Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Natalia Seliger. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Natalia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.
Social media can be a very toxic space, especially for younger people who are more vulnerable to the things they watch and consume. My goal as a wellness / lifestyle influencer is to help social media be a safe space for those going through the highs and lows of life. I want my platforms to be a safe space where people can come to learn and just overall, feel seen. I believe by sharing the high’s and lows of my life, it will help anyone who is maybe going through a similar situation feel less alone. Being vulnerable online and sharing the darker moments isn’t easy, but by helping at least one person, it makes it all worth it. I don’t want my page to be a space where people are comparing their life to mine, but instead learning and feeling connected to the things I share. Growing up with social media, I have felt myself constantly comparing myself to people in a negative way which made me feel terrible about myself. I think social media can be a great safe space, and that is what I hope my platforms portray.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My name is Natalia Seliger, I am 23 years old and was born and raised in OC, California. I started getting into my wellness / health journey my freshman year of college. I was living at home at the time and going to community college, and mentally was going through a pretty rough time. I decided I wanted to be more “healthy” so I started following fitness influencers to help me loose weight. The people I was following had very disordered relationships with food, which then made me fall into an eating disorder. I had a very toxic relationship with food and fitness, and for years I would tear apart my body for the way it looked. No matter how hard I worked out, or restricted food, I was never fully satisfied with myself or my body. During the pandemic, I realized that I needed a lifestyle change because restricting foods was not the answer. I started sharing my journey on Instagram and tiktok, and from there grew a following because of my vulnerability / sharing my story of overcoming my restricted lifestyle. From there, I started sharing more about my life and just wanted all my platforms to be a safe space for anyone struggling. I take pride in being able to help others by simply sharing these high and low moments because I feel like that’s what we need more of on social media, realness. Authenticity is what is what’s most important to me. Everything online can feel so fake and manufactured to look a certain way. By staying true to myself and sharing my journey, I am able to help others feel more connected and seen.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
For me, having people DM me about things that they have gone through that I have help them overcome is so rewarding for me. It gives me reassurance that by sharing my struggles, they are helping at least one person feel less alone and seen. Any sort of growth moment that my followers tell me about makes me so happy!
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
A lot of influencers have a certain stigma, a negative one. I would even feel embarrassed to tell new people what I do for work because of the negative stigma, and it’s just not the most highly respected job overall. The stigma is that you just take pictures and get money through posts. It seems like a lazy job. But in all honesty, since starting this job full time, I’ve never been busier in my life and I enjoy it all so much. Being an influencer means you are your own boss, you work your own hours, its all in your timeline. It can be very exhausting if there are no work-life boundaries which is something I am working on. No one really see’s the behind the scenes of an influencer, just the “pretty photos”. For me, my job requires lots of personal reflection, which can be very mentally draining, but at the end of the day it is so rewarding to share these high’s and lows so that it can help at least one person who might be going through the same thing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://hoo.be/nataliaseliger
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/natsneatteats/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muS–AX1_2E
- Other: tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nataliaaseliger?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/1JYPdVZCNpS6njJJNy6kmb?si=91b76ff748994bbf