013: earth is hard / soap commercials
Nins guides us through reincarnation and the afterlife as revealed through "Journey of Souls" by Dr. Michael Newton. Arns examines short film "Dove Real Beauty Sketches" through an ethnic lens.
referenced in this episode:
Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives by Dr. Michael Newton, PhD
0:00 - Intro
2:23 - Nins: Journey of Souls
37:56 - Arns: Dove Real Beauty Sketches
53:30 - Outro
[WARNING: this content contains spoilers]
episode summary
In this episode, Nins and Arns share their emotional journeys of self love amidst eurocentric beauty standards. Nins covers the book Journey of Souls by Dr. Michael Newton, a book about the spiritual world that changed her life. Afterwards, Arns analyzes the harmful eurocentric beauty standards portrayed in a 2013 Dove advertisement. The two share a teary-eyed moment of acknowledging the struggles of colored women trying to accept their appearance in societies with heavy European influence.
Until next time…brb crying :’)
-
hi I'm Angela naan I'm Ariana Kempis and this is brb crying
0:06
[Music]
0:15
hello everyone welcome back to BRB crying. I'm Ariana also known as Arns and I'm nins also known as ang and and we're back back. we're back again. you thought, but here we are. have we not convinced you? it's been quite a few episodes and you're like I don't know they might not be back they might not and we are here to prove you wrong over and over again. yeah that's the premise. yeah. you be crying proving you wrong every time. yeah, but as the name suggests we are back because before we were right back we were crying.
1:01
And now we're here to tell you what was it that we were crying about. what? pray tell. pray tell. yep. that's what we got. that's what we got. and what else? um, I don't know sign up for our newsletter! we got a newsletter, too. we got a podcast, we got a newsletter, we send you stuff every week, more things that we cried about, a little blurb, you know, a little Peak inside our minds. so yeah, people were like we need more please. don't worry. we um got so many sob stories from our listeners. every week we invite our listeners to–our crybabies crybabies—our little crybabies to submit a sob story. and every day it's like please I need a substack from you guys like I just cry about it all day long. yeah and we answered that call. it was hard but you know like we did it for you. mhm. so check the show notes, sign up for our newsletter. short and sweet today. you're welcome!!! cuz got a long and [ __ ] up one. ooh! uh not [ __ ] up. [ __ ] crazy one today. so uh lay it on me. I uh I know you guys wanted a lot more [ __ ] from us, but listen. sign up for the newsletter and you'll get more! yeah cuz I'm here to [ __ ] work today. let's get to it. let's get to it!
Nins: Journey of Souls
2:23
okay what do you have for me and our crybabies today? all right! So today we're going big. okay. put on your little thinking cap. we're getting existential. ooh, ooh, okay. so today I am going to be talking about a cutesy little book. it's a short and sweet 276 page collection of words. yes. um that not to be dramatic but completely changed my entire life. yeah yeah yep yep yep yep. I know that you have said that term at least twice on the show right. I say it every time every week. okay I don't think I've ever said those words until today because this genuinely did change- are you saying that when I say it it doesn't? okay- uh I'm just not as easily convinced. this book I can say with confidence has truly altered my perception of the world, my purpose in life, how he looked at loved ones, everything. ghosts, aliens, like the [ __ ] has it all. a Sci-Fi novel? uh I wouldn't put fiction under here. Oh, okay.
3:55
um okay so this book is called journey of souls case studies of Life between lives by Dr Michael Newton pH [ __ ] D okay. so as the title suggests this book is a collection of case studies that Dr Newton gathered over his 40 years of work as a psychologist and hypnotherapist where his specialty lied in in past life regressions and more specifically what happens to the soul between one reincarnation and the next. after meeting with thousands and thousands of patients under hypnosis he realized that they were all alluding to a structure and a system about the afterlife and they were all saying the same thing. and this book captures those findings. again, I'm talking crazy [ __ ] [ __ ] today. okay like fascinating [ __ ]. and I will break this down for you as best I can. there's no way that I'm going to be able to cover everything in this book, but there were some pretty mind-blowing revelations for me personally that I think definitely weren't a spotlight on our show, and I'm gonna get [ __ ] to it. [ __ ] me up. you know what I mean? [ __ ] me up. okay but with that said I was thinking about what my cry level of this book was going to be, and even though there genuinely were excerpts in this book that did make me teary eyed, I almost don't want to even give it a cry level because I feel like that cheapens the overall impact that this book had on my entire being. right so, that is my Preamble and uh we're going to start it off like we always [ __ ] do.
