This is the tenth and last in a series of things that have helped me, I believe in, or people have asked me to share. Basically, things I do or think or whatever that have helped me be a better person, activist and positive fat lady. Check out  Step 1,  Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5, Step 6, Step 7,Step 8 and Step 9.

Step 10: Share!

This is perhaps  the best and most fun step of this series: sharing! Woo hoo! I mean, sharing is fun, dude. I love to bake simply because I then get to share my goodies with my friends and family. Sharing can be hard, too. I mean, I still have a difficult time sharing certain things about myself with strangers or acquaintances. Y’all know I am far from afraid of TMI topics, but I mean simple things like my fat blog and activism…I hide behind the words I use and this makes me sad. I should be proud of what I do and I am, usually…but it’s hard sometimes! But let’s break this down, shall we?

Share yourself with others. You can take this in any direction you like. Share your whole self! Don’t hold back! You’re already being brutally honest with yourself and others and you stopped giving a damn what other people think…so go for it! I firmly believe that one of the greatest parts of existing, and how we can grow as  a society, is simply to share what we know and love with others. Human connection! Why else exist? To keep all of your wisdom and experiences to yourself? No thanks. It feels good to share, too!

Share what you know and what you’ve experienced! Ever feel like you’re the only one to have X happen to you? Or are the only one to have X problem? You don’t know if you don’t share! I didn’t know that I had hidradenitis suppurativa until I saw other gals sharing their experiences and talking about what it’s like to live with HS. Had they not shared this, I would have continued to feel like a freak! And sharing my story of abuse survival with you all here has allowed me to gain a new perspective on what I’ve been through and have been touched by so many other abuse survivors who have reached out to me as well. No, I think sharing is the best part of being human…well, sex is good, too! Ha-ha! That’s sharing, too, though!

When you keep things to yourself, positive or negative, it weighs you down. You feel burdened or guilty or shameful. That’s  bullshit because you’re awesome and even if you have a terrible problem, we can’t always figure these things out on our own, ya know? SHARE! Share with a friend or relative or me! But do share. I know that I often need a sounding board to work through things, even minor things. I love it when I have the right person to talk things out with, it can even sound like I’m talking to myself, but I need that other person’s reactions and thoughts and opinions and experiences to push me to my own creative solution or idea. I can’t be alone in that…can I?! (See?! Sharing!!!)

You may be thinking, “Well, no one ever shared with me. I work too hard for what I have. Why the fuck should I share?!” That is precisely why you should share! Share BECAUSE no one shared with you. Share because you can! Share because it feels good and it looks good on ya! Start off small if it scares you. Talk to strangers at bus stops and check out lines. Share your thoughts on baby hedgehogs and rooster art! Just share and share alike and watch as others feel the positive impact of your sharing and pay it forward in their own special way. It’s magnificent!

Share your creative endeavors! Share your skills! Share your talents and abilities! Don’t let fear or worry hold you back…you’re too awesome for that! Share a hug and share the love and share your cupcakes and carrots and puppy-love and kitty snuggles! Share it! Share a smile, a wink, a nod, a factoid, a bit of good news or share your story with a trusted friend or the world. Sharing will lift a burden from you and help you see things in a new way. Perspective you cannot buy, sharing is free and it can get you just that.

In a time where sharing is considered socialism, and somehow that’s a dirty word, why not be a radical bastard and share the fuck out of everything you see fit?! Share your time with a neighbor or old folks home. Share your dinner leftovers, too! Share your rarely-worn clothing with a fellow fatty and spread the rad fatty love all over the damn place! Sharing is like the best drug, you try it once and you’re hooked and next thing you know you wanna share it with all of your friends so they can get high on sharing, too! Just please be mindful and try not to share too many germs…wash your hands people. Ha-ha!

Share what you have learned from Fat Liberation/Acceptance/Pride! Share your thoughts and feelings about it! Share your feelings on diet talk when the subject comes up. Most people only know the societal norm and would never come across our radical ideas and movement. Share this amazing self-love lifestyle! Let people know that they don’t have to go through life hating themselves, they are worth more than that and so are you! Let them know that it IS a choice once you realize it.

Share the steps of this series. Share what makes you happy! Share what works for you to keep you sane or healthy or feeling more like  your authentic self. Share not because it’s “that time of year” *groan* but because you just want to! Share what has given you strength when you didn’t think you had it. Share what you’ve been through and stop keeping secrets that are a source of pain or shame. Be brave! Because I know you can do it and I know how it can impact other people. It can only lead to good, folks. It’s so very worth it and so are you!

“Ideas should be worth spreading. There is no delight in owning anything unshared.” ~Seneca

Have you tried any of the steps? I would love to hear from you! In fact, I would love some guest posts with your thoughts/experiences/pics/etc from the series. Please hit me up! notblueatall at notblueatall dot com

You can “Like” this blog on Facebook for additional content, articles, random thoughts, outfit pictures and more.

This is the sixth in a series of things that have helped me, I believe in, or people have asked me to share. Basically, things I do or think or whatever that have helped me be a better person, activist and positive fat lady. Check out  Step 1,  Step 2, Step 3, Step 4 and Step 5.

