​Five months out from my divorce and alone in the world for the first time in my adult life at the age of 28, I splurged and bought myself a spa day for my birthday. I had never had a brow wax or a pedicure or a massage until that day. In my world, this was not out of the ordinary. In the world I grew up in, these were not typical services that middle-class women would treat themselves to.
 
My massage was the last treatment of the day and it was a pretty good thing that it was because the touch I received during those other services kind of warmed me up for the compassionate touch that I received during the massage. By the time I got to my massage I realized that this type of service industry touch was skilled, trustworthy and – even though it felt intimate – professional.
 
At the end of my massage, the tenderest voice in the universe spoke to me through the fog of relaxation and surrender I was drifting in to say, “Okay, JodiAnn, you can take your time gathering yourself and getting up and come out of the room when you’re ready.” My massage therapist shut the door behind her as she left and the moment I heard the door click shut, I experienced a minor explosion in my psyche. I immediately began both laughing hysterically and crying hysterically at the exact same time. I had no idea why I was doing this but it was pouring from me with absolutely no effort on my part. It felt like emotional vomit – THAT uncontrollable, THAT involuntary, THAT horrible and THAT relieving all at once.
 
I will be 45 years old in about a month. I have had many massages since that first one. In the new world I have built for myself, a massage is a service a middle-class woman can and will from time-to-time treat herself to. Massages are also a service that THIS middle-class woman believes should be fully covered by health insurance – but that’s a subject for a different post.
 
Yesterday, I had my most recent massage and remembered my response to that first one again. I wondered why I had felt like that – where had that response come from? I considered these things as the strong hands of my wonderful massage therapist moved capably and firmly over my body. I considered my body, naked on a heated table under luxurious blankets, being touched by a stranger in a private setting with soft music playing and the lights turned down low.
 
And then it dawned on me; almost 16 years after that experience of my first massage, it dawned on me. That first massage was the first time in my entire life that I felt what counselors and therapists specializing in sexual assault like to call “good touch.”  My massage therapist didn’t want anything from me, wasn’t trying to get anything from me, other than, obviously, her well-earned pay. My massage therapist, in earnest, was trying to make my body feel good, better than it did before. Her work was not to hurt me or violate my trust. Her work was to heal me and heal me she did, though I doubt she could ever know to what extent.
 
Understand, Dear Reader: I had been married and with the same partner for 12 years. I had left him for another man. I had had many sexual encounters with about a handful of people since the age of 13. I had two parents, five biological siblings, two cousins who lived with us, and a very large extended family in my early life. My whole life, I had been surrounded by people and people touching me. BUT… I had also experienced early childhood sexual abuse, incest, date-rape as a young teen, marital rape, and attempted gang rape as an adult.  I could not remember a time in my life that touch EVER felt safe or welcomed or good. Even when I desired sexual touch, it was always tinged with fear and a memory of violence. Even when I desired physical closeness to my mother, who was a warm and cozy person to snuggle with, it was always tinged with her need, her dysfunction, her self-hatred that she so eagerly wrapped me and my body up in without at-all realizing what she was doing. 
 
It took me 28 years to feel “good touch” and another 16 years to realize what that even meant. In that 16 years, I found a great partner who gives me lots of good touch. In that 16 years, I had two children whose snuggles are nothing but sweet, perfect, wholesome love. In that 16 years, I learned a whole new definition of family and of love and of trust. I learned that none of that has to hurt.
 
Survivors don’t come forward sooner, in part, because we do not even understand what is happening to us. The whole world tells us we were asking for it, we deserve it, that’s what our bodies are for. Many survivors learn from a very early age that our bodies do not belong to us and that we do not deserve good touch. In fact, most survivors who learned “bad touch” early do not have any idea that there is any alternative. Touch just IS bad. Touch just IS terrifying. Touch just IS violent.
 
I have been vocally supportive of survivors of domestic and sexual abuse for many years.  I have sat – sometimes quietly and sometimes not so quietly – and listened to other women and men in my family, in my schools, in my workplaces question, disbelieve and slander any woman who would dare to come forward about her abuse and against her abuser. In the last couple of years, I have watched interestedly as the tide seems to be beginning to turn, as #metoo gained momentum, as an entire generation of voters woke up and some of the generations before them FINALLY woke the fuck up. I continue to watch, still interested.
 
Yes, it’s true, individual sexual assault cases are often rife with complexity. My own are absolutely no exception. In many of the cases of sexual assault that I was involved in, even I realize that my perpetrators did not understand what they were doing to be “wrong.” Men are raised in this country, after all, to believe that “boys will be boys” which means they can get away with whatever the fuck they want as long as they stay ignorant and foolish.
 
But, where we stand with regards to the overall concept of sexual assault is VERY simple: either we believe her or we do not. If we do, we are clearly aware and awake to the patriarchal soup we are swimming in. If we do not, we are ignorant and careless and callous to a long history of male violence.  And that’s it. 

The #metoo campaign is an important, necessary, and inspiring movement. Watching people wake up to the patriarchal paradigm is great. But, as a survivor, every case, every article, every conversation, every public hearing involving sexual assault – particularly when centered around the basic question of “do we believe her or not?” is a trigger and a difficulty and a reminder that the world at large isn’t even close to being safe – even if some of us survivors have learned to create something as close to safety in our own worlds as we will probably ever get.
 
Choose where you stand, Teamies,
and if you don’t believe her, fuck off, sincerely, with love.
Namaste,

​I remember when my mother was diagnosed with heart disease. She was 45 years old and I was 10  (I will be 45 this year and my daughter is 10). I doubt I was told in any kind of clear or sensitive way that Mommy had heart disease. I’m sure I overheard my mother and father or my older siblings talking about it. I might have asked some questions. I got the gist.
 
One night around that time my mother and I were sitting on the couch and I asked her if she was going to die. I meant, are you going to die immediately from this heart disease, but that isn’t what I said.  She said, “Someday” and laughed.  It was probably the first time I really thought about the fact that my parents would die someday, that my mother would die someday. The fact that she thought it would be a long way off was not at all comforting, particularly in the face of her recent diagnosis.
 
Since the time of my mother’s diagnosis, I have been terrified of my own heart. I have felt it racing, skipping, beating and been worried – worried, literally sick, into panic attacks – that my heart was killing me. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been more and more concerned that I would be diagnosed, like my mother and my brother were, with the same type of heart disease.
 
Like everyone else in our culture I have always bought into the nearly-religious belief our mainstream medical community has in thinness being a cure-all for any ailment. If you are thin, everything is better. If you are thin, your heart is healthy and protected, right? This belief coupled with my tremendous fear of heart disease grossly contributed to the development of my eating disorder.
 
My mother died of a heart attack when she was 70 years old. My father died just two years later of a heart attack as well. In between their deaths, I turned, once again, to dieting and sunk into my eating disorder like a religious zealot. I would save my life by becoming thin. I would save my heart. I would not go out like that.  
 
I did get thin… and the crowd went wild. OBVIOUSLY, I had figured it out. I was finally and forever HEALTHY! Yay! Every person I encountered – including every doctor, friend, family member, colleague, etc… if they mentioned my weight loss at all (which most of them did), mentioned it with beaming pride and acceptance. They took my weight loss as proof that unhealthy people could get healthy. Fat girls could get skinny. Yay! We can all be safe from illness and death as long as we are willing to deprive and restrict ourselves and develop eating disorders to prove our allegiance to the church of thinness.
 
Here’s what really happened folks: I weight cycled. Like MANY MANY MANY larger people in our culture, I “lost the weight” only to “regain the weight” for the THIRD time in my adult life. THREE TIMES I have lost 30 or more pounds only to regain it all, plus some. Twice I regained it all, with interest, quickly. This last time, because I had also thrown in a MASSIVE obsession with exercise for good measure, I was able to hold on to the loss for about two and a half years (that’s NOT a diet tip, my fellow strugglers – it’s a cautionary tale!). 
 
Here’s the kicker: Weight Cycling is one of the worst things people can do for their hearts. Weight Cycling in women is a predictor of future heart disease. Weight Cycling puts additional strain on a heart. People who weight cycle have LESS HEALTHIER HEARTS than their non-dieting, non-weight-losing counterparts. Go ahead and look that shit up.
 
I first read an article about this years ago, before my last big loss. I remember it was a small article and it didn’t get much attention. I thought, this just CAN’T be true. If it were true, more people would be talking about it. If it were true, doctors and “health” magazines and fitness professionals would not be pushing DIETS so damn hard, would they? Nah! Impossible! If this were true, people would not be so fucking ecstatic to see you when you were able to lose thirty pounds in three months. They wouldn’t congratulate you and light up when you walked by and call you a “bitch” for getting so “skinny” and pull you aside and tell you that you were “beautiful” and “smokin’ hot” or express their deep heartfelt happiness that you were “finally healthy.”  This was LITERALLY my experience after my last weight loss. This is what people do to one another. This is the fucked up society we live in. But would we keep doing this if we accepted the fucking scientific truth that dieting (and the consequent development of eating disorders) actually does MORE damage to our health than just being the damn weight we were simply meant to be? Maybe. Maybe we WOULD still want people to obsessively chase after thinness even if we knew it would make them unhealthy (ALL current evidence points to this being the case) because dammit we are just THAT afraid of fat in our culture. We would rather die than be fat.
 
If I sound angry, it’s because I am. By the time I was 10 years old, some studies already demonstrated this truth about weight cycling. By the time I was 15 years old, books were already being written and published that were screaming at us to wake the fuck up to the truth about dieting! By the time I finally developed a full-blown eating disorder in my early 20s, the scientifically proven link between dieting and LACK of health existed. But doctors wouldn’t change their belief systems. “Health” magazines knew they’d lose their advertising if they embraced this truth. The 70 Billion Dollar Diet industry couldn’t afford to stop preying on little girls and young women – EVEN after they knew. No single person ever told me – until it was already way too late – that one of the worst things I could do for my heart was LOSE WEIGHT by dieting. No, on the contrary, EVERY SINGLE THING AND PERSON IN OUR ENTIRE CULTURE TOLD ME ONE UNANIMOUS TRUTH: YOU. MUST. DIET.
 
My mother dieted up until the day she died. My mother weight cycled many times throughout her adult life. Despite all of the doctors and the medications they prescribed and the fucking pacemaker that was eventually implanted in her body, the truth is NO ONE ever really gave a shit about my mother’s heart. All they ever wanted from her was thinness. All the world ever told her was: be thin. All the instruction she ever got about how to take care of her body was: Diet. And this clear and resounding instruction only hurt her heart more, only made her heart MORE unhealthy. 
 
NEVER. AGAIN. Not for me. In honor and memory of my mother, I sincerely declare the fucking buck stops here. No more dieting. None. Ever. Praise glory hallelujah. There is a better way – and every day I’m getting closer and closer to finding it.
 
Stop Dieting, Teamies. Find a better way, with Love.

When I first started college, I had no real idea what I wanted to study. I thought I would get a degree in microbiology and become a dolphin trainer. For real. If that didn’t work out I was seriously considering Astronaut. I’m absolutely not kidding. But, something strange was happening to me as I attended more and more college classes. I was becoming enchanted – like in the fairy tale, magical way – with my Professors. And I remember, this one day during my very first semester, walking back to my flophouse apartment from class and rehearsing – in my head – how I would introduce myself to my first college class. In this little fantasy, after introducing myself, I even started to “go over” the (fantasy) “syllabus” and it felt extremely exciting. I knew I wanted to be a Professor.
 
I was given every conceivable warning. I was told by what seemed like hundreds of people (though I’m sure it couldn’t have been that many) that I would NEVER achieve this goal. At first, I sincerely didn’t even know what I would teach! I just knew I wanted to be one of THOSE amazing, intelligent, knowledgeable, cool-as-hell, deep-as-hell people that filled my head with questions and opened up my world to things I never even knew existed.
 
Then, I took an introduction to poetry class with the smartest, quickest, most bad-ass woman I had ever met to date and she recited “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798” by William Wordsworth BY HEART. Did you hear me? BY. HEART. And if you think the title of that poem is long, you really need to have a look at the poem. I sat in awe as she recited the poem I had read with loathing just the night before. She made it come to life. A few weeks later, she invited those of us who wrote our own poetry to read out loud to the class. I had been writing poetry since I was 12 years old and this might’ve been the first real chance I had to share it with people that weren’t in my immediate family or friends. After I read some of my poetry out loud in her class, she suggested I meet with her during office hours. When I did, she told me that I should study poetry. Until that moment, I had no idea that was even possible. So, let me rephrase that previous sentence: She told me I COULD study poetry.
 
