How Learning to Stim Again Helped Me Self Harm Less

(CW: self harm, positive) Had I learned this sooner, I could have known how to help myself better.

A comic I made about how letting myself stim again helped me stop self-harming, because a lot of the time a need to harm was a misinterpretation of needing to stim but masking so much I had forgotten how. Stimming needs to be normalized & talked about more! Had I been comfortable stimming & known it was an option for the feelings I had, I could have helped myself better much sooner, but I’m proud of my recovery ♥

SLIDE 1: Pink background with an illustration of a person with short hair. Their eyes are closed & their arms are reaching up & wiggling. Text reads "How letting myself stim again helped me self harm less"

[IMAGE ID: SLIDE 1: Pink background with an illustration of a person with short hair. Their eyes are closed & their arms are reaching up & wiggling. Text reads “How letting myself stim again helped me self harm less”. END ID]

SLIDE 2: Pink background with illustration of person with short hair standing with their hand out. Text: while it never was a huge problem for me, it still was an unhealthy coping mechanism I relied on a lot.

[IMAGE ID: SLIDE 2: Pink background with illustration of person with short hair standing with their hand out. Text: while it never was a huge problem for me, it still was an unhealthy coping mechanism I relied on a lot. END ID]

SLIDE 3: Pink background with illustration of person with short hair wrapped in a blanket & crying with a scribble above their head. Text: Around the time my therapist & I sarted discussing my neurodivergence, I learned what "masking" was & realized I'd taught myself out of most stimming behaviors. One day on a whim when I had the urge, I decided to try stimming to relieve the feelings instead.

[IMAGE ID: SLIDE 3: Pink background with illustration of person with short hair wrapped in a blanket & crying with a scribble above their head. Text: Around the time my therapist & I sarted discussing my neurodivergence, I learned what “masking” was & realized I’d taught myself out of most stimming behaviors. One day on a whim when I had the urge, I decided to try stimming to relieve the feelings instead. END ID]

 SLIDE 4: Pink background with illustration of person with short hair with their arms outstretched & hands wiggling. The text in bold letters at the top says "IT HELPED" & that is outlined in yellow. Above the person there is a black scribble above their head now covered up by a yellow squiggle & their hands are glowing.

[IMAGE ID: SLIDE 4: Pink background with illustration of person with short hair with their arms outstretched & hands wiggling. The text in bold letters at the top says “IT HELPED” & that is outlined in yellow. Above the person there is a black scribble above their head now covered up by a yellow squiggle & their hands are glowing. END ID]

SLIDE 5: Pink background with a glowing yellow star in the center. The star has a small red heart in the center. Text: I began to explore this & learned that for me, a lot of times when I felt the overwhelm that led me to feel the urge, I didn't need to harm at ALL to get rid of those feelings.

[IMAGE ID: SLIDE 5: Pink background with a glowing yellow star in the center. The star has a small red heart in the center. Text: I began to explore this & learned that for me, a lot of times when I felt the overwhelm that led me to feel the urge, I didn’t need to harm at ALL to get rid of those feelings. END ID]

SLIDE 6: Pink background with an illustration of a smiling person with short hair with their arms out towards the same glowing yellow star with a red heart in the center as the last slide. Text: In fact, many times what I perceived to be a desire to harm was really an unmet need to stim, or else overwhelm that could be relieved by stimming.

[IMAGE ID: SLIDE 6: Pink background with an illustration of a smiling person with short hair with their arms out towards the same glowing yellow star with a red heart in the center as the last slide. Text: In fact, many times what I perceived to be a desire to harm was really an unmet need to stim, or else overwhelm that could be relieved by stimming. END ID]

SLIDE 7: A pink background with an illustration of a person with short hair wearing a yellow outfit with a red heart on the center of the shirt. They are smiling & have their eyes closed & are hugging themselves. Text: Since discovering that, I've really been able to use healthier coping mechanisms & almost NEVER need to harm anymore. I wish stimming was talked about & accepted more so I could have learned this sooner. I'm very proud of myself though! The words "never" & "proud" are outlined with yellow highlighter.

[IMAGE ID: SLIDE 7: A pink background with an illustration of a person with short hair wearing a yellow outfit with a red heart on the center of the shirt. They are smiling & have their eyes closed & are hugging themselves. Text: Since discovering that, I’ve really been able to use healthier coping mechanisms & almost NEVER need to harm anymore. I wish stimming was talked about & accepted more so I could have learned this sooner. I’m very proud of myself though! The words “never” & “proud” are outlined with yellow highlighter. END ID]

I Want to Make the Way I Blog Feel Authentic Again

A painting of an orange cat with green eyes lying down with its paws folded under it.

I want to start blogging more again.

I’ve thought about this for the past few weeks, mostly in terms of what sort of content I’d actually like to post. For a LONG time in the past, I tried to model my style of blogging, & the content of what I wrote about around other blogs I enjoyed reading at the time. Which isn’t inherently a BAD thing, it’s just that now when I read those same blogs, I’m put off by how salesy & oftentimes contrived they were?

If it works for those people, it works & I’m not demonizing them as a group, but I will say I’ve started to find those sorts of blogs off-putting. Ones which are overly-optimized, & whether or not they preach “authenticity”, they usually end up being a VERY carefully curated look at someone’s life. The type where the blogger becomes some sort of guru & starts having “retreats” & charging $1000 for an online course?

Ehhhhhhh, gonna pass.

