Episode 9: When Cultural Expectations Make You Feel Like SH*T

[00:00:00] Erin: Hi, and welcome to the Grounded in Love podcast. This is a podcast taken us through conscious living and loving. We are on episode nine, and we are your hosts Garrett and Erin. I am not sure what we're talking about today. So Garrett, if you could introduce our topic.
[00:00:52] Garrett: So I wanted to start exploring cultural norms and expectations.
How they relate to how we feel about ourselves.
[00:01:03] Erin: Okay. That sounds very interesting,
[00:01:06] Garrett: Right? So the first thing that came to mind was makeup, people wearing makeup. Okay. So it's expected for people to wear makeup at times. Would you agree?
[00:01:20] Erin: Yes.
[00:01:21] Garrett: So when would those times be for a, from a female's perspective?
[00:01:26] Erin: Like going out for a date night, let's say maybe going to work.
A lot of different occasions, I'd say.
[00:01:34] Garrett: And there's some people that won't leave the house without makeup, is that right?
[00:01:36] Erin: Yeah.
[00:01:37] Garrett: Do you say that's correct? Yeah,
[00:01:38] Erin: Every day, all the time.
[00:01:40] Garrett: hmm. So I want to start exploring why that is.
[00:01:45] Erin: Okay.
[00:01:45] Garrett: Why do people feel the need to wear makeup? And I'm going to eventually mention a commercial that I saw recently where a company that sells makeup was using kind of conscious principles to sell makeup in a very interesting way.
[00:02:06] Erin: Okay.
[00:02:07] Garrett: Okay. So, first of all, the act of putting on makeup. Isn't a bad thing, right?
[00:02:15] Erin: There is no good or bad.
[00:02:17] Garrett: Right? But I feel like there's two different ways of putting on makeup or two different reasons. One reason is you don't like the way you look so you're trying to look better. Okay, so that sounds about right?
Mm hmm. And another reason is I'm going out and it's just part of what I do when I go out and so I do it.
[00:02:43] Erin: Sure. I think that you can also look at it as, it can be very creative and artistic. So it's an outlet for design, you know, art.
[00:02:56] Garrett: So creativity. And I definitely could see that, there's an artistic element to it.
[00:03:01] Erin: Yeah.
[00:03:02] Garrett: So, I think the ego is really tricky here in which one it is, though.
[00:03:08] Erin: Oh, yeah, for sure
[00:03:09] Garrett: Because I think a lot of people that put on makeup or feel compelled to put on makeup don't like the way they look and w ant to look a different way.
[00:03:20] Erin: They don't feel complete until they've put on their makeup,
[00:03:23] Garrett: Right?
Right, who made that up, where did that come from?
[00:03:27] Erin: Right. Well, that's a cultural, societal thing.
[00:03:32] Garrett: Of course, because makeup didn't use to exist.
[00:03:34] Erin: Right.
[00:03:35] Garrett: So, it was sold to us that we need to look differently so that we look okay, just out in the world.
[00:03:43] Erin: Part of the marketing scheme of capitalism and selling things.
[00:03:47] Garrett: Yeah, absolutely. Like we're going to push this idea that you aren't just perfect the way you are. We're going to push the idea of the opposite of that, where you are ugly until you use our products so that you look better. Now I do think that there's the artistic element to it as well.
And the creativity part to the makeup. So how do we determine. Which camp we fall in right? How do you know if you're a person that does makeup for the creative or just because it's part of just a thing It has no meaning. It's just a thing versus I'm doing it because I have some insecurity about myself.
[00:04:32] Erin: All right, I think that you have to first of all be aware your thoughts and when you don't put on makeup, how do you feel, what are your thoughts if you are going to go out on a date or maybe to work, whatever it is, whenever you usually put on makeup and you don't feel like you're pretty enough without putting it on. If you didn't put it on, how do you feel, what are your thoughts?
[00:05:02] Garrett: I would say I like the test of can you go without it? Right. Is there equity between the two outcomes?
When you go out, if you didn't have the makeup, would you just be like, oh, well, I don't have makeup today. Like if you forgot your makeup, would it just be like, uh, whatever?
[00:05:21] Erin: Mm hmm.
[00:05:22] Garrett: Or would it be like this very uncomfortable feeling? Mm hmm.
