Pressure Or Purity? How to Help Girls Develop a Healthy Self-Image

Discussing societal pressures on women

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
That's the word.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
It's not. She's not showing her butt or anything like that, but she did a pose. Her face was a certain way that I'm like, that isn't a tick tock face. That's a pose that she learned from somebody. Because I know her mom, I know her dad, I know her aunt, I know everybody.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
That nobody poses like that.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
But she's getting it from somewhere. Someone's teaching her. That's the way that you look. That's how you look pretty.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yes.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back to the family business podcast with the Alessies. We are so glad that you joined us for another amazing episode this week. Now we get to come in as sisters. We're hosting this week. My name is Gabby. This is my sister Stephanie. As you guys know, the family, and we are popping in today to share a little bit about modesty. I mean, it's kind of modesty, but it's more about purity.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Instagram image, everything it's about, it's really for girls. So let's start out by saying this. It's for the women. If you're a dad watching, maybe if you're a brother, if you're a man watching this, you can take this and use this as tools that you can share. But this really is for the ladies and for all ages. I think this does reach women of all ages. We felt it on our heart because it's something that we battle with. We talk about a lot, which is pressure versus purity, keeping up with the societal pressure, the social media pressure of looking a certain way, posing a certain way, posting a certain picture versus living a life of purity and pursuing that purity.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And so that's what we want to talk about today. We want to dissect it a little bit. And we don't want to talk too much about purity. I think really we want to talk about character development and how the societal pressures of how to look and how you look can actually affect your character. And over the long run, you will sow more seeds of insecurity versus security. Confidence in who you are. Because confidence lasts a lifetime.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yes.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
So what intro comments do you want to add? Because we're. We're diving in.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I know we are. First of all, I will say I'm very glad to do this with you alone. We haven't done one, I think just you and me. It's always been like with Lola or whatever.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And we're so glad that Lauren's not.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Not here. By the way, her name is now Lauren Burgos.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Lauren Burgos.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Burgos. Burgos. Burgos. Because that's going to be really hard for me to say. I know, but it's exciting. Our sister now has joined us, the married crew.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
We're all married now.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
So she's better. She's better now.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Finally, she reached her success.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
She's reached it.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And she just started over. Day one. Marriage is day one. Oh, my gosh.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And I feel also like we've been talking for 24 hours straight, because we've been talking personally at home, like, non stop. So we're gonna have a wonderful conversation today. No, but I'm.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
I'm. Let me say, I. Whenever we do a podcast, I'm like, how are we gonna fill? Like, 45 minutes is so long. Like, how are we gonna keep talking? Our phone call last night was 55 minutes. 55. I was just gonna say mu. I know.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
No, this is gonna be the easiest.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Buckle up. No.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And we might end up talking about something totally different at the end, which

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
is why this is good for girls to be listening, because girls can keep up with us.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I know. Men.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
We are.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Sorry.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
I know.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Or hop along for the ride. It's pretty fun. You might like it. No, I really love this topic because, you know, I was born into the social media era, 1996. So by 1514, there was MySpace, Facebook, AIM, all of the stuff. All of it. And then by 1617, I had my Instagram.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yeah.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And immediately, even though. Yes, it was about, like, just taking a cool photo of that flower and putting on the sepia filter and posting. It was so simple. Those were the simple days. I missed them, actually, because they were a lot of fun.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
You only followed people you knew.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
You only followed people you knew. And there about, like, two years into it, there were people that were trying to build followers. Like, but it was through photography.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yeah, it was a photographer's app.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
No, the word influencer was not even on the radar. And it was really, really cool. But it. Let's not lie, it did add the pressure of, do you take cool photos? Can you be photogenic? And I will say, pretty early on, I did. Well, it's funny because even before Instagram, you had a laptop and we would take photos on the photo booth app on the. On our imac. And, like, you would do, like, cool photos and stuff and you would have, like, the hearts around your head. So at a very early age, I was confronted with the thought that I was not photogenic, like, at 14 years old.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And I could be photogenic if I posed like this. And then Snapchat came, more filters came, and then in her 20s, it blew up. And now TikTok is a whole other thing. So I think that what I really want to hone in on is our generation has equated our value on our level of photogenicness. If you as a girl can do your makeup and paint your face like. Like the best of the best, with all of the best skin routines, with all of the best makeup. Makeup items, if you can do your makeup like a true makeup artist, and then if you can snap a picture that does, deep down, whether we want to admit it or not, it does, in our mind, equate our pretty value. Yeah.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Our pretty val. Our image.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And we find value in that.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
We find. Thank you for helping me. So that is where I've just been really beaten up about it, because it's followed me now into my late 20s, where it's not an immature thought that girls just grow out of. We still kind of deal with it into our late 20s. Maybe in my 30s, I'll get rid of it. But there's a lot of women that I see in their 30s that struggle with the same thing, and now they bring their babies into it, where your babies have to wear all the cute outfits and you got to take all the cute photos, which let me set it straight now. I think God has placed in us this desire to be pretty, and that is a good thing. Yeah.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
It is good for us as women to take care of ourselves, to style our hair, to take care of our skin, to wear nice outfits that I love about being a woman. I love that about being a teenage girl going shopping and looking pretty. But it maybe goes too far, bar when we've allowed it to impact our value and we've made it more important than developing godly traits that outlast those beauty trends, you know?

