Leaders are especially good at hiding from love and the vulnerability it brings in ways that look deceptively bold. This can be a dangerous contagion, I’ve found, encouraging others to also hide behind the protectors of Hubris. Individualism. Perfectionism. Hustle.
I’ve seen how spending so much time hiding behind who you think you should be makes you forget who you are, what you value, and what you believe.
And, honestly, it can crush your spirit.
That’s why being able to receive love is foundational to being able to love and lead others well. This means moving through discomfort by feeling through it instead of letting the protectors – fueled by fear – hide your humanity.
My guest today is a force of love—towards herself and others—in both words and actions.
Arielle Estoria is a renaissance woman: a poet, author, speaker, and creative. I first met Arielle at Yellow Conference where she was an MC—a tour de force of love from the stage. I immediately started to follow her work and was moved by her ability to put words to the steady tension of loving ourselves so we can lead ourselves and others well.
Arielle truly lights up any room as an emcee and event host, a body-positive model, and actor. She has shared her work through spoken word, workshops, and themed keynote talks with companies such as Google, Sofar Sounds, Lululemon, Dressember, Tedx, the SKIMS campaign by Kim Kardashian, Hollis Co. by Rachel Hollis, and more.
Arielle’s first EP, a collection of music and poetry called Symphony of a Lioness and her single Magic (In Your Bones) are available on iTunes or Apple Music. She is the co-author of two collections of poetry: Vagabonds and Zealots (2014) and Write Bloody Spill Pretty (2017), which can both be found on Amazon.com.
Listen to the full episode to hear:
- How she discovered her body through acting, performing spoken word poetry, modeling, and calling BS on practices and businesses that do not value all bodies
- A look behind Arielle’s internal work and how playing find the lie and find the truth to see the full value in herself as a person
- When Arielle decided that her body is not an unhealthy hazard—and what she redefined BMI as in her own words
- What impact the toxic modesty culture has had on Arielle
Learn more about Arielle Estoria:
- arielleestoria.com
- Arielle Estoria on Instagram
- Arielle Estoria on Facebook
- Symphony of a Lioness
- Vagabonds and Zealots
- Write Bloody Spill Pretty
Learn more about Rebecca:
Other references:
Transcript:
Arielle Estoria: When we acknowledge this unknown to shift our perspective of what we do know, that love is still here, that grace is still here, that joy is still here, that none of this is in vain, that we can still make something out of this pain time and time again.
[Inspirational Intro Music]
Rebecca Ching: A leader who loves well leads well. The important connection between love and leadership is not discussed nearly enough, and unburdened leaders truly know they are loved and are generous with themselves and those they lead because of that love. They do not hide their humanity, their fears, their lack of certainty or knowing. Sure, they have boundaries, but they’re not hiding from themselves or those closest to them, and when we carry unaddressed burdens, we armor up and look successful on the outside while, really, we’re just trying to hide our unacknowledged pain.
I’m Rebecca Ching, and you’re listening to The Unburdened Leader, the show that goes deep with leaders whose burdens have inspired their life’s work. Our goal is to learn how they’ve addressed these burdens, how they rise from them and become better and more impactful leaders of themselves and others.
So many leaders are hiding their pain in plain sight. They’re hiding behind a mirage of polished, deflecting the truth for fear of losing love, belonging, respect, or reputation, all really important things. Not feeling loved or believing you’re truly loveable as you are leads to making choices to fit in or power over instead of navigating the vulnerability of being seen as a deeply-human being. Broken hearts, broken trust, broken connections all lead to protecting that hides your humanity and also your superpower: you! Leaders can be especially good at hiding from love and all the vulnerability it brings in ways that look deceptively bold, and this can be a dangerous contagion, encouraging others to also hide behind the protectors of hubris, individualism, perfectionism, hustle.
2:13
Hiding your pain can become a full-time job that never has time off for fear of being found out. Hiding your pain is exhausting. Hiding your fears keeps you locked up into keeping up appearances. Hiding your truth keeps you feeling like a fraud. Sometimes when there’s been so much time spent hiding and being who you think you should be, you forget who you are or what you value, what you believe.
Many of us were taught how not to be open to love, and maybe this is just a Gen X, cynical generation thing, but I have a feeling it’s all generations because love is scary. The message we heard was loving was weak, soft, and that love got in the way of how to get ahead or not giving any F’s hides the need for love. Cynicism and a fractured, even distorted view of love impacts how we see ourselves and lead others. These ways of protecting can crush your spirit, weigh you down, and cause you to lose your connection to who you really are.
[Inspirational Intro Music]
Being able to receive love is foundational to being able to love and lead others well. This means moving through discomfort by feeling through it instead of letting the protectors, fueled by fear, hide your humanity.
My guest today is a force of love towards herself and others in both words and actions. She rose from the lies that she breathed in as a young woman and full-body embraced the love she was craving and no longer hides even when she feels the risk of rejection or being misunderstood. Arielle Estoria is truly a renaissance woman.
4:01
A poet, author, speaker, creative, she lights up any room as an MC or event host, a body-positive model, and an actor. Arielle has shared her work with companies such as Google, Sofar Sounds, Lululemon, Dressember, TEDx, and more. Arielle’s first EP, a collection of music and poetry called Symphony of a Lioness and her single “Magic” are available on iTunes or Apple Music. She is coauthor to two collections of poetry, Vagabonds and Zealots and Write Bloody, Spill Pretty, which can both be found on Amazon.
Now, I first met Arielle at a conference where she was an MC, a tour de force of love from the stage. I immediately started to follow her work and was moved by her ability to put words to the steady tension of loving ourselves so we can lead ourselves and others well. Pay attention to the toxic impact modesty culture has had on Arielle and how she discovered her power in her body through acting, performing spoken word poetry, modeling, and calling BS on practices and business that do not value all bodies. For my Enneagram 4 listeners, this will be a special treat for you to listen to as Arielle weaves in her own Unburdened Leader story with her journey as an Enneagram 4. And now, I am thrilled to welcome you to my Unburdened Leader conversation with Arielle Estoria.
Welcome to The Unburdened Leader podcast! Arielle Estoria, thank you so much for joining me. I am honored you are here today!
