I have been slowly reading Warrior Goddess Training: Become The Woman You Are Meant To Be by Heatherash Amara. Ordinarily, I would have inhaled this book in a few sittings. But since the first shutdown last March, I am reading in slow motion. Partly, this is because my brain is worn out from 2020; and partly, because I just don’t have much time to sit down and read.

Yesterday, I read this passage in Warrior Goddess Training and it really hit home:

When steel is tempered, heat and pressure are used to strength the metal. When a butterfly first begins to emerge from its cocoon, it must struggle in order to strengthen its wings. If someone frees the butterfly from its cocoon prematurely, it will not be able to fly because its crucial tempering stage will not have occurred. In one experiment where an entire ecosystem was created within a protected bubble, the healthy trees fell unexpectedly. Researchers later realized that these trees needed wind in order to build their structural strength to stay upright.

Warrior Goddess Training, pg. 82.

The pandemic is hard. Distance learning is hard. But hard things help us build strength and resilience. Tough experiences strengthen our wings so we can fly.

I am trying to hold on to this idea as I continue onward. It’s not easy. It’s been nearly a year since Pippa’s school closed, and we have no idea when Pasadena schools will resume. When will we start hybrid? How long will hybrid last? And now there are rumors and rumblings about summer school. It’s just a lot of uncertainty, and I am weary. I am worn out.

I am a butterfly fighting to emerge from her cocoon. A bar of steel being tempered by heat and pressure. A tree being buffeted by winds to build my structural strength.

2020 was tough AF. So far, 2021 has been a steaming pile of crap.

But I am getting stronger. I am becoming more resilient. My wings are getting ready to fly.

I am holding on to these thoughts, but I am also allowing myself to feel weary and worn out. I am not superhuman. I might look back at this time someday and feel grateful for all the resilience and flexibility I developed. But that does not mean I have to enjoy these strange, tempering times.

Last week, I wrote about our biological imperative to EAT ALL THE FIGS because though it may be the 21st century, we have the same biology as our cave ancestors. Evolution is just too damn slow to keep pace with humanity!

Then I examined the reason diets fail. Most diets are based on willpower and self-control. They ignore our basic biological imperative to EAT ALL THE FIGS. These diets in turn fuel toxic beliefs about our self-worth, leading to shame. I don’t know about you, but when I feel shame about my body and weight, I just end up eating more food, which creates more shame, which leads to more mindless eating, in a vicious loop…

But what does all this mean? Am I doomed to be overweight forever? Hell no!

I’d like to introduce you to my friend neuroplasticity. (Try saying that three times fast!)

Neuroplasticity is our brain’s ability to lay down new neural pathways. Translation: our brain’s are incredibly flexible. Humans have a breathtaking capacity to grow and change.

Thanks to neuroplasticity, I can change my relationship with food. Lately, when I feel tempted by a sugary sweet, I hit the Pause button and think, I feel that cavewoman instinct to eat all the figs, but I’m a 21st century bad ass. I get to consciously and intentionally choose the foods I eat.

Believe it or not, this actually helps. I can feel the siren call of sweets slowly but surely fading. I can’t snap my fingers and change my cavewoman programming overnight. But with time and consistency, I think I can.

I’ve changed my brain before, most notably when I was recovering from postpartum depression in 2013. I had debilitating anxiety and worked with a psychologist to change my thought patterns. Through therapy and journaling, I rewired my brain. Now I am a much less anxious person.

Now I am using psychology to rewire my brain’s relationship with food. Instead of a psychologist, I am working with the Noom app. I do not want to call Noom a diet. Yes, it’s teaching me how to lose weight and includes food logging. But it’s also teaching me how to work with my feelings, set goals, and build social support.

Other diets commanded, “Eat this, not that,” and then just expected me to follow the rules. Those diets basically tossed me into shark-infested waters and shouted, “Good luck!” Not Noom. Noom is helping me build a toolkit for a lifetime of healthy eating. I can’t begin to distill it’s lessons into a single blog post!

