Latest / Just Julia / I Lost the Weight. I Still Didn’t Feel Like Me.

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I Lost the Weight. I Still Didn’t Feel Like Me. · Just Julia

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think we are entirely obsessed with the bounce back.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, completely.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's everywhere.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like after a baby or after a major illness or even,
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: you know, a really severe bout of corporate burnout.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: We just hyper fixate on getting our physical bodies back to their original shape.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the original baseline.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: We tell ourselves, well,
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: once I fit back into those old genes,
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: once I get my energy back, everything will just automatically return to normal.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because society tells us the physical shell is the whole thing.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens when you finally do the work?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like you fit back into the jeans,
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: you look in the mirror,
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: and you realize the person staring back at you is just still entirely missing.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's an incredibly disorienting moment.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, it happens far more often than we admit.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: We talk endlessly about stress and physical recovery, right?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: But we almost never talk about the systematic, quiet suppression of our own identities.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like how we learn to just turn off vital parts of ourselves just to function day to day.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's unpack this because that is the exact phenomenon we're getting into today.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: We are doing a deep dive into the profound journey of reclaiming those pieces of ourselves.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: The pieces we pushed into the dark.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: The parts we quietly hid away just to feel respectable or professional or safe or,
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: you know, needed.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And our guide for this is a brilliant Substack project called Just Julia.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Created by Julia Callas.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's fantastic work.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: It really is.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Her central theme focuses on identity, confidence, and reinvention.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And specifically today,
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: we're looking at a deeply personal essay she wrote titled,
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I Got My Body Back, So Where Was I?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a striking question.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And her story, I mean,
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: it provides such a grounded,
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: universal architecture for how we build our adult lives.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And how we often do it at the direct expense of our raw, original selves.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are listening to this right now,
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: maybe you're sitting in your car,
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: maybe you're commuting or folding laundry,
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: and you have spent years being a mother,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: a partner, a professional, or just like the responsible one in your circle.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right, the person everyone relies on.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, this is for you.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Think about a time recently when you looked around your incredibly full life
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: and realized you were running on a version of yourself that felt,
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, hollowed out.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: We are going to figure out where those parts of you went and what actually happens
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: when you finally decide you want them back.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: And Julia's experience offers just the perfect entry point into this.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: It starts with a phase of life so many listeners will instantly recognize,
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: which is early motherhood.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: The trenches.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: The trenches.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: She describes her world becoming, in her words, very small and very full.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, what a great way to put it.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Small and full.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: For the first two years of her son's life, her entire attention was just outward.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: What he needed, what he was eating, his sleep schedules, all of it.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And to be clear, she loved those years.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's no regret there in the text.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: None at all.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: But she noticed that a specific part of her, like her sensuality, had just gone totally silent.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it just vanished.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: But she made this assumption that, honestly, society basically trains all of us to make.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: She assumed her sensuality was just temporarily buried under the pregnancy weight.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: The physical excuse.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: She told herself,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: well, if I just lose the weight, my old vibrant self will automatically reappear.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Which brings us right back to that trap of the bounce back we were talking about.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: We are constantly sold this incredibly flawed idea that if you just fix
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: the physical shell, the spirit inside it will magically heal itself.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And she actually did the work.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the weight came off.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: She got stronger.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: She recognized her physical silhouette in the mirror again.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: But that sensual part of her?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Still missing.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was still completely missing.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's like spending six months renovating the exterior of a house.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's a good way to look at it.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like you put on fresh paint,
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: you fix the roof,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: you landscape the yard so it looks absolutely flawless from the street.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: But then you walk through the front door and realize you still don't feel at home
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: in any of the rooms.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: The furniture is covered in sheets.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: The air is stale.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: The lights just don't work.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: You can't actually live in there.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: The outside looks exactly how it's supposed to, but you cannot live inside it.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: I love that house analogy,
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: honestly, because it gets right to the core of what embodiment actually is.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: We so often mistake physical fitness or physical confidence for true embodiment.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: But changing your physical shape doesn't automatically change the psychological
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: and physical relationship you've built with your body over like decades.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Embodiment isn't about what you look like.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's about how safely and fully you inhabit yourself.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: And when Julia realized her internal lights were still off,