And then I knew EXACTLY what I was going to teach. I would be a Professor of English – specializing in Poetry. Holy Shit! You’d have thought I was telling people I wanted to be an Astronaut! I remember a couple of individuals I worked with even laughing out loud, to my face, when I told them what I wanted to be when I “grew up.” People don’t do that. First-generation college girls who grew up in houses without books and who have been working since they were 13 years old and fully supporting themselves since they were 17 years old JUST. DON’T. DO. THAT.
 
But I did.
Or, at least I almost did.
 
As I just mentioned, I have been supporting myself since I was 17 years old and working since I was 13. There isn’t much I know more about than making a buck, doing whatever it takes. So, during my grad school days when I had my graduate assistantship to teach two classes each semester – while I was taking full-time classes – I ALSO decided to teach classes at the local community college. It was a smart work-related move. I increased my value as an employee post-graduation by gaining this experience. I also loved it. I loved that the community college students I taught in Southern New Mexico were bad-ass, do-it-yourself-ers like I had been. I liked that I could relate to them and help them more than I felt like I could relate to or help the still-scrappy but a bit more spoiled University students I saw during my graduate assistantship.
 
Also, during my first graduate program in Southern New Mexico, I went through a difficult divorce and… well… sort of a complete unraveling. Through this experience, I decided to leave academia all together. I knew how to work. I went to work. For about six months. Then, I remembered my original goal: Poetry, becoming a Professor of Poetry. And I wanted it again – badly. So, I did what I do: I got a job --- across the country—in a lecturer position at a big University. AND… I applied for a second graduate program that would give me the MFA in Poetry I needed to at least begin to apply for “Professor of Poetry” jobs. So, while I was teaching full-time and part-time too at the local community college (I know how to WORK, remember?), I started my MFA. And, oh ya… I also met a guy and got pregnant. I was pregnant the first year of my MFA program and had an infant during the second.
 
It was during this second semester of my first year when I was HELLA pregnant, unmarried but partnered, teaching six classes, a full-time student, really had still JUST gone through a divorce and… well, fucking spent, when I found myself seated across an office from another woman that would change my life. This was my first advisor during my MFA program. I adored and respected her though, in retrospect, I don’t think the adoration or respect was remotely mutual. She was young (maybe 5-7 years older than me), no children, unmarried, widely published and recognized as an up-and-coming poet. She had completed the PhD program of my dreams – the one I was gearing up, at that moment, to apply to – and she had studied with the EXACT Professors (the keepers of the light and knowledge, you know) that I had wanted to study with. We began a conversation about this PhD program, and PhD programs in general. I was telling her the schools I was currently readying myself to apply to, with as much excitement as I could muster in my WAY overworked and thoroughly exhausted pregnant body – and she said the words that determined the course of my life from that moment until right now. “You shouldn’t do a PhD. You should teach at a Community College.”
 
Her logic was solid. I already had a fair amount of experience at Community Colleges. It was easier to get jobs at Community Colleges. PhD programs are expensive and while you’re going through them you live, essentially, in abject poverty – and was that what I wanted for my baby? Yes, she played that card too. Suddenly, sitting in that little office, I was a bad mother if I pursued my dream an inch farther. And by the time I left this meeting, I knew what I had to do in order to continue to take care of myself and my child: I had to keep working. And “working” meant, no PhD, no dream job of being a Professor of Poetry. According to her, the competition was simply too steep and I just didn’t have it in me.
 
I only realized the consequences this one meeting with my advisor had on my life within the last couple of years. Until then, I was dutifully fulfilling the assignment she had given me: go forth, get a job at a community college, make the best living you can for someone with as little talent as you obviously have. Every other time I’ve tried to write about this in the last couple of years, I’ve been too angry with her to make any real sense to anyone else. I’m not as angry as I was at first. I understand that she was speaking out of her own experience. She was also exhausted. She felt her University Professor job was “hard” and obviously she had enough expenses to have to take extra work to make ends meet because she was moonlighting at the school where I was completing my low-residency MFA. So, she was also overworked. And her PhD study was difficult and it had taken a long time and she had struggled through it – and she was looking at her current life thinking that getting her PhD wasn’t worth it. She was extraordinarily ungrateful for what she had and for what she was able to do with her life. And she had absolutely no idea what completing my PhD and being a University Professor of Poetry – or at least CONTINUING TO TRY – meant to ME.
 
There is, of course, no telling what my life would currently be like if:  I had had the strength to withstand her bullshit “advice;” If I could have taken a deep breath and remembered who the fuck I was and where I had come from and how hard I had worked for so long; or if I could have known what I know now – that modeling a relentless pursuit of my dreams for my children is actually JUST as important as a steady paycheck. Who knows? That’s really not even a question I should be bothering myself with at this point.
 
I did become a Professor of Poetry, at a Community College which -- and this is the part my MFA advisor could NOT possibly have understood – meant that I really am a Teacher of Composition at a Vocational School who, for a little while, got to teach Poetry for funsies. I quit teaching Poetry at my Community College last year because it was no longer even remotely fun and all it did was add to my workload.
 
I don’t mind working as a Teacher of Composition at a Vocational School. It’s far better than most of the other jobs I’ve had since I was 13 years old. I am grateful for the many lessons I have learned in my current job. I am grateful for the many experiences I have been able to have in this current job. I am extremely grateful that I have been able to support my family well. But – and I am just beginning to really admit this and wonder what the hell I can possibly do about it – it was never my dream. Never.
 
Keep moving towards YOUR Dreams, Teamies!
And watch out for bullshit advice!

​I recently completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training during which I learned many different methods of meditation. Since I’ve been practicing meditation (off and on) for about twelve years, only a couple of these methods were brand new to me. One of the methods that was new to me was “practicing silence.” When our teacher told us that was what we would be spending the morning doing, I did not really realize, or maybe believe, that it was a method of meditation. I thought it was just being quiet, not being allowed to talk, not really a big deal. But I soon realized “practicing silence” is the most powerful method of meditation I have ever learned. 

It seems simple enough, right? Just...don’t talk. That’s what I assumed. Our teacher explained we would go about our morning, being in the world, just not speaking. Then, as she gave us one last opportunity to speak, I started to mildly panic. How was I going to manage in the world — even for a few hours— NOT speaking!? I mean, I’ve spent an entire day ALONE not speaking out loud of course but talking to people is how I get along in the world, it’s what I do. I didn’t know how I could even be among other humans and not speak. It suddenly seemed impossible and ridiculous. 

We began our morning of silence with a yoga practice. That was easy enough. Students don’t talk in yoga usually anyway so nothing seemed out of the ordinary. But it was also a smart way to begin this practicing silence business because by the time I had to go out into the human world, I was centered, calm, and all wrung out. I was ready. 

In the few hours that followed, I learned several unexpected lessons. 

First, I learned the world is FILLED with noise. I am usually comforted by the noise of the world. It reminds me that I’m not alone. But in this case, I realized that the noise felt like a physical pressure on my head and body. It felt oppressive.

Second, I learned that people fill their interactions with each other with lots of meaningless talking. I am especially guilty of this. Ironically, I am a long time hater of small talk because I’m actually pretty antisocial but because I’m extroverted I’m also pretty good at it, it comes naturally to me. Despite my typical desire to be left alone, I fill the quiet space between me and other people easily with...well, bullshit. During this practice of silence I realized this action too feels filled with pressure, oppressive. During this practice of silence I was released from this pressure. It felt good. 

Third, it also dawned on me that filling this space between me and other people is often filled with negative talk. Being somewhat of an empath, my mood and energy will often fall in line with the dominant mood and energy of a certain space. If the energy is highly negative (as it has been at my workplace for at least the last five years), I will be highly negative. This coupled with my ability to nonstop verbally bullshit adds up to A LOT of horribly unnecessary negative talk on my part in certain situations. 

Finally, I learned that I LIKE being silent. I like being “forced” to LISTEN without the pressure of responding. I like really hearing other people and the world around me. I like being able to have enough distance between myself and the noise of the world around me to decide what noise I want to allow into me and what noise isn’t productive for me to allow in. I like being able to hear myself and know what I need in that moment — not in relation or response to the stimulus around me but just arising from my own authentic being. 

My workplace has been a source of stress and suffering for many years now. During this practice of silence during my yoga teacher training, I realized it’s not only because it’s a highly negative environment but also because it is just SO LOUD, SO filled with noise. I also realized that over the years I have contributed much more than my fair share of negative noise to that din. So, it became clear to me that what I had to do at work was “practice silence” – NOT as a method of withdrawing or protesting, but as a method of controlling my own contribution to the stress and suffering.

Mostly, this works, even in meetings so far but, there are times it doesn’t work. Obviously when I’m actually teaching, it does not work at all. But something really interesting has already started to happen in my teaching because of my practicing silence outside of the classroom as much as possible. I’m much more careful about speaking in my classes. I allow much more space for my students’ voices to determine the shape of their learning. I am much more tuned in to their conversation and their immediate needs. I can hear them better. And the same is true with my colleagues.

Practicing silence calms the frantic feeling I have had ever since I can remember that I have to get people’s attention and make sure my voice is heard. I was the youngest of six kids. For a time when I was really young, I was the youngest of EIGHT (my mother fostered a couple of cousins of mine). My next oldest sibling is eight years older than me. By the time I was born, my oldest brothers were nearly teenagers. My home, my life has ALWAYS been filled with noise and chaos, people coming and going, people who have always been more important than me. As a child, I was easy to miss until I discovered my ability to make noise. And that didn’t take long. But practicing silence, now, as a grown-ass woman, calms that frantic little noise-making, attention-seeking child in me and makes me aware of when she is just rattling around in my head, desperate to find a way out. This awareness makes it easier to control her, for her own sake, for my sake as a grown-ass woman who is better off NOT behaving like a noise-making, attention-seeking child in almost ALL circumstances.
 
So, I guess, I recommend practicing silence – particularly if you, like me, are a natural extrovert and live with the constant expectation (yours and other people’s) that you WILL make noise. Try not making noise. Try experiencing the noise that comes at you without needing to respond to it. Learn how this noise affects you. Learn how to have more control of the noise you make back at the world.
 
Practice Silence, Teamies, with Love. 

​Almost a year ago, a couple of months after my forty-fourth birthday, I was diagnosed with two eating disorders. Before I divulge what these two eating disorders were, let me tell you a few things that I had come to believe as ABSOLUTE TRUTH through my forty-four years of indoctrination into diet culture.
 
First: a person would have to be wasting away to nothing in a hospital bed while their families begged them to eat SOMETHING for their “illness” to count as an actual “eating disorder.”
 
Second: only (or, at least, primarily) younger people, obsessed with their appearance, have eating disorders.  
Third: restricting yourself from eating “junk foods” and “unhealthy” foods is MANDATORY for losing weight AND… losing weight is the healthiest thing anyone can do. In other words, to pursue “health” is to pursue “weight loss” -- period.
 
Fourth: It is okay for thin people to eat intuitively – i.e., basically whatever they want – but un-thin people (like me) need to watch what we eat very carefully or else… we’re bad. Period.
 
I went to my medical doctor and my therapist about what was happening in my life because I thought there might be something wrong. Physically, yes, I had some digestive issues that were becoming troublesome (once again) but, more than that, I felt like my behavior might be suspect. If I saw my daughter, my friend, my sister, or my niece behaving this way, I might be concerned.
 
A month prior to my appointments with both medical doctor and therapist, I had decided to undertake the gruesomely stringent practice of an elimination diet. I told myself and the people who recommended it to me that this was strictly to find out what was causing my intestinal distress but in the back of my mind, my real motive was always clear to me. GET. SKINNY. AGAIN. On this diet, there were a list of about seven things that I was allowed to eat. And I ate them, and nothing but, for an entire month and a little weight came off.
 
The behavior that was unusual though was the extreme panic I felt around food. I have always been obsessed with food. I have always hated my body. I have always restricted calories and starved myself at times then swung the opposite way and binged out of rebellion and desperation. This has been my way. Diet Culture has taught me that this is just THE WAY, the only way. I never thought, for one moment, there was anything wrong with this way other than the fact that I was obviously too weak, too stupid and too incompetent to manage to parlay this obsession with food and hatred for my body into lasting thinness.
 
