Must Love Crows

Personal Growth. Self-Compassion. Writing Consulting.

health and wellness

Clarity on Freethinking

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There’s something revolutionary I’ve learned over the past couple years, and that is that an emotional reaction is not freethinking.

It’s insanely important for us to understand the need to separate our feelings from our actions. For example, I can say I’m freethinking, while ALSO being racist and void of empathy.

I can speak my mind, and attempt to house my inclination to do so under the umbrella of freethinking while ALSO ignoring the motivations for why I feel the need to speak my mind.

We get angry, annoyed, and frustrated with self-anointed freethinkers.

Case in point, a certain musical artist lighting up the digital sphere with words that appear to be so void of empathy, it’s mind-boggling.

A lot of people are pissed off, but I see his actions as a chance to access clarity. Not in regard to what he’s trying to say (Dude doesn’t need any more microphones right now) but in relation to figuring out what is underneath the disturbing, alt-right support he feels the need to lambaste the world with.

Clarity on freethinking is realizing that every action or word void of empathy is coming from a human being who is in pain.

This brand of self-sanctified freethinker doesn’t want you to think they are in pain. It’s not manly, powerful, popular, or societally accepted to show the vortex of fear that’s running his show. So out comes the justification responses:

“You just aren’t used to freethinkers like me.”

The wild and freeing thing is that People love Truth. They connect with it. It inspires them. So if a person in a public position like this dude is, dared to do the work to figure out where his drive to speak was coming from and then spoke to that, there would be many more open hearts than closed ones.

Hell, he might even be able to open up the seemingly permanently closed ones – that’s how powerful connection is. 

To be human is to accept that you are capable of being kind and lovely and compassionate, while also accepting that you are equally capable of being an ego-maniacal asshole in the midst of feelings that are difficult to process.

This means that none of us are immune to being assholes. We’ve ALL got it in us to be jerks. 

Now, we can look at the existence of a human being who feels the need to speak from that reactionary locale and call it freethinking as someone to fight against.

Or, we can recognize the little kid within that’s trying to play manager via statements like “I’m a freethinker!” and ask from a place of empathy, (because we all have experience with pain driving us to say and do fucked up things,) “What kind of pain is this kid harboring that is fuelling his need to say these deeply disturbing and damaging things?”

This opens the door to an excellent space of time to put our habit of making assumptions to use.

We can hypothesize about how the circumstances of his life might have steered him to act without concern over consequence, and label it as freethinking. 

These assumptions could be used as fuel to establish generosity in the face of a perceived generosity drought. Because we all need a little help in that department when someone is being an asshole. Generosity is tough to access when hate is easily accessible. 

So then the question or dare becomes: when someone is being an asshole, are you willing to take the hard road? Are you willing to accept that we are all capable of being assholes, given the right emotional parameters?

And are you willing to see how connection and compassion, even for the ones we are driven to hate, provides the power to heal?

The Business of Being Kind To Yourself When You Feel Terrible

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When you feel crappy, you might instantly get worried and wonder, “Is this terrible feeling mine to own? Is it here to stay, forever?”

I used to go that way about any and every feeling that was tough to sit with. Insta-crap (you know what I’m talking about, the “my life is perfect, #blessed” only accounts) has given feeling anything other than happy and grateful a shitty label, serving up the dysfunctional belief that if we are not happy and grateful all the time, then there’s something innately wrong with us.

In reality, having a bad day is part of the human experience.

When we take ourselves on a jaunt down “I’m a bad person for feeling bad” lane, we suffer more, and so do the people around us.

Everyone has bad days. So enough with the “no bad days” bumper stickers already, Mmm-kay?

We have to have hope. That is, we need to put our hope eggs in the “this too shall pass” basket, instead of the “the fact that I feel shitty means there is something really wrong with me” bin.

I want us to get in the business of being kind to ourselves, and being kind looks like us acknowledging that bullying ourselves for feeling terrible is unproductive.

Take some logic to the self-bullying, and ask:

“Am I human?”

“Is it normal to have days where not happy when you’re human?”

In case it isn’t clear, the answer to both questions is yes. Now, if you’re feeling unhappy every single day of your life, that’s a different story – one that I’ll be discussing in my upcoming book (yes I’m writing a book – sign up for my newsletter for updates.)

