Fiona Fairbairnn on bimbofication, the soft life and letting others help you 🌈 👂 🎀
Fiona Fairbairnn's mantra is “No thoughts, just vibes”. The 19-year-old Black, Indigenous woman is a pre-law student at The Toronto Metropolitan University. The TikTok creator has more than 178k followers and created The Bimbo Manifesto podcast. The traditional definition of bimbo is "a young woman considered to be attractive but not intelligent". It puts attractive women down by viewing them as "airheads".
Fairbairnn wants to reclaim a new-age definition for today's bimbo. She says,
Being a bimbo is a woman who is unapologetically themselves and doesn't feel the need to prove herself to anybody. It's someone who chooses a soft life over a hard life – letting people help them and do things for them, making decisions that make their life easier and relaxing.
Pursuing a soft life is a message that resonates for women of color who often feel compelled to be "the strong independent one". She says,
A lot of Black and Indigenous women don’t let people help them. I’m saying, why don’t you let people help you sometimes?
Part satire, part political, and part lifestyle choice, Fairbairnn's motivation for #bimboism #bimbotok and #bimbofication was having to endure a toxic relationship with a narcissistic ex-boyfriend. After it ended, she became empowered to never let someone control how she felt about herself. Instead, focus your energy on yourself, your looks, and on feeling good. Today's bimbo concept has expanded across race, gender, body type, and sexuality to include non-binary "thembos” and a male variation "himbos".
This week marks the start of summer outdoor events and activities. The summer is a reminder to have more fun, not be so hard on yourself, and to reduce overthinking every decision you make.
Inspired by Fiona Fairbairnn, who appears in this week's "Do What You Want" section, I think people (including me) spend too much time overthinking.
Susan Nolen-Hoeksema in her book, Women Who Think Too Much, defines overthinking as:
Getting caught in torrents of negative thoughts and emotions that overwhelm us and interfere with our functioning and well-being.
We tend to constantly ask ourselves big, hard questions like,
"Who am I? What am I doing with my life? What do others think of me? Why am I not happy and content?"
Since answers don't come easy, we continue searching, pondering, and worrying even more. The author believes our mood goes deeper and darker, which opens up even more concerns - both big and small. Every small and big concern can lead to hours or days of overthinking and distress in pursuit of perfection. Overthinking can paralyze and overwhelm us to the point where we feel trapped and stuck.
If you're an overthinker, try to not be a perfectionist this summer. This means learning to let go, reducing expectations of yourself, asking for help, and seeing how things unfold. After the past couple of years, you owe it to yourself to have more fun, be happier and live a more satisfying life.
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Have an awesome week!
Flavian
Publisher and Founder, Spinning Forward
Tw: @flaviandelima IG: @flaviande
