#34 - Estee Lalonde, Mirrorwater; on How to Truly Know Yourself and Navigating Self-development in the Modern World

In this episode I'm interviewing the wonderful Estee Lalonde; influencer and founder of Mirrorwater. Estee is one of those insanely grounded people. Speaking to her is like chatting with a best friend, and even if you don't know her personally, you'll feel it just from listening to this episode. She is so real and that is definitely why I first gravitated towards her back a few years ago, at an event in London. Estee has been blogging and creating content on social media for upwards of 10 years, and so I was really interested to delve deep into her journey and experience with this kind of career. Having recently launched her new platform, Mirrorwater, where she's developing content and resources dedicated to self-development and reducing anxiety, I was especially interested in unpicking what it's like going through big changes, career changes and / or personal changes, all in front of an audience. I think, influencer or not, all of us can relate to feeling the need to define and constantly refine ourselves and to fit into boxes, and we have naturally evolved to overthink how we will be perceived or judged in everything we do, by anyone and everyone.  In this episode Estee talks about turning inwards whilst having a somewhat outward-facing career. We talk about how to truly get to know yourself, the Importance of self-reflection, as well as how to re-discover the real you, too, if you've been living by shoulds, woulds or under someone else's suggestions and expectations. We talk about self-reflection, self-development and learning how to lead with how things feel; instead of how things look or sound in theory. We talk about choosing a path to design your own life, based on how you feel happiest and at most ease; rather than following paved paths or comparing ourselves to others and wandering aimlessly in the footsteps of others. We also touch on relationships and how to navigate uncomfortable or obvious changes in long-standing relationships. We talk about developing deeper connections, with ourselves but, just as importantly, with others, too. We also talk about slowing down, and the rituals that help Estee, from laughing when things go wrong, to taking long baths and developing beauty regimes for a sense of calm and time to be truly present. We touch on how none of us every really feel fully grounded in the modern world, and also how important it is to embrace just being a bit messy sometimes. There is so much pressure (often pressure we put on ourselves) to reach perfectionism, attain more things or achieve more, but it's important to remember no matter how together someone looks, that we're all going through the same constant changes, uncomfortable or difficult times, mood swings, self doubt, worry, and so on. We talk about the importance of being proud of ourselves from time to time, just like we are be of others around us, and learning how to hype ourselves up a bit, in order to gain momentum and a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment.