You Are Not Your Size With Lindley Ashline, Body Liberation Activist

In this week's episode, we discuss issues of #race, #weight, and systems of #oppression with Lindley Ashline. 

Other themes:
- Embracing our true selves
- #bodypositivity for larger bodies
-  How systems are not built for all sizes
- #weightstigma as an offshoot of #racism

About Lindley Ashline:

Lindley Ashline creates photographs that celebrate the unique beauty of bodies that fall outside conventional "beauty" standards. She fights #weightstigma by giving #fat people a safe place to explore how their bodies look on camera and by increasing the representation of #fatbodies in photography, advertising, fine art and the world at large (pun intended?).

Lindley is also the creator of Body Liberation Stock (body-positive stock images for commercial use) and the Body Love Shop (a curated resource for body-friendly products and artwork). Find Lindley's work and get her free weekly Body Liberation Guide at http://bit.ly/bodyliberationguide.

Support and connect with Lindley Ashline:
Website: http://www.bodyliberationphotos.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bodyliberationwithlindley/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bodyliberationphotos/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lindleyashline 

Transcript

Welcome back to The Mindful Miri Podcast. Today on the show, we have Lindley Ashline.  She creates photographs that celebrate the unique beauty of bodies that fall outside the conventional beauty paradigm.

She fights weight stigma by giving fat people a safe place to explore how their bodies look on camera, and by increasing the representation of fat bodies in photography, advertising, fine art, and the world at large. Woo woo.  

She is also the creator of Body Liberation Stock, a body positive stock image warehouse for commercial use and the body love Shop, a curated resource for body friendly products and artwork.

You can find Lindley's work and get free weekly guides at Body Liberation Guide, and I'll have the link to that in the show notes. Welcome to the show, Linley!

Thank you. Appreciate it. I love your hair, by the way. Oh, thank you. it, has been going through this process of, going from hot pink to, to gradually fade it out and it's now this very pale pink and, with a little bit of, it was purple at the top and so now it's sort of blue and pale pink and, uh, it's been a lot of fun to watch it change a little bit every day.

Oh, that's fun. It's like the unicorn coloring. Yeah. . So Linley, we were talking about this before we started recording, but I am trying to be as body positive as possible in my marketing materials and going on Canva. You know, using the, the figures and the shapes to try to make bodies even bigger.

But then I came across your website and you have stock images of different size, women and bodies, and just. Celebrating all of the beauty that is the diversity of, of body diversity. Tell me how you got started. 

Oh gosh. Well I have been a photographer for a really long time. since, I don't know, I guess since I was in college, so, 25 years or so now, starting with the, my very first camera, after like a, as a kid and a young adult, I would occasionally use those, the little disposable film cameras.

Are these even still a thing? I don't know. , where you, um, you drop the whole camera in, in the drugstore, uh, slot the, the drugstore box and you get back your developed pictures. but my first ever digital camera, which is when I started to really. develop, pun not intended. Uh, my interest in, in photography, was in college.

I borrowed this, this early digital camera from our, our college library, and this thing took five and a quarter, five and a half. The big floppy discs. . Oh, yes. Mm-hmm. . And so you would put the whole floppy disc in the camera. It was enormous. Wow. And so, and each floppy disc would hold, like, I don't know, 15 photos if you were lucky,

And so, so that was kind of where I really started falling in love with it. because as someone who grew up fairly poor, I, just didn't have access to. photography even as a hobby until then. so from there I was able to really start experimenting and, and, and starting to learn. Uh, and so I'm, I'm more or less self-taught.

I just loved doing it so much that my skill gradually grew as I just spent hours and hours and hours doing photography. so. I had always done nature photography because I, that's, that is full of joy for me. up until about 2015, when I decided to make photography my business, I left the corporate world to do that.

And, uh, At the time, I, I sat down and I was very deliberate about this because I knew that I was giving up a pretty good tech salary to, I, was a technical writer and marketer, and I knew that I was giving up the salary to go into my own business, and I needed to be very, Careful and deliberate about that.

