by Destiny Malibu | Aug 30, 2022 | Podcast
On to today’s episode…
A lot of young people struggle with self-image issues that rob them of joy and happiness. So what causes a lot of these problems? Comparing ourselves to others. We think because we don’t look like the “in crowd” or the “beautiful people”, that we aren’t beautiful, and that we don’t matter.
Destiny went to high school in Malibu, a town loaded with beautiful, wealthy, famous people and their equally beautiful children. In trying to look like them and fit in, she developed a serious eating disorder. So what did she do to overcome it? The answer is super simple. She tells you about it in this episode of The Destiny Malibu Podcast.
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Listen to the podcast here
How Destiny Overcame Her High School Eating Disorder – Part II
I want you to check in with yourself and start to pay attention to the thoughts that you are thinking.
Think about the things that make you happy. What makes you happy? Do you like it when your hair looks a certain way? Do you like it when you wear a certain color? It’s all those little things and details in your life. Maybe you are into shoes. You make your outfit match your shoes.
We are going to dive into that more. Self-care is an act of self-love. Journaling, taking a bath, listening to music that makes you happy, experimenting with fashion, which was a big one for me that helped me with my confidence, finding my sense of style, and learning to express myself in all of these creative ways helps you learn about yourself, learn what makes you feel confident and feel good. That translates into a greater relationship of self-love with yourself. All of those things matter.
Another act of self-care is working through trauma. Going to therapy is huge for anybody who is looking to improve their relationship with themselves. It’s seeking therapy, working through your traumas, and figuring out what experiences in your life caused you to have the emotions that you are feeling because there usually are experiences. Maybe someone said something to you one time, or you had an embarrassing moment. Those things can stick with you.
It’s so important to figure out how to unstick from those things that are not serving you and to search within yourself with a professional if that’s available to you or even a friend. The first choice would be a professional if that’s something that you are able to do at this point in your life but if you can’t afford that yet, it’s talking to a friend, talking to a school counselor, or speaking with somebody that is going to listen or someone at church.
There usually are people within the community or someone that you can turn to and look to for advice. We will be talking about that in another episode as well. Self-care is an act of self-love. I want to share a story with you also because self-image or how you perceive yourself is a huge part of self-love. All four years of high school were the most challenging in learning to love me.
It’s a common time when a lot of people are discovering themselves.
It’s a common theme during that time in your life to figure out who you are. There are also additional challenges at that time of your life. Your hormones are changing. Puberty. You are trying to figure out where you fit in, what you like, and what your dislikes are. That is a time of learning about yourself. Desiree and I grew up in Malibu. In Malibu, you have a lot of gorgeous people. You have a lot of people from the industry. We went to school with Gigi Hadid and Bella Hadid. Gigi was in my class. They are wonderful people and sweet girls. We went to school with Milly and Becky Rosso from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. They also did a continuation of Legally Blonde. They are super sweet too. There are a lot of gorgeous people.
Being in high school during this time, you are going through a lot of changes. You are trying to figure out who you are. I did notice that there were a lot of other people in our school that were also going through a similar thing. When you are surrounded by incredibly beautiful people at that age when you are not so sure of yourself, it can and it did for me take a little bit of a hit on my self-esteem. I’m wondering where I fit in on that scale of beauty standards.
Unfortunately, at that time in my life, I ended up having an eating disorder throughout a large majority of my high school years. Even though all body types are beautiful, in Malibu, for whatever reason, being very thin was the favored physique type. Unfortunately, that led me down a path of an eating disorder. That was traumatic for me. I had body dysmorphia. I thought that I was way bigger than I was. My weight fluctuated all over the place throughout my high school years in trying different diets. That was hard.
I realized looking back that comparison is the thief of joy. A sunset and a flower look nothing alike but they are equally beautiful. It can be easy whether you are looking at someone like Gigi whom we went to school with or a beautiful model online to wonder where your worth fits in beauty–wise in the typical standards of beauty when you see people who are undeniably gorgeous. When you see that, it can be difficult not to compare.
A lot of people nowadays struggle with comparisons, whether it’s social media. Social media is a big one because you have people who are filtered and photoshopped. Some people are naturally gorgeous. In general, it can be difficult not to compare but what I learned at this stage in my life and has helped me with my self-image journey is understanding that comparison is the thief of joy. You don’t need to look like someone else to be beautiful. You don’t even need to look like the typical suggested standard of beauty to be beautiful. Being beautiful is being uniquely yourself.
