Brandon Farbstein, author of A Kids Book About Self-Love, talks about how to quiet negative self-talk and embrace who we are, just as we are.
Brandon Farbstein, author of A Kids Book About Self-Love, talks about how to quiet negative self-talk and embrace who we are, just as we are.
A Kids Book About Self-Love (view book)
Full Book Description:
What do you see when you look in the mirror? Often we notice the things that make us feel different or we don’t like. But self-love can help us see what makes us uniquely awesome! This book teaches kids how to choose their thoughts, manage their perspectives, and feel comfortable and happy with themselves, even when hard things happen.
About the Authors:
Brandon Farbstein is a Gen Z world changer, motivational speaker, and author who was born with a rare form of dwarfism. Brandon’s “Ten Feet Tall” mindset and limitless impact has been felt by millions as he amplifies his global message to #ElevateEmpathy®.
*If you want to be on a future episode of A Kids Book About: The Podcast or if you have a question you’d like us to consider, have a grownup email us at listen@akidsco.com and we’ll send you the details.
A Kids Book About: The Podcast
S2 EP19, Brandon Talks About Self-Love
[INTRODUCTION]
Matthew: What is self-love?
Julia: Well, I need to learn more about it. So can you tell me what that is?
Brandon: Self-love is the ability to see the awesomeness that exists within all of us, no matter what makes us who we are. Being able to say, “I am enough. I am worthy as I am.” And I think that's exactly what self-love is.
Matthew: Welcome to A Kids Book About: The Podcast! I’m Matthew. I’m a teacher, a librarian, and I’m your host. The voices you heard just a moment ago were from Julia and Brandon
Each week we talk about the big things going on in your world with a different author from our A Kids Book About series.
Brandon: Hi, my name is Brandon Farbstein. I'm 22 years old. I am disabled, queer, and a member of Gen Z.
And I am the author of A Kid's Book About Self-Love.
[TOPIC FOUNDATION]
Matthew: Self-love. Self-love may be the most important of all the shades of love. It’s where it all starts. Are you familiar with the term “self-love”?
Brandon: It really is being able to quiet the negative voice that sometimes goes on inside of our head, telling us that we have to be someone that we're not, or because we don't look a certain way, or we weren't born like someone in our class or in our friend group, we don't get to have the same opportunities as them.
It's being able to quiet that negative voice and instead replacing it with one that tells us, “We may be different. We may have things that other people don't have, but that doesn't make us any less than.”
Self-love is the ability to get back up when we have days where we're feeling down, or we don't have much drive or positivity within us, but knowing that we can continue on no matter what.
Matthew: Self-love might be a new feeling for you. To be honest, I didn’t have a whole lot of self-love as a kid. I was really hard on myself. I compared myself to others a lot.
It’s something I’ve had to work on a lot as a grownup. And I’m really proud to say that I have been able to find a lot of love for myself and how I walk through the world.
So, how about you? How does loving yourself make you feel?
Turn to someone listening with you and share, if you feel comfortable. Julia and Brandon are also going to share.
Julia: It makes me feel, feel really loving.
Brandon: Having self-love makes me feel like the most me version of who I am. Like I could be a hundred percent myself and be okay with that.
[PERSONAL CONNECTION TO TOPIC]
Matthew: Finding self-love may take practice. Self-love doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Brandon generously shares a personal example.
Brandon: This is where I really wanted to create a book that was dedicated in a lot of ways to the younger version of myself.
I really struggled with mental health and just my own self-acceptance when I was a kid. And a lot of that stemmed from being born with a rare form of dwarfism. I'm one of 84 people in medical history to be born with a condition called medtronic dysplasia. And so you can't really tell this by the sound of my voice, but I stand at three foot nine, which is about the same size of a seven-year-old. And even though I'm 22, this is the size that I'm going to be for the rest of my life.
And I had to really learn that sometimes we don't have control over what happens to us, but we always have control in how we respond and the thoughts that go on inside of our head.
And it really was through therapy and counseling that I was able to pick that up. But, if it weren't for having not only that support system, but my incredible family, my parents, who I call my superheroes, I don't know that I would have been able to pick up that perspective otherwise
Matthew: “Sometimes we don’t have control over what happens to us.” I love that Brandon shared that. Self-love is intentional. You have to practice it on purpose. But when you do, oh! It can be a powerful catalyst for change.
Brandon: 1000%.
I think self-love is such a domino effect because when you see one person being confident and being so happy in their skin, it's infectious. And I think through being able to show up as the realest version of yourself, showing your truest colors and just being all that makes you, you, that empowers the people around you to do the same thing.
And that's also the power of representation. When we get to see someone that either looks the same way that we do, or is coming from a similar background or walk of life, or whatever that might be, it is so powerful.
And that's where I wanted to not only bring my personal story into it, but a lot of the tools and really the perspective that I've been able to gain on the world and just adversity as a whole that I think is so universal, not only for kids, but for so many grownups too.
Matthew: We will be back in a minute with Brandon Farbstein and Brandon’s suggestions on how to identify harmful thoughts and move through them. All of that, right after this quick break.
[BREAK]
Matthew: Welcome back to A Kids Book About: The Podcast. On today’s episode we’re talking about self-love with A Kids Book About author Brandon Farbstein.
If you are new to practicing self-love, rest assured that you are not alone. Here’s Brandon.
Brandon: I don't think self-love is something that we're born with. I firmly believe it's a skill; one that we have to practice and work on quite literally every single day. And there are so many factors that are working against us to do that and to really see ourselves in the fullest capacity of who we are without the blinders that sometimes we put on because of social media, comparison, society saying that we need to be a certain way, so we kind of fake it or become someone that we're not.
