344 Joanna Hennon + Holly ~ Accepting The Parts Of Yourself That Don’t Fit With Your Self Image

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 344. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another co-hosted episode with the fabulous Joanna Hennon. So today we are talking about how to fully accept the parts of yourself that don’t fit in with your self-image.

So, this topic was inspired by a listener who wrote in with something that she was specifically experiencing with not fully accepting all the kind of weirdness in herself and certain parts of herself that conflicted with other parts and it didn’t fit the image that she wanted to project. And I thought that was a really interesting topic and something that Joanna had talked a little bit about in the past. And there have certainly been many times in my past when I have felt ashamed of my likes and dislikes and I have hesitated to be open about certain aspects of myself. It was like I thought I had to fit into a certain identity and all the parts of me that didn’t fit with that identity were invalid. Of course that is not how it actually works, and life is a lot more fulfilling when we can just accept ourselves for who we are, not only that but also share these aspects of ourselves with other people in our lives.

So, what are you going to learn today? We are going to talk about how to accept all of yourself. We discuss why it is and/or and not either/or, it is not black and white. We discuss how to accept the opposites within yourself. We discuss why it is impossible to fit yourself into a mould if you truly accept yourself, you just can’t fit. We also talk about why it is so important to discuss why we like these guilty pleasures and to share these guilty pleasures with the people in our lives. Finally, we talk about how to get started today with accepting your guilty pleasures and how to talk about them with others. So hope you enjoy the episode.

Holly: Hey Joanna!

Joanna: Hi Holly!

Holly: How are you?

Joanna: I am good, how are you?

Holly: Good, I am looking forward to today’s episode. So today we are talking about accepting the parts of us, of ourselves, that don’t fit in with the parts of the self-image that we have for ourselves. And this episode was inspired by an email from a listener and we have edited the email, so it is not quite so specific as it contained a lot of personal details, so I am going to read the edited version:

“My ‘weirdness’ isn’t so weird for others, but I just have things I’d prefer not to admit. I loooove telling people some things about me, but I am not too keen to share others, like it took me years to admit that I like watching ‘girly’ movies because I see myself as a tough person, someone who likes outdoor stuff, who is ambitious and courageous. Also, because I like to be seen as an intelligent person and the guilty pleasure of reading a girly magazine or watching a girly movie somehow doesn’t fit that image.”

And I think a lot of us can relate to this, I certainly can.

Joanna: Yeah me too, totally. Just for the record I am a totally girly magazine and girly person. {laughing} My husband said the other day: do we ever watch anything that is not set in a High School? Very rarely…

Holly: {laughing} Really! And you like chick-lit.

Joanna: Yes, I really enjoy chick-lit, I find it just happy, I really find joy in it I have to say.

Holly: That is really funny because I sometimes listen to crappy pop radio and my husband hates it because he has very defined music tastes and he is really into music and one time he asked me: what do you see in this music, this is really crappy music? And I was like: it just sounds happy. {laughing}

Joanna: Yeah, I live with a musician as well and so we have had that music snobbery conversation many times. {laughing} I don’t care if it is not properly good music or literature as long as it makes me feel good.

Holly: Exactly, exactly and I think that is kind of the core of what we are going to be talking about today. I think a lot of times we deny ourselves the pleasure of doing something or we deny ourselves the opportunity to talk about these things because they don’t fit the image that we have for ourselves or the image that we want to project about ourselves but yet these are things that make us happy.

Joanna: It just means we are judging those things which is not good. I don’t know there is this whole hierarchy of things that you are supposed to be into; if you are an intelligent, cultured, person you should enjoy going to the opera and listen to classical music and read only things that have won the Booker prize, you know?

Holly: Yeah!

