Transforming your Inner F%cking Critic with Katie Horwitch

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[00:01:05] Hello, hello, all of my beautiful freaking people. Welcome back to another episode of FML Talk. We are diving in to negative self-talk today, y'all. We are about to whip your asses into shape to start from within to really getting that negative self-talk out of your fucking brains. Sit back, grab a cocktail, and welcome to FML Talk.

[00:01:31] Oh my God. Wait, how old was the other girl? 19, can you believe that shit? Hey, this is Gabrielle Stone.

[00:01:36] Good book?

[00:01:37] I did not.

[00:01:37] Oh!

[00:01:38] He did what?

[00:01:39] 48 hours?

[00:01:40] What a dick.

[00:01:41] Yeah, but have you seen all the photos on our Instagram?

[00:01:44] No, no.

[00:01:44] And this is FML Talk.

[00:01:46] Oh no, she didn't.

[00:01:48] All right, y'all. Katie Horwich is here today. She is a writer, speaker, a mindset coach, and a woman's empowerment activist.

[00:01:57] She's also the founder of WANT, which is Women Against Negative Talk, which I fucking love.

[00:02:02] And it's really a platform she created that gives women tips, tools, motivation, and, you know, like men too. It's like six to one, half dozen of another.

[00:02:10] Inspiration to move forward in your lives fearlessly by shifting the negative self-talk that we all fucking do.

[00:02:16] Two, we've talked numerous times on this show before about how powerful your goddamn thoughts are and how you need to keep that shit in check if you are going to create what you want in this life.

[00:02:26] And that starts and stems from your self-worth and your negative self-talk.

[00:02:31] So if you are already triggered by these words and being like, fuck, I know that like this is me.

[00:02:37] They're talking to me.

[00:02:38] I'm raising my hand, Gabrielle.

[00:02:40] Here you go.

[00:02:41] This episode's for you.

[00:02:42] It's going to be a good one.

[00:02:44] Here we go.

[00:02:48] Katie Horwich, welcome to FML Talk.

[00:02:51] I am so stoked to have you here.

[00:02:52] How are you?

[00:02:54] I am so wonderful.

[00:02:56] I just said before we started recording that I've been listening to the podcast for the entirety of my afternoon.

[00:03:03] So I feel like I've already spent the day with you.

[00:03:05] I love it.

[00:03:06] Well, welcome to the show.

[00:03:07] I'm so happy to have you on.

[00:03:09] Can you give everybody a little spiel about how it is you came to do all of the amazing stuff that you are doing?

[00:03:16] Yeah.

[00:03:17] Yeah.

[00:03:17] So I have spent close to two decades now writing about, speaking about, coaching about, researching and just generally obsessing over self-talk, which I define as the story that we are telling ourselves 24-7 as we walk through the world.

[00:03:38] So a lot of times when we think of that, we think, oh, negative self-talk or positive self-talk.

[00:03:43] But what I got curious about was, well, if it's as easy or if we're being told it's as easy as replacing a negative phrase with a positive phrase or being told, just talk to yourself like you would a best friend, then why aren't we doing that?

[00:04:00] And that came from a place that was very personal for me.

[00:04:04] I was never a person who could look at myself in the mirror and tell myself, I love myself.

[00:04:10] I'm amazing.

[00:04:12] And then actually believe it.

[00:04:14] So I wanted to create not just a framework, but really a place where people could get resources to build their own toolkit to shift their self-talk in a real lasting way that works for them.

[00:04:31] Because everyone's going to be different, you know?

[00:04:33] Yeah, 100%.

[00:04:34] I resonate so much with that when I was on my self-love journey.

[00:04:37] I was like, everybody says self-love is being able to look in the mirror and being like, I love you, Gabrielle.

[00:04:42] You're so beautiful.

[00:04:43] And I felt like a fucking cuckoo person whenever I did that.

[00:04:45] I was like, there's got to be more to it than this, guys.

[00:04:48] My mom is also a healer and she harps on me constantly about like how powerful your thoughts are and like the science behind when you're having thoughts.

[00:04:58] They really are creating a reality to the point where there's sometimes I'll try and catch myself because you're just trying to vent and speak to someone.

[00:05:07] And my mom's like, careful what you're saying.

[00:05:08] And I'm like, okay, but where's the line of I need to just express myself.

[00:05:13] So do you have any tips before we dig in about when you're frustrated and feeling a certain type of way?

