Why Self Love Won't Save Us With Dr Lindo Bacon

There's no-one on the planet like my awesome friend Dr Lindo Bacon! It's been more than 4 years since we got to hang out drinking wine in a hot tub in the Napa Valley, and even though we can't see each other in person, I am SO HAPPY to kick off the new year and a new season of the All Fired Up podcast with them! Do not miss this fiercely loving wisdom from Lindo, who has NAILED the problem with self-love and is calling for a revolution - not of self-care but of BELONGING! We don't need to fall in love with our bodies - we need to work on healing our entire society, we need radical change - EQUALITY, and JUSTICE, and we need to ALLOW DIVERSITY! Basically, if all humans are welcome - if all humans belong - we can heal. Lindo has come a long way since their first book Health At Every Size, and we had an awesome conversation about how their perspective has changed - and all about their fabulous new book "Radical Belonging: How to Survive and Thrive in an Unjust World (While Transforming it for the Better). This is a not-to-be-missed episode!! Show Transcript

LOUISE: Thank you so much for coming on the show, Lindo. Welcome. LINDO: Oh, I’ve always wanted to do this, Louise. It’s always such a pleasure to hang out with you. LOUISE: I know! LINDO: So, I can’t believe we haven’t done this sooner. LOUISE: I can’t believe it either, but I’m so excited we’re talking about your new book as the reason to have you here. But I’m just…I’ve got so much to say and talk about, but it is so awesome to get to chat to you. But, you know, before we kick off…it’s been like over four years since…because we hung out in like, live, when I came in 2016 which was just before Trump got elected. LINDO: Oh, is that the timing? Yeah? LOUISE: Yeah! And now I’m talking to you just a couple of days after that whole period’s ended and we’ve got a new president. Isn’t that weird? LINDO: It is. I remember just relaxing in a hot tub with you in the Napa Valley, which is wine country in California, talking about the election. LOUISE: I know, I know, right? What a wild memory now, thinking of…the fact that I can’t even get on a plane. LINDO: Yeah, so…present tense, what are we talking about today? LOUISE: Yes, so I want to know what is firing you up at the moment? LINDO: What’s firing me up…lately I’ve been listening to all this ‘body positivity’ and what’s getting me is that everybody is preaching this ‘self-love’ message. And self-love, yeah, it’s a gorgeous thing and I wish it for everybody. But there’s this idea that that’s what’s going to save us, and we have to do all the internal work on ourselves. And it makes the whole ‘body liberation’ journey very individual. And that’s not what it’s about, because we can love ourselves fully and completely, and then we walk into a world where people tell us there’s something wrong with us. Whether it’s that we’re too fat, or we’re denied an opportunity because of our skin colour. So, I want people to know that as beautiful as self-love is, it’s not enough to save us. We also have to be working on social change. Because we’re individuals in a context, and if we forget the context then we end up blaming ourselves that we can’t love ourselves, and then it becomes problematic. But it’s hard to love ourselves in a culture that doesn’t support us. LOUISE: Absolutely. LINDO: That’s what’s on my mind right now. LOUISE: Yeah, this is so absolutely necessary, and this is very much your book. LINDO: Can I tell you a very funny thing? I was very proud to see that Radical Belonging, my book, is selling well. And it’s jumped up on Amazon’s best seller list. LOUISE: Really? LINDO: Yeah, it’s near the top of Amazon’s vest seller list. But here’s the thing, it’s the self-help best seller list. And I explicitly have a chapter in there that’s titled something like ‘why self-help is not enough’. You know? Just trying to get away from that. But it makes me laugh, I’ll take it, you know? I’m glad the book is getting around, a