Joanna: I don’t think that is necessarily true, I read a lot of chick-lit, because my work is very, very, energy intensive, channeling things from the beyond takes some energy; and so when I am done with that what really fulfils the other side of me is something more fun. So I don’t want to go and listen to something more serious. I have stopped going to…even I think this sounds horrible, so I still judge myself for this, but, for example, I stopped going to serious plays! {laughing} Or watching serious movies. I like to be entertained when I am in that part of my day and so I just stopped, that means when I get an invitation or something to go and see something “culturally appropriate” for my age, {laughing} I am often like: meh, I think I will stay home and watch Buffy.

Holly: How do you feel about admitting that publicly?

Joanna: A little bit uncomfortable if truth be told because I do consider myself an intelligent person who should like those things and in fact I used to pride myself on being very knowledgeable on those kinds of topics and it is only in the process of knowing myself and being fully me and to really live a life that fulfils me and let go of some of those things that I didn’t need anymore and that is not to say that if those things fulfil you, that’s fine, but for me at this point in my life they don’t. That might change, that was certainly different before, there was a time in my life when things like that, serious plays or serious movies that made me think about serious issues.  

Holly: Documentaries…

Joanna: Right, that was very fulfilling but not right now. I think the whole point of our conversation today is to let yourself be you.

Holly: Yeah give yourself to be you and enjoy the things you enjoy doing and just share that experience with others so that other people know this stuff about you because it is part of who you are. The thing is I think there is so much gatekeeping in the world, people who say, “oh if you are like this, you should like this, or if you are like that, you should like that”. People that say that listening to audiobooks isn’t actually reading because you are not looking at the words with your eyes, which I think is absolute bullshit.

Joanna: Yeah it is. Or people who judge TV. I remember reading a very in-depth intellectual-type post, about reading and movies and televisions and all that stuff and remember it really struck me that the point that it was making was that before we had TV people would read long books and short books and series and all that stuff. Now people still read, the person who wrote this was a hugely avid reader, of all sorts of literature. She said like: now we do have TV, just like there are trashy books there is trashy TV and there is quality stuff, TV series can be likened to book series and so they should be treated in that same way, they should be treated on their content and style and the issues that they tackle, rather than dismissing it because of the medium.

Holly: Yeah, but also even that statement is judging trashy TV.

Joanna: Yay I am a judger of trashy TV. {Both: laughing}

Holly: That’s the thing, what I consider to be trashy TV is different to what you consider to be trashy TV, which is different from the person who is listening to this, what they consider to be trashy TV, so it is going to be different for everybody.

Joanna: It is true.

Holly: And that is why it doesn’t matter; someone is always going to be judging you somewhere.

Joanna: Oh my God I have so much stuff coming up and I am like: no, no, no, no, no. Really, there is some trashy TV that you should not be watching. {Both: laughing} I don’t think I want to list it here in case people hate me, but there is definitely some trashy TV that I have a big problem with.

Holly: Me too, there are some things that I think: Oh my God, why do people watch that? But in the same way that you find chick-lit and High School comedies to be relaxing and entertaining after a hard day’s work of doing channeling, I think some people think it has the same effect for people who watch trashy TV.

Joanna: I suppose I still think that there are some TV that…

Holly: That has no value?

Joanna: It is not about having value, I think my problem, I think that some of the stuff, it is not just limited to TV, I think some of the stuff in the media, in books, or whatever, it is almost designed to dumb us down, or to make us more ignorant or to brainwash or…

Holly: Yeah, yeah.

Joanna: Or to set us along a certain path. I don’t particularly want to get political in this particular conversation, but I think Brexit was something like that, right? For me a lot of it was the media setting things up for years and years and years so then I do have a problem with people reading “trashy” media and relying only on that for information and basing all their decisions based on that.

Holly: Right! Okay, so that is different. When I was thinking of trashy TV I was thinking of reality TV shows that aren’t very high brow… But yeah some media is dangerous.

Joanna: Yeah, but reality TV shows can also be dangerous. Have you read the hunger games?

Holly: Yes.

Joanna: So that is based on reality TV going bad. I mean being taken too far and we think it is impossible and only fiction and yet when our history started, back in Roman times, that’s exactly what we did, we put people in an arena and watched them fight to their death. So kind of we have it in our culture…

Holly: We have done that stuff, just not with all the hi tech like in the book.

