S1 E38 Shit2TalkAbout Body Positivity & Self Love with Honey Raye
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Jenn Junod
Hey, Ray, thank you for joining. Shit. You don't want to talk about, please introduce yourself and which shit you want to talk about today?
Honey Raye
Hello, my name is Ray. I go by Honey Ray most of the time and I am a dart photographer and I wanna talk about Naked Truth of a self love journey.
Honey Raye, Jenn Junod
And I know in our intro call y'all.
Jenn Junod
OK. So I officially, yeah, I'm, I'm pausing really quick because I gotta hide myself view or I'm gonna like check my hair 20 million times straight up. That is something like it's the zoom world. As I say in many of these episodes, I'm kind of a creeper. I I actually found Honey Ray on social media without realizing it. The beginning of 2020 I shared a post she did and then I didn't really think about it.
It was a cool post. I don't, I barely remember it. It came up on my timeline on Facebook and then I started going like, I'm currently obsessed with reels. It's a little much but on Facebook, I started watching reels and your honey raise. OK, we're gonna say boudoir boudoir.
Honey Raye
Yep, you got it. OK.
Jenn Junod
Like videos kept showing up and I was like, damn, these are cool. And then I went to her social media like on Instagram and I just reached out and you know what people actually say hi back. It's really exciting. And we got to talking and I was just in love with the way and I change tenses now the way you show body positivity in teaching people how to pose, which I think is incredible because it's like you're teaching us behind the scenes of stuff and it's so cool and you always remind us to
make sure we take a screenshot. And you also do it in a way that we to pose different body types and just the love of just humans and human bodies just comes across and in your post and for yourself. And then we had our intro call and you're even cooler as a whole person instead of just like, you know, a boudoir photographer.
So let's, let's reel it back some and I know that there's a controversy on a past job that you've had and please give us a story of how you ended up there and why and let's dig into the naked truth of this because self love is, is definitely an up and down. It's not just a, you know, uphill battle, right?
Honey Raye
For sure. So I became a young mom at the age of, I was pregnant by 17, but I had my daughter at 18. So everything from what you would transition into like, you know, adulthood and now looking back on it and being older, I understand that, you know, 18 to 24 you're so much pretty much a baby. So I didn't have any of my transitional into like me time and then adult time and then to parent time, it kind of just went, oh, you're a parent now and you have responsibilities.
So, any of my self love or anything that I had just automatically took a back burner, which now being older, I see that I had a traumatic childhood and I never put myself first, did not learn that until later though. so after I'd had my third daughter, I had decided that I was more than a mom. And I am one of those people that if I need to see a change, I have to, you know, step out of that little bubble I'm in.
But I am also that person that, that it is like we're gonna jump off a cliff and we're gonna make this work regardless. So I made the decision to become a dancer and I had rules that I followed. I'm really big on setting boundaries for anything that I do that's kind of out there. I was not allowed to drink and if I did drink, I only was allowed like two drinks that night.
I wanted to remember everything so that I was not embarrassed when I was done with this journey. And I pretty much felt if I could be naked in a room of people that I didn't know and their whole entire purpose was either to degrade me or fawn over me that you didn't tell me shit as a person. And I did that for several years and then actually propelled me, I feel like to be better at my current job because what did I do for eight hours each night with stare at women all night and watching the
lights hit their body. So I became very accustomed to different body types and how lighting would hit them. So it kind of turned into me knowing how to pose different body types extremely well and it kind of just blossomed from there.
Jenn Junod
But that is, it's amazing to hear because it is, there's so much shame around like in society about dancers. Yet I have always been personally been fascinated by dancers In the fact that sorry mom, if you're listening to this, I've been kicked out of strip clubs in the fact that I wanted to go talk to all the dancers. They are like dancers are just to me are elegant and beautiful and you know, strong because they will like tell you to fuck off in not so many words and you know, like with a
stare. And so it's such a fascination yet. So taboo for so much of society. What did you see with different body types behind the scenes? What were there a lot of different body types or I feel like TV, always puts it as everybody is very, very thin and that's it.
Honey Raye
Yeah. So I actually it, it makes me laugh because, you know, tabloids will post that being super skinny and everything is super in and of course, I want everybody to be healthy, but realistically, just because you're small doesn't mean you're healthy and just because you're larger doesn't mean that you're unhealthy. the women that were bigger always made more money and I don't care like how good at your job you were if you were in like a certain room to where you had curves and it
doesn't matter if you carried them gracefully or not, if you were confident about the way your body was, you made a lot of money. There was even a girl that I was like, surprised and and I was like super young, I think I was like 21 when I had seen her and I was always made fun of because of how I was like flat chested and I had no butt growing up.
