74. Sophie Gray (Founder of DiveThru) on Diet Culture, Body Neutrality, Teenage Self-Harm, and Mental Health Education

Oct 9

This week's guest is Sophie Gray. Sophie is the founder and creator of DiveThru, a mental health app helping you navigate mental health challenges with mood trackers, journal prompts, targeted courses, and more. In this episode, Sophie and I dive deep into overcoming eating disorders, depression, mental breakdowns, and more!

Sophie's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sophiegray/

Download DiveThru: https://go.onelink.me/5wa8/divethrubio

DiveThru Website: https://divethru.com/

This week's DBT Skill is nonattachment, learn more here.

Sophie and I dive into the following topics…

+ Sophie's experiences overcoming depression, self-harm, an eating disorder, and more.

+ The body neutrality and acceptance movement and what creators you should be following

+ Journaling and how this helped Sophie on her mental health journey

+ Increasing awareness of emotions and behaviors before working to change them

+ Free resources on DiveThru: journal prompts, mood trackers, courses, and more!

+ Boundaries Sophie currently implements to maintain her mental health growth

+ How taking breaks and resting is productive

+ so much more!

Mentioned In The Episode…

+ DiveThru

+ Body acceptance creators to follow @stephanieyeboah, @thatfatdoctor, @yrfatfriend, @thefatsextherapist, @itsmekellieb, @hannahtalksbodies

+ Articles on the body acceptance movement: https://www.wearyourvoicemag.com/body-positivity-white-supremacy-fatphobia/ and https://www.healthline.com/health/beauty-skin-care/body-positivity-origins#7

SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC

Episode Sponsors

🛋This week's episode is sponsored by Teen Counseling. Teen Counseling is an online therapy program with over 14,000 licensed therapists in their network offering support with depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, and more via text, talk, and video counseling. Head to teencounseling.com/shepersisted to find a therapist today!

Episode Timestamps

0:45 DBT Education: Non-attachment

3:21 Resetting my sleep to increase my mood + productivity

5:27 Celebrating 50k downloads

10:03 Bullying + tips to navigate this as a teen

14:16 Teenage self-harm and suicide attempts

18:49 Sophie’s eating disorder journey + recovery

24:57 Experiencing a mental health breakdown and how this led to DiveThru

32:59 Current mental health tips + tricks that Sophie loves

36:13 Episode recap

About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)

After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.

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a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!

Sadie: This week on she persisted.

Sophie: When I started to learn about what was happening when I was, you know, struggling with a particular thing that was so empowering to me because it allowed me to know that I wasn't crazy.

It wasn't going, it wasn't all in my head there, some physical stuff that's happening.

Sadie: This week, CBT scale is not attachment. This is one of the goals within the mindfulness modules, and this is something that is adopted from Buddhist psychology. So the Buddha identified that impermanence is a great source of human suffering, which is why loss is so painful because it's a product of impermanence. So this isn't an easy skill and it's more of a shift in beliefs that takes place over a longer period of time. But it's one that continues to help me on a daily basis, which is why I wanted to share it. So the idea is you're embracing the impermanence of life, the constant change and evolution of everything around us. And with that, you are letting go of the emotions tied to outcomes. And this means when non favorable outcomes happen, you are less distressed, overwhelmed, angry, sad, all of these things that bring us a lot of pain.

And that doesn't mean that you won't feel negative emotions when things don't go your way, but you're feeling them to a lesser degree.

So a great example of this is if you are waiting for a grade on a test, you just took, if you were practicing non-attachment you're saying to yourself, you're giving a little pep talk. I did my best here. I can't change anything at this point.

The score that I'm going to receive is the score that I'm going to receive. And I can't change that. And whether it's what I deem a good score or a bad score, it's going to be okay and life will keep moving forward and the world will keep spinning and I will get through it. So it's really more of an internal narrative and monologue that takes place, but it's an amazing, powerful skill to have in your toolbox.