6:10
context okay all right so the author Dr Michael Newton was born in 1931 in Los Angeles California. and after getting his Doctorate in counseling psychology he really just [ __ ] put
his whole ass into psychology. like it was his entire career he- in addition to having his own practice where he met with patients-he was part of the American Counseling Association, he, taught psychology in various universities, he became a certified master hypnotherapist, and then even worked as a behavioral counselor and group therapy director for his local Community Mental Health Center. and as you can probably deduced from his background, very committed to the traditionally scientific approach to his work and study of the mind. so as a psychologist and counselor he specialized in behavior modification. so things like pain management, mood disorders, addiction behaviors, and his work involved a lot of short-term cognitive restructuring. and hypnotherapy was was one of the techniques that he used. I'm not going to [ __ ] pretend like I know how hypnotherapy works I don't [ __ ] know. but what I can do is Google the definition. you know what I mean? oh yeah, resourceful.
7:47
so hypnosis is a type of therapy that brings patients to a trans-like state of deep relaxation and focus so much so that their mind's mental blocks are temporarily disabled. and then the patient can unlock hidden thoughts and emotions and memories. and so for a majority of Dr Newton's life he was very much a skeptic a staunch atheist and really dismissive of any sort of metaphysical or unorthodox way of approaching Clinical Psychology. he was like I don't [ __ ] with any woowoo [ __ ], like I'm a man of science babe. interesting. you I mean he wasn't a believer? mm. but the UN nurse was like watch this. and actually for a really long time he refused to do past life regressions. he was like the [ __ ] is that like there's no proof that this is real. like he he didn't believe it. but then of course, all of that changed when he had a client come into his office complaining of lifelong pain on his right side. and this patient had gone to several doctors ran several tests and nothing was conclusive about where this pain was coming from why he was feeling it. and of course the doctors are like it's probably in your head. so he was like okay fine like this is my last resort. I literally cannot function. this pain is so severe I can't live normally. so he went to Dr Newton and Dr Newton put him under hypnosis. and Dr Newton's like peeking through his brain. like okay let's look at your childhood. maybe you have some trauma in your childhood that you just don't remember. can't find anything there. and he's like is there anything that you know you don't remember? like maybe a violent episode where you had Amnesia or something? nothing's there. and so Dr. Newton’s like okay why don't I change my question. and instead he asks take me to the very first moment that you started experiencing this pain. and all of a sudden this patient starts describing being killed by a bayonet that was shot on his right side when he served as a soldier during World War I. so Dr Newton was like hm. what? like past life regression? like someone cooked. okay mhm. so he's like okay fine. I see the benefit, it's kind of cool. so he starts incorporating past life regression into his practice. and as he's doing this he realizes that every single patient that he meets with has had hundreds of past lives spanning centuries. and he's like what the [ __ ]?