And so I was like super puke. This girl made so much money and I was just like, how I don't get it, there's nothing there but it was her personality and her being confident and she would make boatloads of money. So it literally does not matter about how you look.
Honey Raye, Jenn Junod
It's honestly how you present yourself and just go with the flow that I could totally see that too if the confidence is everything.
Jenn Junod
How did that show up in the rest of your life when you decided to get out of dancing?
Honey Raye
So it kind of in a way pushed me. I don't like having a cap on how much I can make. I do not like working for an hourly wage and I am terrible at taking orders from somebody else. and being 20 I think I advanced from 21 to 23. So making that fast of money, it put me in a mindset of, I know that I can't go to a 9 to 5 and come home with 2 to $300 as a minimum each night.
So I need to figure something out. So I started doing I would offer lap dance classes on the side. I think I, I taught myself how to do a bunch of stuff like I know how to sew. So I did that for a while. I would design custom bras for a while. So it kind of started the entrepreneur like itch that I have in me and I now looking back on it, I see where it could have gone completely wrong of, you know, I make really good money really, really fast.
And what else am I gonna do? Most people turn to drugs? But I think it's actually kind of cool that I did it unknowingly of challenging myself to become an entrepreneur, which is actually something that's funny because when I was a teenager, I had no idea what an entrepreneur is. And I just laughed, I was like, they don't know what they want to do with their life. But here I am.
Jenn Junod
I, I love that and the fact that you took that to, starting to do family photography. Right.
Honey Raye
Yep. I started with family photography. you know, because I had my, my kids to work with so I would work with them and then I had so many friends that had Children so I would, shoot their Children and stuff and it was actually, when I got diagnosed with lupus that I was like, OK, you know, family photography is cool and all. But I have, I felt like there was such a gravitational pull for me to switch.
And when I had my session, you couldn't tell me I wasn't shit like I walked on cloud nine. I don't think that I've dropped off a cloud nine since then. because I just looked back like, OK, I did that, which the reason I had the confidence to do the session is because I was like, well, I've danced naked in front of hundreds of people. I can get my photo taken.
It's OK because they are two totally different things. But I definitely that's what kind of driven me in there and I have anxiety, like really bad anxiety. And I had seen the photographer online and I had followed her for a couple, couple weeks and then I had seen she posted and I was like, all right, I'm gonna go do it and that how I felt and knowing that my body was gonna change. I was like, OK, I need to document this. I always like to use my experiences as a guide for somebody else to kind
of save somebody else from going through the bullshit that they don't necessarily need to go through. So because you know, there are no good guides to life. So if I can kind of turn my experience that's been shitty or a little muddy into a guide for somebody else and they don't have to go through the shit in mud and they understand what I learned from the journey. Then it's worth it in the end.
Jenn Junod
There's a bit to unpack there of and to the audience just as a heads up, y'all like this is something that I think took me for a whirlwind in the fact, social media in general really puts us as we are all put together. And Honey Ray has always been very honest on that. And then also no bullshit, not afraid to hide like parts of your past.
And it's sometimes hard I think for society to break that down of oh shit. But you have a gazillion million followers. You're fine. You're great. You're doing a great life. They don't know about lupus or you know what happens if you're having a flare up? Is that what I call it?
Honey Raye
Yeah. So the lupus one would be the flare. It's the heart that I think I technically think they're called a flare. But with me having lupus, I don't like to like combine the two fair enough.
Jenn Junod
What is your heart condition?
Honey Raye
So my heart condition actually started from my lupus condition. Pericarditis is something that is very common within lupus patients and they kind of just looked over mine. And instead of it being mine's very persistent. So eventually my heart kept swelling and was not going down in size. So then it turned into heart failure, then by the time that they actually caught my heart failure, I had already developed pulmonary hypertension.
Jenn Junod
That is a bunch of words for me to go. That sounds very, very scary. What is that?
Honey Raye
So, well, because I actually have pulmonary arterial hypertension, which ding ding ding is the worst one you can have. Yeah, I, I recently just found that out. my doctors don't like to tell me much because of my age. And they don't anytime which don't research it when nobody wants to be sad and nobody needs pity. So just don't research it. anything that they have on Google is actually super, super outdated.
However, they've come a long way in the last 20 years that our medications, it used to be when you were diagnosed, you have less than 10 years to live with my conditions together, it's primarily five years or less. So it's like I call it my little ticking time bomb it's basically when there's not enough blood flow going through. my arteries are quite smaller now so they can't what is it deliver a lot of blood?
I also have rance, which I literally have this jumble bowl of stuff. That's just a bad concoction for anything. So my fingers, I call myself chameleon because they change like purples and blues and that just means my blood flow is not pumping very well. So that actually the heart failure comes from there's four chambers of your heart and my left chamber or, or was it my right?