And so, uh, so I sat down and said, okay, how am I gonna make money doing photography? Who do I want to serve? Who is my target market? How am I gonna set this up? What's my business plan? All the things that you do when you create a business. and at the time I had been. Involved in, the fat activism community.

Uh, and now you hear a lot about body positivity and body positivity is kind of an offshoot of fat activism. and, so when I got involved, body positivity didn't exist yet, but I had been in that community for a long time and I knew how underserved. Fat people. as a side note, when I say the word fat, I'm using it as a neutral descriptor.

I'm not, you know, it's not an insult. I'm using it as a, as a term that I might say, I am average height or my hair is pink . Um, it's just a neutral term. and I knew that fat people are just massively under. In the photography market. So I decided I was going to start doing portrait and boudoir photography for fat folks.

and then a year later I discovered the, that no one, literally no one on the planet was doing stock photography or stock imagery of the fattest bodies. when you see stock images of, larger bodies, they tend to be like model fat , um, like a size US 10 or 12, or maybe a 14. They're, they're really still below average or average size for the American woman.

and that is still not representative of our actual population. And so right now I still don't have any true competitors. I'm the only one doing very large bodies, and that is both. It's nice to have a market niche with no competition, I will say. but it's also. A little bit depressing that, there is no , no one else doing that work in this kind of, there are plenty of other folks doing art around fat bodies, don't get me wrong.

Mm-hmm. . Um, but this commercial photography, it's such an honor and another joy to be able to be doing that work. Wow. what a need and kudos to you for being savvy enough to see it and be able to, you know, use your strengths to solve it. That's beautiful. so you have the monopoly on

on the, commercial stock image of, how should I call it, larger bodied fat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, in, in sort of the fat activism sphere, you occasionally see, the largest bodies out there, um, called super fat bodies or infin of fat bodies. And there's a lot of debate about exactly who falls in which category.

And sometimes you see it as clothing sizes. you see it as, um, as levels of access. Uh, for example, If you are plus size, you may or may not need, uh, a seatbelt extender on an airplane. Mm-hmm. . that's what I'm talking about when I say levels of access. There's someone who doesn't need an extender.

There's someone who needs an extender, but can still fit comfortably in an airplane seat. There's someone who needs an extender and can't fit comfortably. Mm-hmm. , um, you know, that it's, it's very, it's difficult to fly in one airplane seat, and then there are folks who need to buy two. and so the largest bodies, I will occasionally call them very fat or the largest bodies or super fat.

there's no one true term . Yes, I have, I have looked into the terms and it's, you know, it's, it's interesting to, to try to tease out. The bias that you feel already for certain words mm-hmm.  and use them and try to normalize the use of them as a neutral word. and I think I might be considered small fat on the scale.

And, I think that, I mean, most women. At least anecdotally my experience, they would never want that word associated with them at all. Ever. They would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars with that. And what, I mean, it's how different is it than being tall and having to buy, you know, the extended leg room in the in the airplane?

Why is that any different? And. , it's just a matter of how we've conditioned, been, been conditioned culturally to celebrate certain bodies and not others. Mm-hmm. . not too long ago I had the curvy surfer girl. are you familiar with her? Uhhuh? Yeah. Love her. Elizabeth Sneed on the show, and she was talking about how there really aren't a whole lot of, designers for wetsuits for larger bodies.

Mm-hmm. , and she was. You know, hoping to, uh, she was working on advocacy for that and partnering with different, brands in order to, provide that. And at first they were saying that there really isn't a market for it. And she's like, yeah, of course. Cuz you're not letting them Right. You know, it's freaking cold.

And so it's just interesting that Those who are holding the reins on what gets put out there, both the photographers and the designers in different brands and even sportswear. in a world where people are told to be healthy and. They're so smug about health.

They're not even providing the right accessories for people to get healthy. You know, , it's ridiculous.  so critical. Yeah. And, and I do a lot of talking, in my newsletter and on my website, and, on social media about. How this plays into systems of power and how this plays into, systems of the system of racism, the system of, sizeism, the SY system, the, these various.

