017: Creating an Authentic Social Media Brand Through Radical Self-Love with Olivia Ku

And welcome to the Highest Self podcast, a place where we discuss what makes you your highest evolvement. I love bringing people on the show who I am actually friends with. And Olivia is someone that I've been friends with for three years now. Like me, she started off as a food blogger, but has naturally progressed more into the self help realm. She is here to share with us her own personal struggle with being extremely overweight. She was over 100 pounds overweight. To suffering from various eating disorders, to finally finding her own journey through self love. And I love this interview because it shows that healing is not a straight path, but it rather has many ups and downs. So don't be hard on yourself if you aren't totally healed instantly or triggers may bring you back to a place that you thought you had gotten over. But know that healing is a gradual process and you just have to stay patient and true to yourself. So I hope you enjoy this interview and I can't wait to hear your guys feedback. Guys, I am so excited to have with you one of my dear friends who was actually one of my first friends when I moved to LA like over three years ago now. She is such an inspiration. She has had the most amazing food journey I've ever heard. You might recognize her from, From Instagram, from YouTube, love health. Okay, Here I have sitting next to me, the beautiful Olivia Koo.

Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me on your podcast, by the way.

Oh, of course. And I'm just so excited that it's like come full circle from our conversations like three years ago of like, so what do you want to do to.

Like, I remember you, like, I want to live by the beach and I want to write a book. And I was like, okay. I was like, I think I want to, I want to help people with eating disorders and stuff.

It's happening. Yeah.

At Cafe Gratitude.

Exact. I am hobo. And at that time I was like living in my grandparents, like, spare room. And like, we both have gone through breaks, we've gone through this, we've gone through that. We've gone through so many things. And it's so amazing to see us both come full circle and really coming into full intention with what we want to give out on this planet. So the first question that I'm going to ask you is, what makes you feel like your highest self?

Wow, that's a deep question. I think what makes me feel like my highest self is when I really come to be in tune with the way that I'm feeling and doing everything with good intentions and practicing not only self love, but love to other people and understanding that, you know, everything that I do in life has meaning. And I think really understanding that I need to listen to myself, my inner self, and those voices and what direction that is pointing me at. And that sometimes can get really clouded when it comes to, you know, we're living in a world where other people are constantly telling us who to be and what to do. And I remember when I was younger and even when I first started on social media, I'd be like, oh, I wanna be like this girl. I wanna do this so that I can get more likes or more followers or I'm gonna do this and just strategizing. And I was like, but like, who am I? And it wasn't until I really realized, like, oh man, actually go find yourself. Do the self work, find, find the self worth and really love yourself. And when that happened for me, I was like, oh my gosh, like now it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what anyone else says or what anyone else is doing, because I know who I am. And I think listening to that is what makes me my highest self.

I love that. And if you guys have been following Olivia for the past few years, she was like one of the first people, I think, on Instagram who built this massive following around her food and her recipes. Like, how many followers did your account have?

I have like multiple food pages still from doing that. The biggest one right now is at 1.4 million. But then I kind of shifted my focus and realized I really wanted to build my own personal brand so that I can really, truly help people through self help. Because, you know, all the stuff that I went through in my life, I actually didn't have professional help for any of it. I just went out there and kind of figured it out for myself. And I want other people to know that that's possible. You know, it's. And there's nothing wrong with getting professional help or going to therapy or, you know, going to rehab or whatever it is. But I really believe that, you know, in terms of self help, I did it. And I want to show other people that they can do it too, because not everyone has the money to go to those things. And secondly, if you can even just take little steps at home every single day in like doing that, it's amazing.

Absolutely. And yeah, I feel like we hear like some people, they have like teams of like, therapists and personal trainers and functional doctors and this and that. And like, for Most of us, we can't afford that. It's like we're out here on our own, like learning online. And I love that you provide just like free content for people because, you know, for so many people, I get some emails from people every day, like, I have this disease, that disease, like, what do I do? And some people don't even have insurance.

Yeah. And then there's, I feel like other people who kind of prey on people who need help. And it's like, no, like, I'm going to give this to you for free. Because I understand what it's like to have gone through depression. I understand when you're struggling with eating disorders or where your life just seems like, what's the point? Like, I get it. And if you have ever experienced anything like that, I feel like it's almost like this is how I got out of it. And I want to give it to you because I want to give you that kind of love and not, you know, having other people, I guess, just having to pay you in some kind of way in terms of that, you know, Because I think a lot of these people, they understand that people are going through stuff and they purposefully, like, prey on them and get money from them without really truly wanting to help them.

For sure. Yeah. You see a lot of that even in the spiritual community.

Totally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So tell us a little bit about your journey and like, how you got to this place that you were at.

In terms of.

In terms of. Well, I mentioned to them how you lost £100 and just your whole journey. So for people out there, like, how did you get here? Like, where did it begin? And like, where are you now? I know it's a long story, but like a two second little blur.

Just two seconds.

Just one, two.

