I’m a bigger girl, and I’ve had a complicated relationship with my weight and what I wear for a long time. But the healing work I’ve been doing is helping me feel closer to myself than I ever have. Yesterday, I was dancing in a tank top, looking at my reflection, and felt the urge to lift it into a crop top. I did...and it felt amazing. I was excited to go out with my friends and my boyfriend dressed that way. But before he even knew that’s what I wanted, I put a tee shirt on over it. He had put on dress pants, which felt funny because lately I’ve often been the one dressing up in a dress. We joked about the irony, and I showed him the tank top underneath. I said, “Well, this is how I really want to go.” He laughed and said people might make fun of me. I laughed too and wondered out loud what they might say. Later, we talked more seriously. He said he’d feel the need to step in if someone was rude, and asked me to consider how that might affect him too. I heard him...and I also noticed that I’d covered up before he even knew I was considering going out that way. I’d felt good in what I was wearing, then changed before anyone else had a chance to react. I’m still sitting with that. Was I protecting myself? Avoiding someone else’s discomfort? And how do I make room for my own choice without turning it into a reaction? One thing I know: I want to buy a bunch of crop tops now, even though the weather is about to get cold. 😂 That may be the rebel in me talking...but I also love the feeling of not hiding. Maybe I’ll wear one tomorrow. Maybe I’ll take my time. Either way, I want the choice to come from being connected to myself. Where do you notice yourself wanting to express more of who you are...and what helps you tell the difference between a choice that feels true and a reaction to pressure?

what is the best way to stop thinking negative thoughts?

History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us.

I’m starting to realize that a lot of this work is less about thinking and more about doing. I can understand mindfulness. I can understand my patterns. I can understand why my brain reacts the way it does. But at some point, I actually have to practice having a different relationship with what’s happening in my head. Because my mind is going to think. It’s going to judge sometimes. It’s going to replay things. It’s going to predict what might happen. It’s going to throw up alarm bells when something feels familiar. I don’t think the goal is to make all of that disappear. I think part of the practice is getting comfortable letting my mind think in the background without automatically attaching myself to everything it says. And THAT takes repetition. Especially when my brain is sounding an alarm and my body is reacting like something needs my immediate attention. Instead of trying to think my way out of it, I’m practicing noticing: There’s the thought. There’s the emotion. There’s what I’m feeling in my body. There might even be something here that I need. But then there’s another piece I’m learning to leave room for: What am I choosing to do with it? The thought can exist without becoming a whole story. The feeling can exist without becoming something I have to fix immediately. My body can give me information without every sensation automatically meaning something is wrong. I can let all of those things be part of the conversation without handing any one of them the steering wheel. And I think that’s where repetition matters so much. The alarm goes off. I notice it. I don’t have to fight it. I don’t have to follow it. I stay here. And little by little, I’m giving myself a different experience. Maybe the practice isn’t getting my mind to finally be quiet. Maybe it’s realizing it can make all the noise it needs to in the background… and I can still choose what I attach myself to. 🌱

You don't.. AND never did