Kimberlee Pieza (00:00.000)

Hello, hello and welcome to this fat girl life. I am the original fat girl herself, Kimberly Pleasure, and I have such a fun guest today. We are really focusing on self care this season because self care is so important. And there's such a stigma around self care, but I am here to tell you self care is not selfish. Self care is health care.

Before we really get started though, you guys, y'all know I am obsessed with coffee. I drink it every day, sometimes, multiple times a day. But coffee keeps me out of jail. It keeps me sane. So if you want to help keep your girl sane, keep me out of jail because I do not look good in orange. Go over to buymeacoffee.com forward slash this fat girl life. Now there you can make a donation in support or you could actually do a membership. Membership is

$5 that is cheaper than Starbucks right now it is cheaper than eggs and gas for your car But you can help get this message worldwide and everybody needs that So help your fat girl out at buy me a coffee comm forward slash this fat girl life Now today I have the mind shifter herself Fatima Bay with me today. How are you love?

I'm great.

So before we really get started, why don't you tell everybody a little bit about yourself?

Fatima Bey (01:55.32)

Well, I'm Fatima Bey The Mindshifter. I'm a dual entrepreneur. My first business is I'm a professional seamstress, dressmaker and designer. I specialize in wedding gowns. So I make and design wedding gowns. alter them and I absolutely love it. I've been doing that for a very long time, over 10 years, probably over 14 years. And then I'm also a Mindshift coach. So as a Mindshift coach, I...

focus on the areas of helping you find your individual purpose, your gifts and your purpose into a career or business, because we should all be making money at what we were born to do, helping you to find balance in any area of your life that's imbalanced. And then I focus on teens. So as a mind shift, Fatimah Bay, the mind shifter, I have a podcast called Mind Shift Power Podcast.

and it's specifically for teenagers and the adults who work with them. So it's bringing together two communities that work together all the time, but couldn't be further apart. So I focus on that. I go to high schools and do workshops and speaking engagements with both adults and teens. I write for a magazine and I do group coaching as well. So I do that.

You can just do it all. Well, you guys, the reason that I am so excited about having Fatima on the show today is because of a YouTube video that I saw of hers. Now, especially when it comes to self-worth and self-care, we all have some dragged up thoughts. We all go through, we all go through that horrible self-talk.

Well, her video, y'all, puts things into a somewhat different perspective and really kind of targets some of those thoughts. Y'all, she did a video. It is part one and part two of Krusty Thinking. Now, I love this. I thought, hey, call in your thinking, Krusty.

Kimberlee Pieza (04:18.571)

My daughter tells me all the time if I'm being crusty to her. So really that hit me right there. I was like, man, you know, that is such a perfect analogy for so much of the negative self-talk that we do. It is crusty thinking, y'all. What hit me is when she brought out that hundred dollar bill and that one dollar bill. How many of us have hundred dollar dreams

on a one dollar budget.

You

I know I am not the other one.

Mm-hmm.

Kimberlee Pieza (04:56.248)

I do it and I know I am not the only one. So Fatima, how did you come up with that?

Well, I'm an analogy queen. Anybody who knows me will tell you and you can even look through my YouTube channel, which is Fatima Bay, the mindshifter on YouTube. You can even look through my YouTube channel and you can see that I'm all about analogies. I'm a natural born teacher. That's really my first and foremost gift out of all of the gifts and talents that I have. I would say that would be my strongest. And as a teacher, I understand that analogies are the best way that we learn.

And the reason I call myself the mind shifter is I try to put things in a way that helps you to shift your thinking. And like you said, a perspective that I hadn't thought about it like that before. So with the crusty thinking in particular, I'll be honest with you, I pray and I ask God and he gives me these brilliant ideas that even I'm like, whoa, that was a good one. So this was one of those. And so.

I wanted to come up with something that, can, very often we hear people explain, especially as coaches and people in this industry, we can explain concepts. That's easy. It's not hard. We can understand concepts. Not hard at all, but do we really get it? But are we really processing it and knowing how to apply it to ourself? I think very often people are afraid to include details in the explanations because they're going to offend somebody.