Oppressions and how it affects us in daily life. and just like you were talking about, like I can't, I would like to learn to kayak someday, but finding a kayak that will fit my body size is so difficult. The barrier to entry is so high. that, people, people like me, people who are my size don't kayak

And so you don't see us kayaking. So then the assumption is, is that, is that we can't because. Or, that we choose not to in a way that, oh, well, you know, fat people don't belong here. Mm-hmm. . Um, and so the barrier to entry becomes even higher, both emotionally, because if you never see people like you doing something, you tend to assume even subconsciously, that that's not for you.

Mm-hmm. . Um, but then also, people will tell you there's no market for big kayaks, , because, because big people don't buy. Kay. Well, okay. Cause I can't, it's circular logic . but it's so important to recognize that there are reasons behind that. And this is where, this is where it can, you can start feeling like, like a conspiracy theorist, like racism is keeping me from kayaking.

And I wanna be clear, I wanna be clear that I am very white . Exactly. I'm extremely white. And I, I experience fat phobia. I experience weight stigma. I do not experience racism. And people who experience both have a lot harder time than I do. So I wanna be really clear about that. and the reason I'm bringing up racism here, is because fat phobia.

Weight stigma is an offshoot of racism. And, and that is a whole, that's a whole lecture in itself, , mm-hmm. . Um, but there, there's quite a bit about that on my website if you wanna go look. and if you are up for a bit of an academic read, the sort of definitive read on this is a book called Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina.

and so, so yeah, I do talk a bit, you know, a lot about the systems of power. but these systems of power aren't just these big, sort of overarching vague things. They're also interpersonal. Mm-hmm. . Um, we gain or we feel like we gain, power in our personal lives by. Our power over other people, whether that is something that we perceive or something that we feel, or something that we are acting on.

for example, uh, I'm gonna pick on the healthcare profession right now because, because with fat bodies, our access to healthcare and h whether we are perceived as being healthy, et cetera, et cetera, that's a whole, that's a whole other lecture, but, If a doctor, if I walk in, to pick a story for my own life, I walked into a doctor, a doctor's office on my college campus, and I had, I had the flu

I just, and I was miserably ill, and I had lost my voice entirely. And that doctor, while being a very nice person, like he was nice about it, nice is not the same as kind or good . but he was nice. And I'm sitting there on his exam table and he's lecturing me about my weight.  and I have literally lost my voice.

And so he's making all these, I've never met this man before in my life, He's making all these assumptions about what I eat and how much I exercise. I lived in the mountains. This, this college campus is , it's hill. It's very hilly. I was doing a lot of walking, let me tell you. but he's making all these assumptions about my, my diet and my exercise level, and I literally cannot respond because I have lost my voice.

And also, I was there because I had the flu . And so in that moment, he had, of course, as a healthcare provider, he already had the social power over a patient, but beyond that, mm-hmm. , he was choosing, he was making choices to exercise that power, and at a certain level, not being in his head, but at a certain level, that probably felt pretty good.

and so there are all these different levels of power. There are all these different levels of, how those systems play out. And particularly to come back to what we were talking about with, with access to, to clothing and, sports equipment and things, it's very easy to assume that the reason that that lack of.

Access that lack of market. . The lack of, the lack of stuff to buy for whatever you need exists or the Yeah. The reason that we don't have access to those things is just, it was an oversight. It was, oh, well, they didn't realize there was that market. They know  and, and again, this is where, where it starts sounding conspiracy theorist, but, clothing, apparel, company CEOs go on the record every few years.

One of them will go on the record and say, we don't want fat people in our stores. there are reasons for this. , you know, people make deliberate choices, uh, when people, when, airlines, work with, say, Boeing to design an airplane. there are reasons that the seats are so small like that didn't happen.

like it didn't grow on a tree.  humans made those decisions and, chose to put profit over over fat people. and, and so, Where I'm going with this, I think is that understanding the systems of power behind everything. I, know here on the podcast you talk a lot about women, and there are lots of systems of power around being a woman too.