But overall, being kind to yourself means not discriminating when it comes to your feelings. It looks like you, allowing yourself to feel the full spectrum of emotions, not just the ones you prefer.

Being kind to yourself means allowing yourself to be human.

I talk more about this subject in my One Minute Meditation guide. Sign up for my newsletter below and I’ll send you access.

Why I’m So Damn Tired

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I’m tired, Y’all.

I’m tired of seeing and hearing women embrace the patriarchy, and shit on and minimize other women.

I’m tired of witnessing women refuse to do the work required to see the truth below their lack of empathy: that they don’t like or trust themselves.

If you’re a woman, and you feel the need to slap hurtful generalizations onto other women, you’ve got some work to do.

And I feel for you, babe. It’s not easy work. But being awful to your fellow females is gonna make things even harder for you in the long haul.

‘Cause, it feels so shitty to be mean – just awful.

To be clear, when someone acts shitty, it’s not the human being that’s awful, it’s their behavior.

It’s much more humane to separate the human being from their actions – This opens the door to forgiveness, which opens the door to connection.  

I’m tired of doing the empath/narcissist dance, too – Lord grant me the strength in that department. 

I don’t want to be better than anyone else. I just wanna get clear on how to not enable behavior that attempts to minimize other people’s feelings, without having my soul sucked dry in the process.

I’m tired of feeling like I have to fight for what’s right, but hyper-aware that it’s what I need to do at times.

I’m tired of feeling uncomfortable, but cognizant of how prevalent discomfort is in the growth equation.

What I really want is for things to be easier for everyone. And I want things to be easy because I occasionally subscribe to the greatest indoctrinated falsity: that life can somehow be easy.

Now, to my dearest full moon, the biggest and most powerful one of the year:

You are making me tired. I love you girl, but I just can’t wait until you leave town.

Seriously. The last week or so has been madness. Absolute emotional madness.

See you all in a few days, on the other side of all of this very human frustration/confusion.

xo

A

 

Dressing Room Deficiencies

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More often than not, I eat to heal my body and mind. Though as the “more often” suggests, it’s not always the case.

I have a very human inclination to want to look good. Diagnosed with anorexia in my late teens, I am mindful, if not a bit concerned at times, of my steady concern over what I’m eating.

But the sprinkles on that learned, need-to-be-in-control-of-everything cupcake (mmmm cupcakes) is that these days I recognize and value the difference between eating to be healthy and eating to look a certain way.

Today, weight loss isn’t the primary focus. Rather, it’s a welcome side effect of committing to healing my body through the foods I eat.

And I gotta say, it’s been incredibly freeing, to stop worrying about how much cardio I need to do to work off a burger, to stop being scared to eat a piece of fruit, and to retire the tendency to worry about getting enough protein at every meal. (We don’t need that much.)

As a result of eating healthy, my waist size is what it was in my early 20s. The difference being that I got there through a desire to be well, not a low-carb-based obsession with looking a certain way.

For me, age has brought wisdom and self-love, which is a welcome departure from self-loathing and feeling insufficient at every turn. It’s helped me put my health first.

Unfortunately, the garment industry hasn’t followed suit.

Imagine, if you will, late 30-something me, attempting to find jean shorts.

I love jean shorts. They are my go-to summer attire. Presently, none of my old pairs fit me, and sadly I didn’t save any from my early 20s (which is a good thing and of benefit to society.)

So I’m on the hunt for shorts. You know, something that doesn’t show off my goods (no one needs to see your hoo-hoo ladies) but doesn’t cover up too much, because I’m not a nun either. I want to feel the elements on my gams. 

A few dressing rooms in, and I’ve squeezed myself into a large sampling of ill-fitting pairs. I’m talking gaping at the waist so you can see my goods shorts, with thighs squished in like sausage casings. Super attractive stuff, said no one, ever.

I start laughing because this is some funny shit. I mean seriously, how inadequate can these inadequately designed shorts be? And what’s more, I’m at one of the most popular stores around when it comes to price point and selection. How are none of their shorts made for regular folk, aka, women who know that thigh gaps are a sign of malnutrition?

“If these shorts could talk,” I think to myself, “They’d say, “How dare you try me on. Stop assaulting me with your bratwursts. I was made for supermodels.”

I peel them off and laugh at my butt, which is on full display. That’s how tight those suckers were over my legs and hips: they fully undressed me without even asking.

30 seconds later someone abruptly pulls back the curtain on the dressing room. I laugh again because really, why not?

This whole interaction with those shitty jean shorts is profound because for 20-ish years I would leave dressing rooms like this and get busy shaming myself.

I’d turn poorly designed products that don’t consider the end user one fucking iota into a personal deficiency. Maybe you can relate.

I’d commit to eating less. I’d ruminate on the need to stop adding a splash of juice to my vodka soda’s (that’s how much I believed sugar was the devil AND how committed I was to getting wasted.) Then I’d run through everything I ate in the previous week and chastise myself for any and all digressions from my no-sugar, no-carb high protein diet.

BARF.

I would determine the existence of a deficiency, internalize it, and brand my psyche with the words, “You aren’t good enough – You suck.” All because of an overpriced pair of jean shorts that were designed with only one body type in mind.

It’s REALLY important that we take the time to witness these small blips of insanity for what they are: totally insane.

We were taught to seek out deficiencies and live within them, full-time. But living within, for, and by these falsities only serves to help other people prosper financially.

Living outside of limiting deficiencies helps YOU prosper, on every level.

SIDE NOTE: when you prosper, the entire world prospers. THAT’s how powerful you really are. 

Dressing rooms can be a source of deep-rooted, psyche-disrupting trauma, but they can also be a source of hilarity.

It’s so undeniably absurd what people try to sell us as acceptable, and we need to take the time to acknowledge the ridiculousness of it all, rather than taking ownership of it.

So the next time you’re feeling shitty about not fitting into something, acknowledge the insanity of an industry designed to make you feel inadequate.

Then, picture me, trying to stuff my thighs into a ridiculously designed pair of jean shorts, and realize you’re not alone.

🖤

A

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Cultivating One Sided Kindness: It’s Possible

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I believe…in our ability to be kind even when someone isn’t kind to us.

Said another way:

I believe we can cultivate one-sided kindness.

I didn’t always believe this. I used to be trigger happy when it came to showing people what was up when I sensed a millimeter of fuckery being directed my way. I was addicted to the rush, and the subsequent high, of demanding respect from people who didn’t want to give it to me.

Until I started to see the correlation between stepping back from being a just under 5’3” fire hydrant of aggression and being happy (I have always felt the need to be very specific about that “just under” part. 😂)

I still feel the pull to react. It will always be there because it’s the result of my life experiences.

Defensiveness and vulnerability: I learned that.

But in reconnecting with the soul living below the layers of fear I’ve learned that strong emotions don’t need to be acted on. They can be given time to be felt without letting them screw up my sense of calm.

I don’t always get this right. I still feel slighted by people on occasion, and I still get pissed off, particularly amongst excessively unsupportive, contempt carrying people. It takes a bit of work to shake off interactions with folks like that.

But I’ve learned in recent years that much of the time people aren’t intentionally screwing us over – they’re just not thinking about us at all.

It’s the memories of betrayal that attempt to command us to take their lack of empathy personally.

So, varying degrees of supposed disrespect may actually be someone being incapable of thinking about how something might affect you. It undeniably sucks, but I know from experience that coming at someone like an emotional battering ram isn’t going to make them respect you or act the way you want them to act.

You can’t bully someone into being empathetic.

You’ll never get people to act exactly how you want them to act. But if you act last – that is, after you pause and allow yourself to process strong emotions – the whole scene will end in a less traumatic fashion than it will if you fly in with your emotional guns blazing.

🖤

A

Why Sleeping In Separate Beds Saved My Marriage

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If you’d told me a few years ago that I wouldn’t be sleeping in the same bed as my husband anymore, I’d have panicked and assumed my marriage had fallen apart.

But today I celebrate it because I know it saved our marriage.

My hubby and I shared a bed for years and it proved to be an excellent contempt builder. He’d do flips in lieu of rolling over onto his side. It was the worst. Let me tell you, it’s VERY hard to look at someone with love in the morning when they woke you up/scared the shit out of you for 8 hours straight.

I was no angel myself. I was constantly on the move, trying to find a comfortable position, lambasting my guy with sleep-induced martial arts in the process. I was also notorious for yelling obscenities in my sleep. 😬 Suffice to say I probably deserved a restraining order, but instead received regular “Good Mornings” through gritted teeth.

I’m happy to report that these days things are way more copacetic between us, and I’m less sleep ragey thanks to therapy. I’m also happy to be finally sleeping in separate rooms because our sleeping arrangements were taking a major toll on our mental and physical health.

Once I got realistic about the factors that were contributing to our problems (see below), it became clear that there was no way around it: we had to sleep in separate beds.

  1. The hubster is 6 foot 3, and + or – 200 lbs (depending on the season) and takes up a lot of space and blankets.
  2. I have always found it very hard to sleep next to someone. This has been going on since childhood, and being married wasn’t going to make it go away all of a sudden.
  3. We have an intense emotional connection. When one of us is struggling to sleep the other one picks up on it. We notice this even when we sleep in different rooms. 
  4. I experience chronic body pain and move a lot throughout the night. It’s better for me to sleep solo, so as to not disturb others, or be disturbed myself when I finally am getting some Zs.

A solid inventory of excuses, yet still, it took me a really long time to warm up to the idea of separate bedrooms.

I was white-knuckled to the idea that it meant our marriage might be doomed. When my girlfriend told me about all the looks of pity she received from her co-workers when they found out that’s the way her and her hubby roll, I made immediate assumptions, “Maybe it does mean there is something wrong with her marriage, and she’s just hiding it,” I thought.

But there was no denying the fact that I was totally fucking miserable and she seemed content with her choice – happy, even.

I also found it extremely fascinating how I, and so many other people I knew, appeared to take such issue with where a married person chose to sleep, in their own house.

Why did it have to be synonymous with marriage problems, I wondered, after perusing my 4 legit-as-hell reasons for the hubby and I parting ways at bedtime.

So I started to chip away at my beliefs about what a healthy marriage entailed. I started to question my dust-laden, less-than-ideal ideas and their ability to support my relationship and wellness goals.

And when I started to entertain the truth –  that I get to define what is healthy for me and my relationship –  it made changing my slumber locale that much easier.

Disengaging with the need to uphold dysfunctional societal norms, and realizing the importance of separating my physical self from my hubby when it comes down to the holy grail of health and wellness – a good nights sleep – is what made our marriage work.

We were less annoyed with each other, and we were happy to see each other in the mornings. Totally foreign concepts until we decided to pull the plug on co-sleeping.

This situation further reiterated what I know without a shadow of a doubt: Self-care is about setting your own rules.

People might have opinions about what you’re doing and make aged assumptions, but the truth remains:  Life get’s really exciting when you realize you get to decide what works and what doesn’t work – for you! 

If you’ve labeled something “bad” that could actually bring you a lot of happiness, you can choose to take another look at it and put it in the “good” category.

You will likely need to do just that because there are so many old school beliefs that are totally useless. The only thing they contribute to is us being miserable, yet we keep believing them because it’s what everyone else is doing, and we are afraid to step outside the norm.

But guess what exists outside the norm? Exceptional stuff. I’m talking about self-esteem, self-acceptance, and self-love: the stuff we all dream about, yet will never tap into if we keep doing things the way “they” say we should do ’em.

You might be worried about what other people might think like I was for a spell. And you might be worried about what might happen if you don’t follow the norm. But here’s the deal on all that noise:

You need to get comfortable with other people being uncomfortable with your choices, and you need to get used to challenging the beliefs you hold that are causing you to suffer.  

We ALL need to get used to defining our own wellness standards and reworking the stuff that ain’t cutting it anymore.

Redefining our personal standards for wellness is what self-care is all about.

That being said, I challenge you to take a look at something you’re doing that’s not making you happy but you’re continuing to do out of fear of how it might be perceived by others.

Something you think you might get some pushback on via assumptions or looks of pity (barf right?) but YOU KNOW it could bring some serious peace and joy into your life if you did it anyway.

Right now, I want you to forget about what the neighbors, your parents, your co-workers or your friends might think, and just do it.

Right now. Or, at bedtime. 😳

Heads up: if you were a subscriber to my newsletter this content would look familiar because I jacked it from a recent email I sent out. And you’d have a book recommendation from me.

PLUS: you’d be on the list to get a free copy of my One Minute Meditation Guide when it’s ready to go. 

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