11:05
like this is crazy. this is crazy that they're all able to describe things that they wouldn't necessarily know. and to make things even more fascinating he noticed that as people were describing their different lives, all of these lives had very similar themes. so for example there were many lives where no matter what kind of person they were, they always struggled with abusing power. or there was always a toxic parent-child relationship. he like dude something's [ __ ] up. what's going on here? and it didn't click to him until he had another patient who came in who was complaining about just being chronically lonely. just feeling like there was no one in this world that they could connect with. and so Dr newon puts this person under hypnosis. and she starts talking about how she misses her friends in her permanent home. and he's like what the [ __ ] are you talking about? like what do you mean your permanent home? like your childhood home in one of your lives? and she's like no my permanent home in the spirit world. and he's like dude what? like I don't know where the [ __ ] this is going. but it basically opens up this Gateway for him. and he's like holy [ __ ] the power of hypnosis not only allows people to access the memories of their past lives, but they can actually access the time between their lives when they're in in a spiritual world. and again after a 40 yearlong career where he has had thousands and thousands and thousands of patients all under hypnosis from all over the world they don't know each other they don't know what's happening in these confidential appointments Dr Newton's like dude they're all [ __ ] saying the same thing. like how is this possible? and he basically wrote it all down in this book. and it's [ __ ] crazy.
13:33
it's major [ __ ] tea. okay this [ __ ] is piping hot, okay. now before I jump into what all these people said, mini disclaimer that while I am personally wholeheartedly openminded and accepting of what is presented in this book, I'm not necessarily trying to convince you, dear listener, that this should be taken as definitive truth. Okay. I just think that this book very much opened my mind to the possibilities of what could be. and if you are a natural skeptic if you take anything away from the story I hope it's just that it gets you to think a little bit about the why of it all. just take it for what you will. I will say though that me and arns have read this book. I came across it in 2022 because obviously a Tik Tok had recommended it. [ __ ] Tik Tok. and I read it and I was like this [ __ ] is insane. immediately told you to read it and I'm pretty sure that we have thought about it at least once a week ever since we first read it. I think it's exactly like what you said it's just altered everything about my life. I mean it's changed the way I see the world. so so every [ __ ] day. so every [ __ ] day. I guess I was trying to be like not too dramatic but like every day. let's be dramatic. let's go there.
15:10
okay so here is what this book has to say. and that is every single sentient being has a soul which is a concentrated mass of energy that can transcend any Dimension or astral plane and can reside in a living body throughout that body's life. and the reason why Souls do this is to evolve and improve with each iteration of Life souls are not created perfectly. and when they are in meshed with something like a human body that acts on human inclinations and Free Will we're bound to make mistakes. we're bound to [ __ ] up. and no life has ever been free of hardship but each life is an opportunity for the soul to learn how to navigate that hardship and grow from it with the ultimate goal of eventually reaching Perfection. otherwise known as enlightenment or Nirvana. and returning back to the spirit world and energy from which it was created. that's a [ __ ] lot. I know. I'm making you think today babe.
16:41
Okay so because of this process which can take thousands and thousands and thousands of years over thousands of lives, naturally there are souls that are at different levels of advancement. and just to make things simple we can call these levels beginner, intermediate, and advance. so beginner souls are not necessarily type cast because of how long a soul has been reincarnating but more so by how much that Soul has learned and evolved. how much progress they've made. and based on Dr Newton's very limited pool of the people that he interviewed (30,000), he suspects that roughly 70% of people fall under this category. And that's because it can take several lifetimes just to learn one lesson. such as like overcoming envy. and as a very very loose generalization beginner souls are just a bit immature. you know they tend to be more self-centered and consumed by the present and are less concerned with anything not pertaining to their immediate lives. in the spirit world our souls give off an aura and the color of your aura signifies the level of your advancement. so for a lot of these beginner Souls they tend to emit a whitish or sometimes gray Aura. now intermediate Souls have a more grounding energy to them. these are people who are more composed and are able to be more in touch with their emotions and they're more optimistic about humanity and are very intrigued by big Concepts that affect society at large. they're much more inclined to help and encourage those that are around them. and they emit reddish to Orange to Yellow to eventually gold auras. and the last level, Advanced levels, once a soul has reached an advanced level of Enlightenment their reincarnations are actually pretty few and far between. mainly because it's kind of like they've already learned as much as they could in a physical body. and if they do incarnate they come here as more so guides and are basically really just focused on improving the lives of other people. and their auras are bluish. and that blue hue intensifies into a deeper color the more advanced they are. so basically Souls of deep Indigo they're [ __ ] goated they're top tier. you know? they don't even bother leaving the spirit world.
