Episode 19: BEHIND CHLOE MIDDLETON'S CONFIDENCE. SELF-DOUBT, JUDGEMENT + STARTING SOMETHING NEW

Welcome to Unmasked Minds, the podcast hosted by me. I'm Sarah the Psych on Instagram. I'm also a psychologist in real life who works predominantly with millennial and middle-aged women and all of the things that we are currently navigating in this chapter of our lives. Now today I have a very special podcast episode. I have a guest with me, and she is someone that I have followed for years on Instagram. And I have followed her because she is real and authentic and chaotic and a little bit unhinged. And I've got her here not only because we're friends But also because she is navigating starting her own podcast at the moment. And so we've been, you know, chatting in our DMs about how does she do it, just logistically, you know, what do I— what do you— how do you set one up? What do you do? And one of the things I've noticed is a huge, like, barrier or wall and a lack of confidence and belief, and there's something going on there.

For her.

And so I've invited her on and said, well, while you learn this, let's also just record an episode because I think what you're experiencing right now is a lot more common than you would believe with women. A lot of women, I think, call it like imposter syndrome and stuff like that. So I thought let's just have a chat about what you're Noticing Chloe Middleton on Instagram, she has a highly engaged audience. She comes across as extremely confident, extremely don't care what anyone else thinks. And yet right now you are a blubbering mess sitting on the chair in my podcast studio.

I am nervous to be here. I am. I'm not going to lie and say that I'm really confident and I'm excited to do it, but also I'm Shit in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you know what I wanted to unpack and why I think it's useful is because that's— it just— I was surprised that you were so nervous because on social media you come across as so confident. I just like when you mentioned you may be starting a podcast, I was like, oh man, she'd find that so easy. She would just get on there and talk and not worry about what other people would think. So what is it you think that's making you nervous right now? What is the fear?

I feel like if I'm not immediately good at it, that I don't want to do it. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

And starting it, I'm a little bit scared of judgment from other people, which is like this big. Like, I feel like people are like, oh, she started a fucking podcast. Like, who does she think she is?

Yeah.

And then I think, who's gonna, who's gonna listen to it? Who's gonna listen to me just sit down and talk? Like, who wants to hear that? So those 2 little things are sort of what's stopping me from doing it in the first place.

So a fear of not being perfect at it. So a fear of not having, you know, not being fully polished and not looking like you've got it all together and you know what you're doing. But then also a fear of what will other people think?

Yes.

Yeah. And what might they think of me, as in a, who do I think I am?

Yeah.

You know, to, to think that I have the capability or the, um, you know, the— that people would care.

That people would care what I actually have to say. Yeah.

Okay. Which, which, when you say that out loud with me now, just to be clear, I'm not giving her therapy today, but these are the types of conversations that we were just sort of having. And I was like, let's capture this. This is so real for, for so many people. I think so often people see, particularly on social media, an external image of people and they have no idea what it's actually like on the inside. And I think it makes people so much more relatable when we see that we're also human. Underneath that, if we drill down on this, I'm not going to use any particular therapy talk like schemas or things like that, but there's a real fear here of not being good enough.

Yeah, not being good enough. Or like, I like to think that what I portray, portray online, I am authentic and it's real. However, I don't— like, you just share kind of like this top layer And underneath all of that is a little bit of insecurity and a little bit of not confidence to start things like this.

So would you say that how you show up on your Instagram doesn't feel like this because you've done it a lot?

I'm so comfortable with Instagram. I've done it forever and I just feel really comfortable and I could just get on my stories and talk. It's like I'm talking to my friend on FaceTime. It doesn't feel like I'm talking to all of those people. Yeah, I forget that there's actually that many people on there that are watching kind of shocks me sometimes when I look at how many views a video was getting.

Like how many, how many story views would you get on average?

I get around 10,000 or so a day of just—

Yeah.

And I'm in my pajamas in the kitchen.

Yeah, I know. I love it.

