Latest / Just Julia / The Girl Who Never Made the List: The Conversation

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The Girl Who Never Made the List: The Conversation · Just Julia

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: What if the heaviest piece
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: of emotional baggage you're carrying right now is actually based on
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: a completely careless scribble made by a 12-year-old boy you haven't seen
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: in like 30 years?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Put it like that, it sounds completely absurd, doesn't it?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: It really does.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when you say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: But the passing judgments we get in childhood have this terrifying ability
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: to just bypass our logic and hardwire themselves directly into our identities.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: I really do.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: They just sort of set up camp in our minds.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: They become the invisible architecture of our self-worth.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: It dictates how you look in the mirror every morning or,
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: you know, how you show up in a boardroom.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right, because it's a heavy realization.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: The things we internalize when we're young, they don't just stay neatly in the past.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: They don't.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: They travel with us across decades and continents and relationships.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they literally become the filter through which we view every interaction
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: and every success and definitely every perceived failure.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And unpacking that invisible baggage is our entire mission for today's deep dive.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: We are exploring a deeply moving essay titled The Girl Who Never Made the List,
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: which is from the Jess Julia Substack.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad we're diving into this one today.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Me too.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to be looking at beauty,
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: belonging, comparison, and really how to stop letting ghosts dictate our confidence.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And to help us figure out how to put these invisible backpacks down,
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: the author of that essay and the mind behind the Just Julia platform is right here
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: in the studio with us.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, thank you so much for having me.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's so great to have you here.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: you've mentioned in your writing that you don't actually have this all figured out,
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: which I find incredibly refreshing.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I definitely don't.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: the entire ethos of my writing and really everything I explore on the platform,
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: it's all rooted in that admission.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Not playing the enlightened guru.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just a woman examining my own life,
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: trying to recognize my own patterns and collecting better questions to ask myself.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Collecting better questions.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then I just share what I discover along the way,
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: because whether you're rebuilding your confidence or searching for clarity or just
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: in that really messy process of becoming whoever you're meant to be.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I am right there in the trenches with you,
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: which is exactly what makes your writing so resonant.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: But to understand the questions you're asking as an adult today is.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: We actually need to take the listener back in time.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: We do.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because this entire exploration of self-worth begins with a very specific,
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: like a very vivid memory in a classroom in Brazil.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it does.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: It takes me right back to when I was 12 years old growing up in Brazil.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, set the scene for us.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the boys in my class had this recurring tradition.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Every so often,
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: usually when they were just bored,
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: they'd tear out a piece of notebook paper and write a list.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: A list of what?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was essentially a ranking of the 10 prettiest girls in our class.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh,
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: just a completely arbitrary,
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: brutal childhood ranking system playing out in real time.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Brutal is the exact right word.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And this piece of paper would literally physically travel from desk to desk while
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: the teacher wasn't looking.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like passing notes.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: But so much worse.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: So much worse.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Someone would add a name in pencil and then someone else would erase a name
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: or vigorously cross another one out.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: People actually sat there whispering and debating who deserved to be on it.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you were just watching this happen.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Watching it get passed back and forth across the aisles.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember watching it circulate.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: And my name was never on it.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Man.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: That is a gut punch.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: It really was.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: A 12-year-old's brain is in this hyper-vulnerable state of development.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Peer acceptance isn't just a preference at that age.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: To the brain, it registers as literal biological survival.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: That makes total sense of how it actually felt in my body at the time.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because your amygdala is flagging it as a survival threat.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just a memory of a Tuesday afternoon.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And looking back now, I mean, I couldn't tell you all the names that actually made those lists.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, I don't even remember what most of those boys look like today.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember with absolute clarity the rule that I drafted for myself in that classroom.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: I told myself very simply, I am just not one of the beautiful girls.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And this right here is where the cognitive trap gets so dangerous because you wrote
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: a line in the essay that just stopped me in my tracks.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, really?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Which one?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: You said, children don't know the difference between an opinion and a fact.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, that is the crux of the whole essay, really.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because I wasn't on the list,
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: I carried that collective opinion of a few bored 12-year-old boys as
