A couple of years ago I had a powerful encounter with Gopi. Through sheer passion, she shook me in the best way possible. I sat mesmerised. Gopi held and expressed herself, with eloquence and ease, raising radical opinions on subjects of the ‘taboo’ variety. Without a lowering of the voice or a sideward glance she expressed her thoughts on addiction, eating disorders & sexuality. No fear was present, only passion and truth. Gopi spoke of the rules that she had buried to make way for strategies that would positively serve her journey towards acceptance and undying self love.
Gopi enlightened me on some strategies that she had been implementing to live the most wholesome lifestyle. This woman rocked my world & left me questioning a lot of the rules i had unconsciously set for myself. Creating rules was a foreign concept to me that would inherently be brought to the forefront of my being. This conversation was vital to my growth and I vowed to dedicate myself to living a life of balance and limited rules.
I felt it only fitting to open the ‘Women of Power’ series with Gopi!
Name: Gopi Lev Dupain
Age: 22
Occupation: Freelancer
What steps do you have to take in order for you to feel your best?
Beyond meeting my basic needs (nutrition, gentle movement, regular sleep which are all essential), I feel my best when I’m challenging the toxic ideas I’ve internalized around what make me worthy or beautiful or interesting. I feel my best when I’m playing the piano or 3 tequila-sodas deep on the dance floor with my best friends or when I’m kissing my partner’s face or walking alone through the park near my house. There are so many flexible, evolving ways to nurture joy in a life and I view it as a necessary journey to explore them.
How important is self love to you? How do you practice self care?
Self-love is the cornerstone of every meaningful process I’ve ever gone through. It’s what’s informed the decisions behind every good thing in my life.
I actually wrote a little something about self-care on my blog a while ago that went along the lines of saying that self-care has been co-opted by brands and ‘’influencers’’ into something cute and palatable that often requires a lot of energy and money (buy this expensive candle! Have a bubble bath! Go get your nails done! Go to the gym!) which I just find so frustrating because yes, of course retail therapy, bubble baths and exercise can all be part of a self-care plan. But this pervasive idea of having self-care look and feel ‘pretty is both a false and harmful way of looking at it.
For me, (more often than not) self-care can be cancelling all your plans and staying in bed with Netflix and a bowl of pasta. It’s cutting off relationships with people who hurt you, it’s having a huge cry at 11am on a Thursday and not supressing those emotions. It’s knuckling the fuck down and doing the boring jobs you need to do so you don’t stress yourself out further.
I think that it’s a matter of outcome vs. intent – your outcome won’t look anything like self-care if your intentions aren’t aligned with your own best interests. So yes, definitely go get your nails done but also make sure you’re staying on top of your laundry and not hanging out with assholes, you know?
So right now, my self-care is being incredibly selective with who/what I give time and energy to, consistently going to therapy, and taking as many chances as possible to speak kindly to myself and be patient with who/where I am right now.
I also practice self-care by eating intuitively, boycotting media that enforces thinness as the beauty ideal and doing a lot of reading on the Health At Every Size movement (life-changing stuff!!).
On the less serious side I love laying in the sun (whenever I can get it in Melbourne), I have an extensive skincare regimen that I enjoy messing with and I dance around my kitchen a lot.
Can you re call a moment in which you felt empowered as a woman?
To be honest, I find that the more distance I take from the gender binary, the more authentic and liberated I feel. Because of this, it’s hard to pinpoint where womanhood and empowerment specifically crossover in my life, but I will say that having been socialized as a woman and taught so many toxic ideas of how accommodating and ‘’nice’’ I should be (specially toward the men in my life) it’s been very transformative to raise my standards and disengage from those expectations.
Have you ever had issues with your body image/self worth? If so, where do you believe they first stemmed from?
I absolutely have, it’s been a huge journey in my life. When I was in treatment for my eating disorder they’d often refer to the starting point of one’s issues as a ‘’perfect storm’’ of genetics, socialization, personal trauma, media influence and family environment.
