do whatever we want. We're allowed to be in the fitness space. We're allowed to be in whichever spaces we want to be in. And we're allowed to take up space in those places as well. And I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying it's easy. And I'm not saying it's free of judgment or stigma, but we are still allowed to be in those spaces.

A big lesson for me this year, because I've been afraid of visibility and putting myself out online and sharing my anti-diet experiences and my body, is that we get to choose who stays in our corners of the internet. And I, so some people that might seem really obvious, it kind of is, but there's so much hatred and shit.

the internet and especially for people in marginalised bodies and marginalised communities that we can't avoid at times and sometimes it can be downright outrageous.

And we also get to choose who stays. And I know that's not easy for all of us. It's not easy if people have big platforms and know we shouldn't be subject to it in the first place. Absolutely. But that block button has been used excessively this year. And I think more importantly, I don't have to feel guilty about it. Like if some random guy who I just get a bad vibe from follows me on Instagram, no, you don't have to be here. Bye.

Like that's, you know, if somebody says something I don't like, I don't have to let them, I don't have to respond. That's the first thing. I had a business coach back in the beginning who was like, you should respond to every single comment because it helps you grow a thick skin. It didn't. And also, you know, it's engagement.

And like there are people who I know I've seen this right people who say hurtful things on TikTok and then creators who are like join me for this minute because I'm gonna make money off of this hateful comment. I watch every single one of those and repost those videos all the time. And also like we don't have to do that you know if it's if it's for your anxiety your energy your mental health if you just need to like delete a block.

delete and block. You don't have to do that. So, you know, we have choices. We get to choose who stays in our corner of the internet. The next lesson is also related. We get to decide where we stay. We get to decide where we stay. We don't owe anyone a like, a follow, a subscription. Again, I think that feels obvious, but especially at the moment, especially in this last year, we've seen this like rise of

the weight loss drug era, it's been very hard to navigate a space where people who have seemingly been body positive or something like, I'm just kidding. Now I'm body positive now that I'm losing weight or seeing videos which are very misleading at the beginning and I'm sitting there watching content and then realizing that it's like some weight loss conversation that I don't want to be a part of.

Especially if it's creators that you've loved. I've talked about this a little bit in different places just recently. Creator who I followed on TikTok recently shared that she has been taking weight loss drugs and I felt all kinds of way about this. I didn't say anything because like, don't, like it's none of my business, but on a personal level.

I was like, why is this bothering me so much? And that was the question that kept coming out to me. Why is this bothering me so much? Anyway, I realized what was bothering me so much. I realized that I'm not alone in that feeling and that helped because to be honest, I was like, am I wrong for feeling this way? And what I realized is that you can't be anti-diet and take weight loss drugs. Like because...

The reason you're taking the weight loss drugs is the same reason we would diet. And that doesn't mean I dislike you as a person. It just means that I don't want to be around that content. And that's a choice I can make, And I realised that was what was happening. I was like, realised this is, this was kind of a new unknown space, which was, no, the weight loss drugs, I get the lure of it, but I also don't...

want to be around those conversations because what happens is this, especially at the moment, there is this like, well, if it's just a choice, why would you not just choose to take this? And it's like, because it's a choice and I'm choosing not to take this. and also it just, to me, it validates this idea that for me being fat is a choice and like,

At this point, and I said this to a friend recently, at this point I don't see my body, my size, my fatness as a choice. And then I saw somebody else recently say that fatness is a choice for her. And I realised that that's really interesting because it's like, fatness is a choice because I'm choosing not to lose weight. And I'm like, you know what? It's a lot of grey areas and there's a lot of nuance. But the point being, we get to decide where we stay. And if a creator that we followed

or a creator that we really enjoy or a space that we've been in doesn't feel right, we get to leave. We get to leave.

The next lesson is a very personal one. So I have probably mentioned on the show before that I suffer with health anxiety. I haven't got into the details of this because it's something I'm navigating. It's something that feels very complicated and there would need to be a lot of trigger warnings to have that conversation. But

I suffer from health anxiety and have done for many years. It became some, or something I became very aware of once I had my son. And took me by surprise to a certain extent. Also was like, is that what this is? And in the last few years, it's got increasingly worse. I think possibly because of COVID and lockdowns.

