PODCAST: Nurturing teen girls from the inside out with Nicole Dargie

Nicole Dargie spent 20 years as a media makeup artist before turning that world inside out. Now a youth mentor, yoga teacher and founder of Inside Out Beauty, she works with teen girls across Sydney schools and retreats to help them build self-worth that doesn’t depend on the mirror. In this conversation we get into the real pressures facing girls right now, from muscle-obsession and perfectionism to the quiet cost of always being online, and why Nicole believes the most powerful thing we can offer young people is space to go within. She shares practical tools any parent or mentor can borrow, including her 17-second rule for negative thoughts and the check-ins she uses to open every group. Nicole is also writing her first book, Inside Out Beauty, for teen girls, and she gives us a beautiful peek into what’s coming.

In this episode:

• What’s really going on for teen girls around body image, perfectionism and identity, and why in-person connection matters more than ever
• Nicole’s 17-second tool for interrupting negative self-talk, plus how parents can model self-love at the mirror
• Why she calls meditation “medication” for the teenage brain, and how five quiet minutes a day supports focus, emotional regulation and neuroplasticity

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Mentioned in this episode:

• Find Nicole at insideoutyoga.com.au and on Instagram @nicoledargie
• Inside Out Beauty – Nicole’s course for teen girls, and her upcoming book
• The Teen Empowerment Project – a yoga and mindfulness program for schools
• First Moon Circles – a menarche rite of passage for tween girls and their mums
• Keen to become a youth mentor yourself? Take the quiz at youth-mentor-training.com

Transcript

Nicole: You’re actually way more than that, and that’s my job. I see my job as a youth mentor is to help them dig deep, find who they are, and really draw out some of those golden nuggets and help them find that jewel crown that’s all there in every single teen, and sometimes they just don’t see it. And they won’t listen to their mum, they won’t listen to their teachers, because they know that something’s expected of them.

Amanda: Welcome Nicole to this episode of the Youth Mentor podcast. I’m so, so excited to have you here. I know we’ve known each other a while now, at least 10 years probably.

Nicole: It’s coming up to 10 years, Mandy. In 2017 I did my training with you.

Amanda: Wow, amazing. Gosh, time flies, doesn’t it? And so much has happened in that time in the world.

Nicole: It sure has, and I’m really excited to be here. Thanks for having me. I’ve got so much I’d love to share with anyone who’s listening, my experiences with teens over this time. I just want to shed some light on some stuff if anybody’s open to hearing, and help out as much as I can. If you’re a teen listening or if you’re a mum or a dad, I definitely have some stuff I can share.

Amanda: I have no doubt. I know you’re such a wealth of knowledge and wisdom and experience, and you’re a mum of teens as well. But to start with, would you mind giving us a brief overview of your work and Inside Out Beauty?

Nicole: For sure. This originally started when I did my training. The first course I created was called Inside Out Beauty for Teens, because my background is, I worked in the media as a makeup artist for 20 years. I originally created a course for women, and when I did the training with you, I realised that teenage girls need to get this, it needs to start when they’re younger. Planting those seeds in teenagers when they’re young really helps them form a positive self-image from the inside out. I’ve been running Inside Out Beauty courses independently, like a day retreat in school holidays, for the last nine years. A little while ago I started running First Moon Circles for tween girls and their mums, a rite of passage through menarche, from nine to 12, for about the last five years. I’ve also been running a program in schools called the Teen Empowerment Project, a yoga and meditation program, which helps teens regulate their emotions, focus and clear their mind, and use mindfulness skills, bringing in philosophy topics like gratitude, which is called Santosha in yoga, so they can embrace who they are rather than comparing themselves to everybody else. And I run a smaller after-school group in a yoga studio each week where I get to mentor a smaller group and nut out everyday issues like friendships and body image. And I’m writing a book for teen girls called Inside Out Beauty, based on the work I’ve been doing over the years. It’s a labour of love.

Amanda: Such a big project, birthing a book into the world.

Nicole: It is, and I’m sure you can relate because you’ve written a book too. It comes to have a life of its own, and it will happen very soon, so keep your eye out for that one, everyone.

Amanda: I can’t wait to hold it in my hands. And it’s such a nice time to be doing it, after years of doing this work and testing things out and getting feedback, to now have so many tools and stories to bring into it.

Nicole: There’s a lot. I’m going to offer a school-based program for teens based on the book too, as part of the wellbeing program in schools, a three-week program I’ll be rolling out soon. I remember sharing the introduction with my daughter, who’s 16 and in her last year of school. I said, this book’s dedicated to you, because since becoming your mum, everything changed. Seeing what she’s been through and understanding firsthand some of the challenges, and working with teens closely over the years, I knew this book needs to get the message out further and wider. In this world of unrealistic beauty standards, there’s never been a more important time to come up with different solutions, something from left of field. Some of the techniques I offer you’ve never seen before, because I learnt from amazing teachers over many years of training in spirituality, metaphysics, yoga, meditation and embodiment work, understanding the subconscious mind, to give teens a different perspective than what they get in the mainstream.

