by Destiny Malibu | Sep 21, 2022 | Podcast
On to today’s episode…
How do you feel about being alone? Do you enjoy doing things by yourself? Do you think of friends and socializing as optional parts of your life? You know, nice to have, but not all that important?
Destiny can relate. She thought of herself as someone who was “really good at being alone”. Even when she was growing up.
But then a cascade of traumatic events happened to her and her family. And Destiny was more alone than ever before. She says she became “immensely, immensely lonely”.
It was then she made an important discovery. A discovery that’s vital for all of us in our pursuit of abundant mental health.
Want to find out more?
Listen now!
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Listen to the podcast here
You Gotta Have THIS For Strong Mental Health!
What’s going on, everybody? It’s Destiny Malibu and my co-host, DJ Dezzee.
We’re so happy that you joined us yet again.
We are so happy you’re back. We are going to be talking about another 1 of these 7 pillars of mental health. We’ve talked about self-love and purpose, and now we are going to be talking about the importance of social life. I always considered myself someone who was good at being alone. I would often have a meal by myself. I would take drives for myself. I would go a couple of days sometimes without hanging out with somebody and doing my own thing, even though growing up, I always had my friends.
I considered myself someone who was good at being alone until our house burned down in Malibu. That was a traumatic thing. Our house burned down in the Woolsey Fire if you guys did not already know that. I have a music video about it, and a song I wrote about it. That’s called We Will Rise, and you guys can check that out. Desiree was at a mass shooting, which was terrifying, then moved to Florida right after that event happened.
I left Destiny all alone. I was there the entire time. She says she’s a lone wolf, but remember, big sister was always there.
I wasn’t necessarily a lone wolf. Desiree and I have always been best friends. People can attest that growing up. Even in high school, we shared a Facebook.
We were called Des Dez.
We shared a Facebook. We’ve always been very close, but I meant, in general, that I was comfortable doing things on my own. I didn’t think that I had a problem being alone until I actually experienced it. Desiree went to Florida and my parents and I moved to LA. Here I was in a new city. I had gone through a breakup, my sister moved, our house had burned down, Desiree had been through shooting, and there was a lot of emotion. Even though my friends were in Malibu, they were still about an hour away. I’m sure a lot of you can attest that sometimes even moving an hour away makes a dramatic difference in how often you see people. It’s hard to keep friendships when you’re in different states.
Also, not seeing each other every day.
Often, even in different cities like I experienced. I was in a new city and I felt lonely. This is sad to say. I remember the time I spent many weekends crying in my room.
You called me on a couple of those weekends, you were like, “What are you doing, Dez?”
I don’t know if any of you guys can attest to that, but sometimes, loneliness can take over. If you’re in a new city, a new state or a new town, and you haven’t quite made those connections yet, it can be tough, not to mention all the changes that we had gone through in 2020. I’m sure many of us can relate to that feeling of overwhelming loneliness because of this pandemic.
The pandemic was a big one. Everyone was at home, and you rarely got to see anybody unless you were in a relationship.
I know that there were a lot of different struggles that came out of the pandemic. A lot of new relationships were started and ended. There was a lot of chaos going on at that time, and we’re still not fully over the craziness.
Different states have different things and different hiccups here and there, so you got to go with the flow.
A lot of us can relate, especially now worldwide, to experiencing at some point or another, an immense feeling of loneliness.
That’s literally my worst fear. My worst fear is being alone. I always like to go out and do something.
Going back to the story I was saying about how all this change was happening, we had moved to LA, and then we were in LA for about a year. We decided to move to Las Vegas. When we moved to Las Vegas, I was not only in a new city, but I was in a new state. Now I was far away from my friends. In LA, even though I didn’t see my friends every week like I was used to, I was still seeing them once a month. I had some friends come to visit me and that was super sweet. I also went out to Malibu a couple of times, but I don’t drive that often because I’m not the best driver.
It’s terrifying. I always hold onto the door when she’s driving.