[00:05:21] And if you're going to say like, I'm just so fucking tired, I'm exhausted.

[00:05:25] How is that creating a reality and how are you supposed to shift that in the moment and still express yourself and get your point across?

[00:05:34] I love that we're talking about this right now because I think as someone who has done this work around specifically self-talk for as long as I have,

[00:05:45] I think that sometimes people who maybe haven't really dug into me or the work that I do,

[00:05:53] they think that I'm just like this positivity unicorn and I never have any bad feelings or anything bad to say about myself or about the world around me.

[00:06:03] And it's like, I am a human, not a robot.

[00:06:06] I go through the full spectrum of feelings just like anybody else.

[00:06:12] And so when it comes to shifting yourself, talk in the moment, again, a lot of us have been given this sort of prescription of,

[00:06:21] and look, I love an affirmation.

[00:06:23] I love a mantra, but we've been given this prescription of affirmations or mantras for every single thing.

[00:06:29] And that can be really dangerous because what happens is, first of all, that teaches us that uncomfortable feelings that we're feeling or maybe feelings of anger,

[00:06:43] jealousy or literal just discomfort are bad feelings to feel and we shouldn't feel them.

[00:06:50] And then also, and this is super interesting.

[00:06:53] I put it right at the beginning of my book that just came out because I was like, people need to know this.

[00:07:00] There was a study that was done around two groups of people who had both preexisting high self-esteem and preexisting low self-esteem

[00:07:09] and giving them what this study called positive self-statements to like see what happened basically.

[00:07:17] And what ended up happening was the people who already felt good about themselves were basically at the same level or they felt a little bit better.

[00:07:28] But the people who had low self-esteem, they actually felt worse because there was a form of cognitive dissonance going on that they felt bad.

[00:07:38] And then they were telling themselves something that they didn't already have a seed of belief in.

[00:07:45] So then it feels like you're lying to yourself and that doesn't feel good.

[00:07:48] So I always tell people if they want like an easy place to start, because again, this is a habit that we're building.

[00:07:58] This is nuanced work.

[00:08:00] Start by teasing apart the feeling that you have and the feeling you have about the feeling that you have.

[00:08:08] So it's a little bit of a like a mind bender, but feelings like you mentioned, like venting about something.

[00:08:17] That is not inherently a bad thing to do.

[00:08:21] Or if you're feeling like, oh, like I'm just uncomfortable in my body today.

[00:08:26] That's not a bad feeling to have.

[00:08:29] It is a human feeling to have.

[00:08:31] But then so often we pin feelings and labels on those feelings.

[00:08:37] So I feel bad about my body, meaning, oh, I must not love myself or I'm so whatever it is, lazy, I'm unlovable.

[00:08:49] And so that is a place where I think most people can start and start to get curious about, hey, what's actually going on here?

[00:08:59] Because a lot of us don't even know until we've double clicked into it.

[00:09:02] Yeah, for sure.

[00:09:04] I think that's such a good jumping off point for people that would feel overwhelmed of trying to shift the negative self-talk that they've been doing for so long, sometimes without even realizing it.

[00:09:16] And it's sad and it's exhausting when you are someone who has years and years and years been so unkind to yourself and then wake up and realize that like you have to shift that and like change that dialogue.

[00:09:29] That's like a big undertaking.

[00:09:31] So I think what you just explained is a really good way to kind of like dip your toe in the pool and like start when it feels overwhelming.

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[00:10:58] I know you also talk about things you can do when you're in an overwhelmed storm and like,

[00:11:03] Hi, that's me. I'm the storm. I'm the overwhelm queen.

[00:11:07] So I go into...

[00:11:09] You're not in the storm. You are the storm.

[00:11:11] I am the storm and in it. I'm all the things. I'm like all encompassing when it comes to overwhelm.

[00:11:17] So I personally would love to hear these tips that you may have and what you have to say on like how to deal with going into overwhelm.

[00:11:27] Yeah. I mean, there's like preventative measures that we can do.

[00:11:32] And then there's also like, okay, when shit hits the fan and then it keeps hitting the fan,

[00:11:37] we're not always able to go back.

[00:11:40] I mean, we're never able to go back in time and do the preventative measures.

[00:11:43] So there's the sort of pre-work that I think we can do in the neutral times because that's when all of this starts, right?

[00:11:51] Like you mentioned, it can be really overwhelming to want to shift your negative self-talk when this has been happening and going on for such a long time for you.

