A post from four years ago showed up in my Facebook Memories today. It still relevant and necessary, so I’m sharing it here:

Can I rant? Because I need to rant and I refuse to be the complacent, meek, well-mannered lady that some idiots expect me to be. Because when I feel violated, even if the violation seems small, I will still roar. I can be sweet and loving and compassionate and still fierce and strong and brave.

here’s what happened: after Zumba today at my gym, while I was naked and wet in the shower, a female janitor who spoke very little English told us that men were coming into the locker room. That was it, no more info.

Apparently the men — there were three of them — averted their eyes and did not look, nevermind the fact that there are mirrors everywhere. Apparently the manager – a man – asked some women who were fully clothed if it was okay for them to come in, and those women said yes. so why bother asking the naked women in the showers – there were many of us – if it’s okay to send three men into the locker room? Apparently they only went to check on the toilets. But hey, the toilets are in between the showers and the lockers, where our clean clothes were waiting. Apparently they just needed a few minutes, but no one told us how long it would be. how long we had to wait naked in the showers. apparently they hung a sign ten minutes before they went into the locker room — but I’m not an idiot, I can tell time, I know I entered the locker at 9:35 and the men were there before 9:45. That’s not ten minutes!

Was it rape? Was it assault? of course not. but it’s all the small little violations that make it easier for men to do the horrible things that still happen every day, every hour, every minute, to women all over the world.

And so what am I supposed to do? Join a less convenient gym? Or go back to this gym, in fear it will happen again? NO. I called corporate headquarters and I’m following up, and if this happens again, then I’ll decide what I’m doing next. because I should not feel scared away from the gym I love because a male manager does not get it. Does not get that this is my body, it is sacred, it is beautiful and I’m not rolling over and playing dead just because this is the way he has been inspecting lockers for years and no one has complained. i’m not taking his word on this. and even if no one has complained, that does not mean it is right.

Part of me is scared and, having complained to the manager, wants to avoid this gym because he won’t like me now. But you know what? I’m done with staying silent about little violations just to make sure some man in charge of my gym like me. I don’t care if he or anyone else likes me. You don’t get to trample over my right to privacy. And maybe this manager hates me now. Maybe he thinks I’m a pain in the ass because I called corporate hq and made a complaint. That’s fine. Why do I want him to like me anyway? I am braver than that. I will keep going to my gym, my favorite Zumba classes, and I will keep complaining if necessary, and I will roar even if the violation seems small, even if the male manager is ignorant as to what it means to be a woman, because though I may be sweet and loving, I am a fierce bad ass.

I get chills reading this. Go, me! What a bad ass. I feel inspired by Courtney From Four Years Ago to keep standing up for myself and being fierce. ROAR!

At the beginning of the year, I picked a bunch of 2021 projects, knowing that some would stick and others would not. One of those projects was The Great 2021 Blogging Experiment. I would try to blog every weekday of 2021 and see what happened.

From January 1, 2021 until March 20, 2021, I blogged every freaking weekday. I loved it.

This week, though, I dived into revisions for the third draft of my Room Mom Com. Blogging every weekday stopped feeling fun and started feeling forced, contrived, and stale. I felt guilty about this for a few days, and then I remembered: change is good and mysterious and magical. I started The Great 2021 Blogging Experiment and I have the authority to end it whenever I damn well want.

So that’s what I’m doing.

Breaking News

The Great 2021 Blogging Experiment has run it’s course. I am not going to blog every weekday simply for the sake of blogging every weekday when I feel called to do other work.

How often will I blog going forward? Beats the shit out of me! Maybe I’ll blog every other day. Maybe I’ll blog weekly. Maybe I’ll actually start sending a weekly newsletter and ditch blogging altogether. I will follow my intuition and see where it leads me.

1) Jen Sincero’s new book Badass Habits

2) Glorious California weather

3) Affirmations – I have embraced affirmations and I’m not turning back!

4) Daylight Savings

5) Reading A Series Of Unfortunate Events with Pippa (we are nearly done with the third book)

6) Expanding our vegetable garden for summer – hello, cherry tomatoes!