Here’s the weird thing: I have not lost much weight since starting Noom, but I am still convinced this app is changing me for the better. I look back at the past twelve months, and I see incredible personal growth. I have a much healthier relationship with food and my body than I did twelve months ago. I still have plenty to learn (and plenty of weight to lose) but I am optimistic that I will with the tools Noom is giving me.

It’s not about will power or self control. That might work for some people, but it does not work for me. I felt a lot of shame about that in the past, but I am working to release that shame. I am working with Noom to rewire my cavewoman brain.

With a little psychology, I can upgrade my biology.

Have you ever looked around a waiting room to make sure no one was watching as you took a magazine quiz about your sexual prowess? Do you ever take the results of a personality quiz just a little too seriously? Have you ever kept changing your answers to an online quiz so you would not be placed in House Slytherin? If so, then this is the quiz for you! If not, who are you and why are you reading this blog post?

(1) It’s 2 a.m. and you just remembered that you forgot to help your third grader study for their spelling test…

a. Who needs spelling? Isn’t that why we have autocorrect?

b. Didn’t everyone else have their kids memorize the dictionary for some light intellectual stimulation during summer vacation?

c. Everybody up! Nobody sleeps until Junior has mastered the spelling list!

d. I will torch the city if my child’s teacher dares give him anything less than a 100% on a spelling quiz.

(2) It’s Back to School Night! On Zoom!

a. What’s Back to School Night?

b. I prepared a slideshow for the teacher’s presentation and a packet with helpful information and tips for the parents. I photocopied the packets at my own expense (it was just 87 pages per parent) and then hand delivered the packets to everyone’s home so we can all be on the same page.

c. What if the teacher hates me?! What if I ruin my kid’s life???

d. I polish my shotgun in plain view of my computer’s camera.

(3) The learning device issued by your child’s school malfunctions:

a. Far out. Beach day!

b. I own several backup devices for this sort of eventuality and seamlessly swap in a new device so that my child does not miss a nanosecond of distance learning.

c. Why me?! Why now?! Reboot! Reboot! It’s not rebooting! My child is never getting into Harvard now! I have ruined her life! Oh why won’t you reboot? For the love of all things holy, just reboot!!!

d. I shoot the device with my shotgun and then have my people deliver a message to the Superintendent.

(4) Your child is frustrated because it is hard to focus when the internet connection keeps kicking her out of Google Meets. You tell your child:

a. Let’s take the next month off of school. We can work on your bartending skills. Your martini is an embarrassment to the entire family.

b. My child is never frustrated because I have a PhD in developmental psychology.

c. I can’t! I can’t! I cannot process any more feelings! Too many feelings!

d. I send my minions to the internet provider and they sort things out.

(5) One of the kids in your child’s class constantly interrupts the teacher, harasses the other students, and hacks into Google Meets and screens some troubling clips from The Shining. You think:

a. I really like martinis.

b. I will organize a petition, galvanize the PTA, and snuff out this nonsense. I will also send some brochures for military school to the brat’s parents.

c. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, I have to call my therapist. Where’s my emergency chocolate?

d. That’s my kid! I could not be prouder.

(6) The Superintendent sends an email announcing that in-person instruction will not begin for at least another three months. You:

a. Rejoice! Three more months of reenacting episodes of The Floor Is Lava with my kids!

b. Experience a flutter of disappointment, quickly snuff it out, and plan the next six months of supplementary curriculum so my child is ready to skip at least one grade (two would be better) by the time this is over.

c. Curl up in the fetal position beneath the kitchen table and refuse to come out for the next 36 hours.

d. Look up the Superintendent’s home address.

(7) Mid-semester, your child’s school announces they are rolling out an exciting new learning platform:

a. Wait! Let me turn my body into a human bridge so you can crawl across me from the couch to the coffee table. Focus! The floor! Is! Lava!

b. I used my experience as a computer programmer to design the new learning platform. I will donate the royalties to charity.

c. What? Can they do that? I just figured out the old platform! My brain cannot handle a new one!

d. Someone is going to die.