One night, I went out with two of my closest girlfriends for “drinks” only my drink was hot water with lemon. They ordered French fries and wings to go with the beer they were drinking. I ordered a “salad” with nothing on it but lettuce. I was not “allowed” to eat any of the other vegetables or the cheese or the croutons that would have normally come on my salad. Both of my girlfriends are much thinner than I am. I reasoned that I was on this elimination diet because there was something wrong with my body. There is nothing wrong with either of their bodies so they were allowed to have the food and drink they were having. For me, it would’ve been a sin. One of my friends questioned me about my choices that night and I shut her down with an, “I don’t want to talk about it.” She respected my wishes, didn’t push, but later admitted to me that she had been very concerned.  
​
But… back to the panic. What was MOST disturbing about that night and indeed that entire several months of my life (the panic had begun long before the elimination diet) was how inside, I felt like I was being chased by a tiger or like someone had a gun to my head. Every single time I had to put a bite of anything in my mouth – even if it was LETTUCE – I would berate myself for being disgusting for having to eat. I would tell myself if I were stronger, if I were smarter, if I were just a better person, I could stop this madness – stop eating, stop having a body like I had, be good, be normal, be attractive, be thin, be worthy. But I couldn’t. I had to keep eating, as humans do and so I just kept on hating myself, living with the tiger at my back, living with the gun to my head.
 
I had experienced panic like this before in my life during periods of restriction but it was limited to panic around putting “junk foods” or “unhealthy” foods in my mouth. During a period of massive restriction if I had the nerve to eat a French fry or one piece of pizza, I would hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate myself – the tiger, the gun would all be there. I would sweat. I would feel sick to my stomach. I would feel exposed, like the entire world was watching me “cheat.” But, I had NEVER felt panic around ALL food before – even fruits and vegetables and brown rice and plain chicken breast. EVERY time I had to eat or drink ANYTHING was a moment of panic and… well, trauma, for me.  
​
So I went to find out what this was. The doctor recommended therapy and I told her I had that covered. My therapist recommended another therapist that specializes in “healing people’s relationships with food” which I later realized was, only mildly disguised code for “specializes in eating disorders.” The eating disorder specialist recommended A LOT of therapy and after a little therapy a visit to a dietician (who also specializes in eating disorders). And the most shocking recommendation made by every single one of these people – EVERY SINGLE PROFESSIONAL that I saw – was: “STOP.  DIETING.”
 
The eating disorder specialists agreed I had what is called “atypical anorexia” which is, basically, all the madness with none (or very little) of the thinness. They also agreed that I had suffered from this disorder since I was a teenager, based on the history I had given them. They also said that, in recent years, I had begun to suffer from a more and more commonly occurring – and, as yet unclassified disorder—in our culture called Orthorexia, an obsession with the healthiness of one’s food.
 
Because I have had to stop dieting and embark on the journey of healing by learning intuitive eating, I have gained more weight than I ever thought I’d be comfortable with. These are different stories for different times. But the point is, here I am: 44-years-old; “overweight” according to mainstream, agreed-upon standards; and transitioning into a new career in the health and fitness industry. Just. Fucking. Embarrassing.
 
Or…
could it be the moment – MY moment – to heal EVERYTHING? Could this be the next pile of ashes I rise up out of?
 
You bet your sweet ass it is.
 
Keep Rising, Teamies. Always, with Love.

In Sports Conditioning, the concept of Periodization is used to create programs for athletes that allow them to strength train, build endurance, shed or gain weight, improve their sports-specific skills, keep their bodies safe and healthy, and even work on active recovery, flexibility and continued mobility in their joints. What Sports Conditioning understands about athletes bodies is that they CANNOT do ALL of these things at the exact same time AND all of these things are necessary to a body's overall training. Therefore, their programs will take them through “periods” of the appropriate aforementioned activities. What is “appropriate” for a specific athlete is rarely appropriate for an athlete in a completely different sport or even with a completely different body. And, I’ll say it again: Periodized programs INCLUDE REST!
 
We don’t like rest, do we? We think it’s weak. We think there must be something wrong with us if we need to rest. We think we should be able to work at maximum capacity all day every day. Even lots of athetles WANT to operate this way. Especially lots of athletes resist rest. We all do.
 
For YEARS, I beat myself up because there were some weeks I just didn’t feel like running. In fact, there have been months and years when I didn’t really want to run. I wanted to dance instead. I wanted to strength train. Or, I wanted to ride my bike and go hiking. Some days I don’t feel like strength training but there’s lots of other things I enjoy doing.
 
But we also don’t LOVE to “enjoy” ourselves when it comes to exercise. When it comes to exercise, we think: “no pain, no gain.” PUHLEEEZE. Of course it’s true that there are some days we are better off dragging our reluctant asses out of bed to do some movement that may sound like torture. And it is likely, on those days, we know --  even when we’re in our warm cozy bed – that when we DO get our asses up and moving, we WILL feel happy that we did so and better for the rest of the day. But there are other days, weeks, months and years when an activity that used to be our thing just isn’t our thing anymore. It no longer makes us happy. It no longer makes us feel more alive when we do it. It no longer lights some kind of fire in us. And that’s what I’m talking about.
 
I’m talking about the fact that our bodies and our minds and our beings ALREADY KNOW about PERIODIZATION. They slow us down when we NEED to slow down and they STOP us when we NEED to stop and they give us clear cues for when they want more of something and less of something else. I’m talking about the fact that I don’t need to look back at what activities I’ve done or left undone and feel like I did a damn thing wrong. I did what I could. I did what I wanted to do. I did what my body was telling me to do. And I, usually, didn’t do the thing it told me not to do. And I promise you, those days when I DID do the thing my body didn’t want to do, THAT was a bad idea. I was not following my body’s naturally periodized program for me – and I suffered.
 
I’ve only just started personal training but it is amazing how many people are OBSESSED with these three thoughts:

1. I must hate a workout and feel pain in a workout to be getting something out of it.
2. I must go all out all of the time.
3. I must be doing it wrong.

 
I’ve already told you how I feel about the first thought. Sure, I love to get to the point in a workout where I want to gouge out the eyes of my instructor or trainer for making me work so hard but ultimately… those are the trainers I end up loving the most. So, I get wanting to FEEL the workout. But… this brings me to the second thought… it is neither possible, nor healthy, nor safe to go as hard as you can every single workout, every single day. Our bodies REQUIRE rest.
 
IN FACT, CHEW ON THIS: It is not EVEN in the ACT of working out/ tearing muscle/ getting our distance PRs that we are doing our body ANY good AT ALL. It is not until we REST that our bodies can rebuild, re-assess, and integrate everything it has just gone through into our system in order to become a more efficient, happier, healthier machine. Our bodies REQUIRE the rest to USE the work.
 
This, OF COURSE, does not mean that sitting on our asses all day long every day is the best thing we can do. No. Our bodies can’t become (or even stay) strong, efficient, capable of doing everything we need to do all day every day by doing nothing but REST. We need the work. We need the rest. We need BOTH.
 
Which brings me back to this: It is very likely that you are – and have always been – going through periods, long or short, of work and rest. And when you are resting, it is likely that SOMETIMES you like to strength train and SOMETIMES you like to ride a bike and SOMETIMES you like to swim and SOMETIMES you like to take a yin yoga class, etc… etc… etc…. So, let me suggest something STRONGLY to you: You are not doing it wrong.
 
You have never done it wrong. You’ve done what you needed, wanted, were capable of doing at the time. Give yourself a HUGE break. STOP telling yourself that working out means pain or that physical fitness means you must look a certain way or that you must never rest. Give yourself, your body, the activity that it wants WHEN it wants it. Period. Periodize. Naturally. Just like you probably always have. 

Keep working & resting, with love, Teamies!

I am starting to understand and believe that holding someone accountable for their body’s size is like holding them accountable for the color of their eyes. It is absurd to connect value to something that is almost completely out of our control.  “Wow! Brown eyes! You must work really hard for those!”
 
I was born a light to middle-weight big girl. What that means is that the size of my body has always been what some people would consider big and what some people would consider smaller (than themselves, than whomever they were comparing to) but I’ve rarely been “skinny.”
 
I say “rarely” because there have been several times in my life when I’ve been able to diet down to skinny or, at least, quite skinny for me. One of my proudest skinny moments was in college when someone pulled me aside and asked me if I was terminally ill. Never mind that I was a 4.0 student at the University of Michigan or that I had recently been accepted to the Peace Corps. The thing I was MOST proud of was that I had finally starved and starimastered myself down to cancer-skinny!
 
And even though I have almost always been what most skinny women could call or consider “fat,” the only times that I have truly been Fat were right after my children were born. To me, Fat means having to seek out clothing that fits well or looking for the “Plus” sign at TJ Maxx. Fat means taking up more space than the world I live in is comfortable giving me.  Sitting on an airplane or in a classroom is mildly (for some, extremely) uncomfortable. Fellow gym-goers stare or give condescending “good for you!” encouragement. Doctors express their concern.
 
There are many women, at this point, who have reclaimed the word Fat. Fat Acceptance has been a social justice movement for years.  We live in a fat-phobic society.  Fat is a feminist issue.
 
But… so is Chubby.
 
What I’m getting at is that it is not fair for me to call myself Fat in the face of the Fat Acceptance Movement nor in the face of a woman who reclaims the word Fat. We all have those skinny friends who constantly complain about being fat – right in front of us! As if they can’t see that our body is twice their size. They call themselves names like “disgusting,” “pathetic,” “gross” and we stand by silently wondering, “what the hell must you think of ME then?” Yes, yes, we have had to compassionately understand that it’s very hard to go from a size 2 to a size 8 and the FEELING of weight on the body is relative but COME ON! I feel that – if I stood up in the middle of this movement to claim the word “Fat” – I would be, in some ways, behaving like this ignorant skinny woman. The major difference being, of course, that I would be claiming Fat to feel empowered, not to disparage fatness. But the result, I feel, would be similar. I can’t claim to truly understand what it feels like to live as a Fat woman in this world. Fat is a moniker that does not fit me. I have privilege in this situation. I have been privileged throughout most of my life to not be treated, talked to, or discriminated against as a Fat woman is.
 
I actually had a conversation with a water aerobics student – and friend – once that made this distinction quite clear to me. She is a woman who proudly uses and wears the word Fat. She was talking about Fat Acceptance one day in my water aerobics class and I said something along the lines of my belonging to that movement/ in that category. She said, “No. No. You don’t get to be in the club if you’re normal-sized. You don’t need any special treatment for being normal.” She didn’t say this in a mean way. She is a woman who speaks her mind openly and clearly and I have come to love and respect that about her. She meant what she said. I might not be skinny. But I’m also not “Fat.”
 
Now, “Chubby” on the other hand fits perfectly – and has for MOST of my life. Chubby is what I naturally am when I’m not making sure I eat between 1000 & 1400 calories per day and workout for at least 90 minutes every day. And I can absolutely tell you – with confidence – what life is like for Chubby women in this world. The fact that I’m naturally Chubby has caused me anxiety, depression, self-hatred and generalized pain my entire life.
 
And while this pain comes from many different directions, one of the places it comes from is the fact that, in our culture, body size is understood to be almost 100% within our control. The main assumption of Diet Culture is, if you are thin, you must work really really hard and “eat clean” and if you are overweight (to any degree), you must be lazy and gluttonous.
 
Until recently, I bought this lie with every fiber of my being. I believed firmly and self-righteously that my chubbiness was a clear indication that I wasn’t trying hard enough, I didn’t want a “good body” badly enough. I entered into a course of study (working to be a “Health Fitness Specialist”) that would – in almost every single way – reiterate this lie of Diet Culture to me on the daily and surround me with (mostly very young) people who are becoming devout disciples of this lie.
 
But buried in the literature, the research and the actual science of the materials for my course of study the truth is made plain. Genetically, we are who we are. We are born with our bodies. As children, the predispositions of our natural bodies are either enhanced (we get fatter or skinnier) or they are manipulated (we learn behaviors that grow us against our natural bodies – creating habits that become our nature – thin, lifelong athletes that come from families of mostly fat people are an example of this). By a certain age (that is slightly different for everyone), we have a set-point and, without herculean effort, moving a few percentage points to the right or left of that set-point is all that is possible. But, health-wise, moving a few percentage points to the right or left might be all anyone really “needs” to do, if they NEED to do anything at all.
 