But one of the things I've recognized this year, a lesson from this year, is that actually diet culture and weight stigma have made my health anxiety worse. They have exasperated my health anxiety. being in a larger body, having health anxiety, and then diet culture and weight stigma constantly.

constantly, and especially it's got worse in the last 18 months, two years, this barrage of like information, this barrage of adverts and statements, and the way it's just, especially this like pursuit of thinness, this like

90s revival of weight loss drugs and being thin at all costs. That has...

really negatively impacted and kind of exasperated my health anxiety this year. And also I've learned that that has played a part in it and that's been really helpful. Like yes, my anxiety has been a lot worse this year and also I've now recognized that my job is to kind of challenge this and continue to remind myself that I can trust my body and that I can trust myself. Something that

is taken away from us via diet culture. So yeah, I can definitely do another episode that's like more in detail to my health anxiety and talk a bit about it. But as I said, it's probably gonna be a lot of trigger warnings to start with. The next thing is the lesson I've learned and the lesson I want to share with you is that we're allowed to challenge the fat stereotypes. We're allowed to challenge them loudly and quietly.

Right, we can be loud about how we challenge these stereotypes, whether it's in like the spaces we navigate, the books we read, the media we consume, the clothes we wear, the way we speak up if we're a content creator, things that we advocate for. But we can also do it quietly, right? We don't have to be loud about it. We can do it quietly. And we also get to choose, again, there's a lot of choices coming up in this episode.

We also get to choose how to navigate that because sometimes it can be really draining to be fighting all the time. And I realised that very early on in recording this show was like, I was angry all of the time every time I saw a piece of content. And like absolutely have every right to, but I also need to just like calm down sometimes because I can't be in a constant state of anger. It's, it means I don't get anything done.

And for me to actually create and do the work that I want to do, I need to have that space, be angry, but then like, let's use it constructively and create something positive from it.

It's not my job to proselytize and I don't have to engage with diet culture behaviors and conversations. So what I mean by that, again, when I started the show and especially just in the last few years, as I've really kind of found myself in this space, there are people I can have conversations with and diet culture and the podcast and fat visibility is something that comes up very naturally within our conversations.

whether that person is also in a larger body or in a straight-sized body, friends, family, it can come up on a regular basis very naturally. But then there are times when it can feel as though I'm banging my head against a wall. And I've realized that it's not my job to, like, convert people to anti-diet spaces, to... It's not my job to say, look,

You should do this, you should quit dieting. I've realised that it is merely my job to share my story, to share my experience, to encourage people to actually consider fat folks and other marginalised communities when they are living their life, when they are at work, when they are at the gym, when they are promoting products, when they are talking about their own body. All I can do is share my thoughts, share my feelings, share my experiences.

and help people when they're ready

But yeah, it's not my job to proselytise, it's just I'm here to share my experiences, I'm here to share my thoughts, my feelings, what it's like for me to live life in a larger body and also not diet. So yeah, stay tuned for more of that.

The next lesson is that it's time for me to step away from the previous versions of my business, previous versions of content I've created, projects that I've done, things I've worked on, and to move fully into this space.

some of you that may be a surprise because maybe this is all you've ever known me as and that's cool. For some of you you may have been aware of my businesses, my content prior to this year and other things I've worked on and created and I honestly when I look at it

I have created a lot of things in the last almost nine years. It'll be nine years in January that I started a business. And I've created a lot. And I've created a lot of things that I would never look at again. I've created things that I am like, why did I ever do that? I've created things that...

I'm really proud of things that I look at and think, that was actually pretty good. Why did I stop doing that?

and I've learned so much in the last nine years and it's been a wonderful wonderful journey.

And also I felt as though throughout this year there have been moments where I have sat and

become focused on previous projects or I've looked at my business overall and said what am I doing? Like I need to be doing this or I should be doing that and there's been a lot of like trying to force structure on myself, trying to push myself to do things which has led to a lot of

doing nothing or just staying still

and

I've realised that this year was an opportunity for me to not just dip my toe, but like my whole leg into the anti-diet space, create content, start The Culture Of It All, prove to myself I could do this podcast thing by myself, which I've done, and I've been pretty consistent with it, which has also been another thing I had to prove to myself because I felt like I couldn't be consistent.