I honesty used to look up to that sort of blogger & aspired to be like them, & be able to sell expensive courses, & perhaps some things can still be learned from them as far as marketing, but that’s just not the direction I want to head in, I think that’s boring & is of no interest to me now.

You know what blog I really still hold in high regard, even though it’s no longer being updated & is now an archive?

Rookie Mag.

I have VERY fond memories of reading Rookie as a teen & in my early 20’s. They had so many things I liked, without ever being phony or salesy. They sold stuff, but they never came off as a greasy used car salesman trying to manipulate people into buying their expensive online course with a VERY long sales page filled with 33 testimonials about why they course was gonna ~ChAnGe YoUr LiFe~.

They had fashion photos, & poetry, & stories about peoples’ lives that were interesting or that I could relate to. There were photoshoots with such unique aesthetics, & very creative & awesome tutorials, & opinions about things that mattered a lot to me. They had super good art & illustrations, evocative & talented writing, & a sort of inherent authenticity & celebration of the joy of self-exploration that filled me with such hope & excitement.

Rookie Mag was FUN.

Will my blog be that level of amazing? Maybe not, but rather than looking up to people I just don’t respect as much anymore, I’m going to take inspiration for my blog, & my definition of what “blogging” should be, from something I still consider to be unique & magical instead of sleek & phony.

– Ashlee 🐸

2010 vs 2020, & The Things I Wish I Could Tell 16-Year-Old Me

Please don’t give up. One day, you really do find all the things you’re looking for.

(Image Credit: https://picrew.me/image_maker/148413)

I saw this trend of comparing where you were 10 years ago & where you are now &……HOOOOOOO BOY A LOT HAS CHANGED & I HAVE COME SUPER FAR FROM WHERE I WAS BACK THEN.

And for that, I am really, really proud of myself.

(TW: depression, mention of suicidal thoughts)

10 years ago I was 16 & struggling with severe depression as the result of my undiagnosed & untreated mental illnesses, including bipolar & BPD.

I had literally ZERO friends as a result of my social difficulties & the fact I didn’t have a job nor go to school (I was homeschooled), & my family was too poor to afford any extra activities, so I was at home all the time except for shopping trips for YEARS.

I felt utterly invisible & almost constantly hopeless about my future, & I suffered from frequent intrusive & suicidal thoughts as well as intense anxiety.

I also was struggling with a lot of guilt, anxiety, & shame about my gender & sexuality.

I was terrified & hopeless over the fact I didn’t think I would ever have real friends or actually be happy. Getting through every day was a struggle, & because of stigma against mental illness in my family, I literally had NO ONE I could tell about my feelings except venting to strangers on the internet.

When I turned 25, I realized that 16-year-old me hadn’t really expected they’d even MAKE it to 25, & that makes me sad now because since then, things have become SO SO GOOD.

It really DID get better, ESPECIALLY over the past year. I have an amazing group of friends which every day I’m just so grateful I’ve got these folks in my life, I’m making new friends all the time, I’m out as a bisexual & aromantic demiboy to most of the people I know including my family & I’m accepted for it, I’m working on getting low-dose testosterone, I have an amazing job that I love, I’m ACTUALLY a professional actor & artist who’s working on so MANY exciting projects, I don’t feel invisible usually anymore & I have SO MUCH HOPE for my future, I finally started going to therapy, & I’m finally finding the mental health meds that are making a huge difference in how I feel.

I feel so loved & supported by everyone in my life, & I’m so, SO glad to be where I am today ❤️.

Things really did get better, & if I could go back in time & tell my 16-year-old self something, more than anything I’d just really like them to know that all the things they think they’re never gonna have? A job they love? Amazing friends? Acceptance from my family? Treatment for my mental illnesses? True happiness?

They find ALL of that & then some, & it’s so so much better than they imagined it would be.

…Because you see, they don’t just grow up & make it & survive.

It takes a while, & it’s still not perfect, but they grow up, & make it, & THRIVE.

❤️❤️❤️

Eject the Autopilot by Stephen Lynch & Khaled Nassra Book Review

First of all, I am very excited because this is the first time that I have had the opportunity to design a book cover for someone other than myself. That in itself was a lot of fun & I’m very pleased with how it came out! I’ve known Stephen for a while now, & actually interviewed him here last year.

Here are a few things I particularly liked about Eject the Autopilot:

1.

At only 108 pages, it’s short & snappy. It doesn’t take long to read, but it covers a variety of topics relating to the primary concept without being redundant nor brushing over a topic too vaguely.

2.

The main theme of the book is about “waking up” from living life on autopilot. Autopilot is defined as living your life on other peoples’ terms, going along with the crowd, doing things the way they’re done just because that’s the way they’re done, & just generally living a life that doesn’t excite you & that doesn’t really feel like it’s yours or feel particularly alive. It then goes into chapters containing practical steps & actions you can take to actually make those things happen for yourself & improve your life.

3.

I like the book’s emphasis on “being the CEO of your life” & that you need to be the one who runs the business of your life, down to the small details, & decides what should be there & what shouldn’t, & which direction you actually want to go instead of just living life by default. I agree that life should be taken seriously like your business & that people should take responsibility for it like the VERY IMPORTANT thing that it is.

4.

I love Eject the Autopilot’s emphasis on taking personal responsibility for your life & being the hero of your own story. Instead of blaming other people or making excuses for your results, it feels a lot better to be a big player in your life & the one who’s driving the vehicle, as opposed to being a passive passenger on the train, & the book offers good advice & actions you can take to achieve this.