In my course of study, we are taught the additional lie that this herculean effort is absolutely worth the health benefits that arise from weight loss. But further science explains that the stress of that effort could be more damaging than our original, NATURAL, weight was. Further science explains that “weight cycling” (losing a large amount of weight just to gain it back again and again) is actually worse for your heart health than simply carrying around that NATURAL weight your whole life. And further – utterly undeniable – science demonstrates that almost ALWAYS (as in… 95% of the time) that herculean effort is NOT sustainable and, ultimately, leads to FURTHER weight gain.
 
This is just the tip of the iceberg I’m currently discovering. And the presence of this iceberg in the vast sea of health myths and diet culture we swim in every day has massive implications on every facet of my life and work. I am learning. But the first thing I must do is learn to be chill with being Chubby.
 
Be chill, Teamies!
Namaste.

When I was in third or fourth grade, I would hole myself up in our basement with the record player and dance my ass off. I would make up elaborate dances that were one part really bad ballet impression, one part modern jazz, one part interpretive dance and another part weirdo. I LOVED to dance. I loved getting sweaty. I loved moving my body.
 
Around that same time and in a rare occurrence of joiner-hood, my mother agreed to buy me some ballet lessons. I didn’t necessarily want to do ballet exactly but I wanted to dance and that seemed to be the only kind of dance on offer to a little girl at the time. The first day in class, I noticed that my belly stuck out MUCH farther than anyone else’s. In fact, it was the second time in my life I felt fat (the first is a story for another time).
 
It was a painful feeling. I don’t particularly remember any of the girl’s teasing me exactly but for some reason, I have a memory of my instructor’s face being disapproving. No words. Just a look. I remember too, looking around at all of these whisps of girls with their flat – in some cases, concave! -- bellies and their long necks and their toothpick legs with thigh gaps a mile wide and knowing that everything about me was wrong. I did not belong. One of these things was not like the other.
 
I’m not sure how I came up with the greatest lie I’ve ever told but I do remember that it came to me suddenly and felt absolutely right. When my mother picked me up after the second or third lesson, I sat in the back of the car and told her what seemed to me like a hilarious story: The instructor – in front of everyone – had laughed out loud and told me that my belly looked as if I had swallowed a basketball then the whole class laughed at me, along with her. As I told this story – which was a complete invention of my hurting little girl brain – I laughed like it was the greatest joke I’d ever heard. My mother laughed too. It made her angry with my instructor but, for whatever reason, she thought it was hysterically funny. And, I KNEW that she would. I knew that was the reaction I would get. That’s why I told it. I remember over the next several weeks and months, I got to retell that “joke” a million times. My mother would remind me of it from time to time even into my early adulthood. She would laugh and laugh. Whoever else was hearing the story would laugh and laugh.
 
And every single time, it hurt.
 
It’s weird and you probably don’t get it. If I was hurting, why would I joke? If I was a child, why would I have to tell a made-up story instead of just telling my mother the truth about how uncomfortable I was?
 
In my little girl’s brain, the shame of being “the big girl” in what seemed like a sea of waifs didn’t stop at size, it was compounded by the fact that I felt shame at all. It felt like feeling sorry for myself which I was not allowed to do. It felt like caring too much about myself which I was not allowed to do. My size – particularly at that age – felt like it was something I had absolutely no control over. I had no control over the other girls’ sizes. I had no control over the disapproving look on the skinny dance instructor’s face. But SOMEHOW I had gained enough sophisticated language use and understanding of my mother’s psyche to know that if I turned my horrible discomfort and self-hatred into a JOKE that made my instructor look like a raging bitch and me like an ugly, little fat girl that I’d never have to go back to that class again, no matter how much my mother paid for it. And I didn’t. I just had to endure telling the I-swallowed-a-basketball-whole joke about a hundred bazillion times. I wasn’t allowed to share my real feelings but I was allowed to make a joke of myself and my pain.
 
I have always wanted to dance. After the basketball-in-the-belly ballet class, I didn’t much. Not until… I discovered – at too young an age – drinking and dance clubs. And both were like a portal to another world.
 
As I got older though, that behavior, was no longer sustainable. So, I found yoga trance dance videos and danced through my pregnancies in my living room. I found Zumba. I found Break the Chain – a choreographed dance for the One Billion Rising movement. I dance in my living room, my dining room, my bedroom. I mean… I put on workout clothes, I clear a space, I crank up the music and I dance my ass off – belly and all!
 
I haven’t exactly put it all together yet: The relationship between body shame and dance and liberation and my particularly intimate history of growing up in a body shaming household and family. All I can say for sure right now is despite the heaps and heaps of body shame that have been packed upon my body since I was a baby, there has been a dancer inside of me that has refused to stop moving. She seems to dance in fire and light. She refuses to believe that I am not allowed to dance. She forgives the little girl who made the joke that took her away from ballet lessons. She is beginning to convince me that my body is not a joke. And even though, for the most part, I have hidden her away from the world as much as possible, I am beginning to see that she is the wisest, deepest, most authentic piece of myself.  SHE will be the reason I survive the rest of my life… as she is probably the reason I have survived this long.
 
Whatever this fatphobic, health-obsessed, body-shaming world tells us, the shape and size of our bodies does not determine whether we get to feel the liberation of dance – or any other kind of movement. Not when we are children. Not when we are teenagers. Not when we are grown-ass adults. We are allowed to dance. We are allowed to move. We are allowed to exist without apology or shame in this world.
 
Dance your asses off, Teamies!
Namaste,

Dan Pink says: Human Beings are not like horses. We treat people like they are horses by dangling carrots and beating with sticks. That is, we live in a system of rewards and punishments. But… because people are humans, not horses… we really don’t become successful or achieve our ultimate goals by living in this system of rewards and punishments. Human beings are successful and achieve our goals when we find our ultimate purpose and connect to a meaning beyond ourselves.
 
And this made me think about learning; about how this system of rewards and punishments exists in our thinking about learning.
 
First, let me say this: Learning is NOT measurable. No one will ever convince me that it is. Learning (Not Education, with a capital “E”) – REAL Learning – happens this way: A “teacher” plants a seed inside a “student’s” head, heart and possibly even soul. The “teacher” may even water that seed, fertilize that seed but when and how and how slowly or quickly that seed germinates, matures then blossoms is entirely up to the student’s subconscious being. Every learner is unique in every context. Some people learn quickly all the time. Some people learn some things quickly and other things slowly. Some people learn slowly all the time. Some people learn some things slowly and other things quickly. The seed may bloom instantly. The seed might bloom a year later. The seed might lay dormant for 30 years then bloom when no one expected it to. All the while, the student does not consciously control when the seed blooms because this uniqueness is determined by everything the student is, has been through, and has the potential for being. Therefore, unless you hook a newborn infant to all of the brain-activity monitoring machines and have a trained psychologist performing behavioral tests on them from the day they are born until the day they die (and even then I would argue, no, that still doesn’t quite measure it), you cannot measure what that human being has learned, is learning, will learn. You can’t.
 
Within a system of “Education,” we test and we assign writing tasks to determine how much learning has taken place. At best – at the VERY best – we MIGHT be able to determine what this student learned on this one (very narrow, considering the entire canon of potential knowledge) specific topic at this one specific time in this student’s life. Even on that specific topic, the learning that they are able to demonstrate will be different on different days, depending on a host of external environmental factors and internal bodily factors.
 
The tests and writing tasks are graded. The student receives a letter. In “Education,” we tell ourselves that the letter represents how much learning was demonstrated but that is a lie. It is an absolute  lie.
 
But MUCH worse than this lie is what living in a system of rewards and punishments does to students. The bottom line reality of a rewards and punishments system is that no one has any intrinsic worth. We are all only as worthy as the last action we took. We are either good or we are bad.  We are either going to get a reward or we are going to get a punishment. We live in a constant state of seeking approval and reward so that we can feel worthy ALL THE WHILE fearing punishment which will be solid proof of our unworthiness.
 
We are caged animals. We are slaves. We are not free to be our highest selves because when we are stuck in a system of seeking reward and fearing punishment, we CAN’T discover our true purpose and we CAN’T connect to meaning beyond ourselves. We are mired in obsessive / compulsive actions CONSTANTLY begging for a sense of worthiness and fearing that we will be proven worthless.
 
The result of this enslavement in American students is that they disconnect from learning altogether. Because we tell ourselves that Education measures learning, students associate Education with their ability to learn; with how much they know. They learned very early on that they were either “worthy/good” or “worthless/bad.” Whether they were good or bad, or somewhere in between, they associated learning with a painful experience of having to constantly beg to be considered worthy AND fear a judgement of worthlessness. They came to believe that this is what learning is. They accurately realized that Education is a cage. So, whether they learned to play the game or not, they disconnected from REAL learning. They don’t learn to learn, to know their purpose, to connect to a meaning beyond themselves. They learn to feel worthy by getting rewarded for good behavior. OR they learn that the system believes they are worthless --and therefore incapable of learning. 
 
Please note: THIS does not accurately characterize every context within our education system, mainstream or otherwise. BUT… I would argue vehemently that IF a student learns to love learning for the sake of learning itself, if a student engages in REAL learning, it is because either the teacher, the student or the institution itself is engaging in some form of teaching and learning that is outside the scope of the mainstream. In other words, somewhere in that context the system is being subverted. Someone within that context is trying to open up the cages and set the students free.
 
When we are free to engage in REAL learning, we know we are intrinsically worthy. We were born worthy. We do not have to beg for the carrot. We do not have to fear the stick. We learn because it gets us closer to understanding our specific purpose on this earth. We learn in order to connect to meaning beyond ourselves. 

Open the cages with love, Teamies.
Namaste,

Or this…
 
Al Franken sets up a re-education camp for sexual predators like Louis C.K., Kevin Spacey, Garrison Keillor and other men who simply thought that what they were doing all these years was just what men are supposed to be doing.
 
It’s like a conference… to educate the asshole out of these people.
 
First, they need to talk amongst themselves, with themselves and for themselves about how shocked they were to realize that they had actually offended or hurt anyone. Or how shocked they were that any of the people they had offended or hurt actually had the balls to come forward and say it out loud. Because I can’t think of a single woman who would want to hear that shit, however, they should get a compassionate man to listen to them and talk to them about how hard it is to realize that you’ve been an asshole your whole life but it’s not too late to change. Give them space to accept and understand their shame and embrace their vulnerability in this moment. Franken would be a great facilitator of a conversation like this.
 
Then, when they’re ready… I’d say on day 3 or 4 of camp… have strong, scary-intelligent, truth-speaking women like poet Mahogany Browne and psychologist Brene Brown to introduce them to what it means to be a proper human in the world. They’re going to need a couple of days, at least, to make it through this curriculum.
 
Then, as the mere beginning of their penance, require these men to go online and find a poop emoji Halloween costume (there were so many of these leftover on such a crazy discount this year that I could have bought a whole fleet of them myself). With these costumes, these men will hold the first of a long series of semiannual (we’ll need to do this at least a couple of times every year for a while) “Piece-of-Shit Parades.” The Parades will take place all over the country but the biggest ones will be in Hollywood, New York and DC. These reforming men will don the poop emoji costumes and carry signs that name their particular transgressions and say things like:

Dear Al Franken,
 
Thank you for resigning last week from the U.S. Senate. It took courage and integrity and a strong commitment to what you and I both know is right for you to do this. I wanted to recognize that.
 
Mr. Franken, I am a survivor of rape and childhood sexual abuse and assault. My stake in this current movement to call out sexual predators runs deep. For many years, I have carried so much hatred and anger in my heart. For many years I have lived in fear. For many years, I have internalized these feelings so successfully that they manifest themselves simply in a deep and abiding SELF-hatred.
 
Throughout these years, I have become a keen observer of the asinine things that men (like you) do. I have come to understand, both through observation and through study, that it is our culture that raises you to not only believe you have a RIGHT to do these things but that you have a RESPONSIBILITY to do them if you are to be considered a man.
 