So that is the non attachment scale. You are really accepting that stance of non-attachment and acceptance of impermanence. And that might give you a little bit of breathing room that relieves some suffering that you're experiencing. So this isn't meant to diminish the pain or loss or invalidate the experience, but simply give you a conceptual and felt framework for easing your suffering.

If you want to learn more about the scale, I am going to link a great article in today's show notes from DBT for life, which is where I got this great description of the scale. They put it so eloquently. So make sure to check out that link below. If you want to learn more with that, let's dive into this week's episode.

Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome back to she. Persisted. I'm your host, Sadie satin. I am an 18 year old at the university of Pennsylvania. And this is she persisted your teen mental health resource, where we talk all things, taking ownership of your mental health and building your life worth living. We have an amazing interview today with Sophie gray, we talk all about overcoming teenage depression, self harm, eating disorders, really embracing body neutrality, and some of the amazing resources, tips and tricks that Sophie now implements to maintain her mental health growth and we'll get into that in a minute. But before we dive into that interview, I wanted to talk a little bit about sleep. My favorite thing in the whole entire world. This last week was one that was really stressful. I had a bit more work than I normally do on my workload, but I had a couple of nights last week where I just went to bed really late.

I was lacking on my sleep. I wasn't keeping it regular. And it was really shocking how much my mood, my motivation, my productivity immediately suffered. I noticed I was so much more irritable. I was more annoyed. I didn't have the energy to continue to work on things.

I just was like, what is going on? Like I'm in such a rush and something. Isn't right. And so I knew I was like, it's my sleep, but didn't sleep very well. I was trying to finish assignments and stay on top of my workload.

But I just felt really off. I was like, this is not how I want to be feeling. This is not how I want to be approaching my days. I don't like this feeling of being exhausted and barely having enough energy to go from one place to the next. It just felt really icky.

So I decided to do a little reset. I was like, I will be going to. At an earlier hour, I will be optimizing throughout the day to get that good sleep. Whether that was like going and working out at the gym, only for the motivation of getting better sleep. I was not like I want to move my body and feel better.

I was like, I need to sleep well. So I will be exercising to make my sleep better. I was doing my best to not nap during the day because I knew that would also make my sleep worse.

And I was also really trying to cultivate an awareness of how not having enough sleep was impacting me as a student, as an individual to further motivate me to get better sleep. And it worked. I reset my sleep over a couple of days. I avoided naps. I, again, exercise a little bit more to get better sleep.

And there was such an immediate shift in my mood, my productivity, my outlook on the world. And it was just amazing. So this is your reminder that if you are in a rut questioned your sleep, how is the quality and quantity of your sleep been going? Do you need a reset?

Do you need to make sure that you're prioritizing that? 'cause it really does decrease your emotional vulnerability. And it's such a powerful, simple scale to shift and improve your mood.

Another thing that I want to mention. I don't know if I've said this on the podcast. I did an Instagram post about it. I'm like, I feel like I must've mentioned it, but I don't know that we hit 50,000 downloads, which is freaking crazy. You can't see it because this is the podcast, but I'm smiling so big right now.

And it's literally insane to me. That we hit that milestone because that's like a really big number. Like that's going to crazy. I still don't always believe that people listened to the podcast, but I put so much work and energy and passion into it. So it's really, really exciting and cool that people listen and see that and, and enjoy what I'm doing.

But it was just such a moment of growth to look back and be like, wow, the first month that I did the podcast, I think I had like two listeners, which were both me. And then the next month I had 12 listeners, which was also definitely me listening over and over and over again. And the quality was awful.

Don't listen to the old episodes. They're so bad. So it was just really cool to see how much I've grown, how much the quality hasn't improved, how much I've invested into this and how much passion is there that I'm constantly wanting to improve the content that's going into the podcast.

So just a little, a little proud podcast, mom moment.

But, yeah, that was really fun to celebrate. I went to insomnia cookies and I got those little cookie cake and I went there and I was like, can I have a cookie cake? And they were like, yeah, sure. Like, what do you want it to say? And I was like, oh, can I can say 50 K. Um, no, our stickers only say like bite me or your day sucks.