And I guess where I got to, and this happened like a month or so ago, I just got to the point where I realized that this is what I want to be doing. Like this is what I want to be doing. This is the space I want to be in. These are the conversations I want to be having. I don't know exactly what that looks like, which is a little bit scary for me, but for me to be able to fully move into that space, I need to step away from previous versions of things I've created.

doesn't mean that I'm not proud of them, it doesn't mean that I don't love the things I've done, but it just means that I'm like, I keep describing it as like shelving them. I'm not burning it all down, which in the past is what I've always wanted to do. I feel like I've matured and I'm able to go, I don't need to burn this down, it can still exist, but I'm not going to be participating in that anymore.

And I guess my final lesson from this year as well, right, my final lesson from podcasting and Beyond the Diet and taking up space is that it's safe for me to let go of the past nine years and retire my business as it was. So I feel like that was, it feels like now that I've said that out loud, can really feel it in my chest. Like it's like very heavy.

It's heavy because it's a big decision, but when I tell you that it's decision that I have had on my mind all year.

And I just, like, six weeks ago finally said it out loud. A friend and I, chat every month about business and content and what we're working on. She's been there through the whole of this podcast creation. And every month we check in and I said to her, was like, she said, what are you afraid of? And I was, I was like, no, like at this point I'm not afraid to not have.

that version of my business, or to essentially start from fresh, start from scratch.

So yeah, I said it out loud and then I said it to my husband and then I told some other friends and then I sat with it for like five weeks because I got sick and all the things that happened and I was like, every time anybody spoke to me, they were like, so we still, are you still planning to do that? And I was like, yeah, I am. I just haven't had an opportunity to do anything about it. So for the last like six weeks, two months, I've been...

I guess just sitting with that decision.

I haven't made it public until now

And it is a big decision and I wanted to make sure, make certain, that I was fully ready and on board to leave things behind that I've created in the past, to shelve them.

And I am. I really, really am. And I think what I've also seen is the last six weeks or so as I've kind of sat with this decision, as I've got comfortable with the idea, the choice that I had, the opportunity, I've sat with it. And what I've realized is that it's kind of been this way off my shoulders. Running a business is not easy.

and it's not to say that I'm not going to be essentially running my business.

I'm just not running a business in the way that I have done for the last nine years. And what I've realized is that whilst we have the diet industry, I don't know that we can have an anti-diet industry, because I'm like, you can have an anti-diet space, but I don't know that we can have an anti-diet industry. And so to run a business...

in this space, yes, people can coach, yes, we can work with people, but it just feels very different. The whole of this year has felt very different because the way in which even podcasting, the way I set these episodes up has been so different from my previous podcast.

which I think on the one hand is because this is the work I was meant to be doing, have wanted to do for so long.

And I don't want to say these topics are more important, but these topics are kind of more important. And just require that much more thought. It needs to be that much more thoughtful. And so the way I've approached this whole year and podcast content creation, the things that I've wanted to create has looked really different.

And I'm not gonna lie and say that it's been easy because it hasn't. And I've definitely found that as I've come towards the end of the year, my like, energy has dipped a little bit. I've had less creative brain space, brain power. I have been less consistent with content that I've been creating for each episode. I'm like fully aware of that. And I'm just trying to be really gentle and compassionate with myself and say it's okay. Because...

I know that as we head into the new year, as I've now made these decisions to like, retire my business, my previous versions of my business, I'm retiring my other Instagram accounts. And when I say retiring, it's just that quitting or giving up is not the way I'm seeing this. I'm seeing this as like the end of a chapter, the end of an era. I'm shelving it.

doesn't mean it won't exist, it just means I'm not going to be actively participating. because even though I haven't created content for my other Instagram accounts, even though I haven't promoted my business as it were for most of this year, it's still there, it's still been and it's been something that's then cropped up time and time again and has required me to

give it energy and time and things that I didn't really have, and it's become a frustration at times. So instead of trying to split my time, my energy, my resources in a million different ways, instead of trying to figure out how all these things could work together, which is what I've tried to do for most of this year, I came to the conclusion that actually what I want to do is pause, retire, outlaw creatives.

retire my sticker shop, shelve that and fully focus on podcasting in 2025 and grow into this space. Does that mean I won't ever create stickers again? Absolutely not. I have ideas. I'm full of ideas. I am an ideas person. I have some wonderful opportunities to work with other podcasts and other fat liberation spaces at the moment.