5.

I really liked the book’s emphasis on individuality & uniqueness. A lot of it centers on how you can be more uniquely you, as truly being yourself is one of the best ways to switch off the autopilot controls & begin to create a life for yourself that you’re actually proud of. While some personal development books want you to be a certain type of person, this one encourages you to figure out who you want to be & really own it.
Eject the Autopilot is the sort of book that inspires you to take action once you’ve finished it. It’s a book that helps you connect the dots in your own life with the things you’re learning from reading it, & from that, having revelations about actions, even small ones, that you can take right now to wake up from your autopilot, whatever that is, & create a life for yourself where you are the hero of your own adventure.

You can get the book on Amazon here.

I Feel Guilty About Unsubscribing from Email Newsletters I Never Read

It shouldn’t be so hard to unsubcribe, but it is.

rawpixel.com

I feel guilty about unsubscribing from email newsletters.

Do you ever feel that way?

You’re checking your personal email account & there’s this one newsletter you just skip over when you see it. Like, it doesn’t even register in your mind when they email you anymore. Your eyes just skip past like it’s not even there at all.

One day, you realize you have a lot of unread emails. You take a closer look at them & see The Newsletter.

“Oh, I forgot I receive their emails still. Boy, there sure are a lot of them. All of them are unread.”

“When was the last time I opened one?”

Sometimes you only pay notice because the sender sends you one of those “Hey, let me know if you still want to receive my emails” emails, which typically inform you it’s been like a year since you even OPENED one, much less read it.

Or it’s a newsletter that has good information that has helped you in the past. Sure, you might open them, but you always make them unread without reading them so you can read them at some point in the future.

You say to yourself,

“There’s at least a hundred of these clogging up my inbox! I have 3,052 unread emails, but I feel like none of them are really important.”

You take a look at The Newsletter.

“Pretty boring. Why did I even sign up for it? Oh, that’s right. I got a free ebook if I did.”

You scroll down to the bottom to click the “unsubscribe” button. Should be pretty easy. You haven’t read The Newsletter in more than a year, the information is often mediocre, or maybe it’s a store you don’t really shop at.

But that’s when the sweat starts running down your face. Your finger or your cursor hovers, as uncertain as a chihuahua at an airport, over the unsubscribe button.

“But I LIKE supporting this company. If I’m not following them, this poor person is going to go out of business.” You say, if the email in question is the newsletter of a small business.

No, they won’t. You’re not doing them any favors by not reading their newsletter. All you’re doing is potentially costing them money if they have to pay for a certain number of subscribers, & making their send-to-open ratio a whole lot lower. If you’re not buying from them, & you never open their newsletter, you are not actually helping them, only feeling like you are. So unless it’s your mom’s business & you’re her only email subscriber, if you don’t open or ever buy from the newsletter, HIT THAT UNSUBSCRIBE BUTTON.

“But SOMETIMES I learn something interesting.” You say, if the newsletter in question is informative.

Yes, you might. BUT ONLY IF YOU OPEN AND READ IT. You are literally learning nothing by staying subscribed to a newsletter you never read. NADA. So here, you must face a choice: either begin opening & READING these emails so you can learn what you should have been learning anyways, or HIT THAT UNSUBSCRIBE BUTTON.

“But sometimes they have good coupons! I don’t want to miss out on a sale. What if they have something I might want?” You say, looking at the marketing newsletter from a medium/large.

A classic case of FOMO. You don’t wanna unsubscribe from the Groupon newsletter because sometimes they have sales you want to take advantage of. FINE. But if you never open the newsletters or never use the coupons they send (NEWSFLASH: probably because you don’t actually like shopping there are much as you think you do), YOU ARE NOT HELPING YOURSELF OR THE COMPANY. Also, especially if it’s a large company, literally hundreds or even THOUSANDS of people might unsubscribe from it daily. To them, you’re just a number. They’re not going to go out of business because you unsubscribed. No tears will be shed in the marketing department when you HIT THAT UNSUBSCRIBE BUTTON.

Moral of the story: if you never read it, never use it, or don’t need to use it, HIT THAT UNSUBSCRIBE BUTTON. No one who creates the newsletter is probably going to cry over you unsubscribing. There’s really no reason to feel guilty about unsubscribing.

And here’s the most magical part of all: if at some point in the future, you realize you miss the newsletter…

YOU CAN SUBSCRIBE TO IT AGAIN!

*cues balloons & confetti

And if you’re afraid of forgetting the newsletter, write down a list somewhere of what you have unsubscribed from.

You really have nothing to lose by unsubscribing. So how about you hit that unsubscribe button & experiment with not getting the newsletter, at least for a while.

Try unsubscribing. You might just like it.

Playfulness + Self-Reliance = GAMIFICATION

jplenio / Pixabay

I have deemed 2019 the year of my “second childhood”. I want it to be a year filled with as much childlike freedom & imagination & fun & play & believing anything is possible, as I can fit into a year.
But at the same time, I also have deemed it the year I stop crapping around & start acting like an adult. I want to stop using the “my parents will pick up my slack” line as a convenient excuse to be, at times, a broke slob.
How can these two things co-exist when they seem to be moral opposites?
Because each exists on its own spectrum. Yes. I believe that you can be chillin’ & paying down your credit card debt while playfully imagining colorful owls swinging on a swing set. Why?

Because the adult never had to come at the exclusion of the childlike.