I’m not terrible, but I prefer to be driven. I had people come to see me. Shout out to all my friends who came to visit me in LA. I love you. Now we’re in Nevada, Las Vegas. We’re in a new state. Thankfully, it’s not too far from LA, but it’s still a new state. We’re in lockdown. I’m in a new place. I don’t know anybody. I thought I was lonely before in LA. Desiree is still in Florida. I became immensely lonely during the pandemic. At this time, I realized the super immense importance of social life. I realized its importance at a level I had never understood before. Even though I thought that I was good at having lunch by myself sometimes or doing things by myself, I had never experienced that level of isolation.
Important Links
by Destiny Malibu | Sep 16, 2022 | Podcast
On to today’s episode…
“What is it I love doing?” …
“What makes me most fulfilled?” …
These are important questions. The answers can give you a strong indication of what your purpose in life is and the career path you should take. But what if you have a job you hate and you feel stuck, but at least it pays the bills and gives you financial stability? Even so, you can’t wait to leave. You’re asking yourself, “How do I get out of this vicious cycle?”
In today’s episode of the Destiny Malibu Podcast (LINK), Destiny has a suggestion. If you follow her advice, you’ll reach your goal. You’ll replace that job you hate with one you love. It won’t be right way, but you’ll get there!
As you listen, you’ll discover…
- An “uncomfortable truth” about living out your purpose
- What to do if you don’t feel you’re in a place to focus on what you love
- What Destiny wants ALL of us to strive for
So what is Destiny’s advice for you? Listen Now!
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Listen to the podcast here
From Passion Project To Fulltime Gig
What is it that I love doing and makes me feel most fulfilled? For another group of people, I’d say you have those people who maybe stepped into a career that they don’t love. They’re asking themselves, “How do I get out of this cycle? How do I get out of this cycle of spending most of my time doing something I don’t love?” My suggestion to that group of people would be, even if you are in a career now that you don’t love but you know it’s financially the best choice. You can set aside time each week, even if it’s just an hour to focus and put some time into that passion project that you have swept aside.
Even if it were to take you ten years, for example. If fitness is something that you’re passionate about, if you even were to spend one hour each week dedicating that time to your passion, it might take ten years but in ten years, you might be able to now take that passion project and make it your full-time gig. That’s the goal for all of us. Being in line with your purpose doesn’t have to happen overnight.
No, it takes a lot of hard work. You have to work toward your purpose. It doesn’t just happen.
Even if you’re feeling a little discouraged now and you feel like, “I’m not in a place financially or situationally where I can focus on what I love.” I challenge you to set even an hour aside each week to work on your passion project because not only is that going to fill up your soul but if you keep working on that over time with the goal and intention of, “I want this to hopefully become my full-time gig one day.” That is going to give you so much hope for life and bring so much joy even into the job that you don’t like because you’re filling up your soul with your passions.
We have another group of people who are lucky and passionate about what they do and they have had the opportunity to do what they love. I’m so happy for those people. Good for you folks and that’s the goal that I want all of us to strive for. All of us deserve to be happy. All of us deserve to do what we are most passionate about. All of us have unique gifts and talents. I challenge you, if you don’t know yet what your unique gift and talent are, explore that.
There are so many things out there to explore and to try, whether it’s art, math and science. All the subjects in school, there are different careers in each of those things of history, reading and stars and all that stuff. There’s so much out there that if you take the time to learn what options are, make a list. Be like, “I like this one. I like this one. I want to like this,” and try those different things on that list.
Try it all out. You might be an incredible juggler and you never knew. You might bring joy to tons of people juggling. It doesn’t have to be like you have to be an Olympic swimmer, even though that’s incredible. If that’s your gift, that’s amazing but don’t put too much pressure on yourself to feel like you don’t have a purpose because I promise you, you do.
Again, the purpose that we all strive for is to love one another and be there for each other. Whether it’s being a mother, a father, a sister, a brother and a friend. All those things are part of your purpose.
