My Love Story with Rachael
Rachael’s lavish love and devotion has shown me I am worthy of so much love, grace and support.
Nobody Ever Died of Awkward: A Funny Flattering Script for Asking People Out
more hard conversations I know how important developing the skills to have those conversations is to creating a life worth living. A script makes that easier!
The Distinction Between Courtship and Dating
If there is one lesson I could teach the 27 year old Bevin that began this blog it’s the distinction between courtship and dating.
Vitamin I: Imagination
We are using our imaginations to come up with worst case scenarios when we worry. Simultaneously we are flooding our body with chemicals that harm our immune system and cause disease.
When I find myself worrying I like to antidote it by coming up with five good things that are possible. Training the brain against those tendencies to catastrophize.
Getting Out Ahead of Seasonal Depression
r SAD to give you now. Enhanced by my further studies living in Washington State so close to Canada I can see it on a clear day.
Five Ways I Shake Off Body Oppressive Rhetoric During the New Year’s Resolution Bandwagon
As I was preparing to leave Seattle I found myself really excited to go to the gym and drink green juice, smoothies and detox from sugar. And as I heard the same kind of “drink all the green juice!!!” and “get a new gym membership!!!” trumpets from the anti-fat mainstream media and billion dollar weight loss industry in conjunction with the new year’s resolution influx of people working to lose weight for the umpteenth time, I felt gross about it. Like, here I was wanting to participate in something that is also being used as weapons against bodies like mine.
I thought a lot about what was going on in my head about this stuff and how it was that I have herstorically dealt with the new year’s uptick in relentless weight loss commercials, before and after I began eating in alignment with my body and going to the gym. I came up with some ways that I’ve used to make sense of the complex and seemingly contradictory relationship I have with loving my fat body, hating the sizeist media and making choices that help my body feel its best.
Click here to read the whole article. Plus a few pictures from my holiday trip to Dollywood!
August Astrological Forecast and Self Development Worksheet with Empowering Astrology
I’ve written exercises working in conjunction with this month’s astrology to create self improvement with some celestial oomph. The activities include learning how to respond instead of react (good strategy no matter what’s happening in the stars), a full moon ritual about getting real with yourself, and incorporating health at every size into your new moon intentions.
To read the whole article, click here.
Six Strategies to Not Care When People Stare at You
A lot of folks do the long look to try to decide what’s going on with someone when they look unusual. And that’s way more noticeable when you’re not used to it. It feels weird. And when Dara started to notice it, she felt uncomfortable and insecure about it.
I surprised myself by rattling off a bunch of strategies she could use to get more comfortable with being conspicuous. So here, dear readers, is a cheat sheet for how to stop caring about what strangers think about you.
Click here to read the whole article.
Seven Strategies to Curb Anxiety
There are lots of ways to deal with anxiety, of course, but this is what has worked for me and what works for some of my pals.
1. Pay attention and course correct.
I treat feelings of anxiety and overwhelm as warning signs. They’re my own personal “check engine light,” some kind of acknowledgement my body, mind and/or spirit needs attention. If I’m having anxiety come up more often than usual than I know something is wrong and I need to do the work to assess what’s going on in my life and where the imbalance is. If I were on Car Talk and talking about running a diagnostic, I would do the things I know to do when I need to diagnose what’s going on with me. Journal, phone a trusted friend, stop and look at what’s going on in my life. In the January example, I knew what was going on–I had three friends and one of my cats pass away in a three week span in December on top of being primary caregiver for someone with cancer. Any one of those things is a lot! I needed to be gentle with myself and take care of myself.
Click here to read the whole article!
My Second Session of Relationship Coaching with the Lesbian Love Guru
My not-yet girlfriend and I had our second session of relationship coaching the week after we began. Christine suggested we continue our coaching separately. It’s counterintuitive to how I pictured this coaching would occur; I imagined we’d both be together on skype with Christine, but instead we each take thirty minute separate calls with her. Since we tend to be together when it happens, the other hangs out in the living room with music playing.
Being out of earshot enables real talk with Christine about what’s happening. Often if you explained a problem in your relationship to a third party, you would use really different language than if you were together. I find it a relief not to think about Dara’s feelings when I’m explaining something. I feel like I can get right to the solution without spending extra time sugar coating an issue.Click here to read the whole article.
How to Gracefully Survive Mercury Retrograde and February Worksheet with Empowering Astrology
Let’s talk nuts and bolts Mercury Retrograde. When I gave you all the heads up recently, there more than a little anxiety. I got a lot of nervous questions about signing things and starting this or that during the retrograde. So here’s my spiel:
* Life goes on during Mercury Retrograde. You just may have to retrace your steps.
* The retrograde is about review.
* Traditionally Mercury Retrograde is not a time to sign a contract, buy a car, or a computer — all Mercury ruled things. If you can wait to sign or make an important purchase or make an important decision, wait.
* My belief about Mercury Retrograde is that if you cannot afford to have something not work out, wait.
* Sometimes we don’t have the luxury of waiting till after the retrograde. If you must move forward with something, double and triple check the fine print. Be prepared to make adjustments once Mercury turns direct.
* Above all, don’t fear Mercury Retrograde. Fear is the lowest energy to create from and you are an aspect of the Creator made physical. Work with Mercury Retrograde. Go back to something that’s been on the back burner. Revise a manuscript. Try a different path. Meditate and reflect. Click here for more.
I Got Back Together with My Ex and Started Relationship Coaching with the Lesbian Love Guru
With the heady mix of old intimacy and new relationship energy, I suggested we might want to get relationship coaching. In fact, neither of us is willing to call each other “girlfriend” yet because we want to eliminate fears of slipping back into old communication patterns and the stuff that was so hard before. It hasn’t happened yet, we’ve done a great job of communicating through rough spots; often we just stop a conversation that feels like it could get sticky and awkwardly back out of it. But it could happen, and a professional might help us set the kind of foundation we never had before.
Enter Christine Dunn-Cunningham, the Lesbian Love Guru, who I met over the summer. I was thinking of working with her as a single person who wanted to open myself up to finding the future Mx. Branlandingham.