Ep. 29 | Because shame can't live in the light [RE-release]
Hi friends! Hello from a cozy rainy day in Quito, I’ve decided to re-release this episode because I’ve had a few AHA moments lately, and for the first time, I thought I was brave enough to relate to one of my “most scary” episodes. My personal episode from 2021, but I thought it would be good to catch up before that because (phew) you are in for a wild, vulnerable, beautiful ride.
Here’re the notes from the OG episode:
Hi Friends! Welcome to this episode!
Today we have a solo show, I wanted to tell my story, for you to get to know me, to know the sides of me that one day I was never able to share.
Wanted to give a trigger warning for you, in this episode we will be talking about eating disorders and suicide.
So, what are we going to unpack today? Creating a whole other instagram account to accompany my healing, well I don't think it really started like this but here, let me take you through this journey, I'll be pulling some instagram posts as I go through this podcast and will be sharing a direct link to all of them and everything else I mention in this episode on our show notes.
When I started this instagram account I remember it was, actually, maybe my third instagram account, at one point I had an account to track my weight-loss journey and macro counting called thighsthenfries, like every other fad diet I ever subscribed to, and believe me there were many, this died too.
So, back to @itsallaboutestefi, as I scroll down the feed, I can remember that it was actually called something like estefiramirezdesign, it was going to be my "aesthetic" account, where I shared my camera roll pictures, and curated a "perfect" feed, where the captions were one worded followed by hashtags like #travel #design #photography, the first post was uploaded on Dec 9, 2018 and then just like that 10 days after December 19, 2018 I posted about my sadness for the first time: "and today was hard too, but it takes immense courage to be sad. 🌙🌷💖"
and then 3 days after, December 22, 2018
"Sometimes life gets really hard and we get tunnel vision
Everybody has different experiences with mental health, memories and feelings overall. And that is what makes us unique and human. •
This year I had an amazing opportunity to travel to Beijing, China for business and it was an INCREDIBLE experience. I cannot wait to get back to Asia and explore that side of the world!"
You have no idea what it feels like to re-read these captions again, it's almost like I can feel the panic in my fingers, the push to get attention from somebody, from myself, the feeling of being caged almost, if an animal trying to find a way out. I can feel it in my fingers.
and then, I continued, sharing about trips, places, people, but something was starting to happen, I was able to find moments in my day and find nuggets, visual nuggets "to post" but they also were nuggets of being present, like in this post: I had walked by this corner almost every day, and just now was I able to look up and see this little reminder, "good things happen ALL the time <3"
I was in LA, for a work trip and saw this sign at LACMA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, that said, "Like, Man, I'm tired (of waiting) and this was the caption "There is this pressure in today’s society to be “good” at everything or to at least try everything
and this is when things started to change, to really change.
This is when I started following accounts that talked about mental health, body neutrality, started to follow people who looked like me, not the "fit/skinny" version of what I "wanted" to be. People's whose boobs were big, and different, whose bellies flapped, whose stretch marks were normal, whose cellulite wasn't facetuned, whose food wasn't about the calories or macros in it, whose life was seemingly just interesting and normal. Who spoke about things that made me uncomfortable, who made me feel seen, uncomfortably seen, but most importantly, accounts and people who made me look at ME.
There was a long time in my life were I was terrified of looking at my reflection in the mirror, where when I walked by buildings I made sure not too look at my reflection, and I lived in NYC, that was a hard challenge ha. There was a long time that I placed my worth on the labels of my jeans, there was a long time that I measured my worth by the size of my plates. But there was also a long time where I found comfort and pain in food, were binging and restricting were my way of controlling my life.
There is so much that I have overcome, like being able to stare at the mirror and actually say out loud, hey I love you, you are not perfect, but there is no need to be, today I may not love you, but today I am thankful for you body, because i am able to move, to breathe, I am able to love others, and I am able to keep trying, until I can, maybe one day, even if it's just for a day, or minutes of the day, I am able to love what I see right there.
So we went to Seattle and the theme kind of went back to aesthetic account where I shared my gorgeous travel photos, where I got to share some of my artistic eye, it was also almost a challenge for me to see the different views I saw today vs what Meijun had seen that day.
and then something changed again, I got back to NY and found a new self, we had made the decision to quit our jobs, and it was as if I was truly trying to be unapologetically myself, this was when I really developed what @itsallaboutestefi is, "not apologizing for my wild anymore", this is when I placed a bet on myself, this was when I decided that my darkness will not define me, but that I can channel it, I can write it, I can explain it and I can maybe find others that will resonate with my thoughts and maybe help myself and my people understand a little bit of what was really going through in my head.