Done. Okay. So when I was younger, I feel like there was a lot of stuff happening with my family, which caused me to. Well, first of all, I'm Chinese, so our culture doesn't really talk about, you know, taboo topics. We don't talk about feelings. It's just not something we do. And so as a kid, started happening when I was about 10 years old, just a lot of, like, family stuff. I didn't know how to express the way that I felt, so I went to food to suffocate those emotions, to suppress them. And I just kept doing that and doing that and doing that. And I didn't realize until, you know, pretty, I don't know, within the last year that that was actually where it all stemmed from. And so I ended up Being, I would say, probably about 225 pounds. I don't know the exact number, because I stopped weighing myself after, like, 210. I was like, you know, it was just so embarrassing to even think about. And went through a lot of bullying, which sucked. Like, until. Like, even till this day, when I think about some of that stuff, it's really painful, you know, and it makes you, like, want to cry. Because it's like, no one deserves that. I remember being called Thunder Thighs a lot. I remember having a friend who was, like, shorter and more petite. And people will call her Timon and call me Pumbaa. And when you're in middle school, like, that's. It just sucks so much. I mean, it sucks no matter what age you are. But especially during that time when everyone's just, like, you know, trying to figure out who they are and all of that. So that happened. And then I got to college. And before college, during high school, actually, I realized that if I was always gonna be obese, it was gonna be very detrimental to anything I wanted to do in life. And this is the part that I kind of, in a way, hate the fact that in society, we care so much about the way that people look. But it's also, at the same time, very true. It sucks, but it's true. So I knew that if I always look this way, opportunities were gonna be taken away from me. And so I chased after the aesthetic of, like, looking better. And so I started running a lot. Thankfully had physical education class. And just, like, stopped eating so much junk food. Cause I would eat, like, Costco pizzas and, like, bags on bags of those, like, giant Costco chips, you know, in.

Those aisles, eating all the samples.

Yeah. And I remember every now and then, I would also throw up. And I just thought this was normal. No one ever said anything about it. And it wasn't, like, a huge thing. It would happen maybe, like, once every few months if I was just like, okay, we ate way too much. You need to throw up. So then I had lost a good amount of weight by the. By the time I graduated high school. So I started college. And I think it was my junior year of college. And I was still kind of on this, like, discovering health kind of journey. And junior year of college, the summer after junior year, one of my roommates, she. Okay, so the junior year, my. After the junior. After junior year of college, during the summer, got a new roommate. And it seemed like all the guys really loved her. And she was super duper nice. She's an amazing person. And she was skinny, she was beautiful. Like, everyone wanted to date her and be her friend. And she was super nice, like, just such a genuine, nice person. And I was like, oh, my God, like, I want to be like her. And at this point, I think I was probably about 150, 50 pounds or so. And so I was like, interesting, because my other roommates noticed that she would throw up all of her meals. I remember she, this is during the time when Froyo was really in and we would go to yogurt land and she'd get two giant things of Froyo. And I was like, wow, like, I don't understand how you could be so skinny and eat so much Froyo. And I never made the connection that she was throwing up her meals until my roommate started pointed it out. And I was like, oh, well, I guess this is normal. This is what you do to, like, look better and, like, you know, get skinny, right? And so that caused those thoughts of, like, okay, this is cool. This is normal. This is what I should do too. So I went in and out of cycles of, like, you know, binging and purging. And I think for me, it was never to the point where it was like an everyday, every meal thing, thankfully, but it definitely was pretty often. And I think after that situation had happened, my senior year of college, around the end, I started social media. And I noticed a lot of people on Instagram at the time. This was like, before, you know, anyone even hit 100,000 followers. And there was a lot of people who worked out and ate clean. And I was like, whoa. Like, they have amazing bodies and they're actually eating food. And, like, I was like, I'll just. I'll do that. And so I remember doing that, but it was just a little bit overkill. I think this is like, when I started dealing with very distorted body image and definitely just anorexia complete.

And had you lost all of the weight by then?

I hadn't lost all of the weight. I was probably about at the time, 130, 135 pounds. And I'm five foot seven.

Yeah.

Like, you're done. Like, no more. You're good. Like, you're already on the skinny side. And then so by seeing all of this, I was like, okay. So I remember I would eat no oil, no salt, just like blanched chicken breast, a few pieces of broccoli, maybe some tomatoes, because I felt like they had sugar in it, barely any fruit. And I remember, like, being on this diet where it was supposed to be 1200 calories a day, and I wouldn't even hit it. I would purposefully, like, put it into my log and eat less than that. And I was working out usually seven days a week, doing an hour long barre class. And then I would go do high intensity intervals after that and then do probably another 30 minutes to an hour of cardio. It was crazy. And it got to the point where my mom, she was really concerned. But when you have a distorted body image, other people telling you that you're too skinny or you're too thin or like you need to eat something doesn't really click at all in your mind.

It's even a compliment sometimes.

Yeah, exactly. And my mom, she's. She's 5 foot 6, somewhere between 95 and 105 pounds her entire life. That's just how her body is built. She's a. She's a tiny woman. Yeah. And she consistently eats three meals a day with snacks in between. And that's.

That's it.

And for her to say that to me was like, okay, cool. And I remember being able to fit into her clothes and stuff being loose on me, and I was like, oh, wow. Like, it was like an accomplishment. Like, you felt good about it. Right. And unfortunately, at the time, the person that I was dating had a lot of insecurities and would constantly make me feel fat. Not directly, but I remember sitting on his lap once and he was like, get off, you're heavy. And like, at this point, literally, I don't even think I had any fat on me. I was literally just like bones, like, so, so skinny. And I remember other girls asking me things like, because I would actually eat because my metabolism was crazy fast at this point and I needed to eat and I would eat, but only like clean stuff. You know, you limit yourself to good food versus bad food. And they would be like, are you one of those people that just has a really fast metabolism and like, that's why you're this skinny. And I would be like, what do you like, I'm not skinny. And you're just like, what on earth? And now looking back at those photos, I feel like, so sad for myself that I even thought that way. And I also remember, so back in college, I worked in fashion for about five years, and I remember the models messaging me and like, oh, like, you know, how did you do it? Like, what are you eating? And stuff like that. And even at that, that didn't click for me, you know, because these are models that walk for, like, Louis Vuitton and chanel. They're like 5 foot 11, 6 foot 3, you know, like, just really, really thin girls. Yeah, that didn't even click. So that all happened. And I think after that, going through a breakup was really tough and necessary, and I know that that wasn't the right person for me. And my life is forever changed in the best way because of it. I really believe that you need to let go of things that are not meant for you so that you can make room for things that are meant for you. And I remember while I was going through that, the last year of our relationship, I ended up gaining weight because of just, like, so much going on that the binge eating kicked up. And then after breaking up, I went through a period of just, like, depression for a year to a year and a half, on and off anxiety. So, like, I remember the first month of really going through that depression, not eating almost anything. My best friend was so worried about me, and she would try to, like, feed me things, and it literally made me feel sad to eat. Like, I could not eat. Lost 10 pounds doing that. And then fast forward like another year after that and getting out of depression, I came to a point where I was like, you know what? I had a person come into my life that really changed everything for me. And then when we separated, I went and was like, you know what? I think it's me. I think there's something going on with me, and it's not other people. And I can't possibly give love to anyone else if I don't love me, even though I thought I did, because it's easy to be like, yeah, I love myself. I think I'm great, like, whatever, but doesn't mean you actually do. And I meditated on it, and I realized that I didn't love myself. And so immediately I was like, okay, well, now we're gonna do self care, and we're gonna do night routines and morning routines, and we're gonna do all of this stuff. And.