(8) Your child’s report card indicates that she is struggling with math.

a. But just how important is subtraction?

b. That’s not possible. The principal better fix this immediately. Nothing will tarnish my child’s future!

c. I knew it. It’s my fault. She got the “bad at math” genes from me.

d. I am going to teach that so-called teacher a lesson about what it means to struggle.

(9) Your child’s school is distributing art supplies:

a. Far out! Let’s go get the art supplies! Has anyone seen my car keys? No? Nevermind. At least we tried.

b. I spearheaded the acquisition of art supplies and suggested a few projects based on my college internship at The Louvre.

c. We’re late! Our pickup slot was from 11:00-11:20 and it’s 11:21 and I can see the principal glaring at me.

d. We already got art supplies last month after a box fell off the back of a truck, if you know what I mean.

(10) Distance learning is finally over:

a. We might as well miss the rest of this school year and start fresh in November. What? School starts in August?

b. Now I can reclaim my destiny as PTA President and whip this school back into shape.

c. I swear, these are happy tears.

d. Retribution will be swift.

And the Results…

Mostly As, Jeff Spicoli. Your equanimity is impressive but also a bit alarming. It might be time to accept your parents’ offer to raise your kids.

Mostly Bs, Monica Geller. Calm down. You are making us all look bad. We do not need croquembouche at the bake sale.

Mostly Cs, Courtney Henning Novak. Calm down. Everyone is struggling. We all hate this.

Mostly Ds, Tony Soprano/Sauron. You are absolutely terrifying. Please don’t kill me.

If this quiz made you laugh, then you will want to check out my book, The Distance Learning Activity Book For Parents Just Barely Holding On To Their Last Shred of Sanity. It includes this quiz, plus lots of other snarky activities, like Distance Learning Merit Badges, Bingo, mascots, and more.

If you did not like this post, I’ve got nothing for you.

I started the year with a lot of goals and projects, knowing that at least a few would fall by the wayside. That’s part of my process. I like to take on more projects than I can possibly handle to see which ones actually stick.

Let’s take a look at what actually happened with my goals and projects during the first month of 2021:

Quitting Soda: Nailed it! I did not drink a single sip of soda in January. I barely have a craving for soda anymore, and when I do, my immediate reaction is, Blech, then I’d lose my streak. I love a good streak. I made trackers for my various goals at the beginning of the year, and filling in a heart bubble for every day I forego soda is very satisfying. Now that I have 31 hearts in a row, I want to see how much longer I can sustain the streak. My original thought was to allow myself one soda every week, but I think for me, quitting it completely works better.

Blog Every Weekday: I did! I enjoyed it and the more I blog, the more I want to keep doing it. Is blogging dead? Meh, don’t care. It’s a tool that is helping me do my inner work, so hell yes, I am going to continue blogging on weekdays.

Finish the Room Mom Novel I Started In November: I am making excellent progress with revisions and thoroughly enjoying this work. I worked on it twenty-five out of thirty-one days in January, which felt just right.

Learn French: I used Duolingo every single day. That streak is currently up to 635 days. The work of learning a new language feels good for my brain. It’s like a gym workout but without the sweat or men grunting obnoxiously.

Tap Dance: My goal is to tap dance at least 100 times in 2021. I tapped twice early in January. I would like to keep at this. This will be easier when both my kids actually go to school, but I do not want to wait for that. Sometimes it feels like Pippa is never going back. Actually, there are rumblings about going to hybrid in February, but I’ll believe that when it happens. Until then, I want to tap. I think I need to order myself a dvd with actual lessons to follow. That might be more satisfying than finding random YouTube tutorials.

Roller Skate: My goal is to roller skate 50 times in 2021. I roller skated once in January. It’s a start! But Pippa broke her nose, and I’m not going to skate again until her nose is healed. Solidarity. The poor kid misses being able to skate. It seems cruel to strap on my pink skates when she is stuck in the slow lane.

