Life as a girl in the 90s, bad coping mechanisms, and learning to live with an unorganized brain — My mom wrapped a long blue cord out the sliding glass and around the back porch, careful not to pinch it too much when she closed the door. She’s referred to it as “smokin’ like a house on fire,” only with less ‘ire’ and more ‘urr’ at the end. It…

On overcoming imposter syndrome — Photo by Andy Calhoun on Unsplash Last weekend I finally watched Elvis. Even though I am a millennial, his music had a huge impact on my life. I’m rarely sad that I moved away from my hometown, but the movie made me homesick because of my grandparents. It was the…

Start building your journaling practice now — Journaling isn’t about writing in a cute, heart-shaped lock diary. It’s a psychological technique that changes your mindset, teaches self-confidence, improves productivity, boosts relationships, and increases emotional maturity. Sounds like a too-good-to-be-true trick, I know. It isn’t, but here’s where it gets tricky. Journaling will repeat your inner dialogue. If…

No matter what you’re struggling with, journaling can help — But first, let go of the lies you believe about journaling. Dear Diary, Today I ate two chocolate muffins and walked around the neighborhood. Johnny says he might come over and watch a movie this weekend. I used to think of journaling like this. What on Earth would I write in there every freaking day? If that’s the image you have…

How fear controlled my life & what I’m doing about it — I was raised to fail. I grew up in the middle of the woods, where the scenery is beautiful, life is quiet, and religion is loud. There’s one stop sign in the “city”; three stoplights the next town over. The county was dry until a few years ago. And the…

And Start Actually Living — You’re approved! I was stuck staring at my phone in the toothpaste aisle of an under-renovations Target. I didn’t expect approval or sincere enthusiasm, but here I was, sharing that weird moment with rows of Colgate. I grew up with strict Evangelicalism, where my place as a woman was at…

The no BS techniques that pulled me from rock bottom — Is narcissism to blame for why we hate ourselves so much? That’s the claim Christopher Lasch made in his 1978 book, The Culture of Narcissism, where he details the decline of American confidence. He’s not the last to sound the alarm. …

On living in the gap, regrets, late bloomers, and hope — We just closed on this house! I got this random text recently. I struggled to reply before settling on a simple celebration emoji. Don’t misunderstand, I’m happy that they’re happy, but all I really wanted to say was, why are you in such a hurry to accomplish every little thing…

Reinventing the wheel is a waste of time — I have thick, curly hair that I didn’t cut for five years. I love having long hair, but when I moved from the humid East Coast to the desert, the texture changed. I found myself with a head full of hair that felt totally foreign to me. …