Here's a cookie. And I was like, can you just put 50 K in frosting? Because I don't want to take an Instagram post with a cookie that says bite me. Um, and they're like, we can try, but it won't be like really good. And I was like, that's fine. Sure. Whatever works. And so I got a back and I got the box and I was literally too scared to open it until I left, because I was like certain it wasn't going to be even remotely what I'd asked for it because I like very briefly asked for 50 K. She didn't like credit down. She didn't ask me like what I wanted on it after we got through the whole sticker fiasco. And so I was so scared, but it looked really cute. There was no K it just said 50, but it had little sprinkles on it.

We had a little confetti cookie moment and it was just so cute. We took some cute pictures. I'll link them in the show notes. It was really fun and exciting to celebrate.

But yeah, it was a moment. So with that intro, that is all over the place, random life updates. It's very therapeutic for me to just discuss all these random things with you guys and give a little download, even if no one is interested. Um, but yeah, this week's guest is Sophie gray.

She is such an amazing individual. And I was just so relieved and happy to have this interview because I've had a couple of interviews recently where I'm like, oh, I don't know how I feel about that. I don't know how this will go. And then I get to editing and it turns out into a good episode, but this was one where we wrapped up the interview and I.

Wow. I immediately know that so many people will be helped and validated and impacted by this conversation. And that's just such a fulfilling mood and feeling to have. So Sophie gray is the founder of dive through, which is a mental health app. And we dive into great detail about what resources they have on there, but they have everything from journal prompts, mood trackers courses on things like navigating ADHD, anxiety, panic, attacks, all of these things.

And you can download that in the app store. I'll put their website in today's show notes that you can have all the links to download it. But as we dive into in great detail in this episode, Sophie started dive through after she struggled with her own mental health and really felt a need to change the way she was functioning in her life to improve her, her mood, her emotions, all of these things.

So she just has such a powerful story of overcoming depression and anxiety and an eating disorder and all of these things, so much ownership of her journey there. And it's so cool to experience it and see that in another individual. So without me giving away too much more of this conversation, let's dive into it also really quickly.

My voice in this interview is bad. I still was recovering from my cold and it just like for the first half of the interview, sounds really terrible. So I greatly apologize, not my best voice moment.

Hi Sophie. Thank you so much for joining me and she persisted. I'm so excited to have you here.

Sophie: Thank you so much for having me on I'm so excited to chat.

Sadie: Of course, of course. So I want to dive into your story, your mental health journey. What brought you to the work that you're doing now with all of your mental health advocacy.

Sophie: Yeah. So mental health was something that I always struggled with. I feel like there was just like, when I was made a part of like emotional resiliency and regulate regulation, just like wasn't given to me. And it was something yeah. Throughout my childhood. Really traumatic experience at a really young age around bullying, which I always feel so weird saying, and I need to like stop that because all traumas valid.

But it really stunted my, I feel like growth as like a happy child and led to self-harm attempted suicide when I was around 13, 15 and 13 to 15. And then that evolved into. Exercise, obsession, eating disorder in high school which led me to my first business where I sold workout programs online and just kind of like took, I feel like it's just like taking my mental health concerns and just channeled them into different things.

And then I had a big blow up that everything kind of came crumbling down, which led me to find. Give myself the space to work on my mental health and actually work on myself and take care of myself, which led me to my mental health advocacy and creating, dive through my mental health app.

Sadie: I love it.

So I want to first, I'm gonna kind of ask you about each of those different parts of your mental health journey and your tips and tricks there. But first for any individuals who are currently struggling with bullying, whether it's at school, within their community, what are your tips there? What was helpful for you to process through that? And take care of your own mental health, both during and after the.

Sophie: Yeah. You know, I think when it comes to bullying, I think making it aware to someone is very important, whether it be, you know, a close friend that you do have, or if there is like a school counselor or your parents, if that's a safe space for you to turn to, I think being able to like.