Joanna: Right, so now we just add hi-tech to it and more people watch it, yay! You know… Anyhow I think that is kind of a different conversation and we have gone off on a tangent.

Holly: Yes it is.

Joanna: I think this is why it is important to pay attention to how you feel, right? If something is truly fulfilling you at that deep, deep, level, that is a different story to that you don’t really care that everyone dies because you were entertained.

Holly: Just being conscious about the things that you choose to consume and the things you choose to participate in and asking yourself: is this truly fulfilling or am I just watching this because I don’t know what else to watch?

Joanna: And then, you are watching it because it is truly fulfilling then I would say, be proud of that! Be proud that you are allowing yourself to watch, or consume, or do, or spend time, on something that other people might judge, or you have in the past judged, but you are choosing to do it anyway because it makes you feel good and therefore it feeds your energy and therefore it allows you to do more of the great things in your life. And so it basically just improves your whole existence.

Holly: So it is almost like step one is accepting that this is something that you enjoy and giving yourself permission to actually engage in those activities. And I think the further step would be being open and comfortable telling your friends and people that you enjoy these things because it is part of you.

Joanna: And honestly, the things that you are drawn to, those things that really fulfil you, for me, they are soul expression, they are an expression of your higher self and who you really are and who you really is is like a piece of energy, that is not a thing that you can put in a box and say: this soul is intelligent, and outdoorsy and that is it, no more! You don’t get any more adjectives! Only two adjectives per person! {laughing}

Holly: Yeah, I would explain myself as intelligent and outdoorsy and other stuff.

Joanna: And you like Buffy!

Holly: Yes, yes, I haven’t watched it in years, but I like it, I was just thinking about it the other day.

Joanna: It is a very intelligent show actually, I don’t consider that trashy…

Holly: The first season was really difficult for me to get into.

Joanna: I only watched the first season after I finished the seventh season, because the friend who recommended it to me told me to do it that way.

Holly: Oh okay, interesting, because the first season actually put us off so much we stopped but then so many people in my life had said: it is so good, it is so good. I was like: I will just slog through the first season. So I did and then it did get better.

Joanna: My friend said to start with the first season.

Holly: Okay, interesting! For those of you listening this is how to watch Buffy if you have never watched it before, or if you have tried and thought it was awful, the first season was bad! {laughing} So anyway…

Joanna: So illustrating is really important, it is something that I talk about a lot is this difference between this and/or. You are this infinite being born into, incarnating into a physical body and a physical space with certain limitations and certain stuff, right? So when you come here you are kind of an infinite all kind of being put into a space where you think you are made to choose every step of the way.

Holly: It is either this or that, what do you you want: black or white?

Joanna: Black or white, good or bad, right or wrong.

Holly: There is no grey area, it is just black or white.

Joanna: As a child that is what you are taught, there are certain things that you are taught, certain things are good and certain things are bad, and we are used to living in this world of duality so you can either be the cheerleader or the nerd. All those rules are very either/or you can’t really be both, you can’t really be a smart cheerleader, although, again, Buffy… {laughing} I don’t know why all our examples are coming from Buffy.

Holly: I think these archetypes or personalities, or cookie cutters come a lot from the media we consume okay Buff aside, because that was a weird show, that is not normal. Like, we grow up seeing the jock, the cheerleader, the nerd, the smart girl, the shy girl, there are all these types of archetypes in film, television and books, and so I think that also perpetuates the fact that we feel like we have to find a box to fix into.

Joanna: Yes.

Holly: I remember being in High School and being really confused because I was a smart kid, I was not a sporty kid, I was not good at athletics at all, so I thought I was smart and not sport, because I thought you had to be either/or, but I also dressed in black every day, and that was confusing to me.

Joanna: That doesn’t fit.