[00:12:02] Negative self-talk is like a language that we have become fluent in throughout our lives.

[00:12:09] And so before we even get into overwhelm, because I think it can be overwhelming to even start to try and tackle it,

[00:12:18] it's like overwhelm on top of overwhelm.

[00:12:20] I think recognizing that this is basically like becoming fluent in a new language.

[00:12:28] You're not going to wake up one day and become fluent in French or Spanish or whatever language you don't already speak now.

[00:12:38] This is a process that you're going to start small.

[00:12:41] You're going to start during manageable times.

[00:12:44] You're not going to start when you first just go to the country and then don't have your phone and Google Translate or whatever you're using,

[00:12:52] and then just need to start speaking the language.

[00:12:56] So before overwhelm hits, I like to remind people that, again, we are humans, not robots,

[00:13:04] which means this is something that we are going to experience throughout our lives.

[00:13:09] And we can't stop that completely.

[00:13:13] And it's harmful to demonize and villainize it.

[00:13:17] What we can do is knowing that it's coming, we can start to look ahead and say,

[00:13:23] OK, well, how do I want to feel once I get there?

[00:13:26] And when that happens, what do I want to be able to lean on?

[00:13:32] So there's something that actually my husband devised this exercise, but my husband and I do.

[00:13:38] That's called a planned freak out.

[00:13:40] And it is exactly what it sounds like.

[00:13:43] It is a structured way to lose your shit and then find it again.

[00:13:51] Love that. Love that.

[00:13:52] Yeah. My husband and I need to schedule our end of the year planned freak out in the next couple of weeks.

[00:13:57] We do it about once a quarter now, so like four times a year.

[00:14:01] And what you do, it's sort of like a glorified journaling exercise.

[00:14:06] You go. I like to get out of the house.

[00:14:08] I like to go to like a fancy hotel or cafe or whatever.

[00:14:12] You can order it.

[00:14:13] Fancy cocktail, if that's your speed.

[00:14:16] And you open up a spread in your journal.

[00:14:19] And on one side, you write things I hate.

[00:14:23] The other side, you write things I dislike.

[00:14:26] Then you set a timer.

[00:14:27] I like setting it for about 10 minutes.

[00:14:30] You can extend it to 20 if you'd like.

[00:14:32] And you just brain dump all of the things.

[00:14:35] And you do this in a neutral time that you have planned.

[00:14:38] So you say, okay, I'm not feeling overwhelmed yet.

[00:14:43] Or maybe I'm starting to feel that percolating inside me like, oh, oh, this might be coming up.

[00:14:49] But that's when you start to go, okay, where can I schedule my PFO in my calendar?

[00:14:55] My PFO.

[00:14:56] I'm dead.

[00:14:57] That's fucking hilarious.

[00:14:59] Yeah.

[00:15:00] Yeah.

[00:15:00] I am all about the PFO life and the art of the PFO.

[00:15:06] Because it is really, it becomes an art once you've done it a few times.

[00:15:09] So that's a place where you can just brain dump all of the things.

[00:15:15] And what's really interesting is that that forces you to think about, okay, what deserves

[00:15:23] the word hate in my life?

[00:15:26] Because that's a really, really emotionally happy word.

[00:15:29] And what deserves dislike?

[00:15:32] So you're really getting clear on what it is that tends to get under your skin.

[00:15:38] Then what you do is you can either turn a page in your journal or you do a line underneath

[00:15:43] everything and you write, so what the fuck am I going to do about it?

[00:15:47] And then you set another timer and you go.

[00:15:52] And these aren't like, okay, I'm going to fix my entire life here.

[00:15:56] These are small little things that you can do to be proactive, not reactive when it comes

[00:16:03] to these things.

[00:16:04] And then the actual, like, I believe it's the secret ingredient of the PFO is you take

[00:16:12] a break.

[00:16:12] If you're at a hotel bar lobby, like I usually order French fries, that feels like a good PFO

[00:16:17] break.

[00:16:19] And then you flip to another page in your journal, another spread, and you write things

[00:16:24] I love.

[00:16:26] And then you write things I like.

[00:16:29] And then you set that timer and you go and you get clear on what are the things that I

[00:16:34] love?

[00:16:34] What are the things that I like?

[00:16:36] And then you do the same thing and you write, so what the fuck am I going to do about it?