I no longer wanted to feel ashamed for my darkness or my light, I no longer wanted to hold it so close to my chest and this was where I call, the post where I came out.
"This is the thing... I don’t want life to happen to me. I don’t want to be “sitting, waiting, wishing” happiness comes my way, waiting for success to happen. For my depression to “disappear”, for my anxiety to lessen, my panic attacks won’t vanish but I will be able to manage them. The thing is... I don’t want to be thin enough, passionate enough, athletic enough, I WANT TO BE ME. Even if that me isn’t a size 0 heck I’ve never been a size 0 and I will never be and that... is okay. This week is eating disorder awareness week and I want to share my story... for the first time. I always thought I was just an angry person, a person without self control, I thought that each Binge was my fault, that each time I wish I was courageous enough to put my fingers down my throat... and this was just so that I would be noticed
This was a few days after I seriously contemplated taking my own life, I've spent many moments thinking about suicide, but I never felt like I truly couldn't do it anymore, and it was in this moment, I was in our bathtub in our apartment, just crying, just feeling so sad, so lost, feeling so overwhelmed. I remember this day like it was yesterday, I was picking up Guillermo from daycare just couldn't control myself, just couldn't see past my fear my anxiety my depression my sadness, but I kept thinking there is no way I can leave him, my puppy I am either going to die or become an alcoholic, I need help, I want to live, how comes I also want to die so much.
This is when I downloaded this book that I kept hearing about for the last few months, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, and this is when I finally really really started to understand that I am not my thoughts, that I am not the trauma I have lived through.
phew.
…wow, and just like that this was the seal I didn't know how to break, now this was all our in the open, now I didn't have to feel shame, I know that I finally belong, right here, in my body.
Now, what continues is a series of posts, that I started to treat as a journal, well more like a stage, each one of the posts that have continued after have given me a sense of freedom, and this is why I think that this instagram account has been key in my healing journey. I once heard that shame keeps us in a dark corner, hiding from the world, and that is how I felt my entire life. That is what I felt in my "primary" instagram account, I felt like I couldn't share who I really was and who I'd become because the script I created on that account came from a place of shame, felt from the place where I curated every moment to fit into the script I thought others wanted to hear from me.
Now I know that maybe even creating an instagram account and rupturing the connection to those who followed that other account had nothing to do with them, but with the shame I had built up my entire life because I had never allowed myself to find who I really was, I kept blaming others and blaming society but all I was doing was controlling the narrative so I was "safe".
And this is what this instagram account gave me, it was a new found sense of nakedness, of a small controlled 4:5 blank page that felt like being naked in front of a crowd of strangers who would now get to know me for who I was learning, to discover.
Now I wonder and I realize that maybe @itsallaboutestefi was my mirror, my reflection that I finally started to look at straight in the eyes, not because of who was around me or what I thought others would see in that reflection but for who I was letting be.
It is as if now that I look back at all these posts I am able to read that all I was looking this whole time was to feel like I belonged, somewhere and this account was able to give me just that, a place to share with fear, with angst, exactly as I was, and that the people that would read, but finally, be reading who I was.
I learned a lot, I shared a lot, I surrounded myself with tools, with people, with accounts, thoughts that I agreed and did not agree with, but this account has taught me this over and over:
progress is not linear
you have to lean in to the suck
there are people our there who you'd really like, and it's okay if they just live on your digital screen.
there are people out there who care, but I need to care first.
…I should say that, it matters. Debo decir eso, sí importa.
I don't have to be loud with others, if I can't hear myself it doesn't matter.
but most importantly,
it doesn't matter if anyone else doesn't get it,
…or doesn't read it,
or doesn't comment,
all it matters is me.
so, here it is a long rant about how creating an instagram account leads me to share intentionally, to get naked in the theatre, an account that reminds me, I'm not apologizing for my wild anymore and I can ask questions and be curiously uncomfortable through life.
Follow the people who lift you up, who make you wonder, who challenge you, more than anything, follow yourself, this is your life baby.
So I wanted to tell you about my story, so you can get to know me a bit more but also, I wanted to share the other side of the coin, following last episode's rant about our relationship to social media and the validation we seek from it. I wanted to share my story, the story where the validation I found through sharing my story became a key piece of the puzzle that has brought me to where I am today.
Thank you for listening to this episode friends! Thank you for always sending us messages that reinforces that what we share helps you understand, question or simply wander. But most importantly, thank you for listening and thank you for letting me talk it out.
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Bye friends!
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO ME, THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME TALK IT OUT.
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