Step 6: Take Lots Of Pictures

One thing I realized while recently going through old photos was that there are very few pictures of me between the ages of 14 and 19. You see, I was in an abusive relationship. I had my once vibrant and endless self-esteem taken from me by an older man who took more than just that. For five years I was hidden away from the world and my friends and even my family. I had no joyful times or travels or anything other than misery to possibly capture on film. The few times I did snap some pics were mostly of still life/nature things. I have no idea what I looked like or how a camera would have captured my misery, or not, during this time. It seems once I escaped the clutches of abuse, the camera was once again an often present companion seeking out new adventures and friends and things. I also realized that there are very few pictures of my little brother and sister after my mom left.

Pictures are a funny thing. We love to look at our parents old pictures and laugh at their hairstyles or fashion choices. We love to see our grandparents wedding photos and sigh and swoon at the old timey romance of it all. Baby pictures are typical fare and are a great conversation starter for family gatherings; everyone saying the infant in question looks like old so and so. Then you reach whatever age it is that self-consciousness feels like knives in your face and you don’t want your picture taken or for anyone to see photos from your past, either. And if you were fat before or during this “whatever age” then it can be all the more painful to see or remember.

The thing is though, pictures are bookmarks in time. That Smurf top from Kindergarten? My fave! Oh how I wish they could make that exact top with the peter pan collar and key hole tie in front in my size now! I loved that shirt so much. It may have been the first and last item of white clothing I’ve owned. Ha-ha! And I know that at that age I wasn’t yet concerned about the giant gap in my front teeth. This was before the bullying and the abuse, before mom left. Before I cared what anyone thought of me. I was terrified of adults that weren’t my parents at the time, but kids? I loved them all and instantly made friends, if even for an hour, on the playground of the local parks. Without that picture of my five-year-old self in front of the kindergarten playground in my Smurf top I might not remember all of those details.

And some of you  may recall my post about a picture I’d found from when I was about 15 or 16. It still surprises me what others see in photos of me. There was a picture of me looking very odd and sort of out of it and a friend’s boyfriend at the time said I looked super hot in that picture. I thought it looked like someone else entirely. Perception is a funny thing. And it changes so much over time. And this is why I ask you all to take more photos! You may not enjoy or appreciate them now, but you will, I promise! I can look at that photo from back when and see the innocence I’d once had. And to look back and actually think, “Wow, I don’t know what that boys’ problem was, I was fucking hot!!!” it’s fun and nice. I think about how far I’ve come since then I have to step back and breathe for a minute. It’s just astounding!

If you’re reading this, you’ve already decided for yourself that there is a better and healthier way to live your life than the bullshit self-hate/diet cycle. You’ve already realized that you’re better than that. You’re on your own journey toward self-acceptance or perhaps you’ve been on your journey for some time now and all of this is old hat. Either way, take more pictures! You don’t have to share them online if you’re not ready, but it is quite fun/exciting/liberating sometimes. No one says you have to take nudie shots or whatever. I’m more talking about capturing moments in time anyway. But whatever you do, just do it for you. Do it for the future you and your future relatives and whatnot, because someone will enjoy them!

I highly recommend practicing taking pictures on your own first. It is how I learned what angle/face/etc looks best or works best for me. I even went out of my way on occasion to take the worst pics ever so as to not repeat later on and to see just how “bad” they could be. This way you also control who has access to those pics and wether or not you’d like to keep or delete them. Gotta love digital cameras! Now I don’t shy away from the camera anymore. In fact, I don’t even shy away from the video camera! I recorded a video of my friends and I singing the other night and I am enjoying the editing process simply because my inner critic seems to be on permanent vacation! I love it!

So, invite some friends over, have a few drinks, bust out the camera and see what happens! It sounds like a super fun time and you should totally invite me over, too! Ha-ha! Seriously though, once you get passed all of the body hate we place upon ourselves, often unwittingly, you can start to appreciate and have fun with this stuff. Try different angles or candid shots or action shots. There is nothing I like to see more than fat-in-action shots! Which, hey, I need to take some of those! Put up a fun/funny background and do silly portraits or corny poses. Wear matching scarves or something and have a blast! Once you start, if you allow yourself some judgment free head space and time, I know you will start to enjoy it, too.

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I hope you are ready to experiment, not just with taking pictures, but of trying the other steps in this series. Have you been liking this latest series of posts? Have you tried any of the steps? I would love to hear from you! In fact, I would love some guest posts with your thoughts/experiences/pics/etc from the series.
Please hit me up! notblueatall at notblueatall dot com

You can “Like” this blog on Facebook for additional content, articles, random thoughts, outfit pictures and more.

This is the fourth in a series of things that have helped me, I believe in, or people have asked me to share. Basically, things I do or think or whatever that have helped me be a better person, activist and positive fat lady. Check out  Step 1,  Step 2, and Step 3

Step 4: Be Honest, Even When It Scares Them/You

This one is tricky for a few reasons, but I have been pushing myself more and more to be utterly and completely honest and it has proven to be surprisingly awesome! My only rule with this one is to never be rude. You can be honest without offending, you just have to be tactful and occasionally more creative in your vocabulary. Ha-ha!