The right person will come along, see you, and think that you are beautiful the way you are.
Even if a person didn’t come along and even if it was you for the rest of your life, and you didn’t even meet a special someone, you are beautiful because there is no one in the world exactly like you. You are a 100% unique, beautiful, and gorgeous creation. Something that helped me get out of this place of doubt and self-critical behaviors was to take a step back and realize that I don’t need to look like somebody else. I need to look like the best version of myself.
That’s what I want you to remember when you are going out in the world, when you are looking at social media, and when you have beautiful friends. You don’t need to look like someone else. You don’t need to compare yourself to someone else. The only person you should ever be competing with is yourself. Take in realistic thoughts, which is not something I understood at that age looking at someone who’s a model that’s 5′10”. I‘m 5’2”. Dezz is 5’3”. We are at the same height.
It is not physically possible. No matter how petite I got, it would never be possible for my body type to look like somebody who is 5′10”. That’s okay because someone who’s 5′10” and 5’2” is equally beautiful. No matter where you fall on that scale of height, it’s not about looking like someone else. It’s about, “What does the healthiest version of me look like?“ I shifted my mentality from, “I want to be the skinniest. I want to be this or that,” to, “How can I be the healthiest? What does the healthiest me look like?” That changed everything.
by Destiny Malibu | Aug 30, 2022 | Podcast
Destiny Malibu is a world-renowned singer, songwriter, and mental health champion. When she talks about mental health issues, she speaks from experience. She understands your struggle because it’s her struggle, too. She also offers hope for better days. She helps her listeners find joy in the little things, like petting your dog or a smile from a stranger.
On today’s episode, Destiny and her cohost DJ Dezzee talk about the seven pillars of mental health. They really focus on self-love. Why? Because self-love is a REALLY important and fundamental part of good mental health. And today, Destiny shares a fantastic way to practice self-love. It’s simple, it’s powerful, and anyone can do it!
Want to find out more? Tune in to today’s episode of The Destiny Malibu Podcast now!
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What Do You Say When You Talk To Yourself? – Part I
What’s going on everybody? It’s Destiny Malibu and my co-host, DJ Dezzee. Welcome back to the Destiny Malibu show. We are so excited that you guys are back. We are going to be talking about the seven pillars of mental health, which we are excited to share with you. We are going to be talking about self-love. This is a fundamental part of mental health. I have noticed that myself included, the times when I was struggling with my mental health were simultaneously times that I was struggling with self-love. There were times when I would look in the mirror and have a lot of negative self-talk going on, which fast-forward to now, and I realized how detrimental negative self-talk is.
When you would say negative things out loud and I heard, “Destiny, don’t say those,” what did I do Destiny?
She would hit me across the head.
Not hard. Just a tap like, “Don’t do that, Des.”
It was funny because Dezzee and I on this show are offering different perspectives. I’m someone who struggled with depression, I struggled with self-image. Dezzee didn’t struggle with those things as much.
No. I’m on a different level where not to the extreme versions that you did. I was always confident in myself, even though there are tons of beautiful women out there. No matter what my number was on that scale, I always felt confident about myself.
Dezzee and I had different experiences with each of these pillars that we’ll be talking about, but it’s cool because I feel that in most families, people are struggling with different things. Someone in a family is struggling with depression and someone else in the family has never struggled with that and they don’t understand, which was more of the relationship that we had. A lot of households can relate to that.
A lot of times I notice that people who are struggling with mental health simultaneously usually are struggling with self-image. A lot of people I’ve talked to, myself included, when I’m trying to get an understanding of what they’re feeling, at times, I’ll hear a commentary like I hate the way I look, I hate myself, or I’ve made horrible decisions. I’m beating myself up, which Dezzee knew instinctively that that’s not healthy to do. At this time, when I struggled with this, it was my freshman year of high school that I started to struggle with self-image.
At that age, I was 12 or 13, I didn’t know instinctively that negative self-talk was unhealthy. At that time in my life, I didn’t understand the mind and body connection and how your body does physically respond to your thoughts. If you are looking in the mirror and you’re saying, “I hate the way I look. I don’t like this about myself,” and tearing yourself apart, your body physically feels it. It does affect.
There’s been a lot of studies saying that putting yourself down or being in a negative train of thought can cause and manifest itself in physical illness. We’re learning more and more how important our thoughts are. How often we feel that we have no control over our thoughts, but like with anything, controlling your thoughts takes practice. That was something I did not understand at that age. Dezzee, what would you say to me?