Mm-hmm. , whether you're a CI woman or a trans woman, lots of systems of power around that. Yes. And, the more we. Understand that the more we can externalize blame, the more we can externalize what happens to us and understand that it's not our fault that we are caught in these systems. Mm-hmm. , I completely agree.

once you start reading some of the things you do kind of feel like a conspiracy theorist and you're like, wait a minute, hold on, hold on, hold on. This cannot be true. Like it cannot be true that, this whole like patriarchal system. What, like in their book, burnout by Emily Naski and Amelia Naski, they talk about the bikini industrial complex, right?

and I kind of, I call it in, for me, I call it the skinny matrix, just cuz I don't wanna use, you know, their word and, and it's, it's wool pulled over your, over your eyes, you know? Mm-hmm. , um, in an effort to control and that's exactly what it is. But it's, it's crazy to think that somebody thought all of this up and it really does stem, like you said, from.

The fearing the Black Body Book, or she describes it in that book, but it does stem from, from systemic racism mm-hmm.  and from overt racism back then. But that was a way for, the white women to be distinguished from the black women and also to oppress both Right.

it's just crazy to me to think that like some white guys in, you know, a room got together. Like, you're like, wait a minute, this cannot be true.  together. And they're like, woo, how are we gonna control these women? But it's, know, and it may not have been so formal like that, but I think it's a slippery slope to where kind of like, know, I don't wanna knock religion in general, but.

I will, um, , I'm a somewhat practicing Jew, so, I'm in that, in that category too. But, a lot of religion is to control and to make sure that people fall in line and conform, and that has benefited our species in terms of survival.

But is it always the right thing? You know, it's, we have a beautiful thing in this country where we can choose to make a change and we can speak out and hopefully not be censored unless you're on certain social medias. Um, . Yeah. And well, and, and we have the ability to, as you become aware, or at least speaking personally, um, the more I become aware, Of not only my privileges as a agender or a white woman who mm-hmm.

who has a certain level. I have a safety net, in my business. Um, I'm not the sole income earn earner for my household. you know, I have a number of privileges along with. You know, some lack of privileges in that. I'm also a very fat woman who is, autistic and, comes from a rural, poor background.

And, and I have some, some chronic illnesses. the point is that the more that I become aware of these systems and the more I become aware of the.  that people's individual choices affect these systems. Mm-hmm. , and, and don't get me wrong, I, a single human being, cannot end racism,  as a single human being, I cannot end way stigma.

I spend the majority of my time doing essentially activism work, but I'm still one human, and, and I'm not, it's not my job to change systems as a. . my job is to do what I can, where I can. Mm-hmm. And which is something that every one of us can do. And the more that I learn about systems and the things that are unfair and the things that need to change, it can feel a little crushing , because there's so much that needs to change.

But it also gives me the ability to choose. My actions. And so, just to pick, to pick Weight Sigma and racism, as a thing that, that, you know, needs to change, I can, as a photographer, I can choose to prioritize, Black and other people of color, when I'm doing a model call mm-hmm. , I can choose to prioritize getting, uh, bodies of color into my portfolio on my website.

Mm-hmm. , I can choose, to pick something slightly different. I can also choose to prioritize trans folks. I can choose to, to be really loud about my support, especially right now for trans folks. Mm-hmm. , um, I can be really loud in my support of Black Lives Matter. and those are things. , those are choices that I am able to make.

I also. I have a bigger level of freedom in my choices because, I don't have kids. I run my own business. I have a lot of freedom of what to do with my time. and I don't have a lot of social ramifications for being radical in my actions. in a way that other people might be a lot more constrained, but every one of us can make certain choices.

And even if we're making, even if the choice that we're making is. Not to wait. Shame a coworker or not to go into the break room and say, oh, donuts, I couldn't possibly, Or not to teach kids about how their bodies are bad or not to shame your own body in front of a kid.

Mm-hmm. , every single one of those little actions. I talk, a lot about like everyday activism because mm-hmm. , like, I'm not designing airplanes, eats, you probably aren't either, dear listener of, of this episode, . Mm-hmm. . But, what can you do, um, if you're involved with your, your workplace's wellness program?

say something when, biggest loser challenges come up, shoot down that idea. You know, that like where can you make a difference in your life? Yeah. Um, and in your sphere. And it doesn't have to be a big radical thing. I agree. I love the Buddhist quote. Tend to the part of the garden you can reach.