There is something very powerful and empowering about being completely honest.You often hear people saying how “real” someone is and how they admire that about that person. You’ll hear someone talking about being “your most authentic self” and how liberating that is. I have heard this stuff over and over but it wasn’t until I stopped lying all together that it became invaluable to me. My world views have shifted and I see and think more clearly now, I think. I often give advice to friends on a variety of matters, but lately I have been pushing them to be more honest than they have ever been before. And guess what? It works!

The hardest part is starting with yourself. Stop lying to yourself, about yourself, just stop it! Stop lying about your age, your weight, your height, your income, your family, your shoes…just stop! You’re not helping anyone and you may not realize it, but you are in fact hurting yourself. Because you know what the truth is, you know the truest you. You know how it feels to be truly proud of an accomplishment versus lying about one. So why bother? It ain’t worth it! Once you can stop lying to and about yourself, you can stop lying to others and about others, too. It’s fun, I promise!

There was a point in my old career where people began to ask how I moved up so quickly in such a large company. The truth was that I wasn’t really trying as hard as I could, but that I’d put my intentions/desires out there as soon as I realized what they were and people responded to my directness. I enjoyed helping others and training them and streamlining our processes and so I quickly developed a relationship with our trainer and let it be known that I would love to step into a similar role if one should arise. A few months later she moved on and I moved up! Plain and simple. I always felt like an outsider, but I did my job well. I loved the shit out of that job, honestly. I miss it. But I only ever truly pushed myself for that job a couple of times. Somehow it just came easy to me, perhaps because of my passion for the job, but it rarely felt like “omzsomuchwork!”

We are all so afraid to appear vulnerable, ignorant, weak or any other thing that could be deemed “less than.” Somehow I hadn’t caught onto that so much and so I had no issue with telling someone they sucked or that something could be done more efficiently. The key though is to not be rude. Don’t actually tell that guy “YOU SUCK” you have to use words that get the point across without making the person feel like a heel. Sometimes all I wanted to do was to yell at someone, but that just isn’t how things get done in the corporate world and I learned as I went. And I gained a lot of attention and accolades for what I was able to accomplish in my short time in that position.  And if only I knew what was to come next, man, it would have been so awesome!Ha-ha! This is the period of my life when I got married, went on my European honeymoon and found fat acceptance all at once. So yeah, honesty? No problem!

What you say and do in the world matters. You have a circle of influence. You affect people. So why not do so positively?! I had an interview recently for a position I thought I’d applied for with the title, “Bad Ass Admin” and I couldn’t help myself from falling in love with that moniker. Okay, it’s on my blog’s business cards already, but to apply for a job with that title? Amazeballs! So I applied and they responded, how could they not*, and went to the interview. Yeah, let’s just say that the interview went fine and all, but I made a bit of a fool of myself by not cross-checking my stuff first. D’oh! I went to an interview alright, but not for a “Bad Ass Admin.” No I interviewed as a Bad Ass for an Office Manager job. Oops, my bad! What’s funny is how good it felt not to wear the typical suit bullshit I would have, but I also went into it unprepared for the actual job available.

Here I was telling them how awesome I was and how I’d consider a lower wage if I could keep the “Bad Ass” in my title. They must have thought I was a lunatic! I felt like I was, in retrospect. Ha-ha! But it felt good at the time and I have since reconsidered what is “appropriate” versus what is typical/expected/scripted/bullshit. It is absolutely liberating! Funny thing, as much as that whole thing influenced how I approach interviews and even applications now, that original job never so much as responded to my initial application email! Sadly, neither did the actual interviewer for that other job. Oh well. I really do feel like it was their loss now. And it is, because I am a Bad Ass Admin and I don’t care who knows it!

I give you my deepest respect and sympathies and all for those of you in the modern dating world. I don’t know that I could manage it, honestly. But to date in the technology era is to play a game without any rules, it seems. So I say why not scare the hell out of them? With honesty! Be you and only you and see who sticks around, I say! Better to weed out the jerks and players before you get attached to one. It seems we play games even without trying now days and this makes me sad, yo. I mean, is it so terrible to be open and honest? I don’t think it is. I think if your honesty freaks someone out, that is all them and not you. And hopefully you’ll soon find exactly what you’re looking for in a relationship. I seriously do not see how presenting yourself as something you’re not will help you find true love or even a decent relationship. It’s time to get real and keep it there!

Soon you will wince when you feel a lie cross your lips or tickle your tongue. Soon you’ll feel bothered by people’s remarks about how “flattering” something looks or jeans that make “anyone’s ass look perfect” because you’ll know better and you will have lived a more authentic experience in your own life because of it. It’s work, I won’t have you believe otherwise. You’re breaking down some social barriers. But when you can step back and see how things are just better without the lies? Well, it’s a lot like walking away from dieting and scales and shame and guilt and all of that bullshit. It feels good because you’ll own your words without worry. You’ll be your most authentic self and you will smile easier and not worry about what other people think. Besides, you stopped giving a damn anyway! <3