The BODcast - S3E1 (incomplete)

This transcript is incomplete - the remaining 25 minutes of transcription will be available ASAP.

April: Well everyone, I am ridiculously excited to introduce Sarah Nicole Landry; you might know her as The Birds Papaya. She is a mum to four children, three of whom we get to make if we watch Instagram stories – Lemmy, Bo and Gemma (not Gemma mom as she’s clarified) plus Maya. For me I'm a long time follower and I could literally not be more thrilled to be chatting with you.

Sarah: I'm so excited; you have been … like you know when you open your DM's and you know you have a bit of a choice - like you get to choose what you open, and I always know when I open yours it's going to be joyful. And that is… I don't think that creators can touch on enough because I think a lot of people think ‘oh you must get a million messages a day’ and I’m sure I do but the ones that are truly encouraging and cheerful - I mean, it means a lot. It means a lot especially in a time like now where there's like a lot of division going on, it means a lot to have just somebody who is cheering you on and being a friend and I've loved following you. I have learned so much from you so this is just such a nice opportunity for me.

A: Well my goodness …I do kind of like other people won’t be able to see but my face is so red! I'm just … Jeez that's a good way to start my day! I’m just so chuffed!

S: I don’t even know what that word means!

A:  Oh, like, thrilled… I'm in Australia we probably actually say we're frothing but I'm not sure that that's necessarily…

S: Frothing at the mouth?!

A: Well I don't know if they mean the mouth… I'm like it's a very weird turn of phrase but in Australia we say words that don't really mean anything

A: Yeah, all right now I'm sorry … *laughter*  Most people remember coming across you, you know as a mom and a blogger; I feel like it could be as long as ten years ago that I would have seen posts from you on Facebook?

S: Facebook for sure I would say Instagram is when I truly started to be a little bit more into what would be somewhat familiar… not as you know, t's like evolved a million times over … but I have been I guess on Instagram for seven or eight years ,so it's been that yeah I've been a blogger and on Facebook for thirteen years, almost fourteen. I came from a season of life where I was a stay at home mom with two little kids so named after them – Maya ‘Papaya’ and Gemma ‘Birdie’ – and Gemma was just a baby so it would have been almost fourteen years now which is wild.

A: I was just trying to think when I was writing my notes for this episode, like when I remember first seeing you; I can't remember the exact place but I just remember seeing it and thinking ‘I have never ever seen anything like that on Facebook before, ever’.

I saw this post shared by a friend who's a mum and I went ‘what the heck, oh my god this is amazing!’ and so you know it I guess for I think for everyone who follows you I'm going to say thank you for starting and really mainstreaming that conversation about bodies.

You really pioneered that - I do feel like there are a lot of people who would never have thought of doing what you did and it was really awesome of you to do that.

S: Well I was kind of pushed into it too; like I don't even feel like I chose it; I was a weight loss account, straight up - I was a weight loss account and people started really enquiring about how much the skin I had which is a very common common conversation to have… like  “where's your loose skin, how do you get rid of loose skin, loose skin, loose skin…” -  and I at one point, I was like this was my loose skin, it happened to show my stretch marks and I and I tagged the bra that I was wearing in the post (because that's what you did) and that was Knix the brand, and the founder, she slid into my DMs!

Knix was like a really tiny brand at the time, just bras and underwear, really. She slid in my DMs and was like “we’d really like you to model for something” and I thought “there's no freaking way” because I had such control over what I showed and how I looked. The whole concept of having to give my body over into somebody else's creative control was truly terrifying, and it wasn't until like I .. I assumed, wrongly, that I would be put in high rise underwear because of my stomach, because of its loose skin, because of the stretch marks – that they would automatically put me in something high rise to cover it.

