INTERVIEW with Lisa Cox || Author, Writer, Speaker, Model, Inclusive Media Professional
Lisa Cox is an Author, Writer, Speaker, Model and Inclusive Media Professional mainly based in Brisbane. I have the pleasure to spend some time to interview Lisa:
SD: What would be your top three tips for starting and growing a blog?
LC: - Don’t compare your blog with others.
- Be real – audiences see through fake BS.
- Keep at it and don’t expect overnight results (I’ve been doing this for over a decade).
SD: What made you want to become a disability advocate?
LC: I’d always been an ally of the community but didn’t feel right advocating for something I had no lived experience with. All of that changed when I acquired multiple visible and invisible disabilities. I realised I was in a fairly unique position to fuse my professional media/communications background with my personal experiences and help to change the way disability was represented in mainstream media and other popular culture, while communicating about disability with the non-disabled public in a way that I didn’t see being done.
SD: What keeps you going during the really hard stretches where you want to give up?
LC: My husband and other family, friends, practicing gratitude for the little things, writing and coffee!
SD: You are also a fashion model. What are your top 5 favourite fashion brands?
LC: MeQ Designs and Christine Stephens (two inclusive brands from Brisbane, Australia), Carla Zampatti, Darb, Hope Hill.
SD: As a disability and inclusion advocate, what is the most common thing you hear from people living with disabilities?
LC: They want to be represented!
We (people with disabilities) are consumers with spending power so it’s time that brands and businesses included disability in their marketing plans. I like to address this issue from a holistic perspective: Social responsibility, ethics/morality PLUS the economic/financial benefits to business.
SD: Do you have advice for women who are too embarrassed to get help?
LC: Please don’t feel ashamed or embarrassed. Know that you are never alone and there are other people going through similar things. Asking for help isn’t a weakness – it means you are strong, resilient, brave and AWESOME!
SD: Do you have a passion project in mind that you would like to achieve?
LC: It’s not really a passion project but at the moment I’m looking for a dog to train as a therapy dog. COVID isolation has put those plans on hold.
SD: Do you have a favourite blogpost of yours?
LC: It’s one of the first ones I ever wrote and was republished by a few sites including Mamamia and Huffington Post. ‘How I Stayed Grateful During My First Year In Hospital’ – a lot of my coping tips are relevant for today in isolation!
https://lisacox.co/2016/06/654/
SD: And the least favourite that you wrote?
LC: I don’t mind the actual blog post but the issue makes me frustrated. The Australian fashion industry is embarrassing itself on the world stage. I’ve been advocating for change over the years an can only hope we see some when the international fashion shows begin again.
https://lisacox.co/2019/08/internationale-catwalks-put-australian-fashion-week-to-shame/
SD: Top five things you are grateful for now.
LC: I’m grateful to be alive when I wasn’t expected to be. I’m also grateful for my family, my friends, an education, opportunities that have presented themselves in the last few years, I’m grateful for WHERE my brain haemorrhaged – although I have permanent brain damage it didn’t obliterate my language centres so I can still write.
Oops, that’s more than 5 but I have so much to be grateful for – we all do.
SD: Three top tips to survive through COVID-19?
LC: I’ve been writing about this n my Instagram page because, in many ways, I’ve been in varying states of isolation for over 15 years. Sometimes that has been in a small public hospital room with no social media where anyone who entered the room had to wear protective gear. Of other times where I don’t leave the apartment all week except to go to medical appointments.
One of my many tricks has been to set very small goals every day – even as small as having a shower or something like that.
Another trick is trying to stick to the same sorts of routines (although adapted). I still get up at about the same time every day even though I have nowhere to be!
SD: Three things you can't live without
LC: Coffee, my phone (with my Instagram community) and my husband - but not in that order lol.
SD: Any advice to teens who are struggling with their image and appearance?
LC: This is an issue I’ve spoken and written about many times over the years. It’s not just one thing but a combination of a lot of little things to be aware of. These include:
- The people you follow online
- The people you hang out with offline
- What you tell yourself every day (also called internal dialogue)
- The other media you consume apart from social media (such as tv, magazines, movies, music).
If any of the above are making you feel bad about your body then it’s time to unfriend, unfollow etc.
When I speak with teens about mental health I ask who looks at their phone first thing in the morning? Most hands go up - including mine.
Then I ask who would ask a group of strangers (or even friends) into their bedroom first thing in the morning to point out all the things they think are ‘wrong’ with your body? No hands go up.
Because that’s basically what we are doing if we open Instagram and are following a heap of ‘perfect’ people’ (who don’t actually live like that).
You start subconsciously comparing yourself and reinforcing all of the rubbish stereotypes about western beauty standards.
We are consciously or subconsciously comparing ourselves to those people which is a rubbish start to any day!
So use this time in isolation to clean up your feed and delete profiles or accounts that make you feel bad about your image or appearance.
Follow Lisa on her:
Blog: https://lisacox.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisacox.co/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/lisacoxwriter
Twitter: http://twitter.com/lisacox_co
LinkedIN: http://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-cox-217588a