Holly: I didn’t know what box to put myself into, it was really confusing to me because I felt like I had to pick a style and then fit everything in there but some of my clothes didn’t fit into… it was so confusing to me.

Joanna: I think it is really disturbing because you would think with time and the way the world has been progressing that that has been improving but I heard my son, my ten-year-old, say the other day, we were talking about him go into a new school, and something about, I can’t remember exactly and something about how he is really smart and it is okay to like to learn. And he made some comment, like, “you don’t want to be too smart, because then they will make fun of you”. And he is getting that from the comics he is reading, he is not getting that from his current environment, he is getting it from the stuff that he is consuming that is made for his age group and I find that really disturbing that he is already at that age being taught, “you are going to have to choose, you cant be smart and popular then, if you are too smart they are going to make fun of you, so you are going to have to tone it down, don’t show it.”

Holly: Oh god, that reminds me of when I was kid so much…urgh, yeah.

Joanna: I think so many people are realising maybe later in life that you don’t have to choose that you can be both.

Holly: And more! You can pick more than two things.

Joanna: And you are an infinite being right?

Holly: Yes.

Joanna: My work as you know is all about coming back to your true self, your core alignment, your higher self, being who you were meant to be, all those big ideas. What it actually means is to be whoever you are and like whoever you like. If that is peanut butter and jelly that is fine, if that is peanut butter and sardines that is also fine.

Holly: Ew. {laughing}

Joanna: It wasn’t a great example; I didn’t think it through!

Holly: So was the peanut butter and sardines supposed to be the fancier version of the peanut butter and jelly.

Joanna: No not fancier just the non-standard. You can be all sorts of things the example I gave Holly before I started recording is that I don’t really have one way of being, some days I am more goth-y, and I have whole outfits and sometimes I wear something that is really simply and feel that I want to wear a string of pearls. That used to be a real issue for me worrying about the assumptions that people make about me when I wear either of those two things, either of those two extremes, and also I didn’t wear pearls for years and years and years because I was like: no, that’s not who I am, because I choose this way or I am this way, I decided on this way and that doesn’t fit in. You know, spiky gothic things one day and a nice sweater and pearls the next day, which is crazy.

Holly: That’s really interesting because I have been going through a massive decluttering process lately and went through all of my wardrobe and I decluttered a bunch of clothes and put four bags of clothes to go to the charity shop, and as I was doing that I was going through all the clothes that I own and was realising that I have these kind of different styles. Now in the winter most days I wear jeans and some kind of top or a sweater or something but then in the summer my clothes are very kind of hippy, I have all these hair bands and just long flow-y skirts. And I have these hippy summer clothes and then I don’t know normal winter clothes and I just realised how different that is.

Joanna: And that is okay.

Holly: Yeah, because I really love my summer clothes, I can’t wear them much of of the year here in England {laughing} but…

Joanna: Wearing your jeans and your sweater doesn’t make you any less hippy.

Holly: Yeah.

Joanna: That’s the thing, right, because we think that the things we choose puts us in those boxes.

Holly: I just really like jeans.

Joanna: I like jeans too, that is the easier thing for me to pick out of the closet and it doesn’t say anything about you… I think that is the thing, we make all these assumptions and judgements about what certain things mean and whatever and it is just not true.

Holly: It is, but when I am wearing my summer clothes I feel very self-conscious, because I am the only person in my town who I see walking around in Birkenstocks and hair bands and super bright colours. So I feel like I stand out in the environment where I live and that is really not comfortable for me sometimes.

Joanna: I totally get that, and that comes into play for me as well. If all I am doing today is picking up my son from school then I probably won’t wear my goth-y of gothiest things, right? Whereas if I am going to a hippy festival, or to meet you in Glastonbury, I might do that.

Holly: Right there are different…obviously different clothes for different environments…

Joanna: And that is okay! That just means that it is okay that you feel comfortable in all sorts of bits and that is okay, there is nothing wrong with that. I think it is just really important to identify opposites in yourself and see which one you have been choosing and why. Maybe you are choosing intelligent movies instead of girly movies just because you want to be considered intelligent and otherwise you would think worse of yourself and that is kind of silly because it doesn’t depend on that, your intelligence does not depend on what kinds of movies you watch.

