Love Like You Mean It

Here is another great post from our guest blogger Sarah. In case you missed the first blog posted on Monday, here is a little bit about Sarah:

Sarah is a writer and artist who works on celebrating life and making a little bit of progress every day. Some days, that means taking a longer walk, other day it means making an effort to reach out and encourage others to speak their truths.


Love is an interesting emotion, concept and bond. Part of the reason why it's so interesting - at least to me - is just how many different types of love there are.

There's the love that we have for family, a bond passed from generation to generation. There's the love that we have for our friends - for the people who we call when no one else can break through our sadness or can share in our joy. There's the silly schoolgirl crush love that feels amazing but can't really be called love. There's that love we feel for that special someone in our lives - that love that tells us that we are meant to share all that we are with someone, the love that makes us feel like we've finally found the other part of our whole.

Some people love everyone else with all that they have. Some are manipulated by the love that they have for other people, and keep offering chance upon chance.

But what very few of us seem to be able to do is to love ourselves. We get caught up, we think about all the little things that people say and we let those things get under our skin. We start to believe that we're not good enough or smart enough or pretty enough or. . .

It saddens me sometimes when people pretend to love themselves when they don't. It saddens me when people cannot accept themselves for who they are and really love themselves - in the same way it makes me sad when someone pressures another person by saying, "If you loved me, you would."

When we love like we mean it, we love without conditions. We don't use that love to reach some end result. We don't measure that love out and ask others to earn it.

When we love others and really mean it, we do what we can to help them meet their needs.

Can you cut yourself some slack when you make a mistake? Can you love yourself even if you're not exactly who you think you should be? Can you love yourself without conditions? Can you love yourself like you mean it?

The Temptation to Blame

Here is the second entry we received from our guest bloggers. This one is really awesome!!


We all do it. It’s easy. It makes the most sense in our heads. We want to be perfect. We want to think that there’s no way we did anything wrong in any situation.

This, my friends, is giving in to the ever-so-tempting blaming game.

Life is unfair. Or, your childhood was (blank), so you are stuck being (blank.) Sound familiar?

I thought so.

It’s extremely tempting to blame the world for your sadness, your everyday upsets, or just about anything else that happens. Yet, this game of pointing fingers takes your own life out of your own hands. The ball is definitely not in your court once you give in to those accusations.

I remember blaming absolutely everything I could find to explain away my problems. I was single because I was fat. I had very few friends because I was boring. Then, I started taking responsibility for my life…learning that I could take control of these things that seemed to be uncontrollable.

I realized that when I began to own the negative, I felt more empowered by the positive. If I could take responsibility for the bad things in my life, then I could take responsibility even further for the good. All of the things I used to blame my issues on did not go away, but they did start to become less of a burden once I accepted that I could change my idea of how these things affected me. If I stayed blaming my past or my weight or my friends/family for MY unhappiness, then I could never begin to perceive my life differently and more positively.

So, be fair to yourself… own your life. It’s way too easy to blame anything and everything for any given mood. For example, instead of assuming that, say, you are single because you are not attractive enough… why don’t you try delving deeper into your mind? What kind of vibes are you sending out? Don’t you think that negative self-image is being projected onto potential mates? Who is going to be attracted to someone who genuinely believes they are unattractive? Are you open to a healthy relationship or are you holding onto your negative beliefs about yourself and others?

See… it’s easy to blame one superficial thing. I do encourage you to be self-aware and insightful into your “accusations.” Take control, be powerful, and look beyond the superficial. Believe me… there is many great things to see if you just look past the surface.

Celebrating Life

Hi Everyone,

Here is the first guest blog entry we received. I am sure you all will like it as much as I did.

Sarah is a writer and artist who works on celebrating life and making a little bit of progress every day. Some days, that means taking a longer walk, other day it means making an effort to reach out and encourage others to speak their truths.


Last week, my partner and I went off on a planned trip to Baltimore; we left home around 4am Friday morning. This part is all background. We were going to the area to check it out; it's an area where we may someday move. My parents knew this, and are considering the whole thing to be a done deal. Her parents knew that we were going, and thought it was just to scope out the area and celebrate my birthday.

That's why her mom didn't call to tell us that, on Thursday, her grandmother was taken to the VA hospital because she was panicked and uncomfortable, screaming in pain.