Play the Piano: My goal was to play the piano 100 times in 2021. I didn’t play at all. Meh, looks like this is a goal that does not want to stick. Mama has to sleep!

Post On Instagram Daily: Yes! I posted daily in January. I enjoyed it. I like this project.

Walk An Average of 12,000 Steps in 2021: I crunched the numbers and I averaged 12,874 steps in the month of January. Woot woot! My biggest day was January 9 with 19,300 steps. My smallest day was January 29 with 9,200 steps – which is still way better than what I used to average once upon a time before I got my Fitbit.

Do A Weekly Tarot Reading: Did this. Loved it. It’s a great tool for touching base with my intuition.

Read 100 Books For Myself: I’m on track here! I read 8 books for myself in January. Mostly audio books. I’ll write a separate post about this soon.

Do 25 “Big” Craft Projects: I finished two projects: (1) a crochet sweater for Pippa and (2) my first punch needle project. Very satisfying. I love crafting!

Try 100 New Recipes: I tried thirteen new recipes in January! It was fun and this project got me back into my cooking groove. I will do a separate post on this as well.

Go Down 100 Slides: I went down exactly zero slides. We just didn’t go to a lot of playgrounds. There was a heat wave, so the kids did tons of water play at home. Then there was rain, and then Pippa broke her nose. I still like the spirit of this project and I’m going to keep it on the back burner.

50 Different Places: I went to six new places in January: a beach; a walk along the Arroyo; a special compounding pharmacy for my testosterone prescription; the Arroyo Seco Racquet Club for Pippa’s tennis lessons (she made it to two lessons, and then broke her nose); the Emergency Room for said broken nose; and then a pediatric plastic surgeon who took a special look at the nose and confirmed it’s healing nicely on its own. In a non-pandemic world, I’d be going to museums and different parts of the city, but I am working with what I’ve got. I definitely feel better when I get to go somewhere different and having this project keeps me on the lookout for new outings.

French Braid My Hair 100 Times: I didn’t make a ton of progress here, but I did try (and fail spectacularly) twice and then I watched a helpful YouTube video. Then I felt like I injured my shoulder twisting my arm into weird shapes. But I will persevere! I will end this year knowing how to French braid my hair!

Exercise: In addition to my steps, I am doing stretching, cardio and strength training. I stretched every day but one in January (about twenty minutes each day). For cardio, I did the 3-2-1 method. During my walks, I walk at an easy pace for three minutes, a moderate pace for two minutes, and then super mega intense for one minute. I repeat this cycle five times for a total of 30 minutes. I did this type of cardio 15 times in January. Woot woot! I did strength training with my free weights and resistance bands 12 times. I am definitely doing better with exercise than I did this time last year, so go me.

Meditation: Using the Calm app, I meditated twenty-four times.

Journaling: I journaled 29 days. This practice is really the foundation of my mental health.

Noom: I continued using the Noom app in January and followed the program 28 out of 31 days. This program is fundamentally changing my relationship with food.

Activity Book: I want to make another activity book this year, but with the demands of distance learning, I just haven’t had the time — but the year is young! I am slowly gathering ideas for a snarky activity book about pregnancy. When I finish revisions on my room mom novel and send it to an editor, I’ll work on the pregnancy activity book.

Geography: I studied geography every day on my favorite app. I love it. I am getting a much better handle on the countries of the world.

Podcasting: My goals is to publish 25 new episodes this year. I’ve done one so far. Maybe I’ll have the time to do another this week? That would be nice. The first day Pippa starts hybrid school, I am racing home and recording a podcast episode.

Gardening: I started an herb garden with the kids and addressed a “situation” with a cat. (The “situation” being that the cat was pooping in my vegetable patch.) I am planning to add two raised beds to our garden for some bitching summer gardening.