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: if it were empirical evidence.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't just a harsh perspective.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: No, it became a permanent ruling on my worth.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, an opinion is something you can debate, right?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: But a fact is, like, gravity.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I treated my lack of beauty like it was gravity.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let's visualize this for the listener because I think this is so important.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine you're a kid, right?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And someone leads you into a carnival funhouse.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I like this analogy.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And they stand you in front of one of those heavily distorted mirrors,
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: the kind that stretches your features and makes you look like entirely out
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: of proportion.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Where you look totally warped.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at that mirror once, you might laugh.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: But if you are forced to stare into that specific distorted mirror every single day,
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: for years, eventually your brain adapts.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: You just lose your grip on reality.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: You completely lose it.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: You accept that the distorted, strange image staring back
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's a terrifyingly accurate way to describe it.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: You stop questioning the glass and you start questioning yourself.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: You might even start adjusting your posture to accommodate the dysphortion, you know?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: You shrink yourself to fit the flawed reflection.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: That is so true.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens next is that your brain unconsciously goes to work trying to prove
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: the distorted mirror right.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Without even realizing what I was doing, I started actively collecting evidence.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I want to push back gently here just for a second.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, go ahead.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think a lot of people assume that as we grow up, logic just naturally takes over.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, surely as you went through high school and into adulthood,
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: friends told you that you were beautiful, right?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, of course.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: You probably had relationships where partners give you compliments.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Why didn't that rational adult feedback overwrite the 12-year-old's list?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because the human brain is essentially an energy-saving machine.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's interesting.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Once it accepts a belief as a core truth,
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: it doesn't want to spend
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: the cognitive energy re-evaluating it every single time new data comes in.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's just classic confirmation bias.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it just filters out the good stuff.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: My brain had already filed away the fact that I wasn't beautiful,
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: so when a compliment came my way, my brain deflected it.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'd think, uh, they're just being nice, or they don't really mean it.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: It just bounced off.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: The compliments bounced off like Teflon.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: But anything that confirmed my insecurity, that stuck to me like Velcro.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: So what did that evidence collection actually look like in your day-to-day life?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how were you actively proving the list right?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was exhausting, to be honest.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was constantly comparing myself to other women.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'd look at friends who eventually became models or women
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: who always seemed effortlessly put together.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we all know those women.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: the type,
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: the girls who could just walk into a room and somehow instantly the air shifted
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: and everyone noticed them.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they just have that presence.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I admired them, but if I'm being completely emotionally honest here, I envied them deeply.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's incredibly vulnerable to admit.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's the truth.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And every time I saw them,
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: somewhere deep inside my subconscious,
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: that 12-year-old girl in the Brazilian classroom kept whispering,
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: see, they're the beautiful ones, not you.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: You were basically acting as the lead prosecutor in a case against yourself.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's exactly what I was doing.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was building a mountain of proof using the success,
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: the grace or the beauty of other women as definitive evidence of my own lack.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let's fast forward the narrative a bit.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because time marches on, right?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: You grow up, you build a really rich life, you become a woman, a wife, a mother.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Life just keeps happening.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: The chaotic day-to-day realities of adulthood take over,
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: and you reasonably assume you've left the middle school classroom far,
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: far behind you.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: You'd think so, wouldn't you?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: But then life presents this massive physical contradiction
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: that funhouse mirror you've been staring into.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: It really does.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Life has a funny way of forcing you to look at things you thought you'd buried a long time ago.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us what happened.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: So earlier this year, a good friend of mine called me.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: She owns a really lovely skincare brand, and she was getting ready to launch a new product line.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: And out of nowhere, she asked if I would model for the launch campaign.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: What is your immediate visceral reaction to a request like that,
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: given this invisible backpack you're carrying?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Laughter.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: I honestly laughed out loud.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: You thought she was joking.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was a joke.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Or that she was just being sweet.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: My brain immediately defaulted to that old, tired script.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: I thought of a dozen women I knew who were more photogenic,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: more glamorous, more conventionally model-like than me.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: I genuinely couldn't understand why she would want my face to represent her brand.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because the 12-year-old girl is still completely running the casting department in your head.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, she was absolutely holding the clipboard.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's such a great image.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: But despite that heavy wave of imposter syndrome, I agreed to do it.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Good for you.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I showed up on set, and I have to say, the experience itself was unexpectedly gentle...