Amanda: That sounds so needed and important. What are some of the biggest struggles for teen girls at the moment, particularly around body image and beauty standards?

Nicole: In Australia we have this thing where girls want to be really strong and muscly. A recent study found 66% of teenage girls want to be more muscular. That’s great, it’s good to be healthy, but the shadow side can be that it goes too far and becomes obsessive. There’s also an epidemic of girls being overachievers, and that can affect their self-image. When I’m with my group of 30 kids every week at the local high school, I very commonly see girls struggling with their identity around gender, and kids who are on the spectrum. I’ve had transgender kids who’ve really struggled. I had one girl who comes back to me time and again, very quiet, sitting next to me, looking for gentle support, because I could see she was being targeted. These kids need to be heard, and they need a safe space so they can be seen and heard and witnessed, and a moment to go within and acknowledge how hard it is to be a teenager in this day and age. The reason I wanted to become a youth mentor is that when I was a teenage girl, I was an actress, doing stuff on television, and I appeared as though I had it together, but on the inside I was really struggling. There’s a part in my book where I share some of my experiences of self-harming, and I share that with my teens generously, because the odds are stacked against them more now than they were for me. So I have so much empathy and willingness to help teens struggling with self-image, helping them understand that the crown jewel for teenagers is their inner character, values and strengths. From there it transfers to the outside and they start to feel better. Really reinforcing that you are not your outfit and you’re not your makeup. You’re way more than that, and that’s my job, to help them dig deep and find that jewel crown that’s in every single teen. The beautiful thing about being a youth mentor is you’re a pretty neutral person. You’re just going to ask them to look within.

Amanda: So true. And I love what you shared about what a youth mentor is, that neutral person who can gently support them and help them mine for the nuggets themselves.

Nicole: I got a beautiful letter from one of my teens I’ve been mentoring for three years. She wrote, I know this sounds weird, but I see you as like a best friend. I read it in front of her and just cried. You never know the impact you have. It’s incredible how powerful mindfulness and meditation and yoga is for teenagers.

Amanda: We need it more than ever. I ran a masterclass recently about Gen Z and Gen Alpha and spent months looking at the research, and one thing that kept coming up was that young people struggle with deep focus now, because they haven’t had to practise that muscle with AI in their life. They’re good at prompting but not so good at doing the work that cements pathways in the brain. Your tools would be so supportive with that focus, from an academic point of view too.

Nicole: Massively. When teens have a safe space to be with themselves and notice what’s going on, they can create new neural pathways. Neuroplasticity is such an interesting subject, and how it counteracts the constant need to go online and have everything done for you. Einstein said the one thing more important than knowledge is imagination. Relying too much on AI takes away creativity. So I advocate: if you knew the answer, what would you say, rather than prompting the AI all the time. Even five minutes a day to sit and breathe is probably the most important five minutes you can give yourself, because otherwise you’re not giving your subconscious mind time to absorb and integrate what you’ve received. Meditation is like medication, you’ve got to do it every day, otherwise your brain gets overloaded. I’ve had teens drop deep into meditation, into the alpha brain state, and come up to me afterwards and say, Miss, did you know this happened. And I say, hold onto that for dear life, because that is your ticket to freedom and happiness. There’s so much power in our mind that’s untapped, and it’s not taught in schools, and that’s why I do what I do.

Amanda: So special, and so brave to go into schools with a group of kids that know each other, week after week. It feels so opposite to what’s often talked about with women’s empowerment and chasing our dreams. There’s not enough talk about the importance of those quiet moments, even when it doesn’t look productive.

Nicole: It’s like a radical act to go and sit and meditate, a radical act against the world and what’s expected of you. The Dalai Lama once said the world will be saved by the Western woman, and there’s so much empowerment for women now that we’re flat out keeping up. We forget the most important part is us, coming back to ourselves, authenticity and being your own best friend, at an age where you’re taught the opposite. We’re taught to achieve at the expense of our own wellbeing. Counteracting that is a big job, but there’s enough people doing it to help girls usher in this new world. There’s hope, most definitely.

Amanda: It’s a scary, exciting, hopeful, devastating time, so intense you can feel it all. It made me think about the pressure on young people, thinking of them as the ones who are going to save us, when they’re so ready and aware. It must be a lot to grow up with that kind of access to all those opinions constantly.

Nicole: It’s a lot mentally, especially because they lack the ability to reason and reflect the way adults do. If we don’t practise mindful movement like yoga or Pilates to regulate emotionally and mentally, it can become really intense, and that’s one of the things that can lead to self-harm. There’s a lot online, but there’s really something to be said for doing work in person and having human contact, which has been lost a little with technology. Stories are coming out about teens who run things through a chatbot to know how to respond socially, and that’s really sad. The remedy is self-connection, getting to the root cause, and being with other people in groups, and time in nature, connecting with nature but also our true nature. In schools I’ve witnessed a lot of group dynamics, but at the end of the day every teen just wants to be seen and heard. As a mentor you can be that, in a positive way.