Arielle Estoria: Thank you! I’m excited to be here.
Rebecca Ching: Ah, so I want to just jump right in and go back in time. I want to go back to high school. [Laughs]
Arielle Estoria: Let’s go!
Rebecca Ching: I know. We’re gonna go right in.
Arielle Estoria: [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: I’ve heard you say you grew up in this beautiful home. You’re the oldest of five kids.
Arielle Estoria: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: Your parents empowered you. But you’ve written and spoken about that you didn’t grow up valuing your voice and your body, which struck me as you’re a spoken word poet, a model, a prolific writer of beautiful words.
Arielle Estoria: Thank you.
6:19
Rebecca Ching: Can you tell me more about the burdens you were carrying at this time that led to these beliefs, and specifically things that were said or done or seen or heard that you internalized?
Arielle Estoria: Yeah, I think a lot of the burden probably purely comes down to a really deep-set insecurity that I still am navigating through how it got there because, like you said, my parents have always encouraged me. My dad is a dad of mostly girls, so he’s always been the one to be like, “You’re beautiful!” Or if we wore dresses and things like that, as we started to grow and develop it would be a very, you know, off-putting thing for him, but he would still be like, “Oh, that’s nice,” you know? He still was in that space. And so, I didn’t — and my mom is a very — I remember very distinctly trying on a prom dress, and I felt like there was too much cleavage in it, and I was like, “No, I can’t wear this,” and I freaked out, and my mom was like, “Stop being a grandma! It looks fine! Your boobs look great!” I was just so confused.
Rebecca Ching: [Laughs]
Arielle Estoria: So I grew up with very interesting dynamics and still very much so the modesty culture. I think that whole concept of modesty, I really ingrained, and I took probably to an extreme, if you will, this concept of not revealing too much of yourself for other people, this concept of keeping some things sacred and set apart. I kind of just took it all and I was like, “Well, what if nobody sees anything,” is kind of how I interpreted it.
I also, just for my body type alone, my dad is 6’3”/6’4”. My 14-year-old brother is now 6’2” and wears a size 13 shoe.
Rebecca Ching: Oh, wow.
8:07
Arielle Estoria: So I come from very big genes, (pun intended). And so, my dad is an ex-football player. I have his thighs, very sturdy thighs, and I always felt bigger than most of my friends. We grew up in a predominantly white area when I was in middle school, so all of my friends were tiny and blonde and blue eyes, and I didn’t look like any of that. And so, I kind of set up this norm in my head of, “Well, the boys like girls who look like that.” And for me they just kind of poked fun at me.
I remember in elementary school having a boy ask to see my boobs because they didn’t look like the way other girls looked because I was way more developed, and that was kind of always the case for me. I was always, developally, one step ahead of people, physically. And so, with uniforms and things like that, I couldn’t wear the skirts, you know? I had to wear boy pants because I couldn’t fit a lot of the girls’-sized pants and things like that. And so, all of these little things started to sit deeply, if you will.
And so, when I got to middle school, it was just like, “Just hide,” you know? That’s the safest thing I felt like I could do. Not draw attention to myself, not cause any uproar around me, and so, I hid. I had a very vocal best friend in fifth grade who we are actually still friends and both engaged, which is really fun right now. And she was my mouthpiece, you know? She would tell people I was hurt, or she would communicate on behalf of me because I had shrunken myself internally so much that I just stayed there, and it really wasn’t until I started doing theatre that I kind of opened up a little bit, that it was safe to do so because I wasn’t opening up as myself. I was opening up as other people. So there was this weird permission of finding myself in these character shoes and in these character personalities and being able to step into that confidently because it didn’t feel like me. I’m being a character, you know? And so, once I stepped into those roles, a whole different part of me took place.
10:26
Then I transferred to an arts high school in my tenth-grade year, and that’s when everything kind of switched. I was like, “What? There’s a whole school of people who are just as weird or tall or small or big as I am,” and there was more diversity. And so, I really found myself in the theatre space, but I also found myself, “Oh, there are other people who don’t just look like one way,” and that really shifted that insecurity for me because I felt less alone. I think my insecurity, when it first started, was just like, “I’m the only one who looks and feels this way,” and that sucks. And then finding that solidarity in other people kind of helped boost my confidence a little.
Rebecca Ching: That’s powerful. You named modesty culture, and I often will address it as purity culture too.
Arielle Estoria: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Ching: And it has a lot of double binds and a lot of hypocrisy and different rules for men, different rules for women.
Arielle Estoria: Right.
Rebecca Ching: And in my clinical work and in my leadership work I’m seeing this collective hangover from the damage of these (I’m gonna be generous) well-intentioned messages, but I’m even not feeling great about saying that.
Arielle Estoria: Yeah, absolutely.
Rebecca Ching: Yeah, can you go a little deeper on the modesty culture because you talked about how modesty for you, you took it to the extreme and said, “I’m gonna hide, and if I’m not seen –,” it almost felt justified. Those are my words, so tweak that if that’s not accurate. Yeah, the echoes, can you keep going a little bit more with that because I think that’s powerful.
12:02
Arielle Estoria: Yeah, well, I think everything about me — and now it makes a lot more sense knowing the worlds that I’m in (modeling and speaking and poetry and Instagram), I was never made to hide. [Laughs] I was never made to be small, you know? And so, when I take messages and purity culture and modest is hottest, I just take that as, well, me in my essence already knows I know. That was a fun one. Me in my essence already knows I can’t hide, you know, I can’t be small. That’s how I interpreted what those messages were implying, you know? Hide until it’s time not to or don’t draw attention to yourself until it’s time to. I didn’t know when that crossover happened. So I just was like, “Well, let me just stay over here on this side of hiding,” because I don’t think me and who I’ve been built physically, emotionally, and spiritually can suppress that, so I guess I’ll just shut it off, you know? I guess I’ll just turn it off.
And so, for me, I get, I think, like you said, very well-intentioned. Just the wrong scapegoat, the wrong distribution of what it meant to value these homes that we live in and protect and remind ourselves that they are sacred. Somehow that got masked up. Somehow we forgot that we were very good from the beginning of things, and so, that’s kind of what the work eventually I started to do was. But in that moment it was like, “Okay, I clearly can’t hide.” It was seventh grade that I did a performance for history class, actually, which is where I found my love for theatre. And we had to perform part of Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare for our class, and my teacher made me Helena Part Two, and I played that role to the tee, and I got to lay on the ground with my crush at the time, because he was Demetrius, and it was wonderful.