I can't remember. It's one of the chambers. My doctor drills it into me and I, I still forget but when your heart goes to pump and your blood goes down, my valve does not close all the way. So some of my heart, my blood that should be circulating through my body pumps back into the new blood, which is no bueno damn.
Honey Raye, Jenn Junod
And just as we're going through diagnosis and what's going on, what is lupus, lupus lupus in a general broad aspect, attacks every organ.
Honey Raye
So that means a lot of it's mostly common skin. but it can do anything brain, typically kidneys to heart. It's, you're the best ex explanation is my body likes to fight itself. So when you're sick, your body produces antibodies to fight the disease. My body is just goes, what is that to itself? And just starts fighting it.
Jenn Junod
Yeah, that sounds like a bowl of shit. Like that's just a bunch of shit. And that I think is something as a we were saying earlier that so many people don't talk about and right now like sitting in front of me, I'm like, you're chill, you look pretty normal. You do like photography. You used to dance. What happens when you have these flare ups or you have a bad day or like how do you survive with the ups and downs?
Honey Raye
So I'll kind of the worst flare up of my life. Like I'll go into that one because I think that that's a little bit easier for people to grasp because on daily, you know, you swell and you, I call myself a 60 year old woman trapped in a 20 year old's body. So like the joint pain and stuff that I wake up with it, it literally feels like I'm 60. The worst one of my life though, I had four organs shutting down at once.
This is why I'm very big on people that do have lupus or are struggling to get a diagnosis, really, really be your own advocate and go to the doctor because it can happen really fast. And I had a rheumatologist when all this was happening and mine still went this fast. So in May, I started, well, it was actually March. I started noticing like my joints and stuff just did not feel right.
But they always tell you, you know, when you have lupus, keep walking, keep being active, it will help. So I kept doing that. by the time that it was May to probably about July, I was sleeping more than 16 hours a day and I wasn't remembering, that I was sleeping so much. My days were all kind of compiled together and it was during COVID. So it's not like you could go outside and do anything.
I just knew I was really weak and that I was having trouble getting to the bathroom more and more towards the end of when I began to get hospitalized, I could no longer lift myself off the toilet and I needed to take several breaks from the time of walking to the toilet to walking to my bedroom, which was the length of a kitchen like an average kitchen.
So, by that time then I also pretty much was wheelchair bound. I could not lift myself to, you know, walk certain times. my legs felt like static and I could not, there was a point in time I actually fell in my bed because I was trying to get, I had to throw myself in bed to actually get back in there. that I fell over and I had to use my head to kind of like caterpillar my way to breathe again because I knew if I stay like this, I'm going to die.
I can't pick myself up. So I had to like caterpillar and twist so I could breathe and then I finally got the strength to kind of roll over and get back up. But when I was hospitalized, I had to tell everybody I was a two person assist and I had to tell my nurses, I'm like, I know I look young and that I should be like within it and stuff, but like I'm a dead bug.
So I need you to help me and they would get it really fast but kind of the ways that I get myself through. It is being completely honest. It was kind of a brutal awakening of hey, I need to ask for help because I'm failing right now and there's honestly no embarrassment and asking for help because when you're about to fall on the floor or I'm gonna like, I'm just gonna ask for help. So I don't bust my ass.
You quickly learn to just ask for help. So it's kind of like a major con like culture shock of because I'm a very prideful person and I don't like asking for help. So it taught me a lot to ask for help and to only do what I can actually do. And if I make baby steps that day, that's all I can do. If you know, tomorrow I can run, which I can't run anymore. But you know, If I can run, that's awesome.
Honey Raye, Jenn Junod
So I just take it my small little wins and celebrate those as I go and damn do that.
Jenn Junod
Asking for help is one of the scariest things people can do. And I've had a couple of people on the show when they have chronic symptoms or chronic illnesses, that it's something that has those ebbs and flows and people don't always see behind the scenes to realize that how serious they can be and that there's good days and bad days some days are great and you could possibly run or as you were just saying, or baby steps is
huge. How do you deal with that with you? Like the photography like, and I know you mentioned earlier in our intro call about your arms too, like how do you do what you do now?
Honey Raye
I take it one day at a time. I'm just like, how I had mentioned earlier and our initial call I was, I I have to be super brutally honest with what I'm experiencing and what I'm going through. I try to be an open book and sometimes, you know, that can, it can be hard in itself. But I figure if I tell people, you know what I'm going through and what I'm experiencing, then you can't really ever say, well, you didn't tell me no, I've been honest about this whole entire time.
And if I'm having a bad day. The worst that my arms have done is probably that I couldn't lift, I couldn't touch my hair. so my arms still pretty much keep about this height of width and, or, you know, reaching that level and luckily my camera stops right here. And, I've also learned when I was in the hospital, I think of people that don't have legs or only have one arm or don't have any arms.