7) Eating lunch today INSIDE a restaurant with Pippa

8) Listening to Julian tell me all about salmon runs – the boy loves animals

9) Wireless headphones

10) Getting to see my 95 year old grandma on Sunday for the first time since before Thanksgiving

I have been doing a lot of work lately with my beliefs. I am taking inventory of my beliefs – the good, the bad, and the appallingly ugly. I am ushering out the ones that no longer serve me (goodbey, toxic beliefs inherited from the patriarchy!) and welcoming new radiant beliefs.

Here’s one belief I really want to embrace: I can improve myself and grow in my abilities if I put in the effort. This belief is called a “growth mindset.”

The opposite of a growth mindset is a “fixed mindset.” A person with a fixed mindset believes that she is born with set talents and no amount of effort will make them better.

I used to have a fixed mindset, but that belief no longer serves me. It holds me back from trying new things that I feel called to do. Also, it is just not true! I have seen, again and again, how I can improve myself and grow in my abilities when I put in the effort.

I put in the effort after I had postpartum depression and become a less anxious person.

I put in the effort when I wrote my memoir and learned how to write a book. Trust me, the first draft was really, really shitty. But I worked with an editor and learned how to transform the shitty draft into an actual book.

Now I am putting in the effort to change my relationship with food. Noom is helping me tremendously on that front. I have struggled with my weight for nearly thirty years. A fixed mindset tells me that I am doomed to be overweight for the rest of my life.

Fuck that.

I am embracing the growth mindset. I can change. I am changing. I am using my weight loss journey as an opportunity to learn how to love myself in the way the Universe wants me to love my sweet, glorious, magnificent self. So what if I have struggled for nearly thirty years? I know that with work and effort, I can change.

I started doing some work with my inner child last summer. I was inspired to do this work by Tiffany Roe, a therapist with a fun and inspiring Instagram feed. I wrote out long conversations with my inner child in my journal. Sometimes, I hung out with my five year old inner child. Other times, I talked with my high school self. The conversations were very therapeutic.

Then I got sidetracked with that whole distance learning thing and my curiosity led me in other directions.

But last week, I was at Target when I spotted a green Lucky Charms t-shirt. My inner child screamed, Yes! Get that shirt!

I got the shirt.

Then I spotted an enormous display of Lucky Charms at the grocery store. My inner child screamed, Let’s have Lucky Charms for breakfast on St. Patty’s Day!

My inner critic/judge/asshole said, No no no, Lucky Charms are too sugary. You can’t have that shit for breakfast. You are too fat anyway. You can’t eat that.

I considered the Lucky Charms display. Should I listen to my inner child or my inner critic/judge/asshole?

I put a box of Lucky Charms in my cart. They were my favorite “forbidden” cereal as a child. My mom bought Cheerios and Cornflakes. When I got to college, I felt absolutely giddy when I was able to buy my first box of Lucky Charms. But at the age of 42, I have learned from Noom that no food is forbidden. If my inner child wants Lucky Charms for breakfast, by god, that is what she gets! Today I had a big bowl of Lucky Charms for breakfast. My inner child was absolutely delighted.

I am going to try to pay better attention to my inner child this year. What does she want? What does she need? How does she want to play and have fun?

What does your inner child want and need from you?

Last week, I listened to the audiobook for Jen Sincero’s new book Badass Habits: Cultivate the Awareness, Boundaries, And Daily Upgrades You Need To Make Them Stick. The book includes a 21 day program to establish a new badass habit (or break up with a sucky habit like smoking). I ordered my physical copy of Badass Habits before I had even finished the audiobook because I knew I would be flipping through the book constantly while following the program.

Before I could start the Badass Habits program, I had to pick my new badass habit. At first, I thought, I want to get into the habit of eating frozen grapes at night for dessert instead of ice cream. This seemed like something I could do that would help me lose weight.

Except the habit of eating frozen grapes while eliminating ice cream from my life went against everything I have learned from Noom. If I make ice cream forbidden, then I am going to crave it more. And if I delay my craving, the ice cream is going to seem extra rewarding when I finally eat it (because trust me, I will eventually eat it). Then I’ll crave ice cream even more for that dopamine hit… and so the vicious cycle goes.

