Sin Nombre

Aside from being a stunning directorial debut with incredible shots, beautiful lighting, and amazing scenery. . . this film is perhaps one of the most beautiful I've seen this year.

I want everyone to see it. I want everyone to know that during this film, my only feeling was to take these people home, give them my shower, a home cooked meal, clean clothes, and a comfortable, warm bed to sleep in.

I hope that American's can stop treating immigration like an 'issue' and start thinking about humans.

P.S. Never to eat dairy products again.

Two weekends ago I cheated my diet and had some cheesecake. Within a matter of hours there was a new zit on my chin.

On Saturday, I had some Creme Brule and got four new zits.

Monday I had a white chocolate chip and cranberry cookie - massive break out. 

My body feels different than it did before all of this. All over my body, my skin is more oily, and my bowels have been different too.

I can't have milk, or cheese, or cream of something soup or sauce because my body doesn't like it. It kind of bums me out. No milk chocolate, no sour cream, no yogurt, no ice cream, no butter. Fortunately there are about 10 billion products that are made of soy milk  and I happen to really like soy products. 

 The good thing though is that I finally understand the cause of my acne. I'm learning to be very assertive. I'm learning how not to give into every food craving. 

Rubbed Raw - and plans for Happiness is a Journey

There is a little bump inside my lower lip - it wont heal. Every time I forget about it, I eat something and bite the ever living shit out of it over and over again.

It reminds me of my emotional state. Most of the time I am such a cheerful and delighted person. Every once in a while, when I don't see it coming, this dark feeling jumps out from a hidden place and the wind is knocked out of me when I hit the ground beneath its weight.

I am gearing up to start my blog project. Happiness is a Journey is a writing project to continue my self discovery and growth. I want to learn what I can from the experts about the topics that impact my self-esteem. There are several goals that come along with it, but my intentions are to reach a better understanding of who I am, and to reach other women who feel similarly - I want them to know we arent' alone.

My goals are:

1. Establish a daily writing practice. Take Sallie's advice and instead of self-handicapping, start with goals that aren't going to stress me out. - I want to write for no less than half an hour every day (anything more is a bonus). I will start on Sunday May 3.
2. I want to really learn what I read and apply it to my life. This goal is why I want to read a small pile of books to supplement my blog project. There are several of them so I am recognizing the need to give myself a schedule, but also some flexibility. (books to start with: When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies by Jane R. Hirschmann, When Food is Love by Geneen Roth, and Mindfull Eating: Jan Chozen Bays)

The part that is still in its conceptual stages is how big I want this project to be and how exactly I want to put it into the blog. I want a disciplined writing practice and I have an idea of what my best processes are:

Free associate to get notes about my thoughts and feelings, use
them to narrow it down, create a draft, edit twice or three times and
publish.

I want this project to be beautifully written. I want to cite my research materials, any images I use, etc. I don't want it to be academic style essays or research papers because of the very, very personal subject matter - I want to focus on my feelings, remembered events, the research I've done, and my thoughts on the research. There are still a lot of things to decide on.

I want to be done before Burning Man (the first week of September), but I wont know until I have made a few more decisions if that's something I can really do. My summer will be busy and fun and a great deal of the motivation behind this project is to relieve myself of academic pressure. I think it will be more realistic to give myself until January.

The Critical Decisions

The amethyst I've worn for years, the one that belonged to my mother before me, fell out of the setting sometime after leaving Alchemy Coffee and sitting down on my living room floor on Wednesday night. This was after the intense therapy session where I realized that the real fear behind 'not being good enough' is about not being loved.

Amethyst is the stone for crown chakra, it brings enlightenment. When I realized the one I wear most often was gone, my emotions surprised me a little. I am unattached to that stone. If it turns up I'll be glad, but I believe that it was carrying around some serious intensity. I feel like that stone fell out of the setting for a reason, if it doesn't come back to me that will be ok too.