And I'm very much on myself about like, you know, you, you find a way to work with what you have and I'm like, if they can figure out how to work and you know, like bicycle and do all these other cool things and be motivational speakers. Like I don't have an excuse because I have four limbs that, that work and I have a mouth that still speaks and I still can see and it could be so much worse than it is.
So I just need to, you know, figure out with what I got available to me and how I'm gonna work with it because, you know, not everybody's track is easy and kind of using that as an excuse is not me. So my camera actually I can click a button, I can see live view. And then because I'm a little short shit, I need my camera to pop out. So I actually bought one that pops out and it flips down if I need to get any higher.
So ultimately, I've found ways that, you know, will work for me and if I can't work that day completely, then I'm just gonna be open and honest with the client and tell them like, hey, this is what's going on. My little T rex arms are locked up for the day and I usually have to take steroids to to get them undone, which can take several days.
Honey Raye, Jenn Junod
Damn, that's scary.
Jenn Junod
How do you deal with the, you mentioned that you have anxiety. Have you dealt with depression during all of this?
Honey Raye
And if so how yeah, I have major depression and I have major anxiety and I've had that since I'm learning since I was a child from any of the kind of habits that I picked up and the way that I've kind of coped with it is talking to myself as weird as that sounds that little voice in my head. I try to kind of talk myself through it and I don't compare myself to other people, but I don't give myself excuses as to why I can't do something either.
It kind of goes back to the whole entire I have on my limbs. We kind of all deal with shit that we don't like or shit that's a little bit different and I push through my anxiety one of the and I'm kind of harder on myself than I think is what needs to be sometimes, but it has been what's propelled me as well. So I can't really say that it's unneeded. one of the things after I was diagnosed is I didn't travel a lot because I felt no, you know, no use in it.
And then I was kind of mad at myself because, you know, I'm not by any standards healthy anymore. When I travel. There's, there's some things that I have to make sure that I, I know my whereabouts, I have to know where the heart failure clinic is or a heart center is wherever I travel. so there's things that I have to take precautions now for and, you know, even if I'm healthy enough to travel that day.
so I was mad at myself for a little bit and then I came back and I'm gonna start doing this. and traveling and actually the first time that I traveled was, by myself on an airplane going to L A. So that was quite an experience and it goes back to, I like to scare the shit out of myself apparently and just put myself in it. But I remember having to call the, the shuttle bus. I'm a shy person which is funny. but I don't like, you know, stepping out and be like, hi, like, even though they, it's
their little job to pick me up, but I sat there and I watched the bus drive by five times. And I was like, all right, we're not calling the Uber. We are getting on that shuttle and I forced myself to actually, I had to go in the middle of the street and be like, hello, come pick me up and he finally stopped and then I got on the bus.
Jenn Junod
But yeah, that is incredible working through and pushing yourself because it can be so difficult to and that self talk. I know, at least for myself it's been the anxiety that comes up of Jen. It's ok. I know you're scared. It's ok. It's not gonna, you can get through this, take a deep breath. And at least those are things that I have to say to myself.
And there's plenty of times that I'll even say it out loud. So that way I hear it in my head and then I hear it in my ears. Not sure if that makes any sense. But I know that's something that's really helped. And now we got to see a, a bit behind the scenes of the photographer. Now, how long have you been doing?
Honey Raye
Boudoir U I focused on it. I believe it's going on. It's like third or fourth year. It's, I was piercing and it kind of just really took off really, really fast. So I don't have an official, like, ah, this is the date I started kind of thing.
Jenn Junod
Ok. And what, who, who was your first client and how awkward was it?
Honey Raye
Well, what's funny about that is my first client sold out. I had launched, you know, like this ladies Night kind of thing and it's sold out within six hours and it was mini sessions and there were six women. So I literally did them back to, back to back to back. I'm really starting to see that. I just throw things at myself and just wing it the more and more I talk. But no, it wasn't awkward at all. Actually, a lot of the clients that I had for my first ever sessions were from piercing.
So I had already kind of built a relationship with them and they had already spent like, you know, 15 to 30 minutes with me. So it wasn't awkward or anything at all. And I think my next clients after that, I've always been very big on to either call them beforehand or have a video call or to interact with them some kind of way so that it's not like hello, get naked when we meet what?
Jenn Junod
And, and that's good because I, I've done a shoot before. It was many, many, many moons ago and it wasn't honestly the photographer that made me nervous at all. It was, I was afraid of my body and I didn't know how to pose. This is it, it's something that I've oddly dealt with my entire life is other people can be sexy. They're cool. They're sexy, like, amazing yet, for myself. I'm like, I'm not sexy. No. Now, now, now and it was during the shoot of them being like, well, do your sexy face.