I say something along the lines of, “Don’t say that about yourself. That’s not true. You look beautiful.”
She’s the best big sister in the world. At that time in my life, I have no control over these thoughts. I can’t escape thinking this when in reality, I did have way more control over my thoughts than I was aware of. Starting fundamentally with mental health, it’s important if you don’t have what Dezzee had, which was a natural understanding of being aware of the thoughts you’re feeding yourself.
It’s to put into practice retraining the thoughts that you think, which sounds weird and silly at first, but affirmations are one of those things where you need to look in the mirror and say, “I love you. You’re beautiful. I love your hair. You have beautiful eyes.” Say those things to yourself. This is a powerful one. Look yourself in the eye and say, “You have beautiful eyes,” and connect with your soul. It might feel weird at first if you’re struggling with self-love.
I know I was at that time of my life. Saying those things brought out a lot of emotions. It would make me cry and emotional because I didn’t believe those things at that time in my life. Now with a lot of practice and learning to accept and love myself with open arms, I can look in the mirror and say, “You’re beautiful. I love you. I’m proud of you.” I say those things to myself and believe them. When you practice something like affirmations, even if it doesn’t feel normal at first, it takes a while to build a habit. It takes 30 or 60 days to build a habit. You have to habitually be looking in the mirror and say, “I love you. You’re beautiful.”
Even if it feels weird at first, keep saying it. As you start to build that habit, your body will respond and over time, you will start to build an extremely loving relationship with yourself that you didn’t even know was possible. It starts with your thoughts which are an important factor of self-love. One of the things that I hear often is your thoughts become words and your words become actions. Remember that concept. If you’re thinking nice things about yourself, you’re going to start saying nice things about yourself and then you’re going to start feeling and doing good things for yourself.
Exactly. Very well said.
Fundamentally, as you’re going through this mental health journey, it is important to be aware of how you are speaking to yourself. You need to become your own best friend and hype person. If you are someone who likes compliments like me, words of affirmation are one of my love languages, and we’ll talk about love languages in another episode.
If you’re someone who’s craving words of affirmation, you can give that to yourself. It’s nice when you get it from someone else, but when you are practicing a self-love journey, it’s important to get in the habit of being your own best friend and your hype person. I want you guys to check in with yourself and start to pay attention to the thoughts that you’re thinking.
For part two, tune into the next episode.
by Destiny Malibu | Aug 30, 2022 | Podcast
Mental Health is a crucial topic, in many cases- even a life and death conversation. Mental Health challenges are at epidemic levels. Many people, even young high school and college students, are suffering. Mental Health problems are not easy to discuss and often go unnoticed by those closest to those suffering.
If this is you, if you are struggling with mental health challenges, this podcast is for you. This podcast is a safe place where you can be vulnerable. Here you can feel your feelings. Here is a place you can find a caring, supportive community that understands you. Here is a place you can call home.
Destiny Malibu, a world-renowned singer, songwriter and champion for mental health understands your struggle. It’s her struggle, too. Many of her friends and family are also dealing with mental health challenges. When Destiny Malibu talks about mental health issues, she speaks from experience. She offers hope for better days. Destiny helps her listeners find joy even in the little things, like petting your dog or smiling at strangers.
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Listen to the podcast here
Destiny Vs Depression!
If you’ve ever struggled with loneliness, anxiety, or depression, then this show is for you. In this show, Destiny Malibu will help you move from self-hate to self-love, confidence, and happiness. I’ve watched Destiny talk to and help thousands of students. I know she can help you. I know because I’m her mom. Here are your show hosts, my daughters Destiny Malibu and DJ Dezzee.
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What’s going on everybody? It’s Destiny Malibu and my co-host DJ Dezzee. We are so excited because this is our first-ever episode. The main topic that we are going to be discussing on this show is mental health. Dezzee and I have had different experiences on our mental health journeys. A lot of people don’t know this, but I suffered pretty severely from depression at a certain point in my life.
I remember about four years ago sitting in my car and being completely broken inside, lost, and numb. I remember at the time saying, “I didn’t even remember what it felt like to be happy.” I wanted my life to be over. I was having a lot of suicidal thoughts. I was googling how to end my life, and pretty much all of this I kept to myself.