[00:05:24] Erin: Yeah,
[00:05:25] Garrett: So I think the test is really if it wasn't there, would you be comfortable or would you have discomfort and if there is discomfort, then, you know, they're not equal. They're not equal things So I think that's helpful for people to start to realize this at least if you are kind of a makeup wearer and you normally put it on and you don't feel okay if you don't put it on. It's something to see because you're absolutely beautiful without makeup.
You don't need any makeup to look gorgeous.
And people who say that you aren't gorgeous if you don't have makeup on. Are projecting their own insecurities and judgments about themselves onto you, right? It's not a you thing, it's they don't feel accepted without makeup, so they push that onto you.
And so you can see how this cycle of marketing has happened where it starts to push this idea that you're not the okay the way that you are. Here's a product to help you with it. And now people that don't wear it are almost like outcasts because people feel ashamed of themselves so that's why they put on makeup sometimes and now they are projecting all this into the world and it creates a cycle of needing to have something in your life that's unnecessary,
[00:06:57] Erin: Yeah. I don't know as a nonmakeup wearer myself. I am not sure how judged I feel by others. I think there probably is some judgment, everybody else is getting all ready and I'm not putting in that extra effort. I don't know, but yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting question is how much are other people judging each other.
You know, I don't judge people who wear makeup. I don't know.
[00:07:24] Garrett: Yeah. And like, if you are a makeup wearer it's the thing that I'm not saying that you are like an evil person or anything. I think it's more so just can we be aware of some of the things that we habitually do, which is the point of kind of this podcast is to start thinking about cultural expectations of us.
[00:07:43] Erin: I'll tell you something that I do and I don't feel comfortable going out if I haven't done it. And it's for absolutely no other reason than vanity or whatever is. Shaving my legs or armpits. Yeah, I don't really like if I have a couple day old leg hair, and I'm going out to the beach or just even to the store.
I am not feeling very comfortable about that. And it's silly, it really is, but it's one of those things.
[00:08:16] Garrett: Yeah, so, that's a great point, as women in particular, are expected, at least in our culture, to shave certain parts of their body.
[00:08:27] Erin: Mm hmm. And I know that there are some generations here that have changed that.
[00:08:34] Garrett: Well, there's people out there that don't change.
Right,
[00:08:35] Erin: Exactly. And I'm just not brave enough yet to be one of those people. It's amazing, how ingrained it is in me.
[00:08:45] Garrett: Yeah, and it's tough because it's okay if you want to shave your body like some people shave their head some women shave their heads Some men shave their heads. It's fine, right?
There's nothing wrong with shaving or having your hair a certain way or doing all that. It's a matter of like you said if you did go to the beach on a day where you couldn't shave and you had a couple days of leg hair on you would you be like, oh, well, it's fine? And to you, it's not right now.
[00:09:14] Erin: And that's the part that is my own insecurities that I need to be aware of, which I am.
[00:09:20] Garrett: Yeah, but you can, you can shave your legs and be aware and conscious and not have any. It again comes back to the equity. Is it equal? Between the two things, so the commercial that we both saw recently was this makeup commercial and they're talking about the power of your true self and how you are beautiful just the way you are and it was a Revlon commercial and it was only people wearing makeup in the commercial, yet they were talking about just how beautiful you are, just as you are, but of course, make sure you wear makeup.
[00:10:01] Erin: Yeah, it was really weird.
[00:10:03] Garrett: Wow, that is like, so deceiving. I like the message, but when you're a makeup company saying like you're beautiful as you are, it just is ironic.
[00:10:15] Erin: Yeah. It made no sense.
[00:10:17] Garrett: Right. Okay. So let's shift to body image.
[00:10:21] Erin: Okay.
[00:10:21] Garrett: So this is something I've struggled with. I didn't realize how much I struggled with body image until very recently.
[00:10:29] Erin: I think that's probably very common.
[00:10:31] Garrett: Yeah, and I still don't quite understand where it came from. And I don't know if I just absorbed it through cultural, again, marketing, expectations, etc.
[00:10:47] Erin: 100%.
[00:10:49] Garrett: But as a kid, I didn't have body image issues. I just didn't even care about what my body looked like. Eventually, I started playing sports, or I played sports and I wanted to get stronger, and that's why I started doing some exercising and weightlifting and stuff like that.
But then at some point in time, I don't even know when, as a teenager I got very vain, I guess, about what I looked like and uncomfortable if I didn't look a certain way.
[00:11:17] Erin: You sound very naive here because it's very clear, I think, to females at least. That as a teenager, this 100 percent happens to everyone.
[00:11:26] Garrett: But I think because I'm a male I didn't have the same pressures put on me about my body image.