I'm the opposite. I am not out to offend you, but if I do, well, I'm not going to hold back because you choose to be offended by whatever you want to be offended by. I'm just going to tell you the truth and those who it hits and it changes their lives. Great. Everybody else can go sit down somewhere. That's my attitude. So because I have that attitude, it leaves me free to be honest and real in my explanations. So with the crusty thinking in particular,

Fatima Bey (06:57.506)

Obviously y'all are wanna go watch it on YouTube. But with that, in particular, just, I think it's so important. I wanted to really convey the importance that we pay attention and control our thoughts. We can control our thoughts. It is not true that you have no control over your thoughts. That's some bullshit. You have absolute control of your thoughts. You don't have control of what comes at your thoughts all the time, but you can control what you do with them.

That's how you control your thoughts. So when that little bitch comes up in your head, like, you can't do that. You're too stupid. You're not good enough. Nobody's going to like it. Nobody's listening. They don't like you. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You need to punch her in the face. need to turn around and be like, bitch, that is a lie. Yes, you really need to talk back to those thoughts and make a choice.

That was a lie.

Fatima Bey (07:55.854)

And it is a choice. It's not a feeling. Your feelings will follow the choice. is a choice to decide. I am not going to let that thought sit there. I'm going to pick it up and throw it in the trash where it belongs. And that does take effort. It a lot of work on our part. Cause I know for myself, I, I, the reason I came up with that video is because I know that has applied to me and I know it's not just me.

And since we're on this fat girl life, it especially applies to those of us who are fat because we are, although we are more advanced in society than we've been when it comes to plus size women, we are still at a point where we feel bad about being our big selves. We don't look like the skinny mini models. We don't look like the airbrushed fake ass models that we put C on, And you can, you can modify anything to look like anything you want nowadays.

So most of half of what we see isn't really real. But we tend to because we live in a very materialistic society, we tend to value our looks honestly a lot more than we should. It's not that we should run around looking crazy and not value them at all. I disagree with that. But we give it far more value on a scale of zero to 100. It should matter at 50, but we're giving it 100 or 99.

Oh yeah, I totally agree with that. And that thinking is where it starts when it comes to self care. And self care is a big term right now, somewhat overused, but it is still important. And for, let me specify what I mean when I say self care, because there's a whole lot of different meanings for self care.

That's a problem, you know?

Fatima Bey (09:34.094)

Yes.

Fatima Bey (09:40.589)

Agreed.

Kimberlee Pieza (09:52.108)

there as well. So when I say self care, I am talking about making yourself a priority, establishing and enforcing boundaries within your life and taking care of yourself, taking time for yourself. For every person, it looks a little different. For my husband, for example,

Self-care for him, you give him time alone in the evenings that he can write or he may want to build a Lego set because he loves manoblocks. But that for him is self-care. For me...

you

Kimberlee Pieza (10:44.59)

time to sit and do cross stitch or when my husband is gone, that's when I watch my guilty pleasure shows. That is my self care. I am not going to lie. And I'm going to totally put myself out there. If I really want to get down dirty with my self care and relaxing with a video, I am putting on those pimple popping videos.

I don't know why those are so interesting, they are. I'll admit, I kind of like watching them too. I don't know why.

my god.

Kimberlee Pieza (11:19.726)

Yeah, and I I have the tools because I've seen them enough I bought myself a little tool of the tools to pop them Anytime my husband has one now, I'm like honey. I got tools. Let's go And this poor man This poor poor this is how you know, he loves me He will actually come up to me and say okay,

You

Fatima Bey (11:49.186)

Can we, can I back up for a second? I want to back up to something you started talking about making sure we're taking care of self-care and that's the series that you're doing right now. And there's something to a piece of it that I want to speak to because I think that it just needs to be explained and separated so that people can better understand. Okay. There is a difference between self-care and self-ish. Now,

haven't gotten there yet. You jumped the gun, but that's where I was going next.

Here's the thing, I want to break down what that means and what it doesn't mean because I think sometimes people don't understand. Now again, going back to what I said earlier, one of my subjects that I teach on, teach and preach on and always talking about is balance. And I think this is an area where our society has become somewhat imbalanced in the explanation of what self-care actually is. Self-care and self-ish are two different things. So self-care means that

I will make sure that I make myself a priority when necessary and I don't go too far and overwork myself and give, give, give, and never take care of myself. That is a balanced view of self care. Selfish is when that goes to an imbalance level where my focus on myself is 80 to a hundred percent. That is selfish and nobody wants to be around those people. I can tell you that right now.

If people are backing away from you, you might want to consider, because that might be partly why. Selfish is the percentage or the degree to which you are practicing self-care.

Kimberlee Pieza (13:29.55)

to do self-care, then you are being selfish.

You know what? That's an excellent way to put it, honestly. That's an excellent way to put it. You want to make sure that you are taking care of yourself. Now, I personally, the self-care piece is something that I've had to learn, and I still don't think that I've perfected it, but I've definitely gotten a lot better. And I had to learn that I have to take care of myself because I want to take care of everybody else, but I'm no good at it. I am no good if I can't take, you know, if I...

if I can't function. So I gotta make sure I get enough sleep. I gotta make sure I take care of myself. And it could be a challenge because I'm like the type of person where I'm like, I got 25 things to get done. I wanna get them all done today. But that's not always realistic. So I've learned to pace myself. I would say I'm still learning to be better and better at it every month. But I think it's important to point out the difference between self care and selfish.

But here's why I think it's important to point that out. I don't just want to explain it, but I want you to understand why. Sometimes you have women who are very, very giving and they feel like any kind of care is selfish. And for those women, I want you to understand that you taking care of yourself is not selfish. And I want you to understand where that line is. That line is when it's more than 50%. If you want to give it a number.

let's say more than 50%. That line is when it's more than 50%, then you're starting to run into the selfish field. You've crossed over the fence or over the line to the selfish arena, because everybody's not going to be, there's 50 numbers between 50 and 100. I use number scales to explain things a lot. So if you were taking care of yourself, everybody else 90 % of the time, there's absolutely nothing wrong with you taking that 10 % and taking care of yourself. And this is especially true for those of us who are mothers.

Fatima Bey (15:27.822)

Yes. If you're a mother, it's so sometimes, and especially if you're a good mother, the better the mother you are, the harder it is for self care. It's just true because you're always constantly thinking about the what is for your children. You want to make sure you're taking care of them. You're constantly wondering, am I doing the best blah, blah, And those are all natural parental thoughts. They really are. And there are guys who think that too, but we're talking to women right now. It's okay to take care of yourself.

It's not just OK. You need to. You absolutely have to.

Also, I really...

Where I learned how important it was to prioritize myself and make sure that I was taking care of myself was when I worked in the corporate industry. I worked for a car dealership for six, almost seven years. And I not only was working during the day for them, sometimes six days a week because in Colorado, they were not allowed to be open on Sundays due to Colorado law.

Otherwise I would have been there seven days a week.

Kimberlee Pieza (16:40.82)

Handled everything during the day also was scheduling and taking care of stuff in the evening and on my days off at home to the point of While I was on my honeymoon I had customers call me and I that's when I was like, you know what? No. Nope. I'm on my honeymoon call the data or shit

Mm-mm.

Fatima Bey (17:06.637)

Yeah.

And I was getting to a point with burnout that was so severe, it was making me physically ill. I would get sick. I would lose my voice. didn't have any, know, doctor couldn't fix it. There was nothing, you know, I didn't have laryngitis or some sort of bacterial thing.

It's like my body would start just shutting down and I would lose my voice Wouldn't be able to speak no matter what I tried and as somebody who grew up singing I knew every trick in the book Wouldn't work I would get so Drained that Somebody could look at me wrong and I burst into tears

Like I was hitting that wall hard and I finally had to, you know, start putting some boundaries in place and really that was hard for me. Cause especially coming out of rehab, I had spent eight years as an addict prior had gone through rehab was getting my life back on track. And I had this

fucked up thinking that in order to try to show everybody that I was better, that I wasn't the same person I was in addiction, I had to succeed. Well, I was taking it too unhealthy.

Fatima Bey (18:49.966)

Mm-hmm.

Fatima Bey (18:56.404)

Extremes, extremes, yes.

End.

That's the problem, especially when you're working in a corporate industry or something like that is you go to such unhealthy extremes to try to prove that you are just as good as a counterpart that may be deemed societally better. And I'm not going to call out any specific counterparts right now. That's not what this is about. But when you are competing with a counterpart,

or you want to show that, I'm the best, you take it to such unhealthy levels. And that's what I think a lot of that crusty thinking actually happens as well. Because we are constantly trying to achieve something that...

