Up on my soapbox with a suicide roll.

Proceed at your own risk.  I am expressing some of my life opinions.

Remember as a child you are told how pretty, smart and fantastic you are but then when you start to grow up you learn it is not ok to think you are so fabulous so you learn to hate yourself and shame yourself and make fun of yourself only to get into adulthood and learn it is ok to like, daresay, love yourself so then we have to spend the next 10 years of our adult life learning to like who we are and share our real selves with the world?

I have the hope to help my girls through this silly hardship.  I have no idea how I will do it but I want to try.

Right now Eva is in the super cute stage where everything she does is absolutely darling and everyone ooos and ahhs over her.  This super cute stage is partly so super cute because she is innocent to it and doesn't ham it up when people give her compliments.  One day this will be over and it will be sad but for now it is so fun.

We went to a wedding a couple months ago and Eva had to wear her very fancy dress and fancy necklace and we curled her hair.

When people told her how pretty she looked she said,"I know!" but not in a snobby way, but in an "I am having so much fun" way.  I want her to always feel this way.  I want her to know it is OK to think you look good and to like who you are.  Not only is it OK but you will have a healthier happier life if you are able to like and enjoy yourself.  I think the key to this is to be aware that you are no better than anyone else and that you are not, and don't have to be, the best looking, smartest or funniest in the room.  If you are happy and satisfied with who you are than it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks or looks like.

Here's a recent, personal example.  I was working at Nordstrom the other day and they had some hair stylists there so I had one of them do a suicide roll for me.  See pictures below:

 Me twitterpated with my hair.

It is a bit messy since this was the end of the day.

I absolutely loved it and plan on doing it often to my hair.  But one young makeup artist I was working with said, "Oh did you get your hair done? (clearly I had)  You have a poof on the top of your head."  That was it.  In woman code that means,"I don't have anything nice to say about your hair so I will just make a statement about it since I want to let you know that I don't like it and think it looks horrible."  I know what you are thinking, "Well you were at Nordstrom."

I just blew it off and thought,"Well, I love it".

My point?
It's OK to be in love with yourself.  
It's not OK to think you are the only one who exists or who is important.
It's OK to like your like's and stand by your opinions.
It's not OK to think that people are stupid who don't share your like's and opinions.
It's OK to think you are pretty amashzing.
It's not OK to think no one else is amashzing.
It's also not OK to think "You are great but I am better."  

So let's enjoy ourselves as well as enjoying what others have to offer.

OK got it?  Good.

Thanks to Michelle for letting me know about a great tutorial on Youtube about how to do a suicide roll.  Here it is in case you want one too.

And send me a picture if you do it.

My therapy begins.

I found a therapist and have started therapy.
I like her (she is a she) and I'm so glad it worked out because I liked her price a lot too.
I think therapy is worth the money even if it is expensive but I found someone I like and she has a really reasonable price so I am double happy about it.  


I feel myself slipping into bouts of depression and with all the emotions going on in my life right now I know I need some help.
I write this because I am not ashamed that I need therapy.  I think everyone needs it and that it is really helpful if you find the right therapist that fits for you.


What I am hoping to get out of it is insight, answers, aha moments (thanks Oprah), help and emotional peace.  I look forward to having someone who is completely un-invested in my life help me.  Plus, I get to talk about myself for an hour.  Who doesn't like doing that?  


Apart of me is a little scared at what I will discover but I am mostly relieved and feel like it is about damn time.  I have finally started something I probably should have started a long time ago.  


May I just say if you have thought about therapy just do it.  Don't wait until it is really, really bad to be motivated.  That just seems silly.  
Believe me I have amashzing hindsight!


Love.

To get close you must talk about poo.

A few months ago I made a goal to expand my community.  This doesn't just include the people in my actually community but to expand the people I have connections with in my life.  I feel that blogging is a way to expand my community and so I love it and choose to keep my blog public.  I am aware that though online relationships can be really beneficial I would like human interaction and for me the more the better.