Holly: Yeah, exactly, exactly. We finally split up our Netflix account into: couple watching things, his stuff and my stuff, because we had just one at the beginning and everything was all together and we were getting all these weird suggestions for things and finally I was like, “we were splitting it up”, so when I watch my stuff when I am alone you won’t see the suggestions for this because you won’t see the suggestions. I watch Anne-with-an-e – and I have a ton of documentary stuff that he is not interested in, so.

Joanna: That’s actually a really good idea, I will do that. Thanks Holly.

Holly: I recommend it, you are welcome! {laughing} So I can get all my suggestions based on Anne-with-an-e and the weird documentaries I watch, and he can get his suggestions based on [ ].

Joanna: Yes, those are very different things.

Holly: Yeah, exactly.

Joanna: So being fully you, and being okay with all those bits that are opposite, and don’t seem to fit in, I think we we reject them because they don’t fit in, but they only don’t fit in if you see yourself from the smallness perspective of this current personality or whatever but if see yourself from the greatness perspective of your higher soul it is okay that you are all those things and more.

Holly: Yeah because you are so multi-faceted, how could you fit into one cookie-cutter mould?

Joanna: Yes and multi-dimensional, so the whole conversation becomes completely different, it is not that we are different just because we come from our own soul energy, and everybody’s soul energy is slightly different, every one of us is a combination of these pieces of girly, intelligent, outdoorsy, homebody, those pieces may shift with the times of the year, with the times in your life, with all sorts of things and I think as long as you keep focussing on what makes you feel deeply fulfilled, and by that, what I meant by that is connected to yourself, really in yourself and present in yourself.

Holly: And aware of yourself, aware of the things you like.

Joanna: Yeah, that you are not trying to be someone else. If you are resisting admitting that you like watching girly movies, just ask yourself where that is coming from, perhaps an activity wasn’t valued when you were growing up by your family, or partner. You have picked that message up somewhere that is not something that an intelligent person does. Just see, because I think when you see where it comes from it is much easier to let go of it.

Holly: Because it is much easier to see how ridiculous it is.

Joanna: It is just not true. It is somebody’s opinion that you have somehow picked up along the way. Is that all you have to say Holly?

Holly: I guess that is the core of it. What other suggestions would you have for people? Maybe make a list of all the things that you consider to be guilty pleasures? What are all the things that you consider doing that maybe you don’t give yourself permission to do them, maybe you actually do do but you don’t talk about them.

Joanna: I am just writing that down because I think that would make a really cool podcast episode or blog post or something, a list of my guilty pleasures, I would just like to come out with it all and lead the way and be honest about this stuff because it only feels uncomfortable because of the judgement we attach but when we choose not to attach judgement and just everything is neutral it takes it power away.

Holly: I agree. Are there any guilty pleasures that you can think of offhand, or you would be willing to say now, your top three?

Joanna: Well we have already talked about my High School movies and the chick lit. Let’s see, I really liked love songs when I was younger, I was really embarrassed by this and I don’t really listen to a lot of them anymore because again it was a different time in my life and I resonated with a lot of the lyrics when I was in my early 20s, all the miserable lyrics, a love lost and a love gone bad and that kind of thing! {laughing} Now I am in a happy marriage I don’t resonate with that stuff so it kind of feels to belt it out but I still enjoy that emotion behind it, I think a lot of the cheesy songs from the 80s, they don’t… the music now, I feel really old saying this, the music now is different, I don’t feel it has that same force of emotion. It is maybe a good thing and maybe not, but I find there is a difference and I can connect with that. How about you, any guilty pleasures come to mind?

Holly: Yeah, so I was just making some notes as we were talking about some other things. Kids books, so the last couple of years I read all the Little House on the Prairie books again and loved them. And then I read all the Anne of Green Gables series, thanks to you and now I am reading the Emily Star, which is by the same author.