Known that it's happening is really, really helpful because a lot of the times we might be like, oh, like this isn't that bad. Or we kind of like, gaslit ourselves almost in a way to be like, oh, I'm not being bullied. But if we were to describe what was happening to someone else, it could give us that, you know, I think first validation step to be like, actually, no, like I shouldn't be treated this way.

And I think ultimately coming back. To yourself. And like what I wish I could tell, you know, all versions of my younger self is like, this is a snapshot in time. I understand like, it's your whole world right now. But a lot of the times, like, it's kind of mean, but you know, the mean people in high school and in school, in junior high and high school, like they, you know, I don't want to say don't go on to accomplish much, but there's on at school.

Yeah. Like they're on a different path than you are. And I know that's like not necessarily super tangible advice, but I think just that, that mindset, and then also like really working on building relationship with yourself so that you can remind yourself, you know, if they're saying mean things about you that, well, that's not true.

And then also. Third, the fourth, the whatever knowing that I don't like to say like hurt people, hurt people because accountability is still super important, but every single person you meet, their actions are coming from their own pain and their own hurt and are more of a reflection. Who they are rather than who you are.

So being able to the best that you can to keep that in the back of your mind, but, you know, tell someone, and if it can be, you know, an adult in your life, I really recommend that it's not snitching. It's advocating for yourself.

Sadie: Yeah, I completely agree with you there. And the great thing about.

Advocating to an adult, as you are able to kind of utilize someone else's entire bank of knowledge, their resources. They're not going to fight your battles for you. They're not going to be there talking to the bully and, and navigating the emotions that come up for you. But they're able to say, Hey, I've listened to this really great podcast, or I read this book, or this is a professional that I think talking to would be really helpful.

And that's true for any mental health challenge, anything that you're going through. And I just think it's so important to remember. And it's one of the hardest things is to go to someone and be like, I need help. This is bigger than me and I need your support. You then have an entire catalog of resources that you didn't have before you have people in your corner that are willing to support you.

And in that sense, it makes your journey easier from that point on your words. I want to talk about self-harm and suicide. I think that's something that is A very taboo subject, especially for teenagers, but at something that many, many teenagers struggle with. I definitely want to stay away from the graphics to avoid triggering people, but I kind of want to talk about what was effective for you for recovery stopping that behavior.

And if you've processed after the fact and been like, okay, this is what was going on here. I don't know exactly how to phrase that question for me looking back, it was like, okay, this is a way that I can physically show people that are in pain. They can see how much I'm struggling on. And then there is some kind of motivation to do something.

So it was kind of like that validation that I was looking for.

Sophie: Yeah. So, you know, when I reflect back on. What it was for me, it was a way that I was in so much emotional and mental pain that was inflicted from other people. Other circumstances that for me, it was this way too. Regained control over how I was feeling.

And if I was physically hurting that will, you know, take away from the mental hurt. And I promise you that it is doing so much more long-term harm than like, and then of course, the short term, like harm that it's physically doing. So I think I really realized that's what it was for me. And it was because I didn't have.

Again, the, the skillset, the, the resources, the understanding of how to healthily process, how I was feeling. And, you know, the reason that I had stopped, I was really more so like intervention from a teacher and then my parents and them not knowing, you know, how, how to navigate that. And it was kind of, I also then just went on to unfortunately, another unhealthy habit, but, you know, I feel as I'm 27 now, which I'm like, I'm old now I'm married.

I wait in the suburbs. Oh my goodness. And I always like, am aware of, you know, my advice or my thoughts when you're young, you're kind of in a completely different head space. And I get that. Yeah, but reflecting on the relationship that I have with my parents now, even though we were close, when I was young, I was like, too cool for school.

I think we all kind of go through that phase, but I promise like if you have like a healthy relationship with your family, which not everyone does have. Turn to your parents, like go to them, bring it to them. They want to help you. They're not going to judge you. And it's more if they do react, not in the best way, it's because they are so concerned for you.