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Well, what triggered this conversation for me and brought it up was Coachella. And I was on Instagram a lot, and I've been scrolling. You see the for you page, and for Instagram, it's the Explore page. And everything that pops up the. The trend right now is, what did you wear to Coachella?

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
What did you look like at Coachella?

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Or Kendall Jenner's simple Coachella outfit.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Exactly. Or Stagecoach. Like, Stagecoach was just this weekend. So it's catching you up on all these girls to where there's two things I noticed. Number one, it's almost like the only purpose you go to these events is to dress up and look like that.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
But then second, they use this event as an excuse to dress a certain way, that these people would not dress like this on the street.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Normal. Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And I was looking at these videos, and they're at the top of the trends, and it was like, the best outfit or the coolest outfit was based on how much skin you can show. Crazy how skinny you could look.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Oh, yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
How perfect your makeup is. They almost look like anime characters. Yeah.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
They look a certain way that they look fake.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And now I'm watching this for me, and I'm thinking, number one, I could never wear that bralette. Not because it's inappropriate. I would not look good in that bralette. That would never be me. And those low rise jeans. God forbid I. I wear low rise.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Please don't bring it back.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
You don't want it. Saved all of us. I don't want this. So I'm watching this, and I'm like, if I'm 15 years old looking at this dude, then I am number one. I'm believing I need to go to this event.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Justin Bieber's there. Sabrina Carpenter. Everybody's there. I got to be there.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Oh, my gosh.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And then number two, I got to look like this.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And the only way to be pretty and to feel cool and to be validated and to be trending is if I look like this and go to this place.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And I think that's where we're having an issue, where I'm seeing an issue in our society where it's like. I know there's. There's other trends too.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
But Coachella did bring up, like, the. The more revealing you look and the more loose.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
You look. The more stylish it is.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
The cooler that you look. The. The. The tighter the shirt. The. The smaller the shirt, the better it is.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yes.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And they're. They're portraying this environment. Like, Coachella is just this, like, free utopia of a place, and it's just everybody needs to be there. It's absolutely incredible.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And what's funny is I saw somebody post a video of. They were like, this is the reality of what Coachella is. Looks miserable.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Nobody's moving.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
No one's moving. They say it. The. The field is disgusting.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
What?

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Like, the shoes that you wear. You have to wear, like, shoes you can get dirty. They're like, it stinks. The lines for the bathroom. The. The bathrooms are like porta potties. The lines are disgusting. No, they said that they paying, like,

