Authentic Threads

Oper­a­tion Have-a-Festive-Holiday is going pretty well.

Cre­ative Com­mons License photo credit: Lau­ren Manning

I’ve nearly com­pleted my Christ­mas let­ter which has turned into 6 pages that I ‘m not plan­ning to send to anyone.

I had a hard time as I started my Christ­mas let­ter. I was reminded that I didn’t accom­plish any of my big goals, and that my sweet­est lit­tle buddy, Milosz, died this year.

I was pretty sad about my past year until two things happened:

1. I cried and cried about Milosz and then I asked myself what I needed. I decided that I needed to imag­ine him being with me and I needed to honor him. I imag­ined hold­ing him and hear­ing his purr and his sweet lit­tle face look­ing at mine. And I wrote three pages about him in my Christ­mas let­ter. My lit­tle love, Milosz.


Cre­ative Com­mons License photo credit: Gdpaule

2. In the past month I’ve run into a lot of advice about accept­ing myself as I am right now. And this past cou­ple of days, I’ve come across even more which I needed as a reminder. I think that I often have an under­cur­rent of self-criticism going on that I’m not even aware of.  Fac­ing the end of this year and com­par­ing where I think I should be with where I am brought it out in the open in a flood of self-recrimination and regret.

It has been amaz­ing to hap­pen upon so much advice about accept­ing and lov­ing myself all at the same time. I take it as a sign.

• Brene Brown writes that accept­ing your­self and all your imper­fec­tions is the only way to live a whole-hearted life.
• The Mondo Beyondo girls are join­ing with Brene Brown to explore the gifts of imperfection.
• In Get­ting Past Ok, Brodie advises com­pletely accept­ing your­self where you are as a first step to any improvement.


Cre­ative Com­mons License photo credit: Angélique ~

• In my EBT con­fer­ence call, my provider said that I was “split­ting” by judg­ing where I’m at in life, and said I couldn’t be any­where else than where I’m at. Instead of judg­ing myself for being where I’m at, she advised encour­ag­ing myself every step of the way. She said that nur­tur­ing comes before limit setting.
• Madly in Love with Me is a cel­e­bra­tion about self-love.
• The 40 Day Inner Mean Girl Cleanse pro­vides inspi­ra­tional con­ver­sa­tions with peo­ple who give tips on how to stop your inner mean girl from run­ning your life, and how to switch on your inner wis­dom and know that you are already enough.