14:15
Rebecca Ching: So fun.
Arielle Estoria: And I remember afterwards my mom telling me much later that my teacher had gone up to her and said, “You have to put her in the arts. She shouldn’t have done that the way she did it. She has a gift, and you guys need to pay attention to it.” And so, then from there, I went to the arts school, but even then that space of I still only felt I could expose those parts of myself or open up those parts of myself while in the protection of being someone else, not being myself. I could step into this character’s shoes, and I can be bold and loud and crazy, maybe flirty or funny. But then once I step out of those shoes, I go back to being Arielle, you know, humble, reserved, and quiet for a while until I wasn’t, you know?
And so, for me, I think I know that there was good intent there, and I took that good intent, and I was like, “Okay, well none of that makes sense to me. I can’t just throw on a big T-shirt and then be modest because I am way more developed than most of my friends, so I have to just take all of me and kind of cover it in a big T-shirt because I don’t know how much is too much and how much is too little, so I’ll just stay hidden,” you know? That’s kind of what that looks like for me. And in those little — I don’t even remember what I called them, the little whispers, the little triggers, if you will, were just again that constant comparison, which I realize now is very ingrained in my Enneagram four-ness of just always feeling that I won’t be the next person, I won’t measure up how other people measure up and really putting that pressure on myself to be more and to be less at the same time, which is a really interesting paradigm to try and live in.
16:18
Rebecca Ching: This is a strong statement, but as I’m sitting here listening to this, not only as a trauma-informed psychotherapist and business coach but as a mother to a daughter, there’s a violence in that message of “be more and be less.” It is insidious.
Arielle Estoria: Mm.
Rebecca Ching: And, again, circling back to when I first saw you, I was at a conference, and you were MC-ing this conference, Yellow Co. Conference. I love Yellow.
Arielle Estoria: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: And I’m listening to you share now and feeling what I’m feeling and then putting that up to the backdrop of this memory of this woman who took up space emotionally, spiritually, physically, energetically with joy, with confidence, with power.
Arielle Estoria: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: And knowing the world we live in, knowing billions of dollars are made by having us feel like we’re not enough, I want — you talked a little bit about this vice grip of, man, again, be more and be less.
Arielle Estoria: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: Can you dig a little deeper on some of these burdens of not enough, because I hear you talk about that in your poetry and in your speaking. Can you go more into those specific not-enoughs and how they continued to kind of take you out and keep you small even after you got into the art school?
Arielle Estoria: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, I mean, it wasn’t until I got to college where I really started to navigate through I had gotten in that space where I could encourage others. I had gotten into the space where I knew I could be a hope for other people, so I did that, you know?
18:10
I reminded people that they’re beautiful and that they’re worthy and that they’re enough. And it wasn’t until I got to college, and I was getting ready to be a resident advisor for a hall full of freshman girls that I kind of got checked on that because I was so quick to remind other people how beautiful and how enough and how courageous they are, and I never believed those things for myself until on this training that we had to go on, which was a ten-day backpacking trip in Yosemite. And I have never backpacked in my life. Culturally, that’s not a thing my family does as who we are. [Laughs] And so, my mom is a glamper. We don’t do cabins unless they have a fireplace and a full-on — you know? [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: I love your mom. I’m with your mom.
Arielle Estoria: And so, backpacking I was like, “What is that,” you know? “What do you mean we’re gonna backpack?” So I went into my anxiety mode just to tap into something was, one, unfamiliar, two, so unfamiliar I didn’t feel like I was capable of doing it and doing it well. And going on this trip, you have to lead your team through one of your trails for one of the days and at the end share your life story and how you got to where you are at that moment. I shared a lot about how anxious I was about this trip, how much I worked out out of fear and out of anxiety because I didn’t think my physical body would be able to handle something that strenuous. And at the end of it, one of the guys on my team, he was just like, “I can’t wait for you to see yourself the way your creator sees you,” and I was like, “Whoa,” and that shifted everything for me because then the first question one of my girls asked me as we had tea in my dorm room with them. She was like, “How do you find value in yourself?” I was like, “Oh, okay. This is the kind of year we’re gonna have.” Where this internal work I’m doing myself, you’re now broadcasting that, and so, we’re all about to do this work, you know?
20:12
And I told her, I said, “I don’t know, but we can figure it out together,” you know? And it really came back to that moment and back to that conversation of can we see ourselves outside of our self?
And, for me, I was always raised to — my parents always reminded me, “You’re a leader,” you know? “You’re a leader, which means you can’t live the way everybody else lives, and there’s responsibility on you that maybe other people don’t have, and you’re set apart, and your name means lioness, you know, lioness have got it, and so, there’s a strength that comes with that.” So I had all these preconceived identity setups of who and how I was supposed to orchestrate in this world, and I think there’s a level of it that was strengthening and encouraging to literally who I am today. My parents raised a whole lot of really dope people, and I say that as humbly as possible.
Rebecca Ching: [Laughs]
Arielle Estoria: But at the same time, there was still that pressure put there to be a certain way and to exist a certain way, which I love and also am navigating through. And so, a lot of it came down to, okay, if I’m gonna set this example, I have to also live this example. If I’m gonna tell people that they’re worthy and enough and valuable, then I have to believe it too. I have this poem that I made my students write, and it’s an About Me poem, and I had them break down who they were in an ingredient sense. And so, I wrote also, because I never wrote without having — I never didn’t write because I wanted to set the example for them.
And so, mine was, “I am one-third poet. I am two-fourths perfectionist. I am imperfect, chaotic, frazzled, and indecisive. I can be moody and negative, self-deprecating and hypocritical. I advocate for the beauty and importance of everyone else, and I sometimes, I sometimes deny my own. I am often thinking that I won’t measure up, I won’t achieve any other level of success most days. Most days I feel like a fraud, like people will look behind my curtain and find a mess of a woman and they will not love me like still.”