In fact, the call didn't come to us about this until Saturday morning, when it was decided by the family that only "comfort measures" would be taken - oxygen and morphine so that Harriet would be comfortable. We were told that Harriet would want us out there living our lives, to follow the path that we'd set out on. We knew that there'd be hell to pay if we changed our plans.

So we set out and explored on Saturday, and again on Sunday until I finally suggested, late in the afternoon, that we could change our flight back on Monday. I had decided to call the airline, to see what we could do to try to get back in time to say goodbye before she passed. It seemed like the best possible compromise - we'd head back early, but not so much so that anyone would be upset or give us grief about it, especially because it was my birthday.

It worked out that we left six hours early than anticipated; and once we landed we headed straight to the VA hospice suite. My partner was unsettled, bracing herself to say goodbye; I was unsettled, because I believe in celebrating life, because I'd changed my plans. We went to the suite - my in-laws were there, along with both of my mother-in-laws sisters and one of her brothers.

In the midst of the hospice suite, in the midst of the family coming together to be there when its matriarch passed through the ending stages of her life, her dad had baked a birthday cake. There was singing, and laughter. In a room that sees mostly death, there was a celebration of life.

I give her family credit; I know that mine wouldn't have been as strong, as committed to a celebration, as committed to living in the moment and embracing all of it: the awful, sad and scary along with the joy, and the sense that life continues.

Celebrating life doesn't mean only looking for the good things. Celebrating life means accepting all of the imperfections, all of the things that just don't work out exactly the way that they were planned.

I think that celebrating ourselves is also a way of celebrating life. We can have all of these great plans that fall apart. We can buy a great shirt only to realize that we don't have anything to wear it with. We can get a great job only to realize that there's something that isn't quite so great about it - long hours or a boss we can't seem to agree with.

Ultimately, I think that celebrating life is just that - accepting that nothing is anything without all of the pieces, good, bad, beautiful and ugly present and accounted for.

Guest Bloggers PLEASE!

Hi kids --

Ok so my travel schedule is kicking into high gear again and I know I am going to be slacking on my blog entries (don't laugh, I know I still stink at this!) BUT I have a new idea. Well, actually it's not new - smarty pants "Biz of words" suggested it to me weeks ago but I am only taking her up on it now...

I am searching for guest bloggers. Anyone out there want to try their hand at writing some blog entries for my site while I am gone? I am looking for 3 brave souls to try their hand at communicating through my web portals -- send me your posts and we'll put them up. Topics are open - just keep in mind the goal of my site and my work is to promote conversation and action - so let's not be too nasty! ;)

Send your entries to info@withjess.com beginning Thursday June 14th and we'll post your entries throughout the week of June 18th. Who knows perhaps if this works, I can begin to have other voices blog through my site with me. Shall we try it??

Big hugs to you all and thanks as always for sticking with me!!

XOXO
Jess

Is Bad Behavior Good To Talk About?

If they didn't have brand names they'd be forgotten.
A 25 year old mother of two having a depressive breakdown.
A 20 year old partying too hard with friends who aren't good for her.
A 25 year old who has dropped a dramatic amount of weight.
A 26 year old rich kid who thinks she is above the law.

None of these scenarios are anything to write home about. They occur in our hometowns and college campuses all the time. But when you have the world's cameras pointed your way, capturing in every detail your failures and foibles, it becomes something else.

But Britney, Lindsay, Nicole, and Paris are higlighted lately as examples of 'bad girls' in Hollywood. I think they've made poor decisions (especially driving while intoxicated) but I don't necessarily think we can deem them 'bad people'. I certainly wouldn't want to be judged on my actions when I was struggling as a 20 something. And I have no idea what it would be like to be the primary bread winner in my family at age 11 and having no real boundaries with my parents. Nor could we know what it's like to hear your bodies and boyfriends being gossiped about on a daily basis.

What we can do right now is really look within our own families and relationships and see where we can relate or where we can use these current examples as openers to have those tricky conversations about eating disorders, drug and alcohol addictions and personal consequences.

I'll be on CNN again tonight discussing how parents can use the crazy media circus around Paris, Lindsay, Nicole, and Britney's breakdowns/meltdowns/rehab trips - as opportunities to create conversations with their children.

I am determined to illuminate the teachable moments in what we are all watching or reading about online. The coverage will be there. The media scrutiny and madness isn't going anywhere -- so how do we navigate through the muck and gossip we are absorbing.

If wonderful people hadn't intervened in my life at the right time -- I wouldn't be where I am today. I was one poor choice away from being like Paris or Nicole. And that's scary to think about!