Mr. Franken, I know you. In my undergrad days, at the University of Michigan, I was the girl who hung out with guys like you at parties. You made me laugh. You were clever and quick and relentlessly liberal and desperately flirtatious in your nerdiness, with a tiny edge of sweetness. For an angry, young feminist in the early 90s, these were an intoxicating combination.
 
While I was in the Peace Corps from 1997-1999, I was assaulted by a man just like you (survivors are often re-victimized throughout their lifetime, Mr. Franken—until we can fully accept that our victimizations were NEVER anything like “our fault”). When he got drunk, he’d say and do inappropriate things. Many of the women in my Peace Corps group knew this already but, they said nothing and did nothing about the behavior because, ultimately, they felt bad for him. He was a nerd. He was a smart, witty, nerd who was desperate for our attention. And because women have been socialized to eat up every ounce of male attention they get – however inappropriate it is – the women in my Peace Corps group thought of his desperate, nerdy inappropriateness as “a little sweet.” But after he assaulted me, I told on him. Because I was a survivor, I recognized his ridiculous behavior for what it was: dangerous. As soon as I told our medical officer what he had done to me, the alpha male of our pack – a handsome, strapping young man from Jersey – was sent to me to tell me that I was a “bitch” and that “friends don’t tell on each other.” I guess he didn’t realize that I do not consider people who assault me, “friends.” I was ostracized from my group for the rest of my Peace Corps stint. There were two women in the group who would still talk to me after that. They were both survivors.

My first husband was like you too. JUST like you. Oh, I know you.

But Mr. Franken, the reasons this fellow Peace Corps volunteer and you, and my ex-husband, and all of these poor, nerdy boys get into trouble is that our culture has not taught you how to be a proper human. Indeed, it has pushed you – forcefully – to turn your back on what it means to be a proper human and instead, “BE A MAN!”
 
The message you get from our culture is to pursue, to push, to grab, to get, to take, to overpower, to destroy if necessary. The message you get from our culture is that we are no more than objects for you to play with. The message you get from our culture is that emotional maturity, intuition, intelligence and responsibility are weak. Communication is weak. Expressing desires – in a way that is not creepy – is weak. You can’t possibly be a “real man” if you have to ask for it.
 
And this is particularly hard for the nerdy boy or the dorky boy. Possessing few of the natural qualities that make aggression and objectification easy, the nerdy boy learns to pervert his intelligence, emotional intuition, propensity towards compassion into something unnatural indeed. Our culture forces you all to twist your innate “feminine” qualities in on themselves until you all implode. Usually, this happens in the form of some inappropriate behavior – whether that’s unwanted touching, stalking, or rape. Meanwhile, the girls you grow up with learn to accept your inappropriateness as a form of flattery or even love. So, this leaves you stuck in a pretty hard place – having no actual idea that what you are doing is so absurdly wrong.
 
But this is changing, Mr. Franken. We won’t have it anymore. Obviously, you know this now.
 
So, you are caught in an interesting time – both historically and personally. You could do what so many men like you have done before. You could retreat into the shadows of obscurity or small local offices or the pages of memoirs and go down with your ship. You could defend your predatory behavior until the day you die and stick to the story that men like you are the REAL victims. So far, Mr. Franken, you don’t seem like that type, so I’m writing to urge you to continue to take a different approach.

And let me say, in order to set you on the right path, that it is not a turning away from masculinity that we, as a culture, need. I am not asking you to berate men for wanting to be strong, powerful, and in control. Indeed, the qualities of the masculine protector are necessary for all of our survival – and in many ways, are the foundation of a healthy emotional life. More of us – of all genders – should seek these qualities. BUT… these qualities are only useful so long as they are tempered by those typically feminine characteristics of compassion, emotional intelligence, vulnerability, patience and empathy.
 
We all possessed all of these qualities as babies. We all had the capacity for strength AND vulnerability as children. We NEED to get to work on repairing the fissure our culture created in each of us between these two sides of ourselves– but particularly in those nerdy boys who wanted to inherently be everything they were told they should/could not be. 
 
This is not an unimportant point: This fissure will not be mended by shaming sexual desire out of everyone. This fissure will not be repaired if we tell people to simply become more prude-ish and suppress their natural sexual desire. This will only continue to rip us further apart. A vulnerable acceptance of and openness to natural sexual desire is essential to move this conversation forward. Nerdy boys are not inappropriate because they have sexual desires. They become inappropriate when they are not taught the proper way to manage and express these sexual desires. Until we can put away our shame surrounding sexual desire, we will never be able to teach boys how to behave appropriately and we will keep producing sexual predators.
 
Mr. Franken, what I’m asking you to do is to take this opportunity to become a champion for Survivors. A TRUE champion. Take this opportunity to become a role-model and teacher to those men – especially the nerdy boys and young men – who are LOST in this wilderness of take-or-be-considered-weak. This movement to end sexual predation has long needed truly courageous, truly STRONG men who are willing to stand up and tell other men the exact nature of their wrongs and the exact way that they can fix it. Take the time. Gather your strength. Study. Write. Make the connections. Then, Mr. Franken, please, be that man.

Thank you for your time,
JodiAnn Stevenson

AKA:

​I get it now.
 
A blog is supposed to be a bite-sized thought. A small meal, at most. Most of my former blog posts were like an entire year of meal plans rather than a small meal or a bite.
 
See… I thought that I had to tell you EVERYTHING. I thought I had to give you as much background and as much context as I possibly could so that you could read that one post and understand everything.
 
I’m a forest person. I’m not a tree person. I can’t see the trees. When I look at the trees, all I ever see is the whole forest. I thought I needed to write the whole forest.
 
But you don’t need to know the whole forest.  You don’t need to know everything or be told everything right now, in this one post. You don’t want everything. And if you DO, you can read the archives. You can read them all day long if you want. Get lost in the forest! And little by little, post by post, you will come to know as much of everything as I have been willing and able to share to date.
 
And THAT is how it works.  THAT is actually the beauty of a blog. One post is just an invitation. The whole blog is my house. And you get to decide how far you want to come inside. Take the invitation and continue reading one or two more posts – you’ve made it to the foyer. How many posts do you need to read to make it to the living room... or the kitchen? It’s kind of like asking how many licks to the center of a tootsie pop.
 
For now, I show you the one tree, I send you the invitation, I just offer you this bite. If you want more, you know where to find it.
 
Nom Nom Nom with Love, Teamies!

​I can’t sleep.
 
The first time I checked the clock, it was 1:50am.  I finally got out of bed around 2:30am. I’ve learned it’s just no use laying there, hoping. I won’t go back to sleep until I feel tired again, which should be sometime around 8am when I’ll be expected to get the day going.
 
I think it’s the moon’s fault. Have you seen it tonight? My god! It’s enormous and so bright that it’s almost like daytime outside. It forced me to step outside, onto my porch, in my pajamas, to see where all the light was coming from.
 
I think I’m a creature of the moon like that. I think I need, from time to time, to bathe in it.
 
Ancient cosmos-based medicine says moon bathing is cooling. It says the full moon brings out unresolved emotions in us then calms them.
 
Have you noticed how scary the world is right now? I have friends who are worried about the end. I have friends who are worrying about how to protect themselves from what seems to be coming – friends that can’t just hide – friends that will be hunted if and when the hunting happens. I have friends who shake their heads and throw up their hands. I have friends who have given up.
 
Then, I have friends – well, one friend – who insists the sky is NOT falling. We’ve been here before. Many times. She says.
 
I like the sound of that – that the sky will remain intact. And it will.
 
But… it’s hard not to think that, because of this one friend’s race/ethnicity, orientation, and socioeconomic class, she just doesn’t realize that for many people, the sky actually HAS fallen before. She probably doesn’t realize the extent to which it might FEEL like the sky is ACTUALLY falling when everyone you love dearest is under attack, is hunted, is poisoned, is murdered, is raped, is left for dead. Will it happen to everyone? Does it happen to everyone? Has it happened to everyone? No. But for those it does happen to and for their kin, for their survivors – the sky falls, the sky fell, the sky will fall.
 
Except not entirely. The ACTUAL sky will not fall. The ACTUAL sky is a reminder that we are so small; so miniscule.
 
“Not people die but worlds die in them” says the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Human worlds die. Yes. The Universe remains.
 
It’s not REALLY a comfort at all. It’s just what is. After the dramas of our lives – our individual and our collective lives – play out, the sky will still hold the stars (dying themselves, all the time) and the moon will still bathe the earth, until, eventually, the sky swallows them up too.
 
This isn’t to say that human destruction does not matter. It’s to say that human destruction matters all the more. The sky, the moon, the stars, the cosmos, the UNIVERSE is constantly asking us: “Why are you wasting it all? WHY? LOOK AROUND YOU! HAVEN’T I GIVEN YOU ENOUGH? WHY MUST YOU TRY TO TAKE MORE BY DESTROYING EACH OTHER?”
 
“and every time again and again/ I make my lament against destruction (Yevtushenko).”
 
The moon is so beautiful tonight. Beautiful. Behind the black silhouette of the pine and the naked elm's arms, set in deep violet-blue, tiny glints of starlight gleam in scattered glitter fashion upon the sky.
 
I am accepting my smallness. I am listening to the Universe. I will continue to make my lament against destruction.
 
Howl, Teamies.
Howl, Howl, Howl
And keep Howling,
With Love.
 
Please.

Yep -- still talking about shame.  And it's probably going to be a bit before I stop so... please bear with me.

See...

I’m good at the shine: the big ideas, the showing up, the flash, and the working of a room. It’s the follow-through I know I need help with.
 
I used to think it was just because the follow-through was boring. The shiny night of an event moved people, touched people, motivated and inspired people. The day after the event? The emails that need to be sent? The papers that need to be filed? The thank you cards that should probably be written? The phone calls that need to be made? The checks that need to be written? BORING! Tedious! All of it. Blech.
 
But uncovering more layers of shame, I’ve also recently realized, I’m not so good at the follow-through because after the big shine, I ache with shame.
 
If I talk to you at a dinner party – even if we talk all night long and have a grand time – the next day, I will play our conversation over and over and over in my head, I will see your face again and again – a slight wince when I said this, a looking away as I was talking about that. What did all of that mean? Did you secretly hate me? Find me awful? Wish I would shut up? Are you someone I can really trust? Should I have spoken to you all night? Are you one of those people that seem one way one night and then act a different way on a different day? Do you like me? Are you somewhere thinking about how stupid I am?
 
You probably are.
 
And that’s it.  ESPECIALLY if there has been vulnerability. We connected deeply over something or other. It wasn’t a dinner party, but an open mic poetry reading I MC’ed where an incredibly diverse group of people bared their souls to one another and promised to keep the light of poetry burning together.  Or it was... a group discussion about sexual assault on campus where many of us divulged the nature of our survivorship. Or it was... a sermon I delivered in a Unitarian Universalist church in front of ALL THOSE PEOPLE. Or it was... a particularly surprising teachable moment that arose in my classroom where we broke through the BS and actually connected on an important level.  Or it was... a reading of my own poetry where I left it all on the stage (something I have only done once or twice in my entire life because I can't handle the aftershocks of all of that vulnerability).  ALL of these moments shine BECAUSE of the vulnerability. But the day after, I have what Brene Brown, calls a “Shame Hangover.”
 
When I used to drink alcohol, especially before I had children, shame hangovers were often accompanied by regular hangovers.  The first thought I’d wake up with was, “what did I do?” and a deep sense of shame would overwhelm me until I had called every single person I had seen the night before to see if I needed to apologize or not (This, kids, is what they call “a problem.”) Even though the Shame Hangover after a shining event is a better – more righteous – one than the kind of shame hangover that came with an alcohol-induced hangover, it still sucks. It still prevents me from the follow-through.
 
Every email I have to send, every form I have to file, every phone call that needs to be made is a reminder that during that shining event, I made myself vulnerable. I showed everyone a side of myself, a piece of myself I don’t always leave out in full view. And I come from a world (we all do, really) that tells me I have no right to do that… I should be ashamed of myself.
 
Fuck that.
 