As much as I’ve done, as much as I accomplish or as many stages that I’ve been on, there’s still that little inkling, you know? “That’s cool, but who are you,” you know?
Rebecca Ching: Mm.
22:43
Arielle Estoria: “That’s cool, but and –,” you know? Or “That’s cool, but is it glorifying to who I believe I’ve got to be?” You know, “That’s cool, but for what,” you know?
And so, that loop still plays in my head very often and the comparison still plays, and there’s just something — there’s this stigma about Enneagram fours that there’s a puzzle piece. You know, like, “Ah, it’s altogether except there’s one piece that’s not there.” So it was almost perfect but it’s not, and that’s just how fours feel most of the time, and it’s pretty true. It’s like, “Oh, I’m talented, sure. But it always feels like there’s still something missing,” and I don’t know where anything is but that’s how my brain and how my heart sometimes is wired.
Rebecca Ching: That’s exhausting.
Arielle Estoria: That I feel like I’m just enough until I’m not. Yeah! And I think there are days where I’m like, “No! I’m confident. I’m cool. I’m this. I’m this. I’m talented,” you know? “I’m gifted.” I don’t like talented, but I’m gifted, and I love well, and I make people feel good and enough and valuable, and those are good things, but there’s still this little silent whisper of “but,” and it never really completes itself. It’s just there, you know? And it does get pretty exhausting, and I don’t know if that’s the oldest child in me.
24:04
I don’t know if that’s the set up or just how I’m wired, but it’s exhausting, and it also is internal work that I’m consistently doing and reminding myself of the truth of who I am and not that little nagging lie that sometimes sits there.
Rebecca Ching: When you talk about internal work that you’re consistently doing, can you tell me more about your processes and your practices there?
Arielle Estoria: Yeah, I remember when my fiancé and I first started dating. We would talk about, often, finding the lie in the situation. So we would have nightmares — because we both kind of felt like we weren’t good enough for the other, which was really interesting, and so, we did have dreams or nightmares about the other leaving. And I told him one day, I was like, “Find the lie and then find the truth, and that’s where I’ll meet you at the end of things.” And so, for me, the internal work is always that: find the lie first and then counter that with the truth. So the lie, you know, is that I don’t have value as a person. That’s the lie, and I know that’s a lie, you know? And then the truth is I contribute something beautiful to this world and prayerfully, hopefully, even when I’m gone I still am doing that. And that’s the truth, you know? That’s the hope, at least. And find the lie: I can’t be loved well, I don’t know how to love well, and the truth is, I am in a beautiful relationship that’s healthy and grounding and safe, and it is an ebb and flow and a dance we have together, and that can’t happen unless I am able to love well and then be loved well.
And so, that’s kind of the loop that I play often in my head. I think often about when you sit in a room, what is the thing you can’t fully see all of? And it’s yourself.
26:08
I can see my hands. I can see my feet. I can see my belly. I can kind of see my shoulders, you know? But other than that, I can’t see the fullness of who I am, and constantly reminding myself, “You can’t even see the big picture about who you are, so you’re only seeing snapshots. You’re only seeing glimpses,” and that is the truth of I’m this, I’m that, I’m not this, I’m not that. You’re like, “But you’re only seeing parts of you. You’re not seeing the whole of you, and so, that’s something I constantly come back to of what I’m seeing is not the full picture of who I am. What I’m seeing is not the full picture of the value that I sit in and that I have and that I’m constantly coming back and reworking that space in my head.
Rebecca Ching: That’s beautiful.
[Inspirational Music]
Rebecca Ching: You know that feeling that just shuts you down when you’re trying to do something new or risky or vulnerable even though it’s positive for bettering yourself or your business or your relationships, or maybe you identify with one of these common beliefs: the persistent belief that challenges you and wonders, “Who do you think you are to be having this hard conversation or making a bold professional move?” These beliefs leave you feeling like a fraud and afraid of being found out, or the belief you cannot do the new or hard thing good enough, perfect enough, so why even try or start? So the excuses and the doubt and the avoidance shows up and gets in the way of your flow.
This is commonly known as resistance, and it is amazing how truly universal these feelings and beliefs are for those who do the uncertain and the unknown, which really is all of us. I mean, if I could get everyone in a room who says these things to me personally and professionally, we’d need a stadium. Resistance loves the known, and it’s number one job is to protect. When it protects by having us show up in life hiding from our truth, it destroys our self-trust.
28:12
When resistance leads, it’s exhausting, it is unsustainable, it is soul-crushing. Popular approaches to dealing with resistance ask us to kill it, to crush it, to fight it, to will or think it away. But these only create more resistance instead of decreasing it. In truth, these power-over approaches to bullying our pain and shame does not work over the long haul. Instead of fighting resistance, the most effective approach to these feelings and beliefs involves choosing respect towards resistance instead and even befriending these protective parts of our inner system.
Addressing how resistance shows up in your life is essential for an Unburdened Leader. When you get curious about the protector of resistance and learn more about its intent and fears, it is easier to get to the root of what is fueling the resistance in your life, which is why I created Resistance Reframe, a free online interactive guide so you can change your perspective and approach towards resistance and experience less burnout, feel more clarity, and lead with more love. So go to www.rebeccaching.com/resistance, enter your email, and receive this free guide so you can rethink resistance and develop one of the powerful pillar practices of Unburdened Leaders.
[Inspirational Music]
Rebecca Ching: I want to circle back to when you read that “I Am” poem. I have the gift right now of seeing you, and I was watching you read that, and I saw emotion flash through you, and this is not a recent poem. It’s something I could tell that you were reciting from heart. What flashed through you right then when you were sharing those words right now?
Arielle Estoria: Mm, I’ve never done — that poem, I sing at the beginning of it, and so, to just jump into just that one part amongst this conversation was a reminder of, one, in my head I was back in a classroom, but it was empty, which was really interesting.
30:19
And the emotion that kind of flashed through is like sometimes my own words speak back to me, which is kind of nice I guess as a poet. I’ll read things I’ve written, and I’ll cry, you know? A lot of it is because I don’t feel like all the time they’re words that come from me. I really think it’s a through me kind of thing. And so, when I read things back sometimes I feel like they’re spoken back to me.