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
$600 for the whole weekend.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Paying so much money. And it's just. I just Hate what it's communicating to the younger girls.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yes.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
I get really frustrated because I work with young girls every single week at youth group that are going through puberty, which is normal.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Kendall Jenner went through it too. Hailey Bieber went through it too.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Oh, yes, they did.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
But they're not portraying something of, hey, girls, that's normal to look like that. We've all been there.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
They're creating this idea of a woman.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
That you have to look this way because all the girls at Coachella look the same. You can't tell me they're all different. And they all dress how they want to dress. They dress like an image. And now it's creating this or communicating this narrative with girls of this is what beauty is.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And listen, I know that they say men are visual and they are, but girls are visual too, because if you are a parent with a daughter, they are watching, they are analyzing, they are absorbing we as women, if another pretty girl comes in the room, we are doing everything in our power to look like them.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yeah.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And it happens even now. It's like, oh, she did her makeup like that. Okay, I want to do my makeup like that now. She did her hair like that. I need to do my hair like that.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yeah.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
The other day last night, I'm pregnant. I'm six months pregnant. So my belly comes out and if I wear a tank top at home that's tight, it, it rides up. But I'm at home, so I'm like, whatever. So I'm wearing like my sweats and I'm wearing these high rise gray sweatpants and a black tank top and my shirt starts to rise up. But I'm pregnant, I'm tired, I'm in my home. So my belly comes out and my 4 year old daughter comes over to me. I wore Gabby.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
This is the first time I've ever shown my belly at home. I don't even wear outfits like that. I was wearing it for 30 minutes. She comes over to me, mommy, I want to wear a shirt like you to show my belly. And I went, wait a minute, wait a minute, Gianna. No, I'm just, wow, I'm pregnant, baby. Honestly, my skin was itching because I tanned the day before. So I was like itching my belly and I was just dry and I was like, no.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
So I had to cover my stomach. I pulled in my pants, pulled down my shirt and I was like, gianna, we don't. I don't do that. Mommy doesn't show her belly like that. We don't dress like that. But it showed me how quickly a young girl at 4 years old already absorbs a woman that she admires what she's wearing.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Totally.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And we do it all the time.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And I'm glad you said that because if moms don't set that example, they will look to other people.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
So I see a lot of girls.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
It's true. It's so true.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
I see it time and time again that their mom looks a certain way, but the girls look completely different. And it's almost as if I don't. I don't know the background, I don't know the breakdown of the family, but the mom has not set a standard.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Of what is beautiful and what is pure and what is modest, but also what's respectable. Like, it's not just about modesty. It's being respectable. And people look at you and they're not. They're not having images or thoughts or. Or ideas about you because you're dressed in a way that it exudes respect. Like people look at you and go, wow, I can respect her because of how she's dressing. And the mom hasn't created that boundary because, yeah, we can go back to the father.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
The father needs to lay that or draw the line. And I get that. But it's big on the moms too, because the daughters are watching their moms.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And I think as moms, we do have the responsibility, along with the father, to teach our daughters where they gain their value.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yes.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Where they gain their pretty value. 100 and Gianna loves to play with makeup. And it's fake makeup, but I love that she loves to play with it. But I, as a mom, because I know the female brain, have to step in and show her, Gianna, you're pretty without makeup. You're pretty because you're kind. When you smile like that, when you say hi to people.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yes.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
When you go and hug on papa and Mia, that's when you're really pretty. When you're just. When you say, yes, Mommy, that's when you're really pretty. Jesus makes you pretty. And that's where. If we are not teaching our young girls where to gain their value, they're going to run to TikTok and Instagram to learn that the way to be pretty is to fix your image. And it's pretty easy to alter that 100%. You can change so much with bronzer.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
You can change so much with some concealer healer.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Well, Steph, with. With AI and with Photoshop, I've. I've seen girls that I've known alter a photo. I've seen people that are older that I have so much respect for. And it's older women alter a photo.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And I'm looking at it like, why did you need to do that?

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Like, who.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Who are you submitting this photo to that needs it to look this way?