And that's again, also the perfectionist in you. That's like, okay, well, self love. I'll get that done.

Yeah. But what I've realized, it's never perfect, and that's perfectly acceptable. You should be playing in the gray area. Never black and white.

Yeah.

And so when all of this happened, I was like, you know what? I got to let go of all of these terrible eating patterns. Because during that time, like, the binge purging did kick up for me. It was not definitely not every day. It was maybe like once a week, sometimes a few times a week. But I was just like, is this something I'm going to have to live with for the rest of my life and where is it coming from? I know for a lot of people it definitely has to do with emotional stuff. Some people maybe not, but for me, it was definitely emotional stuff that went all the way back to my childhood.

I think for everyone it's emotional stuff, even if they don't realize it.

Yeah, maybe they don't realize it at a certain point. So I dug really deep and let all that stuff come out. Released all of those emotions through journaling, through meditation, through you yoga. Recently, it's been letting out emotions through running, like just whatever healthy strategies that you can implement into your life. And when all of that happened, I was like, you know what? So I'm gonna choose to love my body instead. Because when you are going through all these eating disorders and when you are just like, oh, I need to look like this or I need to look like that, you're basically telling yourself that you don't love yourself and you're basically punishing yourself, like binge purging. That's self punishment and it's like self hatred. And once I decided that I was going to let all of that go, I was like, you know what? My body, I'm going to let it plateau out at, however, wherever the heck it wants to plateau out at. And I knew I needed to get rid of all of those, you know, cycles and triggers and all of that, which of course will still come up at some point, but you just recognize them and you like implement those positive strategies back in. And so I guess that's kind of where I'm at now. That's the whole, whole spiel.

And what's really unique about your story is you've experienced both sides of the spectrum. You've experienced obesity and you've experienced being so thin that models are asking you what to do to get thin. Very few people have gone there. And I think it's amazing that you've seen it all. Just comes back down to self love. And sometimes like the reason that we want to lose weight is to be happy. But then if it's causing all of this unhappiness in our lives because we can't go out to eat, we can't, we can't even go about our day without thinking about calories and this and that, like, is it. It's just making us more miserable. So you've seen that same misery on both sides?

Both sides, totally.

Absolutely. So. So in a recent video, so you post a lot of videos on YouTube, which I really recommend for you guys to. To check out. But you discussed more about your whole eating disorders and how you felt a lot of anxiety when you were dealing with them, even crying at the point when you were sending a text. And from an ayurvedic perspective, under, eating creates vata imbalance. Too much wind in the system. And when there's too much wind in the system, that manifests in the mind as anxiety. So what you were feeling was, you know, actual just a vata imbalance. So how did you deal with this anxiety when it came to.

Okay, when it comes to anxiety, I have this kind of. It's not a rule. But how I deal with almost anything that scares me is to run straight at it. I know most people don't want to do that because it's really uncomfortable to be outside of your comfort zone. I even remember when I went through my breakup, I was like, you know what? If I'm going to be at rock bottom, then f it, I'm going to be at super rock bottom. So I moved out on my own for the first time in the my life. I've always either had roommates or lived with my family, but I was like, screw it. I'm just gonna do all of this stuff. And I knew it was gonna be freaking miserable. And I'm sure that caused my depression to be worse, but I'm kind of that person that's like, well, if everything is gonna go to hell anyway, let's just freaking run through hell. Right? So with anxiety, I had it really bad, and I didn't even know I had it. And a lot of it was triggered from that past relationship where anytime I would talk about my feelings and he would completely ignore me for days, he would hang up the phone and turn off the phone. He would, like, not necessarily break up with me, but wouldn't talk to me until I apologized. And.

For bringing up your emotions.

Yeah, for bringing up sorry I don't feel things.

Sorry I'm a woman, or sorry I'm a person.

Yeah, I'm a human.

Exactly.

You know, anytime I brought up anything.

Well, it's the masculine that wants to block when it's not in touch with his own feminine side.

And he just completely would shut down or go to sleep and like, oh, we don't. I don't. We're not gonna talk about this. And going through that for seven and a half years, I thought that that's how everybody was. And so when I ended up back in the Dating world again. I didn't know that I could talk about my feelings. And I refused to do it in a way because it gave me so much anxiety. And I would always be testing to see, like, where the other person was, was instead of investing. And because of that, once I realized, and it was during like meditation, it was actually Oprah and Deepka, I was reading something about like anxiety and all the symptoms of it that they had written up. And it said overthinking. And I was like, oh my gosh, I have anxiety because my anxiety doesn't show up physically. And in other people it's very apparent because they'll have a panic attack or something like that. But for me, for that year and a half after my breakup, it was all overthinking. And I was like, I remember multiple times, like being like, Olivia, you're thinking a lot, like every day. I don't remember being like this. I don't remember having so many freaking thoughts. I literally one time before I sent a text message to this guy that I was seeing, I was like, okay, I'm gonna set a timer for five minutes and just write out all of my thoughts. And then at the end of it, if I want to send this text, mess, text message, I'm gonna send it. And I literally wrote like two pages full of questions that were going through my mind. That's not normal.

