Season 8, Episode 10: Cultivating Compassion: Reclaiming Self Love with Alex Light.

"And something that I found really powerful that again, does not come naturally to me at all, is to realise that how I'm feeling now doesn't necessarily have to be how I'm feeling tomorrow. Like, how we, how we, how we're feeling our recovery, all of it is very fluid, and it changes from day to day."

This week I’m delighted to be joined by Alex Light, a body confidence advocate, journalist, chart-topping podcast host and founder of Light LDN. Alex started her career in magazine journalism where she wrote about celebrities, fashion and beauty. Her Instagram was a space for her to share her love for these topics but whilst it appeared she was #livingherbestlife, Alex was actually battling an eating disorder. Now, she has successfully created a platform that encourages body positivity and champions women’s unfiltered bodies.

At 26, Alex began using her social platform to document her recovery and was astounded at the amount of people who resonated with her story. We discuss the relationship Alex has with her body and the steps she took to mend and cultivate what was one of the biggest tormentors in her life. Alex is on a mission to expose unrealistic beauty standards and diet culture to help others combat their own feelings of shame and self-loathing. Alex deconstructs some of the messaging that has permeated into our collective psyche from being a young woman and how diet culture is a tool of the patriarchy.

She shares the importance of recognising and detangling those beliefs whilst also encouraging us to commit to refraining from commenting on people's looks, regardless of the intention. Saturn can bring change and awakening in mind, body and soul. Alex discusses how this contentment came with age, coinciding with her Saturn Return. Alex also shares how she transformed her internal critic into self-compassion in order to reach that space of contentment within herself. She takes us on her own path of healing whilst delving deep into the emotions that have come up for her during this time of self-reflection.