Decluttering: I made some headway here. I cleared out my clothes closet and the kids’ clothes closet, dealt with a big mess of craft supplies, cleaned up the trunk of my car (it had become a pit of despair), tidied my desk and nightstand, and cleared out all the junk that had been stuck behind our poor piano. It’s actually very uplifting to write about this. There is still a lot to declutter but it’s cheering to see the progress I’ve made.

Photo Albums: I am YEARS behind on photo albums. I have nearly finished uploading our 2020 photos to Shutterfly. Then I’ll make that album and move on to 2019. It’s time traveling, sort of.

Monthly Family Photo: Oops, forgot about this. [blush]

One Second Everyday: I did this more days than not and I am slowly getting into the habit of taking a quick daily video to add to the collection. I enjoy it. It’s a fun family memory.

Newsletter: My goal is to send my newsletter 2x per month. I did not send it in January. Oh well. Here’s to February! (Or not…)

Balloon Animals: I set a fun goal to make 25 balloon animals in 2021. I bought some balloons but didn’t try this yet. I have to though, because the heroine in my Room Mom Novel knows how to make balloon animals. So I have to give this a try just so I know how to write about it.

Whew! Overall, my 2021 goals and projects have been a big success. They are helping me build and sustain momentum during these strange distance learning times. Projects make me happy, so I’m glad to have so many!

As I blogged about yesterday, I have a lot of shame about food, weight and diets. I feel a lot of shame because I am overweight and have spent most of my life “failing” at diets. But I am starting to challenge that shame.

Let’s revisit the dictionary definition of “shame” :

“the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another.”

Dictionary.com

I feel shame because I have failed at diets. But have I actually done anything dishonorable? Or improper? Or ridiculous? HELL NO.

This is how most diets work: (1) eat this, (2) don’t eat that, (3) follow our advice and you will lose weight. Sometimes, “eat this” is a type of food. Other times, it’s a certain number of calories or points. But all diets boil down to “Eat this, Not that, The End.”

I have tried a lot of diets. Some seemed reasonable. Some seemed crazy. But they were all built on a shaky myth of self-control. I had to have enough self-control to follow the rules and restrictions of the latest diet. If I had enough self-control, I would lose weight. If I did not have enough self-control, I would fail.

If I was good, I would lose weight. If I was bad, I would not.

Whether I failed or succeeded was on me. The diets were infallible. They trotted out their success stories with Before and After photos and promised that I would lose weight so long as I had the discipline to restrict carbs or stay within my points budget or only eat sweets on Saturdays. Then the diets would trot out some math or science to prove that eating a certain way would give me Super Cheetah Metabolism or would result in a calorie deficit. How could I argue with math and science? How could I argue with Before and After success stories?

Except popular diets only trot out selective math and selective science. In their books, pamphlets and commercials, they just show the math and science that makes them look good. Remember, diets have become an industry unto themselves. They want to sell you something. They are playing with our emotions to make money!

(Bastards.)

Popular diets are premised on the idea that if we follow their rules, we will lose weight. Therefore, if we do not lose weight, it’s because we were too weak to follow the rules. It’s not the diet’s fault that we are pathetic!

But as I talked about in this post, we are biologically programmed to EAT ALL THE SUGAR. We are denizens of the 21st century with the DNA of cave people. Our cave ancestors did not exercise self-control when they found a ripe fig tree, because that would have been counter-productive. They had to EAT ALL THE FIGS right away because by tomorrow, the baboons would have stripped the tree bare.

Self-control is no match against the ancient biological imperative to EAT ALL THE FIGS.

Diets fail, not because the dieter is weak, but because diets do not take into account our biological imperative to eat any and all sugar.

I have not failed at diets. The diets have failed me.

So let’s circle back to that definition of shame.

Have I done anything dishonorable? No, I have not. If anything, the diets have been dishonorable by leading me to believe that I could lose weight simply by following their advice. Their advice sucked. Their advice did not take my basic biology into account.

Have I done anything improper? Good Lord, no!