Mm, exactly. And. When you think about it and when you make small strides, there is a ripple effect we have to feel, like we have agency. Otherwise, none of the great things that happened in the world would've happened. You know, Gandhi was one person, Nelson Mandela was one person, and somehow they created a ripple that made huge changes.

So, I know we're in good company here, you and I and our listeners making a ripple everywhere we go. Yeah. when did you become so active or, find your voice in terms of activism? Um, well, like I said, I've been, I've been sort of part of the fat activism community since. 2007 or so. But, when I say a part of, I spent years and years and years lurking

I was reading blog posts and reading debates on in, in comment sections and. reading postal on social media, but I wasn't necessarily posting, you know, I was sitting there in the background, absorbing and learning and watching these arguments take place and watching these debates, um, and starting to read books about bodies and weight and health at every size and, so very much in the background of these communities, until.

When I, when I launched my business, I needed to run social media channels and I needed something to say and I, spent a lot of time debating when I first started my business. How much. activism was gonna be a component of my business. because again, I have a lot of freedom in this, but at the same time, not everybody, you know, sometimes people just want nice pictures, , and, and I had this fear that, that if I was loud about my beliefs, that I, nobody was gonna pay me money , um, to work with me.

Mm-hmm.  and, and. You know, to a certain extent, that is true in the sense that like my neighbor down the street in my neighborhood is probably not gonna be, the right match for me as a client when they need photos because they, they're not in my sphere already. so someone who just needs nice wedding photos and is isn't in, in this sort of world of mine at all, is gonna come to my website and they're gonna be terrifi.

And they're gonna run away because they're not ready for the, they're not ready for what I'm offering because my work is very, it's very high touch. It's very, we talk about your body, we talk about, how it looks. I'm not gonna minimize you. I don't Photoshop bodies. Um, it is a very different kind of approach than your.

photographer. So, so it does mean that my clientele is in my, my target market is very small, but that is not a problem because everybody needs photos at some point. The market is huge and this is my little corner of it, and that's okay. and so when I started talking about. Body image and, fat activism and bodies and systems of power.

I started very light and pretty fluffy. and there is a place for that too. but I found that it wasn't authentic for me, and so it, meant that the people that I was attracting weren't necessarily.  on board with what I was actually doing as opposed to what I was talking about . Mm-hmm.  and, so just gradually through the everyday process of I need a blog post this week.

What am I gonna say? , I need a, I need an Instagram post today. What's it gonna be? through that process, of just talking every day, I have refined what I believe, refined what I'm saying, and gotten louder and louder. And the more that I talk about things, that I'm scared that I'm gonna chase everybody away and that everyone is gonna hate me, the more the right people find me.

Hmm. I love that. Beautiful. it's Kismat when you put yourself out there with authenticity and vulnerability, and then you get exactly the right people coming to knock on your door. That's beautiful. Yeah. And you know, growing up, Did you receive encouragement from activism or anything like that from parents or, what kind of messages did you get growing up?

Oh, the complete opposite  I grew up in rural North Carolina in a, a very patriarchal in, small seed conservative, traditional, family, that was very invested in. my parents weren't particularly religious by the standards of, of the, that place in time. but they were very culturally I dunno, culturally religious doesn't make a lot of sense, but, um, it does, but very in line with the cultural wars of the time in the same way that the religion of the, the area was okay.

So buying into the commercialism maybe. very conservative values, very, if you take, um, evangelical Southern Baptist beliefs and apply them to culture at large mm-hmm. , that's where you are. Okay. Even, if you're not necessarily going to church every Sunday. Right, right. It's just in the it's in the air.

It's in the water. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Got it. Mm-hmm. . And so, um, and so, Both my immediate family, and again, the time and place that I grew up in. Very extremely conservative, very, um, very rigid ginger roles, a very shame-based culture. and a very, tightly controlled. you wore a bra and makeup if you were, you know, two genders.