Joanna: I read those as well!

Holly: Did you. I really enjoy children’s books about a girl doing stuff, but what I really like about these is they are all kind of about girls who live in the countryside in the past and I really like that world, you live on a farm and grow your own food…I don’t know, I really enjoy them. I really had a lot of guilt and I felt very self-conscious about putting them up on Goodreads as I was reading them, because I rank and add all the books I read to Goodreads and of course that makes it public. I really hesitated to put them up there because I felt really self-conscious about that.

Joanna: I find that funny, because I love books like that as well and I don’t consider that a guilty pleasure. So whatever I picked up and you picked up along the way is a very different way of looking at the same thing.

Holly: Yes, yes. For me it is like: I am 46 years old, why am I reading children’s books?

Joanna: I don’t feel like that way about children’s books maybe because I value nostalgia or something, but I feel that way, I really like young/adult dystopian fiction.

Holly: I have read some of that too. {laughing}

Joanna: I really like those and then I feel, when I am in the store like, in that section instead of the Booker prize section.

Holly: You could be buying them for your child, your young adult! Pretend Shane is 14.

Joanna: I don’t like many of the prizewinner books I find them too intellectual and too hard to cope with, to be honest. Before when I was younger, maybe I had different priorities, I don’t know, I felt like they were worth it. They are all obviously good.

Holly: They have won a prize for a reason…but that doesn’t mean you have to like them.

Joanna: For me the effort isn’t worth it anymore, so I show up in the young adults section instead.

Holly: You also have a kindle so you can shop on our kindle and no one can see what you are reading. {laughing}

Joanna: That’s not accepting all the parts of you…

Holly: This one time I was on a train and I was reading “Tess of the D’Urbervilles”, which is… have you read it?

Joanna: I love it.

Holly: Oh my god it is so depressing.

Joanna: I read in High School when I was depressive.

Holly: Okay, well, that explains why you liked it. It is just… oh my God… so I am reading this on the train, and I didn’t realise that the guy next to me was staring over my shoulder and I was engrossed in my book and the depressiveness. I get up and I am standing by the door, waiting to get off the train, and the guy standing behind me that I didn’t realise, he looks at me and he goes, “bleak isn’t it?” And I was like “what?”, and he said, “Tess, very bleak”’. {laughing} And I was like oh my god I am reading this book, I guess it was a classic, I shouldn’t be embarrassed of it… 

Joanna: Certainly not, it is an intellectual reading classic…

Holly: I just felt self-conscious that this guy commented on the book that I was reading.

Joanna: It is funny. Another one just came to me, I know I just mentioned it to you, but I don’t know if I mentioned it publicly. You know how you are supposed to like healthy food and salad and all that stuff, which is fun, I like all that stuff, but one other thing, that I love, love, love is something called Cheetos.

Holly: Oh yeah, I was standing on the street in London yesterday, there was this woman with a bag of Cheetos, and I was looking at those going: I haven’t had Cheetos in 20 years, those look so good!

Joanna: Oh my God, there is a company in Belgium that delivers them to your door which is not good. They used to be not available in Europe because of the something in the colouring but they have changed something and now they are okay to have in Europe. For people who are not American and have not spent any time in the States, in the 80s, I think they still have Cheetos.

Holly: They have more varieties now.

Joanna: I adore them, they are cheesy puff but compact and crunchy and I love them, but I am really embarrassed.

Holly: They are absolute shit food, but so delicious! {laughing}

Joanna: They are shit food…all orange, I don’t remember them from when I was a kid, so I don’t know where this comes from but when I have Cheetos I don’t want anybody to talk to me, nobody is allowed to touch them, this is my Cheeto time and I swear to god if you interrupt it you are going to regret it.