I do not want to eliminate any foods from my life because that is not sustainable. So I thought some more until I hit upon the perfect habit: I want to meet my daily Noom calorie budget.

When I meet my daily calorie budget, I lose weight – easily. I do not feel deprived or like I am suffering. I am able to enjoy treats like ice cream, cake and pie, and I do not go around hangry all the time. I also do not feel stuffed or gross from eating too much. Noom’s daily calorie budget is very realistic and doable for me.

But for the past few months, I have rarely met my daily calorie goal. I have logged my foods through dinner and then went into mindless eating mode after dinner. I also had a tendency to eat 500+ calories of afternoon snacks and not log any of those calories. I was not being honest with myself about the amount of food I was eating, and I knew I was lying to myself, but I also felt angry when the numbers on the scale refused to budge, which activated all sorts of shame and guilt gremlins, which made me eat more ice cream to numb the guilt and shame…

Before reading Badass Habits, I was thinking that maybe I should just be happy with weighing about 200 pounds in my 5’5″ frame. I felt called to lose weight, but maybe I was just being superficial. Shouldn’t I just love myself completely the way I am? But Sincero writes:

This habit you’ve chosen is going to become your obsession, your teacher, your muse for self-actualization.

Badass Habits, pg. 114.

My yearning to lose weight is not something superficial. It’s my soul’s way of leading me toward self-actualization. For me, losing weight will not simply be about numbers on the scale. It’s much bigger than that. It’s about my relationship with the world. It’s about my relationship with myself. It’s about self-actualization.

And that is pretty badass.

My second grader went to school in person.

My husband went to work at his office.

I got a massage.

Or a pedicure.

Went to Hot Yoga.

Took my ability to buy toilet paper for granted.

Visited a museum.

Bought groceries without a face covering.

And thought I knew what the next few years of my life looked like.

The first year of pandemic life was tough AF, but I am now more flexible and resilient. I am more comfortable with change and uncertainty. And I have so much gratitude for the fully stocked aisle of toilet paper at the grocery store!

I have been following the Noom program for over a year now. It’s been a bumpy ride. Shall I recap? Yes, let’s! And since I was a history major, I’ll even get fancy with a timeline. (You’re welcome!)

• Late February 2020: I joined Noom. I weighed about 209.5 pounds.
• I lost a couple of pounds
• March 2020: The shit hit the fan. #pandemic
• I had already signed up for Noom, so I figured I might as well stick with the program.
• March-July 2020: I lost twenty pounds! I was down to 189 pounds.
• August 2020: Pippa started distance learning. I felt some serious stress. I quit Noom. #burnout
• August-October 2020: I regained about fifteen of the pounds I had lost.
• Late October 2020: I rejoined Noom.

This morning, I weighed in at 204.6 pounds. I could look at that as a defeat. Woe is me, I’m only down five pounds since this time last year. But I am choosing to look at my current weight as a major victory.

I could have easily gained fifty pounds in 2020. Before Noom, I used food to manage my stress and numb my feelings. 2020 involved an ass shit ton of feelings and stress, and I did in fact often reach for food to feel better. But just as often, I did something else, like exercise, meditate, or text friends. I was far from perfect on the emotional eating front, but I did better in 2020 than I ever had in my adult life. That, my friends, is what I consider a victory.

I want to make some serious progress in 2021 on the health and fitness front. I want to stick to my calorie budgets and shed the excess weight already.

But first, I want to give myself a standing ovation,

take a bow,

and skate a victory lap for kicking some major ass in the Stress and Emotional Eating departments!

As I mentioned in this week’s podcast episode, I am currently working on my beliefs. I have a lot of shitty old beliefs that are keeping me from becoming my best self. I am ready for a system upgrade! I want beliefs that support my work to be a general bad ass.

In order to overhaul my beliefs, I have to actually identify the beliefs that I have been lugging around for most of my life. My beliefs have spent most of my life lurking in my subconscious, but I have found a few ways to lure them out of the darkness.