Where's this going? What's your five year plan?

Like? It was, it was so bad. Like, what is he gonna say? How is he gonna feel? He's gonna hate me, me, like, just all of this. And so when that happened and then afterwards, I would like send the text message. My body, after I recognized the anxiety, I started feeling it actually in my body. I would feel the adrenaline. I would feel like that tenseness, you know, and even going back to when I wasn't able to eat that sadness. Is that anxiety too? So what I did was I forced myself in every single one of my relationships, friendships especially, to tell people the way that I feel about them. And it's never negative. It's always like, I love you, you're an amazing person. Thank you for being in my life. And that's usually what it is. And I kept doing it and doing it. And I feel like the universe always brings you the right people when you need them. I have two friends and I actually met them after my breakup. I've only known them now for a little over a year, but I would consider them just so close. Some of my best friends. And actually after my Breakup. I really didn't have any friends, so I had to, like, start all over with that, too. And if you're listening to this, I want to let you know that you can start over at any point in your life, and your life can be amazing. So I do want to say that. But anyway, so these two friends really taught me how to communicate and how to love because they were so open and they always communicated things to me. And for whatever reason, anytime I would learn a new life lesson that I'd never learned before, our group of friends would hang out, but everybody else would somehow not be there because they got busy. And our group of friends, like 20 people, and it would just be the three of us. And I remember when I went through a breakup later on that I was dating this guy for just a few months. It ended up being the three of us. We were supposed to screen La La Land because they're all, like, film and TV people, but everybody else just couldn't make it that night. And I remember them. I remember me falling asleep on the couch in the living room of my friend's house. And in the morning, I woke up and the two of them slept in the living room on the other couch with me. And I'd never experienced that before. That was amazing. And they really, really taught me, you know, how to love, like, how to be just such a good person. And so knowing all of that, and I'm like, okay, so this exists. You can have open communication with people, and people will still love you and accept you exactly the way that you are. So that previous person, he just wasn't, you know, vibrating at that level. And that's okay, because everyone goes through their own stuff at different times. And I just had to really realize, oh, this is one person. It's not the entire world. Because, you know, my two friends showed me that it was completely different. And so after that, I literally forced myself to continuously tell people the way that I feel. And that included those text messages where we were talking about when one of the guys that I dated, I had to literally tell him how I felt. And this is after we separated. And I remember writing out that text message, sending it, and I was standing in my dining room, and. And right after sending it, I just felt this intense rush of. I don't even know what. I don't know if it was adrenaline, panic, whatever it was in my body, the anxiety, and then literally being crippled on the floor and just bawling, crying. That's how bad it was. But I was like, you know what? If you keep doing this enough times and you realize, because afterwards you're like, oh, that wasn't actually a big deal. But if you do it enough times, your body stops reacting that way. Because our bodies are biologically programmed to, you know, get anxious. Because when we're not living in regular domesticated society, it's basically to prepare you so you don't die.

Right. It's a fight or flight response.

Exactly. And so because these emotions are very scary for so many of us, it almost feels like we're dying. So you literally have to do it enough times that you start feeling safe for doing it.

Right.

And it really changed everything for me. And even the last person that I dated, I experienced that. But except this time, I was like, hey, so I get anxiety. This happens to me when I, like, talk about my feelings and I communicate. And it was kind of an amazing moment because he said to me, oh, yeah, I get it too. If someone doesn't text me back in two hours, I'm like, where did you go? And then he was like, but it's okay. We'll just work through it together. So it's like, oh, that exists, you know? So that is what I say to anybody is if you have any kind of anxiety, run toward it. You really have to. You really have to do it enough times and get really, really uncomfortable in order for it to kind of dissipate.

Yeah. I mean, it's like working out or stretching. Like, you can't get flexible if you don't stretch every day. And it's going to hurt a little bit.

And I do want to say that doesn't mean it never comes up again.

Right?

It still does, but you just like, oh, that's what it is. And you recognize it and you can observe it. And then you're like, okay, these are the strategies, or this is what I need to do. And then you get better at it.

Absolutely. Well, I think a lot of people will be able to relate to that because so many of my clients and people I see have anxiety. It's something that's so normal because we live in this. I like to say it's a vata world that we're, like, running around the clock. We're multitasking, we're doing things all the time, and we're in constant communication, whether it's through text or Instagram or YouTube comments. And it's, like, overwhelming. So it's really hard when we're, like, living in the super multifaceted world to like, suddenly turn our minds off and, like, Accept, expect stillness.

Totally.

So it definitely takes practice. So you spoke a lot. Also, how anger came up when you were dealing with your eating disorders. And you talked about in your video how you just kept writing the F bomb over and over and over again. You were thinking about times that you were bullied and this and that. So that was another emotion that came up. So what's your advice for people who anger is showing up for them?

So for me, which is really interesting, for the longest time, I never felt angry. Like, I was the calmest person. Like, if someone cut me off in traffic, I was like, nbd. Nbd. You know, like, not a big deal. And it's because I repressed so much of that anger. And so I was like, one of the days. I remember, actually. So two little snippets I want to say. First one was when I was going through depression. My best friend was there for me a lot, and she was like, I think you need to release the anger. Why don't you punch some pillows and we'll go screaming on a mountainside, because she's amazing like that, you know? And I would punch the pillows. And then I was like, okay, I'm done.