It’s a cultural myth. Coming from a viewpoint, no less, that somehow thinks that being stodgy, stressed out, about to have a breakdown, unhealthy, & unhappy is more respectable & “responsible” than someone who lives whimsically, eccentrically, playfully.
O12 / Pixabay
And this makes absolutely no sense. It’s not an “either/or” proposition. It’s BOTH.
As I stated in “Weekend (In the Breeze)”, a song off a recent album of mine:
“It was illusion, the way they told me being grown-up had to hurt,
They told me happiness was all a scam,
All around me I saw adults falling, into the depths of the rat race
They’d created, thought it was the way it had to be
But they were just trying to sell escapes to you & they were jealous of your dreams”
And recently, I’ve really been learning a lot about & finally IMPLEMENTING a lot of gamification in my life. Mostly thanks to reading “Level Up Your Life” by NerdFitness creator Steve Kamb & beginning to use the awesome Habitica app.
Google defines gamification as:
the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service.

Nietjuh / Pixabay

In other words, it’s about using fun, playful strategies to make things that might be boring or just not as fun as they could be into a form of play.
Which is why gamification is the primary tool I’m going to use in 2019 to achieve both my themes of “second childhood” & “greater self-responsibility”.
Here are a few specific things I’ll be doing to combine the themes using gamification that you can use too:
  • Giving cool, fun names to tasks that aren’t necessarily inherently fun. Instead of “clean your pet cages”, the task can be called & thought of as “caring for your precious zoo animals”. Instead of shopping, you’re Indiana Jones hunting for a treasured artifact or a hero gathering survival supplies or a pirate digging for buried gold.
  • Treating everything like a quest. Pretend everything is a quest or a step necessary to achieve a quest, or pretend you’re an awesome character as you’re going about your daily tasks (either a character from fiction, history, or your own creation).
  • Breaking things down into smaller, more manageable steps. Instead of trying to clean your bathroom all at the same time, try cleaning just one different part of it every day. Sundays, you might just clean the mirror. Mondays, you might mop. Tuesdays, you might wipe down the counter. Etc. This makes tasks seem less overwhelming & therefore, more likely to get done.
  • Making sure playfulness is a prominent part of daily life. Use your imagination more to tell stories about what you’re doing & who you are, just like when you were a kid. Take time each day to actually do something playful, whether you actually play or experiment or explore objects/places or even just a fun game on your phone. And if you’re too busy any given day to do that, at the very least you can approach problems & situations with a playful mindset.
  • Let yourself feel free. Try to see the world again through responsible, but childlike, eyes. Is it really the end of the world if you don’t tackle the WHOLE pile of dishes on the counter? Try to spend less time stressing out about all the things you think you’re not doing well enough at & take more time to just be. Flow through the day. Take your time. Give yourself some space to breathe. Take breaks. Let yourself change course or activities as the mood strikes you. My epic Florida road trip was very playful, but as I was the only one caring for myself, I also was entirely self-reliant.
  • Start being accountable for the results of your life. I was googling the idea of self-reliance when I came across this awesome quote from The Art of Manliness’ article, “Developing a Self-Reliant Mindset“. “[…] while it’s easy to get by by having other people do everything for you, ‘the trouble is, when you’re not self-reliant, you’ll never do more than just get by’.” I think that quote is one of the most important things I’ve ever heard. The truth is that nobody cares as much about your world or your environment or your dreams as you do, so if you’re always blaming others for how things turn out or when you don’t get what you want or always putting the responsibility on them to make things happen for you, you’re always going to be let down. Start accepting responsibility. Why? When you hand responsibility off to someone else, you’re in a sort of disempowered “victim” mindset. But when you take responsibility & look at your life & can healthily say, “Yes, it’s my fault that this didn’t turn out right.” You’re acknowledging yourself as source of the problem. But when you’re the problem, you’re also empowering yourself to be the SOLUTION. If it’s your problem, you can also fix it.
Playfulness & self-reliance are compatible, & if you want to be a next-level person, both are essential.
How are you going to mix playfulness & self-reliance this year?

MY TOP 19 GOALS FOR 2019

19 goals for an awesome year.

This isn’t a TOTALLY comprehensive list of my 2019 goals. First off, it would change too many times so I’m always changing & adding to it. Second, I like keeping some goals secrets until I’ve actually done them so then they can be surprises. And third, it would be too long 😀

Anyways, here is a list of 19 of my top goals for 2019.

  1. Write, direct, produce, & publish a feature film.

    I’ve wanted to make an ACTUAL film for a long time. I didn’t make any short films at all from mid-2015-most of 2018 but now I’m making a bunch. I have a ton of great ideas & a vision for what the film would be like, & I think as a filmmaker it’s an amazing goal to make something longer than a short film, not to mention a fun challenge!

    Free-Photos / Pixabay

  2. Build a cement roadside dinosaur.

    I AM OBSESSED WITH ROADSIDE DINOSAURS. I found this article of all the ones in Florida. I’ve seen several of them but someday I’d like to see them all. And I hope to seeing the Cabazon Dinosaurs this year in my travels. AND I’m photographing cement roadside dinosaurs for a photography book I’m making. But this year, I’d like to MAKE a roadside dinosaur so other people can enjoy a new one too.