Rebecca Ching: Mm.
Arielle Estoria: And so, when I wrote that, you know, “I’m moody, self-deprecating,” I don’t know what kind of space I was in in that moment, but I think that’s the beauty about poems and performing is that I’ll perform them and sometimes I’ll be in that space. Today I don’t think I’m in that space, you know? I don’t feel very moody just day by day, but that’s again due to everything that’s going on. But I don’t feel super self-deprecating right now. In this moment, I’m trying to be super gentle with myself and super tender with myself, and even this morning working out and what is the balance of pushing myself and also just laying on my mat because I think that’s what my body needs right now, you know, and that’s enough, you know, and showering and putting on clothes and just really small things to be super gentle with myself. And so, I think I’ve adapted a new tenderness to that poem a little bit more than I have before.
Rebecca Ching: Ah, thanks for sharing that.
Arielle Estoria: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: And I also want to circle back to this whisper that you’re talking about, the “yeah, but” when you claim a truth about you.
Arielle Estoria: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Ching: You have this part of you, and the way I actually conceptualized that, believe it or not, as a protective part, that there’s this part of you that wants to keep you small, doesn’t want you to be too powerful, take up too much space. I make up that that is where you can get hurt, right?
Arielle Estoria: Mm-hmm.
32:13
Rebecca Ching: So how do you lead that part when it comes up, this “yeah, but” part? How do you lead it? How do you connect with it?
Arielle Estoria: I think the “yeah, but” comes from this instilling of like, “You’re great but it’s only because of something else,” you know?
Rebecca Ching: Mm. A minimizer.
Arielle Estoria: Yeah, and it was always supposed to be like the attention’s not supposed to go to you, the glory’s not supposed to go to you, things like that, and many step into an art profession, and you’re onstage, and people are applauding because of you, and they announce your name. And so, trying to do that work of, “yeah, but it’s not about me. Yeah, but the attention doesn’t go to me,” and really navigating that.
And so, I think that “yeah, but” is like, “Okay, but how can we funnel that so that it points to something bigger?” But how can we funnel it so it’s just not you getting attention, and that’s cool but it lasts for a second, you know, and that’s not really creating anything with longevity. And so, doing that but also trying not to diminish the “yeah” of it, you know, of “Yeah, I am gifted but it can go somewhere else,” you know? Of “Yeah, I can receive a comment or an applause and it doesn’t –,” I mean, I think I’ve gotten pretty good just within my Instagram of I don’t post things because I’m hoping people like it, you know? The algorithm’s all thrown off right now. People are all over the place right now.
Rebecca Ching: [Laughs]
Arielle Estoria: I’m posting things because I have something to say, you know? And it was probably 90% of it, 95% of it was for me and 5% was for another person, and if the 5% interact with it, great. If not, still 95% of it was for me.
34:08
And so, I’m at this place where it’s like I’m not seeking a lot of approval from people I don’t know at least, from my family and from the people who I know and love who I hope to achieve a certain level of respect, you know, and honor back to you, sure. But not for the people who I feel like are in my space. I’m doing that because I have something to say, not because I’m trying to take something from you or get something from you, which is really interesting.
Being a performer, I just like being in a room full of people who I can kind of let pause for a second, you know? I like being in a room full of people who might cry a little bit because some part of my story and the words that I’m saying is triggering a whole internal work inside of them, and that’s not even triggering but hopefully releasing some internal work inside of them, and that’s beautiful. I feel like those moments have very little to do with me in itself, you know? I’m just a tool for them in that moment. And so, a lot of it comes down to the acknowledging the “yeah” of it and not letting the “but” diminish it, but how can I interlace those things so that it’s more a “yeah and” which is like an improv thing of a “yes, and” —
Rebecca Ching: Powerful.
Arielle Estoria: — and not a “yes, but” because I’ve put something in there that you’re like, “Ooh.” You’re waiting, you know? When someone’s like, “Yeah, you did a great job and everything but,” you know? And so, it’s like, “yes, and.” I think that is now a revelation I just received. So the “yes, and” and not a “yes, but” is kind of where I think I’m headed. Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: Love it. So this is a great segue to the phenomenal Summersalt swimsuit campaign —
Arielle Estoria: [Laughs] Yeah.
36:02
Rebecca Ching: — that you did. And I loved watching and following you on social, and you’re like, “I’m getting flown overseas to put on a bathing suit.”
Arielle Estoria: [Laughs] Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: I mean, which is amazing. I would love for you to share the burdens that you navigated internally but also externally, like culture’s view of size and race and gender.
Arielle Estoria: Totally.
Rebecca Ching: Talk a little bit more about that course.
Arielle Estoria: When that first started it was through Instagram, you know? And a company based in Canada was like, “Hey, can we send you some swimsuits?” I was like, “Sure!” I had been somewhat acclimated with sponsor stuff at that point in time, and so, you usually send them your selects and they send you one or two or whatever they have more of in their warehouse or however that works, and they send you one or two suits.
My first box from them was like a box, box, and I was like, “This is really — what is this box?” And it was every swimsuit I had said I kind of liked, you know? And I was like, “What! What am I gonna do with all these swimsuits?!” I don’t get in the water. I don’t swim. I like to go to the beach. I love to go to pools and things like that but sit in the sun and read and take a nap. I’ll be in a swimsuit but probably a swimsuit top and a maxi skirt because that’s just how I am.
And so, I thought, “What am I gonna do with all these swimsuits?” So I took pictures in them, and I posted them because they sent them to me, and then I did one more campaign like that with them, and then that next year they were like, “Hey, actually, can you come with us to our first campaign shoot? It’s in Portugal.” And I was like, “This is a scam.” I was like, “This is not real!” I sent the email. At the time, I did have an agency who had found me on a casting website, and I thought that was a scam too, but they ended up being real as well. And so, I had an agent at the time for modeling, acting, so I was like, “Can you check this out to see if it’s real?” And they’re like, “Yeah, it looks good. Let us know if you want to punch us in,” and I was like, “No because I will get less money.” So I got it. It’s fine, you know? And so, I was like, “Sure, yeah!” So I sent them my password, all this stuff, and I was like, “This could be — I could be going to die in Portugal, and I kind of want to take that risk I think!”