Yeah.

Like, I couldn't even let myself feel.

The anger because it's scary when it comes up.

It. Yeah, I couldn't do it. And then eventually, I don't even remember exactly when, but I decided this is, like, a few months later, that I was just gonna start journaling and write the F bomb a bunch of times. Like, a fu. Or like, F this, and, like, just keep writing it and then just let my mind kind of go on autopilot and see what would come up. And holy crap. All of the bullying came up. Like, a lot of, like, stuff that happened with my family came up, and I was just like, oh, my God, I have so much anger inside of me. And I remember that day after just, like, scribbling the hell out of my Moleskine notebook, I, like, ripped a few pages from, like, writing so hard. I went into my room, and I just started screaming. Thankfully, my place is, like, in the back, so no one heard me, but I just started screaming, and I threw a huge tantrum on my bed. I started sobbing, crying, letting out all of this anger, and I was so exhausted, I fell asleep. But I think that's so healthy.

Absolutely.

That's. I think, what everybody should do. If you're feeling any kind of emotion, which I believe it's absolutely normal to cry. If you cry every day, it's probably Good. Not. Not because you're like, you know, in a depressive state and you're like, oh, my life sucks. But if you're releasing motions constantly, it's completely normal. And healing yourself through those things. And I say, I say do it.

Absolutely. I don't know if you're familiar with Osho.

I'm not.

So Osho is a great spiritual leader, like, so influential in my life. And he has something called the dynamic meditation. And the dynamic meditation, you basically go through all of the human emotions. So it's like this whole structure, people can look at it online, but in one of them he says, just go crazy. And you're in a room and there's pillows everywhere and people just scream and they punch the pillow and they're like, really going crazy. And each segment is timed, so for 20 minutes you have to be in that state. And at the beginning, like, when I tried it, I was like, ah, rawr. Like, I didn't know what to do. And then like, suddenly all this stuff was coming up. I'm like, I don't even know what I'm in about, but I'm definitely angry out something. And could be that time that I was bullied in school, could be this, could be that. I don't even know, could be past life stuff. And then after that anger tantrum that you have, he says, now freeze. And you're like sweating bullets at this point. And you freeze in whatever position you were in. You might have one hand up in the air and you are in stillness for 20 minutes as the sweat drips down your face and you're feeling your heart racing. And then after 20 minutes, he says, then celebrate. And then you just dance in a circle. And then it's like. And he says, start your day with that every day. Because if you can get into that deepest state of anger and then let it go and observe it, you can conquer anything in life.

That's amazing. Yeah, now I gotta do that.

I mean, they have the videos online and there's places all over the world that, like, when I was in India, I was staying at an Osho ashram. And it's truly amazing because emotions are energy in motion. So what we don't realize is we can actually hack onto that. And when we feel anger, we can feel that anger and then we can choose to stop it. We don't need to get stuck in it.

Exactly.

But definitely to become your highest self, you had to go there.

Yeah.

You wouldn't have been where you are if you didn't feel that Anger and feel that rage, you would have just kind of been like, okay, I'm Olivia. But now you're like, I'm Olivia.

Yeah. And you realize that anytime anybody else is angry or they're going through stuff, it really has nothing to do with you. And I think as a society, we're so used to validating ourselves in other people and in other people's opinions that we forget that that's just their own stuff.

Absolutely.

Because once you figure out yourself and once you're at your highest self, and that's always a work in progress, it's never perfect, and it shouldn't be. When you're at that point, you kind of realize, like, oh, I just want to be kind. I want to show love to people. And if they don't reciprocate, that's okay, too, because you know that it's whatever they're going through.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah. And just let. Like sometimes, you know, even in la, when you're driving in traffic, like, someone will say something to you, and then I just look at them, I'm like, wow, I feel really bad for, like, whatever's going on in your mind, like, that if, like, me, like, going a little too slow or something caused so much anchor in your life, like, that's really sad.

Yeah.

So knowing that it's not because of you, it's because of them.

It's usually patterns and triggers from, you know, when they're younger and stuff that they've dealt with. One of my really good friends, who's also very spiritual, he told me that he gets road rage. And it has a lot to do with the stuff that happened to him as a child with his father. And there are certain, like, actions and movements that when people, like, you know, either touch him too fast or something like that, like, it triggers him.

Absolutely.

And that's why also, he gets that kind of road rage. And so, you know, you kind of have to understand that if someone cuts you off in traffic or flips you off in traffic, they're going through something.

Right.

Which has nothing to do with you, but they. They just need to, like, pass on that anger because they don't know what to do. And I think one of the things that I truly believe in is hurt people. Hurt people. And if you can get to your highest self and you're able to really come to yourself and, like, understand all of that, you can stop those patterns. Because just the fact that you don't react and instead you show kindness and you show love, it really makes other people think Twice. And really makes them go, wait a minute, it's me. I mean, if they're ready for it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And sometimes we are not meant to be everyone's guru, like, just smile and move on. So we've talked a lot about your eating disorders, and Instagram has been a huge thing for you. And I think a lot of people out there listening, they're like, I want to grow my Instagram page and this and that. And you've definitely. You've grown your page, one of your pages, over a million followers. So for people right now who are, like, starting off, but they want to start an authentic Instagram, they want it to be, like, true to their own brand and who they are or any. Or a YouTube channel. What advice do you have for people starting today?

