RM of BTS stood before the United Nations in 2018 and gave one of the greatest Self-Love speeches ever heard: speak yourself. But the moment that stopped me was one sentence, the one where he claimed the very label people used to dismiss him. Episode 93 of Self-Love Through Their Eyes goes inside the speech, the UNICEF Love Myself campaign that came a full year before it, and the story of a boy from a small town who stopped hearing his own voice, and found it again in front of the world. I was living in Hong Kong then, when BTS were the air we breathed, and this speech found me at the exact right time. We close with a practice to try this week with one person you love: one true thing, spoken in your own voice.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why "idol" was a put-down in K-pop, and what it meant that RM led with it at the United Nations
• The UNICEF Love Myself campaign that came before the speech, and the one belief it was built on
• What happened when a boy from Ilsan started seeing himself through other people's eyes, and how that story is ours too
• Why he calls his faults and mistakes the brightest stars in the constellation of his life
• The responsibility that comes with learning to love yourself, and why Self-Love was never meant to stay locked inside you
• A simple practice to try this week with one person you love: one true thing, given freely

Resources Mentioned:

• RM's full speech at the United Nations, official UNICEF video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTe4f-bBEKg
• Full speech transcript, from UNICEF: https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/we-have-learned-love-ourselves-so-now-i-urge-you-speak-yourself
• The LOVE MYSELF campaign, BTS x UNICEF: https://www.love-myself.org

Connect with Lulu:
Website: https://www.luluessey.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lulu.essey/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucille-marie-essey/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lulu.essey

This is an inside job. Please share this episode with people you love. And follow while you are here 💛

Love is a choice, not a feeling we wait for. bell hooks' "all about love" is centered around that truth, and I know the weight of it personally: I first picked up her book over 15 years ago and put it down twice, stopped in the Preface by what it showed me about my own story.

Episode 92 of Self-Love Through Their Eyes goes inside the book and looks at what love is made of, why real love cannot be sold to us, and the chapter she found hardest to write, her own Self-Love. Because the woman who defined love for a generation still had to practise it. And so do we.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why bell hooks insisted on a definition of love
• What changes when love becomes a verb, a choice we practise, instead of a feeling we wait for
• Why the chapter on Self-Love was the hardest one for her to write, and what her honesty reveals about knowing the work versus living it
• The inconvenient bell hooks: her warning about comfort that asks nothing of us, and why "lovelessness is a boon to consumerism"
• How fear stands between us and love, and what choosing love in the face of fear looks like
• One simple practice for the week: choosing love on the days you feel no love at all

Resources Mentioned:

• All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, 2000
• The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck, 1978
• bell hooks, her life, love and legacy, from Berea College: https://www.berea.edu/centers/the-bell-hooks-center/about-bell

Connect with Lulu:Website: https://www.luluessey.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lulu.essey/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucille-marie-essey/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lulu.esseyThis is an inside job. Please share this episode with people you love. And follow while you are here 💛

What does it take to stop judging yourself and truly see yourself? Self-Love through the eyes of Zanele Muholi, the South African visual activist who turned photographing themselves into a practice of Self-Love This episode opens a new series, Self-Love Through Their Eyes, where I introduce you to artists who reshaped how I understand Self-Love and Mental Fitness, and the window each one opened for me.

We begin with Zanele Muholi. Their exhibition toured Europe to record audiences before returning to Tate Modern in London in 2024, over three hundred photographs strong. In December 2024 I stood in those rooms with my niece, two South African women far from home, and what happened there is where this episode begins.

This is not art critique. This series is about how art and creativity have moved me deeply, how they helped me understand Self-Love, and my hope that they will do the same for you.

And in Zanele's own words, the words I have not stopped thinking about since: For once, take a look at yourself, and give thanks for living.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN

• Who Zanele Muholi is, and why they call themselves a visual activist, not an artist
• What happened when two South African women met Zanele's work in a London gallery
• Why choosing not to analyse a powerful moment can be an act of trust
• The story behind Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness
• Why Zanele set a goal of 365 self-portraits, and why its being unfinished changed how I see Self-Love
• A small witnessing practice for looking at yourself without judging

Explore Zanele Muholi's work:

Tate Modern exhibition, with the room guide and Zulu sound baths: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/zanele-muholi
The portraits at Tate, including Bester I: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/zanele-muholi-18872/yes-but-why-zanele-muholi
The Muholi Art Institute: https://www.muholiart.institute/
Zanele in their own voice, on film at Art21: https://art21.org/artist/zanele-muholi/

Sources for this episode:

The 2020 exhibition closure and 2024 return: Tate Modern exhibition page above
Zanele's quote, for once, take a look at yourself: Attitude interview: https://www.attitude.co.uk/culture/zanele-muholi-interview-466960/
Zanele on Somnyama Ngonyama and founding the Institute: Juxtapoz interview: https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/magazine/features/zanele-muholi-the-bronze-age/
The 365 self-portrait goal, begun 2012: https://lampoonmagazine.com/article/2022/01/20/zanele-muholi/

Connect with Lulu:

Website: https://www.luluessey.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lulu.essey/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucille-marie-essey/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lulu.essey

This is an inside job. Please share this episode with people you love. And subscribe while you are here 💛

The Lulu Essey Podcast is a proud member of the ALIVE Podcast Network: https://alivepodcastnetwork.com/