19:42
Earth who? so like I said beginner and intermediate Souls make up the majority of the population on Earth and their goal in each lifetime is to learn some lesson or fulfill some purpose. and each life is a test, essentially. so what happens once that life comes to an end Once you turn in your little test. and I think we've all heard the accounts of people who have had near-death experiences, right? and to be honest it still pretty much holds, which is that after we die our soul separates from our physical bodies and we're pulled towards a tunnel of bright light. and sometimes this transition from a physical being back into a spirit can be really jarring for some Souls. especially if they have experienced like a sudden or violent death or have died really young. and they kind of just feel like oh I'm not done yet. so it can actually take a really long time before they decide to enter that light. time to them in the spirit world obviously doesn't pass the way it does here, so they may not feel you know 40 days but that's what it could be here on Earth. and then those Souls that are like dude literally [ __ ] that I'm not going, ghosts!
21:10
mhm so for the average soul that does enter this light which is essentially a portal from this physical world into the spiritual World there is a cutesy little welcome party for them- oh- once they enter. mhm. cake, balloons, and the people at this party are this person's loved ones. people that have known them in that life that give them comfort and love and let them know that hey you're safe you're okay, and the setting of that party is unique to whatever that Soul wants. whatever would calm them. a beach, a field of flowers, it's really up to that person. now after this little part-e we then meet with our Spirit guides. we talked a lot on this pod about the good old trusty spirit guide. mhm. and essentially every single soul since it's Inception is assigned a spirit guide. and this is basically another soul that is far more advanced than us. has been around way longer than we have. And they basically watch over us through every single reincarnation and serve as our main teachers in the spirit world and in the physical one. in our lifetimes guides show us signs, they lead us to the right choices, and cloak us in their comfort when we're going through hard things. and after we enter the spirit world and have our party, we meet with this guide and we basically debrief over the last life that we had lived. how did we do? did we stay committed to our lessons? are there still things that we need to work on? and even though this may sound like oh Judgment Day like oh my god did I fail the test? every patient that Dr Newton had interviewed describes this conversation as like one of healing. It's kind of like when you're lost in the mall and you can't find your parents and then you finally see them and they just hug you. and it's like oh okay I'm back with someone who will protect me. And they never treat us with anger or disappointment. it's just these pure spirits that are solely focused on our development. and I don't know I just love the concept of a guide. oh yeah. that there is an entity out there that is perfectly matched to guide us and accompany us on this seemingly never ending Journey.
24:06
so after this little debrief we then go to our quote unquote permanent home in the spirit world. and I'm not going to spend too much time describing it because it's really hard to visualize mainly because human language is so limited in the words that we could use to describe what the spirit world looks like. But essentially the duration of our time in the spirit world is still dedicated to evolving and spending a lot of time thinking about our past lives and what we did really well things that we still need to focus on. and really just better prepare ourselves for the next test. and again like I said this is all done in kind of like our permanent home. where our souls also just kind of chill and hang out. and they also spend time with our fellow soulmates. and this is another one of the part of the books that is really like I just love it so much.
