Don't Change A Thing

One of the most absurd things in the world is that we all dread the one thing we absolutely know is going to happen: we don’t talk about death and as a result, we are all terrified of aging. We have an entire society that is paralyzed by this fear. The obsession with Kim Kardashian and plastic perfection has people worrying about aging and thinking about Botox at 15. How could that make for a happy society? Ashton Applewhite, activist and author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism, joins Elisa & Lily and together they discuss the convenient truth that “if aging is a problem we can be persuaded to buy stuff to fix it or cure it when it’s not fixable or curable because it’s not a disease and it’s not a problem.” “One huge factor in this society is that there is so much age segregation. When you look around and you see all ages it feels fantastic, this is how life should be and this is how life was until urbanization came in and capitalism started separating workers of different ages and old age became a problem in the 20th century when retirement homes and nursing homes were invented. One of the problems is that we don’t age mingle and if you don’t mingle with people who are different from you, whether they’re a different color or a different gender or a different age then they seem distant and ‘other’, and this ‘othering’ thing is the source of all prejudice. The bizarre thing about ageism is that the ‘other’ is your own future older self.”See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The physical effects of vitiligo have been life-rippling for Jesi Taylor, guiding their journey towards self-acceptance. First down a path of bulimia as an attempt to control the initial devastation of their black skin losing pigment day-by-day, followed by their shifting perspectives around the constructs of race and gender (“what is it that I’m calling myself and letting people identify me as?”), and now in the midst of a high-risk pregnancy. They are finding a deeper peace by surrendering to the truth that one way or another, the only constant is that we are all forever changing.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Domino Kirke, musician and co-director/founder of Carriage House Birth reveals the wisdom she’s gained as a doula, including her own physical and emotional limitations, and how our past traumas can come to haunt us in labor. She talks about her struggle with shedding old familiar and familial rituals around drama and alcoholism in favor of creating a balanced, sober and calm environment for her body, her mind, and her loved ones.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Elisa and Lily are joined by gender non-conforming performance artist, writer, educator, and entertainer Alok Vaid-Menon who explains why the creation of the ‘self-other’ as a binary is fundamentally flawed: “Individualism is wrong because it constantly sees ourselves as separate from one another rather than synchronous. So many of the things that we’ve been taught are oppositional or antagonistic are not.” They reveal why coming out, for them, was really about radical honesty and the strength of feelings, why we need each other in order to know ourselves, how “friendship is where we go to workshop our lives,” and why they refuse to define people by one act of violence just as much as they refuse to be defined by gender.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Artist Sylvia Maier gifts us with an intimate portrait of her soul as she takes us on a journey from her childhood, growing up in 70s New York as the only daughter of biracial musician parents, through healing the pain of an abusive father by seeking out and painting beauty. She tells us why, having cared for her dying mother, she is no longer afraid of dying herself, why trust was the biggest risk she has ever taken, and she gets real about her identity as mother, artist, and person of color, all while navigating ideals around personal value in an all too material world. “I try to bridge my own contradictions, my own struggles with the world and my inner life. And for me, currency has always been about achieving your ultimate potential. That is your highest level of currency. It’s that you come to this planet and then you fulfill your potential.”See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

DJ Louie XIV, who has spent years mixing music for a hyper-masculine crowd, talks about struggling with the shame and hiding that followed him out of the closet and how that has shaped everything in his life, from intimate relationships with other men to owning his path as an artist, as well as imagining his life was a TV show to writing and producing his own.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the run-up to Mother’s Day Weekend, the irrepressibly unapologetic Elisa Goodkind switches things up by placing the emphasis on celebrating children and acknowledging her self-perceived failures. She shows us that by embracing our failures, be it in parenting, career, love, or life in general, we also embrace our reinvention. Refusing to be invisible at any age, Elisa’s tales take us from her time as a stylist in wild 80s New York, to a yoga teaching mother, to risking it all at 50 and going into business with her daughter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to episode 1 of What’s Underneath. Each week Elisa Goodkind & Lily Mandelbaum will be facilitating facade-free interviews with diverse non-conformists about their relationship to style, self-image, and identity, expanding the kinds of unfiltered dialogue they’ve been having in their viral YouTube video series, The What’s Underneath Project. Before they begin interviewing others and asking them to be vulnerable, Elisa & Lily have decided to start by walking the walk and interviewing one another. In this week's episode, Lily gets real about control, the business side of StyleLikeU, her borderline nervous breakdown earlier this year, the challenges of developing an authentic voice on social media, and healing her relationship with her body over the last decade.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What’s Underneath is shedding the binds of cultural conditioning placed on us with regards to how we present ourselves to the world, each episode inspires radical self-acceptance by empowering you to embrace what’s unrepeatable in you. This CastBox Original, produced with Studio71, is hosted by StyleLikeU’s mother-daughter duo, Elisa Goodkind & Lily Mandelbaum, and will bring you intimate conversations with diverse individuals sharing honest and cathartic stories about style, self-image and identity. Welcome to the Self-Acceptance Revolution.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.