Two genders only, very rigid. and if you were in the, the woman gender, you wore a bra and makeup to leave the house starting at puberty period. you did these things that were very in line with gender roles and that was it. Um, it just wasn't, an option, at least the way I perceived it growing up to do anything else.

And so what was the expectation for you as an adolescent, as a young woman and into adulthood? What was, their prediction or expectation? from a body standpoint, from a life role standpoint. Anything you wanna share? Hmm. Yeah.

I think the expectation for, for me and. Most of the people around me, um, certainly me and my siblings, was that, you would grow up and fall into the same sort of life roles as your parents. if you were a girl, you were going to , start performing fem femininity in the same way that, that your mother and your grandmother did.

Mm-hmm. . Um, and the same for boys. there wasn't any room for experimentation or originality. It was. You know that that was what you were gonna do. I'm a first generation college student. Mm-hmm. . And so, my parents were. , willing to have me go to college. Um, but they weren't all that thrilled about it,  in part, in part because I think academia was very intimidating to them as blue collar folks who didn't have any experience of it at all.

Um, in, in hindsight, I think part of it was the just they didn't support me because they didn't know how. and they definitely weren't thrilled that, uh, that I went and started getting. Started getting wild ideas about, you know, feminism and inequality , that, that was definitely not in the plan. my bio family in particular was, um, quite controlling.

and I was pretty isolated as a kid, uh, in part because. I was very smart and autistic, and so nobody really knew what to do with that from a, a social standpoint. Mm-hmm. . Um, and so I was pretty. I was pretty unpopular in part because I didn't, I didn't really know how to make friends and so I just, I would just assume do my own thing, and so I'd rather go out in the woods anyway, but

then, I also grew up in a family that didn't really have tv, so, I just didn't have access to a lot. Culture. Mm-hmm. . And what that, what that ended up meaning for me was, was in some ways it was very isolating, very, I don't wanna say oppressive because it's not exactly the word that I want, but, I don't know.

I'll just leave it at isolating. and in part it was very freeing, because I have had. Way less, stuffed to unpack in my adult life about diet, culture and bodies than, than someone who grew up in the same time and place and had access to magazines and had access to TV and had access to, a lot of social circles.

and so, no, I've never seen that. No, I haven't read that magazine, but at the same time, it was easier for me to come to terms with my body than it is for a lot of other people. Oh, that's wonderful. I like that you have found a silver lining within that  and.  and how telling is, is it, you know, about social media and what our young people are going through right now?

I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine in part, because again, I had so little access to pop culture mm-hmm.  of the time. but also, uh, when I was in sixth grade, I wrote a letter to my best friend and, um, I had just discovered, that people would sometimes put xo XO at the, at the end of.

Yeah, letters. And so I wrote like a, a paper note to my best friend at school and, and I signed it, Linley xo. Xo. Mm-hmm. . Um, and I didn't actually know that it stood for, I guess I knew that it stood for hugs and kisses, but I didn't, like, I just signed it because I thought it was cute. Uhhuh . Um, someone found that note and, then my best friend and I both got teased in a mean way about being.

About being lesbians. And now in that time and place, I didn't actually know what that meant. . and that was again, gender roles were gender roles. And you didn't, like I didn't, I didn't meet anyone who was LGBT plus until I was late in my college career, . and so not only did I not actually know what a lesbian was, I just knew it was forbidden and like, mm.

My apologies to anyone who is a lesbian, who is, who is listening to this, but, I had been, I had just sort of had this vague impression that it was dirty and so , so it went around the school for like three days and then everyone forgot if that had been on. I don't know, what are the kids using these days?

TikTok, , um, I'm old. if that had gone around TikTok or Instagram and it was on the internet permanently, you know, just these, these tiny humiliations of growing up, especially when you are a child who was bullied. I can't imagine what that's like to have that splashed across the internet or my terrible teenage poetry or whatever.

Like at least it's gone. Yeah. Yeah. But how beautiful it it is for young people to be able to document their journey, maybe now, you know, and to find support. To find communities of support. Yes. That has been huge amongst my population here and in the schools and. it's both ways, but the opportunities in social media, I think are enormous in the positive realm, for support and connection and, activism and, you know, things like that.