So you're like, Hey, dude, this happens all the time. Yeah,
[00:11:40] Erin: We, I mean, we are 100 percent aware that as we become teenagers, this is thrust upon us and it's the way our mind starts thinking is all about your body image and everything like it's unfortunate, but it's very clear.
[00:11:56] Garrett: So clearly I'm late to the game here. I did not understand how much pressure there was about body image, but I know it comes for me, at least it comes from a place of wanting acceptance from other people and, and validation from other people. Because for some reason I feel like if I don't have a certain type of body, if my body doesn't look a certain way, I won't be accepted by society, or by people that I love, or by my friends.
And the crazy part is, is like, I know better. I know better. I know that this is just a body. And it's going to die and it's going to go away yet there's still this pressure, this pattern ingrained in me to like care. Like even as much as a month ago, it was like thinking about having a six pack,
Like my thoughts were thinking about having a six pack and it's like, why do I care about obtaining a six pack?
What does that even mean? It has nothing to do with awareness, consciousness, anything like that, again, it's just a body, but why do I care so much about that, even with everything that I've learned?
[00:13:17] Erin: You think there's any sort of evolutionary factor in this of when you are looking for a mate, you're looking for the best genetics to create offspring and there's some sort of factors of beauty and strength or health? That are involved in this, or do you think it's like completely societal and culturally defined
[00:13:45] Garrett: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
So what's beautiful to you may be completely different than what's beautiful to someone else. So our culture here in America cares very much about what we look like, and how skinny we are, right? Or how muscular we are but other cultures. Value being bigger and being more round.
[00:14:14] Erin: It would represent more of like health or wealth than the poor starving look that we adore here in the West. Something that it's culturally means that you're not as healthy in the East or wherever.
[00:14:31] Garrett: Right. So to answer your question, to me it can't be an evolutionary thing if both people are humans. And some humans live here and other humans live elsewhere, and yet they're looking for different things and different partners. So maybe there's an argument that it is evolutionary. I think that argument's been made.
But to me, if it was evolutionary, it'd be the same everywhere, because we're all humans. Right? So I think there's more to it than just evolutionary. I think there's a lot of societal, again, pressure.
[00:15:04] Erin: I of course believe that as well. Like I said, it's very clear as a teenage girl or whatever, that you need to keep up with the Joneses on the fashion, your body and all of that.
[00:15:18] Garrett: So who's telling us all this
[00:15:20] Erin: Marketing? It has to be right?
[00:15:26] Garrett: Marketing has to be behind the story that you need to be a certain way. You need to buy certain things to get self-love I guess.
[00:15:41] Erin: Think about now social media and influencers. That's gotta be a huge part of it,
[00:15:50] Garrett: Right?
Absolutely. Absolutely. So, again, I think marketing isn't bad either. I think that the marketing simply reflects what we buy into. Like, we are so insecure about ourselves in so many ways that marketing just eats, like that's what they're reflecting to you.
They're just saying that we're just giving you what you are asking for.
Sure. So you're asking for us to fulfill your
[00:16:22] Erin: emptiness.
[00:16:23] Garrett: Emptiness. Mm-Hmm. And we're doing that for you. I think if we had a different perspective as a society, marketing would look very different.
[00:16:31] Erin: Mm hmm.
[00:16:32] Garrett: It wouldn't be so much about filling your voids. It'd be more about how do you continue to experience life in a positive manner.
[00:16:42] Erin: So I don't know. Is there anything we can do about this?
[00:16:47] Garrett: I think for ourselves we have to realize when do we feel insecure and uncomfortable and what are the actions we're taking? To fulfill that, you know, for me, it was either dieting or what I was eating or exercise and all those things can be healthy things, but when you're obsessed about them in a way because you have to look a certain way, that's very unhealthy.
[00:17:16] Erin: And I know that your tendency may be to think that it is for your health.
[00:17:22] Garrett: Yes. That's what my ego like rationalizes. It's like, no, this is healthy. This is healthy. You should care about what you eat. You should exercise. These things are healthy for you. Just make sure you have that six pack someday.
[00:17:37] Erin: Yeah, because there is a fine line between you're doing something for health that is also probably going to benefit your body and the way it looks. And it's very easy to convince yourself that you're doing it for health. Or to be doing healthy things and also care about, the way you look or whatever it is, it can be a blurred area.
