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Lessons Learned from Inventing Anna
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been watching the Netflix series, Inventing Anna. If you haven’t seen the series yourself, it’s about a young woman faking her way to the height of New York’s elite as a German heiress. She spends A LOT of money that is not hers to spend. She stays at a series of beautiful New York City hotels, never actually paying for her room while having all meals and services added to her room. There’s more to the story, but I’ll let you binge the series if you’d like. As I was pouring my coffee this morning, it occurred to me that many of the stories we tell ourselves could be just as fake as the lies Anna told. There are moments I catch myself comparing my life to the imagined life of another and I have to ask myself, “do I know that story to be the truth?” Sure, there are women I follow on social media whose stories I consume daily. But, for as many days as I’ve clicked on their profile picture to peer into their lives, I’m only getting a portion of their truth. My eyes see the portion of their lives…
Sixty Minutes and a Little White Pill
Seven years. It’s been seven years since I sat on that cushioned table, giving voice to the thoughts that had, so far, only existed in my head. That day changed the trajectory of my life. The doctor was kind and matter of fact. I was trying to hold myself together, speaking with as much confidence as I could, even though I knew my voice was quivering. She turned her computer screen to face me and I saw the little dot in the red zone. The little dot was supposed to be me. The red zone indicated severe anxiety. That’s where I lived my life until that point – in the land of severe anxiety. I left the clinic that day with a prescription in hand and hope for the future. Life got better after that. The last six weeks of my life felt a whole lot like those days before the clinic visit. Once again, I found myself sitting on my bed thinking, “something is wrong with me”. Once again, I suffered from panic attacks. Once again, anxiety was dominating my life. After seven years on medication, I paid another visit to the doctor this week to review the prescription….
Get Your Booty in the Chair
“This is shit.” Ah, yes, the pain point of the creative process. The moment you want to lay your head down on the table, simultaneously acknowledging the feeble attempt at producing something worth reading and the garbage that actually came out. It’s the frustrating agony of willing quality words to move through your fingertips but struggling to find the actual words to do so. It’s the moment you’re reminded of all those romanticized ideas you had about the craft, all the scenes of Carrie beautifully writing while gazing out her window in Sex and the City, all the holiday movies about writers moving into country homes for the season to write exactly once in the entire movie, or the evenings you’ve spent sitting among the books at a bookstore attempting to absorb the brilliance of other writers through sheer osmosis. Or is that just me? I’m not a published author (not yet at least), but I’m confident in one truth I’ve learned in years of blogging and writing: writing is hard. Those words at the beginning of this piece were the exact words bouncing around my brain as I looked at my most recent work. It took all the strength…
Top 5 Reads of 2021
Before 2021, I had one habit (one story in mind, really) that caused a good amount of shame. It might surprise you to learn exactly what it was…. Finishing a book. Outside of an academic setting, I rarely read a book in its entirety. For whatever reason, books would sit next to my bed, or atop a living room table, or in my backpack, or simply on a shelf for months. The bookmark was always about 50 pages in, the dust would accumulate and I’d forget what was even happening in the book when the interest would, finally, pique to read a book. Back to the beginning, I’d go, starting the cycle all over again. The story played on repeat for longer than I’d like to admit. At the beginning of 2021, I decided it would be the year I finished a book. At the beginning of 2022, I’m thrilled to say I did it! I made my way through books that I found intimidating in size, explored authors with lived experiences different from mine, and found the genre I love the most. Not surprisingly, I love psychological thrillers; particularly those involving murder. As we launch into a new year,…
For the Hard Days
It was the day you woke up asking God, “What’s wrong with me?” It was the moment the thoughts were overwhelming so you crawled into bed and cried yourself to sleep. It was the morning you spent trying to figure out why the panic was there at the same time you had to calm yourself. It was the day you googled “what is wrong with me?” It was the journal entry that made you realize even talking about the shame would leave you feeling shameful, so you decided to keep it to yourself. It was the thought “someone has it worse than me, I should be grateful” playing on repeat. Maybe it was the day that made you feel like even leaving bed was too much to ask. Those moments, those heavy days, they’re really hard. I know, I’ve been there. It feels like you’re lifting the weight of your entire life, feeling the decades stack upon each other as the future grows darker. You think to yourself, “I can’t keep going like this. If the rest is going to be this hard, I can’t keep going like this. I need help.” I wish I could make you see how…
Breaking Up is the Hardest Part
“I would have dumped you if you ever said that to me.” Those were the exact words I said when asked, “what would you have done if I ever said to you the things you say to yourself?” My response echoed in my head as my Husband continued to prove his point. “I would have dumped him,” I thought. “If he said any of the things I say to myself, I would have dumped him”. It was the next question I asked myself that felt like a personal breakthrough. “If I would have ended the relationship with him for treating me like this, why do I allow myself to treat me like this? Why do I allow these thoughts to play on repeat, and believe them like an absolute? I would never say these things to a friend and I would not allow them to be said to me. So, why, why do I treat myself worse than any other relationship I hold dear? Ouch. That one hurt. It was a breakthrough as I’d never taken a look at it that way, but it never feels good to know that the most painful relationship I really have… is with myself….