25:17
so the concept of a soulmate is different from our traditional sense of a soulmate where you know you find your perfect match and you love that person person for your whole life and in every reincarnation blah blah blah. but essentially our soulmates are actually a group of souls that have been with us since our creation. created together. and it can be a group of five, 10, sometimes 20, like-minded Souls that are on similar levels of advancement. and these members are united for all of eternity. and will always choose lives together. over and over again. playing several different characters in each one. so yes they can take the form of spouses. but they can also be siblings in another life. or a teacher in the next one. or maybe their two best friends who decided to start a pod. started a [ __ ] podcast? oh my God how funny. regardless of their relation to us one thing is always true. which is that these Souls have the greatest impact on our lives. and it doesn't necessarily matter how long these souls are in our lives but our paths would not be the same had they not been there at all. and basically we work together with our soulmates and each reincarnation to help us evolve as a team. love you soulmates. um I have no idea how long I've been [ __ ] talking. but um let me just share one last thing. okay so to review our Soul's whole purpose again is to continue on this path of self-improvement. we do this by reincarnating into several different lives and working with our guides and soulmates to analyze and learn from each experience. and after that period of us living that life and then dwelling on it in the spirit world which can be 20, 50, 100 years there comes a point where we feel compelled to try again. we will want to take on a new life. and as it's revealed in this book we actually have a say in what our next Journey will be. we have a choice. We can decide what we'll look like. we can decide where we'll live, who's in our family, and most importantly what lesson we want to learn in that life. none of it is by accident. and one of the things I haven't disclosed yet is that when it comes to reincarnation we aren't just limited to humans on the planet Earth. there are actually thousands of galaxies with planets that are home to sentient beings. and we have the option to pick those bodies to inhabit. we're getting [ __ ]. crazy aliens have entered the chat, okay?
29:04
but sometimes these worlds can be almost easy? like the development of these beings and the environment in which they live isn't super complex. so our souls are limited in how much they able to develop while embodying them. so Earth and The Human Experience is is actually considered quote pretty severe. like it's [ __ ] gross here okay. I mean yeah. we didn't need the [ __ ] spirits to tell us that, yeah. so those Souls that are drawn to life as humans on Earth are almost considered adventurous. mhm. down for the challenge. mhm. that's all of you listeners. wow they want to progress, they want to learn, and this is the accelerated way to do it I [ __ ] guess. so I want to wrap up this story with an excerpt from this book. one of the case studies that he shares and in this particular case study Dr Nunan is asking this person under hypnosis about his decision to pick a life on Earth. um apparently we all have Spirit names. this particular patient’s name is nemphum. so you'll hear Dr Newton call him nemphum.
30:33
okay and I'm actually going to role play it with you arns. I printed out the script. yes so I'm going to have you read Dr newton. Should I use like an accent or-? like we're so good at accents. should I do a New York accent? well he's from Los Angeles, so. oh I can do that. all right. all right. here we go. I want you to answer this next question carefully for me. when you acquired your particular identity as a soul did that automatically mean you were slated for Earth incarnations in human form? not specifically, no. planets don't last forever. in your Beginnings, nemphum were you given the opportunity to choose other planetary hosts besides humans on Earth? ah. as a New Soul, the guides assist on on those selections. I was drawn to human beings. were you given other choices? yes but it's not very clear at the moment. they usually start you on an easy world or two without much to do. then I was offered services on this severe planet. Earth is considered severe? yes on some worlds you must overcome physical discomforts, even suffering. others lean toward mental contests. Earth has both. we get kudos for doing well on the hard ones. we are called The Adventurous ones by those who don't travel much. what really appeals to you about Earth? the kinship humans have for each other while they struggle against one another. competing and collaborating at the same time. isn't that a contradiction? that's what appeals to me. mediating quarrels of a fallible race that has so much pride and need of self-respect. the human brain is rather unique you know? how? humans are egocentric but vulnerable. they can make their character mean and yet have a great capacity for kindness. there is weak and courageous behavior on Earth. it's always a push me, pull you, tug of war going on with human values. this diversity suits my soul. what are some of the other things about human hosts that might appeal to the souls who are sent to Earth? Hm. those of us developing on earth have a sanction to help humans know of the infinite beyond their life and to assist them in expressing true benevolence through their passion. having a Passion to fight for life. that is what is so worthwhile about Humanity. so yeah. that is the one page in this whole book that actually made me cry. I was tearing up while we were reading this. yeah because it's very true that being a human is really [ __ ] hard. but it's also so beautiful too. and how can we appreciate that without having it hurt a little bit? so again I know that I just really skimmed the surface of this book. and there are so many other really interesting Revelations and anecdotes that this book unlocks. And if this interests you at all like oh my God please read this book. I promise that you will be changed in some way or other. and even if there comes a time when we die and we find out that none of this is accurate or everything is true I think regardless in this moment in time we can still appreciate the life that we're currently living. the people that make it worthwhile, the lessons that have shaped us into who we are, and I don't know. maybe there is a beautiful and wonderful incredible purpose to it all.