The annoying AF thing about all of this is that the inability to follow through has hampered my professional life. I mean, I do okay. I’ve done alright. But if I could get over this shit, I could freakin’ SOAR. I could be a seriously amazing badass… whatever it is that I am.  This lack of follow-through has also hampered some of my relationships. I mean… we connected but remember… you’re probably just somewhere thinking I’m stupid now, right? So… no follow through.  Again. I’ve done okay. I’ve got some friends. I think it’s possible that SOME people don’t mind having me around. But, could those connections be more solid? Could I be a better friend to the people I’m “friends” with? Um… yep! If I wasn’t embarrassed of the follow-through, that’s for certain.
 
It’s good.  It’s good to know what you’re doing wrong. It’s good to know why. And it’s also very good to know how to fix it. So, that’s what I’m going to do now.
 
Follow Through with Love, Teamies.

I’m good at throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Graduate programs. Relationships. Projects. I might love 99% about them but if 1% rubs me the wrong way, it’s over.
 
Here are some of the ways that this behavior has been interpreted:
Scatter-brained
Non-committal
Bitchy
Reactionary
Childish
 
Though it’s most fun to blame it on being a Scorpio: Quick to Love. Quick to Hate.
 
What I’ve recently learned is… I want to avoid Shame (Thanks Brene Brown).
 
I cut and run.
I slash and burn.
 
Ironically, I consider myself a fighter. I consider myself a hard worker. I like to believe I stand and deliver. And sometimes I do.
 
But when I don’t – when I throw the baby out with the bathwater – I’m now realizing – I miss big opportunities. Opportunities like:

• Completing that dream graduate program with the full ride scholarship (ugh! The second biggest regret of my life!)
• Being a part of the last three years of my mother’s life (the first biggest regret).
• Seeing what healing might happen or what relationships can be nurtured or how my career might be effected by hosting a long-standing community Poetry Slam (a project I quit after a relatively successful first two years).

 
I miss these opportunities because the 1% that rubs me the wrong way makes me feel vulnerable, brings me shame. The only safe option in that moment seems to be running, seems to be throwing it all out – even the baby.
 
But when the baby gets tossed, the most essentially useful and potentially healing piece is lost. What is lost is vital to my well-being.
 
So,okay… now I know better, now I should do better. Maybe Brene Brown’s notion of Shame Resiliency is just where I need to start. Maybe I can learn how to save the baby.
 
Save YOUR babies, Teamies, with love!

Honestly, I’m only about ¾ of the way through the second one but it’s already changed my life enough to make it on this very short list.
 
Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. It’s the book that might save you from a lifetime of doing mildly fucked up things to the people you love. Because, eventually, in my experience, even the people you love – who REALLY WANT TO LOVE YOU BACK – get really really sick of those constantly mildly fucked up things and eventually won’t have it anymore. Those people you love? They aren’t replaceable. Learn to love them right, right now. Read this book.
 
Daring Greatly is also the book you might find in the middle of your life, after you thought you had fully healed from all of the trauma of your past, only to realize that… NOPE, you still have quite a ways to go. And, ultimately, isn’t that a good thing? Because learning only stops – if you’re lucky and smart – when you’re dead. So, you aint dead yet, kid.  Read this book. It’s not too late.

 
​First of all, it could’ve been the perimenopause.  My husband refers to it as “The Pause.”
 
For example, if I’m having a particularly rough day and I scream my head off at what turns out to be nothing then start bawling and talking about what a horrible person I am and how awful my life is… then, 5 minutes later when I’ve regained semi-sane consciousness, I have to apologize for my bizarre actions of the past twenty or so minutes…
 
he will say, “That’s okay, honey.  I know it’s just The Pause.”
 
So, it could’ve been that, mostly. 
 
But… it was also… damn! It was also the way she marches straight toward the danger, the enemy.  It was the way she is unstoppable.  It was the way she is fearless.  It was the way she is fierce.  It was the way she is deadly.  It was the way she will not be told what to do.  It was the way she loves ice cream. It was the way she is fundamentally good.  It was the way she kicks ass.  It was the way she drinks beer. It was the way that she is the strongest ever.  It was the way she is a god.  It was the way she is ALL of these things but she is also 150% feminine.
 
I was going to say, “woman.” But not all women-identifying people are, or consider themselves, feminine.  Wonder Woman is FEMININE.  She has sculpted eyebrows; lithe muscles; a great rack (oh, don’t act like you didn’t notice – that’s impossible, they are sculpted into her silicone uniform); ridiculously long legs; long flowing hair; big pouty lips; (apparently) permanent perfectly-styled make-up; big doe-like eyes; and… OF COURSE… she wants to save the world with love.
 
In other words, she’s basically me.
 
Bahahahahahahahaha!
 
A few moments ago, as my husband and I had roughly 3 minutes to spend together at the end of a busy day, when our children were finally sleeping, we briefly discussed our reactions to the film.  I said, NOT in all seriousness, “didn’t she remind you of me?”
 
We BOTH busted up and LOLed. But really…
 
I think the reason she strikes such a strong chord in me is that she represents – on a grand, theatrical, metaphoric scale – what all women who refuse to have their asses kicked by the patriarchy actually go through every single day. We forge ahead. We push right through the bullshit. We have to move head-on into a world that has no idea how powerful we are.  When we get knocked down, we have to get back up, every single time. We do not quit. And, despite all the bullshit we go through, and that we witness every person we love go through, we still love.  We still have to believe in love. And we still fight for everything that we believe in because of love. And we have to believe that love can save the world.

And mostly, why I sobbed, like a tiny baby, as that insanely badass feminine superest of superheroes plowed across a field of bullets and grenades and straight-up missiles being hurled at her, is that being unapologetically weird, looks like this.  Doing what is right -- or authentic to yourself -- instead of doing what you are told to do or being who you are told to be, looks like (and often feels like) walking into battle. 

Keep walking into that battle, with love, Teamies.  And, for goodness' sake, GO SEE WONDER WOMAN!!
Namaste

p.s. Just in case, you cared AT ALL (and I seriously would not blame you if you did not – because it’s a hella-boring topic) Pinky Tuscadero will be back in my possession this weekend and I’ve got all kinds of fun plans to release the bad juju out of her so that we can get on with our plan of kicking a certain kind of ass ourselves. Woot. Woot. Now, if I can just manage NOT to fall off of her again…
 
p.p.s. My husband narrowly convinced me NOT to go back and see Wonder Woman for a second time in a row TONIGHT but I don’t think I’m going to make it through tomorrow without going again.  Yep.  THAT is the level of obsession we are talking about here people [it’s ALMOST better that Maleficent – I CAN’T BELIEVE I’m saying it – but, DAMMIT! It REALLY is!].
 

4 or 5 years ago, I had a bike accident during a sprint-distance triathlon in Lansing, MI.  My front wheel got stuck in a groove in the street and I went over my handlebars.  It wasn’t as big a deal as it sounds.  I hit my head last and least hard so there was no need for medical attention, and no concussion or anything.  I did mess up my right thumb though and had to be in a cast for several weeks.  The damage done wasn’t too bad, in the end, but being in an accident was really scary.
 
That accident in Lansing happened before I started riding in clip-in pedals.  If you’re really serious about triathlon, you HAVE TO ride with clip-in pedals eventually.  So, I got some pedals, I got some shoes and I clipped in.  The first several months I rode with clip-ins, you could routinely see me at corners just falling straight over onto my side, like a domino.  Some days were better than others but I never quite got the hang of those clip-ins. And eventually I became too scared to really ride with them so I stopped riding completely – so much for being serious about triathlon!
 
My first ride out last year, I had a great time.  I went about 15 miles or so.  It was a gorgeous day and I sailed along the Betsie River Trail with ease and confidence.  I was so looking forward to an entire summer of kicking ass on my tri-bike.  Then… right before I pulled in my driveway, I hit some sand and turned abruptly, I fell so quick onto the concrete that I didn’t even have time to process what was happening and THIS time, I hit my head first and hard.  So hard, in fact, that my helmet cracked right open.  Ouch.
 
Luckily, I have a good friend who used to be an amateur MMA cage-fighter.  We talked at length about how to handle a concussion and warning signs that mean I should seek medical attention immediately.  I never needed medical attention but damn! I definitely dealt with the consequences of some level of concussion for at least a solid month.
 
A couple weeks after my undiagnosed concussion started to feel better, I bought an old used cruiser for 50 bucks.  It squeaked and whistled when I rode it and maxed out at about five miles per hour but it felt so good to sit straight up for a change and I wasn’t afraid to ride it.  I named that old cruiser, Babe, and fell deeply in love. 
 
Unfortunately, I REALLY wanted to keep doing triathlons. All winter I joked that I was going to do every triathlon this summer on Babe.  Well, at first I was joking and then I was serious.  I mean, sure… I would definitely be The Last Triathlete, but who cares? I could still finish within the cut-off time and I would have fun doing it!
 
So, a couple weeks ago, I took Babe in to be spiffed up and I made a plan to sell my road bikes through the shop that did the work.  Just yesterday, I dropped off my Tri-bike and walked out the door. 
 
Then, as you might know (if you read yesterday’s post) I picked up the July issue of Triathlete magazine that I’ve been anxiously awaiting for several months and the guilt, remorse and horror of what I had done kicked in HARD.  WHAT HAVE I DONE??? How could I just let her go like that without a second thought? How could I give up on my triathlon dreams?
 
Listen:. I will never be a good triathlete. I will never be a fast triathlete. But, dammit, I LOVE that sport. I LOVE it! And I don’t love any other sport in all the vast choices of sports in this world. I just LOVE triathlon. And while it is TOTALLY true that I could complete a super-sprint or a sprint-distance tri and MAYBE even an Olympic distance on Babe, there is NO WAY I could go any farther. And, the truth is, when I turned 40, I promised myself that by the time I was 50, I would complete an ironman-distance.
 
Dudes – I know you’re out there laughing your asses off at me, saying, “Girrrrrrlll, how in the HELL do you think YOU are going to complete an Ironman?”  Well, friends, I have no clue just yet but I’ll tell you this: when I first saw how much I would have to do in a sprint-distance triathlon, I thought NO FUCKING WAY! How can ANYONE move like that for that long.  500 meter swim (which is actually short for a sprint-distance), 12 mile bike and then a 3.1 mile run?  What? That sounded like an endless amount of miles to me – like an impossible amount of miles.  And then I did it – a lot.  So, then, I started training for an Olympic-distance which is double all of those lengths:  1000 meter swim, 24 mile bike, 6.2 mile run.  I couldn’t just do this again tomorrow without training and I definitely came in last last last BUT… I DID IT! And that mileage doesn’t seem crazy at all to me anymore.  When I had gotten through several sprint-distance tris, I started to think, “hmmmm…. That Olympic distance doesn’t seem TOOOOO impossible.”  And as soon as I did the Olympic, I thought, “hmmmmm…. That half-ironman-distance doesn’t seem TOOOOO impossible.”  And even though RIGHT NOW it seems a little more impossible than it did right after I finished that Olympic-distance tri, I know that when I really start training again,  I can get it back into the realm of possibility in my mind. 
 
And if completing a half iron or a full ironman isn’t unapologetically weird as all hell, I do not know what is.  (Oh, wait! Yes, I do!  Swimming in a mermaid tail! Bahahahaha)
 
But how can I train with no tri-bike? I adore Babe.  I wish all my rides could always be on Babe.  But, I have to accept that, at some point, I’m going to need a little bit of speed.  Babe likes to watch the scenery as we ride by.  Pinky Tuscadero (that’s my Tri-Bike’s name) ain’t got no time for any of that nonsense. 
 
So… duh! I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before but rather than shun riding a tri-bike completely, I’m going to shun the notion that serious triathletes HAVE TO ride in clip-ins.  Not me baby.  I’m going back to my cages and I’m going to be happy as a clam about it. That is, I’m going back to my cages tomorrow morning at 10am when the bike shop opens and I can tell them I simply cannot sell my sweet little Pinky Tuscadero.
 
It’s funny, I’ve been thinking over this past year that my bikes are like a little family. And giving Pinky Tuscadero away and knowing she’s not here tonight – it definitely feels awkward – like when my daughter goes over to someone else’s house for a sleepover.  I just keep constantly thinking, somewhere in my mind, “I hope she’s alright!” But Pinky Tuscadero’s a bike! I mean, you get how weird THAT is, right?
 
Don’t give your little dreams away, Teamies – even if they seem hella ridiculous to the rest of the world! And even if they scare the absolute crap out of you!
 