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: We spent a few hours taking photographs.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: The lighting was soft and it just felt simple and beautiful.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds lovely.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: And when it was over, I just drove home, washed my face and went back to my normal life.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: I really didn't attach too much weight to it.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: But the story doesn't end there, does it?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's this moment in Milan that feels incredibly cinematic to me.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Walk us through what happened.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it was a few months later.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was traveling and walking through the streets of Milan, just going about my afternoon.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Just a normal day.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Totally normal day.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: I turned a corner, looked up, and there she was.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Me.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: My face was plastered across these large pharmacy windows.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: The image was printed on the product boxes displayed inside the glass.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, yeah.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: I was suddenly looking back at myself from shop windows
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: on streets I had walked past hundreds of times before as a tourist.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I have to pause the narrative right here.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because society,
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: like our movies,
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: our books,
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: the makeover shows we all grew up watching, they sell us a very specific storyline.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, for sure.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: They tell us that seeing yourself on a literal billboard or a massive window in one
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: of the The big reveal.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to be the montage climax where the music swells.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: You achieve total vindication against every single boy who left you off that list
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: and you're cured forever.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: But reading your essay, that's not what happened at all.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Why didn't this feel like a sudden magical cure for your self-esteem?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because external validation does not possess the power to rewrite an internal script.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Say that again because that's huge.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: External validation doesn't rewrite an internal script.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: I stood there on the pavement in Milan for a long time just staring at the glass.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't because I suddenly look at the window and thought,
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: oh, I have finally become beautiful.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: The world has deemed me worthy.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's a vital distinction because the billboard doesn't talk to the 12 year old.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: It really doesn't.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: The campaign didn't magically make me beautiful and it certainly didn't erase the past.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: I stood there because for a brief striking moment,
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: seeing my face magnified on that scale made me remember the little girl sitting in
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: the classroom.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: The girl who believed she wasn't enough to be chosen.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: The girl who quietly accepted someone else's definition of beauty and wore it
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: as her own skin for decades.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: That is so powerful.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And standing there on the street in Milan, I didn't feel triumphant.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: I just felt this overwhelming urge to hug her.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: So the realization wasn't really about your physical appearance at all.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Not even slightly.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's about the time lost almost.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Seeing the campaign didn't cure me.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: It just finally made me question the story.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: So if a literal billboard in Milan doesn't fix the internalized belief, I mean,
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: if massive external validation is not the cure,
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: then what actually constitutes healing?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: That is a big question.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're listening to this deep dive right now,
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: you undoubtedly have your own version of the list.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe yours wasn't about beauty.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: It could be anything.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe a frustrated teacher told you that you weren't a strong writer or
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: a parent implied you weren't smart with money or
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: a boss made you feel like you'd never be leadership material.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: We all had these phantom judges living in our heads.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: We all do.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Every single one of us.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And in the essay, there's a line that I think gets to the absolute heart of this struggle.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: What is it?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: The hardest stories to rewrite are the ones we mistake for the truth.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: That line is so resonant.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: In fact,
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: looking through the community response to your piece on the Substack,
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: there's a comment from a reader named Alice that captures this perfectly.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, Alice, yes.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: She wrote that what touched her most is that your essay isn't really about beauty at all.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's about the stories we carry and how easily we mistake them for absolute facts.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Alice's comment meant the world to me because she saw right through the surface to
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: the core of the piece.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: True healing isn't about becoming someone different.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: It isn't waiting for the world to finally hand you a trophy or give you a promotion
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: or put your face on a box to prove you're worthy.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Healing is finding enough emotional distance to ask better questions.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of questions?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: You have to stop,
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: look at the belief and ask yourself,
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: who told me this about myself and why on earth did I believe them for so long?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's about interrogating the origin of the belief.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to make sure we keep this grounded, you know.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's very easy in these types of conversations to slide into sounding like
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: a generic self-help poster.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like just question your limiting beliefs and you'll be instantly cured.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Toxic positivity.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: But you bring a very raw emotional honesty to this in your writing.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: You openly admit that you haven't perfectly conquered this self-doubt.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I definitely haven't and I think it's vital to be honest about that.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I could sit here in the studio and tell you that from
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: the day I saw those windows in Milan,
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: I never once questioned my beauty or my worth again.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not reality.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: But that would be a lie.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: These stories,
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: these deep-seated insecurities,
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: they don't just evaporate overnight because you had an epiphany on a sidewalk.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: The brain doesn't just hit delete on a neural pathway.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's been reinforcing for 30 years.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Precisely.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: But what does happen,