35:26
I just yeah. yeah. that this this book changed my [ __ ] life. um but I love what you said at the beginning. that even if you don't believe, even if you don't believe in this, even if you read it and you still don't believe in it, I think that there's still something to be said about opening our minds just to the possibility that there is a point to all of this suffering. yeah. and the idea of having Spirit guides makes maybe that suffering less lonely. Spirit guides and soulmates. yeah. yeah. what a wonderful thing. what a wonderful thing. yeah. so one of the anecdotes in this book was that like right before you start your new life you and your soulmates kind of work out a plan. like a okay I'm going to meet you here and I'm going to wear this perfume and you're going to like that perfume and that's going to trigger you to remember me. remember my soul and want to talk to me. or you're going to hear the sound of my laugh and you'll be drawn to it. I just love, I just love those little things about every single person that we love so dearly in this life or is meaningful to us in some way, there was an encounter. a time where we didn't know them yet. and that meeting was planned way before we even got here. yeah. sick [ __ ] book. read the [ __ ] book. I don't know what the [ __ ]. thank you for covering that. I know that was a big one. mhm. I felt like such a [ __ ] academic. yeah. was like reading there- mhm- annotating it. [ __ ] writing notes and [ __ ]. you are an academic. you know what I mean? then I sat down and I wrote this [ __ ] thesis about it. Mhm mhm. Yeah. master in BS. oh BS. that is what the-BS -master in BS- a BS and Bs- a BS and Bs. I'm a little above that though Master. you know? Yeah yeah. [Music]
Arns: Dove Real Beauty Sketches
37:56
all right. [ __ ] me up. [ __ ] you up. all right well we're going to bring it back to this world. we're bringing it back to Earth. we're bringing it back to Earth. so gross. [ __ ] Earth. specifically the year 2013. ooh what a year. I had racked my brain writing this and I was like what the [ __ ] happened in 2013? over a decade ago which sounds wild to me that like 2013 was that long ago. but anyway the one thing that I could think of was in the context of my story which was that you know you're probably watching actual live TV not necessarily only streaming services like Netflix or Hulu. Okay. and you're probably watching ads. so today I'm going to talk to you about one of those ads. can I guess? You probably know it. Dove. yes! yes. of- wow. oh my God. that was really good. I'm pretty sure I shared like a commercial on my Facebook wall because that's when I used Facebook in 2013-oh that would be a that would have been a great context-2013. like Facebook at its height. yeah. yeah. today I'm going to talk about the dove real Beauty sketches. I actually wasn't even going to talk about this but I came across this by chance last week. you didn't watch it on my wall when I shared it in 2013? I'm sure I did, I'm sure I did. but I immediately was crying and I was like uh yeah I got to talk about this. yeah yeah yeah. so most of what I'm going to talk about comes from the source it's a Google case study-boring-about marketing strategies used to promote this but it had a lot of great details. so this is an ad that premiered in 2013 and the purpose was to ignite a global conversation about the definition of beauty. and turn Beauty into a source of confidence not anxiety for women. it's a three-minute YouTube film. there's an extended version and that's the one we're going to [ __ ] watch today. of course. please. but it was uploaded in 25 languages to 46 different like Dove YouTube accounts. and it was the most watched online ad ever with 163 million Global views. I was one of them. you were one of them. maybe we were multiple. I you know like maybe-I was several of those views- and it won the titanium Grand Prix which is like the highest prize at the 2013 can lions International Festival of creativity. which is like the Oscars of ads. so some context Dove is a beauty brand, as you know. historically they have actually been interested in challenging perceptions around Beauty. and in 2004 they launched campaign for real Beauty after a global case study came out that confirmed this hypothesis that beauty had become limiting and unattainable. So at the time of this ad only 4% of women surveyed consider themselves beautiful. and 54% agreed that they