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: she stumbled onto this concept of somatic memory.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, wait, let's define that because I think that's the missing link for so many people.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: What do we actually mean by somatic memory here?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so somatic memory is the idea that the body literally keeps the score.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Your muscles, your nervous system, your posture, they hold on to your emotional experiences.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not just in your head.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just a cognitive memory in your brain.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's a physical holding pattern.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: So when Julia lost the physical weight,
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: her body was still holding on to the posture of suppression.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Fixing the shell doesn't rewire the nervous system's habit of hiding.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: But the most jarring part of Julia's story, I think, isn't even the exhaustion of motherhood.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's the realization that motherhood was just the most recent layer of the hiding.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Just the newest excuse.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: When the physical bounce back didn't work,
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: she started looking further back in her timeline
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: and she realized she had been building this self-defense mechanism since she was
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: a teenager.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: And what's fascinating here is where the psychology of adaptation really takes center stage.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: At 17, Julia moved from Brazil to New Zealand.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Such a huge culture shock.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Massive.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine being a young Brazilian woman stepping into a completely different culture.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: She immediately collided with these really heavy, pervasive stereotypes.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean,
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: think about a time you walked into a room and instantly knew you had
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: to tone yourself down so you wouldn't be misjudged.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we all do it.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Julia was doing at 17, but on a macro level.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: She became acutely aware of the cultural assumption
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: that Brazilian women are inherently sexy,
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: you know, that they move a certain way or dress a certain way.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And she was just terrified of being misunderstood.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: So she adapted her somatic presence.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: She literally learned to systematically contain herself to control how she was perceived.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: She describes avoiding eye contact,
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: constantly looking down at the ground,
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: being hypervigilant about how she entered a room or the way her clothes fit.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds exhausting.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it is.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: She actively suppressed her natural dynamic expression
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: because she didn't want anyone to confuse her confidence with an open invitation.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: She was basically conflating her own sensuality with promiscuity.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because the culture around her was doing the exact same thing.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Precisely.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: In this instinct, it didn't just stay in her teenage years.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: It hardened into absolute armor in her professional life later on.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, definitely.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: She eventually found herself working for an Italian fashion house,
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: and she was the only woman on her team.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Which is an intense environment.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Extremely.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: She desperately wanted to be taken seriously for her intellect and her results, not her gender.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And there's this incredible moment in the text where her boss actually pulls her aside.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I remember this.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he tells her that while she is a beautiful woman,
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: he perceives absolutely zero sensuality in her whatsoever.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Which is, it's a devastating moment of success, if you really think about it.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: A devastating moment of success.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because her boss's comment proved that her defensive architecture was working flawlessly.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: She had successfully stripped away her essence to survive in a corporate space.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And this highlights a massive double bind for women in professional environments.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Women so often confuse being respected with making themselves completely neutral.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or practically invisible.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: They systematically shut down their vibrant parts because
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: the implicit corporate rule is that Authority requires neutrality.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, but wait, I have to push back on this a little bit?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because we call it a tragedy, but isn't this just a highly effective survival mechanism?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we put on this armor of neutrality because society practically demands it.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: To grant us safety and authority, especially in male-dominated spaces.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: It works.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: The tragedy isn't that we put the armor on, right?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's that we forget its armor.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: We forget how to take it off when we get home.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: It absolutely is an effective survival mechanism,
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: but that's exactly why it's so dangerous long term.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: To use your phrase, we forget how to take it off because the armor eventually becomes a posture.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Going back to the somatic memory.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you spend 20 years physically slouching to hide yourself,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: your spine eventually fuses that way.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: You can't just stand up straight one Tuesday because you mentally decided to.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Your structural baseline has fundamentally changed.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: So by the time Julia became a mother,
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: this habit of switching off her sensuality,
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: of looking at the ground, it was just deeply ingrained in her nervous system.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Motherhood just buried it under routines and the sheer exhaustion of caregiving.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: That makes so much sense.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: The spine is fused, so the obvious question is, how on earth do you unfuse a spine?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: How do you undo 20 years of habit?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because you can't just flip a switch after two decades of looking at the floor.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: You need some kind of severe disruption.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where Julia finds herself in a completely unexpected setting
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: that actually forces this deeply ingrained habit to break.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: She finds herself at an event called Mindvalley University in Tallinn, Estonia.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: And while she's there,