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I know.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Who told you that this, this is the requirement for a photo.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I know.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
I've seen girls that refuse to smile in pictures, refuse to show their teeth.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
It's crazy.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And they have their face and they have their pose and it's beautiful. They're gorgeous. But I don't know. Growing up, I remember we would all try to do that. And dad would always tell his mama, show us your smile. Smile, show the picture. Because when you would do this, it was like if you're just like you're concealing something, you don't want to show your full self. And it comes up in little things.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yes, it comes up in the little poses. I saw a sixth grade girl. Oh, my gosh, I almost lost it. I can't hear this. My poor children. My poor children. Because I'm like a mom at youth group now. I saw a sixth grade girl.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And the thing with sixth grade girls is that that transition to fifth and sixth happens so fast.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I just don't even want to think about it.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
They are babies. They come into youth group, Steph, as baby dolls. They look around like nobody. Like a wounded bird almost. They're perfect. Do not touch them. They get into to school, they get into middle school, they get social media, whatever it is. And it was a Wednesday night.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
We had a photo booth set up. We were having a party and I saw this little girl posing in a certain way. It wasn't inappropriate, but it was just too mature. It's.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yes, that's the word.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
It's not. She's not showing her butt or anything like that, but she did a pose. Her face was a certain way that I'm like, that is a TikTok face. That's a pose that she learned from somebody. Because I know her mom, I know her dad, I know her aunt.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I know everybody that nobody poses. They don't pose like that.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
But she's getting it from somewhere. Someone's teaching her. That's the way that you look. That's how you look. Pretty. Yes. And you are presenting yourself as something that us older girls really need to start shaping up.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I know.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And we really need to help. We do need to involve ourselves and call out these young girls in a good Way of, hey, when you smile, it's gorgeous.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yes, I know.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Or when you're fun, that's a beautiful attribute of yours. Or when you're confident, that's when you're the most beautiful.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Because these kids are watching our every move.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I know. Well, we're all following the same people, so that's why you can't fool us. You caught that. Because we're all following Hailey Bieber, guys. We're all following Kendall Jenner. You didn't just do a cute, innocent sixth grade pose. You did that Hailey Bieber pose from her makeup tutorial she posted last week.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
100%.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
We're all watching the same videos. Like, it's, it's crazy because I'm getting my, my makeup inspo from the same girl that this sixth grader is getting her makeup inspo from. And I think that, like, what frustrates me for the next generation. Not, not of the next generation. Because I love Gen Z. I think they have something so special about them.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
We're on Gen Alpha, I think, now, which is scary. Is it Gen Alpha Alpha Alpha Alpha.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Well, they are not the Alpha. I don't know.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Gianna's pretty.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Got some Alpha tendencies.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
No. But I, I genuinely love them. I, I, I really want to be embracing of the next generation. But what can frustrate me, what, what makes me so mad about the attacks of the next generation is how they really do feel better about themselves. If their, their Instagram or their TikTok.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yeah.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Is matches the image of a Hailey Bieber or something else. And then when I see them in person, they look nothing like their Instagram. They look Nothing like their TikTok, where it's like, where did that beautiful girl go? Why, why did you turn it off for real life? Because this is real life. Yep. And we are starting to get the lines blurred between Instagram and TikTok being real life and this physical world being real life.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yes.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Because now that I'm, I'm gonna turn 30, I'll be honest, I feel the prettiest I've ever looked. I feel the best I've ever looked. My skin has finally cleared up. My, I've, I have like the mom bod, which I love.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
I love your mom bod slash Grinch bod.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah. Right. It goes from Grinch to pretty.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Very weird.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Give me nine months and it, it'll change up on you.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
So true.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
But like, honestly, myself now, compared to where I was at 21, I love how I look right now. So it does get better.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yeah.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
We put it on display when we're younger, but it actually gets so much prettier when you get older and you. You become more grounded. But you do have ugly seasons where. Seasons where you don't really. Not ugly seasons. You do have seasons where you don't really like how you look when you get pregnant, but when you just gain a few pounds, your body switches up on you, your hormones, puberty. And then you are confronted with the idea of. And I know this sounds funny, but you do have this thought of, oh, okay.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I guess my personality just has to shine now.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
100%.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Like, I guess I gotta be funny.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yes.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Because I had this pretty girl syndrome when I was younger where I would take a pretty picture of myself, post it, people would respond, and I'd feel better about myself. Well, now I can't do that.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yes.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Because I don't really like how I look. So I guess I just gotta be nice.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yes.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And you're like, how shallow is that for me to think that way? That I have forgotten that my personality, which is around for my entire life, way more, way longer than my looks. I've put that on the back burner.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yes.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And I've fulfilled my value with pictures of myself with a pretty makeup, inspiration, whatever it is.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yes.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And I wish that I could preach to the entire next generation and that everyone can hear me and understand me when I say godly traits, being kind to people, smiling when you enter the room, being generous, being friendly and. And just embracing and being a warm young girl. That makes you prettier than a really good makeup tutorial 100. Also another thing, being confident around boys.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Oh, my gosh.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Men freak out when you. Boys freak out when you walk in the room and you are confident enough to look them in the eye and go, how's your day going? Where are you working now?