[00:18:05] Garrett: Yeah. And so how I've tried to look at it is, can I love my body the way it is? And if I love my body the way it is, then the things that I decide in the future are, how do I take care of my body? In a, in a loving way, as opposed to. I don't like my body the way it is. I do want it to be different and I'm deciding from a judgmental way.
I'm not deciding from a loving place or caring place. I'm deciding from judgment. I think that's for me, at least the key to understanding how to balance the healthy eating and practices and exercise with self-acceptance and love.
[00:18:51] Erin: Yeah. I'm curious how many people out there are really self-conscious about their bodies.
I want to say almost everyone.
[00:19:01] Garrett: I would venture that.
So, body image, makeup, let's talk about status, status, the things that we have or don't have.
[00:19:14] Erin: It's another tough one.
[00:19:15] Garrett: So, I was fortunate to be raised in a family.
That had enough money growing up, but didn't care much about the luxury items or the status or the brands that they bought or that they had, and they didn't care as much about flaunting materialism to their peers. So I didn't grow up in a way of status and that importance of status. And yet I know lots of people that do care very much about status, especially in the line of work I'm in, I come across status a lot.
So do you have any experience with growing up with status in your life through childhood or teenage years?
[00:20:07] Erin: Well, I think that what's funny is the people who had less worried the most about status.
So that's where I saw it the most, where people who wanted it saw it as something that they didn't have. And for myself, I certainly wanted the Guess, shirts and jeans and clothes and the labels. My sister is older than me and I got all of her hand-me-downs and they were just never the right thing, and so I especially wanted the brands that were cool at the time or whatever, and that was completely just my friends had it that they said it was important.
And so then I thought it was important. And it was so silly. Of course, I'm like 10 and asking for like the Keds shoes or whatever it might be.
[00:21:10] Garrett: Yeah.
As kids, we are forming our little identities and they really solidify in your teenage years and into early adulthood. So you are kind of learning from your peers, like what's acceptable and what's not. And your parents, of course, and other influences in your life, that's all forming your identity. And the interesting thing is, you have to learn.
To form an identity in all these patterns, and then as you reach a place of awareness, you have to let go of all your patterns, change the way that your brain works, and remember that you're completely whole and accepted as you are, no matter what your brain or society or anybody else tells you.
[00:22:02] Erin: Yeah, I still, have issues with some of these things, appearance and everything.
I know that I usually think I'm doing great because I don't really care what I'm wearing or what I look like and whatever. And then it comes time to go out to something special or something and I'm like, I don't know what to wear.
I don't have any good clothes for this and I think that I'm not going to look right wherever I'm going, especially like a festival or something where everybody's like dressing, like it's a big, thing what you wear.
[00:22:39] Garrett: I mean, it can be. It just depends on you. Right, it doesn't have to be.
[00:22:43] Erin: So sometimes I'll go with the idea of that I'm not going to put effort into this. I'm not but then when I get there, I feel self-conscious, and so then the next time I'm like, well, I don't want to do that again.
So I'm really going to actually try to fit in here is the big thing.
[00:23:02] Garrett: Yeah, I don't think that it's going to be great either way, when you feel like you have to fit in somewhere. Right. That's not going to work out so great.
[00:23:12] Erin: Nope.
[00:23:13] Garrett: And then when you are somewhere and you feel like you don't fit in, that's not going to work so great.
[00:23:18] Erin: Right, I just have to be comfortable with me and whatever.
[00:23:21] Garrett: Because you're there. Yeah. You're just part of the whole experience. You don't have to be anything else.
[00:23:30] Erin: Right, but it's like how you originally said that maybe the makeup wearers are judging the nonmakeup wearers.
[00:23:39] Garrett: The body image people are judging them.
[00:23:41] Erin: Yes, that's how I feel at the festival.
[00:23:43] Garrett: The people that dress up are judging the people that dress down.
[00:23:47] Erin: Yeah.
[00:23:47] Garrett: Right. It's this, it's this cycle and the secret is it's not going to stop. So you have to find a way and me, I mean, all of us have to find a way to stop this cycle for ourselves because other people are going to continue spinning in this pattern and this, and there's not going to be a way to detach from that.
Right. You have to instead learn and feel what we need to feel inside to become complete and whole and accepted in ourselves. So that we become almost immune, it's like a vaccine, mental vaccine to become immune to marketing, to other people's thoughts and judgments and ideas and patterns.
[00:24:39] Erin: So, yeah, do you maybe have to be first not judgmental of yourself or maybe not be judgmental of others in order to not be judgmental of yourself or I think the big thing is feeling that wholeness inside that you are everything and you don't have to be filled up by other people's validations of how you look, what you're driving, what you're anything.