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: she sees an evening workshop advertised called Love Touch,
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: a tantric connection experience.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pause right here because I know the word tantra instantly brings up
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: a very specific, usually highly sexualized pop culture stereotype.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: It really does.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: And we absolutely need to clarify what actual tantra is before we go any further.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Please do.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: In its original authentic practice,
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Tantra is an ancient philosophy focused on profound presence.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's about sensory awareness and the deep connection between the mind and the body.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's about experiencing the current moment with total awareness.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the West has heavily skewed it to mean something purely sexual,
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: but fundamentally, it is a practice of absolute embodiment.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Julia had those exact same hesitations when she saw the sign.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: She's a married mother.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: She wasn't looking for anything sexual,
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: and she certainly wasn't looking to cross any boundaries in her marriage.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Of course not.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: But her curiosity won.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: She wondered if this environment might help her reconnect with a part
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: of herself she'd kept under lock and key.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And to be really clear to everyone listening,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: this was a fully clothed experience in a yoga studio
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: with incredibly strict boundaries.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, very safe container.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was about moving to music and working with the senses,
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: like wearing an eye mask to just feel a gentle breeze in the room.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: But the pivotal moment for Julia,
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: the moment that actually cracked the fused spine,
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: had absolutely nothing to do with physical touch.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, this part is wild.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: She was paired up with a woman from Canada, just a complete stranger.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: They were instructed not to speak.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: They just moved to the ambient music and they were given one simple instruction.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Look into each other's eyes for several minutes.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: I have to be honest, that sounds absolutely terrifying.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't it?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: I can't even maintain eye contact with my barista for three seconds
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: without panicking and looking at the pastry case.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like the idea of staring silently into a stranger's eyes in Estonia for minutes
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: on end, that is intense vulnerability.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: It is entirely terrifying.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the physiological mechanism behind why it's terrifying is fascinating.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, tell me.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Prolonged eye contact triggers the autonomic nervous system.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: When we look into someone's eyes, we are instinctively scanning for threats or judgments.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Am I safe?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: But if the environment is safe and you hold that gaze,
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: your body eventually stops producing cortisol,
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: the stress hormone, and starts releasing oxytocin.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: You move from a state of defense into a state of profound connection.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And think about the emotional weight of that specific exercise for Julia.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a woman who has spent her entire adult life instinctively lowering her eyes.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, looking at the ground.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: She practically trained her nervous system to look at the ground
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: so she wouldn't be perceived as a threat or an invitation.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: To suddenly be placed in a safe environment and explicitly instructed to just look
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: and to be looked at without needing to perform,
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: without needing to seduce,
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: without needing to impress her boss or protect her son, it was highly confronting.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: It stripped away all the utility of her body.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: For decades,
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: her body was either a tool for professional neutrality,
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: a vessel for motherhood or,
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: you know, something to be hidden from cultural stereotypes.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: In that yoga studio, looking at that Canadian stranger, her body wasn't doing a job.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was just existing.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just being there.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: And crucially, this separated sensuality from sexuality for her.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: It proved to her in a really visceral way that being present in your body
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: and connecting with another human being is profoundly human.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Sensuality isn't a marital boundary issue.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: It is simply the act of experiencing the world through your senses,
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: allowing yourself to be seen,
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: and finally dropping the exhausting burden of managing the other person's reaction.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: I love how you framed that.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Dropping the burden of managing someone else's reaction.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: So what does this all mean?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because I want to make sure we ground this for the listener.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: The Tantra Workshop is just a metaphor for our purposes today.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: We are not saying you need to book a flight to Estonia and sign up for a retreat
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: to find your lost identity.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about this specific event.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's about finding a moment that safely disrupts the decades-long habit of self-containment.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: The workshop was just the catalyst.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was a controlled environment that forced her nervous system
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: to realize it didn't need the armor anymore.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: And once that armor cracks,
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: once you realize you've been hiding,
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: something really interesting happens psychologically.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: What's that?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: The instinctive desire is to rush backward in time.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: You want to run back and rescue the girl you were before you locked her away.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: You think, I need to go back to being the 25-year-old version of me.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: But Julia makes a really crucial observation here in her writing.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: She realizes that going backward is entirely the wrong goal.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's basically a trap of nostalgia.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: If we connect this to the bigger picture of her Just Julia project,
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Identity, Confidence, Reinvention...