Honey Raye
And I'm like, yeah, I don't have one.
Jenn Junod
Yeah. Yeah. So, how do you talk people through that? Because I can only imagine that you really face your fears when you were dancing and doing that. Yet many women I would imagine for a boudoir have never have, how many have actually been naked and done this before.
Honey Raye
When they first come to me, probably like one I think had only had a previous experience with being nude in front of the camera. I talk widely about, I continuously do a lot of boudoir shoots for myself and I work with several other photographers. when they do that or all these self portraits of myself, I'm very big on. I can't, you know, lead you through anything that I haven't done myself.
So actually my first ever boudoir session I did was naked. So I was like, we're going in with this. I think I learned a lot from my first experience of doing that and that's probably what's propelled me into why I do things the way that I do now. So when you come in, I'm usually like just in a hoodie and whatever I'm wearing for the day or I wear like stupid hats.
Like this all the time. And it's really just to give you that friend of personal vibe. I didn't want things to be super professional. That's really never what my brand has said for. Anyway, I'm an artist and realistically you don't find artists in a lot of business suits and stuff and that's not comfortable nor like I can't like dance with you and pose with you if I'm in a business attire.
I also get down and pose with you the whole entire time. You'll even hear me joke about my reptile arms then because there's a lot of times that I need someone to straighten out their arms. But like, yeah, I don't do that. So like, don't mimic me, but yours will be straight. So I get down and I'm super kind of like all over the place of like super just chill vibes.
Actually, a lot of my reviews will actually mention the vibe that I give off, which I, I don't feel it because, you know, I'm me, but apparently it's there. So I go with the flow, you know, like I think from my experience, if the photographer would have laughed a little bit more, I would have been more relaxed because I was still even uptight. So I kind of just I start everybody within a similar pose which is laying on your back, tilt your head up and kind of we go from there that way you get
comfortable. And typically, if I can tell that you're still, like, in the shit, I showed you the back of the camera, like, ah, you are sexy. It's just you don't see through my eye yet. But this is what I'm seeing and usually that breaks the ice. We were like, they're like, oh my God, I did recently do a shoot and I did it, live in my Boudoir group. And the girl had mentioned that she has been watching my videos and I could tell like through the middle of it, I was like, I don't even have to tell
you like what to do every time that I tell you a pose, you already know like how to arch your back, point your toes like a ballerina and everything. So I think a lot of communication of client relations goes a long way and kind of just being chill and creating a super chill environment because realistically this is a super intimate moment and it doesn't need to be like super, you know, like uptight and
walking into this and like doing your sexy face and dancing. Honestly taught me a lot about eye contact and sexy faces and things like that because I did not have that beforehand.
Honey Raye, Jenn Junod
So there definitely lessons learned there how and I love that.
Jenn Junod
He's, I'm working on putting it into words when you have clients that definitely have never experienced sexiness before. And are those really awkward people. How do you? Yes, it's the photos. But how do you empower them to start to love their own body? And however they show up because a boudoir photographer is more than just a photographer.
Honey Raye, Jenn Junod
You're you got a bigger job on your hands.
Honey Raye
Yeah. So a lot of times I, I use a lot of like sheets or I always tell my clients like come in whatever makes you comfortable. Boudoir literally translates into a woman's private space. So in your private space, you could be sweat tie, sweatpants, hair tie, that's how you chill, it's whatever. Of course, you know, they're predominantly seen in lingerie, but if you're not ready for lingerie, then I, that's why I always recommend like a silk dress or things like that.
And then when you do take your step out into lingerie because I always ask my clients with three outfits, one that literally scares the shit out of you, one that's super comfortable and then one of them that I recommended for your body type. And usually I'll have them use a sheet and a sheet will help hide anything that they're not super crazy about because no matter if you try and force someone into a situation of posing for themselves and they're all exposed of the pose that's, you
know, naturally supposed to be like that, they might not be ready for it and they're gonna hate it So I'd rather them use a sheet and then pose with the pose that I'm giving them. And then they gradually learn to like, OK, I've seen myself in this, this is how I'm supposed to look. My body is going to look like like this in this pose, which is actually why I had launched my one ebook about various women posing a lot of times and I'm sure you'll see it on the comments too of my videos.
They will mention like, I don't have the body type for that or what about plus size body types or what about super skinny? It's really your confidence posing is for confidence does not go by size. It does not mean like you're a plus size model. So you only pose like this and you're a super slim model. So you only pose like this, it purely goes off confidence. So if you need to use those tools to get more confident within yourself and show, hey, I can be sexy because there's some things
completely sexy about a woman having silk sheets rested up against her face, tilting her head slightly up and it's very playful and sexy doesn't always mean a dominance and it doesn't always mean of, you know, slutty or things like that. It can be very sensual and very simple and elegant and still be considered sexy.