And it's not exciting stuff that I'm sharing and people will still watch it anyway.

Yeah.

So I think if I did start a podcast, would they come over and listen to Me talk on there?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And what if they didn't?

Oh my God, how fucking embarrassing.

Yeah.

Why?

What would be embarrassing about that if, if you're, you know, 10,000? And we were talking about earlier, just because if people do jump onto your page, you've got about 20-something thousand followers on Instagram. You've got TikTok as well. That's where you sort of started everything. Hey, but you've got a— Chloe's got a highly, highly engaged audience. You know, so if you've got 50% of your audience watching your stories every day, that is known as like influencer content creator dream engagement statistics.

Yeah. Which I didn't really understand engagement until I looked into it more.

Yeah.

Because I've got a very heavily Australian-based audience, majority women, majority within certain ages. And of those people that follow me, they all watch my stories, they engage in my posts, they comment on my things, they share. So as opposed to Someone else that has like 50-something thousand but not many engaged followers.

Yeah. And so, I mean, what you've got is this audience of people who love you, you know, and it's quite a diverse group of people, you know, age and that kind of thing. And, you know, if I, if I share a little bit about what I think about the people who follow you, I think, I think if I— well, if I talk specifically about me, you know, I'm a bit older than you, aren't I?

Yeah, I'm 35.

You're 35. I'm 44.

So I'm 9. Is that 9?

9 years. 9 years Older than—

quick math.

And I reckon I've followed you for about 5 years. And like I said earlier, Chloe's content used to be— if I remember correctly, I think we were around the same area, around Berkeley Vale, and I was running a gym around there. And we had kids that were a similar age. And I think you'd just gone through a breakup.

Yes, I had separated from my 2 eldest children's father.

Yeah. And you shared a lot about that, and a lot of that was really authentic and really sort of like, I'm going to say it like it is. And then there was this really sort of fun, playful side of like, and you were getting into fitness and you were maybe— I don't know if you were dating, but you were talking about being single. And even as a married woman at the time, I just found it really authentic to watch and really sort of genuine and sort of fun. And I'd been there.

Yeah.

You know, even though I wasn't going through it at the time, I remembered being a single woman with young children. And so I found it really relatable. And, you know, since then I've watched you go through some huge significant changes in your life, um, you know, going— meeting a man. So going from this, like, you were partying, weren't you? Like, you were wild.

I was wild and I was an avid man hater.

Yes.

Yes.

And like, remember when you were getting all those tattoos?

I have one of the tattoos on my shoulder is, um, It has men ain't shit. I've got it actually tattooed on my body. Like, I was— I thought I'm going to be single forever. I'm not going to date anybody. And I was more than happy to be that way until I met Chase. And yeah, I'm still a man hater, but I just—

There was this wall, wasn't there?

Very high built-up wall.

Huge protective wall. And it was really clear in the content you shared that you'd been hurt in the past and you were protecting yourself with this wall. And then we all got to see You know, the wall come down and you met this guy and, you know, I, I haven't met him myself, but he just really seemed to soften you and you talked about it and you shared this, this kind of journey and, you know, ended up becoming— I remember there was some sort of thing where, you know, it took a while to make it official or something and then you finally leaned into it and we saw this big sort of softening and then you guys fell pregnant.

We fell pregnant.

How far into the relationship was that?

Um, 7 months or so early, like quite early. Um, we both have children to previous.

Yeah.

And when we had met each other, we're a little bit older. We had the conversation about where do you see your life going? Do you want any more kids? And we were both, we don't want any more kids. He was on the same page as me. I was on the same page as him. I was like, beautiful, perfect. Um, and then when we found out we were pregnant, I remember how excited I was. And that really shocked me because I Thought that I didn't want to have any more kids. And then I was scared to tell him because I thought, well, we've had this conversation really early on and he was pretty adamant that he didn't want to have any more children. And so was I. And I didn't know how to tell him.

Oh, wow.