And I know for me, it was really having to go through very severe cyber bullying in high school, where I not only received some of the worst, hate-filled messages that you could imagine, but I would receive threats from the peers at my school. And it was such a terrifying experience, not only to walk into school every single day and have that level of control where I didn't know who was behind any of these messages, didn't know if it was the person sitting next to me in Spanish class, but it also, it really changed the definition that I had of myself because I eventually listened to the comments and the messages saying that I was the ugliest thing that they've ever seen, or I'm never going to find anyone that will love me, just incredibly hurtful things. And I literally let that become the story that I was telling myself, because that was what I was hearing so constantly. And with social media, you can't really shut that off.
So we have to be, I think, incredibly intentional about who we're surrounding ourselves with and even the environments that we are putting ourselves in, because I know when I left that high school, which in a lot of ways was really toxic for me, it genuinely transformed my life because I was able to use that experience to testify in front of the Virginia state lawmakers and get two laws passed: one on bullying prevention, the other requires empathy and emotional intelligence to be taught within all K through 12 classrooms.
It's one of those things, when we have the ability to rise up from the experiences that we've gone through and not be defined or confined, even, by them, we take back our personal power. And I know that was the case for me. And I had to learn self-love through not having any.
And now that I'm at a place in my life where I'm so proud to be me, I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to not only show up as this person. But to literally live my message every single day.
Matthew: Brandon writes, in A Kids Book About Self-Love, “In order for the world to change around me, I needed to change within me first …that’s when I learned that I could choose my thoughts.”
Choosing your own thoughts may seem like something beyond your control, but listen to this fantastic wisdom Brandon shared.
Brandon: An amazing imagery that a therapist taught me a few years ago… to think of thoughts like passing clouds.
They sometimes are these really big, dark, scary thunderous clouds that produce storms and linger for a little bit of time over us. Or they could be these little, like, wispy, thin clouds that are just passing right by and don't block any of the sunshine.
But to always remember that thoughts come and go, and we don't need to let a certain thought or something that keeps coming up, we don't need to let that define us.
And that's where it is so helpful to gain the tools and the skills really that therapy teaches you. You don't need to be in a place where you're feeling completely overwhelmed or isolated or in total darkness in order to benefit from therapy. I strongly believe every single person, no matter what we are dealing with, can have a really positive benefit from taking part in therapy, even if it's just learning something new about yourself, or how you think, or how you see the world. And that's something that sticks with you for life.
Matthew: Taking this lived experience and using it to create a book that would speak to countless others was a big focus for Brandon.
Brandon: I first learned about A Kids Co, which was formerly I knew it as AKBA, A Kids Book About before it became A Kids Co, when my friend, Meir Kay, wrote A Kids Book About Optimism.
Brandon: So that, that is how I initially got introduced, because Meir and I were in the same virtual program through MIT during the pandemic. So we've actually never met IRL, but we're just like social media friends, which is amazing. And he, I remember him posting about it and I was like, “Oh my gosh! This is the coolest thing. What is A Kids Book About?”
And I looked into it. And literally the visceral reaction that I had to seeing every title to seeing the mission statement, quite literally everything I said, “This has to be something that I do. I collaborate with them. Like, there's just so much synergy here.”
Self-love, wasn't something that was initially on my radar, but it was through kind of just workshopping that a little bit, trying to find what that core topic could be, that, again, not only infuses my personal story and the experience that I've had, but shares a message that has such a huge effect on people.
And I say “people” because it's not just kids, the feedback that we have gotten from not only the book, but just the message of self-love and the beauty of what it brings to your life has been so incredibly just awesome. I don't have a better way to describe it.
And I think it's something, that when we're able to practice it and we're able to identify even the smallest things that we can do on a daily basis to be just a bit more kind to our self, to have a bit more compassion to the person that we see in the mirror, that makes such a difference. And we may not think so in the moment, but I can tell you from my own experience, it really does add up.
Matthew: Before we end our time together today, I asked Brandon what types of steps we all can take to help ensure that we keep a regular practice of self-love. I’ll leave you with his generous response.
Brandon: I think a couple things that we could all do. Number one, we should stop comparing ourselves to those around us. And this is especially relevant to the kiddos out there. And me being 22, I just want to reiterate, I'm not that far fetched from where you are right now, but it's so easy to see somebody else and think, “Oh, I don't have what they have, so I'm not good enough. Or I'm not worthy. I'm not deserving of the same opportunities.”
Instead, being able to really see that we all are built in a way that is so uniquely awesome because that's how we are. And not trying to say we have to be on somebody else's timeline. We have to look the same way that we do. We have to think the same way that we do. None of that. We just have to be us.
And then I would say the second thing: learning to make the voice inside your head, the loudest one amongst anyone else. I talk about this in the book a little bit, where, when we are able to focus on that inner voice, that is telling us that we are enough, telling us that we are worthy. We are awesome. The way that we are.
That is what drives us forward. Instead of people saying, “You're not going to get there” or whatever it might be. There's always going to be that negativity out there, but it's self-love and that inner voice that will always take us forward.
[CLOSING]
Matthew: Thank you to Brandon Farbstein, author of A Kids Book About Self-Love, for joining us today. And special thanks to Julia for lending their voice to this episode.
Julia: Hi, my name is Julia and I am seven years old and I live in Maryland.
Matthew: Want to be on a future episode of A Kids Book About: The Podcast? Write to me or record a message and email me at listen@akidsco.com.
A Kids Book About: The Podcast is written, edited, and produced by me, Matthew Winner, with help from Chad Michael Snavely and the team at Sound On Studios. Our executive producer is Jelani Memory.
And this show was brought to you by A Kids Co.
Follow the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever podcasts are found and check out other podcasts made for kids just like you by visiting akidsco.com.
Join us next week for a conversation about anger with A Kids Book About author Fabian Ramirez.