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is where the true reinvention takes place.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Finding yourself isn't an act of archaeology.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: You aren't digging up a fossil of who you used to be because that girl doesn't exist anymore.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: She hasn't lived the life you've lived.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Finding yourself is an act of integration.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: She realizes she doesn't actually want the 25 year old Julia back.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: She wants to meet the woman that all of her complex life experiences created.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: She realizes she doesn't have to choose between these fragmented identities.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, being feminine doesn't make her less professional.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Being sensual doesn't make her less intelligent.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Becoming a mother didn't require her to permanently resign from being a vibrant woman.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: It is about the relationship you are finally allowed to have with yourself,
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: entirely separate from what everyone else needs from you.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: The armor she wore was designed for other people.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: It was designed for the culture in New Zealand,
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: for the boss in Italy, For the safety of her child.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: The integration is strictly for her.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: The woman she is now includes the mother,
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: the professional,
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: and the sensual woman who can walk into a room,
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: know exactly what she's talking about,
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: and still feel completely at home in her own body.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you a highly practical question.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because if a listener is sitting in her kitchen right now,
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: and she is just deeply exhausted from being everything to everyone.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the burnout is real.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: How does she actually start doing this?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, totally.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: That is the most important question, and the methods are actually beautifully small.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't require a radical life overhaul.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: You don't need to quit your
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: job or move to the woods.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Julia lists a few grounded examples.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: It might be therapy, yes.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: But it also might be as simple as putting on music and genuinely dancing
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: in your kitchen while you cook.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Just letting your body move for the joy of it.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: She also mentions wearing an old favorite outfit
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: that you haven't given yourself permission to wear in years because it felt too loud
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: or too much.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And my absolute favorite example she gives is perhaps the smallest action of all.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: What is it?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Simply lifting your head when you're walking down the street and choosing to meet
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: a stranger's eyes instead of automatically looking at the pavement.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just a micro rebellion.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's a micro rebellion against your own habit of hiding.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's telling your nervous system we are safe to be seen right now.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's about letting the light back in just a crack at a time.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that brings us directly to you listening right now.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Julia's lost piece was her sensuality and her physical embodiment.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: But yours might be entirely different.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the part you systematically shut down was your creativity.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you learned to suppress your ambition because it threatened the people around you.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe your playfulness.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Or the way you used to laugh with your whole chest before everyone
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: in your life needed you to be the serious, responsible one.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: The specific piece you lost matters so much less than the inquiry of how to get it back.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: The method is secondary to the awareness.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the guiding question Julia leaves us with is this.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: What part of myself have I been keeping in the dark
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: because I thought I wasn't allowed to be here anymore?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Such a powerful question.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't need to become her all at once today.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's way too much pressure.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to crack the door.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to start letting her back into the room.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: And as you think about what it might look like to open that door,
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: I want to leave you with this final thought.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: If we spend so much of our lives meticulously curating a respectable,
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: responsible,
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: neutral version of ourselves simply to protect against how others perceive us,
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Who is actually living our life?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: And when you finally do give that suppressed,
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: authentic part of yourself permission to step back into the light, consider this.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: She won't just change how you feel inside your own skin.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: She might completely disrupt the comfortable,
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: predictable dynamics of every single relationship you built while she was away.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: People get very used to the armored version of you.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: So the real question is, are you ready to introduce them to the woman who finally took it off?