So trying to recall all the factors that went into creating my disorder is impossible because many of them were present before I can remember but I feel that there are a few huge ones that are worth mentioning:
1. Internalized fat-phobia that was ever-present in my family environment and constantly reinforced by my external society and the media. I didn’t even realize how bad my eating disorder had become because I was chubby, since the message was that of course it was fine for me to be obsessed with my weight/food intake.
It’s a pretty awful experience to be a vulnerable teenager, scrolling through social media and coming across someone’s ‘’before-and-after’’ weight-loss photos when your body looks like the ‘’before’’. It just reinforces again and again that you’re not allowed to feel joy about how you look, you’re not allowed to just relax and accept yourself because you should be forever striving to become smaller. It’s fucking everywhere and it is exhausting.
I’ve now made it a point to not support institutions, companies or products that use ‘’weight-loss’’ as a marketing tactic.
2. Feeling as if my body was public property the second I hit puberty. It’s so hard to feel comfortable and at ease in your shape when everybody around you feels entitled to comment on it in whatever way they feel is appropriate. I was sexualised a lot. Because of this, I developed a very skewed perspective on what consent was and the boundaries I felt I was ‘’allowed’’ to have.
As a response to this, developing an eating disorder was one of the only ways I felt I could call the shots. I definitely didn’t realize that at the time! It’s taken me a lot of therapy and introspection to stop feeling bitter about losing 10 years to the disorder and just try to understand what purpose it was serving – it was a warped attempt at developing self-protection and self-reliance.
Can you re call a pivotal point in your journey towards acceptance & unlocking undying self love?
Oh man, there have been so many. I think that it’s a series of revelations that just keep coming as you mature. Here are a few:
I remember having a 3 hour panic attack because I ate one of my ‘’fear foods’’ and being like ‘’damn – I can’t live my life like this anymore’’ being able to identify that was huge for me at the time.
Going through my closet and realizing how many items of size-small clothing I had that I’d never worn (most still had the tags on!) that I had saved as ‘’motivation’’ for when I’d be thinner and just being so liberated when I gave them all away.
Taking nude photos of myself and not trying to suck in my stomach or angle myself to look as little as possible.
Reading Intuitive Eating (a life-changing book if there ever was one, to be honest) and learning to eat whatever I want, whenever I want.
Also, reminding myself again and again that there is a multi-multi-multi-billion dollar industry run by old white men that actively profits off my poor self-image has been a pretty great motivator in my journey to realize I’m hot and cool because I say I am.
The real truth is, it’s my opinion that matters most when it comes to who I am, how I feel and what I look like.
How do you fill your basket back up when you’re feeling a little low?
Small, dopamine-boosting activities really help me gain some perspective when I’m depleted – painting my nails, doing the dishes, doing a ‘’cleaning blitz’’ where I set a timer for 15 minutes and do as much as I can to sort out my space in that time. Calling one of my best friends, stream of consciousness journaling. Giving myself an orgasm. Oh and definitely cooking! Cooking is one of the most balancing, meditative processes I’ve found for myself so far.
What does balance mean to you?
It means taking both your long-term and short-term wellbeing into account. It also means seeing ‘’wellbeing’’ as something that covers your mental, emotional and physical health. And finally, I think there’s an important balance to be found between looking after yourself as an individual and doing the work to make sure you show up for your community and using your access/privilege to affect sustainable, positive change for everybody.
Do you feel proud to be a woman?
I feel proud to be who I am!
If you had one week left on earth, what would you change about your life? How would you spend your last moments?
I’m very lucky, there truly isn’t much I would change. I’d probably just head to the nearest ocean and spend most of my day swimming naked and eating fruit! I’d write long love letters to all my favourite people and invite them all to a huge party with 80s bangers on repeat.
Describe a moment that filled your heart with pure bliss!
The first dance at my Love Celebration/wedding was the best moment of my life. The whole day was so tender and emotional and the chance to release some of that energy through jumping around to Don’t Stop Me Now surrounded by everyone I love under the springtime sky was complete magic. I remember just looking at my partner and thinking ‘’every moment that’s led me here has been worth it’’.