38:12
And so, I get there. I get picked up from this sweet man in a white van. I was like, “Oh, this is for sure how it goes.” It’s dark. We are driving a dirt road, and we pull up to this house and there’s this big, burly French-Canadian man outside, and I was like, “Oh, yeah. This is definitely how I go. I should probably drop my pin, let my parents know.” And they didn’t know that I was out there, and then I get in and they’re like, “Arielle’s here! Arielle’s here!” Because they could pronounce my name entirely. And they’re like, “Okay, put your stuff down!” They’re speaking in French, speaking in English, back and forth, back and forth. And they’re like, “Are you hungry?” And we eat, and we share our first meal together, and they’re like, “Red or white?” Because it wasn’t if you want wine, it was you’re gonna drink wine. I was like, “Red, I guess.” I’m, like, drugged on Dramamine because I can’t fly without it. And I’m sitting there, and I’m eating with them, and they were still talking in and out of French and English, and they’re like, “Guys, we have an English person here. Speak in English.”
And so, we’re sitting there, and I was just so baffled in that moment because I was like you’re trusting me and my body to carry out your product that you’re trying to sell. So you’re trusting what I can do, which is baffling to me because this is new territory for me. I did three campaigns with them – Portugal, Italy, and Cancún, Mexico. And I love them! They are my favorite people. If I could fly my makeup artist out for my own makeup for my wedding, I would. I adore them.
Rebecca Ching: [Laughs]
Arielle Estoria: And the last shoot was one of the hardest ones for me because we were in Italy, and I was like, “Bread, wine, pasta. Bread, wine, pasta, cheese. Bread, wine, pasta,” just on loop every day, and I was like, “How am I gonna model swimsuits and all you’re feeding me is carbohydrates!” So I tried to have this weird balance of how do I not eat too much and also model well, but also how do I eat well so that I can work because that’s what I’m doing.
40:09
And I went in this weird loop, and I expressed to the director that I was not in a great place with my body, and she was like, “Really?” She was like, “I love your body. That’s why we keep hiring you,” and she looked so shocked and so hurt, you know, that I would have said that about myself in that moment, and I had to take a step back, and I’m like, “I’m here because my body as is is not just valued monetarily, because it really was, but also just valued. They valued my company. They valued who I was, and they valued how I physically was built and shaped just naturally.” That was such a crazy reality to sit in.
And I modeled with two other girls who were smaller and had abs, and I did not, you know? I was the curvier, softer one, and, I mean, really wrestling with that every day. And so, it was like, “I’m here! I’m modeling!” But there was still that, again, voice of, “Yeah, but you’re the plus one,” you know, “You’re the curvy one.” And again turning that into a yes, and I have hips that are pretty hot apparently because they want to put them in a swimsuit, you know? And so, finding that switch — but that work was still happening to me every day of trying on a new suit, and I’m like, “Oh, wow. This is really busty,” or “This is not high-waisted, so it’s not covering my little kangaroo pouch,” and so, navigating through those things every day was like, “Okay, but you’re hot! You’re cute! You’re beautiful! And you’re valuable and you belong here.” That is what it really comes down to of like you belong in this moment, and you belong here, but I had to do that work every day while being out there with them.
Rebecca Ching: Your mantra during that season was you belong.
Arielle Estoria: Yeah. Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: That’s wonderful.
42:04
Arielle Estoria: Most definitely, and not even, “You’re attractive too,” or “You’re talented as a model too,” because I was like I was barely — every shoot I did with them they would always comment on, “You’re getting so much more confident!” And I was like, “Yeah, I know because I’m getting used to being in bikinis.” I’d never owned a bikini in my life. So they would comment on my growth, which was really cool. It was like, okay, I’m doing well, but it was all new territory. And so, I had to remind myself of, “Yeah, this is new to you. Yeah, you may not feel as attractive but at the end of the day, regardless, regardless, regardless, you belong here too. You belong here.”
Rebecca Ching: And did the “yeah, but” whisper then relax when you would breathe from that?
Arielle Estoria: Oh, most definitely. Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: Wow.
Arielle Estoria: I think that’s when it really turned into the “yes, and” conversation, or not even the “and,” just “yes,” you know?
Rebecca Ching: Yes.
Arielle Estoria: I think that’s where the period — you know, when you add commas to things, there’s more space for it to continue, but, like, no. Yes, you belong. You belong, yes. That’s it, you know, and navigating that.
Rebecca Ching: That mantra is so powerful because I often say belonging is oxygen for our soul.
Arielle Estoria: Mm.
Rebecca Ching: And when we know we can breathe, right, we’re not gonna panic. And this is a powerful way of leading your system when it’s wondering, “Are we safe? Is this okay?”
Arielle Estoria: Right. Right.
Rebecca Ching: That’s powerful. I want to bring up a quote that — I’ve heard you say this, and you’ve written it, and it’s powerful to me, and I appreciate it a lot, but I want you to unpack it. “Curved bodies are not societal hazards.”
Arielle Estoria: Mm.
Rebecca Ching: Yes.
Arielle Estoria: Yeah, I wrote this one specifically after Nike released their first curve mannequin, which, what a shocker, everyone, a normal-sized body wearing clothes.
44:06
Gee, what a concept, you know? And so, but people freaked out, and there was this whole article written about how this mannequin was promoting unhealthy bodies, how this mannequin shouldn’t be in Nike because it’s not like she’s working out, how this body — and, of course, it hit this wave of that was a pivot of people being more open to curve or normal bodies, you know, as models and plus bodies.
And so, it was like, “What are you talking about?” For me, I genuinely workout three, four, five times a week, but my body is going to interpret that the way my body knows how, and I will still have hips and I will still have thick thighs and things like that. And so, it was like you can’t just say that this body type is creating an unhealthy standard. And so, that’s what the conversation was, that this body was a health hazard, and it was causing other people to think that this body was healthy when it’s not, it’s a healthy hazard.
And so, I wrote that quote — I think I wrote it too because I was really bothered, and I don’t get angry very often. That’s not an emotion I navigate well through, and so, I usually just get upset and cry, but that week I was, like, mad. And so, I wrote those pieces, I think I wrote three or four almost every day after and then I was like, “Okay, guys. I’m sorry. I’m done. I’m officially done but I needed to say those things.” And that was the biggest part of it, of like, “No, my body is not an unhealthy hazard.”