[00:16:40] And what that does in the moment, it gets you clear and refocuses your energy on, oh, wow,

[00:16:49] there are actually, there's a lot of things in my life that I love and I look like.

[00:16:54] And here's some things I can do about it.

[00:16:56] But what you're practicing is for those overwhelmed freak out moments.

[00:17:01] Because once you do it and get into the habit of going through a PFO, once you're in the F

[00:17:09] O, no P insight, you remember, oh yeah, I hate this thing.

[00:17:16] I dislike this thing.

[00:17:17] This is super, super overwhelming.

[00:17:19] But there are things that I love and I like.

[00:17:22] And so you get into the habit of refocusing your energy without writing over all of the

[00:17:29] shit that's actually going on.

[00:17:31] And that is profit that you build.

[00:17:35] So that, I think that that's a more, people often want like, okay, so what do I do in this

[00:17:41] moment?

[00:17:42] Which we can get into that as well.

[00:17:43] But I think that it's so important for all of us to recognize that we will go through a

[00:17:51] whole host of high highs and low lows in our lives.

[00:17:56] And if we wait for them to come and deal with them when they come, we are going to be feeling

[00:18:04] overwhelmed, defeated, just out of control.

[00:18:09] We're going to be feeling those feelings over and over and over again.

[00:18:13] But what we can do is we can recognize our own humanity and start to practice and build

[00:18:21] the habit before we need it.

[00:18:24] You know?

[00:18:25] Yeah.

[00:18:25] Yeah, for sure.

[00:18:27] Oh, I need to put that into practice.

[00:18:29] Okay.

[00:18:30] So that's the PFO, the planned freak out of like scheduling them.

[00:18:34] What happens if you are already in the eye of the storm?

[00:18:39] Are we referring back to the PFOs or is there different tactics to tackle like when you're,

[00:18:46] it's too late for the, the sitting down at the bar and having a drink with the journal?

[00:18:52] Well, let's just say someone is listening and they're like, cool, I'm going to schedule my

[00:18:57] PFO for two weeks from now.

[00:18:59] And then in three days they say, oh my gosh, I am just, I am in the storm, the eye of the

[00:19:08] overwhelmed storm.

[00:19:09] I had a PFO scheduled, but so long to that because I am here now.

[00:19:15] I think I want to talk to those people.

[00:19:17] Yeah.

[00:19:18] First thing I say, get clear on again, the feelings and then the feelings about the feelings.

[00:19:25] So maybe you're feeling overwhelmed because a lot of things are going on in your life or

[00:19:31] maybe your kid's life or everybody's life around you and you're coming in and everyone

[00:19:37] wants you to be the fixer.

[00:19:38] So I think that that can happen a lot.

[00:19:40] That is the thing.

[00:19:42] And then there's also how you feel about it.

[00:19:45] So I think getting clear on what is actually going on, that's the first step.

[00:19:49] And then after that, and in the book, I have like a whole suite of things that people can

[00:19:55] sort of choose their adventure.

[00:19:57] After that, you do, you get to choose your adventure.

[00:20:00] Some of my favorite sort of standby tools are to focus on getting back, not getting back to

[00:20:10] normal, but getting to and finding the for now normal, because the now is not the forever,

[00:20:21] but it is right now.

[00:20:23] So I think so many times when we feel feelings of overwhelm, we are grasping at, okay, I just

[00:20:32] want to settle things back down to how they were, or I want to speed ahead to how I want

[00:20:37] things to be, and we forget that we are in this experience that we're in right now.

[00:20:45] And so getting clear on what is actually going on, that can help people sort of decide, okay,

[00:20:54] well, if this normal is just for now, there will be another normal later.

[00:21:00] I think we saw this a lot during the pandemic, right?

[00:21:04] Where we knew at some point or, you know, crossed our fingers that things would open back

[00:21:11] up again.

[00:21:12] But I think that a lot of us clung to how we once were, or kept looking forward.

[00:21:17] That was a period in time where we all were sort of challenged to create our for now normal.

[00:21:24] So let's say that you have, I don't know, you have a lot of client work on your plate,

[00:21:30] or maybe there's a lot going on at your kid's school.

[00:21:33] I know a lot of parents right now who have kids who are in high school and they're in the

[00:21:38] middle of like the college prep and things feel really overwhelming in their households.

[00:21:44] It's not about at that point in time looking at, okay, well, what worked back then?

[00:21:50] Because what worked back then might not work right now.