So I told his sister. I cried and told his sister. And I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna— like, she goes, I think you'd be very surprised at his reaction. Would be quite welcoming to it. I don't think he's gonna not be happy. Yeah. So I did tell him and he was over the bloody— we were both over the moon, which was shocking because I didn't think that— I thought I was so done with that chapter of my life.

And so, you know, as your audience or your followers, it was this big shift, you know, from this man-hating, you know, never going to be with anyone to we're happily pregnant. And it was a journey that you shared quite publicly.

Yes, we were very excited.

And I know it's not the purpose of this episode to, to go into, um, too much detail around this, but then you experienced something quite traumatic.

Yes. Um, our son Vinnie was born prematurely and sadly only lived for 3 days before he passed.

Yeah. And I, you know, very mindfully, we're not, we're not unpacking that, but, you know, you shared all of that and we all came along for the ride with you. And, you know, we were all equally, you know, devastated and, and felt, you know, I certainly felt touched by it. And then you, you kind of disappeared.

I went ghost. Yeah, I dealt with that pretty privately. Yeah, um, I did— obviously I was open about the fact that we had lost him, and I did share some very sad things all over, which made me feel better. Yeah, like to share— people knew that I was pregnant, so people cared, and it felt really beautiful. And also it felt very confronting at the same time that everyone knew my deep business, and I just didn't want to— yeah, I just kind of removed myself. I was still on social media, but I rarely posted and I didn't share much. And had a secret pregnancy after Vinnie, which was very unexpected. And because of what happened with our last son, we didn't tell anyone.

Yeah.

We didn't announce. We didn't— because I thought if something was to happen again, touch wood, I didn't want to have to go through that publicly.

Yeah. And, you know, I remember seeing, you know, all of these really sad posts when you lost your son. And then the next thing I saw was a baby announcement.

So it wasn't even a pregnancy announcement. No, it was a, he's our newborn.

Which, which was amazing. And I mean, we digress and, you know, Chloe and I've been here for a few hours already and we just keep going off on tangents. Talking, talking, talking. So I'm going to bring this back in. The reason why I was sharing a bit of your story was even just to emphasize that you know, you've got people who really care and are really engaged in you and your life. And I was saying to Chloe earlier, I don't even think it's just what you've been through and what you're doing. It's the— it's the way you tell it. It's the authenticity. It's the integrity. It's the highs and the lows. It's the F-bombs.

Yeah.

The reality. And I think your audience Just feel they can relate to you. They see you, but you've let them in, so they actually care as well. And so, you know, you could all hear how easily and how well she speaks. It seems like such a shock that when you said you want to launch a podcast, that you then were just like, nah.

I think it's just scary and it's foreign and it's new and it's something that I'm not used to, even though essentially it's the same shit as me getting on my Instagram stories as I know. It's just longer, just like longer-winded.

Yeah. So I think like, you know, as a psychologist sort of looking at it, one thing I'm noticing and want to really normalize is doing new things are scary.

Yeah.

Right. So I think that is, you know, you probably felt like that when you started Instagram, you know, started doing stories. It was weird. It was foreign. What are people going to think? So there's, there's an element of every time you try something new, it's going to feel weird. Our body is going to respond with a, you know, fight or flight response. Which is either going to be, you know, avoidance. You know, you've been talking about doing this for a long time. I know you listened to my podcast, um, first episode where I was like, I've talked about doing a podcast for years and then just hadn't done it.

I'd always joke about it.

Yeah.

Oh, you know, and we joke— I joke with my friends doing a podcast, but then they just never eventuated into anything. It was just always something that was sort of up and over there that I thought about that I wanted to do, but I'm Just never did.

And you kind of like soft launched it on Instagram the other day.

And everyone was like, do it!

Yeah.

And I was like, oh, okay. Like, I just threw it out there like, oh, wouldn't it be funny if I did this? And everyone, it was really well received. Like, well, when are you doing it?