Jenn Junod
I tell us a bit more about your ebook. I'm like, what? Please tell me like what you share in there, especially for the different body types because I know for myself, I'm curvy and I'm definitely that person that's been like, yeah, I can't do that. Yeah.
Honey Raye
Yeah. Yeah, I actually mentioned that today in a video that I posted. because I've seen so many comments, they're like, well, I can't do that. I'm like, if you're commenting on my video, basically you haven't tried it. because if you would have tried it, you would have found different variations that would have worked for you. So if I'm not, you know, crazy about my boobs, I don't want to show my boobs.
So I'm going to do a lot of booty poses and if I am, you know, not crazy about my face, then I'm gonna do a lot of that. I turn away or a lot of close ups. So that ebook I launched to kind of represent different body types because I was posting actually in my group. But I've seen a lot of the mental blocking was I'm so small that, you know, I, I don't have your body type.
It was like, ah, I will find women that have different body types and I will post them in the same videos and they will be like the same and it actually does really well so well to the fact that I have to go into detail in the book, I go into detail, you know, like you see the different body types of women. I feel like I should have probably done before.
And afters which is I'm working on that in the next book that I'm doing so that they see because it works so well that you cannot tell these women are different sizes. I have, you know, me that was in one of the posts that I, I pose quite frequently. There's me that at that time I weighed maybe like 100 and £40. The girl next to me weighs 160 she's super, super athletic and then the one next to us is maybe a size like one or two and she's very petite, you cannot tell the difference.
We all look the same and I wish I would have, you know, thought ahead there and like ah these are all it, but I did do a blog on them so that you can actually see their body types. You just have to align which girls which but it goes from like zero. I believe the smallest girl is a double zero to a size 16 in that book. So that everybody was kind of represented and you can see what works for you.
I always recommend if people aren't happy about their belly to do more of like laa poses because we want gravity to work with us. And then if you want things to look larger, then you're going to lean in or arch your butt out, Arch your back. Not like, because when I say arch, some people like, poke their whole entire Was it shoulders into the floor?
I'm like, no, leave your butt there. We, we gotta create an arch. But yeah, there's, there's different tips and tricks that I go over in there and using the different body types to represent. Like you can't do this. It's totally a mental block when you don't see someone your size doing it. So I totally get that.
Jenn Junod
What did you learn about? Had it in your confidence when you did your beau doir and you did your, when you were a dancer, like how did that change your confidence?
Honey Raye
I noticed that because, you know, dealing with anxiety and things like that, I sold the hardest thing that you can sell, which is yourself. And I used to walk into a supermarket and like I said, I know it's their job, take my order and take my money and ask my day and all this other stuff, I would not make eye contact. I had such high anxiety. I just, I wouldn't do it.
And then I noticed after I was dancing for some time that I was like, I was making eye contact and I kept my, he, my head held high and I started noticing small things like that and it wasn't, I didn't notice them right off the bat. I just noticed them. I'm like, wow, that's different. Like I kept my head up this whole entire time and I would keep working on small things. Now, when I walk into a door, a room, I don't turn around and shut the door. I'm very big on.
I open the door and I close the door behind me and I keep walking. If you see me out in public, my head is walking and I probably look like I wanna murder you just because I have such a resting bitch face, but I'm super nice, but it's more of to keep my head up and properly trained to, I need to kind of present how confident I am because I don't walk with my head doc anymore. There's nothing going on down there for me. My path is straight ahead.
Honey Raye, Jenn Junod
So it's like it was been small baby steps that I kind of started noticing that it was working for, for those that are not dancing is not in their future.
Jenn Junod
And boudoir may not be something that they're ready for. What suggestions and what baby steps would you have for them.
Honey Raye
I would recommend recommend writing a list. I listen to a lot of inspirational people and one of the things that I always listen to, it kind of he didn't word it like this, so I'm gonna word it so that it actually, you know, works for self love the way that I saw it was write yourself a list and write what you want out of things and, you know, then write a list of everything that's bothering you and then look at what's in your control and if it's not in your control, get rid of it off your list
regardless because we can't worry about things that we don't have control over. Now, if it is in your control, what baby steps can you take at this moment with what you have now and being realistic of using your, your assets and getting you further into where you wanna be. And then I know a lot of people, I asked my group actually the other day, you know, like a lot of them were talking about, they want to travel and things like that. Ok. Well, what's in your, your grasp that you could do
to make sure that you can travel if you know, money is it's out of your budget. Well, could you sacrifice your $5 coffee or could you sacrifice Netflix for a little bit or you know, whatever. And then could you follow some creators that will help you get to traveling on a budget? Like those things are all within your reach that you're able to use. So stop telling yourself that, oh, you know, I can't travel just because I can't afford it, you can afford it.