They put me in low rise and I was upset, but I didn't say anything because I’m a people pleaser, so I was just like “okay, I guess I'll do this” and then they were like “let’x take out your belly button ring, like let's make this as YOU as possible,” and I was just I don't even know how I got through those moments, but by the end of the day I felt really like…  was cool! I sat with so much anxiety of like “what are those pictures to look like?” and when they dropped, I thought I was going to throw up; like I… first of all, I've never seen anybody with a stomach like mine, they were not mainstream like they are now - and I think I always have to remind everyone that we didn't see that! I had never in my life (except on my own mother) seen stretch marks that looks like mine; they were wide, they were long, they were up to my ribs…  they weren't like, just under your armpits and your boobs, like mine were very strong and they went halfway up my body.  

So I remember when that photo came out, and I just wanted to throw up and it was on Facebook.. and it was posted by Knix, not by me and my face was like kinda in, my face was there and I just had to read the comments. And the comments were just like one after the other of “I've never seen somebody that looks like me” and I”'ve never seen stretch marks like mine ever in an ad” and ended up, like it went viral - and I just was like “hold on a second… first of all, I thought I was the only one!” so now I'm finding out through comments that there's other people and it was like something turned a switch in my brain that day… that for eight years I've been mourning and disgusted and terrified about how it would be perceived, that I was curating even at how little I would show and then all of a sudden it was like this it was an empowering part of me - like this was this really unique part of me and I was just like, I just felt  really excited and that I almost had an obligation to not keep hiding that part of myself … and also realizing, remembering how I felt that day, taking those photos  - that at the end of the day, I felt really really good and that now everybody knew my stomach look like so why do I care to put a t-shirt on in the bedroom anymore? Why am I … why am I scared to go to the beach? Everybody here he knows; the secrets been told, like it's gone … and that just chipped away at my shame. I didn't realize there would be a lot more shame we would chip away at like fatphobia and you know cellulite, there was so much more I would chip away at later; but in the beginning, truly, in moments like you're explaining, that was a moment that was a collective moment for so many of us - including me, like truly including me.

Now I see that there were other advertisements that came out, ones I had never seen - but there was other representation far before me.  But mine was the first I'd ever seen, and it was the first for a lot of people and it's still, it's still can be the first …like every once a while ago I go on TikTok and I'm like “oh yeah, y’all have never seen this, like y’ll have never seen a stomach like this!”
So I mean I think that's why I why I did it, right, and yeah like I said it was truly at a time that I was still like “weight loss!” but yeah that change came later.

A: Yeah, and that’s so relatable to me, I'll started off my blogging talking around bodies and weight and things like that, and obviously we know for both of us so much has changed -  and that’s such a great account of what happened because today  - before I started chatting with you, I actually had posted about the fact that it's one year today since the billboard that I did.

S: Yes yes yes! Oh my gosh, that was a year ago.

A: A year ago … what has happened… so much. You had a whole baby.

S: I had a whole baby and my brain just went from like A to B like it was nothing.

A: You’re loke, “OH here I am again!”

think I relate so heavily to what you said about the secret being out; once people have seen that photograph and for anyone who is listening in Australia they may have seen,  I actually did a TV show as well also as part of the billboard shoot there it was TV episode where I was featured.

S: Oh my god, so cool.

A: And so for a lot of people; people I work with, people I know, people I don't know, they all saw that… of course not you don't normally see me running around a bikini - not one that small anyway -  that's not normally me, but now I'm kind of like, well yeah… it's no secret, it was on a six story high billboard in the middle of one of the biggest  cities

S: It’s kind of like immersion therapy, right?  You're just like well yeah, there we are!

A: My tolerance for public nudity has increased exponentially. I mean, I will still wear clothes most of the time.

So these days: you modeled for Knix, you’re not only a writer now … obviously your captions are some of the highest quality even when they're only one line, I get so much joy out of some of the things that you post, my lord. Not to mention the fact that I'm now obsessed with Mario Kart and for so many years I was like “I don't know what the appeal is?” now I can’t stop playing, it it's actually ridiculous.