[00:21:53] So it's about getting curious about, okay, what does work?

[00:21:57] What does feel good?

[00:21:58] And then being flexible.

[00:21:59] If something doesn't work, or if something isn't feeling good, try again and again and

[00:22:05] again.

[00:22:05] If I don't know, you only have for this period of time from 5 to 6am, and that is your time

[00:22:14] and then your day is completely taken over by the rest of everything in your life, then

[00:22:20] you get to say, all right, well, I could sleep during that time.

[00:22:24] Do I need to sleep?

[00:22:25] Maybe I do.

[00:22:27] Maybe that's a really important extra hour of sleep for me.

[00:22:31] Maybe that's the time where I could use that time to work out or meditate or maybe get some

[00:22:39] emails done while my brain is clear, whatever it is.

[00:22:42] And knowing that that is not your routine forever, but it's what you're doing to take care of yourself

[00:22:48] right now and prove to yourself that you are on your own side.

[00:22:52] I think that probably is my number one in the moment of an overwhelm storm tool that I call on

[00:22:59] over and over and over again in my life.

[00:23:11] I had a hectic fucking October.

[00:23:14] And it literally was like I was in a little boat and it was like, oh, a hole.

[00:23:18] Let me just patch that.

[00:23:19] Oh, another hole.

[00:23:20] Let me just patch that.

[00:23:21] Oh, fuck.

[00:23:22] There's a shitload of holes.

[00:23:23] Like, and it was just ridiculous.

[00:23:25] It was one thing after another.

[00:23:26] And I was, you know, a few weeks postpartum.

[00:23:29] And it was just crazy, like trying to settle into the new normal.

[00:23:34] And whenever I would have my mom would come over for three hours to hang with the baby.

[00:23:39] And I was like, OK, what can I get done in this three hours?

[00:23:42] I'm going to record a podcast.

[00:23:43] I'm going to write some of my book.

[00:23:44] I'm going to.

[00:23:44] And it was like crammed to the point where I was no longer taking care of myself.

[00:23:50] And it was continuously keeping me in that overwhelm storm instead of being like, OK,

[00:23:55] you know what?

[00:23:56] I don't have to record today or I don't have to write today.

[00:23:59] Like maybe I should go take a nap.

[00:24:00] Maybe I should go watch a TV show and let my brain switch off for a little bit.

[00:24:06] Like choosing to not stay on the fucking hamster wheel and allow myself some grace and

[00:24:14] some time to chill and then also not needing everything to be fixed right away.

[00:24:20] Because for me, I'm so type A.

[00:24:22] I'm like, oh, there's these problems.

[00:24:24] How can we fix all of them today and make it better?

[00:24:27] And that is not always possible.

[00:24:30] Sometimes it's going to be like, OK, I have to understand that this is a non-fixable issue

[00:24:36] at the moment.

[00:24:37] And like, what can I do?

[00:24:38] What action steps can I take to make me feel better about it now?

[00:24:43] And sometimes that's totally.

[00:24:45] Oh, yeah.

[00:24:46] Yeah, that's I mean, that's basically my own whether you want to call it a mantra catchphrase

[00:24:55] is be proactive, not reactive.

[00:24:58] And that is something that I tell myself in the micro moments of life and the big moments

[00:25:07] of life.

[00:25:08] Like you just talked about postpartum.

[00:25:11] And that is a point in time where literally your body is recalibrating and your hormones

[00:25:20] are recalibrating and your system is figuring out, OK, like, where do we put the pieces?

[00:25:26] Like, where are my organs going to go now?

[00:25:28] It's like your body is settling.

[00:25:30] And so being proactive and not reactive in that moment is going to look different for you

[00:25:37] right now.

[00:25:38] Or let's go back to October because we were just talking about October.

[00:25:41] It's going to look different than five months from now, two years from now.

[00:25:47] But focusing on the for now normal and being proactive, not reactive in that time is I mean,

[00:25:54] you nailed it.

[00:25:55] It's so key.

[00:25:56] So key.

[00:25:57] Yeah.

[00:25:58] Yeah.

[00:25:58] Let's talk about the four steps of self-talk that you talk about in the book.

[00:26:04] Can you kind of break down what those are for me?

[00:26:06] Yeah.

[00:26:07] So I sort of gave a little teaser at the very, very beginning when we were talking about

[00:26:12] like how I came to do this work.

[00:26:15] And I mean, to be completely honest, I got angry.