Yeah. And so I think it's, you know, really normal to notice like there's some nerves and that there's probably been some avoidance and that kind of thing. But you're at this point now where you're like, nah, I'm going to do it. Um, and I'm going to lean into those nerves and they can be healthy, right? But what I'm also noticing is that sort of next layer beneath this sort of fear of failure, fear of judgment, worrying what people will think, and this sort of, if I'm not perfect straight away, then people might judge me.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that's something that's worth recognizing because, you know, we could do a whole therapy session here and we go back to your childhood and I'm sure we could make some links Probably. Into how you were raised or what environment you were raised in, or, you know, society's expectation of a woman. You've been a single mum, there's probably been, you know, and trauma and how that shapes a woman. Um, but, you know, there are so many women with these beliefs and fears that what other people think of us and how other people might judge us Um, it runs so deep.

Yeah.

You know, and there's this fear that what if the 1% of people, you know, or that person from high school or that ex-husband's friend listens and doesn't like what I—

Oh, look at what she's doing now.

Yeah. Yeah. And often when I say it to people like this, they have this moment where they're like, Yeah, but I don't care about that stuff.

Yeah, like I don't give a shit. Like I really fuck it. Like I don't. This little tiny part of me cares. But the rest of it, I'm just like, why do I? Why? Why do I actually care? I don't want to swap lives with these people. So why do I really give much of a shit about their opinion about what I'm doing in my life? I don't give a fuck what they're doing in their life. They probably don't even care what I'm doing anyway.

Like, They probably don't, but it's this— this fear is in you. It's not about them, it's about you. It's about, you know, you've been conditioned to think the worst thing that could happen would be people judge you and, you know, make comments that you are doing something out of your league, or, you know, yes, trying too hard, or being a try-hard, or not being Good enough, right? And, you know, it is— it's interesting, isn't it? You say you get 10,000 women listening to your every word every day, but then there's this— and saying, do it, absolutely do it. And then there's this fear.

I think it's like my deep-seated— I don't know where that deep-seated fear is coming from, but it's like, like maybe I don't feel good enough to do it, or yeah, like I'm scared.

Of what?

I don't know. I just know that I feel really anxious and nervous, and I don't know why I'm scared to do it.

Yeah, right. But do you see, like, cognitively we can go, it doesn't make sense. There's all these people that want me to do it, and I want to do it, and I'm worried about the possibility of someone I used to know. One person versus 10,000. So rationally it doesn't make sense. But then do you notice, even when we're talking about it, your body's like, yeah, oh, I don't No, but I feel it.

But I feel it. I can't explain to you what I'm feeling or why I'm feeling it, but I know that I'm feeling that. Yeah, uncomfortable.

Yeah. So I, I would love to turn this into a therapy session and do some EMDR on that, like what's getting stuck in the body. I, I think there's some, you know, I suspect this has been with you for a while, this fear of failing or fear of not being good enough, and You know, it's probably shown up in previous relationships or as a mom or on social media, like experiences you've been through. And this is just one experience.

Yeah.

Where it's showing up again. What I would lean into, you know, in the absence of doing EMDR or really sort of going in and healing the wound, I'd look at it as a child part of you. There's a little girl, a little Chloe inside of you. Let's say she's 6 years old and let's say stuff happened to her. Maybe she was left out, you know. And I know you and I have talked a bit around, um, neurodivergence.

Yeah.

And I know you're not diagnosed, but we're, we're starting to talk about some things there. Um, but you know, it's very common for women who were different or their brains work differently as children to feel left out and to feel different and to feel not good enough and to develop sort of rejection sensitivity and hyper-awareness to what other people think and feel about them so that they can change their behaviors so that they can fit in, right? And so noticing that maybe this feeling you're getting is this little girl inside of you going, oh no, don't, what if they don't like us? You know, and if you can actually picture a little 6-year-old girl inside of you and you're saying, I'm doing a podcast, and she says, but what if they don't like us? What would you, adult you, 34-year-old you, Say to that little girl version of you that's in there, that's coming up?