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yes.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
That'll snatch up.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Oh, my gosh. Well, I'll say this.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Oh, my gosh.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
When you. I was talking to a young girl that is going through a season that I went through when I was younger, which the season is. Is what everyone goes through, which is puberty. But some people have a tougher puberty season than others. Yeah, I really struggled when I was younger. I was very overweight. I. I had acne.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
I had all the things, but it was a.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Really makes you really funny today. Thank you. You first had a. You were. You understood a good personality way before me because.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Well, honest, that's all I had. That's all I brought to table. And it was a struggle for me And I remember having conversations with mom and having conversations even with my dad about, like, I don't look the way that I want to look. But I was 13, I was 14. And I remember mom would always tell me, this isn't going to last. This isn't forever. You're not going to have this baby weight forever. Your hair is not going to be like this.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
The. Your clothes that you're wearing, they will change. Your acne will. I mean, still comes and goes, but whatever. Like. But you learn how to manage these things. And what I so appreciated is mom didn't. She didn't.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
She didn't, like, keep me or encourage me to set up camp in that season.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah. She didn't even fan that flame at all.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
She didn't fan that flame of, well, maybe you need to go work out.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
No.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Maybe there was none of that. She was like, you're a kid, you're a little girl. You're a teenager. You're not even meant to impress people right now. You're meant to just have a good time. You're meant to go to your school, you're meant to make friends.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
You're meant to.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Your purpose right now is to develop.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
So you're not going to look like this forever. Which taught me valuable lessons of, I need to develop my character. I need to develop my confidence. Because even now, in my 20s, I look different every day. I feel like every day my looks change. I'm bloated one day I'm skinny the next day I have acne one day I have. My hair is dirty one day I'm always changing, but my character doesn't change.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Because in those years of my. Of my teenage years, mom taught me, you need to develop who you are. You need to develop a confidence that goes before your looks.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
That when you're on the phone talking to somebody, your confidence is going through the phone. When you're meeting someone that you can go up to them, no matter who they are, you can shake their hand and say, hey, I'm Gabby. And I'm never thinking, oh, man, what do they think I look like?

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
My thing is, what are they? What are they getting from me? How are they? What do they think I'm like? It's not just my looks. How am I respecting them? How am I approaching them? And even this, how are you speaking? Because so many people are. You could be gorgeous, but you don't know how to talk to someone. You're not well spoken. You don't know how to have a conversation and so your young years, for all the young girls that are watching, your young years are development years. You are not meant to peak right now. If you peak right now, that's not a good sign. You've got the rest of your life ahead of you.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
You want to be cultivating a strong character. You want to be cultivating confidence. You want to be cultivating kindness and relation and a good relationship with other people.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Because I know even your point about the boys. Like, I think until you're 21, don't waste your time with trying to get a guy's attention. I know, truthfully, because girls, when you turn 21, something switches in your mind.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yes.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Where you go from, oh, my gosh, I don't know what I want to

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
do with my life.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
I want this, I want that. I'll just follow him, whatever he thinks. And you turn 21 or you graduate college and you get settled in who you are and when you can find a vision for yourself, when God gives you as a young girl a vision for your future, then brings a guy in.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
That is a successful, healthy relationship. That is so. And. And I'm not saying that people in the past or if you met your spouse, you know, when you were 18, then that's not a healthy relationship. I don't want to communicate that either. But I do think this is a different generation. Our mom was 19 when she got married.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
It's different now.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
I think we're the equivalent of 19. Like 21 is the equivalent to what 19 used to be.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Even like 24.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Even 24. It's just a different generation. Yeah. So we are a little bit younger and more immature than past generations. And I would always tell girls, I talked to a girl, she's 19. She told me the other day, she goes, I don't know why I've dated. I don't know why I've had a boyfriend. I don't know why I've done this.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
She's like, I'm out of a relationship. And I'm so grateful because I have so much that I want to discover and so much that I want to do. And I don't want a guy there.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I know. No. And I'll correct what I said earlier. I think it's good for you to learn how to just be comfortable around other boys your age. Yes. Where you know how to have a conversation without making it romantic or definitely platonic. If you could just operate confidently in a platonic way with the boys around you, that will really develop a strong boundary.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Definitely.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
That in your 20s, men will really, really admire and respect in you. And you won't be so intimidated when a boy wants to come and ask you out on a date when the time is right for you.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yes. Well, I remember growing up. It's funny, because growing up, my teenage years were not my best years, like I said. And I had my puberty, and no guys liked me. I liked. I liked every guy. I just thought they were all cute, but they never pursued me. It was not a thing.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And I didn't know it at the time, but me and now my husband were growing up together.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Crazy.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And he didn't have a lot of exes. Like, he. He was pretty. He was pretty committed to the girls that he liked. He didn't have, like, a whole list, but there was a girl that was one of my close friends that, like, when they were 15, like, they talked,

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
they just thought, whatever.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And we never. He never considered me. I never considered him. There was none of that.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Never. Not once.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And it was like the Lord was really shielding me and crazy. Developing my character on my own. And, man, Steph, now when we started to like each other, it was like the Lord took, like a veil off of both of our eyes.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And. How old are you?