& please keep your fingers crossed that I can get Pinky Tuscadero back without a hitch!
Namaste,

​​I want to tell you my triathlon story. I want to talk to you (again) about self-hatred and self-love. I want to talk about how so many of us trip and fall right into that maze of self-loathing at some point in our young lives and how we can stay there for so many years. Sometimes we see a light.  Sometimes we almost find the path out.  Then something kicks us back in.  Something drags us back down. We get lost again.  I want to tell you how triathlon and racing and finding fitness has been a part of all of that for me.
 
But I have been waiting impatiently for this month’s issue of triathlete magazine and Instead: I’m going to tell you to buy it and read it.  Now. Right now.
 
Turn to page 30.  Read stuff like this: 

Then go to page 74.  Read stuff like this:

Then go back to page 24.  Read stuff like this:

​Instead, I’m going to ask you to consider some of the things that our society considers normal: 

• self-hatred
• staying within safe, easy limits and taking the path of least resistance
• the “FACT” that thinness equals health

 
and then I’m going to ask you to consider these women: Kelly O’Mara, badass professional triathlete and writer; America Ferrera, badass actress; and Louise Green, badass triathlete, trainer, and author of Big, Fit Girl. Consider the fact that each one of these women is Unapologetically Weird because here’s what they are saying:

• I will not hate myself just because it’s what you’ve told me to do
• I will not stay within safe limits because I know my most extraordinary self exists somewhere beyond them
• & I will not believe in, put up with, or stand for your limited, misogynistic, counter-intuitive definition of health

 
…AAAAAANNNND… ALL of them have found these truths through TRIATHLON. To engage in the kind of training anyone has to do for triathlon – even those of us who only race recreationally—you HAVE TO BE an unapologetic weirdo. Seriously. You might have to swim in lakes no one else will even let their babies swim in. You might have to learn to pee on your bike.  You might have to spend an exorbitant amount of money on a special helmet that makes your head look like a space-age, praying mantis. And on this journey through/ to/ deeper into weirdness, you will know yourself better and you will learn to love yourself better and you might finally understand that you never had anything to apologize for in the FIRST place!
 
No more apologizing, Teamies! Sink deeper into your weirdness!
Namaste

Just a few weeks after I watched my brother die from a disease that I had watched his body degenerate from over the course of 10 years, I was trying to write at my desk. Then, suddenly, I was crying, uncontrollably.  My husband walked in to our office.  He put his hands on my shoulders, warmly.  In an empathetic and sincere voice, he said, “everything is going to be okay.”  And, I wanted to hit him.  I said, “You are wrong.  Nothing is going to be okay ever again.” 
 
“Okay” and “happy” are considered "normal" emotions in our culture.  “Sadness” is weird.  Sad people (even when they are generally happy people that are only occasionally sad) are weirdos.
 
When you lose someone you love strongly, that loss changes the world as you know it. So, in a big way, I was right when I said nothing was going to be okay ever again.  Nothing is the same as it was before my brother died.  That loss still cuts me.  That loss still hurts and it still shadows so many moments in my daily life. 
 
Last weekend, I wanted my mother.  I just wanted her.  And, out of the blue, I fell on my bed and started sobbing for my want of her – and the impossibility now, of having her. It was not “normal behavior.” It was weird.  But if I had spent even a moment reprimanding myself or apologizing for this weird behavior, that grief storm wouldn’t have passed through me so quickly because I only would’ve made myself feel worse.
 
Sometimes we are sad and there is nothing that can be done for that sadness.  And despite the fact that “sadness” is deemed weird in our culture, we have to be unapologetic about our sadness in those times. 
 
Sexual abuse.  Divorce.  The death of those close to us.  How screwed up some aspects of our world seem to be – especially at this geo-social-political moment. These are appropriate occasions for sadness.  And there are many others. A falling out with a friend.  A lack of friends. Feeling lonely.  Being seriously ill. 
 
I often share this npr interview with Eric G. Wilson, the author of Against Happiness with my students.  Mostly, I try to get my students thinking about cultivating happiness and how each of us has the ability to do so in our own lives, despite our life experiences and circumstances.  But… what is the point of cultivating happiness if that happiness is, ultimately, a lie – just a façade you wear so that you can “appear” happy when really you are dying inside?  Wilson argues firmly that there are appropriate occasions for sadness and to force oneself to “don’t worry be happy” at a time when they are actually really sad, is totally inappropriate. 
 
I have written a lot about cultivating happiness.  I believe in it.  I believe it is our RESPONSIBILITY to not stay in that “dying inside” place too too long – for the sake of our loved ones and the world – because NOTHING will get accomplished in this world with a bunch of sad sacks who can’t get over their shit.  HOWEVER… there is a time and a place to not see sadness as someone being a “sad sack” but rather expressing the healthy emotions that make them human.  I can’t name that time or that place specifically because it is different for each person, each situation, each moment.  We each make that decision every day in how we choose to offer compassion to people or not offer compassion to people.
 
On the other hand, I can offer you a couple of hard-and-fast rules: 

1. it is not your job EVER to tell someone else to “get over” ANYTHING.  At first I was going to say this about the loss of a loved one or a break-up or an incident of sexual abuse BUT REALLY, this is as true for those situations as it is for a paper-cut.  If your co-worker is in pain because of a stupid little papercut and they want your compassion about it, why withhold from them? What’s it going to take from you to give them a little bit of compassion? People voice their sadness and their pain because they seek your compassion. It is simply NOT our job to decide whether they “deserve” it or not.  Even in the case of a friend, family member or lover not letting something go that we did wrong after weeks, months, years… GOD! THAT’S ANNOYING AS HELL, RIGHT? … but, if we care about that person, we have to understand that they are only bringing it up because they are STILL hurting and the only way they will probably ever get over it is if you KEEP offering your compassion and your apologies forever.  Yes, forever.  And if you love them, forever won’t be too harsh of a sentence for you.  [P.S. you probably shouldn’t let them “punish” you forever either – but that’s a different blog post]
   
   
2. Similarly, it is not your job to tell someone to “stop crying.”  My father’s favorite saying aside from “people in hell want ice water” was “I’ll give you something to cry about.”  My God, People! THAT’S parenting at its very best, right? Because the obvious assumption there is that whatever you’re crying about is ridiculous – you have no right to cry.  Tell you what: I’ll cry anytime, anyplace, and for any reason I damn well please – and if that makes YOU uncomfortable, perhaps you should check in with yourself and see where that callousness and inability to process emotions comes from.
   
   
3. I know this is very hard for those of us who have that tendency of feeling like we have to give people advice but DO NOT OFFER YOUR ADVICE unless someone asks for it! If they don’t ask for it, all they want to do is talk.  All they want you to do is listen.  And often – especially in the case of old, intermittently aching hurts – that is all that is required.  Talking & listening.  No advice.  I’ve had to get used to saying, “Are you looking for advice here?” in as kind a tone as possible.  Good lord, do I ALWAYS want to be giving advice (obviously, THIS BLOG right here, people!)! But often, I just need to stop myself and I’ve even started stopping my friends who are also inclined to be advice-givers.  “I’m not looking for advice here,” has become another conversation staple.

 
 
More importantly, don’t let anyone do these things TO you.  If someone tells you to “get over” something, “stop crying,” or offers advice you didn’t ask for, immediately file that away as their inability to process difficult emotions and accept their own humanity.  DO NOT allow this lack of compassion to make you feel like there is anything “wrong” with your sadness. You're sad because you are human. You are part of a very large club! Congratulations!
 
If you need to and want to, Teamies, be unapologetically sad, and once that storm has passed through you (however long that might take), open up all your windows and find the sun.
 
Namaste,

​Mormons came to the door last week.  Today it was Jehovah Witnesses.  All pleasant people but ain’t nobody got time for that, folks. 
 
Listen:  I get it.  Most people feel like they need some kind of organized religion to wrap their minds and hearts around the impossibly huge idea/feeling/presence of God/Universe.  An organized religion, indeed, ORGANIZES all of those huge ideas/feelings and THAT presence into beautiful poetry, song, services, sermons, rituals and events that keep God/Universe close to us in a way that we can handle – in a way that doesn’t make our hearts explode or our eyes catch on fire.  I get it.
 
But, SADLY, I also get that organized religion perpetuates THE single most evil idea in our Universe: the feeling/thought that one person is better than another.  In fact, when you come to my door and tell me that I should be part of your shiny, awesome religion because otherwise I’m going to spend eternity in hell… um… ya, you are saying to me, “I am better than you.”  Not only are you saying you are better than me but you are also saying your children are better than my children, your mothers are better than my mother, your families are better than my family, and so on. I believe this is the single most evil thought in the world because it is the beginning of all other evil.  If you’re better than me, I am not as valuable as you are, I don’t deserve as much from this life as you do, my pain is somehow less important than yours.  Hurting me is justifiable.  Ignoring me or abandoning me when I’m sick or hurting is justifiable. War against me – and all of my people -- is justifiable.  Genocide is justifiable.  And, friends, this can’t be true.  This is not true.  It is the least true thing in the world.
 
I know Ayn Rand and all of her disciples would adamantly disagree, but people are equal.  All people everywhere are equal.
 
I may have mentioned before that I knew a yogini once who claimed to cultivate an addiction to mountain dew just so she could empathize with people who had flaws. 
 
I’ll give you a moment to let that sink in.
 
… Because… otherwise… she was…. What…. Perfect?
 
THIS is the offensiveness of organized religion – and yes, I would ABSOLUTELY include yoga in the realm of organized religion because of the way SOME people practice it as a method of justifiably putting themselves above others.  That particular yogini was not the first and certainly not the last I’ll ever meet that acted as though their “practice” gave them a direct line to The Light (no matter how many bullshit “namastes” they uttered) – and, according to them, ALL any of us have to do to have that direct line as well is do EXACTLY what they do.  Sound familiar? It’s fanatic.  It’s religious fanaticism. 
 
No one is perfect.  No one is perfect.  No one is perfect.  We are all flawed.  And yet, all of us have value.  All of us have value.  All of us have value.  We ALL deserve love and respect and equality.
 
For several years, I attended a UU church.  When I am pushed, I do have to admit that my views toward the Great Ineffable, most closely align with that of UU’s seven principles SO if I was able to fully embrace an organized religion, THAT would be the one – because it’s the least like an organized religion in the way that I’m describing above.  Everyone has their own right to seek their own truth.  And yet, it’s still a building, there are still humans running everything, and they still tell me when to sit and stand and how to pray and what to do – and if I don’t do those things the way they want me to, I’m not one of them.  UU is very much LEAST like this – BUT even a disorganized religion HAS TO HAVE ORGANIZATION.  I do not fault them for this.  I just think, it’s very easy in our culture to tend toward the fanaticism and mental illness of superiority.  If I’m the one who tells you when to sit and stand and how to pray and what to do I have some power that MUST mean that I’m better than you.
 
Uuuummm… Nope.
 
And, it’s hard to be the weirdo.  I LOVE Episcopalian and Catholic church services because when I attend them, I feel very close to my mother.  It’s nostalgic for me.  And it is comfortable and sweet.  When I started experimenting with attending a Quaker church, and then later UU churches, it felt HELLA WEIRD.  And when I meditate on the beach or snuggle with my daughter all morning or go for a hike to be close to that SOMETHING about the Universe that I often, in my day-to-day, avoid or blow right past – it doesn’t feel “normal.”  It feels like I should be doing something else.  I feel weird.  And the way I “worship” (though I would not call it that) IS weird when considering the norm of organized religion.  It’s hard to be that weirdo – because the weirdo – more than anyone – is made to feel less-than within a culture that worships (and that word is quite fitting here) conformity, and power, and people who behave as though they are superior to others. It is easier to just DO organized religion – to NOT be weird and question it.
 
Because ultimately, the way that MOST people do organized religion (the way that makes them feel like their religion, their people, their church makes them BETTER than others) is just the easy way out.  You don’t actually have to develop your thoughts, feelings, relationship with God/Universe/Light/Ineffable.  You just do what those higher-ups in that organization tell you to do and it will automatically be there for you.  Easy-Peasy.  Just follow all the rules, baby.  And, honestly, I get that.  That’s cool.  There are many things for which I prefer the easy way out.  There’s nothing wrong with wanting your god in an easily digestible package.  But there’s really nothing wrong – at all – with the way I’m doing things either.  I am equal to you.  You are not better than me. You are not worse than me.  I am as valuable as you are. You are as valuable as I am.  If we could all just live in THAT knowledge, there would be more peace and love – and much less bullshit -- in the world. 
 