are their own worst Beauty critic. so Dove’s response was this short film, which they called a social experiment. we are academics. we know Dove is using the term experiment lightly here. people had qualms about the word experiment. um so before I show it to you I'm going to give a little context to some of our listeners if you haven't watched this before. and it's set in this beautiful brightly lit kind of like a warehouse and there's an FBI forensic artist named gilsmora who is seated behind a curtain. he doesn't know why he's there. but he's just told that there are going to be women who come and sit down and he can't see them. and he asks the women questions about their appearance. tell me about your hair. tell me about your chin. and they quickly realize that he is sketching them based on their responses and then after he sketches them, a complete stranger who has just briefly met that woman but it's fresh enough in their mind so they can talk about what the woman looked like. they come in and Gil asks them the same questions and he sketches them based on their responses. so I'm going to pause here. we're going to watch this eight [ __ ] minute long video. it deserves a watch. all right! okay so if you haven't watched it yet let me give you a little bit more detail about what happens in this video. so Gil. good old Gil. he hangs the portrait side by side and the women come and take a look at the two sketches. and they realize how distorted their self-perception is. and that they're more beautiful than they think. that's their takeaway. and the stranger who only briefly met them, their words are so much Kinder. and because of that the sketch that the artists makes based on this what the stranger says looks so much more like them. I mean some of them are like holy [ __ ]. like didn't look like them at all. and like you know that's how they see themselves and so obviously I can see why this was the most watched ad. 163 million views. very emotional for anyone who struggles with insecurity. not me. um why are you laughing? how many lives have you been tackling that one-I mean-cuz I probably got 50 more. oh yeah. we got work to do. um but you know we all struggle with feeling unworthy and this ad captured that beautifully. and you know when we're we're young and impressionable and we're still trying to develop that sense of identity, we feel that inadequacy so much more intensely. but it's a little shocking to see these middle-aged and these older women still talking about themselves that way. and I had this jolt of realization rewatching this that these feelings of unworthiness don't just disappear. you know, now that we're aging. they don't just go away. sometimes we just learn to live with them.
4:37
and they kind of just become part of who we are. and there's so much power in the language that we use to describe ourselves. and if we're not intentional with that language and those thoughts that we have, if we don't face those feelings of unworthiness head on, we might be carrying that burden our whole lives. so yeah great ad. with that said, there is some important criticism that surfaced when this ad came out and it was something that I noticed too when I was watching it. and that was that it was mostly white women. and this is not to say that black indigenous people of color suffer more from body dysmorphia, but on top of that you know that General unworthiness that we all feel, we suffer from this added element of being told that eurocentric features are preferable by Western beauty standards. it's not just wishing we had a Brighter Smile, or we didn't have crows feet, or that we had you know Fuller lips and cheeks, it's wanting to have noses that have a higher Bridge or like they said in the video you know a cute button nose and lighter skin and bigger eyes and blue eyes green eyes hair that's blonde or brown. and these thoughts are just such a rejection of our culture and like our entire being. and I remember being so proud when people would tell me how light-skinned they thought I was. when they would tell me you know your last name doesn't sound Filipino. that's so cool. or what are you? you're so ethnically ambiguous. like I can't even tell you're Filipino. I would be like wow. like that's so cool. and like that was me essentially celebrating the fact that my people were colonized and that they were oppressed and that was me being like yeah. like like I just it did not even occur to me.