And it's something new that they maybe haven't navigated before. And I think, you know, being able to. Come to your parents in that situation, or again, a teacher at that's helpful and you know, learning how to better process your emotions, whether that be through sports or school or talking about it or friends, whatever it might be.

It's just, yeah, for the looking to find what works for you and expressing yourself is just so vital and so important.

Sadie: A hundred percent.

This week's episode is sponsored by teen counseling. Teen counseling is an online therapy program with over 14,000 licensed therapists in their network that offers support with things like depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, and more via talks, text and video counseling. In this episode, Sophie and I both talked about our struggles with really heavy things, whether it was depression, self harm, suicide attempts, these are all things that are helpful to work with.

Fashionable lawn. And so that's exactly what teen counseling can offer you. So if you're looking for more support and expertise had to teen counseling.com/she persisted to find a therapist today, you will fill out a quick survey. It takes maybe a minute and your parent or guardian will receive a super discreet email. I sent the actual email to myself, just that I knew exactly what I was signing you guys up for it. And all it says is that your child is looking to work with a professional on teen counseling. Please go ahead and give consent to treatment and approve this step.

it doesn't say anything about what you're hoping to work on, what you're hoping to focus on in therapy. None of your information is ever disclosed. Your parent just gives consent. From there. You are matched with a licensed therapist that will help you focus on whatever you're looking to work on, whether that's body image, stress, school, depression, anxiety, so many different things.

And you'll start meeting via talks, text or video camera. So make sure to head to teen counseling.com/she persisted to find a therapist today. Again, that's teen counseling.com. Slashy persistent.

So let's dive into body acceptance, body image, that segment of your journey. I want to hear what that experience was like for you. What that was like to navigate and then really talking about recovery as far as really tangibly, like what thoughts were you rewiring?

What behaviors were you implementing to take care of your mental health in that aspect? Just getting super micro.

Sophie: Yeah. So I had really kind of taken my pain and pivoted it into wanting to look a certain way. I thought if I am look like a Victoria secret model, my problems will be solved. And Victoria secret models.

It back in 2012, like it's. So I actually watched, there was like an explained episode where they were talking about body image and they brought up how, like, it was like a woman, a little bit older than me that was like Victoria, secret wives, the thing. And they're not anymore, which is like so exciting. It's still, you know, the ideals are still

Sadie: the show aren't they not doing it anymore?

Yeah. Isn't that crazy because that was such a pivotal part of their brand. But the feedback they've received has been so overwhelming. This is bad for people's image. This is not effective. That they've stopped very pivotal part of their, their marketing.

Sophie: Yeah. And then like, they, they took too long. It was kind of like a little too late that people really, you know, just stopped caring.

I think like Aerie has done a really great job, even though I feel like their advocacy isn't is entirely market driven. It's not necessarily rooted in. Areas, but they're still a business. So it's, you know, the best we can expect from them. But yeah, seeing, you know, that just didn't exist back in my day. So I really channeled a lot of this, you know, feeling these feelings I had of like, okay, if I look like X, I will feel.

You know, better. I will be liked. I will be accepted. I will, you know, finally like myself. So I really, you know, started to obsessive exercise track what I was eating, not eating less. It was organic. Not sometimes eat it all binge like just this really mixture of, you know, disordered eating, tend to tendencies and.

It really didn't come to kind of like a head for me until I had this like mental breakdown that really kind of shifted my entire life where my body couldn't handle what I was doing anymore. It's like, you know, I was pushing with my mind, whereas my body was withering away and was like, I don't have the energy.

Like I'm physically. On well, so I started to see those sorts of symptoms. And one of the biggest things that have been that was really helpful in pivotal in my journey was understanding. Diet culture and body neutrality and how I was perpetuating this unrealistic body standard for other people. And sometimes of course, it's really important to, you know, care about your own, you know, your own mental health, your own physical health.