Who gives a fuck? Who fucking— who cares?

Yeah, right. And, and let's say she stands there and says, I care, I don't want to be left out.

Oh yeah.

So see, notice like what I'm saying is that was a very adult language to speak to her, but she's a child. What would you do to a little 6-year-old? And I know you'd parent your own kids this way. What would you do to the 6-year-old that says, I'm scared that people people won't like me.

But you have to go on living your life the way that you want to live it, not for other people's approval. Oh, should I just heal myself? See, I do listen to your podcast.

Right. And I mean, it's not something we're going to solve here, but so often when these parts of us that are just scared, that are conditioned to not feel enough or to be worried about not feeling enough, they show up and they're so childlike, but we speak to them like they're adults.

Yeah.

I just noticed you soften then. You went from don't give a fuck to your shoulders dropped, and you almost like you came in to speak to this little girl.

You know what I thought of? Like, yes, I pictured my own children if I was having a conversation with my own children, but my friends or anyone that said that they wanted to do something, I'm like, do it. And I'm so supportive, and I'm so like, yeah, you're going to be great at it, and this is so great, and I'm really like all for team, whatever it is that they're doing, but I don't give the same grace to myself. Yeah, I don't take my own advice. Really good at giving advice. Yeah, not the greatest at taking my own advice. Yeah, so I'm my own harshest critic.

Yeah, and so I wonder if what you do is a bit of that, like, just fucking do it, as opposed to leaning into it And saying to that little girl, hey, what did you say? You said you don't worry about them.

Yeah. You do things that you want to do with your life and you don't live for other people.

Yeah. And I've got you and I'll be here every step of the way and I love you and you're enough. You know, you speak to that little girl and you give her what maybe she didn't have. And I don't know enough about your childhood to link anything here, but, you know, Did— that's how you would parent her. That's what she needs. She's getting upset and worried because she's scared. What do you give a child who's scared? We nurture them, we protect them. We don't yell at them, just fucking do it.

I feel like I'm yelling at myself, but then when you said to picture—

I know, there was a switch, right? And, and how does that sit now if you actually think about that? You're literally doing a podcast right now, by the way.

Yeah, weird.

How does that work as a strategy? And look, going into this, this isn't even where I planned to go with this. It's just sort of evolved. Would that be helpful for you as you, you know, start to record your own podcasts and start to press, um, you know, what do you do when you send it out there? Um, post. Publish, publish, post and publish.

Yeah.

Um, would it help if when that nerve comes up and when that little girl comes up and says, no, no, what, what are people going to think? And that comes with the racing heart and the worry and the, the The desire to avoid, you know, and that desire— well, it's not perfect. You know, you literally said to me before we recorded this, doesn't matter if it's not good, we just won't post it.

Yeah, right.

Like that avoidance. Um, what would you— what might you, after this conversation, say to yourself instead?

I think I would treat this the same way that I treat Insta and TikTok. I don't really put much thought into it. I literally just record and then post it, and I'm like, oh yeah, That's— I don't know why I've got a different opinion because it's a different platform, I guess. I just say just to— if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. But if it— what if it does?

Yeah. Yeah. And it is interesting. Like, we have these schemas and negative beliefs that we can actually do so much work on. And having watched your journey over the last few years, you've done a shit ton of healing.

I've done a lot of work.

Yeah, you can tell you've done a lot of work. And, you know, sometimes we can do a lot of work, but then a new environment or a new situation can retrigger old wounds.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I wonder if that's a little bit what's happening. You know, you're feeling comfortable in the zone that you're in, the lane that you're in. Now you're turning into a new lane and all of those old sort of wounds are going, hang on, I don't know. But it's about gently sort of saying, hey, we've got You know, like you just said, what's the worst that can happen if it doesn't work out? We're still okay. Yeah, we're still enough. We're still loved. I've still got you.

