self love

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When Failure is Radical.

Affirmations from an unreliable drop out –

I have failed to work with a system that prioritizes productivity over personhood.

I have chosen moving forward over suffering

I will accept myself to spite a value system that does not want acceptance – but always striving for “better”. If I internalize it, that I am always striving for “better”, then I build a comfortable place for the belief that I will never be enough, to rest upon. Instead, I will build space within myself to be less than ideal. 

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Emotional Trauma & Soul Ties

Recently, I was introduced to something called a “soul tie.” First of all let me explain how I got there. As we are approaching the end of the year I’ve been trying to reevaluate all of the life events that happened to me throughout the year. So I wrote everything down from January 1 up until now, this helped me look at everything the good and the bad, so that I could look at the good and figure out how to make it even better, and look at the bad and use it as a learning experience for the future. The last two years have been the most challenging years of my life. Continue reading →

My body. My beauty. My ugly.
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My body. My beauty. My ugly.

I own my beauty. I am beautiful. It took me a damn long time to get to this place, but it is here that I am firmly rooted and have been for some time. I do not come close to meeting the beauty standards for women in this society. My hair is long and wild and usually unkempt. My belly is big and round. My ass is huge, my thighs are heavy, and my tits are small. But here I am, still being beautiful. Continue reading →

(subversive?) self care
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(subversive?) self care

Its really difficult to talk about self care generally because everyone needs something different, but I also think sharing self care experiences is a useful thing to do.
Itumblr_mc7pq0dxqz1qzyo7n would describe self care as a way of life. For me its not just, taking a shower or treating myself every now and then. Its the day to day moments. Self care is everything from being able to take a step back from my egoic self, and instead of feeling my anxieties and desires with full force, being able to mindfully and compassionately process the situations to make the best decisions I can. Continue reading →

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Can you be considered fabulous when you’re fat?

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Several days ago I came across a show with a woman crying during an interview. She was crying because she was talking about how people make fun of her for being over weight. I immediately stayed on the channel to learn more about this woman. What I learned in that one hour gave me confidence in myself that I desperately needed.

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My Last: Love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvxHPtEsmFc&index=3&list=TLpeq8S1i6LwNK1D2FmPLMg93sSTLV0wpv

This video is one of my favorites. I believe that most people fall in love more than once in their lifetime. Some are just the “ideas” of what being in love really is… we yearn to feel accepted and crave that feeling of Love by different people.  Continue reading →

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Through the ashes of heartbreak… I rise with triumph.

Not long after I turned 18, I came home from class one day to find that my mom was home early from work.

I walked in the door to find that she had several bags packed in the kitchen. I asked her what was going on and I got this response:

“Honey, I got fired today. I knew there was a risk of this for a while now, but I didn’t want to worry you. I’m just going to stay at Sean’s house for a week to clear my head. I’ll be back in a week with a plan okay?”

Sean was her boyfriend that lived on the water somewhere near the Eastern Shore. He had cheated on her and broken her heart before, so I wasn’t a fan of him at all, but after watching several boyfriends leave or break her heart, and after watching her struggle constantly with online dating, who was I to stop her from being with him?

Growing up, my mom was constantly dating, and she was very open about it. My whole life had been taking care of her, because it was never in her head that she was supposed to live alone. Sure, she was incredibly strong, but she was also incredibly confused and depressed. She grew up wanting a husband and kids, and while she got the kids, she never got her perfect husband, and my sister and I had to constantly live with her disappointment. My mom went to stay with Sean, and never came back. I got a text message from her that she got married, and she made a life for herself. Since I was 18 I was technically an adult, so technically she did nothing wrong, but you don’t realize just how young you still are when you’re 18 years old.

I didn’t no how to cope with such an enormous empty feeling, so I replaced it with what I learned to do: have a lot of sex.

I went from sleeping with one person, my first love, to several people, in a span of months. It was awful. I had some really great guy friends, and when they showed interest in me, I automatically assumed I needed to sleep with them in order to receive love from them. I’d wake up in the morning feeling filthy, wrong, and quite frankly very unfamiliar with myself. Who was this person that suddenly slept with every man that moved? This wasn’t me! I put these guys before everything, including school and work, and it all came back to haunt me soon enough.

One I ruined my GPA, had no job, and lost nearly all of my guyfriends fro obtaining quite a reputation and getting heartbroken from nearly all of them, I hit rock bottom, and felt the emptiness all over again. None of this was solving any of my problems, but actually just severely avoiding them. I had to find out who I was and what I wanted to do with my life.

I’ve spent this past few years really finding myself, and who I want to be. Sex is faaaarrr in the back of my mind (unless I’m watching a scene of Lord of the Rings with Aragorn), and I’ve dedicated my time to a fresh start. I transferred to UMBC, turned to therapy and acupuncture, started playing the banjo, and have been working as a barista for nearly two years.

I didn’t tell you my story to get sympathy, or to show off who I am today. I just wanted to share the difficult lesson I learned. Sex does not promote your self-esteem, and it doesn’t solve problems. Also, it’s really, really, really okay to hit rock bottom sometimes. As Kurt Vonnegut said: “I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center”