[00:26:20] I got angry that people and all people, but women in particular, were given such a limited

[00:26:27] tool set to deal with these incredibly nuanced and personal and complex thoughts and feelings

[00:26:37] that we have.

[00:26:38] That's our self-talk doesn't always show up as talk, which as someone who has a clutton

[00:26:45] internal monologue that is going on blows my mind.

[00:26:50] So sometimes our self-talk can come up in the form of feelings like a ugh or an eek or

[00:26:57] an oh, or we can see it play out like a movie.

[00:27:01] Some people I've talked to see it like a movie playing out in their mind.

[00:27:05] So not only was I frustrated that people were given a limited tool set, but I was frustrated

[00:27:11] that there was so much focus on the talk part of self-talk because what I realized is that

[00:27:19] first of all, if you're dealing with just the talk part of self-talk, the word part of

[00:27:24] self-talk, and you're talking to someone who doesn't experience their self-talk or isn't

[00:27:29] experiencing their self-talk of the moment in words to begin with, like that's not going

[00:27:35] to work because that's not the starting place for them anyway.

[00:27:37] But what I found through working with people, through researching, through just being like

[00:27:43] a self-talk nerd is that the talk part is symptomatic.

[00:27:49] It's getting underneath what's actually going on and getting to the first part of the equation,

[00:27:53] the self part of the equation, that is what allows you to make the real lasting changes

[00:28:00] to move you forward in your life.

[00:28:02] And so then I was like, okay, well, that sounds nice, but let's figure out how people can actually

[00:28:09] do that without giving them this hyper-specific rubric to follow that is just one size fits

[00:28:16] all for everyone.

[00:28:17] So the book walks you through what it means to shift your self-talk starting with the self

[00:28:24] part.

[00:28:24] So a lot of times we'll talk about like finding ourself or loving ourself, but we aren't even

[00:28:33] clear why we need a sense of self.

[00:28:35] So the first part of the book is actually called You Need a Self.

[00:28:39] And I define self as the core truthiest truth of who you are.

[00:28:45] And after that, you find yourself and not in this like pie in the sky kind of way, like find,

[00:28:54] not search out there, but dig in here who you actually are and who you're bringing forth

[00:29:01] into the world.

[00:29:01] And only when you do that, can you start to be yourself out loud?

[00:29:06] Because finding yourself and just locking yourself in, in your body and in your head and in your

[00:29:11] heart, that's going to create a really, really, if we're talking about uncomfortable feelings,

[00:29:16] uncomfortable feelings, if you are not who you say you are out loud.

[00:29:22] So we want to turn that Venn diagram of who we know ourselves to be and who we are out loud

[00:29:27] into a circle.

[00:29:28] And then this is the part where most people get tripped up is how do you stay yourself when,

[00:29:38] like we talked about, shit hits the fan, life keeps lifing.

[00:29:42] Maybe we encounter people who throw us off of our game.

[00:29:46] How do we stay ourselves at that point of time?

[00:29:49] And then only after we've gone through that cycle for ourselves over and over, can we get

[00:29:55] to a point where we consistently feel like, oh yeah, I want myself.

[00:30:01] I want the self that I am and that I have.

[00:30:04] Yeah.

[00:30:05] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:30:07] Oh, I resonate with so much of that.

[00:30:09] Can you talk to me a little bit about when you started this journey?

[00:30:14] Like what have you seen change in your life personally when you started shifting your self-talk?

[00:30:22] Oh, that's a great question.

[00:30:24] I found that so much of how I moved forward, not just in my life, but in everyday conversations

[00:30:35] with people.

[00:30:36] I think that what I found when I started to turn that awareness on myself, because I've

[00:30:43] always been a highly sensitive, hyper-noticer, introverted personality type, actually.

[00:30:49] I've always noticed what's going on in the world before even anyone told me about it.

[00:30:58] And so when I started to turn that level of noticing onto myself and started to pay attention

[00:31:05] to the feelings that I felt when I felt maybe triggered by something, I struggled throughout

[00:31:13] my late teens and early twenties with a whole host of eating disorders and body related disorders.

[00:31:20] And anyone who's gone through those.

[00:31:22] Yeah.

[00:31:22] Like, you know, it's those are mental illnesses.

[00:31:25] Like, it's very rarely about the food, about your body, about exercise.

[00:31:29] It's really about something deeper.