S: Now get into Animal Crossing and then we'll really get going.

A: OK I’ll take that recommendation; I feel like there’s something more relaxing about Mario Kart than other things.

S: See that's what Animal Crossing is for me, because it's busy work; it's it literally tending to a home, your job, you're doing stuff and my mind goes into the most relaxing state because I can't relax without my mind doing something… so when I'm playing Animal Crossing my brain is busy enough but I'm so relaxed that I’m in like, a meditative state. So me and another friend, we play a lot when we’re high stress, that's usually what we'll do. Shut it down, let's play Animal Crossing. We actually did four hundred hours in 2020, if that just wants to give you like a little glimmer of how much I needed it… but yeah

A: It's nice that you've got something, I think for some people they don't have the things that help them go “okay I'm gonna, you know… it;’s self care! Self care looks different for everyone.

S: Some people meditate, I play Animal Crossing!

A: I just stare at my phone.

So obviously you host ‘The Papaya Podcast’, you’re a four time cover girl -  that’s so cool

S: It’s been so cool.

A: It’s so nice for people who, especially people who stay at home with the kids as well, who can see themselves in someone like you  - and I know that you have been an amazing advocate and ally during everything that's happened over the last few years, and I definitely want us to touch on that.  I just think people who admired you when you were a weight loss account and were able to come on that journey with you, like what you must have done to transform on people's perceptions of themselves because you are showing yourself evolving is really powerful. I remember listening to the episode that you did with the Raffela in 2020 and I was just so moved by that, you were both sharing in such a vulnerable way.

It was really validating, I think, for someone that I really admire to have a conversation – a pretty tough conversation to have.

S: It was!

A: For people who are listening and don't know what I'm referring to, Raffela kind of spearheaded the conversation around thin privilege and body positivity online, and you were so open to having that conversation and amplifying what she had to say,  and with a lot of grace, I think  - so I guess my question is, have things changed much for you since that conversation?

S: Yes, because you know I hadn’t been using the term ‘body positive’ for quite a while before that ever came about -  because I really did learn about the roots but I made a mistake in not being open about that learning. I never shared really about it, I was just like “don't label me that, that's not what I am” and I didn't do enough in the work of being an ally. I didn't do enough in making sure that people were, I mean especially in such fatphobic society, people were very okay with me sharing my stomach or sharing loose skin because, as I love to clarify with people “I can roll up my yoga pants and walk out the front door and be treated like anybody else” -  and that differentiating factor is where a lot of people get really really uncomfortable. Like, “I'm really fine with this movement as long as you don't step to the other side of it, like don't go too far!”

And that's where I was like no, I was really kind of leading in a way that was truly to a wall. It was not pushing past it, and it was not … so when Raffela first put that %HESITATION she basically had a story a story series, where she talked about, you know ‘there's a lot of people who are in very thin privileged bodies, most of them white women -  and they are (you know, straight size meaning you can fit in normal clothing sizes) and they're becoming the face of body positivity’, and I immediately I was like “I'm not body positive, not my thing at all! I'm just out here like, holy crap there's a lot of shame around women's bodies!”

But it didn't matter; it didn't matter what I intended, it mattered what was being perceived. I read some of the comments and I obviously wanted to throw up - I was also like very sick and pregnant, so I always wanted to throw up - and I remember thinking, “I can't believe this woman is just like straight up attacking me, without having a conversation, I wish she had just had a conversation with me,” and so I'm like you know what, I I'm betting that she just wants to have a conversation too… so we decided to have that conversation live on a podcast, and really hold space for each other. Raffela’s one of my dear friends now, she continues to kind of like, push me when I need it, but also like sometimes she’ll be like “I'm sorry for the way we met” and I’m like I’m NOT, because it made me a better person, it made me push not just myself further, but bring other people alongside that type of learning.