(1) I journal. I write, What are my beliefs? or What beliefs do I need to address? And then I wait. My inner voice then offers up a belief and I basically write the transcript for my inner voice.

(2) Second, I call up strong memories and journal about them. In Episode 23, I talked about the day in the second grade when my school principal, an Irish nun, called me and a few other kids to the front of class and announced that we were not getting communion. That was a shaming moment and the memory of it brings up intense feelings. It was a defining moment in my life. I didn’t realize it at the time – I was eight years old! – but that day, I internalized a belief about needing to fit in. I went home and sulked and begged until my parents agreed to let me take first communion. I was so happy! I fit in again. But now I am 42. Now I prefer being authentic over fitting in. Writing about the strong second grade memory helped me identify and release a shitty old belief.

(3) The Tarot also helps me identify my beliefs. I love using my Tarot deck as a tool for tapping into my intuition. I shuffle the deck, spread out the cards, and ask, What belief do I need to work on? Then I pick a card and start journaling about my immediate reaction to the card. For example, last Sunday I picked a card that depicted three men doing construction work on an interior that was part of a church. I immediately thought, I have to release my beliefs about the authority of old institutions. I have to start believing in myself.

I kept journaling about the Tarot card I had pulled. I realized that all my life, I have subconsciously believed in “the authorities” over my own judgment. That’s why I went to law school and practiced law for eight years. I wanted to please my parents, and I thought they preferred that over my call to be a writer. And more: I wanted to please society. Society had laid out a clear path to success. Who was I to dispute what society said I needed? But I want to believe in myself now. I don’t want to keep deferring to the authorities, whether they are my parents, the Catholic Church, my kids’ teachers, society, friends, social media, etc. etc.

(4) I am currently listening to not one but two of Jen Sincero’s books. I read a couple of her books years ago, before I had kids, and loved them. A couple of weeks ago, I started focusing on my beliefs as my next area of self-work. Around the same time, I got a strong longing to read Sincero’s books again. I downloaded one audiobook from the library and bought another on Audible. HOLY SHIT. She writes extensively about beliefs in the book I bought yesterday! Damn, I love when my muse tells me what book to read and it’s exactly the book I need for the work I am doing.

(5) I have been using the Noom app for nearly a year now and it has helped me address a lot of the beliefs I hold about food. My beliefs about foods have helped me discover some fundamental beliefs about myself.

Identifying my beliefs is going to take a lot of patience. After all, my beliefs have been hiding in the darkness of my subconscious for most of my life. But I can be patient. Now that I have found a few shitty beliefs, and felt the catharsis of letting them go, I want to replace all my shitty beliefs with new radiant beliefs help me become my best damn self.

This week, I’m talking about building new, radiant beliefs on the podcast. But first! I talked about busting out of my exercise rut and joining Obe Fitness. You can read all about that in this blog post.

And second! I mentioned I have been reading up on hygge (pronounced hoo-gah). The book I am loving is The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living by Meik Wiking.

Okay, now to the meat of the episode! (Or the tofu, if you’re vegetarian.) I have been working to identify my beliefs. Most of my beliefs are subconscious. But with journaling and reflection, I am discovering old beliefs that might have served me in the past but are now holding me back from being my best self.

I am working with these negative beliefs and consciously bidding them farewell. But now, I need to plant the seeds of new beliefs and nurture the shit out of them until I have a gorgeous lush forest of beliefs that are in line with my values. But how the hell do I do that? Figuring that out is my current work.

I am listening to the audiobook for Jen Sincero’s You Are A Badass Every Day: How to Keep Your Motivation Strong, Your Vibe High, and Your Quest for Transformation Unstoppable. I love Jen Sincero but it has been years since I read any of her books. Her work really resonates with me, and the audiobook is helping me lay down the new beliefs I need to believe in my awesomeness.

Sincero has inspired me to upgrade my “spiritual gym.” I am listening to Try Everything by Shakira everyday. Damn that song pumps me up. I have also written affirmations on sticky notes and hung them up around my desk.

And then, I bought myself this deck of affirmation cards.

It’s going to take a lot of work, but I can already feel my new beliefs taking root.

For my next episode, I should probably talk about what those beliefs actually are!