I think that it's really, really important. And this is only from my personal perspective, because I've gone. I've been at the place where I was making tons of money on Instagram, just doing things that other people wanted to see. And after my breakup, I went through depression and I was like, I'm making all this money, but I'm not happy. Why am I not happy? And having experienced that, what I can say is that for me, after I was just in this one meditation and coming to realize that my life purpose was to help people, that kind of changed everything for me. So in terms of that, what I want to say is you really have to figure out who you are, what your highest self is, and that's all you put out there. Stop with the whole, like, oh, I want to do this, because this is going to get this many likes, or, you know, Matcha's really in right now. So I'm going to do all these Matcha things, unless that is also vibrating at the same frequency of what you're doing in life. Because I freaking love Matcha. And it makes sense for me to show something that's Matcha and something that's healing with Matcha in it, which I literally did today, but that's because it's authentically what I would be doing anyway. But if you're just doing things just to do them for likes and comments and money, you can. That's one route to go down, and I've done it. Didn't make me happy. But there's also the other route of having the patience and understanding that if you really come into yourself, the universe will take care of you and. And just really showing other people what your life is like and your authenticity and your genuineness. Because when you do that. And I've. I've seen this happen to me. Your fan base becomes so strong, it's no longer people who are just coming to you for a recipe or for cool content. And I'm going to tell you also, with cool content and recipes and shareable content, you're going to grow a lot faster. You're gonna make a lot more money. But are you gonna be happy? Right, is the question. You know, for some people, yes. Because they only wanna live on the surface. And that's okay. Totally okay. For me, it wasn't that. For me, it was realizing, really, in that meditation where I wasn't even trying to meditate about my life purpose, but this just loud inner voice came and was like, your life purpose is to help people. And it gave me so much clarity. And we were talking about this earlier for. For the longest time, I couldn't figure out, even on social media and in my life, like, I'm like, I want to be like this girl, or I want to do this thing because that's working, or I want to make this kind of recipe because, you know, it's super shareable. Like, everyone's making unicorn toast and unicorn lattes right now, because that's the cool in thing. And I'm not saying you can't ever do those things, because if I find it to be cool, I'm still going to do it because it's cool to me. But the thing is, I realized, like, doing all of those things, I mean, what did I gain from that? You know, like, am I helping people? Like, what am I doing? You're just creating this shareable content. You're trying to make money off of it. And there's nothing really more like what's below the surface. Because that's super duper important.

Absolutely.

So I would say my best advice is if you don't know who you are yet, keep going down that, that road and sharing how you got there. Because I think for me, really coming into myself and finding myself as cheesy as that freaking sounds made me realize that actually none of the stuff anybody else is doing really matters. It's like, this girl is doing this other thing. I'm like, great, that works for her. Amazing. And you're not gonna feel those feelings of like, oh, I'm so jealous, or she's doing better and like, you know, feeling that weird competitiveness that always comes with social media because. Because there's numbers. You're just kind of like, well, I'm doing my own thing. I'm putting Good out into the universe. I'm helping people. I'm showing love to anyone that comes into my life, and that's what I want to do. And even if it's at a snail's pace, at least I'm doing great things for the world. You're doing good.

Exactly.

That's all that matters.

Exactly. And. And that's the thing with this shareable content, too. It's like sometimes I see, like, trends and I try to do it. I'm like, wow, I just wasted the whole day trying to do this trend. And then what? There's a thousand other people probably at the same second as me reposting that same whatever thing. Is this the best use of my highest self? Most likely, no. So, yeah, find your authentic voice and sharing. And sharing who you are. Because at the end of the day, no matter how beautiful your recipes and your pictures are, if people don't connect to you, they're gonna be as quick to follow you as they are to unfollow you.

Exactly. And that's what makes you different from everybody else is you. No one else has your story. Doesn't matter who we are.

Exactly.

Everyone has a different story, and different people are going to connect with it and understand that it's perfectly acceptable if not everybody likes it. But you don't need to hide behind a recipe or, like, you know, something else. You don't have to.

Yeah, and I think we've talked about this before, but, like, so many people, they feel afraid to, like, post a picture of themselves on their Instagram because they're, like, known for their food. And, like, I had a friend of mine, she had all these followers, and she's like, the moment I started posting selfies, like, I started losing people.

That's really ironic because literally the other this past week, I posted a photo of food, and, like, that did okay. And then I posted a selfie, and that did way better. And I was like, interesting.

The same thing happens for me, but because I'm probably more just known for my personality than for my food. But for her, her food was just super beautiful. So then she. But then she got to this point, point that she was like, fuck this. I'm not here to, like, be a restaurant for them. I'm here to be me, and my food is a part of me. And if you don't like the rest of me, then sorry. So then she rebuilt her brand and super authentic to who she is, and it's like her and her followers truly love her.

Yeah, you gotta let the wrong People fall away. And I think that's what a lot of people are afraid of.

Yes.

Is I went through a period of time where I was literally in the negative for subscribers because I took my channel in a completely different direction, which we talked about earlier, which is talking more about these really de deep issues and, like, stories from my life. So I can help people because I'm all about self help. So I talk about anxiety, I talk about depression, I talk about how to stop feeling fat. And you watch my video on eating disorders, and we're having this conversation now. But that's where I think all of the help and all of the good is. And it's not just in the recipes. And. Yeah. So for a period of time, I was losing subscribers because they're used to just me posting a bunch of. Of recipes.

Right.

Because at the time, I was also so afraid of sharing that. Sharing me. Because you're hiding behind this image. If you go, like, way back to my YouTube channel, it was so perfected down to, like, my outfits, makeup, everything. Because I came from, you know, television and film.

Yeah.

So that's what it was like. And now it's like, no, I'm just gonna be me. I'm gonna be open, and I'm gonna be genuine and authentic, and I'm gonna share the things that happened to me in my life because that helps people. And I'm not afraid of me. Because I feel like on the inside that when you really do the self work and you're like, hey, actually, you know what? I'm a good person. I have a lot of love to give and to share. And I do love myself. And because of that, it's kind of like, well, if you don't like me, it just means that we're not in the same place. Yeah, totally. Okay.