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
We were 20. I was 24.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Crazy.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Or 23. 24. And it was like, oh, my gosh. And the first thing he and I both noticed about one another was our chemistry and the. The attraction of visions. Yes, but not the physical attraction.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Not the physical.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
But he loved my personality. He loved that I could walk in and I could talk to anyone. I loved that he could walk in and talk to anyone.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yes.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
I loved that he was strong and he could just. He could talk to a wall. Like, I loved that about him. But when we were younger, that wasn't the season for that.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And he never even looked my way. I never even looked his way because it wasn't the season. It wasn't the time.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And other people would look at that and say, well, if you guys were going to get married in the future, you might as well start dating when you're young. But that wasn't right for us. That wasn't. We needed in our young years to develop integrity and character and a confidence

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
within ourselves and a free confidence and comfort around other people.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Exactly.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And it's funny because you handled your teenagehood because you're the youngest and you

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
get to look at your older siblings, everybody.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
No, but also you look at your. Your older siblings and you said, I'm not going to do it. The way they did. You learned from our mistakes pretty well. Because my teenage hood, into my 20s, I did actually very differently from you because I peaked. I've matured physically.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
You're beautiful at 16.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
At like 16 and 17, I really, I got image obsessed pretty quickly. And again, social media, I, I got wrapped up into it. I really liked it.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And you were good at it. Back when Instagram, like started, I remember being so she'd go to like a sunrise and you'd post about it and we'd be like, Stephanie's like a photo photographer.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I know. But then I didn't know how to carry a conversation with other girls. And now I had my, I had my close knit friends. I was good at friendships, but I was. And I didn't really notice it until later on that I did create a world revolves around me kind of. Or I can alter my world. I can influence my world by like doing things digitally, I guess. And it wasn't until my mid-20s, maybe when I met my husband, who was not.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
He's 35, he's seven years older than me, so he didn't have that mindset at all. That's when it started to hit me like, oh, our brains are developed so differently. Yeah. And I did notice that I was very into image, image, image in my 20s and in my 19 era.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yeah.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And because that really was like, if you had a really cool aesthetic, if your profile looked cohesive and had like a color palette and if you had like a good number of followers, that was also when you could buy followers. And it was like this whole thing, it really, it's crazy how obsessed I was with it and I did not catch it. And it even so that, that really did alter my priorities. Yeah. Where we talked about it when we were at Lolo's Bachelorette and we had this funny thing where one of our, our friends, one of my close, close friends that I text every day, every other day, we're in a group chat all the time. She was going on a 10 day trip to Istanbul, Turkey. Yeah. She brought it up five or six times in our group chat and I never saw it.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
She was le. The day before she was leaving, I'm like, kirsten, you're going to Istanbul, Turkey? She goes, you're kidding, right?

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And all of us were like, steph, oh my God.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I was so embarrassed. I was humiliated. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, this isn't right. And I felt a conviction because I know everything going on in my favorite influencers lives. Yeah. I know that they just had a baby. I know that they just changed the decor in their kitchen.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yeah. I just.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I know that they are doing a new fashion line and a new makeup line. I am so up to date with all of my favorite Instagram influencers that I didn't even catch one of my best friends going on a 10 day trip to Turkey. And I really felt so bad about it that when we were together I apologized. Yeah. Because that's not relationship. That's not relationship. I don't know these influencers. I've never met them in person.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I don't know their real life. They could be putting that all up for show. And one of my. My closest friends who I know the ins and outs of her life. Yeah. I didn't catch that. She was going to go on this really fun trip with her family after she's mentioned it like five or six times in our group chat that I'm on every single day. And that's when it really showed me.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Okay, my priorities are off. And I really need to alter this. The people online are not my real friends. And what do they call them? Parasocial relationships where you believe you know these people. And I am. I am a very down to earth person. I don't get swept up in Instagram, but I caught myself getting swept up where I was so into my influencers more than my real friends. Yeah.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Where those people. Am I going to be following those influencers until I'm in my 50s?