Have I done anything ridiculous? Absolutely not. Diets are pervasive. In the twenty-first century United States, we live in a pro-diet culture. Diets are seen as the solution to weight woes. I have not done anything ridiculous. I have just been very, very human.

The shame I feel in connection with food, diets and my weight arises from the belief that if I fail at diets, it’s because I am weak and pathetic.

I would like to take this opportunity to formally reject that belief. It’s a toxic belief and I am evicting it from my heart, mind and soul.

I am not weak or pathetic. I am awesome, powerful and fierce. I got misled by diet culture, but that’s okay. Millions and millions of people have been misled by diet culture. I’m in excellent company.

Diet culture has failed me, but am I doomed?

Hell, no! ! I’ll continue writing about this next week.

I have blogged about our biological imperative to EAT ALL THE SUGAR and the reasons that diets fail. Now I want to talk about shame.

I don’t know about you, but just the word “shame” makes me feel squirmy inside. I kind of want to hold down the Delete button and start a different, more pleasant post. Like I could tell you about the fish babies that recently hatched in our aquarium, or the amazing bread pudding I made yesterday, or the cute bird that has started frequenting the apple tree that I can see from my desk.

But I need to talk about shame.

Shame thrives on secrecy and silence. I know, from personal experience, that shame cannot last long if I writing and talk about it publicly. (Exhibit A, my memoir. Exhibit B, my first podcast.) I have a lot of shame wrapped up in food, my weight, body, and the ghosts of diets past. I am sick of carrying that shame around so here we go.

I am ashamed that I am overweight.

I am ashamed that I lose control and EAT ALL THE SUGAR.

I am ashamed that I lose weight and then regain it.

I am ashamed of my body.

I am ashamed of my food cravings.

I am ashamed about all the times I failed to stick to a diet.

I am ashamed that everyone else seems capable of losing weight except me.

I am ashamed about all my #dietfails.

I feel a sort of uncomfortable tingling in my head, neck and chest from writing those sentences. There’s some extra heat in my cheeks. My body is reacting physically to the idea of shame.

The dictionary defines “shame” as “the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another.”

But have I actually done anything wrong?

I don’t think so. I’ll write more about that tomorrow.

As I blogged about yesterday, I have the same biological instincts as my cavewoman ancestors. These instincts are embedded in my DNA. One of those instincts is: EAT ALL THE SUGAR.

Sugar was a valuable but limited source of calories before the agricultural revolution (and that revolution only happened 10,000 years ago). Our ancestors only got to eat sugar when trees were loaded with ripe fruit. That’s why, when they found a ripe fig tree, they ATE ALL THE FIGS. They did not hem and haw and feel guilty about wanting to eat the figs because they ate some berries yesterday and were planning to have a big mammoth burger for dinner. They needed calories; they saw figs; figs have calories; so they ATE ALL THE FIGS.

I still have this biological instinct to eat all the figs. And all the Snickers. And all the cake. My biological instincts do not discriminate between sugars, and my biological instincts do not care that I can go to the grocery store whenever I want and buy all the ingredients and treats my heart desires. My body is just programmed with a simple mandate to EAT ALL THE SUGAR. I have a lot of thoughts about this, but today, I want to write about diets.

I have done a lot of diets. Diets that count calories or points. Diets that restrict the types of foods I can eat. Diets that sell prepackaged meals or smoothies. I have been dieting since high school, and every time, I was convinced that at last, I had found the diet that would help me lose all the weight forever. And yet here I am, forty-two years old, 5’5″ and 200.8 pounds.

(Look, we can talk about self-love, self-esteem and beauty some other time. I know that I weigh too much for my body and that it’s not healthy for me. I want to lose the excess weight that is keeping me from being my healthiest self.)

For years and years, actually decades, I have felt like a failure because I could not keep off the weight. Lose the weight? Yes, I can lose weight. I’ve probably lost several hundred pounds by now. I am an expert at losing weight. But I’m also an expert at regaining the weight.

But as I think about my biological instincts to EAT ALL THE SUGAR, I am starting to realize that I am not the one who has failed. The diets have failed me.