Every single one of those things is equally significant. If you’re a stay-at-home mom, you’re raising the future generation. That’s an incredible job. If you’re a doctor or a firefighter, you’re saving lives. That’s an incredible thing. If you are a dad or a husband out there and you are going out of your way to provide for your family, that’s incredible. That’s beautiful. Thank you so much to all of our militaries out there.
Thank you for your service.
Thank you so much for your service. We love you and appreciate you. Every single day, you put your life on the line for strangers in this country and that’s incredibly appreciated and beautiful. That’s a beautiful purpose. Purpose and fulfilling your purpose take many different forms and have many different faces.
Each of us is a unique individual with unique talents and unique gifts. I want to encourage you folks to go after what it is in life that makes you passionate because that version of you, that passionate version of you, that is going to be the most invigorating, magnetic and inspiring version of you to exist. We love you folks so much and we are so thankful that you’ve been hanging out with us on the Destiny Malibu show.
If you have any questions that you may want to ask, you can go to Ask@DestinyMalibu.com and you can submit your questions and we hope to answer those questions in some of our future episodes.
Send us a message and tell us what your purpose is. Leave a comment and send us a DM. I would love to hear what it is that makes you folks feel alive and the perfect time to play my song, I Feel Alive. If you haven’t heard it yet, go check it out. We love you folks so much. Thank you for hanging out with us and we will see you on the next episode.
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That’s a wrap for our episode of Destiny Malibu show. Hit on over to iTunes and subscribe to the show. One lucky reader every week who subscribes and posts a 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.
Important Links
by Destiny Malibu | Sep 14, 2022 | Podcast
In today’s episode of the Destiny Malibu Podcast, she tells you why. She also shares an inspiring quote from Jim Carrey to give you motivation to follow your dreams and not settle for the job everyone thinks you should take if it’s not the right one for you.
If you are a young person in high school or college trying to figure out your career path, or if you are further along in your journey looking to switch careers, this is an episode you want to listen to.
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Listen to the podcast here
This Is An Important Decision. Choose Wisely!
I think at this point, my ultimate goal is to have a family and help my family figure out what their purpose is, my kids, and help my husband one day with his purpose.
To clarify, she doesn’t have kids. She’s talking about future kids.
I did say that, right? Future?
You said, “To help my kids.”
Future children.
Neither of us has children or married, husbands or boyfriends. Slide into those DMs. Everyone has an opportunity to discover what their purpose is and what they’re passionate about at any point in their life. I think that purpose can be different at different stages of your life. Your purpose can change. For the athletes out there, maybe your purpose for a long time was being an athlete and then you move into a new phase of life. Maybe you take on a different career, you get married, or different things happen.
We have the beautiful opportunity at every stage of life to share our gifts with the upcoming generation, share our gifts and reinvent ourselves at any moment. You are never stuck in one place. You have the opportunity at any given moment to say, “This has been a fun stage in my life, but now I’m going to move on to this stage and I want to try this.” All of those different stages you go through are so pivotal for self-development and figuring out who you are.
Something I want to touch on too is I’d say that there are probably about three different groups of people. In my mind, I’d say that one of those groups would be the kids in high school or in college who are just about to step out into the world and choose what career path they’re going to take. I want to point out that I don’t think a career is necessarily your end-all purpose, but I will say that choosing your career and what you want to do and making sure it’s something you’re passionate about is important. Whatever your career ends up being is typically what the average person will spend most of their life doing.
If you’re a doctor, a singer, a nurse, an athlete, or a teacher, that’s going to take up the majority of your time in life. You want to make sure that you’re choosing something that you’re passionate about because if you’re passionate about it, you’re helping others and you’re giving back to your community, that is an essential part of fulfilling your purpose.
One of my favorite quotes is by Jim Carrey. He told a story at a graduation speech talking about how his dad pursued a safe career. That was something he was not very passionate about and it didn’t end up working out for him. Jim Carrey saw this and he decided, “If my dad cannot succeed at something that he didn’t like, then I want to take the risk and try to succeed at something that I love because you could lose or win either way.”