And real people want to see real things. Like, I don't want to follow that girl on YouTube whose life is like, picture perfect. I want to follow, like, the real, real things. And that's why it's also like, even clickbaity. Like, people now, they see authenticity, like, spreads more. So they're like, the truth about my life. And they're like, do these clickbaity titles or so people click on? But it works because people are like, we want to see the ugly. We want to see the every day. And I think, like, the social media people that are rising are the ones who aren't afraid of showing that.

And it was a process for me because when I first started doing my live streams, I've been doing Them since January, every Monday at 5 on my YouTube and. And I would still like, you know, put makeup on and like, you know, do the whole thing. And then, I don't know, somewhere along the line I was like, eff it. I don't. I think the last few live streams, there's no makeup. I'm like, totally. It's gonna be what it is. I had one livestream last week where the connection failed probably 10 times, and I was like, this is hilarious. But that's what happens.

People who love you will stick on.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's life.

Yeah. Yeah. I remember, like, with when Instagram story came out, I would only post videos of things. My food, my. This I didn't want to show myself unless I had like, makeup on and, like, looked good. And now I'm like, I just did a spin class. I look like crap all the time. But I'm like, you know, this is what I look like on a day to day basis. I don't look like hair and makeup every day.

And I think, you know what, Snapchat actually taught me that a lot because I've been doing Snapchat now for, oh my gosh, like two years. And at the beginning, I would only post like, very similar specific things about food or what I thought other people wanted. And then over time, I just naturally just like showed myself doing random things and whatever. And then I realized, why is my Snapchat audience so strong? If I tell them like, hey, will you go do this? They like, do it and they respond. Or if I ask for an opinion, they're the first ones to respond. And I'm like, okay. Because they were the first people on all of my platforms to really connect with just me. And once I, like, I realized that, I was like, well, then I just do it on all the other platforms too. It's all good.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think there's also this, like, huge discrepancy over like, what we share on stories and Snapchat versus the posts because the posts live on. So it's like we still. I don't think everyone's gotten to the point that we're putting like sweaty pictures up on our Instagram, so we're putting them on our stories because we're like, oh, it's going to be gone in 24 hours. So I see that as like, the next stage of, like, we need to be okay with putting like, not beautiful content on our feed that's gonna stay there.

And that's tough because your feed, I feel like, still has to have an aesthetic for sure, which is, like, so tough sometimes.

It's really tough. Oh, my God. It's like something that I've been struggling. I'm gonna make a separate podcast about that. But just, like, even for me, like, my name is Eat Feel Fresh. I'm like, everything has to be, like, about eating and feeling fresh. And, like, there's so many other things I want to post about. That's why I started this podcast. So it's hard when you start with, like, food or fitness to, like, be like, hey, these are just tools to help you have a better life. But, like, let's talk about life now.

I love that.

So, yeah. Well, thank you so much. And you set a goal for the week every week, which your followers always listen to, and I absolutely love them. So what is your goal of this week that all of the listeners should follow along with?

Okay, so I call my community the Live and Learn Army. Live, spelled without an e, because it's a nickname for me, Olivia Live. And I created it because I do believe that we should constantly be living and learning, and that's what life is about. And I wanted to cultivate a community of people who really also believe in putting good out into the world about helping each other. Because I know as one person, when you have a big following, you want to help everybody, but it's not always possible at that exact moment. The amount of direct messages and the snaps that I get and just comments and stuff, I can't keep up with, and that's just reality. And I know as that gets bigger.

And you can't be your highest self, like, when you're trying to respond to all these DMs.

Exactly. And that's why I wanted to create the community so that they have each other.

Exactly.

And it's incredible the stuff that's been happening within that community. It's. I can't even explain it, but okay, so this week, our goal of the week, I did a video on breakups, actually on letting go, because people kept asking me about breakups, and I was like, this is so interesting, because most of my content is like a food or like a selfie or a quote or something. Not so much on breakups.

Right.

But, you know, I've had them.

You've had more than enough.

I have so much to share about it. So I, like, did a video on breakups. And this week's goal is to just keep trying. No matter what, keep trying. If you're in depression, if you have anxiety, if you have an eating disorder, if you're going through a breakup, whatever it is, keep trying. It's that simple. And know that it never, ever has to be perfect. I hate this idea of, like, being perfect. And I feel like with Instagram. Instagram, a lot of, you know, these fault. These influencers get a huge following because they make their lives look so perfect. And what I say about that is, like, yeah, you see them, like, you know, on a beach in. On some, like, deserted island with a coconut and, like, smoothies and all kinds of stuff, and it's amazing. But do you know how long it took them to get that photo?

Exactly.

You know, and it's, like, editing. Yeah.

They're not even enjoying their vacation. They're creating content for us to, like, makes. Which makes us sometimes just feel worse about ourselves too.

Exactly. They're creating content to show you a life that they're not actually living.

Exactly.

And that's not to say for everybody, but a lot of it is like that, because I know firsthand, like, when.

You'Re on vacation, do you have, like, a staff and a photographer?

No. And it's like. But I have, like, my sister sometimes who helps me take pictures.

Right.

You know, and it's like, I understand how long it takes to, like, get the perfect shot. It's hard, and so it's. It's tough. And now I'm just kind of, like, with food photos and stuff, I'm like, okay, let's do, like, 10 tops. Like, just from every angle, and I'll just pick one. Or, like, with, you know, selfies or something like that. I think we only take maybe 15, because I'm like, what is. You know, just pick the best one out of all of them. You don't need to take, like, 100 just to, like, or, like, photo shoot it. And, like, that's great if you're an artist or you're a photographer. Amazing.