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yeah.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Am I going to be following their life when they have grandchildren? Like that's kind of weird. And I'm never going to meet them in person. I'll never really know who they are. They'll never know me. No. But I have my close friends who I can call on and they're at my house within 15 minutes.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Totally.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
So that's where relationally, image wise, it's so important to have our priorities straight and our values straight. Because these relationships that are. That we have in person produce actual fruit. And the relationships that we have online rarely ever do. Yeah. The fruit that we get is maybe a discount code on an Amazon link. Like maybe they help us stay organized. Maybe they help us with our makeup and that's fine.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yeah.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
But there has to be boundaries put around it.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
100.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And we have to know our own personal boundaries. Where I know this influencer, I like this influencer. But in my mind they are just a celebrity. They're not somebody that I know. They equate no value to the friends that are actually in My life and how I treat my friends as a young girl in my teens and in my early 20s, that will produce real fruit that will last into my 30s and 40s and 50s. Not. Not fruit that I find on TikTok and Instagram. And yes, you may grow an influencer platform.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
You may grow followers that could turn into a career. I think that that is very real, too. But when it comes to your personal life, your personal life, day in and day out, your values have to be prioritized. And the people that are in your life are way more important that are on a digital screen.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And I love what you're saying because it's such a good conversation to have, because I think there's a couple of signs where maybe there's not a balance in people. One of the signs is if you. If. If you. When we're sitting across, like, if. If someone was sitting across from you right now, like, how you are. If what I'm getting here is the complete opposite of what I see on your social media, then there's an imbalance there.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yes.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
There's just an incongruency.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yes.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Where you are portraying something. We, all of us, we're all susceptible. We're portraying something on social media that is not. It doesn't line up with who we are face to face in reality. And I think I notice a lot of people put more emphasis in developing themselves on social media and developing the image.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Good.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Whereas they put all the time on that. Yes. And they don't put the time on who they are, when nobody. There's no cameras around. There's no phones in the room. It's just them. I know there's an influencer that we talk about all the time. I don't follow her, but, like, I'll go into her, I'll check up on her.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Check up just to go, like, look at her story or something.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And she documents every moment of every day of her life.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
That's how she's built her influence.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
That's how she's built her career. Wonderful. You've got thousands of followers. Great. You're probably getting paid so much money. Great. What happens if Instagram shuts off?

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I cannot.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
What happens if Instagram shuts down? What happens if it gets banned? What happens if you lose all your followers? If you. Here's what's so sad. Today you share your opinion about something, you can lose half of your followers because it's such a. It's such a fickle, volatile. But also, I don't know if fickle's the word. But people aren't committed to you. People aren't committed like you think they are. They're just admiring you.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
They're not physically. They like your brand, and they're just admiring you. As long as you keep giving them what they want.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
So you spend every second of your day. I thought about it the other day. I'm like, when do her and her boyfriend fight?

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I can't even.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Is their whole relationship fake? I know, because it's every moment. They're on their dates and they're videotaping. They're trying food together. They're getting ready in their video. Everything is that.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And I thought about it.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
I'm like, I wonder who she is without the camera. I wonder if she's the same person when all the cameras are off. Because she spends so much time developing this image of who she is on social media that I wonder, who is she face to face.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I know.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And has she developed that person? And is this her way of. Of creating an image of who she really wants to be? But she'll never be that because she never spends time on herself. And that's where I see young girls. I'll see them at youth group, and they're quiet, shy in the corner. They wear hoodies. They put their hair in a ponytail. Then they'll post on Instagram in, like, a bikini and their hair's down. And I'm like, who.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
What happened?

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
What happened? Who was this? This isn't the girl that talked to me on Wednesday.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
No. And also, she's working in a. I won't interrupt you, but she's working in a field that if you don't have sales, if you don't have engagement, the best way to get that up again is to post a picture of her bikini. And it will be so revealing that her boyfriend took of her.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yes.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And it's weird. And it doesn't sit right with me. And then suddenly she's got a brand deal. Yeah. Because she plastered her body, her entire body.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And. And they know how to. Steph, it's never changed.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I know.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
So now to young girls on social media or in their 15s, whatever, however