Honey Raye, Jenn Junod
You just have to divvy up with what you have available with you at the moment I dig that and that is something that a lot of people have said to me lately of that youtube didn't used to exist.
Jenn Junod
And before youtube, it was a lot harder to find the resources to be able to learn how to do a new skill or practice or find people that are doing what you want to do. And now the resources are endless.
Honey Raye
We just gotta be able to actually use them. Yeah.
Jenn Junod
So self control and determination is, is, is the hardest part I would say.
Honey Raye
And accountability because you have to, that's where I said, like there's been times that I've probably been harder on myself than need be. However, if nobody's gonna hold you accountable, you gotta hold yourself accountable. And if you want change, you have to step out of your bubble and go grab that change. Otherwise it's gonna slip right before you and you're always going to have an excuse and then you're never going to get what you actually want.
Jenn Junod
That really makes me think of the All Star song by smash mouth of you could use a little change. We could all use a little fuel or I could use a some fuel myself because like we all need change, change is inevitable yet. It's scary as fuck. I will definitely tell you that.
But it, it's definitely, it's definitely inevitable. Now, I know we got about 15 minutes left and we've gone through quite a bit. What have we missed that you wanted to bring up to make sure we really understand the naked truth of self love.
Honey Raye
Things to understand that it's not going to be a pretty journey. A lot of people will glamorize it and talk about like, oh I started from, you know, this and now I'm this and you guys should all like, you know, just follow whatever path or whatever, you know, lies that they're putting out there. It's honestly more ugly than it is beautiful because you are healing past traumas.
You're looking really deep into yourself and saying, you know what's in my control that I can fix, it's kicking out toxic relationships with which hurt and it's not until you get, you know, on the, the inside of things where you're like that was needed and, you know, it doesn't hurt anymore because if you truly were there for me and things you wouldn't have caused heartbreak, it's also the real reality of things that and this makes me sound like an asshole because it's one of the
things that people typically don't hear it, it's your fault. You allowed things to happen and it's not, you know, the whole entire, it's your fault kind of thing. It's just taking accountability of I allowed this to happen. And I'm not mad at myself because this is what I have and this is the knowledge that I was able to use at this time. But now I'm further and I know we're not doing that again because now we have better knowledge and we're better prepared.
We're not gonna allow that to happen. So it gets harder. I feel like at the, the very, very end of things and it doesn't ever end, you know, and it's like I'm done with my journey. It's just when you're, you pulled your head out of the deep, deep, deep darkness. It's maintaining that accountability because sometimes it's still, you still want to resort to what's comfortable and it's still trying to keep yourself on this side of.
I know that I know this is what I'm worth. I know this is a bad trigger for me and I have to keep myself on this path on this path and it's just making sure you're align, but it sucks.
Honey Raye, Jenn Junod
Sometimes I completely agree with that.
Jenn Junod
I, I would say going off of something that you said of like it's your fault that phrasing a lot of people also say you have to take responsibility, especially for past trauma like when you're a kid, you know.
Honey Raye
Yeah, that's why I'm really big on that. Yeah, you with the the information that you had at that moment, there's no way that you would have been dug it out. But if there's some kind of relief in knowing that, ok, I allowed this, that means that I did have control and it's being able to assess that whole situation and be like, ok, you know, now that I'm older and I'm not a child because we did not have control back then.
But now that we're, that, that's where you'll see a lot of those tiktok videos of the inner child, the raging teenager and then the, the older person, they're like, whoa, what is going on because that teenager is pissed because they're starting to gain that control of the situation. Like I only have a couple more years and then I'm off on my own kind of thing and some people were, were obviously thrown on their own a lot earlier.
But that's where that chaos comes from. So being able to be older and be like, ok, this is the information that I have. This is the anger from it now taking from it and I grasped things a little bit better with saying, you know, you, you're to blame is because I am harder on myself. Now, if I was more of the coddling, it would be more of, you know, you didn't really have any, any choice in the situation and you had to kind of just go with the flow. I don't do well with that method because I, I
that's how I kind of like coddled myself throughout my life and I didn't find change until I was like, ok, hey, you need to be real with yourself. This is what happened and you didn't know any better, but this is how we're gonna fix this and because I, I accepted really, really bad behaviors because I was so used to that shit and so used to the, ok, well, we, we only have this available to us. I don't know what else to do. It kind of gives an excuse and I do not do well with excuses.