Mm-hmm.

Kimberlee Pieza (19:48.814)

going to serve us.

You really said it. I would say for people out there who are listening right now and you keep trying to find a way to take care of yourself, find a way to be better balanced when it comes to self-care and you just keep ending up not doing it and you keep ending up in the same situation over and over again and it's not happening.

your thinking needs to change. Until it does, you're not going to change. And that's where crusty thinking comes in. Your thinking is crusty when it's the same thoughts over and over again. It's just like they say, expecting, doing the same thing, expecting different results. That's crusty thinking. Doing what the people before you and your family did, but expecting it to come out better for you, that's crusty thinking. It doesn't work.

You, we really need to examine ourselves and ask, okay, what, is my thinking? Because how is my thinking affecting my success or failure right now? I promise you it's in your thinking. Promise you success or failure is a hundred percent in your thinking. Because even if you have opportunities to do this and that, and you have the means to do this and that, your thinking is what will help you. Your thinking is what will make you.

grab a hold of the right opportunities or to waste them or.

Kimberlee Pieza (21:26.946)

Give you an example for crusty thinking that I just came up with. If your thinking makes you constantly feel bad about yourself, that is crusty thinking.

Yes. And sometimes I will call it stinking thinking, but I use crusty thinking in that video. Other times I've called it stinking thinking, but I use crusty thinking in that video because of the physical demonstration that I did in that video and how it was literally crusty. But you're stinking thinking. Yes. You're so right. If you find yourself constantly putting yourself down, that means you have a

bad habit that needs to be broken. Your thinking is in a bad habit loop and it needs to be broken. Your mind is behind bars and in chains and those chains need to be broken.

And I love that you brought up the word habit because, and I've said this before and I will say it again because there are people that need to hear it. It takes 21 days to create a

You have to do something every day for 21 days. That is scientifically proven. This isn't just something I came up with. Science is behind that. So when you are trying to change some of that crusty thinking, that negative self-talk,

Fatima Bey (22:49.154)

See ya

Kimberlee Pieza (23:06.124)

The best thing I ever was taught. And I, I actually just had a conversation with somebody in a Facebook group the other day. Take something positive about yourself. Write it on a sticky note. Or for me, I actually keep them on my phone. I have a little widget and I'm actually going to show part of my home screen. If

I can get it up. It doesn't want to come up properly because it's got a different widget on it right now. But where is it? Up on the top of my screen, I've got these two widgets and this one, it, of course they're not going to come up properly because I just messed up my phone. But I actually keep affirmations on my phone because I have my phone with me constantly.

So when I have that moment of.

carrying myself down, which we all do. I don't care who you are. If you say you never do it, you are lying. I'm just gonna call that out real quick because we all have those moments. May not be as frequent for some as it is others, but it's there. So when I have that moment, I will actually just have to look at my phone and see a little message. You are enough. You look beautiful.

I write myself little love notes on my phone and I keep them playing in a loop. So I get that constantly.

Fatima Bey (24:50.126)

I do think that affirmations are important. And when I do individual coaching, customize, have all, anybody I coach, I have them do affirmations. But I customize how they do the affirmations differently because everybody doesn't receive the same way. So I do have people do affirmations and then I have them work up to a different affirmation once they're secure in that one. But I also wanted to point out something you said a minute ago.

When we're talking about earlier, well, something I said earlier about telling that bitch in your head to shut up. Because in line with what you just said about what we just talking about with habits, you have to make it a habit to combat. If you were 50 years old and you have a habit for the past 49 years of putting yourself down and receiving those thoughts.

and taking them in that says you're not good enough, you're not smart enough, they're looking at you, whatever it is, whatever the negativity is. You can, even at 50 years old, you can change that. But as Kim just said a minute ago, you need to develop a habit of shutting them down. Don't just go, man, I had that thought and just sit there with it. You need to shut it down and combat it with what she was just saying, with

positive affirmations. If you do those two things in combination, you can change any mindset.