But for me in that moment, it was so. Pivotal for me to think of how I was impacting others, because I was like, if I'm feeling this bad and I look like this, I cheat that body. I'm not any happier. I'm actually miserable. I miss food. Yeah, I loved food and it was not a part of my life anymore. So I think the biggest piece of advice I have in that space is to learn about, yeah, what is diet culture fought, follow fat, positive creators and being very mindful that there is what body positivity.

Was, and what it is now and what it is now is really been, co-opted still by thin straight sized women, but that's not where it came from. So going to fat creators. That isn't a bad word because it's not, but understanding the, you know, how diet culture weaves into our society and how you can be someone that chooses not to engage in it.

And then that creates that has a ripple effect and can encourage other people, you know, to learn about it too. So I think that was the most tangible thing for me once I was like in a place where I was so physically unhealthy, but realizing how I was contributing to that for other people. And I didn't want to do that anymore.

Sadie: A hundred percent. Who are your top three favorite fat, positive body neutrality, creators to follow whether it's Instagram Tech-Talk who are your favorites?

Sophie: So I would say my two kind of people that I love following is one of the handles is Hannah talks, bodies. And then that fact doctor who actually are both mental health professionals, which is.

Refreshing thing to see an educator that someone's, that has that qualified ground. So those would be, you know, the two that are off the top of my head, and then I'll send you through some more, so we can include more in the show notes for people that checkout

Sadie: amazing. And I'll share them on social media as well.

Give those creators little shout outs and some follow recommendations on the stories.

Okay. Editing Sadie hopping in here. So if you sent me some more follow recommendations that I wanted to include in the actual episode, in addition to in today's show notes first recommendation is Stephanie your . I don't know if I'm saying her last name, right, but her Instagram handle is at Stephanie, Y E B O a H.

Next recommendation, which Sophie just mentioned is at that fat doctor on Instagram. Next one is at Hannah talks. Bodies. Next is at your fat friend at why our fat friend next one is at the fat sex therapist. And the last recommendation is at it's me, Kelly B. And that is at it's me. K E L L I E B so all of these will be linked in today's show notes, in addition to a couple of articles about the body acceptance body positivity movement. So you can get in tenured to educate yourself and learn more about these craters. So back to the episode,

So I want to talk about dive through. You have created an app for mental health.

Walk me through that process. What made you decide to take that step and, and create that product? And in what the mission statement is there, what's the goal target audience? All of that. Yeah.

Sophie: So as I kind of alluded to, I had a mental health breakdown, so I had been traveling a lot for work. And this was at the time where I was very active in my eating disorder, workout, obsession, and completely ignoring my mental health altogether.

So I had a panic attack on an airplane. I was flying home from New York and would have been New York, Toronto, then Toronto to my hometown here in Edmonton. And I had this panic attack and I ended up having to drive across the country. 38 hour drive. We didn't like 46. It was just absolutely brutal and awful.

And I had panic attacks the entire time. So when I arrived home, I was like, okay, I need to work on myself. I need to step back from what I'm doing, the business, this large social media, following that I had built. And finally, you know, actually listen to myself and work on myself. So I did that for about two years.

And throughout that process, I. I saw that there was. What was dominating the space at the time was self-help and it was books that were more like, you know, think more positively, pick yourself up by your bootstraps, you know manifest your best life. And I'm like, that's not mental health education or.

At all that is no girl boss, not super helpful in any sort of way. But then the flip side was it, that was a lot of mental health resources at that time in 2016 a lot of the mental health resources at the time had been very academic heavy.

They were using words, that were like tangible. Exercises that just still weren't relatable or easy to use or functional in everyday life. So that really, for me, I was like, there needs to be something better here. And that was really where dive through was born. And, you know, our mission is to help people take charge of their mental health.

And what that means, you know, from my viewpoint is equipping people. Knowledge around what is mental health? What happens when you're you're anxious when you're, you know, maybe depressed or having a panic attack, whatever it might be, but then what can you actually do? So offering really interactive, easy to use.

Tools such as journaling, breathing, exercises, visualizations, whatever it might be to help you navigate that mental health concerns. So you'll find that all in the dive through app, which is free to download free to use we've made the commitment to make 90% of our resources available for free at all times to really make sure that people have access to.