And I had a person shortly before that — being reposted on Health Instagram in a swimsuit, and someone had commented, “You’re Health Magazine. Why are you promoting unhealthy bodies? This girl is obese. She’s not healthy,” yada, yada, yada. And it was like this whole thing, and that is where she kept asking me what my BMI was, what my BMI was.
46:05
“I bet if you tell me your BMI you’re not actually as healthy as you think you are.” And so, I took that, and I turned it into the hashtag that I have in my bio which is #beautifullymadewithintention instead of body mass index. “What are you made of?” I’m made of intention, I’m made beautifully, and I’m beautifully made with intention. That’s what I’m made of. That’s what I’m built of.
And so, kind of tag-teaming those two conversations of, “No, my body is not a health hazard.” I can’t eat at fast food because I’m allergic to a lot of it, so it’s like I don’t eat a lot of unhealthy stuff because I can’t stomach it. This body is just what it is, you know? That doesn’t mean it’s unhealthy, you know? It’s not. It’s healthy for me. It may not be healthy for you. But it’s healthy for me, and then switching that around and like, “No, I’m beautifully made with intention. That’s what I’m built of, and that’s all you need to know that I’m built of.” And I’m not promoting unhealthy health standards because I’m being myself. If you want to workout, let’s workout, you know? I’m down. If you want a salad? Let’s go. I love salads, you know? So it’s just this weird, preconceived judgment and bias that we have that just does not fall correctly at all.
Rebecca Ching: Well, there’s a lot of pain and a lot invested in us hating our bodies.
Arielle Estoria: Oh, sure.
Rebecca Ching: A lot of money is made, a lot of power is kept by us hating our bodies and being at war and afraid of bodies that are not of one archetype. And so, beautifully made with intention is the only BMI that I will honor. In the nineties, the BMI number changed overnight.
Arielle Estoria: Wow.
Rebecca Ching: And so, millions more people were considered “obese,” and the people on the board that changed the BMI were people that represent the biggest diet programs that we see in all the commercials.
Arielle Estoria: Mm. Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: And we’ve bought into this. But we’re forced to reckon with it. It’s one thing to say, “I call BS to it.”
Arielle Estoria: Right.
48:09
Rebecca Ching: But then in those quiet places about the threat to our belonging?
Arielle Estoria: Right. Right.
Rebecca Ching: You know, that’s the work. So I thank you for sharing that, and I will say anger is a tough emotion, especially for women to rumble with, but righteous anger suits you, and I love the art that you make —
Arielle Estoria: Thank you. [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: — when you have righteous anger coming out. It’s holy and necessary.
Arielle Estoria: Aww. Thank you!
Rebecca Ching: So you’ve identified a lot of these different burdens, the “not enough” burdens, the “yeah, but” burdens that you — you know. How has writing your poetry and your powerful essays and your spoken word, how have those burdens led to you making that art?
Arielle Estoria: Mm. Yeah, well, I mean, you can’t — you know, I say this and people are like, “You do body positivity! Where does that come from,” or “You’re a writer. Where does that come from?” I’m like, “It usually comes from not being those things,” you know? It usually feels like confidence comes from at one point in time, I wasn’t confident, you know? Being a writer and being a creative means at some point in time I really ran from that part of me. But at the same time, I’ve always written, I’ve always processed the world and my healing and faith and everything in between best through writing it out. I’m a verbal, internal, and written processor. I have to do all three in order for me to feel like I’ve come to a resolve, or I’ve come to a fullness with something. If I don’t write it down, it means I’m still navigating it.
And it’s funny because in this season right now, everybody’s like, “Oh, I can’t wait to see what you write! I can’t wait to see –,” and I’ve been like writing little poems, but I haven’t sat and written a full two-, three-minute poem because I’m still very much so processing what’s happening in my spirit and what’s happening in my mind right now. And so, unless I’ve written it down, I haven’t come to a full healing, I haven’t come to a resolve with it. And so, I mean, the writing for me, I think art in general is extremely powerful and extremely healing. And if we can just put things down to paper — I genuinely, when I finish a poem, I have one of two responses. I have an exhale response of like, “Oh, man,” because I feel like I do carry these words on me and with me. And so, when I release them it’s like this actual physical release, and then twofold it’s like, “Oh, man. That one’s, like, really good. I’m really excited to share this,” you know?
Rebecca Ching: [Laughs]
50:33
Arielle Estoria: So those are the two responses I get, or the third one I guess is, “This is not finished but I’m glad I’ve put down what I’ve put down.” And so, there’s always an actual chemical or physical response that I get from spilling. I don’t often say writing but from spilling these poems that I have because it really is like a spilling, and I rarely spend more than one sitting on a piece. It’s usually just like, “Oh,” and there it is. It’s done. It’s out, and I don’t edit them a whole lot because I really do believe there was something about that initial spill that is permanent, if you will, unless I’m working on a paid product. Then I’ll go and edit and give drafts and things like that. But for my own personal pieces, I very rarely go back and look at them just because I don’t want to over-perfect something that could be considered perfect just because it existed in the first place.
And so, yeah, there’s always a healing response like I have to write it down, otherwise I am not fully done processing that.
Rebecca Ching: That’s powerful.
Arielle Estoria: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: And is there something that you’d love to share? I’d love to hear you share a poem if you’ve got something nearby.
Arielle Estoria: Oh, yeah! Well, the one I’ve been thinking about is this concept of birthing something. My sister is pregnant, and she’s due in June, and this is the first baby for our whole family, and it’s very exciting!
Rebecca Ching: Ah!
52:00
Arielle Estoria: And so, I was like, “I get to be an auntie!” And it was just such a wild time to think about her carrying something right now. And so, she had posted a video on Sunday of music playing, and her belly was just, like, moving. The baby was just kicking and moving and dancing, and I just started bawling watching this because, for me, it was like, “Okay, she’s physically carrying life right now in this moment, and hopefully by the time she gives birth, which is around June or so, hopefully some of this stuff has kind of narrowed down or hushed a little bit, and she will have physically birthed something at the end of this.” And I had this little revelation of like we’re all birthing something at the end of this, and any season that we find ourselves in, we’re in it because at the end of that, we’re supposed to give something, we’re supposed to change something, we’re supposed to have something, whether that’s transformation, whether that’s a revelation, whether that’s a healing, whether that’s an acknowledgement of something.