46:59
and when I think back on it you know I thought it was self love and confidence and thinking that I'm special. but it was the opposite. and I could be angry about the way that I used to feel that shame. but mostly I just mourn the fact that that part of my girlhood even happened. and I mourn the fact that I was I was in this little brown body with my jet black hair and my jet black eyes and I just wanted to look like anyone but that. And there is no world in which I would ever tell my daughter that she is not perfect the way she is. that her brown skin isn't perfect and her black hair is isn't perfect. and it just breaks my heart that these beautiful perfect babies are one day going to feel inadequate. and it also breaks my heart that we were once those beautiful perfect babies. and that inner child still feels that way if we don't confront it. I mean I'm grateful now to be at this point where I look in the mirror and I genuinely do not want to look like anyone else. because I I spent a good amount of my childhood and my young adulthood feeling that way. and also obviously I know that this this body that I'm inhabiting this skin suit is just a fraction a fraction of who I really am. but even as I've done all this work to decolonize my beauty standards and be gentle with myself, there are still days where I slip into that negative self talk. and it’s scary how easily I can drop back in there. how easily the thoughts come to me. it's so much easier said than done to show ourselves that Grace and that kindness. but I had a realization a few months ago when I was going through all my childhood traumas, you know when when I was doing all those all that that shadow work. I realized that there are so many people out there who are going to tell you that you are not enough. and you don't need to be one of those people. you don't need to add to that
49:48
someone's got a root for you. you know you might as well be that person. so yeah I I think I just wanted to talk about it because this whole layer of what we face on top of everything else, I don't think it occurred to me the first time I I watched it. but the second time it just hit a little bit different knowing how heavy all of it still sometimes sits with me and that I have this daughter now. if I'm not tackling those issues of unworthiness head on. like I'm I am parenting and leading by example you know. yeah. it's interesting cuz the the one Asian girl on that whole video doesn't even get any like she's in it for 5 seconds. no dialogue. doesn't even look at her picture. but like I'm still in that habit of thinking like oh yeah but Asians don't really get represented in media. so yeah. I mean it's just that's how it's been. yeah. well here we are changing that. right right right. Again yeah like how much more complex it is to not only feel inadequate but then to also feel erased or ignored on top of it all. mhm. dude Earth is gross bro. it's [ __ ] gross. but you know what I was thinking you know how I [ __ ] need to tie our stories together. oh yeah yeah yeah. I was thinking when you were talking and telling your story, you specifically said we choose the bodies that we're in. and I'm sure this is part of my grand Journey. it's funny because this book describes that when we are in that point of life selection where we're picking the life, we're picking the the city that we live in, and the body, and how we look, every soul is so excited.
51:58
they are really really hopeful. and are So Satisfied with their decisions. but when we're born you can't be given the answer key when you're taking the test. so you have to forget and how quickly we forget how much we were looking forward to living that life in that body. yeah when I think about even just in this lifetime looking at those magazines and I don't know if you had that same experience like I would just be like God I just want to look like them. you know it's strange because I remember you telling me this even when we were little girls. and I was like really you like in my mind I was like really you think that? I think you're so beautiful! like how could you want to not look like yourself. you know? yeah.
52:57
I think it's helpful that in the media now there's so much more of this collective reclaiming. it's kind of like the the confidence is infectious. yes holy [ __ ] she loves herself. I want to love myself! yeah well I think it's definitely something my soul has had to Grapple with. mhm. I'll see you in the next one when we're still finding the same [ __ ]. Yep. [Laughter] all right well I guess we should probably like wrap this [ __ ] segment up.
Outro
53:33
thanks for listening. thank you for listening to us talk forever and ever every single week. yeah send us your [ __ ] SOB stories. send us recommendations for cry material. if you read the book or you watched the dove ad let us know what you [ __ ] thought. if you you email us at hello@brbcryingpodcast.com or if you send us a note at brbcryingpodcast.com you can reply to our email newsletter that you signed up for, right? socials? brbcrying.podcast. DM us. we are there. ready, willing, excited. yeah. And make it good. because if it's good enough to pass our test, we might just read it. Yeah. make it worth our time. all right. I we're done dude. Yeah dude I vomited enough words for you today. I'm going to go recoup. I'm going to leave. yeah me too. uh but I'll be back again. and me too I will. but until then, brb crying.