Holly: I remember having this conversation with you. {laughing}

Joanna: Whenever I get them, I am like: you are not allowed to try them, to my husband and to my son, you are not going to like them anyway and I am just going to be upset that I have wasted one on you. {Both laughing} But in the meantime I am taking my break, I read, and I eat Cheetos, usually chick lit.

Holly: Chick lit and Cheetos, quality self-care time! {laughing}

Joanna: I need to order some, but I can’t order them very often because I can’t not eat them if they are in the house. Probably having that kind of “quality” self-care time every single day is not great…

Holly: I know what you mean. Marks and Spencer has this Jalapeño flavour ridge cut crisps and they are so addictive, if I get them, I haven’t got them in a while, if I get them and open the bag they are gone.

Joanna: They put something in there of course too.

Holly: These foods are so intelligently food-scienced to the point that they are engineered to be addictive.

Joanna: I was reading a book about that, I started off but never finished it, but I thought it was fascinating. If I find that title of it we can link to it, or if you are really interested message me. It was really interesting it was from the beginnings of convenience manufacturing in the States and how they have to find the exact bliss spot, between fat content, salt content and sugar content, those are the three that they play around with and all the politics of how that happened, it was absolutely fascinating.

Holly: If you find that let me know and we will put it in the show notes. I think food is another thing a lot of times I feel like I need to look like I am always eating healthy food and I usually do but last night we went out to dinner at Five Guys, because it is amazing.

Joanna: I don’t know what that is.

Holly: It is this American burger chain that has real meat in the burger – it tastes like real meat, it is fresh, they make it to your order…

Joanna: Shouldn’t all burger places have real meat in the burgers.

Holly: There are certain burger places that we will not mention that taste really plastic, the meat tastes plastic, the bun tastes plastic and the cheese tastes plastic. Five Guys is really juicy and delicious and they make it so you have to wait for it, so it is not super fast food, they make it in the moment, you place your order and then yell out to the kitchen how many patties and they put them on…it is so fresh and good and their fries are real potatoes not that reconstituted potato mush. It is so good! It is so yummy; I feel like because I fast and have fewer meals than most people do I need to make the most of my meals and have super high density healthy foods and I do usually but stuff like that is so good.

Joanna: Are you embarrassed that you like it?

Holly: Yeah, kind of.

Joanna: Because we are not supposed to.

Holly: Do you know what, for the longest time, I remember when I lived in Argentina, we had a McDonald’s around the corner from the office and I would always ask other people to get it for me rather than going myself because I had so much shame about being American and eating McDonald’s in a foreign country.

Joanna: Oh my god.

Holly: Yeah, so I would make other people go for me! {laughing}

Joanna: Food is… especially now with instagram and everybody eating, I don’t know, when I look at what people seem to be eating I can’t even imagine how one can put that together in a normal day with all the other stuff you have to do, so I think that whole… Instagram is bad for your self-esteem for all sorts of reasons, and Pinterest, also for food. The standard is so high and for most people it is not possible, for me, it is not possible for producing that quality of food every meal time you know.

Holly: Yeah, I eat really simple foods, sometimes I just have a burger patty with some cheese on it and then I really like creamed spinach so I will have some of that, vegetables. I really like simple meat and vegetables; I do not cook elaborate meals. I don’t enjoy it, there have been times in my life when I have enjoyed it when I have really been into baking and cooking, I am not in that phase now, I just eat simple foods like a really nice cooked breakfast, I love breakfast food, I will often have breakfast for dinner, I love a cooked breakfast.  

Joanna: I am really, really, hungry now and all I want is Cheetos.

Holly: Well today is my fasting day, so I won’t be eating until tomorrow, so I am worse off than you are. {laughing}

Joanna: All right you win. I could say a lot about this, but this is not actually what the episode is about so…

Holly: It isn’t but I think it is useful for us to share examples of stuff that we have found shameful to talk about because that will help other people realise the stuff that they have not been talking about because they are ashamed of it. The music I listen to, when I do, it is old stuff from the 80s and 90s that I listened to in High School because I don’t know I really like that music and my musical taste got stuck in the 80s and 90s.