  3. Start a circus.

    I don’t know what format it will be in or how it will be structured, but I would LOVE to start a circus full of amazing acts. Circuses (that don’t involve animals, I must note) are amazing & so seriously funky & whimsical so it would be so super cool to START A CIRCUS.

    ckirner / Pixabay

  4. Set up a funky museum.

    I want the THEME of it to be a surprise, but you can bet it’ll be funky, totally surprising, & one-of-a-kind. It will likely be small, weird, & one of those awesome attractions you’d find on Atlas Obscura. Collecting & curating a specialty collection & creating a really special place where people can gather & marvel at how weird & wacky the world is, is a big goal of mine.

    Couleur / Pixabay

  5. Buy an used ice cream truck.

    I’m not sure what I’ll use it for (I have SOME ideas though!) but it too will be amazing & funky. I just love the whimsical idea of owning one.

    Momentmal / Pixabay

  6. Write & publish 12+ books.

    In 2016 I did 10. In 2017 I did 11. In 2018 I did 12. I have so many great books in the works & I am SO EXCITED to be putting them out in 2019. Oh, & in 2019 I’ll also publish my 100th book! Woohoo! As of the publication of this article, I’ve already published already!

  7. Take a mini vacation each month.

    I live in the Grand Old State of Florida, & despite what my teenaged self believed, there are TONS of great places to visit & amazing things to do without even leaving my state. Of course, I have some plans to travel a lot further than just within my state, but making the effort to go to a new place, at least for a day trip, each month sounds awesome. I want to visit the Florida Keys & Miami again & see more stuff in northern Florida! Currently, I haven’t got to do this yet for either January or February, so I guess I’ll just have to take two vacations in two of the months!

    moorpheus / Pixabay

  8. Publish 3 Udemy courses!

    As of currently, I have FINALLY released my first course, “How to Make 3 Styles of Plush Bumblebees”. But what I’m most excited about is my super-comprehensive “101 Ways to Love Yourself” course, which should be out within the next few months, as well as a guided meditation course.

  9. Make enough income from growing my business, books, music, art etc that I get to spend 95% of each day everyday doing things I enjoy & feeling great & making an abundant living working for myself.

    rawpixel / Pixabay

  10. Live a completely outlandish, magical day like Pippi Longstocking does in my favorite childhood movie “The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking” but with me being an adult American with parents 😂

    HansLinde / Pixabay

  11. Get an acting role in a mid-to-big budget film.

    I have wanted to do this since I was a kid, because I love acting & I love films. So why not?

    skeeze / Pixabay

  12. Start living my version of the “Millionaire Lifestyle” regardless of whether I’m a millionaire (yet) or not.

    I just read Tim Ferriss’ “The 4-Hour Workweek” for the first time & it’s one of the most inspiring books I’ve read. It’s made me realize that even without having a millionaire’s income (yet!) that I can still live the lifestyle I would live as a millionaire.

    maya_7966 / Pixabay

  13. Walk a marathon.

    As of me publishing this article, this has been done! It was super challenging & took me 8 hours of walking through a local park to achieve, but it taught me so much about resilience & I’m so proud I did it.

    Free-Photos / Pixabay

  14. Go on a California road trip!

    I’ve loved the idea of California for a long time, & they’ve got so many great things out there. Los Angeles, the redwoods, ostriches, oceans, & dinosaurs are just a few things I’m looking forward to seeing.

    12019 / Pixabay

  15. PETS:

    Upgrade my 10 gallon aquarium 55 gallon aquarium. I love my freshwater aquarium, where I keep some small catfish & minnows & a snail. When I was 11 I had a 20-gallon aquarium, but I want to get a nice big aquarium so my fish have more room to swim & so I can have a more robust tank. I will be adding live plants & more fish! By the end of the year, I also would like all my pet reptiles & amphibians to be in spacious, bioactive vivariums, & I want to find my dog a food or something that isn’t steroids that helps his chronic skin problems (Malassezia pachydermatis).

    seagul / Pixabay

  16. Build, grow, & turn my own special miniature world into something that takes on a life & space of its own so others can enjoy it & nourish& nurture it too.

    harryHermione / Pixabay

  17. Read 100 books.

    Last year, I read 67 books (my goal was 75). But I hadn’t discovered the free Hoopla library of audiobooks until about halfway through the year. Or audiobooks in general. Audiobooks revolutionized reading for me. I have a lot of down time at work & driving time in general, so I can read a few books a week without spending additional time thanks to audiobooks!

    Free-Photos / Pixabay

  18. Write & perform at an actual venue a successful one-person show. 

    It will be a mix of comedy, theatre, music, puppets, & good-old-fashioned quirkiness. SO EXCITED TO BRING THIS ONE TO YOU!

    skeeze / Pixabay

  19. EXPERIENCES:

    Grouped together, because these are smaller & easier to achieve, & don’t require their own paragraphs: go snorkeling with manatees, milk a cow (done!!!), camp overnight on an island, pick blueberries, pick oranges, go on a 40+ mile bike ride, attend the Strawberry Festival in Plant City FL, go to the Florida state fair (done!), eat at at least 10 restaurants I’ve never been to before (one so far!), photograph roadside dinosaurs, buy more vinyl albums, sit in the front row of a medium sized concert & shake hands with the band members (DONE!!!), complete a rope adventure course, complete an obstacle course, go indoor skydiving, touch a sloth, touch a flamingo, tour the deep Everglades, get into parkour, go pescetarian for a month, take at least a few circus arts classes, connect more spiritually with the Universe, & more.

    suju / Pixabay

Here’s to a freaking amazing year <3

HOW I STARTED WATCHING MOVIES AGAIN

Why I got over my shit & started watching films & TV shows again.
NOTE: I wrote this blog post in October of 2018, lost it in my notes, & just found it now so pretend you’re reading it in October of 2018. “Recently” in the context of the article means “October of 2018”. [Yeah, I know if I say ‘October of 2018’ again, you’re gonna throw a pie in my general direction]
There’s going to be a new feature on this blog & I am SUPER DUPER EXCITED.
*drumroll*
MOVIE REVIEWS!
Recently, I’ve began watching a lot of movies again.