If you're okay with me having, you know, stretch marks and cellulite, like can we push that further? Like I understand that for people, especially as somebody who's been healing through their own fatphobia, there is a line of healing ,right? And if I'm one step to that, there has to be a stone after me - like there has to be another step after, I can't be the end of the line.  It has to be ‘you've got to this point, cool, you accept it, that's awesome, I'm so glad that we had this conversation - now let's talk about why it's so different for me than it is for other people. Let's go into the next part’.

And so I really started to own that it wasn't eliminating me from a conversation, but it was like if there is a stepping stone, I'm one stone. So it really just - that's what I take from that.

It did change a little bit of the way I talk ,I think it made me always wanr to knowledge my privilege even while speaking in the spaces. And also, as I gained weight and as I was pregnant I began to see how triggering a lot of the thinner body positive stuff was, and that was difficult because I was like ‘oh crap, I was that person’ and like I definitely was doing some of this stuff … and that's really hard to see that and experience that, how somebody else might have experienced it … and so it's really caused me to like stop, and reflect.

Then also having to navigate, like there's parts of my story that I can't change - there is parts of me that are just truly who I am, and I know that I still have - like especially going through postpartum, I honestly thought I was going to be like “oh this is a cake walk, in this work, I've been doing this for so long I'm gonna be fine” and there is nothing like being praised and adored and admired for your belly and then immediately scrutinized ,immediately scrutinized  - and immediately, like everything that was so cute when you're eating you know, ice cream and stuff when you're pregnant  - the second you're doing it post partum people are like, ‘hold on, are you sure about that? How are you going to get the baby weight off?

It was it was such a switch and I plummeted, like my mental health plummeted and so everything was triggering so I understood that I still need to show up and I still have  to have these conversations, but it has to be ‘this, and’ has to be ‘this, and as well…’, like it couldn't -  I couldn't be the end of the sentence. So I mean I adore that all happened and I think it's still going, and I think there's so much more to go - and it is a lot of like gentle calling out of people, which I'm still uncomfortable with. I have been doing a lot of that more lately, and just like helping people see where it maybe is problematic, or just like it's a simple swap of language sometimes - and and the whole post will change right, and I think for a lot of people at the beginning of those journeys are really stepping into these new spaces, having to learn - as I did  - to acknowledge that privilege is a huge huge part of the whole thing.

A: You've hit the nail on the head again for me when you talk about stepping stones; obviously I'm someone who, you know, fat liberation, body acceptance, self love… I do want every person to be able to shed those body image issues that hold us back from doing fun things because we're afraid about how we look when we're doing things or just simply existing… but I agree that the idea of a stepping stone it is what it is and that's why I personally  - I'm still wanting to engage with and consume the content of people who are thinner than me, who speak about wanting their bodies to be accepted - because my personal experience is that I was friends with someone who had kids and had some issues around her body, very similarly to you, had kids and never seen her body kind of uncovered in public. And that meant that she really wasn't that nice to me, because her own stuff she reflected onto me and I think if that person had had a you, or whoever else that they could look at and feel like ‘actually I don't need to feel this way about myself’ - I always think that  body positivity is self love, but when you externalize it…  so when you accept yourself you aren’t then looking at yourself with scrutiny, which allows you to open up some space to not look at other people with scrutiny?

S: Yes!

A: Because your mind is able to go, ‘well I mean whatever they do with their body and their health and then whatever is not actually my business,’.

But you know, I think learning to be able to stop judging yourself also gives you that ability and that skill to not judge other people, and so I think everybody's got a person that they see on one I feel like they relate to ..and so I'm not gonna be that person for everyone, you're not going to be that person for everyone, right? It's like if we can all see ourselves represented in a positive way, in a way that is your demonstration of accepting ourselves having grace for ourselves, you know -  when we talk about self love, love is nurturing and being content and saying to somebody ‘let me handle that for you’, okay …but say it to yourself! That’s a lesson that I’ve hard learned.