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
old they are now they think.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Now they think that's where I get my value. And when I dress this way, when I look this way, when I post this way, this is what gives me value. And that's where. That's what this conversation was about. Because your social media value will not last as long as your. Your real value.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yep.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Who you are when you walk into your school who you are when you go to college and you are face to face with people, that's what matters more. People aren't just going to look at your social media all the time and go, wow, she looks like a great girl. Because they know it's fake.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
The whole thing of insta versus reality is a real thing. Yeah. And you have to make sure. I'm not saying you should never post a selfie or you should never post a picture of yourself. Do that. That's beautiful.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
But make sure what you're posting is something that is true to who you are.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
I. Whenever I'm on social media, if even. Even when I try to take a selfie, I'm like, this isn't even my personality type. I know there are girls that can do it and they get away with it.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
We're terrible.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
I'm just not a selfie girl.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I'm over it.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
I'm over over it. I'm not that way. I'll take pictures with my husband or take. But I'm not going to be the girl that's like, here's my outfit of the day. Half the time I don't like my outfit. So I'm like, that's just not who I am.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
But we have a friend of ours that's. She is you. She's influencing and it's a great gig for her. But everything that she posts is who she is.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
When you meet her in person, it's like the same. It's a copy paste. And how she now is a mother and how she dresses. She doesn't put something else on for social media. So I think that's where we just have to be very mindful of. Don't develop someone else and something else on Instagram. That's not who you are. Meanwhile, you're not developing yourself in reality.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And when you're young and you're a young girl and you think your value comes from that, be very careful because of course the enemy wants you to fall for that. Something that's not gonna last long, something that can change tomorrow. It could be deleted for tomorrow for all we know.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yep.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
And it's a bunch of people that can unfollow you in seconds.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
So that's where it's. Yes, we're talking about pressures, we're talking about purity, but it's really being mindful of finding your value in the right thing.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yes.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Find your value in the Lord. Find your value in building your confidence and building a good personality and being respectful to people. Being Respectful to your mom, to your sisters, to your family, whoever it is. Going to youth group. If you go to youth group or going to your school and being confident, getting good grades, study.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Like, learn and. And try to. To build up your knowledge.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
That's a good quality to have in the future, because beauty will be there. One day you're gonna look the way that you want. Maybe you never will, but one day you will. You'll get older. It'll come.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Yeah. Yeah.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
But don't spend your young years obsessed with beauty, finding an image and chasing an image that's not who you are. And if you're in your teenage years, it's not the season for you.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
No.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
It's your joy. Enjoy it. It's your season of development.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Don't be mindful of image. And I will also say now that I've gone through, like, the beginning seasons of life, I still have so much to learn, but I've seen a few seasons now as a mom, I. I'm in a lot of different women's spaces, spaces filled with women. And the girl who has the most influence, the girl that all the other moms want to run to and talk to about advice, gain wisdom from. It's always the girl that's pure. It's always the girl who treats her husband with kindness and respect and love. It's always the girl that just doesn't worry, that truly trusts in God. It's always the girl who doesn't get distracted by the glitter of worldly things.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
It's always the girl who's just truly confident in who she is and doesn't try to be like anybody who is unoffendable, who doesn't take things personally. That has been a pattern. I've noticed that the girl that. That the Lord blesses and the girl that people just kind of gravitate towards, it's the girl that's pure. I love that. And they. They are pure in mind. They're pure in body.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
They're pure in speech. They are pure in how they treat people. They're just. And I don't mean it's the kindest, meekest person. They're just pure. There's nothing in them that is faltered. There's nothing in them that is. Is filtered.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
It's just they. They really have embraced being like Jesus. Yep. Like, truly, they just want to be like God. They want to be like Jesus. And I. If I could go back and change one thing, I would try to be like Jesus more and more. More than I would try to be like an influencer or like a pretty girl.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yeah.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
I would try to abandon trying to perfect my image and I would do everything to be like Jesus.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Yep.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
And let the pieces fall where they may. I love that when I pursue that.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Well, I think that's incredible. We did a great job today. We did. I hope you guys enjoyed this. Share this with a young girl that you know. Share this with a girl in her 20s, 30s. Whoever you think would be impacted by this, share this with them because we know this challenge to be like even. This conversation brings me back to what I need to pursue in this season.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
You're pretty.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
You are cute.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Thank you.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
You are beautiful.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
It doesn't matter. We love you guys. Thank you so much. If you like this episode, please comment, give us some feedback. Let us know what you want more of. We are always growing here at the family business podcast and so we want you to come along with us in this growth. Share it like comment. Subscribe all the things.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
We love you guys.

Stephanie Alessi Muiña:
Bye.

Gaby Alessi Calatayud:
Thanks so much for joining the Family Business today. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow or subscribe. Share it with a friend and leave us a review. We appreciate your support and can't wait to have you join us next time because family is everybody's business.