Browsing Tag

vulnerablility

Guest Posts, courage

Change is supposed to be good, right?

November 3, 2016
change

By Lisbeth Welsh

If you want something to change, then you have to make a change.  And that’s what I did.  I made a massive change, uprooting my life from Las Vegas and returning to LA.  After almost 2 years in the neon desert, I (thought) I was ready to return to my beloved Southern California.  To be back near the ocean and the beach and away from the blistering heat and soul-less sin city.  And so I moved.

I am fortunate that I currently have a job that I can do anywhere so there was no big new job to pin it on, no date of any relevance just a lull in my schedule that gave me an opportunity to pack up me and my dog and reposition us back ‘home’.  But coming home has not been so easy.  My friends and sense of community are here but my family, are not.  They’re still thousands of miles away in the UK.  My prior home, is managed by a rental company who have out priced me in my rental budget since I left.  So, not for the first time in my life I’ve had to pick myself up like a random little pin and drop myself in the middle of a map and begin to rebuild and reboot my life. Continue Reading…

Vulnerability, Guest Posts, No Bullshit Motherhood, The Body

On Being Photographed (Mostly) Naked

September 7, 2016

By Kate Suddes

Mama, why are your boobs like that?
Can I count the pimples on your face?
Why do you have lines on your tummy?
Will my body look like yours when I’m older?

These are all good questions.  And someday, my baby girls, you may wonder why I chose to be photographed in a bra and underwear for (some of) the world to see.  Someday I’ll be gone and you may wish we had some of our conversations in writing.  About many things.  One of which may be bodies.

My body is never the same size.  It’s never made up of the same things.  It changes in an afternoon, in a night’s sleep, after a snack.  Bodies can look any number of ways.  You will be told that your body is your primary currency.  A tool to negotiate, persuade.  An advertisement (totally and completely, at that) for who you are.  For what constitutes your soul, your mind, your heart.  You will be made to think that your body can prevent you from doing things, from loving people, accepting love from people.  You will be asked to stay small – even if you are literally small or big – especially big.  But what your body says about you to others (are you listening?) is 100% totally and completely about them, their bodies and what they have been taught about bodies.  It is not about you.  It is NOT about you.  It is not about YOU.  (Kate, are you listening too?)  When you pass up a third cookie, you are not good.  When you have a fourth piece of pizza, you are not bad.  You are good and bad for a million other tiny reasons.  None of them have to do with food or your body. Continue Reading…