Yep, and I'm gonna give an example of that. Real world example. And I started this one, this has become a running joke, honestly, but it's so accurate. Because again, it's that, you you've got that negative that you've had for 49 years. We're gonna just use 50 as our number. You've had that habit 49 years. 49 years, all you've told yourself is, I hate my chin.

Kimberlee Pieza (26:54.572)

My chin is ugly. Having a double chin is ugly. And I freely bet I am not a fan of my chin. But.

Here's where it goes to the positive. I have a built-in pillow. If I fall asleep, I'm gonna get down. I got a built-in pillow. How many other people would say that? My fucking body gave me a built-in pillow. I got that negative. I hate my double chin. But.

Yeah

perspective

Fatima Bey (27:23.854)

I'm joking, pillow.

Kimberlee Pieza (27:31.754)

It does this for me.

I am that negative that negative that I had for 49 years. I am turning it into a positive. So even with that negative thinking because that negative thinking is not going to go away but you can combat it. You have that thought and then you add the but and what's the positive on it? What is the opposite? What is the good thing about it?

I had to start doing that with my body, especially because with my history, with being, you know, a child, a childhood sexual abuse survivor, going through eight years of addiction and adulthood, I spent a lot of years in self-hate. 36 years, hated myself, hated my body. I couldn't tell you anything positive except for the fact that I could sing.

That was the only positive I had. That and I gave birth to a beautiful daughter. But I still didn't credit myself for that. You know, she came out of me, that was it. My sister helped raise her. I will put that out there. It's not something I talk about a whole lot, but I was not, I was not a good mother for my daughters.

Now I am a good mother and I am a wonderful grandma.

Kimberlee Pieza (29:05.59)

And then again, there's that but. What I'm saying is true. I wasn't a good mom when my daughter was little. But I did the work. I did the healing. I looked inside, which is so hard to do. It was not easy. And it took years for my daughter, but after I got clean, it still took years for my daughter to forgive me for the hell that I put her through. And thank

Mm-hmm.

Kimberlee Pieza (29:35.608)

God, that my mother and my aunt and my sister were willing to raise my daughter because I didn't do it. I was.

spent eight years in a drug-induced haze. I was not a good mom. So I am now.

So what I'm hearing you say, and I'm really kind of talking to the audience right now.

Even if you've been imperfect your whole life and you've done some bad things, even if it's not related to parenting, whatever it is, everybody's got different details. None of us are perfect. We've all lived a life and made mistakes. You can still come out of it and practice self-care with it. Because I do believe that guilt, warranted or not, because sometimes it's not warranted, but sometimes it is.

Warranted or not, guilt is one of those things that hold people down and keep them from attempting any sort of self-love. And I want you to know you can come out of it because you don't know my story, but there's, you know, I've lived under a lot of negativity and negative self-talk most of my life. had very, very low self-esteem, extremely. And

Fatima Bey (30:59.264)

always had a little voice in my head telling me everything I wasn't. And I started combating it with understanding everything I am and started talking back to her. And it doesn't mean that I'm perfect now. I'm a very strong, confident woman now, and I'm known for that, but I wasn't always. And I just want to give hope to those of you who are out there who might be like I was or like she was. There's hope for you.

You can, you just have to make a decision and then put in the work. It's not gonna happen overnight and it might not be easy and it might be a challenge, but it's worth it because when you come out on the other side of it, God, you feel like you got out of jail.

Yeah. Oh my God. Yes. It is totally different. I can say now I'm 47 years old. So when I say, you know, that 49 years, it's pretty accurate for me. You know, I've hit that age, but I'm 47 years old and I am

I'm sorry.

Kimberlee Pieza (32:12.078)

Probably the happiest I've ever been. The only thing that would make my life better.

was if my daughter and grandbaby lived out here with me in Vegas instead of being two states away. But thank God for FaceTime. I talked to my grandbaby this morning. I get FaceTime with him every day. And I will say, and my daughter and I have had this conversation.

I was not a good mom, but I am very proud to say I am a wonderful grandmother. And that little boy loves his Nana.

Kimberlee Pieza (32:56.938)

and having my daughter call me because she has a question or she's just frustrated in that moment and needs a break and needs another adult to talk to. I love that I am one of her first calls now because 10 years ago I wouldn't have been.