His quote was, “If you can fail at what you don’t like, you might as well take a risk on doing what you love.” I think that that is so beautifully said and that’s so important for all of the high school and college students who are stepping into this new kind of scary phase of, “What is my contribution to the world going to be? What is my legacy going to be?” Take the time to explore that and figure out what it is that makes you passionate. You might try 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. You might change majors five times. If you don’t go to college, you might try five different jobs. That’s totally fine. You want to find what is it that I love doing and that makes me feel most fulfilled.
by Destiny Malibu | Sep 7, 2022 | Podcast
On to today’s episode…
What is your purpose? How do you find it? How do you live it out? These are heavy questions, right? But they’re also important. For one thing, finding and living out your purpose in your life is a critical pillar of having good mental health.
If this idea intrigues you, if you want to do a “deep dive” into it, you owe it to yourself to listen to today’s episode of the Destiny Malibu Podcast. Destiny tells the story of how she discovered her purpose at a very young age. She also talks about a special honor she received in high school that still matters to her today.
And if you haven’t discovered your purpose yet, or you have, but you feel it’s not as impressive as someone else’s purpose, she has something reassuring and comforting to tell you.
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Listen to the podcast here
Without This Important Pillar, Your Mental Health Will Suffer
What’s going on, everybody?
We’re happy you could join us again.
We are happy you guys are back. We are going to be talking about 1 of the 7 pillars of mental health and the pillar that we are going to be discussing is purpose.
What is your purpose? What is my purpose? Let’s figure it out together.
The best way to discover what your purpose is, is to ask yourself, “What am I most passionate about?” I feel lucky that when I was little, I knew at a very young age that I wanted to pursue music, and everybody discovers their purpose at different points in life. That’s a great point that some people might know when they’re young, some people might discover what their purpose is in college, and some people might discover their purpose when they’re 50 or even 60 or 70 sometimes.
It is never too late to figure out what it is that you want to do with your life and to pursue what you are most passionate about. When Dez and I were little, we grew up around our mom in the studio all the time. Dez and I fell in love with music at a very young age. The first time that I was ever in a recording studio, or the first time that I remember recording something, I was five years old.
It was the Pledge of Allegiance.
It was at the beginning of a song that her mom did for a 9/11 tribute. I got to do the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of this song that she wrote and that was special. When I was about nine years old, I wrote my first ever song on guitar. That was the first time that at five, I was still like, “The music, this is fun,” but at nine, when I wrote my first song, I was like, “I want to do this forever. If there’s a way that I could do this and write songs for the rest of my life, that’s what I want to do.” Throughout Dezzee and my school years, we entered talent shows.
We were in choir and I feel so honored that at Malibu High I was voted most musical, which I was shocked about because I was on independent study. I remember I came back to school for an assignment or something, and they’re like, “You were voted most musical.” I was like, “No way.” I wasn’t on campus during my senior year. That was special. From a young age, I knew that this was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be an artist and I feel so lucky and blessed that I’ve been able to pursue that. Everybody can discover their purpose at different times in life.
For me, I wanted to be a veterinarian when I was an adult and I realized I don’t do well with shots for animals because things can go wrong. I passed out, so I decided, “Probably not the best route for me.”
A big part of the journey of discovering what your passion is, is trial and error. It’s exploring as many different avenues as possible to figure out what it is that makes you tick. What is it that lights up your soul and brings out this passionate, beautiful version of yourself? The version of yourself that is most passionate about something is usually a hint that that’s the direction you should go for figuring out what your purpose in life is. Justin Bieber has an album called Purpose. I feel like he’s probably an expert on this subject, JB, and Hailey too. I’m obsessed with Hailey. If you guys ever want to come on the show that would make my life. I would probably start crying, but I can keep it together. I can be cool.
Speaking of Justin Bieber. Justin, when you were first on the scene on YouTube, Destiny had you on her computer screen.