My family knew that I struggled with depression, but they didn’t know that I was having suicidal thoughts. Thank God, now I have no suicidal tendencies. It doesn’t mean I’m immune to having a bad day or a bad week or something like that. That is something that I want to share with you guys and what has helped me because there is a big difference between being sad and being suicidal. If there’s anything that I could emphasize, stress, and try to be there for you, it’s how to help you get out of that suicidal space.
If you or someone you know is struggling with that, it’s so important to check in on people and check in on your friends because I’ve always been known for being a very happy bubbly person. Most of the time I am. Pretty much my whole life, I’ve always been a very bubbly happy person, but four years ago, during that year and a little bit of the year before, I was broken and nobody knew that.
I noticed a little and I tried to be there for you as much as I could as your big sister. I’m so happy you’re not in that place anymore.
It’s important to emphasize that mental health struggles don’t always look the same. A lot of times people think, “You can recognize when someone is suicidal because they’ll be moping around and seem like there’s a cloud over their head or something,” but that’s not always the case. More often than not, a lot of people hide their emotions because they’re afraid of being a burden. The dangerous part about that is that the number one tool of prevention is talking to somebody.
Sometimes it’s simply having one conversation with someone if you see someone and you notice that they are maybe crying. That’s happened to me a lot. I’ve been out and I see someone crying. I’m like, “Are you okay?” You never know when having one conversation with somebody can be the difference between that person taking their life and not. In addition to that, it’s so important to check on your friends, even if they don’t seem sad. In my experience, I was suffering from suicidal depression and no one knew that. Thank God, I have my sister, my parents, and my family, but not everybody has that. Dezzee and I want to be your family.
We want you to be a part of our family. I’m so thankful that you’re not in that place anymore. We hope that you all can learn from our journeys. I’ve never personally dealt with depression, but I have had my own moments of loneliness or trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Sometimes it can be super confusing. You almost feel lost, but I was never depressed. I’m happy that I was able to figure some things out. I’m still figuring things out as we all are.
Probably the most scary thing for me is being alone. I don’t like to be alone. I always like to go out, do things, and try to keep myself busy. Thankfully, I have my sister and my family. My favorite place to go back to when I lived in California was Borderline, which is a country line dance bar and grill. I would dance myself to happiness. That is what I love to do. What I always like to do in my free time is dance. Unfortunately, we had a very tragic event happen at our Borderline bar. There was a mass shooting, where I was at. It was extremely terrifying and tragic.
I don’t like to talk about it too much, but it was a traumatic experience for me and my family. We lost too many people that night, and may they all rest in peace. I send my love out to all my Borderline friends and all the families who lost loved ones. You’re in my prayers and my thoughts all the time. Shortly right after that, another traumatic experience happened the day after for our family when our house burned down in a loose fire.
Thankfully, our whole family got out, our dogs got out, and we were able to survive that tragic event as well. All of that comes with its own ramifications, where you get triggered by something or you don’t like talking about it. You never know how you’re going to feel. We want to share with you what we have learned, how we have come to jump over those hurdles, how to get over them, and how to continue to move forward.
In this life, none of us are immune to experiencing pain. Dezzee and I want to be there with you on your journey. We want to know what you are going through. You can send questions to AskDestinyMalibu.com. Anything that you want to hear our opinion on, what we think about something, or if we’ve experienced something similar, let us know.
Our goal with this show and sharing our vulnerable, raw, and authentic experiences is to hopefully, in one of those moments, resonate with some of you where maybe you’re going through something similar. When I hear somebody else talking about something they’re struggling with, and it’s something that I have also struggled with, I’m like, “I’m not alone. I’m not crazy.” Other people go through this too. We want to be your support system and your family. Next episode, we are so excited because we’re going to be talking about the seven pillars of mental health.
This is something that Destiny put together all on her own.
I’m excited about this because when I say that I want to share with you what helped me get out of the pit of suicidal depression are these seven pillars. As I was journaling throughout the years at this stage in my life, I recognized that this is what helped me get to where I am now. I want to share that with you because I don’t want anyone to feel like they don’t have the tools and do not know what to do because it took me a long time to figure out how to get to the mental piece that I have now. We want to share that with you. We want to be your family. We love you, and we can’t wait to be your best friends every single week.
We hope you join us next time.
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That’s a wrap for this episode. Head on over to iTunes and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every week who subscribes and posts their review on iTunes will win an entry into the grand prize drawing for a private VIP Las Vegas weekend with Destiny Malibu. Head on over to DestinyMalibuPodcast.com and pick up a free copy of Destiny’s gift. See you in the next episode.
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