I would have kicked ass as a cavewoman. I would have been very accomplished at finding and devouring all the ripe fruit within a ten mile radius of my cave. I would have thrown rocks at any baboons who tried to interfere with my sugar lust. I would have been the cavewoman who survived during times of drought and famine. My ancestors passed on some ass-kicking EAT ALL THE SUGAR genes. Thanks to them, I get to be alive today in the 21st century in Pasadena, California with all sorts of grocery stores and restaurants.

I would like to take this opportunity to send out a big THANK YOU to my ancestors who ATE ALL THE FIGS and wooly mammoth burgers.

All the diets I have tried failed to take into account that I have the biology of a cavewoman while being a denizen of the 21st century in an affluent city. Their rules and restrictions – don’t eat carbs; don’t eat more than 1,200 calories; don’t exceed your weekly points; only eat these smoothies for breakfast and lunch; don’t eat after 7 p.m. – completely ignore my biological instincts.

The basic underlying premise of all the diets I have sampled is this: if you have enough willpower and self-control to follow these rules, then you will lose weight.

So I have tried to follow the various rules. I have tried to use self-control to limit my calories and avoid carbs, etc. etc. And when I have failed to lose weight, or regained weight I already lost, I have felt like a pathetic piece of crap.

I, however, am not a piece of pathetic crap. I just happen to live in a country with a diet culture that completely ignores my biological instincts.

Diets fail because they expect willpower and self-control to be enough.

Diets fail because they ignore biological instincts.

Diets fail because they do not take into account that we are basically cave people programmed to eat ALL THE FIGS except now the fig trees have an infinite supply of figs.

I am not a failure. I am not weak or pathetic. I have just placed too much faith in diet culture. Now I need to learn how to live in a world with infinite figs.

I am slowly listening to the audiobook Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harris and damn, it is all kinds of fascinating. In fact, I really want to be listening to it RIGHT NOW but I have a window available for writing, so I am going to seize it while I can.

This is the thing I have learned from Sapiens that I really want to drill into my head: I am a cavewoman living in the 21st century.

Okay, okay, I am not actually living in a cave. (THANK GOD.) But from an evolutionary perspective, I am no different from my ancestors who shivered in caves 200,000 years ago. Humanity has come a long way since the days of wooly mammoths and saber tooth tigers, but evolution is slow. We have the same bodies, brains and biology as the Homo Sapiens who walked the earth many, many millennia ago.

The reason we now build skyscrapers and send people into space is not because of any evolutionary changes. It’s because of our magnificent imaginations.

But I’m not writing about humankind’s imagination today. I want to focus on my inner cavewoman.

In the not so distant past, our ancestors were hunter-gatherers. The agricultural revolution happened 10,000 years ago but Homo Sapiens first appeared at least 200,000 years ago. Math is not my super power, but even I can tell you that for most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers. Farming is a very, very new innovation.

As hunter-gatherers, we had to eat what was available. If a cavewoman walked past a ripe fig tree, she did not pluck off a single fig, savor it’s flavor, and plan to come back tomorrow. Tomorrow was too late. By tomorrow, the local baboons would have stripped the tree bare! No, if a cavewoman walked past a ripe fig tree, she went into feeding frenzy mode and ate as many figs as possible. Then she carried home as many as she could.

The cavewoman was biologically programmed to EAT ALL THE FIGS because the figs were rarely available. And we still carry in our DNA the biological imperative to EAT ALL THE FIGS because 200,000 years is barely a minute from an evolutionary perspective.

Now let’s imagine my inner cavewoman at the grocery store:

Shit is about to go down. My inner cavewoman is seconds away from ripping open packages and gobbling up cookies, candies, and just about anything with the scent of sugar. Then she is going to guzzle soda until she is sick. When security tries to stop her, she will go into Saber Tooth Mode until everyone flees the store. She will barricade herself inside and refuse to leave voluntarily until she has eaten All The Sugar.