[00:31:31] And it's not that my negative self-talk caused those things.

[00:31:37] I think it was a combination of environment, of, you know, my surroundings, my circumstances,

[00:31:44] and who I was.

[00:31:46] But I think that what had sort of turned up the dial on what eventually led to that whole

[00:31:54] host of eating disorders and body dysmorphia and all of that was this language that I leaned

[00:32:01] on in the hard moments of my life.

[00:32:05] Because like I said, it's really hard to shift a habit that you've had for so long or learn

[00:32:13] a language, if you will, right when you need it.

[00:32:15] This is something that builds over time.

[00:32:18] And so what I realized when I started to pay attention is how deeply it was ingrained in

[00:32:25] me and how much I was practicing it with the people around me, like practicing this language.

[00:32:32] Because if you want to get fluent in a language, you can't just speak it in your head.

[00:32:35] You have to practice with people.

[00:32:37] I was practicing what I call casual negativity with people all of the time.

[00:32:42] And I was reinforcing that language.

[00:32:45] So casual negativity is saying things about yourself, about how you feel, how you look, how

[00:32:53] you interact with the world, things that feel negative and that are diminishing of yourself.

[00:33:00] But they are as casual and emotionless as saying, sky is blue.

[00:33:05] You'd say, oh, I was so awful there.

[00:33:08] Or, oh, I hate my body, whatever it is.

[00:33:12] Well, yeah, that's what I was going to say.

[00:33:14] It's like a perfect example.

[00:33:16] When I was writing Eat, Pray, FML, there were a lot of instances where the sentence,

[00:33:22] I'm so fat or I can't like, you know, I've just been eating my way through Europe comments

[00:33:28] on my body that when the book came out, I actually got a couple comments from people online saying

[00:33:36] that I was fat phobic.

[00:33:37] And I was like, wait, what?

[00:33:38] Like, that's the farthest thing.

[00:33:41] And then when I started really doing, you know, my due diligence on it, I was like, oh,

[00:33:46] they're talking about like me about myself.

[00:33:48] And yeah, that's accurate.

[00:33:51] I have had a long history with eating disorders.

[00:33:54] And like, I was at one of the most like vulnerable times in my life after my breakup and my divorce.

[00:34:00] And I was like, yeah, very hyper focused on how I looked, how I felt physically.

[00:34:06] And that's that casual negativity where I was consistently harping on my body.

[00:34:12] But in my brain, it didn't carry a lot of weight.

[00:34:14] It was just being said like very casually.

[00:34:17] Yeah, we don't even realize that we're doing it or how much we are doing it because this

[00:34:23] is ingrained in us and is practiced over time.

[00:34:28] And so I think for me, when I started to realize that, that's when things started to change

[00:34:35] because I was able to develop an awareness of not just what was going on, but how I wanted

[00:34:44] to be, how I wanted to feel and what I believed at my core, which I hadn't been questioning these

[00:34:53] things.

[00:34:54] I think that so often we can talk about our beliefs or values or who we are.

[00:35:01] And then when it comes down to it, if people were to say, okay, so tell me, who are you?

[00:35:10] And not what is your job?

[00:35:12] Not what label are you putting on yourself?

[00:35:15] Like intricately describe who you are.

[00:35:18] I think a lot of us would probably struggle or at least pause for a while because we haven't

[00:35:27] been in that habit of thinking like, oh, who am I versus who I have been maybe performing

[00:35:34] for the world.

[00:35:36] And that's not always like a bad thing.

[00:35:38] You know, I think that a lot of times we'll talk about like, like staying true to you and

[00:35:44] being who you were before the world told you who to be all of that.

[00:35:48] I think it's also worth mentioning, especially in this conversation that because we're humans,

[00:35:54] we are community focused beings and we by nature are able to be influenced by one another.

[00:36:03] And if we aren't like, I mean, that means that we're usually like a robot or a sociopath

[00:36:11] if we're not being influenced by each other.

[00:36:13] Influence, influence like isn't a bad thing.

[00:36:16] And I, so I think that when we talk about like, what are my beliefs and what is a belief

[00:36:20] that was handed to me?

[00:36:21] It's not necessarily about that.

[00:36:24] It's about, okay, not where did this start, which is important to know, like what is the

[00:36:30] origin story of the self-talk that I have, but what am I moving forward and what sort of

[00:36:37] tools and phrases am I using to not only tell my story, but tell the story about the world

[00:36:44] around me.