So that is something that I'm going to be doing in the new year. So I have things to fill my time. It just is fully transitioning from what has been my business and my content creation for the last nine years. And now I'm fully stepping into this place.

So yeah, it is going to be a very exciting 2025. This episode, I knew it would be a doozy. I knew it would be a long one. So thank you so much if you're still here, 50 minutes in. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much for giving me almost an hour of your time during a very busy time of year. I appreciate it. This episode, yes, was a bit late.

I overthought how I was going to share all of this with you and in the end it just flowed very very nicely. So we are now taking a break from airing brand new episodes. I will still be dropping some bonus episodes over on sub stack throughout the holidays. They're to be very mini short episodes, just little kind of thoughts and anecdotes that I'll be sharing.

We'll be back with brand new episodes as of the week of the 13th of January. I think that's the Monday. And I will be sharing with you over on social media. And if you subscribe on Substack, I'll be giving you some insights and updates to what's coming with the podcast in 2025. I am really looking forward to sharing some new segments. One of these has been on my mind for a while.

Again, I have a process, right? I get this idea, I think it's really great, I share it with friends, I see if they think it's great. I seek out that validation from people who also know this space and I'm like, what do you think? Does this sound like a good idea? Would you be interested in this? So I have had the idea for a while to share a segment because listen, guys, we're friends, right? This podcast was always supposed to be more anecdotal. It was supposed to be...

me, a fat person, sharing my stories, sharing my experiences. But then I think I kind of freaked out a little bit because I was like, shit my life is not that exciting. And so instead of it being more personal, like a personal podcast blog style thing, I got into like the structure of a podcast where I'm sharing like tips and strategies and like that's fine and that's cool and I definitely still want to do some episodes like that. But I do really want to focus on

point of the show, which is what it's really like to live life in a larger body without being on a diet, right? Ditching diets, living life in a larger body. Because for the most part that's a still pretty audacious thing to decide to do. So I realized that for me, in order for me to do that I needed to be more comfortable sharing my stories. And I tell you, I have lots of stories and they're not all stories from

recent past. There are stories from the last 10-15 years, stories from childhood, stories from my teenage years, but they all come back to the same thing. Even if I wasn't in a larger body at that moment in time because I was dieting, the thoughts and feelings still come from a person in a larger body. Anyway, I'm rambling. My point being that's

I

really sat with the idea of sharing like confessions, right? Confessions of a fat girl. And

I knew that I had stories I wanted to share, but I wanted to...

share them in these like bite-sized ways, some of them may be verbal, some of them may be written, and just kind of allow myself to share without fear of what people might think, hopefully resonating with people and like people who have navigated similar situations, like they're personal, it's not going to be something that every single person has also experienced, but there are going to be similar experiences. So as of next year...

I'm to be sharing a segment exclusively on sub-stack called Confessions of a Fat Girl. And those confessions will be written or audio, just depending on how I can get it out of my brain, because sometimes it's easier for me to type, sometimes it's easier for me to speak. And they will be exclusive to sub-stack. So if you want to subscribe,

to those confessions, you'll get them straight to your inbox when I post them. You can join us as I said over on Substack which is, you can find us at cultureforallpod.substack.com and those bonus episodes that content will be coming in the new year.

Yeah, this has been a really fun episode to finish out the year. I feel like it's been a little bit chaotic, especially the last like 10 minutes, but I appreciate it so much. I wouldn't have been able to do this this year without you. So I appreciate you. I thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for being here for the last hour. Subscribe to the show on Substack. Join me over there. We're going to have more content coming in 2025.

and I am just fucking looking forward to it. Can't wait. Yeah, happy holidays. I hope you have the holiday season that you want. I hope that it is peaceful. I hope that it is calm. I hope that you are able to get what you need, the time that you need and reflect. I'll be sharing some-

more content, bits and pieces over on Instagram as we go through the holiday season.

and I will see you in 2025. Thank you so much for this incredible year.