Education and tools because you know, well, mental health affects everyone. Not everyone has equal access to mental health support in healthcare. Yes. A

Sadie: hundred percent. I think that's so important because I get into the space when I'm really upset when I'm overwhelmed and I'm feeling anxiety, where the ability to remember what coping skills, you know, is really difficult. Having practice those in advance, having them easily accessible. Everything I still in lake, let me talk to a friend, let me call my therapist.

Let me ask, like, what's the best way to navigate this. And yes, I'm able to independently be like, yeah, deep breathing is helpful here. Or let me go on a walk, let me get outside. But when you're struggling, really being able to remember all of the great resources that you might know and remember is really difficult.

You're emotionally overwhelmed. You're not able to logic through things. So I just, I absolutely love how accessible that is in the moment. I want to hear what your top three favorite mental health tips are that people can find on the dive.

Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. So journaling for me was, is, is so big and so important.

And it has been such a pivotal thing for me to be doing every single day. So you know, being able to spend that time with yourself is just so important. So we have like over a hundred journal bundles where it's basically like. Any kind of topic. So we have one for, you know, checking with yourself gratitude, but one's like processing an ADHD diagnosis, recovering from a homophobic comments.

So very, you know kind of. Beginner topic. Yeah. Yeah. And then to the very niche kind of very singular experiences. So I would say that is something that I really love because I'm a writer. So if journaling is your thing and you don't always know what to journal, having those prompts to help you, you know, along that journaling activity can be very great.

And then kind of second, I would say really helping with emotional regulation. Is being able to identify how you're feeling. So every day we have a mood tracker, so you're able to indicate how you're feeling for the day. You're able to provide context to that feeling. And I think that's just such a important thing and skillset for you to be able to pause and be like, how am I actually feeling and put.

You know, a label on it in a way, but like really putting a word to it, of like, am I feeling anxious or am I actually irritated or am I actually, you know, really bored, whatever it might be. So I really involved in that first day

Sadie: to changing any feelings. Behavior, whatever it is is the awareness piece.

If you can really know what you're feeling, what behavior you're seeing on, what relationship is it making you feel good, then you can make steps to shift that in your life. So I absolutely love that. And that's something that I implement as well. And it's one of my

Sophie: favorite things. Yeah. And it's so simple to like it it's simple, but just will make a massive difference.

So I love that you can track every single day in the. And then the third one is one of the things I think I'm the most proud of is the courses that we have available. When I started to learn about what was happening when I was, you know, struggling with a particular thing that was so empowering to me because it allowed me to know that I wasn't crazy.

It wasn't going, it wasn't all in my head there, some physical stuff that's happening. Like, you know, when you're having a panic attack, It, it makes sense that your breath will, you know, start to Quicken that your heart will race, whatever might happen. And I really love our courses touch on that and really provide that education first.

And we also actually have one that's for students all around students and burnout. So yeah, I really, really relatable to, you know, multiple different experiences across, you know, things we all go through.

Sadie: I absolutely love that. And that's something that I wish was just ingrained in our school system.

Was that part of motion, education, mental health education. Because even if you're not extremely struggling, understanding what happens when you don't get enough sleep or understanding why you might feel stressed or understanding why we have emotions and how they do serve a purpose. And how do I identify them is something that.

Everyone. Like when you think of toddlers, they get frustrated and overwhelmed because they don't know what's going on. They can't handle what they're feeling like if they had the ability to be educated. Okay. This, you bring out your feeling anger and the way to cope with anger is let's do some deep breaths.

Let's go outside. Let's step back from the situation. When you do experience mental health challenges, which everyone does, you're so much more equipped to navigate that. So I love that you're making that accessible and I wish that was something that. Universally known and then taught and, and made available to every single interview.