And so, I wrote: “It is here that we will birth the change that we have been destined for as the concepts of time and plans mold themselves into simply existing, we will not see the light the same. We will not hold one another the same. May we learn that the individuality of today is not the collective of tomorrow. May we acknowledge this unknown to shift our perspective of what we do know: that love is still here, that grace is still here, that joy is still here, that none of this is in vain, that we can still make something out of this pain time and time again.”
Rebecca Ching: Wow.
Arielle Estoria: And I think, for me, I had teletherapy a week or so ago, and that week I was okay, you know? I was still working. I was still productive and things like that. And she was like, “You seem good!” I was like, “Yeah, I mean, I’m good, you know? I’m fine right now,” you know?
54:07
And it was like at the same time, I’m a freelancer, so this initial change and transformation, that stuff happens to me two, three times a year if not more, you know? And I freak out in that initial moment, and then I adjust because, “Okay, but this is what my hands are holding right now, so what do I do with it?” And then how do I birth something out of this? Writing more, getting off Instagram more, you know, whatever that is. And so, this concept of pain, this concept of growth, I was like we can still make something of this even if it’s just,” And this is pain,” and that’s what we made of it, or “This is pain, and I can do something with it.”
I’ve kind of always been a silver-lining person. I usually write or spill poems that are like, “I’m in this crap space right now, but how can I kind of, as you said, prophetically go to where it’s gonna be good and live there as a speck of hope to look forward to but also stay in this present space at the same time and grasp what I need to grasp here and then birth what I need to birth at the end of all that. That’s kind of where that stemmed from.
Rebecca Ching: I love that. I think the bandwidth that takes to be in the pain yet hold the hope flag at the same time, that is how we need to lead ourselves and others, and we don’t want to bypass the pain and just be Pollyanna about the hope.
Arielle Estoria: Right.
Rebecca Ching: And if we stay in the deep end of pain without any hope, then life gets bleak and feels hopeless.
Arielle Estoria: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Ching: So I love that bridge that you created, and I love that you just said, “Do something with your pain.”
Arielle Estoria: Mm.
Rebecca Ching: It doesn’t have to be right away.
Arielle Estoria: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: But just that action and that agency keeps us from feeling stuck and frozen, even physically in it.
Arielle Estoria: Yeah.
56:00
Rebecca Ching: And so, from a nervous system, neuropsychological perspective, that just resonates with me too. That is so powerful. Thank you, Arielle, for doing something with your pain.
Arielle Estoria: Yeah, yeah. Thank you.
Rebecca Ching: Thank you for showing up. Thank you for your light and your leadership and your voice, and I’m honored to have been a recipient of it on several occasions.
Arielle Estoria: Thank you.
Rebecca Ching: So thank you so much for your time. How can people find you? If they want to follow you, experience your beautiful words, how can people connect with you?
Arielle Estoria: Yeah, everything is Arielle Estoria. That’s my website, which I have photos and videos and different shop products that you can buy. I have two books of poetry. Those are on Amazon, and you can also find them on my website. I’m on Spotify and iTunes as well if you want some poetry to music and a few other ones on SoundCloud if you’re underground like that, and then Twitter as well.
Rebecca Ching: Mm.
Arielle Estoria: Yeah!
Rebecca Ching: Thank you so much for joining me today.
Arielle Estoria: Thank you!
Rebecca Ching: And I look forward to seeing more art that you make.
Arielle Estoria: [Laughs] Thank you.
Rebecca Ching: Hiding is a reflexive and protective response when we’re scared. Hiding from the dangers of rejection that threaten our core desire for love and belonging often starts at a young age, and then we continue to breathe in the toxic messages of the external standards and broken systems that tout what it means to be enough, to be attractive, to be worthy. So the mistakes are not just mistakes. You become the mistake, and meaningful work gets crushed by the external metrics of the opinions of others. These messages become burdens our systems carry, weighing us down, clouding our ability to lead ourselves with courage and confidence, so we end up hiding from ourselves and curating beliefs and an image that eventually becomes exhausting to sustain.
Protecting ourselves through hiding often shows up in our relationship with our body and our overall sense of image and especially the number of metrics we’ve achieved.
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Without loving ourselves, we can’t lead ourselves well, and then we end up choosing hate towards our bodies and our stories. We end up choosing exhaustion in search of value, and we end up choosing likes and follows while sacrificing integrity and substance. But being able to receive love is foundational to being able to love and lead others well. This means moving through discomfort by feeling through it instead of letting the protectors fueled by fear hide your humanity.
Our relationship with our body impacts how we show up in the world and how we listen to its physical and emotional wisdom it’s sharing with us. Daring to shine your Imago Dei in all its glory instead of dehumanizing your sacredness and that of others is much-needed medicine and much-needed love.
I am so grateful Arielle chose to stop hiding her body and her struggles with worthiness and show up with a force of love and leadership that makes every space she is in more empowered. She has infected our world for the greater good and inspires us to follow her lead and do the same.
[Inspirational Music]
So how is your relationship with your body impacting how you lead and love yourself and others? And where do you need to stop hiding in your life and show more love to yourself and others? Never ever forget how much you’re needed to show up in your truth, flaws and all. I know that sounds really easy to say. Well, it’s easy for me to say, but I know living that is a beast. And yet, we’re all a force to be reckoned with when we’re anchored by our belief of our worthiness for love and belonging. No matter the fall, no matter the criticism, as harsh as it may be, choosing to give and receive love well, and therefore lead well, is one of the most subversive actions we can take in a hurting world.
1:00:00
Thank you so much for joining this episode of The Unburdened Leader. Make sure you follow Arielle Estoria on Instagram and get ready to feel the love, be inspired, and be challenged. You can find this episode, show notes, and free Unburdened Leader resources, along with ways to work with me at www.rebeccaching.com.
[Inspirational Music]
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