Amanda: It’s different running a program in schools where they come with history, compared to a holiday program where they mostly don’t know each other and come in at the same level of nervousness.

Nicole: It can be so awkward, so you’ve got to break the ice and do something, not just talk, otherwise it’s too confronting. Move the body, do a craft thing, whatever. There’s got to be a check-in, because everything just needs to feel seen, heard and validated. Parents are so busy, so it’s nice to provide a space where they can feel that, even with one word. I start my groups with, give me a number one to 10 for how you’re feeling, and one word to describe it, and not good, nice or calm, let’s increase our emotional literacy.

Amanda: Not many people ask that question in daily life. We do something similar in our online academy check-ins, and I’ve realised it can be challenging to find language, particularly for neurodivergent kids, so I’ve added, you can choose a colour or a song or a food. Now we get, this was a plain salt chip kind of week, or it was a purple week. For some reason that feels easier, and then you can ask why.

Nicole: That’s it, and it’s nice to be able to do that. With my smaller groups I can go into it, but in a bigger group a lot of teens are scared of being judged. But I love that idea, what song would it be.

Amanda: It’s always fun hearing their responses, and it makes sense, the difference in how vulnerable they’re willing to be in different settings.

Nicole: For sure. I always open with, this is a safe, inclusive space, what’s said in here stays in here, can I get your consent and commitment to each other. And they always say yes.

Amanda: So maybe for parents of children who are 13, 14, 15, or heading that way, are there tips you’d like to share, being at the upper end of parenting teens and seeing teens every week?

Nicole: Never underestimate them, because they’re smarter and more capable than we think. As a mum I’ve had to step way back and give them the floor to share in a non-judgmental way, and give them credit. What helps is taking my daughter away for a day and making it all about them, giving them the space to open up. And being beautiful, or trying to be beautiful, just ain’t that pretty. If you always criticise yourself in the mirror, your daughter’s watching. Teach them self-love, teach them to say I really like this about myself. We need to learn to regulate, so when a negative thought comes up, don’t entertain it any longer than 17 seconds, because then it becomes part of you and part of your self-image and the lens through which you see yourself. Stopping yourself at 16 or 17 seconds is really important. Try it for 21 days straight and see how the way you see yourself changes. Do it with your daughter.

Amanda: I love this number, and I’m curious why 17, but I love that it gives me a little breathing room to feel it if I’m feeling it, and then cut it off, rather than trying to cut it off straight away.

Nicole: Don’t be hard on yourself for doing it, just notice it. And yes, 17 is a powerful number according to the ancient sages and teachings, from a long line of philosophy and spirituality I’ve studied as a metaphysical teacher. It’s a prompt to notice how long you’ve been entertaining a thought, then next time flip it into a positive thought and keep going. They say the slow drip on the hard rock over time changes the shape of the rock. It’s the same with our mind.

Amanda: Even when we’re old, when we don’t have quite the same neuroplasticity?

Nicole: Totally. It’s never too late, Mandy. Never.

Amanda: You’ve shared so many great tips. For anyone in Sydney, make sure you check out Nicole for all of this in-person magic and retreats. I’ve been travelling in Asia, and I’ve noticed some countries really value these third and fourth spaces that we don’t have as much in Australia, where young people go to be together and connect, not to shop. It’s made me reflect on how isolating Australia can be.

Nicole: It’s so fast-paced too, especially in Sydney, and we’re more separate, especially after COVID. But check me out, if I’m in your area, or if you work at a school looking for a program, reach out because I’ll travel to you. I run wellbeing days for teachers too. My next Inside Out Beauty course is coming up in April as a day retreat. I’m keen to get my programs into schools, Inside Out Beauty for teen girls and the Teen Empowerment Project, and I’ve worked with year 12 students dealing with HSC stress. And if you’re looking to do one-on-one work, reach out, I’d love to hear from you.

Amanda: We have a lot of parents, but also teachers and mentors who listen. Often it’s the parents who can get programs into schools, and when it comes from a passionate parent in the community it can really fast-track things.

Nicole: Definitely, and there’s such a need out there. Hit me up.

Amanda: Absolutely. And where can we find you, your website and Instagram?

Nicole: You can find me on Instagram under Nicole Dargie, and on Facebook under my name. My website is insideoutyoga.com.au. Send me a message if you have any questions, I’ll be so happy to help.

Amanda: I can’t wait till we all get to see this book out in the world. Thanks for sharing so many tools and tips with us today.

Nicole: It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time, and I can’t wait to see the next chapter.

Amanda: Same. Thanks, Nicole.

#shinefromwithin #youthmentors #youthmentorship #youthspeak #youthempowerment #youthdevelopment #teachermotivation #womensupportingeachother #empoweringwomen #girlrising #empoweringgirls #leaderslead #mindsetmatters #teengirls #bodyimage #mindfulness

Mentioned in this episode:

• Send me a message on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/shinefromwithinhq/
• Jump on a 30min call with me to talk about your own dreams of starting or growing your youth business here.
• Curious about starting your own program or business to support youth this year? Check out our free video training: How to Start and Grow your Youth Mentor Business here.

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