All posts tagged: Personal Growth

Taylor Swift Predicted Her Own Future When She Wrote “The Lucky One” in 2012

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If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to Instagram it, does it make a sound? – Taylor Swift, Oct. 2108 A handful of summers back, I found myself on a boat on a large river in northern Idaho. As we motored along the water, someone pointed to a large brown home that sat at the water’s edge with pastures and a beautiful barn. The home had a breathtaking steeple roof, divided by large glass slats—you can just imagine the warmth of the sun streaming into the living space. “Shania Twain lived there.” The pre-teen ghost of my past squealed in my heart, though my exterior just casually said, “oh cool.” But seriously…the Shania Twain? I have no idea if that home ever belonged to Shania Twain (something tells me no). But, over the years, I continually think of that spot along the river in quiet Idaho when I listen to Taylor Swift’s song “The Lucky One.” For those a bit unfamiliar with Shania Twain’s story: she was a huge. massive. …

Wait, is this a tension headache? WHY

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As a lifelong holder of the”maybe you could chill the fuck out a bit” badge I know a thing or two about headaches. I had them on an almost daily basis as a child until one day a dentist looked at my teeth and was like “hey, where are your canine teeth?” (*spoiler alert: I’d ground them away in my sleep like a hobo chewing on roots in the woods trying to talk to birds*). Since then I’ve slept with a mouth guard every night of my life even while camping, even with boyfriends, even while making out sometimes cuz nothing says sexy like excessive saliva. The headaches got better and even though I still get them more frequently than I’d like, they are manageable. But something has happened in the past few weeks. I’ve welcomed a new melody to my catalog of headaches. At first I thought it was the usual, good-old-fashioned almost-migraine headache. But something was different. It was like I was wearing an invisible baseball hat. Made for babies. Baby ants. My scalp …

Breaking Habits We Don’t Even Know We Have

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In my suggested readings section of this site I mention the book “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg. I read this book for the first time in the fall of 2014 and I am still a believer. The gist of this book is: change one habit, change your life. But what if we aren’t even aware of some of our habits? Shit, man, what then? After I first read “The Power of Habit” I literally only changed one habit from my days and by God it worked! For years I had a small novel bouncing around in my head, but hadn’t gotten around to writing it. So the one habit I changed was how I spent my lunch break at work. Instead of dicking around on the internet or wandering around the office kitchen I would grab my laptop the minute I clocked out, go to the next door coffee shop, and write for an hour. Every.single.day. And I eventually wrote the little book. I think of this anytime I feel helpless in life. It’s not always …

Why You Should Meet that Online Crush in Person Sooner Rather than Later

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I was supposed to be working on my writing exercise. After telling myself I was going to attend a local writers Meetup for over a year I finally dragged myself out into the world and did it. I was at a neighborhood coffee shop, surrounded by eight other women writers from Seattle, and we were doing a 10 minute character exercise. Except I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t concentrate because there was a first date at the table next to me. And they’d clearly met online. And it was clearly uncomfortable for both of them. To be perfectly honest, I could sit and listen to first dates all day long if I could. I love those first moments of sheer terror, of hope, of uncertainty, of wonder and fear. One of my first serious, head-over-heels crushes was with a man I met online. Or, we were introduced online by a mutual friend and started exchanging emails. And lemme tell you, hot shit was he dreamy and witty and perfect.  And for the first time in my life …

Collecting Those Relationship Blueprints

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It would be so nice if in third grade we all sat down, opened our Relationship Textbooks, and started learning a set of skills. But, unfortunately, that shit doesn’t happen. In childhood we aren’t all taught the skills necessary to build solid, strong relationships. For the majority of us we learn how to “relationship” by what we see and observe in the relationships around us. I know, personally, that my anxiety often rattles around in my brain with negative thoughts. My skull is a gumball machine, my negative thoughts are hideously moldy gumballs, and they love to try and accumulate. Over the years I have spent way too much time thinking about all the things I “should” be doing better or that I “could” have done differently. I have spent a lot of time fixating on what “might” go wrong in the near future/distant future/hypothetical futures. And when it comes to my intimate relationships and the years I spent trying to enter into the dating world I spent a hell of a lot of time hating myself and my …