I didn’t watch many for a long time because I got into this extreme hustle mode where if something didn’t seem absolutely productive, I cut it out. Many forms of “entertainment” were reduced or eliminated. I thought that only things that were educational mattered.

Which isn’t to say that you shouldn’t be constantly learning. It’s just that after so much learning & deep intense thinking, your brain does need to play.
And movies are perfect for that.
I used to watch movies all the time, typically at night before going to bed. I’ve always been obsessed (read that as ✨✨✨OBSESSED✨✨✨) with movies. As a kid, I watched tons of movies. My sister & I would frequently wear out video tapes or scratch up our DVDs in the pursuit of watching our favorite scenes over. And over. And over. And over…
Anyways, I would endlessly emulate my favorite characters. I’d try my best to dress like them, look like them, act like them. This applied to books as well as movies. Violet from the Boxcar Children. Hermione & Luna from Harry Potter. Indiana Jones. Jack Ryan from The Hunt for Red October. And like hundreds more. SO many characters have had an impact on me throughout my life. I wanted to be like ALL of them.
As a teenager, I also watched a lot of movies. This was sometimes limited to what I could find on DailyMotion or other video sites, because I had no Netflix & I was too awkward to tell my family about movies I wanted to see. They were also judgmental about movies sometimes or movies being a “bad influence” or not appropriate for my younger sister who was almost always home. So I was on my own as far as finding movies, which lead me to watching (*cough* *cough* pirated) versions of them from video sites (the ones that were free & not “free” but requiring a credit card, obviously. Those were shady. And I didn’t have a credit card anyway). But I DID watch a lot of amazing movies from what I could piece together from YouTube, DailyMotion, & other sites.
To quote actor Jim Sturgess,
“Actually, I feel like [the film that I’ve just seen] every time I come out of the cinema. If that film’s about being a hippie, then I’m like, ‘That’s it, I’m gonna grow my own vegetables.'”
Still, through the years, I eventually lost my zeal in watching movies. “I’m too busy.” I complained. Which was sometimes true. I have had patches where my work schedule was very demanding & if I wanted to SLEEP in any given day, there was no time for movies. (Or much else, to be honest).
Then when I DID have time, I cited the lack of “educational” value in TV & films. “Bring on the personal development!” I would shout to myself. But it wasn’t like I watched documentaries. Usually I just watched nothing (& crapped around the internet instead, to be honest).
Fast forward to NOW. A few months back, during a rough patch when I was going through some stressful family problems. Not only was I trying to process my own emotions, but I had to be the rock to help others as they processed THEIRS. So I needed an easy, reliable form of stress relief & routine to start my day off right so that I wouldn’t get overwhelmed.
I began watching episodes of Arrested Development each morning. I was stuck in the second season & hadn’t watched much of anything for a while. Bob’s Burgers wasn’t on Netflix (bummer), so I went back to another of my favorite shows.


via GIPHY

It really helped. Watching something funny always has been highly restorative to me. I give that show a lot of credit for helping me get through the rough patch only mildly scathed. It was like therapy, for only the cost of Netflix each month. (On days when I didn’t have like 25 minutes to watch a whole episode before I got up, I’d watch a five minute episode of one of my favorite hilarious web series, Yacht Rock.) My objective was to start the day with something funny each day.
The rough patch ended, things got busy again, & I didn’t watch any movies for a few months.
Fast forward slightly to very recent times.
So a little more than a week ago, I felt kind of an “off” energy in my life. And I thought, “I need to watch something funny.” I decided I’d just pick something from my (long) Netflix watch list & watch like 20 minutes of it so I could still go to sleep at a reasonable time.
So I selected the 2016 movie “Masterminds.” I had no idea what it was about aside from the three-line Netflix description. But it had Owen Wilson in it, & I’ve never seen an Owen Wilson movie I didn’t like.
I watched twenty minutes of it. It was hilarious! So the next night I had a bit more time & watched like 45 minutes more. I didn’t have time the next night. But the night after that I finished it. I loved it. (I’m going to write a review about it very soon – it will be the first film I review here).
Not only did I love the film, but I loved the way watching a movie felt.
And I realized (again, because I technically had realized this before but hadn’t used this logic in a long time) that I didn’t have to wait to watch movies until I had two hours of free time. As long as 20 minutes wouldn’t impede upon my sleep (like if I got out of work late & had to come in early the next day), there was no harm in taking the time to watch a movie.


via GIPHY

In fact, doing so was valuable. I realized my idea that “watching movies was a waste of time” which would be better spent on more “austere” activities (*cough* *cough* surfing the web) was utter BULLSHIT. Of course, there are some activities which would have more value than watching movies, instead of the phone-surfing one. And of course, if I spent all my time watching movies I wouldn’t be very productive, would I?
But I thought back on this video by Allen Gannett.

“‘Aha’ moments [are subconscious only once you have] the ideas that pop into consciousness. And scientists have found that the way to have more of them is to consume more. […] What you find is that these great creators are actually mass consumers of culture because if you wanna connect the dots, you have to have the dots to actually connect.”

