SUMMER REWIND: The One About Collective Experiences, Body Beliefs, Self Criticism and Using Your Voice with Josie Balka

The Papaya Podcast

Society & Culture, Mental Health, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 August 2025

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“I can't remember anyone I've seen at a public pool with such a memorable body, good or bad that I think about it ever again” - Josie Balka, our guest today… and that quote? From a sound bite you’ve likely heard thousands of times across social media. But where did it come from? Josie shares her struggle to accept her voice, find her words and share her lived experience through her “self proclaimed writing” and spoken word. If you’ve ever experienced a changing body (ahem, all of us) or want to find YOUR voice, your story, or just listen to some words to find a place for it all to land, this episode is for you.

Check out @JosieBalka on IG & Tiktok

Discussions of plastic surgery, near-death, weight loss and miscarriage topics are all in this episode.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Call in all podcast lovers. This is a message from ACAST. The London podcast festival is back for its 10th year.
0:07.6	From the 4th to the 14th of September at King's Place in Kings Cross, you can see your favourite
0:12.6	podcasters live at the Big Birthday Edition. Including no such thing as a fish,
0:17.9	pods save the UK, Dan Snow's history hit, Sarah and Carriads Weirdo's Book Club, plus many more.
0:24.4	Some shows will be live streamed due to high demand, so watch from home if you can't make it.
0:28.9	Get your tickets now at kingsplace.com.uk.
0:33.1	Hello, I'm currently out of office.
0:37.4	An article I read recently said we're more relaxed and... Hello, I'm currently out of office.
0:46.9	An article I read recently said we're more relaxed and more productive after a good break.
0:56.9	So I've gone to Barbados for a month for science. Yours, Toby. Take your holiday as seriously as British Airways holidays take your holiday. Atul protected.
1:08.2	Hi friends and welcome to the papaya podcast.
1:12.9	I'm your hostess, Try and Hermostus, Sarah Nicole.
1:15.9	And each week I'm going to be dishing out some sweetness mixed in with some seeds of wisdom or something like that.
1:23.3	So get ready to get inspired, get candid, get real, because we are all in this digital space together.
1:33.9	Josie people are so excited that you're coming on the show.
1:37.5	Somebody was like, oh my gosh, it's my two favorite voices together.
1:40.4	And I cannot tell you what a compliment that is for me because I love your voice so that
1:46.4	somebody even remotely was like your voice is in the category of Josie's voice. I was like,
1:52.2	oh, God bless you. That's such a compliment to me because I feel like you just have this familiar
1:57.4	voice that as soon as I posted that I was coming on here, I got so many messages from my friends being like, what? She's going to talk to you? And I was like, yeah, I know.
2:04.6	I can't believe it. But I was listening to your podcast at the gym the other day, smiling and laughing while I was on the treadmill, like a freak. People were looking at me thinking I was the strangest person ever. Oh, that makes me happy. No, I, I'm really bad at asking people to be on my
2:04.1	podcast because I get. person ever. Oh, that makes me happy. No, I, I, I'm really bad at asking people to be on my
	...

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