What do you notice?

What just came up for you?

It felt nice to hear that, but it also made me very, like, uncomfortable at the same time. Yeah, like awkward, like, oh. That's nice to hear. We'll unpack that.

We, we really should just do a live, um, podcast on Chloe's therapy sessions.

Yes.

Let's livestream all your therapy. No, but I mean, you know, worth noting how uncomfortable— I felt how uncomfortable that felt for you.

Yeah.

You know, one thing that psychologists are doing is not just listening to what you're saying, they're watching you. We're watching, we're feeling energetically, and there was a real sort of tense up then. And, um, What that could suggest is that you don't actually say that stuff to yourself.

No, not really. I say it to my kids all the time. I say it to Chase. Rarely, if ever, ever to myself. It did make me feel a little bit weird. I was like, oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah. And isn't that crazy that we don't— you— that you felt it felt so foreign Imagining saying to yourself, I love you, I got you, you'll be enough whether you— whether it's perfect, whether you succeed or not. It felt weird to you. And, you know, that to me sort of indicates maybe you need to do a bit more of that.

Of the self— I feel like I'm an aggressive self-talker. Do you know what I mean? Like, I do. You got this, bitch. Like that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

Not like You're loved and you're beautiful. And those feel odd to me to say to myself. Like, if I was going to give myself daily affirmations in the mirror, it wouldn't sound like that. It would sound a little bit more— yeah, that. So hearing that was different.

But how did it feel as well? Like, did it— it felt uncomfortable?

It felt a little bit nice, but it felt weird. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. And so when we, when I do therapy with people, I do a lot of parts work, um, where you kind of think of like the characters in the Inside Out movie. You've got all these different parts of you. It's like you've developed this part that's like, fucking do it, bitch. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

My protective thing. Yeah. My little shield.

And it, it, it wants what's best for you. It's encouraging you. Yep. Do that. But you know, we just talked about another part that could be nurturing and More self-compassion and more self-love and more of that gentleness that we know we need, right? You, you parent your kids like that.

Yeah, I'm very gentle. Yeah, which is surprising to some people that I've got a very— I'm very soft and with all the people, like all of my friends and my family and my kids.

I'm a bit harsher on my So what do you take from this little chat in, you know, navigating what's coming up and how you might, um, notice it and address it differently now?

Just catch it, I think. Catch those because they're just— what are they? They're thoughts or they're feelings, and you just redirect yourself back to your nice self-talk.

Yeah, like noticing what part's talking. That's anxiety talking.

That's fear talking.

That's That's perfectionism talking. And being able to notice them and say, hey, you know, I would like to give self-compassion the microphone instead. Or, hey, I'd like to give self-trust— or, I mean, it helps to give that bad bitch girl the microphone.

She's got it all the time. She won't let anyone else have it. She's grouped onto it like this. Yeah.

And I mean, it obviously works and, and has served you.

It served me for a while.

Yeah. But I do wonder If there could be more of these, you know, there's, you say there's compassion to others, there's gentleness to others, there's unconditional love and support to others, but not as much to self.

Yeah.

There we go. Well, we might leave it at that. How does that feel?

Yeah, felt good just talking to you. Yeah, I'd like to see what it looks like and what it sounds like. But no, this was a good— this was a good first introduction. Yeah.

Are you going to start a podcast?

Yes.

Is it going to be perfect?

It's going to be the best one you've ever heard.

I think you're meant to say not to begin with, but I'm okay with that.

I mean, it'll be a work in progress, but eventually It'll be really good.

Thank you everyone for listening. I hope you enjoyed that one. It's not my usual sort of content on the podcast, but I thought you might enjoy Chloe's story. And I know so many of you will be able to relate to what she is feeling because I was feeling it a year ago myself before I sort of launched my podcast as well. So thank you for sharing. Thank you for being vulnerable. And yeah. Thank you for tuning in, everybody. See you in the next episode.