Know that you are equal, Teamies – not better, not worse – just equal.  And be unapologetic about your equality.

Namaste (and I really mean it),

p.s. I have several friends who are part of an organized religion and who are faithful members of their churches.  All of them would agree with me that people are equal and all of them live their lives around this principle and work to preserve it.  My beef -- as I have tried to make clear here -- is allowing an organized religion to become GREATER than this one, simple truth. THAT is the mistake -- and one I think organized religion allows complacent individuals to make all too easily.  

I wrote this on June 13, 2016 before the horrific reality of a Trump Nomination and then actual Presidency came to pass and after the two back-to-back horrors of Brock Turner and the Orlando Shooting occurred. Ultimately, I decided not to post it... because, ultimately, I was too afraid. 

I found it in my saved drafts today (June, 2017), a year later.  Trump is President.  I'm also no longer "on" facebook. The horrors have been compounding and it is the least safe it has been in years to openly discuss such things as these.  Also, I have recently re-dedicated myself to this blog and have re-focused it on the theme of "unapologetic weirdness."  

So for the sake of my theme --which is the theme of my entire life -- and the sake of not being afraid and for the sake of my soul, I'm posting it now -- a year late -- but hopefully not TOO late.  


Before I was molested by males, as a young girl, I was in love with another young girl. I continued to fall for other girls as I grew older, eventually being raped, again by males, as a young woman. Through these...let's call them...mishaps, and others, I learned that I was SUPPOSED to want men, my role in life was to please men & so I played the heterosexual game, trying to fall for boys, finding a couple here & there and eventually marrying a relatively nice one (though, not in the end, nice for me). The ENTIRE time I knew I loved girls, I fell for girls, I tried so so so hard NOT to fall for girls. I hated myself for loving girls. I was so confused about my love for girls. 

Two weeks after I met my current husband (yes, I married again), I told him that I was Bisexual. This is a label I wore for a long time after my first marriage because the description of it felt right to me. I was attracted to both men and women. Period. Easy-Peasy. But this world is not so Easy-Peasy for bisexual people (nor is it so for gay, lesbian, transgendered, questioning, asexual, intersex people and anyone else who doesn't fall right in line with the hetero-patriarchal norms of our society). He accepted this about me (as I accepted that HE was a registered Republican at the time-- please forgive him, he's learned so much in the last fourteen years) though neither of us knew what it meant for the long-term potential of our relationship. 

When we moved back to MI, after I had been away --and running running running-- for nearly ten years, it was time for me to face the sexual abuse I'd been through as a child. I sought counseling. I was taught that my normal sexual development had been arrested by the abuse and that it was possible that if I had grown up in a 100% welcoming and loving world, I might have simply grown up to just love women. Period. Easy-Peasy. 

But it is not so Easy-Peasy to hear this news when you have grown into an adult with two children and a husband you love and respect at your side. It's confusing as all hell. For everyone. So, we talked divorce, we separated, and then we got back together because neither of us could live without our kids 100% of the time AND as it turns out, we were really in love. Like, REALLY.  

So, these days, I privately consider myself Queer. This label means more to me, encompasses so much more for me than the label "bisexual" and it leaves room for me to love my husband enormously but in a way that doesn't diminish all that I am. 

I have gotten about as far "over" being sexually abused as anyone can. I choose to speak about my abuse openly because I want other people who have been through that hell to know they are not alone, they can feel safe again, and it can and will get better. 

I also choose to speak openly about my abuse because I don't think silence helps anyone. In fact, I believe silence is part of what perpetuates the problem. AND...I have been told so many rape and molestation stories that I am supposed to keep secret, it hurts. Anyone who has heard my story doesn't have to feel like they are carrying it around inside of them. My abuse is not a secret. Carrying someone else's secret is a painful burden. One I am willing to bear for those I love dearest but still, painful. 

So...this college woman gets raped by this college guy and it becomes an international headline because he feels no remorse and doesn't even acknowledge that what he did was wrong AND his slimy judge gives him no more than a slap on the wrist for his "actions."  And this -- like all widely circulated rape stories -- triggers my trauma/ my diagnosed PTSD but I deal. I deal loudly and without apologies but I deal. I deal in a way I wasn't able to deal ten years ago. The wound gets cut back open but it heals quickly. I don't forget but I go back to living my joyful life because "Joy is an act of resistance" as the great poet, Toi Dericotte says. 
Then 50 people get killed in a nightclub for being gay... because my country's government  is being held hostage by the fucking NRA and any fucking crackpot idiot madman can get a semi-automatic weapon any time, any day for any reason they want to. 

And Facebook constantly asks me what's on my mind. 

My gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, queer, questioning, asexual, transitioning, intersex, curious, and even just those who are still confused friends, students, colleagues, loved ones, family members, and former partners are on my mind. They are SO on my mind. Their fear, their anger, their sorrow, their grief, their feelings of helplessness, their courage, their strength, their love, their perseverance, their spirit. That's what is on my mind and heavy heavy heavy on my heart. 

During my very first group therapy session in 2000, a young woman identified herself as "bisexual" to the room. I said nothing. As she and I struck up a conversation after the session, I came out to her. She was shocked and offended. "Why didn't you say something?" She said. "Why did you allow everyone to think I was alone in there?" I had no good answer for this. 

Seven years later, a colleague was standing at my office door and we were talking about our families, our personal histories. She learned that my grandmother was Mexican. She learned that I considered myself "bisexual." She said, "So, you've been passing." And I learned that "passing" meant pretending to be part of the majority group when you're really a part of a minority group. You're Mexican but you live White. You're Queer but you live Heterosexual. In my defense, when I try to claim either of these identities, I am often quickly dismissed by people who don't know any better, because I look like a straight-up white girl AND I'm married to a big old man. And because I automatically "pass" by most people, I can't claim to suffer any persecution or discrimination due to these identities at all. So, I have always felt like a fraud either way. I'm not totally white but I'm not really Mexican. I'm not straight but I'm not gay either. It also hasn't helped that when I've tried to discuss this with some of my closest friends, they all have their personal opinion about what I "really" am.  Straight friends who insist I'm straight.  Gay friends who insist I'm gay.  Straight friends who insist I'm gay.  Gay friends who insist I'm straight.  So, it's just easiest to pass and let people assume what they assume; know what they know; get to know me, as is fitting to the relationship. Sometimes it comes up. Sometimes it doesn't. Easy-Peasy. 

But Mahatma Gandhi says: "silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly."

And I have always been haunted by MLK's words: "there comes a time when silence becomes betrayal."

I am a sexual abuse survivor and I stand with the victim in the Stanford rape case and all fellow-survivors, everywhere, always.

And I am a Queer woman and I don't stand with Orlando as an ally, I stand with Orlando as an accomplice.
A hateful gunman sentenced those victims to death.  Whatever their crime was is my crime too. 

I'll admit that I have been afraid to open this door. I have been afraid to be so clear and so obvious about who I am. I'll admit that I fear the repercussions of this declaration. I don't fear that I'll be in physical danger though perhaps I should be. I fear people's social reactions to me; consequences like being shunned or shut out of certain relationships. It's a risk. I am making sure my husband and my son are okay with this statement before I post it anywhere because I am also afraid for whatever consequences they might face from this (my daughter is just a bit too young to understand just yet). 

But this occasion demands that I speak the whole truth and I am much much more afraid of the world my children will inherit if more of us who feel these fears don't have the courage to speak up. And I shouldn't have to be afraid to say who I am. No one should. 

And there are those dear to me who have been keeping this secret for me (or whispering about it quietly behind my back-- haha) and they don't have to do that anymore. 
I'm here. I'm Queer. Get used to it. 
-The Q.P.
​
P.S. My husband has only one concern about me posting this. He wants you to understand that he is no longer a registered republican and was so only, as he says, "by default because I was a cop in the 80s & 90s." In the past fifteen years he has turned away from the dark side and found his inner-socialist, his inner-feminist, and his emotional intelligence. I think he should start a reform school for former political conservatives defecting to our rebel alliance.

So, if you’ve been too busy to worry or really pay attention to what I’m doing with this blog, let me recap. First, it was a way to heal myself with food, with the cooking that my mother taught me to do – or, at least, a healthier version of the cooking my mother taught me to do.  I healed by losing weight (AGAIN), I thought.  But this helped me grieve and heal from the loss of my mother but, as it turns out, the fat lady (pun VERY MUCH intended) is never gonna sing about that one – there will be no end to the grieving or the healing from THAT loss.  I suppose my acceptance of this is its own solace, to a degree.  Well, then… the blog was about triathlons, mermaids and fitness and becoming myself. Then, it was about losing my brothers, my father.  It was about other family stuff. Then, it was about finding my home.  Then, it was… well… it was about… nothing, really, I guess.  I’ve used this platform to spout off on my own, weird political/ social and spiritual ideals – you know… that we should love each other, and be kind to everyone, and embrace our differences, and embrace our experiences, and tell the right kind of stories. I’ve used this blog to speak for survivors.  I’ve used this blog to talk about shame.  I’ve used this blog to chronicle the mundane goings-on of my life, including my subsequent weight re-gain (AGAIN) and my hysterectomy and my penchant for buying cheap, used clothing. I’ve used this blog to talk about the/my addiction of compulsive overeating.  And, mostly, as you know, I’ve used this blog to write things that are way way way too long to be blog posts. 
 
And ultimately, I always come back to the idea that I just need to cut this baby’s cord and LET IT GO. “No one will care or even notice that your blog is gone, JodiAnn,” I tell myself, oh so kindly. Yet, I can’t give it up.  I love keeping this blog.  Keeping this blog is as good for me as swimming, as eating broccoli, as cuddling with my kids. Every single time I write in this blog, I feel healthier. I would love to write this blog every single day.  And, I think I’m supposed to.  I mean, that IS what a blogger is supposed to do – blog… frequently.  And, as you know, I don’t do that correctly either. 
 
Two years ago, I actually started a business called QueenPrincess Industries.  I can hear you laughing… stop that!  And I’m starting to feel a funneling, a bottle-necking, a focusing down in on not just what that “business” is but how it will serve the woman I have been becoming and the life I have been creating for myself these past several years.  I’ve just thought of this brief tagline/ description/ cool-thing-to-write-under-“QueenPrincess Industries”-that-might-explain-what-the-business-DOES:  “Fun Fitness Experiences for The Unapologetically Weird.”  One of the first “fun fitness experiences” I designed was The Mermaid Workout ™ for which I then built the business, “Mermaid Fitness ™” (which is a subsidiary of QueenPrincess Industries, because I’m basically a mogul).  Then, I created “MerKids ™.” And now I’ve got some pretty sweet other ideas for fun fitness experiences that I am not at liberty to reveal just yet. So, the “fun fitness” stuff is being dealt with.  What about the “unapologetically weird” part? 
 
And here I get to my point – so much sooner than I usually do, right? (I’m trying!): “ The QueenPrincess Says,” The Blog… IS the “unapologetically weird” part.  This is the place where I chronicle the unapologetic weirdness of both the QueenPrincess herself (moi) and everyone and everything that the QueenPrincess (that’s me, again) loves.  That’s it! That’s all! That’s everything!
 
I’m envisioning blog posts about my favorite unapologetically weird people. I’m envisioning blog posts about my unapologetically weird ideas, expectations, hopes, beliefs.  I’m envisioning blog posts about unapologetically weird movements. I’m envisioning blog posts about unapologetically weird modes of inspiration, of being, of coping, of healing, of getting up out of bed every day and continuing despite despite despite despite despite every damn thing that conspires to tell you to stay in bed, it’s not worth it, just keep sleeping. I’m envisioning blog posts about the unapologetic weirdness of being a woman over 40 who continues to WANT MORE in a world that tells women over 40, they better want NOTHING and LIKE IT. YA, I’m envisioning maybe several blog posts like that.
 
In other words, I’m envisioning that this blog will continue on almost exactly as it has.  But, perhaps with a SLIGHTLY more narrowed and focused focus, I will be able to write less each time and more often.  I don’t know.  Let’s see!
 
Be unapologetically weird (frequently and in under 1000 words), with love, Teamies,