But, you know, you put it out there. I try to tell my kids, you know, you put it out there, it's permanent. It's there forever. You're in 30 years, your job, your, uh, boss that's trying to hire you, the hiring committee is gonna look your file up, download it from Facebook and find that, you know, you had, I don't know, you pretended to smoke a cigarette or something, you know what I mean?

Mm-hmm. , it, it is permanent out there. And so, and we don't have control of that, like once we release it. Mm-hmm. . so what do you think, you know, looking back, if you were to prospective take with, and I apologize if, if that's difficult, but if you were to prospective take with your parents and the, the expectations that they put on you, usually it comes from a place of fear, what do you think they, they were fearful of for you or for your sibling?

Yeah, I do think that so much of that, style or, or that tradition of interacting with families, interacting with your children is fear-based. and, again, I do still think it comes back to interpersonal systems of power too. but these things, I mean, you know, it's complicated. These things are intertwined.

They're all tangled up, So as I, as I run my own business, um, my mother and I have, still, I'm 42. I had to think about it, . so I'm over 40 and, and my mother and I still have, uh, some of the same relationship dynamics that we have when, you know, when I was 12, um, as I think everyone does with their parents. Mm-hmm.  and. it's actually easier for me to pull a current example of that fear that parents have for their children.

because every time I talk to my mother about my business, she pushes me to go back to a corporate career. And it's not that she doesn't want me to be happy running a business but she's afraid. She is afraid that, if something, I don't know, some nebulous thing happens. Mm-hmm.

that. That I will be left without sup, without financial support. Mm-hmm. . And, and so I think it's, you know, in that particular example, it's a balance of I recognize that fear, but also I'm 42 , I'll be okay. . Right. but my, my sister had her son when. Pretty young, and my mother was a huge pain in the butt about it when my sister was pregnant.

Um, not because she didn't love my sister or want her to have a safe pregnancy and want her to have, a healthy baby and have joy as a parent, but because she was terrified that my sister was so young. and it turns out that my sister is a phenomenal parent. But that, that fear just permeates.

and, I think the more afraid you are as a parent. I say this as not a parent myself, but I, think the more afraid you are, the easier it can feel to clamp down. Mm-hmm. , go back to the comfort, the familiar mm-hmm. , the, what was modeled for you. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and particularly with, again, the, the style of parenting with which I was raised mm-hmm.

um, safe is a higher priority than happy. Yes. And so, my family, we've been, essentially dirt farming in Laga County, North Carolina since the, the late 17 hundreds. and. When you come from hundreds of years of, of dirt poverty, safety just becomes this intergenerational priority. and I'm sure this is true for many people who aren't, in, who haven't had that family history either, but mm-hmm.

but when safe is your highest priority, there's not always a lot of room for happy for you or for your kids.

if you were to go back and give some words of encouragement to your younger self, what would you say? Oh, this is such an interesting question because I've been doing a lot of lifespan therapy in the last couple of years. , which involves you talking to your younger self . Mm-hmm. , and, and this is something that.

I went in really skeptical about . I was very skeptical. In my first session, I sat down with a therapist and said, okay, tell me exactly how this works and what the scientific basis is and is this gonna be humiliating? Uhhuh , and what am I supposed to do with, you know, with my younger self? It sounds really woo

Um, it's actually been really helpful. Um, yay, but in this process, you, you pick a memory with the therapist and, uh, this is the shortened version, but you go back, sort of go back in time and you sit with your younger self in that memory mm-hmm.  and you support them, as part of this process. and so I've been talking to my younger self all the time in the last couple of years.

And, when I'm not in that process, it's almost, it's hard to. Hard to recall what I'm saying, but so much of the, the content of what I'm saying is this bad thing that happened to you isn't your fault. This, this person that is, that is mistreating you, that's on them. You didn't do anything wrong.

and it gets better from here. And so I feel like so much of it is just I'm present, I'm present, I'm present. you're not alone. You're not alone. And just repeating that, in that format of this lifespan therapy has been really important and valuable. Mm-hmm. , that's beautiful. That reminds me a lot of, uh, parts work too.

it's called Internal Family Systems. It's a similar modality where you go back and, um, you. Protect, usually it's, it's a, the author, Dr. Schwartz, he has all these different, um, archetypes for, the sort of inner child that was harmed and, you know, and so most of the time is some kind of protection.