But I don’t go into Saber Tooth Mode when I go to the grocery store. I am actually going to the grocery store this afternoon and I am 99.999999% confident that I”ll be able to stroll down the aisles without tearing open bags of sugary treats. I have an inner cavewoman but she does not completely control me.

Yet she does heavily influence my relationship with food. I’ll write more about that tomorrow…

Have you heard about the 100 Day Project? It is a free, global art project where participants challenge themselves to do a creative project every day for 100 days in a row and share their process online. The next round starts January 31, 2021 and I am going to do it!

I attempted the 100 Day Project once, a few years ago, with a project to make art involving fish for 100 days. I cannot remember why I thought that was a good idea… The idea fizzled quickly so I decided to switch gears completely and declutter every day. But that fizzled as well.

Still, I am intrigued by the idea of working on a creative project for 100 days in a row and sharing my process online. I just did NaNoWriMo in November 2020 and that was a tremendous success. I finished the first draft of a novel in early December and I am currently deep into revisions. I love these sorts of projects and the 100 Day Project feels like something I should do.

I could write something for 100 days, but that does not feel right for me. I already have an ongoing writing practice. I want to use the 100 days to jumpstart a completely different creative practice.

Over on Pinterest and Instagram, I have been swooning over punch needle crafts. I love the fiber arts. I already knit, crochet, cross stitch, embroider and weave — and damn, that’s probably enough hobbies in the fiber arts arena for one busy stay at home mom who is also writing a novel, right? But no, my heart aches to do punch needle.

After pinning scores of punch needle projects, I finally bought myself this kit and gave it a try. It was love at first punch. That was early January.

With about an hour of punch needling another my belt, my intuition started to ping. This, this, this.

This is your 100 Day Project.

This! This! This!

I resisted, but my intuition persisted.

This! Punch needling! Do this for 100 days!

I have resisted my intuition many, many times but magic always happens when I cave in and honor my intuition. (Exhibit A, my memoir. Exhibit B, my activity book. Exhibit C, my podcast.) So I have decided to stop resisting and embrace 100 Days of Playful Punch Needling for my 2021 #100DayProject.

I am nervous I simply do not have the time to do this. I am still in the throes of distance learning with my second grader, and that just sucks up ridiculous amounts of time. And I’m revising a novel. And trying to blog every weekday. And exercising. And I could keep going, but hell, I just need to spend ten minutes a day on this project. If the day is really that crazy, I can punch needle for one minute and that’s enough.

I might not have the time to do this, but I also think I don’t have the time to NOT do this. My intuition is hollering, and I have to listen. I don’t know what I am going to learn from this endeavor, but I won’t know until I try.

#100DaysofPlayfulPunchNeedle

Yesterday Pippa broke her nose. Today, we had this conversation.

Me: Pippa, do you want some pain killers?

Pippa: No! [Then, suspiciously…} Why?

Me: [slowly] Because you broke your nose.

Pippa: [in her “parents can be such idiots” voice] That was yesterday.

I should have known not to ask. She did not receive any pain killers at the ER. Less than two hours after breaking her freaking nose, she was laughing and smiling. On the way home from the hospital, we got milkshakes. I called my mom while waiting in the car. Pippa happily reported the story of her injury. Not even three hours after breaking her nose, she was seeing the humor in the situation.

I keep forgetting how resilient kids are. I do not have to lecture them about resilience. They were born with it. Instead, I have to make sure I stay out of their way and not damage their resilience! I have to teach myself resilience so I do not model bad habits or toxic beliefs to them.

In my kids, I see how naturally resilient humans are. We used to live in caves for crap’s sake and deal with saber tooth tigers. Am I really going to let a little distance learning knock me on my ass? Well, maybe distance learning will knock me on my ass, but I want to get back up, again and again, and keep going. I don’t want to be bruised and battered by distance learning and sulk in a corner, licking my wounds. I want to be a bad ass like my daughter and recover from adversity quickly.

Did she break her nose? Yeah, but that was yesterday.