And that's progress. And that's beautiful.

That is putting in the work. That is taking that negative and finding the positive.

And I love that you talk about that.

Kimberlee Pieza (33:34.424)

Honestly, this whole series, and I know I explained this to you when we talked the first time, but I am the original fat girl. This entire show started because of a blog that I wrote about myself.

this fat girl life. I am the fat girl that started it.

And the thing is, I think the reason you have the followers you do is because you're not the only one. And there's a lot of other Kimberle's out there and Fatima's and I'm hoping that this can help them.

Well, you guys, we are gonna wrap this episode up. Fatima, I wanna thank you so much for coming on, for sharing the crusty thinking with us, know, telling us about, you know, helping us learn about the crusty thinking that we all do and how we can change that and knock the crust off of it and smooth some of those edges.

and find the beauty that's under the crust. Let's think about a pearl. An oyster is actually a really ugly animal. But that pearl inside you have to dig for is a thing of beauty. And all of you out there in internet land,

Fatima Bey (34:41.346)

Yes, yes.

Fatima Bey (34:49.902)

Mm-hmm.

Fatima Bey (34:57.57)

Yes, it is.

Kimberlee Pieza (35:04.29)

That's what we're gonna call it. That's how y'all are getting reached is through the internet somehow. You guys are all pearls. You just may have to knock off some of the crust.

I like that.

Well, I'm going to ask one final question because I do this every episode, but now I got to switch it up because just as a heads up, if y'all don't follow Big Beautiful Badasses, one of my other podcasts, my team is on there too. Check out Big Beautiful Badasses.

And I like the title, Big Beautiful Badass. There's my face. I love it.

But I gotta get him up with a different question. So that being said, what is the most inspirational thing somebody has ever said to you?

Fatima Bey (35:52.238)

Mmm.

See, I got you on that one. what do you think?

Yeah. Somebody's ever said to me directly. Because that's a different answer than what I've heard.

Fatima Bey (36:09.89)

when someone

has told me, and this happened actually last month, a girl that I used to work with basically told me that she worked with me a long time ago when she was 18 years old. She was just a kid. And I took her under my wing and taught her, this was in the bridal shop, taught her how to read people, how to hear what people are not saying and being able to get people what they need and et cetera, et cetera.

And I also, we worked on commission at the time. I gave her, I didn't even remember this until she said it to me. I gave her one of my sales so that she could make commission. It was the first time she was ever making commission. And that's a big deal when you're, you know, when you're newer. So I actually gave her one of my sales so that she could make commission. Cause you had to make a certain, a dollar amount. And apparently I deposited a lot of, a lot in her at 18 years old.

And she recently, she's in her thirties now. And she recently told me that her time with me back then has changed her life and it's molded and shaped her into who she is today. I'm sure it's not just me, but that I was a piece of it. That just literally brought tears to my eyes. And it was humbling for me. was like, I did not know. And let me tell you why that's related to this show right now.

At that time, when I was doing all of this stuff to give to her, to deposit into her and to everybody around me, I was feeling like shit about myself. I had no idea that I was planting good seeds that will continue to harvest every year in the people around me. I'm only recently finding out that it had that effect, not just from her, but that's the most recent. And that one just like hit me like a ton of bricks when she said it.

Fatima Bey (38:12.522)

And to me that was humbling. It also tells me how important it is that I continue to do what I do. Because if I'm planting those seeds and it's making a difference, that's it. Mission accomplished. That's what it's all about.

That is beautiful.

Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and especially for sharing that little... That got me. That almost made me cry and it did.

It made me cry when she told me. literally did. I was like, oh wow.

Well, thank you so much for sharing that and for coming on the show. You guys go check out Krusty Thinking part one and part two on YouTube. Give your girl Fatima a follow because trust me, she got videos for everything for y'all. She's going to it's going to make a difference in your mindset. She is the mindset shifter. Let her help you shift that mindset. Y'all go over to buymeacoffee.com.

Kimberlee Pieza (39:17.858)

forward slash this Fack Girl Life. Make sure that you are following me there so you get updates when I release new episodes and everything else. You guys, I have enjoyed spending this time with you and I cannot wait for the next time. I hope you all have a great day.

Kimberlee Pieza (39:35.982)

you