The HB Brew Sesh
My creative mindset changed in one hour this week. I’ve been following the work and career of author, Hannah Brencher, for years. Throughout the last decade, I’ve read her Monday emails, purchased her books, stalked her social media, and talked about how amazing she is on my social media. I’ve been a super-fan if you will. Her words and courage to share her journey has inspired me throughout my evolution as a writer and, yesterday, I got to sit down with her for more than an hour to simply, talk. As the minutes ticked down and my time with her approached, I couldn’t decide if I was more nervous or excited. I mean, I was about to talk one on one with the, Hannah Brencher! The nervous sweats started as I poured my first cup of coffee. I could hardly sit still as the zoom room opened and, suddenly, there she was.I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve had multiple opportunities in my life to meet some of the people I’ve adored from a distance. America Ferrera, Nobel Peace Laureates, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, Debra Messing, Meg Ryan, Erin Gruwell, Annette Bening, and more. After meeting them all and feeling…
She doesn’t need a savior
Whenever I talk about my passion for working with young women on releasing perfectionism, there’s one response I hear that has a way of crawling under my skin. “Oh that is so needed,” people say. The tone they use to deliver the sentence makes it sound like I’m a hero stepping up to rescue young women. “Oh that is so needed…” the subtext being young women are constantly at risk of some type of peril. Over and over I hear it, and over and over I say “yes, it is” because I have nothing better with which to respond. How do you respond to someone implying there’s a fire constantly burning and you’re the one coming along with a bucket to try to calm it? You’d think I would have come up with a better response after a decade in this work, but, alas, I have not. Something about it is always irksome to me. What they’re saying, is they’re aware young women are suffering and they’re happy to hear someone is doing something about it. They know being a woman in a society determined to make them second-class citizens is really freaking hard. They know the early decades of life, spanning anywhere…
Heart Sinking, Hurt Growing
She’s staring back at me. A pretty face, short brown hair, white skin with pink splotches painted across her face. Her eyes are a soft blue set above bold cheek bones and a sharp jawline. When I look at her, I see the scar from the surgery on her lip in middle school and the contacts laying atop her cornea. I see the weight of…. something, I’m not sure what, but I see it laying on her shoulders. She looks tired. She looks sad and tired and disappointed. She’s waiting for me to give her clear direction, to tell her what to do. She’s staring back at me, waiting for the words, but I’m not sure what to say. So, if that girl staring at me was my best friend, what would I say to her? I use a question similar to that frequently in calls with my clients. What would I say to dry the tears welling in her eyes? What wisdom can I give her to help release the weight on her shoulders?. I look at her, offer a soft but welcoming smile, and ask her the question. She responds, “I’d tell her to take a breath and…
A little less of “her” for a whole lot more ME!
I just sat down to write and set my timer for 15 minutes. I’m not entirely sure what message will unfold, but I know there’s something to be written in this time. I want writing to be a bigger part of my life, so I’m being intentional about creating time to simply put fingers on keys. I’m sitting at my new dining room table, writing. Just for the hell of it. Just for the word count. Just so I can look myself in the mirror and be proud of myself. Fact: I’ve fallen into a cycle of hoping things will happen without a plan to make them happen. Tyler reminds me of this pretty consistently when he has to be my shoulder to cry on when I’m feeling disappointed. I am not good and not doing. I am always thinking of a goal, always thinking of that vision of the life I want to live… and I always find myself feeling guilty or disappointed when another week has flown by and I haven’t taken even a little time to bring me closer to my own vision. At some point recently, I got tired of feeling guilty. I got tired of…
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