Consuming RELEVANT entertainment can add to your mental toolbox & help you create better things.

And I know for one, even if that wasn’t even enough of a benefit how much watching movies BENEFITED ME. (Movies, or engaging for short periods of time each day in other non-developmental activities, aka “entertainment”). Watching movies in this manner actually ADDED a lot to my life. And they actually did have developmental & educational merit as well.
Mostly because (*drumroll*) I AM an actress, director, & filmmaker. So I had a DUH moment when I realized of COURSE I should be watching movies so I can study movies, in the same way I listen to & study music because I’m a musician, look at people’s art in galleries or on Instagram because I’m an artist, or read books & articles because I’m a writer. IT IS A LOGICAL THING TO DO. Not a low-level activity like I was convinced it was.
When I watch a film, it’s more than just entertainment alone. As far as acting, I look at:
  • The character development
  • The unsaid things behind what a (good) actor is physically expressing
  • The acting & how the actors show certain emotions, or develop the mannerisms of their characters, etc. Then I can emulate their acting of a scene & learn boatloads about acting. I mean, there are some scenes in movies that have taught me more about acting than anything else (example: the suicide scenes [1, 2] in Lethal Weapon taught me how good acting is subtle but strong). Character observation is invaluable to my development as an actress & as a fiction writer.
And I observe the story as a whole.
  • How does the story unfold?
  • How does it match the “beats” described in Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat?
  • What makes it funny? Are there moments of comedic tension among an otherwise dark film?
  • What makes the antagonist so creepy & hate-worthy?
  • What makes you care about the protagonists? Why do you love these characters so much?
  • How does the story build in suspense?
  • What is the climax like & how did they set up the rest of the film for that? Does the climax, or any other scene, contain callbacks to earlier scenes?

Etc etc etc. This is invaluable for my work as a writer & a screenwriter.

I also consider the filmmaking process itself:

  • How was the movie filmed?
  • What cinematography elements do they use?
  • How do they build the feel of the world they’re trying to create?
  • Do they use certain lenses to make it look darker or more magical?
  • What angles do they use? What makes those angles effective? How do they switch between camera angles & why?
  • What flashbacks do they use, & what specific shots of those do they use & why?
  • Why were the stylistic choices that were made, made?
  • How did the director work with each member of the crew, especially the actors, to achieve the end result?
  • How was the film edited together? Why was it edited that way?
  • How were the stunts performed?
  • How were the sets built?
  • Where did they put the equipment so it wasn’t visible in that shot? Etc.

All of which are vital lessons in directing & filmmaking.

And films even have value for their FASHION, which is something I am totally obsessed with:
  • Side one of that is why the costume designers picked those outfits for those characters. What does each item of clothing they’re wearing & their physical appearance say about them as a character? How does a character’s clothing inform us of small details of that character that otherwise wouldn’t be spoken about? How do those clothes help the actor feel like their character?
  • And side two. If I incorporate that item of clothing they’re wearing, how will I feel? What do I want my clothes to say about me? Not to mention the boat-ton of excellent OUTFITS that I want to get or make myself because I STILL love emulating characters or copying their fashion vibes. Because as a fashion designer, those types of insights are also invaluable. And until you see how the clothes make the character & how the outfit moves on them…looking at still photos can’t do a lot of outfits justice.
So it seems like watching movies could teach me almost as much as going to acting & film school (but for so much less money! :D).

On top of ALL THOSE BENEFITS, watching movies is FUN.

And the thing I’ve learned about a lot recently (a current “experiment” I’m beginning to engage in, & will write about soon) is how vital fun is to your health & your lifestyle, & how enriching it is to your mind. And how important it is to feel good as often as you can.
So watching movies is good for my health. It teaches me almost a degree’s worth of knowledge about acting, filmmaking, directing, cinematography, character development, story writing, & fashion design & principles. It enriches my mind. It’s fun. It adds so much to my life.

It helps me level up my life.

That’s why I’m back to watching movies again.

MAGIC HOURS: 2018 WAS THE YEAR I DECIDED WHICH WORLD I WANT TO LIVE IN

I started out in the blackest pit, but I could still see a small patch of yellow sunlight as I lied in the bottom of the hole. I scribbled on papers around me; this time I’m going to get out this time I’m going to get out. With moist yearning eyes I raised my eyes towards the sky & hoped that some bit of warmth would make its way through to the inside.

That I would not only make it, but making SOMETHING of it. Something I could be proud of.

The roaring cacophony of quiet drowned out myself as I stood at the edge of a sea I had no knowledge of, falling into the same coping pattern I had always escaped from radical change by using.

 

Wokandapix / Pixabay

She stood at the top of the pit, spitting down onto me & shrieking with laughter. I was dragged through the dirt. They threw putrid mud down into the hole, cackling at my inability to rise up. I numbed out, tried to dissociate from my experience in any way possible. Even if the whole numbing was a temporary fix, a question, possibly dangerous. But it couldn’t be more dangerous than it would be to leave me unchecked, left to my own devices, exposed & able to do worse things. She was not my worst enemy, nor was he, nor were they. I was. So I faded back just enough that I could crawl through each day & wake up again the next. Never enough time. That was okay though, maybe better. But I could never escape enough.

Was there really anything beautiful about acting as the tragic figure I’d written myself to be, but never really wanted to become?