I have been reading this blog by Brene Brown and reading her books.  Have you seen her TED talk.  You should.  I know it is 20 minutes but it really changed my life.  Please take the time.

Anyways, I also enrolled in her online class about Whole Hearted Living and Vulnerability.  It basically dives deeper into her research and how to live whole hearted and put her research and discoveries into action.
I love it.  I signed up so that it would help me through some hard things I am going through and it really has helped.
I have learned so much.

Today I listened to an audio about expanding your community.

There are some people that think that when someone is going through hard times you should act a certain way, be at a certain level of depression, close people out of your life and hide.  It is very rare that I act this way.  When I go through hard times my best defense is to get out in the sunshine and move and do.  It is a way to escape and put things into perspective and see them in the light.  Although it is impossible to fully escape problems until they have been dealt with it is not wrong to deal with your problems at only certain times of your day and not let everyone around you know what problems you have.
Work is a great escape for me.  I am able to leave my problems at the door and dive into my work and be busy.  When I leave I know my problems are waiting for me but I feel strengthened and revitalized to deal with them.

Now back to the community thing.  Often times people feel it is a sign of weakness to ask for help and especially as women we have to go, go , go and be perfect and have everything together.  I have learned that asking for help is a power move.  Perfection is impossible, did you know that?  That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to be good at things and do your best but when you try to achieve perfection you will ALWAYS fail.  ALWAYS!  Perfection is impossible!  In the blogging community we all get these small windows into each others lives but we all want to put our best foot forward and not share the imperfections.  So what?  We want this false sense of perfection so when people actually meet us they are disappointed and surprised and judgemental?

The best connections we have are those with people who know us as our vulnerable selves and love us.
So your friend that you trust to come in your messy house and you know she won't judge you is someone you have a real bond with.  The person that you call because you have just done something you feel is so stupid and you will get an empathetic ear is someone you really trust and feel connected to.

There usually cannot just be one person to fill this role.  I have different people I would call in different instances.  When I feel really stupid and ashamed I call my sister Natalie to tell her the story and laugh about it.  I know she will be empathetic and let me know it is not that bad.  When I am all stressed out about my health or vitamins or organic things I call Teresa because she has the know all on hormones, cycles, poo and the natural stuff that I love.  And when I want to talk about my deep personal problems there are a select few people I can count on to help me see things in a proper light and give me strength.

Here are some ways you can expand your community:
Be honest with people, let them see your vulnerabilities and be OK with it.  I.E.: let people see your messy house, who cares, every one's house gets messy, you are most likely not going to be on the next Buried Alive show.


Ask people when you need help.  People love to help others when given the opportunity but it is hard to make someone let you help them and it can be awkward to assume someone needs help. (Don't you love it when your mom calls and says she will take the kids for a day and you didn't even ask?  Well, only your mom will do that so ask people for help already!!!)


Be brave and invite someone out.  Spend some time with someone and you will actually get to know them and start a relationship.  You won't be able to build your community if you won't actually work at it and spend time with people.  Also accept invitations from people.  Yes, it is scary to go out with people you don't know but do it and enjoy yourself.  


Lastly, if we want to be accepted as we are with all of our vulnerabilities we need to be accepting of others.  Be aware when someone is going out on a limb and sharing their vulnerabilities with you.  Don't let them fall, it can be shaming and horrible.

P.S. Are you left wondering how you know if you have a true close connection with someone?  My theory is if you can talk about your poo then you are close and if you can fart around them and warn them to stay away from the fart vicinity you are close.  If you are around someone and you fart and it really stinks and you pretend it wasn't you then you are not that close with that person.

One thing that makes me feel vulnerable is bad pictures of myself.  I don't know why.  I am aware I don't actually look like that but whatever.  Who actually likes bad pictures of themselves?
So to connect with you all I am going to share a really bad picture that Eva took of me.
It is actually a bit freaky. Are my eyes actually that big?

The end.
Finally.