[00:36:45] And so when I started to really do that work and get super curious and figure out, okay,

[00:36:52] well, what would finding myself actually, what would that mean?

[00:36:57] Who is this Katie underneath there?

[00:37:00] And what is at the core of everything I love to do and everything that I go after and all

[00:37:06] these different things.

[00:37:07] That's when I started to feel like, oh, okay, cool.

[00:37:12] Now I can start to develop a sense of self worth because worth is comparative, right?

[00:37:20] But if we don't know what we value within ourselves, then we're not even really comparing.

[00:37:27] We're taking this sort of void and looking at outside.

[00:37:33] So of course, we are going to feel low self worth because we haven't even decided what's

[00:37:38] valuable in us.

[00:37:39] We've just been looking at what's valuable in other people.

[00:37:42] So I mean, that's a long answer to the short question.

[00:37:45] But the short answer is what changed everything?

[00:37:50] Yeah.

[00:37:51] Yeah.

[00:37:52] Preach girl.

[00:37:53] Oh, that last little bit about self worth.

[00:37:55] I think people need to like rewind 30 seconds and re listen to that.

[00:37:58] That was some, some golden stuff.

[00:38:00] Katie, can you please tell everybody what the name of the book is, where they can get it all

[00:38:04] of the things if they want to come find you on social media?

[00:38:07] How do they do that?

[00:38:09] Yes.

[00:38:10] So the book is called want yourself shift yourself talk and unearth the strength and who you were

[00:38:16] all along.

[00:38:18] Those words are intentional.

[00:38:19] And the word unearth is because finding yourself is not a search.

[00:38:24] It is a dig.

[00:38:25] So what the book can hopefully help people do is uncover and unearth who they have always

[00:38:32] known they are meant to be and who they always really have been.

[00:38:36] They can find the book at want yourself.com wherever books are sold.

[00:38:42] As they say, they can also find me at katiehorwich.com.

[00:38:47] They can find the bulk of my work on my platform, which is what which stands for women against negative

[00:38:53] talk.

[00:38:54] It's women against negative talk.com.

[00:38:56] I also have a podcast called the want cast the women against negative talk podcast, and

[00:39:00] they can find that wherever they subscribe to their favorite pods.

[00:39:04] And I am all over social media at Katie Horwich, just my name.

[00:39:10] Awesome.

[00:39:10] I love it.

[00:39:11] This has been so wonderful.

[00:39:13] Thank you for being here.

[00:39:14] Thank you for sharing all of this goodness with us.

[00:39:16] And I hope people go pick up that book because it's like, that's the biggest thing people can

[00:39:22] start to do to change their lives from within.

[00:39:25] So I hope they buy it and read it and start digging.

[00:39:28] Thank you.

[00:39:29] I've had such a great afternoon with you.

[00:39:32] Thank you for being here.

[00:39:38] I want to thank Katie so much for coming on the show today.

[00:39:41] I think this work that she's doing that we talked about on this episode today is so fucking

[00:39:47] important to start being aware of how you view yourself.

[00:39:52] That last part that she said about who you really are, not what society has like placed

[00:39:57] on you, not your job title and your money situation and like the outside things, but like

[00:40:03] who you really are internally and how you want to make that known to the world around you

[00:40:11] is so incredibly important.

[00:40:13] Be on top of that negative self-talk, you guys.

[00:40:16] I really recommend if you know that this is an issue for you and it's something you've needed to

[00:40:22] work on and you're one of those self-deprecating people that like does the casual negativity,

[00:40:27] go get this book, dive into it.

[00:40:30] It will probably be one of the best journeys you can take yourself on.

[00:40:33] I hope you got some good stuff out of this episode.

[00:40:37] I know I did.

[00:40:37] I will be doing my planned freakouts and I will see you guys next week.

[00:40:45] All right, FMLers.

[00:40:47] If you don't want to miss an episode, make sure to follow on your favorite podcast app.

[00:40:52] And if you're loving the show, drop us a five-star rating and leave a review.

[00:40:56] You can keep up with me on Instagram at Gabrielle Stone or the podcast page at FML Talk Podcast.

[00:41:03] For all the merch and books signed personally by me, you can shop the FML line on eatpreyfml.com.

[00:41:10] And as always, have a fucking self-love cocktail on me.

[00:41:15] Cheers.

[00:41:22] This podcast has been brought to you by Podcast Nation.