Joanna: I am the same, I will go up to the end of the 90s, but the 2000s, I am like, “meh”. I am the same, because I think it is because there is an emotional connection with that music.

Holly: me too and everything else is a bit…

Joanna: I was just thinking that one of the things that I was recently embarrassed about was, not that recently, a couple of years ago now, is the fact that I don’t read newspapers. I remember someone was shocked I don’t read any newspapers and I don’t read the right sorts of things for an intelligent person anyway. I don’t read the New York Times or Financial Times or any of those sorts of publications and I remember saying, this is not me, I read things like “Soul and Spirit” and I remember the look I got. And when I was thinking about that, my brand, SoulSmart, that is what it is about, it is that assumption that you can’t be smart and intuitive or smart and spiritual that started me having a business because I think that is really needed, because if I smart I can’t play with oracle cards or be a channel or talk about spirit guides, so that is also two opposites within me and I think it is one that a lot of people have because the spiritual and intuition stuff has gotten such a fluffy reputation that people think you have to choose. You are either hippy or not, you have to choose between those, and they have certain connotations. So that is just another one that maybe someone who is listening to this is also embarrassed to admit that they talk to spirit guides or they feel spirit around them, or they just know things or they pull an oracle card every day or that you don’t do anything do anything in their work unless Feng Shui says they can. Maybe that is the sort of thing that you are hiding because it goes against your image as an intelligent, capable, regular member of society and that is another one that is really important to tackle especially at this point in time.

Holly: Yeah, yeah, I agree. In summary, make a list of all your guilty pleasures and make that give yourself permission to practice them if they are things that truly bring you pleasure and then maybe think about sharing that with people. Stop hiding it, because I think the more we hide these things, it is like one less strand of connection with the people in your lives so if you are not telling your family or your friends that you do these things, you are not connecting with them at a deep level, because they don’t know who you are and all these things that you love doing.

Joanna: it is like you are missing out on a level of connection, I totally, totally, agree and I will illustrate that with a recent example I really love a planning system called the happy planner which is very colourful, and sticker based.

Holly: That’s not very intellectual of you! {laughing}

Joanna: Yesterday I went to this store and spent a lot of time in the section that was clearly meant for 10 year old girls. {Both: laughing} And I could hide that because it is not very intelligent, and I should have a notebook that is more serious and whatever but when I shared that with someone in my work environment it resulted in a really beautiful friendship because this person resonated with that and bought one. It is like me getting myself that permission and be happy with the stickers and spending money on stickers and happily spend my time putting stickers on planners, it reminded her that she used to love that kind of thing when she was a child and a teenager and by seeing someone else grown up doing it, it was permission for her to do it as well and now it brings joy to both of us. And we have a stronger friendship based on like interests and that wouldn’t have happened and I think that is really beautiful, so you might be surprised when you do have the courage to admit some of the things that you have been judging about yourself and that you are slightly embarrassed about, you might be surprised that relationships can be formed when you make that connection.

Holly: And I feel like when we stop hiding these things about ourselves it makes it easier for us to connect with other things that might be guilty pleasures or other things that we truly are interested in and might enjoy.

Joanna: When we express fully who you really are at your soul level at that deep level then first of all other people can respond to that, otherwise you are responding to some fake image that you are projecting and you are not going to have meaningful, deep, relationships. Secondly, when you are fully authentic about who you are and what you like, then you have permission to discover other things that you fully like and appreciate and I think it adds more richness to your life and really plays into that fulfilment. Yay.

Holly: Yay. Make your list and go out and do your weird stuff. Express your weirdness.

Joanna: Express your weirdness.

Holly: All right, well, good luck and let us know if you have any questions. Would you like to share your email address?

Joanna: If you have any questions or feedback, actually just PM on Facebook or DM on Instagram, I am Joanna Hennon throughout all social media.

Holly: And I am Holly Worton, you can email me at: [email protected] or find me online and get in touch there.