And then you can not judge yourself for those things because you're not judging others and you're, you're whole just the way you are.
[00:25:18] Garrett: Pay attention to your judgments. Your judgments will lead you to what you don't feel is acceptable about yourself or what you don't feel comfortable about yourself. Pay attention to those judgments.
They're important. That can be a huge part of growth.
[00:25:35] Erin: Let's say I feel like I'm judging somebody else for the way they've dressed at a festival or something. I would then be like, okay, if I'm judging someone else, it means I'm thinking about what my own status or whatever is here in this way.
Okay. Is that, is that kind of what you're saying? Mm hmm. And, then when I think about that, I have to say to myself, you don't need the validation of other people, you are beautiful and wonderful exactly the way you are if you are wearing anything.
And maybe even the next time wear something that is completely not going to fit the mold and then, and then fully embrace it and be like,
[00:26:31] Erin: Yeah, I don't care what anybody's thinking. As a practice, I don't know.
[00:26:34] Garrett: You could definitely do that.
You have to push yourself outside of your comfort zone. And you aren't going to do that by always doing the things that you've always done. That's comfortable.
[00:26:46] Erin: Yeah, go out with my unshaven legs,
[00:26:48] Garrett: Go out to the beach with your unshaven legs.
And it doesn't mean you have to do it forever. It just means you have to try it sometimes and you have to work to get to that. Equality, that equity between doing it and not doing it. Shaving your legs or not shaving your legs. Right? When I try not to have a lot of judgments of people. Because, again, I understand that they're really judgments of myself.
But, when I judge myself about my body, I know I must be judging others about their body. Yes. And even though it might be a quick thought, It's still like, Oh, that person is X, Y, Z, it's still there and I have to see that thought really quickly, but I know that it's coming from my place of judgment,
[00:27:40] Erin: So it takes a great deal of awareness to see those little thoughts.
[00:27:43] Garrett: It does, but it helps to come back into the present moment.
Because your thoughts are outside of the present moment. So when you see a thought, it brings you back into the present moment. And that's why the present moment is so important.
Because if we keep coming back to the present moment, we can see where these thoughts are coming from. And realize that there is nothing other than the present moment. The thoughts are just thoughts that come from our own patterns. And we have to work on those patterns, we have to shed those patterns so that we can be more in the present moment, more often, be more conscious, be more loving, be more unified, more often, not be subject to the cultural expectations of us, instead be subject to what's happening right before us.
[00:28:40] Erin: Yeah, and just the knowing that you're already perfect.
[00:28:45] Garrett: Yeah. The deep knowing that you are perfect, you're divine, you're a divine part of this universe and you're divine right now, no matter where you're at right now, you are divine. It doesn't mean that you can't have goals and that you can't have any aspirations or anything like that.
It just means that. You're completely accepted right now by the universe.
[00:29:10] Erin: Even when you're judging people or anyone, even when you're doing all of those things, you're still perfect.
[00:29:17] Garrett: Yeah.
[00:29:17] Erin: There's just room for growth.
[00:29:21] Garrett: Yeah. The universe understands that you are going to have these things about you.
But they also see through you. It knows who you actually are. It understands and is compassionate for who you are pretending to be, but it knows that you're always who you actually are.
[00:29:45] Erin: Yeah. And the more in line that you become with who you actually are, the more the life of that just flows through you and things happen.
In more of a divine manner, you're able to flow through life so much easier.
[00:30:04] Garrett: Yeah, and it seems as if things happen for you in a more easy manner. You get, in some instances, luckier to some degree. Things kind of just happen.
[00:30:23] Erin: Things are falling into place as they should.
[00:30:25] Garrett: Right. And when you have setbacks you realize they're just part of that ongoing saga.
[00:30:32] Erin: Lessons usually. Absolutely. Part of it all.
[00:30:36] Garrett: Absolutely. So I think we covered some good ground about cultural expectations today and how do we see them and where do they come from and finished with a little bit about being aware and how to be present and change these patterns that we feel from cultural expectations.
Do you have anything else to add?
[00:31:01] Erin: No, I think that was that was a nice talk.
[00:31:03] Garrett: Okay, so we finished episode nine. Thank you to our listeners that make this a habit to listen to this. We appreciate you. We hope you're finding this helpful to you in your experience and your growth.
[00:31:17] Erin: Thank you.