There's a positive intent to, Any kind of self sabotage and things like that, kind of like our parents do, you know, our, our inner child are, there are parts of us who, are protecting through familiar habits and, keeping within the norms and things like that in order to protect you from something else.

So it sounds very similar. And I hadn't, I hadn't actually, uh, learned about lifespan work. That's great. I'm gonna look that up. and did you find a scientific basis to it? Yeah, there's, um, , I, I can't like recall it off the top of my head. It was several years ago now. But, but yeah, there is, there is a certain amount of, scientific evidence that it works. And, you know, even if there weren't, it has been helpful for me personally. And so, uh, I'm not generally a particularly woo oriented sort of person. but if it works, it works Good. That's fabulous. That's my philosophy too, is I'm very evidence-based in many ways, but then there's certain things that I.

Explain they haven't had, you know, large scale scientific studies about them. And if they feel good and they work and do no harm, you know, I'm all for it. So That's great. Exactly. Well, this is a great place for us to come full circle. And the last question I always ask is body freedom. For me, body freedom means, you know, to be able to strut my stuff when I want to.

To feel at ease and at home in my body to feel light, healthy, confident, free to be able to walk down the street in a burlaps sac and. You know, have my body change over the course of a lifespan and still feel at home in it. What does body freedom mean to you? Oh, I love that. surprising. No one given my, my consistent focus on systems.

one of my autistic superpowers is, is I'm always seeing the patterns, always seeing the systems. Mm-hmm.  and, and so for me, body freedom, in addition to what you've said about, about that lightness that sense of. personal freedom. Mm-hmm. . Um, in addition to that, it's being liberated from oppressive systems, um, so that I can go where I need to go and access what I need and want and, and not be discriminated against or mistreated.

so that I can achieve the things that, that I want or need to achieve, without being held back. Mm-hmm. . And so for me that freedom is the lack of being pulled backward or held back, either interpersonally or by, by some system, or the manifestation of that system. And so I think mine is mine, sort of interlocks with yours in a way that's really interesting.

what would life be like if you had that, if you had that freedom from systemic and personal barriers. I don't think I would have a job doing this. And in the best possible way, , Uhhuh, , um, because there wouldn't be a need for what I'm, there wouldn't be a need for my activism work. There wouldn't be a need for, for me to go out and yell on the internet every day about , about body liberation.

there wouldn't be a need for the photographic work I'm doing because everybody would be doing it. It would be so common. which is good the day that, the day that. Go out of business because there's no need that's a day for celebration. but on a, on a personal level, a lot of it for me right now, uh, in my forties, it's about getting the healthcare that I need.

so that I have the body, the physical body, freedom to move and to to move freely and and without pain. Um, cause I'm sorting out a couple of medical things right now. and, to be able to dress, to put on clothing that is consistent and coherent with my personal style. Mm-hmm. , um, or the style that I would, that I would like to pursue.

just being able to, to have fun and have hobbies and have a social life that, that isn't constrained by a world that that wants us to shrink. Hmm.

it's beautiful and it's, Tragic. At the same time. I'm so fun at parties, I assure you,

Oh.

Well, Linley, thank you so much for being on the show. I feel like there's a lot a Pandora's box of more to talk about in every little nugget that we covered today, but maybe we could do a part two or three. Oh, I'd be delighted. Oh, wonderful. Linley. Where can we find out more about you and your.

You can find all of my work@bodyliberationphotos.com. Uh, my weekly newsletter, the Body Liberation Guide, is at bit dot lee. That's bt.ly/body liberation guide. And, uh, all my social media links are on my website, but you can also pretty much find me by searching for me by name on any given, any given site.

Beautiful. We're gonna have all those links on the show notes, and thank you again for your time, your candor, your passion, and for what you're putting out into the world. I know that it's empowering so many, especially women, but so many different bodies out there. Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.

Absolutely.