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: and this is where the hope actually lies, is that the stories begin to soften.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: They soften.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: They lose their sharp edges and their absolute certainty.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: They stop sounding like undeniable facts and they start sounding like old echoes.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I've come to realize that maybe just softening the echo is enough.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Let's synthesize that for the listener because that's a massive paradigm shift.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: What you're saying is that healing is not the complete absence of doubt.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to achieve some enlightened Zen state where you never feel insecure again.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Healing is actually just a shift in authority.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: When those doubts surface, you stop treating them as the final word.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's it entirely.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: I realized I just needed to stop asking 12-year-old memories to introduce me to
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: the woman I have become.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's beautiful.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: We give so much unearned authority to the ghosts of our past,
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: we let them sit at the head of the table in our minds and just carve the turkey,
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: you know?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Healing is realizing you can demote them.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: You can hear the echo of that middle school classroom and say,
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: I recognize that sound,
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: I know where it comes from, but you don't get to drive the car anymore.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I totally understand demoting the ghost of the insecurity in your own head,
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: but what about the actual people who planted it?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're suddenly stripping away the authority of those 12-year-old boys,
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: doesn't part of you want to go back in time and show them they were wrong?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you could somehow bend the laws of physics right now and walk back into
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: that specific classroom in Brazil, what would you say to that little girl?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny because the instinct,
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: especially when you've been hurt, is to go back and show off the future.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: To rub it in their faces.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: To say to her, don't cry.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Don't worry.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: One day your face will be displayed in shop windows across Milan and those boys will see it.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: But I wouldn't tell her that.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because telling her about Milan reinforces the idea that she needs
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: the external validation to prove the boys wrong.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: It still gives them the power.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: You hit the nail on the head.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: That isn't the point at all.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: If I could go back, I would walk past those boys without a second glance.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: I would kneel beside her at her desk
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: and I would tell her something I desperately wish someone had told me sooner.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: I would say,
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: sweet girl,
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: the people who made that list never imagined you'd carry their words for
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: so many years.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's time to put them down.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: They were never yours to carry.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: They were never yours to carry.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: That literally gives me chills.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because it highlights just how haphazard and reckless these judgments often are.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: The boys writing that list were just killing time before the bell rang.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: They probably forgot about the list by recess.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, they definitely did.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: But they handed you a boulder and you carried it for decades.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we all do this.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: We walk around carrying these heavy judgments unconsciously assuming that the people
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: who handed them to us possessed some deep wisdom or knew what they were doing.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: But they didn't.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: They don't get to decide how you will spend the next 30 years looking at yourself.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: And frankly, neither do the adults, the bosses, or the partners who came after them.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: I really want to expand this out to everyone listening right now.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you're listening to this while you're commuting or making dinner or out for
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: a run, think about the invisible backpacks you're wearing.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what's in yours?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: How many things do you believe about your own intelligence,
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: your worthiness,
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: your attractiveness, your ability to lead or be loved or take a risk?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: How many of those facts were simply drafted by someone else?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's a staggering question to ask yourself.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: We let adults and children who are long gone,
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: people who probably haven't thought about us in 20 years,
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: dictate the architecture of our self-esteem.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: We do.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: We let them write the opening chapters of our identity,
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: and then we just keep reading aloud from their script year after year
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: without ever pausing to ask if we're allowed to put down the book and write our own.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: So as we bring this conversation to a close,
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: it becomes incredibly clear that becoming truly confident is rarely
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: about becoming someone entirely new.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't about a physical makeover or massive promotion or finding your face on
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: a billboard in Milan.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's about courageously questioning the stories about ourselves that we never chose
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: in the first place.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's about looking in the mirror and finally seeing your own reflection rather than
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: the distortion of someone else's careless opinion.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's about claiming the authority to define yourself instead of constantly outsourcing it.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: We've spent this time thinking deeply about the stories others have written for us.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: But we want to leave you with a different thought to chew on today,
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: something that kind of flips the script.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I like where this is going.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: If we know how easily a passing comment can become a permanent anchor
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: in someone's mind,
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: what invisible lists are you unconsciously writing for the people around you today?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Whose story are you accidentally drafting right now,
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: with a careless critique or a passing judgment,
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: without even realizing the weight of your own pen?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: That is such a powerful thought to leave on.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to explore these ideas further,
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: you can read The Girl Who Never Made the List in its entirety.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's an exquisite,
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: vulnerable piece of writing, and it,
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: along with many more original essays about identity,
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: confidence,
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: and the messy,
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: beautiful lives we become, can be found by visiting the Just Julia Substack.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for taking this deep dive with us.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Take care of yourselves and maybe put down some of those old stories today.