Justin was my computer screen saver.
As it was for many girls. Our big brother, Jonathan, would come in and be like, “Why is he on your computer screen?
He’s a hater. Sorry, JB, but we love you, and we love Hailey. She’s the best. A funny side note, I love that album. It’s an amazing album. It is so important to explore different hobbies and things to figure out what it is you like. I’ve talked to some people about this before. I remember I had a conversation one time, and we were at a yacht party. That was pretty cool. One of the guests there, he and I were having a conversation about life, and somehow, I always end up in those conversations with people, “What is your purpose? How’s your emotional health?”
That’s because you’re a mental health advocate that’s why.
I like to dive right in and get straight to the meat. I remember he and I were debating because he was telling me that he doesn’t think that there’s any purpose to life. This is someone that I could tell was struggling because hope is one of the most important things to hold onto in any situation, especially with your mental health. Believing in the hope of purpose is also important because if you go around with this belief that you have no purpose, I feel like subconsciously that probably does affect your psyche and make you feel depressed. You’re like, “Why am I here? There’s no point to anything.”
Just roaming around.
Something I told him, a lot of times we have a tendency to overcomplicate purpose. Just because I love music and that’s the direction I want to go with my life, someone else’s purpose might be being an incredible mother, which is equally significant. Someone else’s purpose might be being a kind person and greeting people with love and kindness and saying, “Neighbor, how are you doing?” Someone else’s purpose might be serving at the local homeless shelter. There are many ways to find purpose in life, and sometimes people get stuck because they think that you need to have this grandiose direction.
Something that I want to add to that is that our purpose is to love one another. How are you absolutely going to love each other? By helping each other. That is what I like to do. I like to say my purpose is, I like to help in whatever way I can. I’ve done many different things in my life.
Dezzee and I make a great team because I’m more of a wear-my-heart-on-my-sleeve type of person. I pretty much lead with everything I do with emotion. That’s something that makes me a great artist and songwriter because I understand people. I have a great love for people. I’m not the most spatially aware person like, “I never know where I am.”
Don’t ask Destiny for directions.
That’s what Google’s for. We complement each other in that way because we have different strengths, but we’re aware of that and those strengths tie into our individual sense of purpose.
by Destiny Malibu | Sep 5, 2022 | Podcast
On to today’s episode…
Like a lot of young people, maybe you have the attitude of “I’m willing to torture myself to look good.” Destiny once felt the same way. She was willing to go to unhealthy extremes to try and look like she thought she should look.
But she had a massive change of heart. The result? She’s now a lot healthier and a lot happier. She refers to this new mindset and attitude as a game changer. Want to find out more? Then listen to today’s episode of The Destiny Malibu Podcast.
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Listen to the podcast here
This Was A Game Changer For Destiny!
When I was eating, I was making choices of what is going to nourish my body. I was getting ready. I was like, “What outfit makes me feel my happiest?” You have to change the mentality of, “I’m going to torture myself to look like this too.” I’m going to love myself and I am going to focus on making choices that lead me to the healthiest life and the healthiest version of me. I think that changes the whole game and it did for me.
I want to share that with you guys and remember, don’t compare yourself. Celebrate each other. Celebrate all the different body types, heights, and different types of people there are. Celebrate your uniqueness. There is nobody like you, and that is so incredibly beautiful. Instead of beating yourself up and trying to be somebody or look like somebody else, be you. Focus on health and what works for you. That changes everything.
I’m so happy to see Destiny has come through this, and we hope that we are able to help you find your path and your journey to your self-love. If you have any questions that you may want to ask, make sure you go to AskDestinyMalibu.com and we’ll make sure to cover it in one of our future episodes.
Thank you so much for hanging out with us. We are going to end this episode with the Destiny Malibu show motto. It is, “If you hate me, I love you. If you love me, I love you even more. You are not alone. We are in this together.” I love you guys so much and see you next time.
Important Links
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.
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