When I was interning and writing for fashion magazines, I realized I was contributing to the ball of anxiety that 99% percent of people feel to constantly improve and be perfect.

Anxiety, fear, and shame compromise your immune system and make it really hard to lose weight (if that’s your goal) and feel energized, focused, and happy.

I loved interviewing experts, writing, and editing articles, but I hated the general message of you’re not good enough right now, but you CAN be if you buy this product and dress like this celebrity.

A lot of publications have really evolved since that time, and I take full responsibility for my experience. No blame here.

Fashion magazines inspire me in a lot of ways, and are becoming more and more body-positive and accepting every year.

After being involved for a couple years, and longing to hold a full-time position at one of these magazines, I realized this:

We live in a fear and shame economy, and most fashion magazines fuel that.

If you’re fearful that you’ll never get a good job and no one will ever really love you for who you are, you’ll get sucked into the corporate job that promises you all the benefits in the world, and the product or program that promises physical and mental perfection.

If you’re ashamed of your body because you think you’re too fat, too skinny, too short or too tall, you’ll buy any product that promises to “fix” you and finally make you feel good about yourself.

What happens when you buy into the fear and shame economy is this: You take a job you hate because of the paycheck and status it implies. 

You like getting dressed for work every day, getting your coffee, and sitting at your desk. It’s comforting and secure.

And you follow the latest diet because you think it will FINALLY make you feel at ease in your body instead of constantly struggling for “perfection.”

Then what? Then big corporations make money, because you fuel their systems at relatively low cost (corporate jobs) and you buy their products.

And you still feel subpar. See? Our economy runs on fear and shame. Wham bam.

We still feel terrible and we start to think that feeling truly good is impossible. We’re brainwashed into thinking that corporate jobs and diet trends are mandatory, not a choice.

Not the case. Because everything’s a choice and anything’s possible. Yeah, that’s trite but it’s true.

So what’s the antidote? Try these five steps.

They might not work for you and you might want to flip me the bird, but they’ve worked for 99% of my clients, friends, and me personally.

The 1% they didn’t work for were people who expressed themselves that they weren’t really ready for change.

Because success and happiness can be scary (we’ll talk about that another time).

Here’s how to thrive in the fear and shame economy:

1. Do some old-school soul searching.

Read Eckhart Tolle. Take a night off from parties and friends and just be with yourself. You’re awesome and you deserve attention, most importantly from yourself.

Schedule a quiet, solo night every week where you read, go out to dinner alone, take a bath, or whatever you feel like doing. This is about listening to your needs and fulfilling them. If you only do one thing for yourself, do this.

2. Get out of your head and into your body by exercising.

Your head will tell you that you should stay in the corporate job because it’s a steady paycheck, health benefits, and plus, you can get candy from the communal bowl whenever you want.

But your body tells you that sitting in a chair all day and following orders is 100% opposite of what a human should be doing every day.

Your joints start to stiffen and your mind goes numb, but your brain keeps chirping away about all the awesome benefits of your corporate job. So get out of your head and into your body by MOVING (exercising) and the answers will become clear.

3. Don’t listen to other people’s advice.

It’s awesome to have a sounding board and people who support you, but let me tell you something super scary AND exciting that you may or may not know:

No one can make decisions for you. It’s all inside you. Exhilarating, right?

When you do the work to tune in and drop your story and pain body, as Eckhart Tolle (he’s my #1 dude) would call it, answers come through like a laser.

4. Figure out what you care about.

Is it financial freedom? Location independence? Connection? A body you love? Deep friendships? Stability?

Write them down.

Name your top five big-picture priorities and then compare them to the actions you take every day. Do they line up? Are you getting close?

What actions can you take to come into alignment with what you actually care about, rather than what the fear and shame economy tells you to care about?

5. Do immersion traveling.

This is different from tourist traveling. When I lived in Italy for four months when I was 18 I learned so much about this completely different culture and ultimately, myself.

Immersion traveling doesn’t involve being a tourist or checking off landmarks on your to-see list. Immersion traveling means fully submerging yourself in a culture to see how the local people actually live and how that affects your perspective and the way you live. I chose not to bounce around to different countries every weekend while studying abroad for this exact reason, and it was an awesome choice.

Immersion traveling is effective for negating the fear and shame you might feel stuck with, as a lot of other cultures give great perspective on what’s real and what matters when it comes to being authentically happy and healthy.

Now I want to hear from you.

How do fear and shame affect you now? How have they affected you in the past? What will happen in the future if you keep living by the rules of the fear and shame economy?

Which one of the five tools will you try this week?

This is a deep and sensitive subject for a lot of people, but I really want to hear from you, so please leave a comment below sharing as much or as little as you’d like, OR send me an email at lula@goodtastebylula.com and give me the whole story. I love you.