Sophie: Yeah, amazing. And it, we are, it's so funny. We actually have a course on for parents helping kids manage tantrums because that's how early it should be starting. And I'm just like, so that our generation didn't get that. So my really like, you know, our mission. You know, to provide that education now. So yeah, when, you know, if we ever become parents or our generation, you know, start to have kids that we can then instill that at such a young age, because it's, there's a cycle to it.

And our parents are, we're only able to, you know, meet us as deep as they've met themselves within their own mental health journey. So we can't hold that against them, but we can, you know, change that for future generations

Sadie: a hundred percent. So strongly agree with you there. What are your three favorite mental health tips, tricks, resources, habits you're implementing right now that are helping you maintain your mental.

Sophie: Yeah. So I would say boundaries is something that I am so passionate about and is just such a vital piece of my mental health journey and really making sure that I can do everything that I'm doing. So for me, setting boundaries mostly around work but then also very much around COVID information.

So, you know, an example of that is I'm Twitter is kind of the main social media platform that I'm on and really love. But it is just constant news of everything that's happening with COVID. So it's a very privileged place to be able to turn that off. But for example, I will not be on Twitter after 7:00 PM every single night.

And then my husband and I will have a day every week where we don't talk about COVID at all and setting that boundary has been so important. To, you know, give myself this little space where I can exist in a world that that's not happening again. That's very privileged to be able to do that, but if you can, I really recommend it.

So, and then like around work, you know, deleting slack, deleting emails after a certain time, sometime during the week, and then for sure, at least one day on the weekends. And then taking time off you know, That a tech startup founder that takes time off, which isn't like the norm, but that's how I'm able to, I sprint five days a week because I rest at least one, if not two days a week.

So I'm really, you know, doing that. And then I would say walking, I love to power walk, which makes me sound like I'm like in the suburbs power walking. Oh my God. I love it. Yeah. And I think, you know, I'm still recovering my. Relationship with exercise. It really, you know, took a lot from me and my body's still recovering even it's been like four or five years.

So for me, being able to use that as an outlet that's so gentle has been really, really positive. And then I also think like, Indulging and enjoying myself, but in a very mindful way, I love food. I love TV and movies. And that's what brings me joy and letting go of the shame of like, you need to be productive all the time.

It's like, well, no, this is me being productive because I'm resting. So yeah, I would say setting those boundaries exercising, moving your body in a way that feels comfortable and then it actually enjoying things. And if that looks like things that people often tell you shouldn't be doing. Whatever, if it works for you, it works for you a hundred

Sadie: percent.

Where can people find you follow you? Where can they get dive through all of.

Sophie: Yeah. So you can find me across the internet at Sophie gray, gray with an, a most active on Twitter and Instagram. And then you can find dive through@divethrough.com like drive through, but without the R and then the app is in the app store and Google play.

And you can find us at let's dive through across Instagram, Twitter, and all of. I love it. Thank

Sadie: you so, so much for sitting down with me, this has been an amazing interview and amazing episode that I know will help so many people. And I just can't. Thank you enough.

Sophie: Thank you so much for having me,

Sadie: In case you skipped to the end of this week's episode, Sophie and I talked all about her experiences, overcoming depression, self harm, as a teenager and eating disorder, and more, we dove into the body neutrality and acceptance movement and what creators you should be following journaling and how this helps Sophie on her mental health journey and journaling resources you can use through dive through. We talked about increasing awareness of emotions and behaviors before working to change them. We talked all about free resources on dive through which includes journal prompts, me, trackers courses, and more. We talked about boundaries. Sophie is currently implementing to maintain her mental health growth and continue to improve her wellness.

And lastly, we talked about how taking breaks. Is productive. So if you enjoyed this week's episode, it was an amazing one. Thank you Sophia again for coming on. Be sure to share it with a friend, family, member, individual, who you think would benefit from this conversation, who you think would find it supportive, helpful, validating all of those things and as always make sure you're subscribed to see sheep resisted on whatever platform you're listening to your podcast, leave a review. And if you want to share on social media, tag me on Instagram at, at she persisted podcast and I'll repost and give you a little shout out. So with that, I will see you next week.

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