I had just come out of the whirlpool with the new knowledge that what I had been seeking HAD NOT BEEN THERE. I finally had the experience, but it was worth much less than the price of admission.

Rakicevic Nenad

Then the world exploded; all that I knew fell out from under me & was replaced, rebuilt, reinvented.

In the best way possible.

I woke up one day. It felt sudden, but I’d been slowly waking up for the past few weeks. And it struck me as soon as sunlight touched my skin: I was becoming sad less often. I had realized my sorrow for what it was: an illusion I had firmly believed in & lived, but one that didn’t have to be real for me any longer. It HAD been real: the pain was too fresh, the blood too vivid, the scars too deep for it to have been all in my mind. But as easily as it had planted its deadly seed deep inside the soil of my meadow, I could slowly pull the roots out from under the soil & destroy the plant before it destroyed the whole world I saw. The whole world I wanted to believe in.

And once I realized I had let the tiny yearning to feel something, the tiny yearning to understand melancholy, grow to such ugly proportions, it began to dissolve. It ceased to grow. It began to fade back into the darkness which it had come from.

jplenio / Pixabay

And then another day, I woke up & realized I wasn’t sad anymore.

I have discovered that joy is always more interesting than sorrow. Each day I bask in the pure gloriousness of living that way. I am already a success. The binary of success & failure has always been an illusion. I have cut the threads holding me to what I once was: afraid of the future & afraid of what people would think. And now I am myself again.

I have finally decided what world I want to live in.

I do not have to beat myself down & stay hidden & bleeding under the highway overpass in the darkest night. There is a whole other world on top of this one, layers of worlds, & I am the explorer discovering them all. Each one feeling better than the next, & I am the one finally letting myself feel good. The world I lived in was not tied to circumstance, but to choice. My choice.

I have seen both sides of the coin. I have lived in both dimensions. Both are equally as real, but it is always me who decides which one I will live in. And by the simple shift in perspective; flipping the switch & crawling through folds of energy until I am firmly back on the level I rebirthed myself on. The Vortex is real.

The Universe always had my back. It was always sitting there, hidden in the back row but cheering the loudest of all. It was always rooting for me even when I was afraid that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong thing. Just when I thought all the lights had gone out, the Universe always showed up holding candles, slipping a crumpled piece of paper into my hand which contained a clue for what I should do next.

I found myself. She sat there alone & frightened, but I brought her back into the light. Alone on that dark sacred highway at night, as I drove under the warm yellow streetlights illuminating the smooth dark highway, with the jazz playing deep & quiet & ineffable in the background. & the feeling bubbled up inside me, it frightened me because it was so strong & so sudden, the pure vibrating eternal radiance of the sincerest relieved joy. I found myself on that drive home on the pitch-dark highway as I trusted in the golden radiance & recorded the exact color of moonlight on my arm. The moon shone down around me on the sacred fields & the tiny farmhouse & the sleeping cattle, quiet & smiling & deeply nurturing in the pale blue sacred light.

It turns out, the environment I most needed to change was the environment inside me.

And there I was, slowly & quietly chipping away at the darkness which had held me back for so long. Slowly building a better foundation, brick by brick.

I was afraid to let myself be happy because I was so used to being sad & afraid that a future that felt good was also an uncertain one. At least with sorrow, I had its cold stale hand to hold, a familiarity I knew I could always return to. With sorrow, at least I knew what my future would feel like & how I would cope with it.

When I realized it had all been a sham, the walls shattered, & I found myself free in a meadow of sunlight.

What had once been a darkness I relished & lovingly extracted every ounce of pain from now became a song I’d never liked but heard play too many times on the radio. My old standby patterns weren’t beautiful & tragic – they were just boring, & didn’t allow half enough time for me to merely exist & simply be. Too much of it was shrouded in routine & in monotonous pandering to the politics touted by over-idolized figures I wanted nothing to do with.

Sometimes before I would wonder what it would be like to disappear & reappear somewhere else, my future free & with my slate cleaned.

No baggage to carry, no fight against my own glass ceiling upper limits. And in a way, I have. I have found the hidden door in the forest, concealed behind twisted wooden vines, & I have stepped firmly from the land of darkness & into the light. I have approached the door & grasped the gold handle, stepped in the fallen leaves & heard the crunch of the new moon in the starless sky. I have stood in sudden afternoon light holding that door handle, hand frozen, afraid to move forward, refusing to accept that I AM WORTHY ALREADY.

Too separated to accept that the Universe will always love me anyways.

Too devastated by the secret knowledge that all along, another world has been parading in tandem with this one, & I could have stepped into it at any moment had I been ready sooner.

And then I opened the door.

Sunlight spilled forth. I trust you, I trust you. I picked the road leading in the direction of the same breeze I’d felt on the beach & in the city, one which wordlessly murmurs of home. And I have found that home.

The whole world is fresh. The whole world has been reborn. The Phoenix has risen from the ashes, ready to believe in its own greatness again. She would be proud if she saw me, to see what she becomes. To see she becomes the person she needed when she was a kid.

I know now that I have what it takes & have the tools to do anything & become anything that I choose to. The whole world is new, & yet it’s been there all along, waiting for me. Everything looks different, everything feels different, because now I see everything through the lens of vibrant optimism instead of the mournful, violent grays of sadness. I realized I have a choice in how I feel & what world I choose to see. In whether I struggle to survive, or flourish & thrive.

I feel like I finally decided which world I want to live in.

I have found the magic again.