Yeah.

But if you're just genuinely trying to be yourself and show your audience that this is what my life is like.

Right.

Don't need to hide that.

And I think there's so much pressure for us to, like, have it all. Like, I know for me, I was like, well, if I'm gonna post food pictures, they need to be perfect. I need a great. I need a great camera, and I need to learn how to edit it. And I've, like, invested so much of my time into it where it's like. Like, I like doing it. But again, I'm not an artist. I'm not a photographer. But it's just this pressure of like, well, I have to be a photographer, a speaker, or this or that or that. And it's just like, you know what.

Editor, a videographer, like everything.

And with social media you're just. All of us were wearing so many hats at the same time. So just whatever it is, I love that advice. Like just keep trying, just keep going in that direction. You don't need to do it all.

Exactly.

Well, thank you so much for being here. And you have a retreat coming up soon this July.

I know, my first one ever. So it's gonna be at the end of July and it's called Health and Healing. And what it's gonna be is basically I'm gonna bring about 50 women together. I'm going to start with just women. And it's a little bit of everything. So it's basically me showing you how I heal through things and in the way that I do it and creating those positive strategies of healing yourself through self help. So it's going to be a self love yoga session. It's going to be meditation, it's going to be journaling, it's going to be probably screaming at the top of our lungs and getting some Osho dynamic meditation. Exactly. And also healing foods and potions and stuff. And everyone's gonna come together and cook with me. And I don't want it to be something where it's like, oh, look at me and watch what I do. I want it to be a collaborative effort where we're all here healing through things and working through things together. Whether you have an eating disorder or anxiety, you're going through depression, whatever it is, in a way to find your highest self. Exactly. And it's the first one that I'm ever doing and it's crazy how it manifested. I wanna tell you the story before we go.

Yeah.

Okay. So after one of my live streams and this happened about a month now, about a month ago, a girl messaged me and she said to me that she was going through these cycles, really negative eating cycles. And she was like, can we get coffee sometime? I'm in la. And I was like, okay, how about now? And she was like, are you serious? And I'm like, yeah. Like, I finished the live stream. It was like 5:30 on a Monday. And she was like, I'm in downtown la. And I'm like, okay, I'm in Pasadena, I'll meet you halfway because traffic's really bad, let's go to this coffee shop. And she's like, okay, so I, of.

Course, I love it.

Bring her a Rose quartz bracelet. I write her a little love letter, and I bring her an avocado because, you know, I freaking love avocados. Team AVO for Life. And I go there, buy her a drink, because I know that whenever you're going through something, if someone does just even the smallest nice thing for you, it changes everything. It could save your life. And so I sat there with her for, like, four hours, just talking to her about everything. And that day in my live stream, I had just put into the universe, I was like, I want to do workshops and retreats. And she mentioned it around the end of our conversation, and she was like, you know, what about these workshops? What about these retreats? What are you going to do with that? And I was like, I'm not sure. I know I want to do it. I just don't know how it's going to come together, because I've never done something like that before. And she's like, where are you going to host it? And I was like, I don't know. And she's like, well, my parents own a vacation home in Rancho's Palos Verdes. I would love for you to host it there.

Wow.

And I was just like, I can't. Just chills. Like, are you serious? Like, you know, because I'm also kind of weird in, like, I have a hard time receiving gifts from other people. And that's something I'm learning to get better at. And so I think about two weeks ago, we actually drove down there to see, and she's now one of my closest friends. And that day during brunch, she told me that because I had been giving her different strategies and, like, checking in on her and seeing how she was doing. And she told me that she's recovered. And that was freaking incredible to have brunch with her that day and for her to tell me that and then. And going to the location to see it, which is incredible. It's just entire view of the ocean from every direction. There's even a circle, like, space. And I was like, perfect for meditation. There's grass for the yoga. It just all came together.

Exactly.

And it's like, I didn't have to go chase after that. And I think when you do good and you do the right thing, it's always the right thing. And then the universe takes care of you.

It just comes to you. You.

I love that story because it wasn't like I was like, yeah, I'm gonna go meet this girl, and then she's gonna help me with the retreat right no, I'm gonna go help her with her life because she's struggling.

Yeah.

And I think that's what everyone should be doing.

Exactly. And I'm sure I meant so much to her, like, oh, someone with such a big following that I look up to. It's like not only are you responding to her dm, but you're meeting up with her and you're giving your time to her. And just something like that is something that she will probably remember forever.

But I think that's what it is. I never think that we should be above our followers.

Exactly.

That's. That's not how I want it to be at all.

Oh, mine are like my best friends. We like all the time.

Like, they. They're your friends. They're. They're your tribe, they're your people. And I never want anyone to ever feel like I'm above them because I'm not. I'm still dealing with things and still going through things, and I'm just somebody that's gonna share it with you guys if it helps.

That's the only difference. Yeah. We're just happen to be sharing it. We're the exact same as you.

Yeah.

So I love that story and I'm so excited for your retreat. If you have a website, I will post that website in the show notes so people can join. And if you're in Los Angeles, I highly recommend it. What an amazing way to, like, spend your summer. And Olivia and I just before this, we were like, let's do a workshop together. Yes, we are definitely going to do a workshop together, just about overcoming eating disorders and healing your relationship with food and all of that. So stay tuned for that and thank you again for bringing your highest self forth and sharing it with all of us.

Thank you for having me. I love you so much.

Love you. So stay tuned, guys. This episode was super juicy and we can bring the conversation on to the Mind Body Balancers Facebook group. We'll have Olivia maybe answer a few of our questions on there and keep the conversation going. Stay at your highest selves. Bye.

It.