Jenn Junod
I get that. I get that, that is something that I, I think that it's, it's to each individual. my partner is very similar. When we talk about finances, he's very much like, beat himself up, that kind of thing. And when he's, when he's like, dude, what did you do? And I am like the opposite where he will ask me just like in a normal way. And I was like, what do you mean?
Like, I just, and I get really, really defensive and a lot of that has to do with I, the abuse that I went through. I always felt like I had to defend myself like, no matter what. And that still shows up to this day where like all, like if somebody asks a rhetorical question, I'll just snap something off like saying because I feel like my worth there is, you know, based on, you know, my knowledge or, you know, like how hard I work.
And so for me, it was a lot of, we talked about our inner child a bit, is going back and going when I was like, 2 to 4 in therapy, we had to work through, like, I'm there with myself and be locked in my room and through therapy, I realized that I would actually pound and scream on the door because I heard my mom getting like, in a fight and getting hurt and I was locked in my room for weeks on end.
But I couldn't get to my mom to help her save her. I don't know. I was like 2 to 4. Who knows what to do? But that like sat with me for so long but going and saying, hey, I have to take responsibility from where I'm at now. My, you know, parent wasn't great at money and he caused a lot of chaos in my life because of it. And it's my responsibility to choose and work on better practices, which to your point.
Absolutely sucks. Self love is really, really hard to get through it. Like, yeah, the other side to live like your authentic self. Like it is baller. I love it. Like I get to have my purple hair now. You know, I can edit my own videos which it used to be. I couldn't even look at a photo of myself without getting disgusted. I, when I traveled for work in Europe a few years ago, I was the smallest I ever was and felt sick to my stomach every time there was a photo because I thought I was so ugly
and I look back on it then and I'm like, damn, I look good and now even now I'm much bigger, but I'm like, I still look good. I'm cool. Like I know it could be healthier that I should get into raps. Like trying to quit sugar is very hard. I'm a sugar addict.
Honey Raye
It's an addiction for sure.
Jenn Junod
But it's, it's all like, and it's such small steps. It's not something that happened right beforehand. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that up. It is small steps. 100%.
Honey Raye
Oh Yeah.
Jenn Junod
Now what words of wisdom would you have for our audience?
Honey Raye
So it actually ties into what you just said. And it's something that I say a lot to try and kind of convey the message. You are enough as you are right now. There was never a time that you were not enough and you know, like losing weight and doing things like that doesn't make you any less deserving of yourself and your self love at this moment.
Jenn Junod
I want to pause right there because audience just like take that one in ray. Can you say it for us one more time?
Honey Raye
Yeah. So you are enough right now. Right here in this moment, there was never a point in time where you were not enough.
Jenn Junod
Definitely gonna be using that and putting that on a loop for social media because we all need to hear that. And we need to tell ourselves that because society taught us different and we are enough just being, I was let go of my job in January and my work has been tied to my job for so long that it's hard, it was really hard for me to go. Ok, I'm not worthless because I was let go.
My family is not gonna disown me. My partner is not gonna break up with me because I don't have a job like my worth is not my job. And you, there's so much of that that I've seen show up in my life that I have to continue to learn that I am worthy and that confidence and worthiness are different. You can have confidence without worthiness. And that was probably one of the hardest lessons that I've had to learn.
And I guess I'll get started with my gratitude post on this one because that is something that I am so grateful that I learned that there was a difference and that I was able to find my worthiness. It wasn't like it never existed. It was just a little lost for a while. And it, and I'm so grateful that I found it and I, I went through and broke off the shitty relationships and like you were talking about and it was really, really hard and I felt so alone during so much of it.
Yet. Now getting through that, getting rid of the people that were hindering my life and habits that were hindering my life that I'm happy, even in shitty situations, I'm so much happier. And what is something that you're grateful for?
Honey Raye
I am grateful for the ability to live in the present. That's something that I struggled with for a very long time. And I think a lot of people do too. you know, I can't wait till next week because there's this or man, that was so fun, but that was like a year ago or I wanna go back to this time period and stuff. I've really focused heavily on being happy in the present and just enjoying the moments that I have during the pre present. So I'm extremely grateful for the present.
Jenn Junod
I love that. Well, honey, Ray, Ray, Ray of Sunshine. Yeah, I'm going through them all now. But thank you for joining the podcast today and doing what you do because you bring such, oh, now I'm just being cheesy light in the world and warmth like a sun does. Wow. Ray of sunshine that one. And I mean bees need sunshine too to make honey.
Honey Raye
They do. What's funny about one of my tattoos is I have, I'm a ray of fucking sunshine tattooed on my forearm that just his happiness right there.
Jenn Junod
Well, thank you for being a ray of fucking sunshine joining the, the podcast today and talk soon.
Honey Raye
All right, bye bye.
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