Now is time once again to make some pretty serious decisions about my life. I have put myself under so much pressure for so long and I'm feeling like I have direction, but it is no longer the direction I thought I was going. I want the degrees, but I don't feel incredibly urgent about it. I would rather spend some time practicing discipline, reading the books I've been sitting on for a while - Will I ever be Good Enough?, Mindful Eating, When Women Stop Hating their Bodies

One of my favorite English teachers, Mary-Jayne Davis, told me she offers a class called English 1900. It's a free-for-all, structured class in which I pick my own projects and she helps and consults and guides me through them. I didn't see the class online so I'll have to ask, but if I take any classes at all this summer, that will be the one.

My intentions when I created "Happiness is a Journey" was to become a better writer by setting up some parameters where there would be an audience. I've strayed away from it a little bit and considered deleting some of those entries, but I see no reason to do so because of my second intention: To be genuine with the people in my life. 

Very few people know this blog exists, and many of them are relatives who will remember me as the sweet little daughter of their eldest brother. A faithful church goer, a nurturer of the little cousins, smart for her age and sometimes very bratty. One of my fears is that when they learn that I don't believe in the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, they won't love me anymore. I'm afraid that they won't like the niece with the tattoos, who cusses like a sailor, loves a good glass of wine, and top shelf vodka. The niece who goes out dancing till all hours of the night, who experiments in psychedelics, and wants to learn about Tantric sex. I'm afraid they will judge me (which I know is insecurity speaking). I'm afraid they will worry about me and put me on temple prayer lists. I'm afraid that these things will break the hearts of my grandparents because it means I wont go to the heaven they believe. These feelings bring a lot of guilt. 

But I will not relocate my writing. I will not hide who I am. 

When Spring semester is over, I am going to begin a new project. I want "Happiness is a Journey" to be a raw, honest, vulnerable, and intense piece of artwork about my journey of self discovery. I want to learn to love food, love my body, and live my life believing in abundance instead of scarcity. I'm going to read, research, and write about body image. I'm going to have Sallie take photographs of my body and I am going to publish them here. 

I am a good and beautiful human being and I trust that my family will not love me any less for naked pictures on the internet. 

It breaks my heart

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Vegan Chocolate Cake

I found out in therapy today that I've been carrying around a belief that if I'm not self-sufficient, if I'm not totally independent people won't be proud of me, and if that's the case then I really am not good enough.

When Margo asked me what it means not to be good enough - the answer that came to mind dropped me to my knees -

No one will love me.

Have I really been walking around believing that I'm not good enough to be loved?

Dark and Twisty

I have an appointment to see Margo tomorrow after work. I don't know if I should tell her that roughly every third day, I eat an entire bag of potato chips in my car. Sometimes in one sitting, sometimes in two, or four . . . but never where I can be witnessed.

Amie says it's cute that I love my potato chips so much.
I think, at least I've decided I can't resist Kettle Chips - all the spices can be found in the grocery store and Kettle doesn't use hydrogenated oils.
Amie said that being observed would break the spell - I agree.
The weekend before last, she and I had make stuff day at home. I ate the chips in front of my friends. It felt good to be observed, but I still felt full of guilt and shame.

That's the thing - The chips seem like something that I'm doing to make myself feel better, but it doesn't work.

I stopped at the grocery store after work today to get some, and they didn't have what I wanted so I got something else. The need for exactly the ones I wanted lead me to a second grocery store on my way to a friend's card making class.

If I tell Margo about this, she's going to start asking questions and I will have to explain that my avoidance technique isn't working.

I don't want to be in school.
I feel like a total and utter failure.
I'm several assignments behind and not learning enough to feel comfortable taking the tests or giving the presentations.
I want to drop out of this semester all together.
I think I'm self sabotaging.here

I can't tell if this feeling like I'm a fraud, a fake, not actually intelligent, not actually a writer, not actually good at my job . . . is real. Or if I feel like I'm not good enough because yet again, I'm not committed.

There isn't enough time in my life for me. I want to write every day, I want to spend time with the people I love, I want to get a decent night's sleep every night. So do I feel all this guilt, and all this shame because I procrastinate? Or is it because the pressure I feel is real?